Chapter Eleven
Over the next two weeks, Bree learned what normal life was supposed to be like.
She felt like she was back in the sitcom again, except this time she had a little more understanding of her role. She worked, played with the babies and got a good night’s sleep each night.
But she had to keep reminding herself that this was just pretend. None of it—not the job, not the kids, not the man who came and walked her home from work every night—was real.
Eventually the season would be over and she would go back to what she had been before.
Alone.
“You’ve got an order up, Bree,” Dan called out from the kitchen.
Bree had moved up from jack-of-all-trades to regular lunch shift waitress.
It was better for everyone. The Andrewses didn’t have to pay her so much under the table, and she was able to make more money overall.
Although now that she wasn’t preparing to leave town as soon as possible, money wasn’t so much of an issue.
But she wondered daily how it was going for Melissa. The phone had remained steadily silent in the two weeks since she’d last seen her cousin. Bree still had no way of getting in touch with her and no idea how the plan was going.
Not being an active part of the plan was difficult.
Bree had always been someone who had plans, backup plans and backups to her backup plans.
Ironically, it had been Michael Jeter who had first recognized that her mind worked like a flowchart.
He’d been the one to help her develop that part of her brain, so that she was now able to see multiple scenarios at any given time.
She could see multiple scenarios for this situation also, but few of them ended well for Melissa, the twins or herself.
“Thanks, Dan.” She grabbed the plate and took it out to the diners, glancing over where Judy sat with the babies.
They’d worked out a sort of schedule where someone could be keeping an eye on the twins whenever they were awake. Sometimes it was the other waitress, Judy, sometimes Dan or Cheryl, depending on the needs of the diner at the time.
Tanner had sat beside her as she’d told Dan and Cheryl that the babies weren’t actually hers. Surprisingly, they hadn’t seemed to care at all. The kids hadn’t been kidnapped, and they still needed to be held and cared for. That was all that mattered to the older couple.
Bree forced a smile onto her face as she delivered the plates up for order. It was the construction crew again. More specifically, the skinny man with dark hair and dark eyes. She’d finally pinpointed him as the one who’d been watching her.
He never talked to her, never tried to get her to engage in conversation like some of the other workers did. Just watched her silently.
Everything about him made her want to take the babies and run. But she was determined not to let the paranoia take over her mind. This man could not be in the Organization. He would’ve already made his move.
She almost believed that, except for when all the doubts crept in.
Maybe the Organization was just biding its time.
Maybe they were waiting for Melissa to contact her so they could catch them both.
Maybe they had something so nefarious planned that Bree couldn’t possibly imagine it.
She closed her eyes and shook the thoughts away. Maybe the guy was just awkward and rude and his parents had never taught him it was impolite to stare.
She had to let it go. She had real battles to fight. She didn’t need to make up pretend ones in her head.
But as she delivered his food, she could swear the guy was planning to lock her in his basement to be his forever bride. She nodded at him and his buddies and backed away.
She took another order then walked back to the kitchen.
“Your creepy guy give you any problems?” Cheryl asked.
Bree shrugged. “Studied me with his creepy eyes and gave his creepy nod when I handed him his food.”
“So basically acted the way he always does.” Dan flipped a burger as he talked.
“Listen, buddy.” Bree pointed at him after hanging her order on the spinning wheel. “Don’t be bringing logic where it doesn’t belong. Leave me and my paranoia alone.”
Dan chuckled, and Cheryl rubbed Bree’s shoulder. Two weeks ago Bree would’ve shifted away from the touch. But she was learning. Learning that touching could be normal. That it was okay to joke with people.
“I think he’s just a strange guy,” Cheryl said.
“That’s for sure,” Bree muttered. But they were right. Just because he was strange didn’t mean he was dangerous.
If she wanted to be able to live any sort of normal life, she was going to have to accept that. Not every strange stranger was dangerous. Not every stranger was from the Organization.
Bree grabbed the pitcher of water and walked back into the dining room to refill empty glasses. The front doorbell rang as someone came in, and a few moments later Bree felt eyes on her again.
