Chapter Seven
Cy’s Diner — Sara’s Springs, Missouri
“Can’t you guys at least pretend to look normal?” Lennon asked, her voice colored with irritation as we crowded around her in the booth.
Maverick, who was sitting in a chair at the end of the table, glared at her from over his mug of steaming coffee. “We are acting normal.”
Lennon looked at him from over the massive stack of pancakes in front of her and just rolled her eyes at the alpha. “All of you tense up whenever someone opens the door. Some people here might get the wrong idea.”
The locals had been looking at us funny ever since we walked in—probably thanks to our different stages of undress.
I was the only one still in my suit which only made the contrast to Zeke’s jeans and t-shirt, Dallas’s hoodie, and whatever the hell was going on with Maverick, that much worse.
In fact, Lennon looked the most normal out of the five of us as she dug into her pancakes with a relish that made me have to force myself not to stare as she licked her lips.
It had been almost a month since we’d started protecting Lennon Holloway and I was pretty sure I was in deep, deep shit.
I liked Lennon. From the way her faint cherry alcohol scent seemed to cling onto every surface of the tour bus like a tantalizing trail leading me to the promised land all the way to her prickly, terse attitude when she felt like we were being overbearing.
There was no way that a crush like this would ever work out. I knew that.
Even if Lennon wasn’t the current object of our protection—and super damned off-limits—she was still the daughter of the president and granddaughter of a former vice-president.
The Holloways were basically American royalty… and I was most definitely not.
And yet, even knowing all of that, I was filled with a sick sense of glee that I’d managed to finagle my way into the seat next to her.
Reaching over, I snagged a slice of bacon off of her plate and popped it into my mouth.
“Hey!” Lennon protested as she attempted to stab my hand with her syrup-covered fork. “That was my bacon.”
“It may be your bacon, Lennon, but it’s in my mouth,” I said, grinning at her as I continued to chew. “You’re more than welcome to retrieve it if you want it that badly.”
I watched her gray eyes widen with surprise. Her cheeks then flushed before she seemed to reboot in a blink and she was back to glaring at me again.
“Then order your own,” she shot back, wrapping an arm around her plate in order to protect her food.
Dallas cleared his throat, drawing my attention to where he was staring at me from over his own cup of coffee.
I knew what he was thinking—I always did. Be it because of some freaky twintuition or just because we had spent nearly every day of our twenty-eight years together.
His look told me that he knew exactly how I was feeling and that I needed to knock it the fuck off.
As if he was any better.
I’d never seen someone melt Dallas’s standoffishness as fast as Lennon had.
He was still an asshole to her, but I’d seen the bottles of water and granola bars that he’d been leaving on top of her laptop when he thought no one was looking. In his own way, Dallas was infatuated with the omega, not that he would ever admit it.
Which, need I remind the masses, was probably a very, very bad idea.
Speaking of infatuation, Zeke was pushing his plate toward her with a sheepish grin. “You can have my bacon, I don’t usually eat pork.”
Lennon blinked at him for a moment before reaching out and stabbing her fork into one of the slices of bacon on his plate.
We were breaking all of our rules this month it seemed—rules that we’d steadfastly followed ever since we became a team years ago.
And it was wearing on our team leader who dropped his mug onto the table with a loud thunk.
“Can you please hurry up?” Maverick growled, obviously irritated by how this lunch was going.
Lennon’s shoulders stiffened as she turned to him, her cheeks flushing with anger as she fixed a gray-eyed glare onto him.
“Why? It’s not like we have anything to do back at the B&B.”
“Because it isn’t safe,” he replied as if it was obvious.
Lennon gestured around at the half-empty diner. “Who is going to hurt me in the middle-of-nowhere Missouri? The guy feeding his pet squirrel peanuts?”
The guy in question was several booths over and was indeed feeding a gray squirrel. He was even wearing a red tie—the squirrel, not the guy. For some reason it would have been weirder if the man was wearing the tie instead.
“Need I remind you that the entire reason we’re your security detail is because you were almost kidnapped?”
“You all keep bringing that up as if I wasn’t even there.” Lennon snorted flippantly, tossing her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. “And need I remind you that I was nearly kidnapped in D.C., not the Ozarks.”
The two glared at each other in a standoff that had the rest of us shifting uncomfortably.
I’d never met someone who couldn’t be browbeaten by Maverick before. The man could stare in the face of danger and not bat an eyelash, but he seemed to have finally met his match in Lennon.
After a minute, Maverick sighed with surrender and leaned back in his seat. “Fine. Just eat your food.”
Lennon shot him a smug smile before returning her attention to her half-eaten pancakes.
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence and once we were walking out of the diner, I’d finally had enough.
“I’m surprised you were able to talk back to Mav like that, not many have done the same and lived to tell the tale,” I teased as I jogged to catch up with Lennon who was half-walking, half-stomping back toward the bed and breakfast.
“Why wouldn’t I? He’s not scary,” Lennon grumbled, slanting a glance in my direction before she slowed her pace so that we could walk together.
My inner alpha purred with satisfaction at that and I shoved it down deep with a frown.
