Chapter 6 Paul #2
“So, you’re a softy under all that brooding.” Nicole ran her hands through her hair as she crossed the room and picked up her phone. “Did I finally get a peek at what the real Paul is like?”
That comment hit hard, but I tucked the Eric Noah part of me back in its box. Only problem was Chase looked like me—well, at least I thought so—so I couldn’t escape my past completely.
“Knock-knock.” Olivia popped her head inside. “Hey, Uncle Paul, I was hoping to meet the baby and—” Her eyes widened when she saw Nicole. “Oh, my God, you’re even prettier in person.”
Of course, Olivia would know who Nicole was. She seemed to know everything. The girl never missed anything that happened around Shadows.
“Olivia, this is—”
“Washington Post’s war correspondent, Nicole Winter,” Olivia gushed. “When Mom told me you were coming, I watched all your videos. My favorite was where you chased one of the Ruiz cousins to El Salvadore and right into the hands of Jim Canos. He never saw it coming.”
“I won’t lie, that one was really fun.” Nicole put on an earring, and it sparkled when she let it go. Why do I notice these things?
“Fun is an understatement.” Oliva laughed and sounded about twenty years old.
She came close to see Chase and tickled him under his chin.
“Hi, little fella. I’m Olivia. You’re pretty cute.
Ms. Winter, do you think maybe we could talk more about what you do sometime?
I have a few ideas for the house, and I’d love to run them by you. ”
“I’d love that too, Olivia. Just let me get settled today, and I need to chat with Frank, then I’m all yours.”
I scowled playfully at her as Chase reached out for Nicole and threw his whole weight unexpectedly in her direction. I managed to hold on to him. “What about me?”
“I love ya, Uncle Paul,” she raised her chin the way she often did when she wanted me to take her seriously, “but I’ve dug into your head about my ideas and got all I needed.
And, well, she’s fresh meat.” She grinned when Nicole laughed.
“Ms. Winter would have a whole different perspective to offer, plus she’s a woman, so that just adds the cherry on top. ”
“Hell, yeah, it does.” Nicole high-fived her. “You can call me Nicole.”
Chase threw himself toward Nicole again. I put him down, and he made a beeline for her. His crawl was comical with his big diaper making a swooshing noise as he went. Without a second thought, she gathered him up in her arms and placed him on her hip. Instantly, he settled. How does she do that?
“First, and most importantly, I need to get this little guy some food,” Nicole smiled.
“I can help with that.” They both left for the kitchen, and I followed. I was totally in awe of Nicole. The woman probably didn’t even realize what a natural she was with my boy.
Chase got tired after he ate a bit of food, and they managed to get him to drink some juice. He began to yawn and got quiet again. The girls took him off for a nap.
I headed to meet up with my team to fix a small problem on the drone. It had been transported from Texas.
I hit the top of the stairs when Dr. Bash caught me mid step. “Hey, Paul, I know this mission was a hard one on you. Would you like to set up a session?”
“Nope.”
He licked his lips. I knew it was hard coming into a house like ours, but Bash wasn’t Doc Roberts, and my assigned doctor was Ivy. I didn’t have to take suggestions from him, even though Doc Roberts encouraged us to.
“I’m really not the enemy here. I’m only trying to offer help.”
I rolled my wrist and checked the time. I was sure I acted like a jerk, but I had so many things on my mind, and letting Dr. Bash inside my head wasn’t going to help. “I appreciate it, but now isn’t the time.”
“Tomorrow, then?” he pushed.
“No.”
“The next day?”
I shook my head. “With all due respect, there’s a way to approach us, and this isn’t the way.” I continued down the stairs, leaving him to figure it out.
“You know, I’d actually consider working here.” Chili looked around our tech shop, admiring all the new technology the safehouse has to offer. “Now that you’re gone, the job doesn’t seem to run as smoothly as it once did. I wish you were back.”
I glanced at West, who had his headphones on and his nose deep into some blueprints.
My team knew about my past, but it wasn’t something I talked about freely.
They knew I’d been undercover in Mexico for ten years and that I’d done so for the sake of the house.
My alias was never shared, nor would it be.
I had hoped the name Eric Noah would die when I left Mexico, but truth be told, he’s still very much alive inside me, and that proved to be a whole other problem I had to deal with.
Bottom line was the team didn’t dig, and I didn’t offer any more than I had to.