But these she knew. And they belonged to someone who was very definitely not a creepy, thin man.
A smile rose to her lips unbidden.
She should not be smiling when it came to Tanner. Should not be thinking about him as much as she was. Should definitely not be dreaming about him at night, wondering what a real kiss from him might feel like.
She was doing her best to keep her distance, but Tanner made it so damn difficult. He just had something about him that drew people in. People trusted him, knew he would look out for them. The entire town of Risk Peak depended on him.
Bree had met his mother, sister and something ridiculous like eighty-seven cousins. Tanner had more family in a quarter-block radius from the diner than Bree had known her whole life.
He was smart, focused and determined to help her out of this mess.
He was everything she should run from. He already knew too much about her and the situation.
Yet she counted the minutes every day until he would be back and she could see him again.
He was here for at least one meal every day. Today it was lunch. At first she’d tried letting Judy or one of the other waitresses take his table, but he’d shut that down immediately. Now everyone knew he only wanted her.
His words, not hers.
And they did funny things to her insides.
He had another police officer with him today—not Ronnie Kitchens, the deputy who sometimes came in with Tanner. This guy was younger, a little chubby, wearing his brown sheriff’s uniform like he wasn’t quite comfortable with the fit.
Probably because the guy looked like he couldn’t be but half a day out of police officer school, or whatever it was called.
Bree grabbed a couple of glasses of water and brought them out to Tanner’s table.
“Hi.” She set the glasses down and looked everywhere but at Tanner’s face. She knew darn well what he looked like. Those brown eyes had been starring front and center in her dreams for the last two weeks.
“Hey. How’s your day going? Twins sleep all right last night?”
She felt his fingers against her hand where it was still wrapped around his glass of water. “Yeah. Even Christian slept five hours in one stretch.”
She slipped her hand away from his and stuck both of them in the back pockets of her jeans, still staring down at the glasses.
Her withdrawal didn’t seem to faze Tanner at all. “Five hours. That’s a record for that little guy, isn’t it?”
Now she looked him in the face, drawn in immediately by those deep brown eyes like she’d known she would be.
The moment stretched out between them.
“Hey there,” he whispered, smiling, just like he had every day when she finally broke down and met his eyes. He was always patient, never frustrated that she found it hard to interact with him.
“You have twins? Holy cow!” Baby-face cop’s booming question broke the moment. She looked away from Tanner and over at him. “I couldn’t imagine having one baby, much less two. I’m Scott Watson. Nice to meet you.”
She shook his outstretched hand as he grinned at her.
“I’m Bree.”
“Scott is on an intercounty task force. He’s been traveling around to different departments, helping to regulate social media, reports, general communication with the public. He’ll be here a week or so.”
“I volunteered.” Scott grinned. “Gives me a chance to meet people from all over Colorado. See towns and counties I might not get regular interaction with otherwise.”
“No offense,” Bree said, “but you almost don’t seem old enough to be traveling around by yourself.”
Scott chuckled, and the sound was so contagious Bree had to smile, too. “I know! I get that all the time. I wanted to do undercover work, but I was told they didn’t get much call for chubby middle school kids undercover.” He patted his smooth, round cheeks.
“I’ll admit, I was a little irritated when I got the email about your arrival yesterday,” Tanner said.
“Yesterday?” Scott’s smile turned into a scowl. “You should’ve received the memo from the task force at least a month ago.”
“Ends up I did, almost five weeks ago. Somehow it ended up in my junk mail.”
“I’m still sorry. This sort of miscommunication is one of the things I’m trying to help eliminate. And I promise I won’t be in your way. Just stuff me in an office under the stairs. Of course, if you have any action going on, I’d love to be a part of that, too.”
Tanner just smiled. “We’ll see.”
Bree took their orders—Scott’s choice of the pancake stack was not going to help his chubby middle school kid persona—when Tanner grabbed her hand again.