The suppressants that they gave us should have kept my instincts from popping up like that—just as it was designed to do.
I’d even upped the dosage last week because Lennon’s sweet, cherry scent was driving me crazy on that damned tour bus.
I snorted at her words and immediately regretted it when the wind fluttered her ponytail and wafted her scent at me.
“Tell that to literally every other person we’ve ever worked with,” I told her, my voice tight for a moment as I hurried to get out of the wind and back into the bed and breakfast.
At least the still air inside of the house would keep me from wanting to search her neck for the source of her scent.
Lennon’s blonde brows rose with surprise. “Really? I mean, sure he’s pretty buttoned up, but he really doesn’t seem so bad…”
She trailed off, seeming to realize the way her words sounded and she reached up to give her ponytail a nervous tug.
“Let’s just say Maverick is very good at his job, but his people skills leave a lot to be desired.”
“That’s where I come in.” Zeke’s voice came in from behind us, making me nearly jump out of my skin. I hadn’t realized just how closely they were following us.
Zeke’s pale skin was flushed from the summer heat and he reached up to tug his tie loose as the rest of our team filed into the lobby after us.
“Will you dears be needing fresh towels?” the old lady at the front desk asked as she pulled her crochet shawl more tightly around her shoulders as if it was the dead of winter outside and not the height of summer.
“No ma’am,” I told her, my usual soft spot for nice old ladies making me stand straighter and speak more formally.
One of the only good foster homes Dallas and I had ever lived in had been with a lady just like the one behind the desk.
Mrs. Forsyth had been kind to us—even when Dallas made her life hard by getting into fights at school.
Those two years had been some of the best and had probably saved our lives.
The old woman behind the counter reached up to give my face a nice little pat. “Such a polite young man.”
“I’m the one who comes in and smooths out all of the hurt feelings that Maverick causes by being his usual, sunshine-y self,” Zeke continued behind me as I only half-listened to him.
I could feel Maverick’s irritation with the direction that the conversation was going but our team leader remained quiet, probably just happy we were back in the bed and breakfast and out of the street.
“And what about you?” Lennon asked Dallas as we made our way to the little rec room that sat toward the back of the house overlooking the picturesque garden.
The sun was beginning to set now, finally ending a day that seemed to have gone on forever and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Me?” Dallas asked as he flopped down onto the old, beaten couch and stared up at Lennon who stood in front of him waiting for his answers. “You mean you don’t know?”
Lennon rolled her eyes. “Unlike you guys I didn’t get a folder on each of you with everything about you in them.”
Dallas leaned forward and I watched a familiar, mischievous look fill his face. “Guess what my role is on the team. In fact, guess all of ours.”
“This game feels stupid,” Lennon replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
“If you guess right I’ll take you to get pancakes in the morning without a fuss,” Dallas offered, swinging the proverbial carrot in front of her face.
“Dallas…” Maverick cautioned with a growl, unhappy with the other alpha’s unsanctioned bet.
“Relax, Mav, she’ll never guess mine right,” Dallas said, clearly proud of himself.
That was enough to piss Lennon off because she let out a little growl of her own that sent a shiver down my spine.
“Fine,” she said, pointing at Zeke first. “Zeke is the people guy. If someone is going to talk to the media, it’s him.”
“That was a gimme because he already told you,” Dallas teased, clearly enjoying making the omega angry.
Lennon ignored him and turned to me. “Brooks is your body man. The brawn of the team. If there’s a potentially serious situation he’s who you put on your protectee.”
Dallas’s smile dropped at the official language she was using. “Wait—”
“And you, Dallas Wilson, who always seems to underestimate me for some reason, you’re the linguistics expert. You speak four languages not including English and you run logistics. Nothing gets past you when it comes to security. Or at least, that’s what I thought.”
“You said you didn’t have files,” Dallas grumbled, irritated at losing so soundly.
“I lied,” Lennon replied cheerfully. “In what world would I not want to be fully briefed on the men who were meant to be my protectors?”
“What about me?” Maverick cut in from where he’d posted up in the corner. “You’re still missing me, Ms. Holloway.”
Lennon turned to him, her lips opening for a moment before closing like she wasn’t quite sure what to say. “You’re the leader. The one they call when shit hits the fan.”
Maverick gave one slow nod, but Lennon wasn’t done.
“Your grandfather also plays chess with my grandfather. That wasn’t in the file—just something I realized a few weeks ago when I finally made the connection between your last name and the Greek ambassador’s.”
That was news to us. I had no idea that Ambassador Onassis was friends with the former vice-president, though it shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. All of the old hats in D.C. seemed to be connected with each other.
Hell, they could be complete enemies in politics but the best of friends on the golf course.
“So,” Lennon said as she flopped down next to Dallas with a grin. “Pancakes tomorrow? You’re buying.”
Despite Dallas’s stormy expression a laugh bubbled out of me and bounced off of the ceiling of the room we were in.
I’d never seen someone so easily dance circles around my twin ever in my life, and if anything, it just made the little crush I had on her grow just a tiny bit more.
Which, need I remind everyone, was a completely terrible idea.