#2
“As-tu re?u le message que j'ai envoyé?”
Lacey asked over a breakfast that consisted of pretty good potato hash.
While Zach missed meat, he had to admit Lacey was good with plants, and Devi had started taking over some of the cooking as well. Her cornbread muffins were tasty this morning.
Did you get the message I sent? Lacey had asked. In French. Which Devi did not speak.
Devi looked up at Lacey.
“Are you okay? You know he only speaks American. I would have called it English until I landed here in Wales, and it is not the same. Not in any way.”
Lacey snorted.
“It’s simply a difference in saying and phrases. Everyone speaks English. Arthur is the only one clinging to his Welsh, and il y a des choses qu'il vaudrait mieux garder entre nous.”
There are things it would be better to keep between us. Yeah, probably, but he promised he wouldn’t leave Devi out. He turned to her.
“She asked if I got her message. She’s got a good line on where my mom is staying.”
Which was with a group of underground green activists somewhere in South America.
“Really?”
Devi asked.
“So you could find her soon.”
Lacey sighed.
“No, but we’re closer. I think I might be able to make some kind of contact in the next couple of days.”
She looked to Zach.
“You don’t think we should have a way to communicate that doesn’t involve her?”
“Rude,”
Devi said with a frown.
He pointed Devi’s way.
“What she said.”
Devi sat up and gasped.
“Wait. Zach speaks French?”
He could give her something else. It might not help his case much, but he felt like showing off. And not keeping things from her. Besides, this would give her something not even her cousins knew.
“Ya govoryu po-frantsuzski i po-russki. A Leysi ne govorit. Ya ponimayu, chto ty govorish, milaya.”
Devi stared at him.
“Znachit, my mozhem govorit', i ona ne poymyot, o chyom my govorim.”
He nodded her way.
“Nash sekretnyy yazyk.”
“Our secret language,”
she said with a smile, giving him back his words.
“Well, it’s not secret.”
Lacey had her I’m-going-to-murder-someone face on. She really was a vegan version of Kala Taggart, which was likely why he got along with her so well.
“It’s Russian, and no, I don’t speak it. You know the only reason he learned it was to be able to listen in on your uncle’s talks. I’ve heard he speaks Russian, and so do many of his team members.”
If Devi was phased by the accusation, she didn’t show it. She simply shrugged.
“Why do you think I learned it? Hey, if my cousins don’t know you speak Russian, have you heard some shit you want to share?”
Oh, so much.
“Yeah. Let’s talk about that guy Ben your cousin likes.”
Devi leaned in, and he knew he had her. If only for an hour or so.
Week Two
Zach turned over and stared up at the ceiling.
He might need to contemplate the sofa because it was rapidly becoming clear that it would be less uncomfortable than lying in this bed with Devi night after night.
He had made contact with his mom today. Well, he hoped it was his mom. Someone claiming to be his mother had sent an email to an address only she should know. It was something they set up years before. He’d sent so damn many letters there. Letters that told his mom he loved her. Detailed his Army life. Talked about meeting Cooper.
Somehow, he thought she would never actually read them.
Be careful. He’s looking for me, too. Tell Lacey I’ll be in touch.
The first words he’d heard from her in years.
“You’re thinking too loud.”
Her voice was husky and sweet.
And just like that his cock was hard. Although it seemed like his damn perpetual state these days. She walked in a room, he got hard. He smelled the soap she used? Hard. Heard her laughing or yelling at the geese for scaring the massive mastiff with PTSD? Hard and harder.
“Sorry. I’ll try to stop.”
The room was dark with a new moon and no city lights to provide ambient illumination. If they went outside there would be a blanket of stars overhead, but here it was all silky darkness made warm with her presence in bed beside him.
She sighed, and he felt her roll over. The bed was what passed for a double in the States, so she was always close.
“Or you could talk to me.”
“I thought we weren’t doing that.”
It wasn’t like they didn’t talk. They had fallen into a completely congenial friendship. Or maybe they were two people existing in what passed for harmony now.
“I think you should go with my flow, Zach. It’s late, and it’s easy for me to pretend the rest of our shit doesn’t matter. What if in here we’re friends? Nothing more. Nothing less. Just friends. I don’t think we’ve been that.”
“I felt like you were my friend. I felt like… I don’t think I’ve felt closer to a person than I felt to you.”
The minute the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. He should have talked about what she was working on or the game they played earlier tonight where she’d beaten the hell out of Lacey, who had tried to cover how much it irritated her. Yeah. They could have talked about Lacey and her weird vega.
“I love animals but will assassinate a human” vibe.