“I see who’s back.” He gestured toward the creepy, thin guy’s table with his head. “You have any problems with him?”
She shook her head. “No. Nothing concrete, as usual.”
Tanner stood. “I’m just gonna go chat with them.”
Bree grabbed Tanner’s hand. “He didn’t say or do anything. Really.”
His thumb trailed across her wrist. “I’m not going to make a big deal. It never hurts for a deputy to say hello to people who work in town.”
Tanner walked over to their table while Bree headed to the server station to get some coffee. When she brought the two mugs back, Tanner was still over talking to the construction guys.
“This is some really pretty country,” Scott said. “Some of my favorite so far. Are you like Tanner—lived here all your life?”
Bree wasn’t sure how much of her story he’d told Scott. Probably not much, if anything. They’d agreed to stick with a cover story of a violent ex-boyfriend if anyone ever really needed information.
“No, I’ve just moved here recently. Needed to get out of the situation I was in.”
She looked over at Tanner. What was he saying to the men? She didn’t trust the creepy guy, but neither was she trying to disrupt the whole town.
A few seconds later, Tanner turned and walked back to his table.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything about you. Just chatting with them about the building progress. Normal Risk Peak stuff.”
“Okay.” She let out a sigh. “I’m probably being paranoid.”
“I know I don’t know what’s going on,” Scott said. “But sometimes it’s good to be a little paranoid in this world. Even chubby middle schoolers know that.”
Scott’s rueful smile had her feeling better. She walked back to the kitchen to place their order.
But when she looked over her shoulder, creepy guy was staring at her again.
“ARE THE CONSTRUCTION workers giving your lady friend a hard time?”
Tanner watched as Bree walked back into the kitchen then glanced over to find that the man in question was indeed watching her.
He’d told her the truth about the talk he’d had with the guys—it had been friendly, neutral. No threats, veiled or otherwise.
But it had been a reminder that Tanner was here. Was always around. That anything that happened in this town was going to go through him. And he especially wasn’t going to let anything happen to Bree.
He didn’t think the creepy, thin guy had any dubious intent toward her, but he made Bree uncomfortable, which was enough for Tanner to make his presence known. Since there weren’t any laws he was breaking just by looking at her, there wasn’t much more Tanner could do other than that.
Sticking close to her hadn’t been a problem. True to his word in that bathroom two weeks ago, Tanner had made sure he was around.
He knew she hadn’t told him the full truth that day. There were still huge chunks of info about her situation he didn’t have. But trying to force or bully the truth out of her would just cause her to shut down and withdraw. She would revert into that thick shell of hers.
So for the past two weeks he’d been trying to gentle the truth out of her.
This prickly woman had plenty of defenses against someone trying to force her to do something, but she seemed clueless when it came to someone being kind to her.
Of course, he should probably put her in protective custody. That would be the safest thing for both her and the babies. And he still might have to do that.
He grimaced at the thought. Bree would hate it. Would hate him.
But at least she would be safe.
“Tanner?”
Tanner brought his attention back to Scott. The younger man looked concerned. Having anybody shadowing the department was an annoyance, but at least Scott was easygoing and likable so far.
Tanner shook his head. “The construction guys aren’t going to be a problem. Bree is just a little skittish.”
Scott took a sip of his coffee. “She said she just moved here a few weeks ago. She running from something?”
Tanner sipped his own. “What makes you say that?”
“I may have only been on the force for eight months, but my deductive reasoning works just fine. A new mother, a little shaky. Maybe an abusive situation she got out of when the twins were born?”
“Bree pretty much keeps to herself. I don’t know that much about her.”
That was both true and not true. For someone who was so amazingly gentle and tender with the babies, she seemed to have no idea whatsoever how to interact on an emotional level with other adults.
Every time he came in here and got those green eyes of hers to finally meet his, he counted it a win.
“Oh.” Scott took another sip of his coffee. “I thought you two were an item. My bad.”
“No, not an item. She’s a friend.”
And if Tanner could figure out how to get through to her, maybe so much more than that.