“That was another life,” I grunted and went back to soldering two tiny pieces of metal.
“Yeah, I see that you’ve tucked that life away behind a sleeve of ink.” He pointed to my tattooed arm where it had been necessary to cover up the past.
“It’s a work in progress.”
Chili pulled out a chair and rolled it over to be closer. “Do you miss it?” I didn’t answer. “Come on, Paul, it’s me. I won’t tell a soul.”
I finished and turned off the gun then removed my gloves and glasses. “Some of it, I do.” I held the drone. “It fits perfectly.”
“Like?” he dug, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Doc Roberts asked him to try to pry some of my feelings from me.
I pressed my hands against the table and opened that part of my head I normally kept tightly shut.
“I miss doing my job without all the boundaries. If someone fucked up, I dealt with them. No questions asked.” I ran my fingers through my short hair.
“You know, Chili, parts of me kinda miss the uncertainty Castillo brought to every day. Sure, there was a lot more action there than being stuck here.” I shook my head as I realized my words came out wrong, but I knew Chili understood what I meant.
“I’m glad he’s gone, but life’s sure thrown a lot at me since. ”
“You got a son out of it.”
“I did but lost his mother along the way,” I sighed deeply and instantly felt that horrible tug and pull that came with thoughts of Talya. I cleaned my hands with a rag. “I don’t know, things are different. Then there’s –” I shot him a look when someone knocked on the frosted glass door.
I glanced at Chili and thought it was strange. The wives all knew that if the light wasn’t on outside, they could come in without knocking.
“Come in,” I called then studied the drone a little closer.
The door slid open, and my vision shifted off the drone and on to the visitor in the doorway.
Nicole looked around, and her eyes widened at all the things around my shop. “Ah, sorry. I was looking for Cole.”
She had changed since I’d seen her last, and I noticed her silk blouse tucked loosely into her jeans showed a slightly thinner figure than before. She’d lost a little weight since we’d been in Mexico. I found my voice. “Next room over.”
Her head dropped forward in defeat. “I already checked.”
“Everything okay?” Chili asked.
“Yeah,” she held up a black cell phone, “I just needed to give him this.”
Suddenly, my training kicked in. “Is that an outside phone?”
She looked at it. “Yes.”
“The fuck.” I hopped to my feet, and she took a step back as I got closer. “You brought an outside phone to Shadows? What were you thinking? You signed a contract explaining all this shit.”
Chili came to her rescue. “Let’s take a breath there, buddy.”
“You mean the three-hundred-and-five-page brick he sat on my lap five thousand miles up in the air?” she snapped back at me.
Her eyes flashed in anger. “Sorry, I must have missed that part!” Her face twisted, and she pulled her chin in like I was nuts.
“And second, despite your opinion of me and my job, I wasn’t born yesterday.
It’s off, and the SIM card has been removed and put in a Faraday cage.
So, take your condescending complex down to a three because it’s friggin insulting. ”
Chili let out an unexpected laugh, and I turned to glare at him. I shook my head and returned my attention to the spitfire in front of me.
“Who does the phone belong to, and how did you obtain it?”
“Obtain it?” She let out a laugh. “Okay, well, it’s Bruno’s, and I obtained it after I shot the shit in the foot.”
“What the hell?” My face must have said it all because she just shook her head.
“Right, while you digest that, I’m going to go hand this over to Cole if I can ever find him.”
I reached out and grabbed her arm and swung her around to look at me. “Does he know you have it?”
She stared at my hand on her arm, and something passed through us. Something deeper than frustration. It was like she ignited a flame inside me. One I constantly fought to keep to a spark.
“No,” she said quietly, and her face told me she felt it too. “The man was in too much pain to notice.”
“Whatever you do, don’t activate the SIM card. Chances are he’s closed the account, but that SIM card will hold a lot of information for us. Not like he can wipe it clean.”
“I know.” She nodded at my hand. “Can I go find Cole now?”
Slowly, I let go, and she glanced up at me with a look I couldn’t read. “Good thinking.” I tried to play nice. I wished I could erase the vision of her and Chase on the news from my head.
“Thanks.” I watched her disappear down the hallway.
I turned to find Chili texting someone. “Not a word.”
“Sorry, man, but John needs to hear about this one.”
I rolled my eyes and knew I’d be the one to hear plenty about it.