She didn’t like to talk about them. Oh, she would talk about things related to him. Like finding his mom and how his dad was embedded with Huisman and how worried he was about his aunt who was currently somewhere in the Pacific Northwest living out all her Nomadland fantasies. But when he tried to broach the subject of them, she shut him down.
“Sorry,”
he said, not waiting for her to ice him out or tell him he was pushing.
“How did the dress design session go? Have you found someone who can actually make it?”
“I know a ton of seamstresses in DFW. Kala is finally happy that I put in some pockets so she can hide weapons, and I made it floor length but with a fuller skirt and a little place where she can tear it away in case she needs to fight hand to hand.”
“Uhm, it’s her wedding not a battle.”
She was quiet, but he could feel her stare.
“Tell that to my cousin Carys.”
He winced. Okay. Her cousin’s wedding had been interrupted by a helicopter attack, so he would give it to Kala for being prepared.
“Heard. So she’s happy with the design now? Can you get it done in time? I’m still trying to understand why they have to do it now. Shouldn’t they wait until things calm down? The weird thing is I think my…Cooper is the one pushing.”
“Well, when you chase after a woman for as long as your brother did, I’m sure you’re ready to get things nailed down once she says yes. Sometimes less. I think you mentioned marriage on our fourth date.”
He went super still. He remembered the moment. They were sitting in a diner after a movie they’d seen with Coop and Kala, and he’d made a passing remark that he and Devi would probably be married before Tasha and Dare.
“I was joking about how long their engagement feels.”
“Were you?”
“I mean I was, but I wasn’t joking about marrying you,”
he admitted.
“I pretty much wanted to do that when I woke up at your place after that first night and you fed me and immediately put me to work fixing your sink.”
“You did not. You were terrible at it. How can you know so much about computers and stuff and nothing about sinks?”
“I guess because my aunt was sweet on the old dude who lived in the single wide next to ours, and he was always over fixing things. I didn’t want to stand around and listen to the olds flirting. I was more into sports.”
“Sportsball. I can see you playing various sportsballs. Cooper did, you know. Played a lot of sports,”
she said quietly.
“I played soccer when I was a kid, and I did some karate. My brother played football for a while, but then he got a concussion and my mom freaked out and his playing days were over. I think that was a good thing because my brother hits his head a lot.”
He chuckled because TJ Taggart was on the klutzy side. Oh, he was athletic and deadly when he wanted to be, but there was a lovable goof side to the man.
“He needs to stop walking into dosers. Did I ever tell you how Lou accidently knocked him out with a sedative she was supposed to use on the bad guy?”
Her laughter went straight to his dick.
“No, but Lou did. I also heard something about you giving them a lecture about making out in the middle of an op. Tell me, have you ever made out in the middle of an op?”
“If I did it was because making out was cover for the op.”
He felt tired again. Now that he looked back at the last couple of years, he realized how often he’d put his body out there for the mission. At first it seemed very James Bond and hot, and now that he’d been with her.
“It wasn’t glamourous. It wasn’t sexy. It was a job, and at the end of it it’s hard not to feel used.”
“Yeah, I’m going to talk to my uncle about that.”
“Don’t.”
The last thing he wanted was to get Ian in trouble.
“Your uncle never forced me to do anything. I was young and dumb, and it all sounded like fun. Sex was a game until… Well, until I realized it’s important. Being at The Hideout taught me a lot.”
“There’s a lot of casual sex at The Hideout.”
“But it’s agreed on. Everyone knows what their partner is willing to give and what they won’t. Sex is talked about. I’m not proud of those nights I spent fucking someone so I could later on download their laptop.”
He took a long breath.
“And that’s why I didn’t talk about the job with you. I guess there’s a lot of things I’m ashamed of.”
“My mom always tells me shame is useless. Change is better. Acknowledge you did a wrong. Make up for it, and move on. Shame only brings you down.”
She sighed, and he felt her hand move to his chest.
“Zach, I don’t know that I can believe you when you say you love me, but it has also been pointed out to me that I might feel better if I did some of those casual sex things.”
There was nothing he wanted more, but there was only one problem. It wouldn’t be casual for him.
“Let me guess who gave you that advice. Have you been talking to your aunt?”
“Do you understand how weird this is? We’re hiding from pretty much all the authorities plus a bunch of criminal elements, but I’m still talking to my family like I did when I was in college. Like TJ called and asked if I had mustard because he was out and my apartment is close to Lou’s work.”
That did not surprise him. “Did you?”
“Of course, and I had a bunch of sandwich meat that was going to go bad, so I’m sure he ate that, too, but he also watered my plants. It’s weird, and it’s starting to feel normal. I’m starting to not be as angry as I should be. I’m starting to be curious.”
A curious Devi was a dangerous Devi. Dangerous to his state of mind, to his peace, to his heart.
“I’ll answer any question and I won’t hold back.”
“Did you love Tasha?”
He should have known that would be her first question.
“I thought I did. But it was a crush. It was more about wanting to belong than anything else. With you…”
“Not what I asked.”
So they were playing this game. Well, he supposed it was a start.
“All right. Anything else?”
She seemed to think for a moment.
“Do you ever wonder?”
All the time.
“About what?”
“What it would have been like if it had been you and not Cooper who was adopted? Or if Cooper hadn’t been and he grew up with you?”
“No. Never. I wouldn’t have wanted my brother in some of the positions I was in because of who our parents are.”
There was a scenario he thought about quite a lot.
“But sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Alex and Eve had the option of taking us both. If I’d grown up a McKay. I played sports because it was a way to get out of my house. I liked being part of a team. Even if it was temporary, it made me feel like I was part of a family, so I wonder if I would have given in to my nerd half utterly if I was a McKay.”
“Because you would have been able to follow your interests since you would have had a stable family.”
“I love my aunt. Hell, I love my mom, but they were both troubled in their own ways. And I was a lonely kid. So I see how my brother grew up and I can’t help but feel some way when I think about what it would have felt like. I can’t help but be jealous of Hunter and Vivian for getting to have him as a brother.”
She shifted, and her head replaced her hand on his chest.
“It was good. I only had one brother, but I had so many cousins and friends. I never had to be alone unless I wanted to be. I had a great childhood. I wish you had one, too.”
They went quiet but when he realized she was asleep on his chest, he moved his arm around her, cuddling her close.
He was content.
* * * *
Devi was frustrated. She’d basically told him she was down to do the dirty and he ignored her.
“He’s ignoring you?”
Daisy sounded shocked.
“Did you show him your boobs?”
Devi’s boobs weren’t as impressive as Daisy’s, so no. She had not.
“I can’t lift my shirt and expect him to fall in line.”
And she probably shouldn’t, though Kala’s words had been plaguing her. She should use this time to get him out of her system, but he was not complying.
“I don’t know why,”
Bri added.
“It’s what Daisy does. Oh, hey, did you tell her about Harlow Dawson and the new guys?”
“No,”
Daisy replied.
“I’m too busy trying to solve her Zach problems.”
Zach, who spoke way more languages than she imagined and could do complex computer hacking and had a mom who might destroy the world.
Her Zach problems couldn’t be solved with her boobs. Daisy’s, maybe, but she had small, athletic boobs. Damn her boobs.
“Wait. Guys? As in plural? Tell me about Harlow.”
Hopefully someone was getting some.
Week Three
There was nothing sweeter in life than a purring kitten. Devi sat in the comfy chair, a mug of tea at her side and three kittens sleeping on her lap while their momma rested at her feet.
Well, maybe that was sweeter. When a small creature with no reason at all to trust a single human chose to trust her. It hadn’t been easy, but days of sitting with her, feeding her, caring for her, and Sunny had come to Devi when she went into labor in the middle of the night.
Zach had gotten up, made some tea, and sat up with her while Sunny gave birth to four perfect kittens. Well, three perfect kittens and one she named TJ because he was kind of klutzy and always, always hungry. TJ the cat was currently trying to climb up the curtains, testing those deadly kitty claws.
“Hey, Lacey made some muffins. She thought you might like one.”
Zach put down a plate of what smelled like apple cinnamon muffins. He frowned.
“Not today, TJ. Not on my watch.”
He gently gripped the kitten, who mewled furiously at the taking of his right to unalive himself in the silliest way. Zach held him to his chest and TJ calmed.
Devi looked up.
“Are you okay?”
She knew what today was.
“I’m glad for them.”
Zach sat on the edge of the bed.
“I wish we could be there.”
At the wedding of Cooper McKay to Kala Taggart. McKay-Taggart. As it always should have been.
“Mom will send pictures.”
She would. But it wasn’t the same. Zach lacked all the family experiences that were normal to Devi. There had been no Sunday dinners, no lake house parties where the kids ran wild, no family vacations. This would have been his first family wedding, but that wasn’t in the cards for Zach Reed.
She was like Sunny. Zach had been patient and kind and fed her while she hissed and clawed his way.
And she was softening, damn it.
She was wondering if he was ever going to make a move on her. She’d opened the door with the whole orgasm will make me feel better thing, but he’d been a perfect gentleman even when she woke up wrapped around him and she could feel his erection against her.
Damn man and his control.
“Tell me about her dress,” he said.
Devi sat back and wished she could hate this man. She took a sip of tea and felt Sunny purr against her feet and couldn’t find the will to hate anything at all.