Chapter 6
“Whoa. What happened to you?” Duncan “Spark” Breckenridge asked, pointing to Hoot’s soiled shirt as they walked into the Condor’s Overwatch conference room.
The rest of the guys were already seated at the table when Hoot answered, “Same demon of chaos, different day.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Ansel “Eggs” Scott probed as he twirled around in his chair.
“Ran into that girl again… literally.”
“The girl from the creek?” wondered Sawyer “Voodoo” Graves. They’d all been at Hooch & Harmony when he’d entered soaking wet. He’d had no choice but to explain the predicament. They’d all gotten a big laugh out of it. Now the walking disaster of a woman had struck again.
“Yeah… her,” Hoot reluctantly answered. They erupted in laughter.
“No way. Two days in a row?” Eggs chortled.
Wade “Jeeves” Butler was looking at his phone as he shared, “Apparently she’s Marilyn’s niece.” Of course, Cammie had wasted no time in spilling the gossip to her boyfriend Jeeves. Those two told each other everything.
“Oh, I heard she was moving to town soon,” Haley “Halestorm” Lamb said as she typed away at her laptop. The computer expert’s fingers didn’t even pause as she spoke. “Did you get her name?”
Hoot knew she could easily get the girl’s name without him telling her, she was that good at computers. He also knew why she wanted the name. She would soon have everything there was to know about Marilyn’s niece.
“Lark Meadows,” he reluctantly mumbled, knowing Haley would be relentless in her pursuit of information.
“Got her. Wow. She’s pretty,” she shared. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly Haley could dig up information with her computer.
“Show us,” Eggs insisted, and within a few seconds, Lark’s social media pictures were projected on the big screen on the wall. “You’re right. Very pretty. She dating anyone?”
Hoot didn’t know why, but he felt the need to growl at his friend.
“Simmer down, horn dog,” Haley ordered. “She’s not your type.”
“I have a type?” Eggs asked glancing around the room as if this was new information to him and needed the rest of them to confirm it.
“Yeah,” Haley said. “And she’s not it. She’s too… pure.”
Hoot wanted to laugh at Haley’s depiction of the woman on the screen. Pure was not what he had taken away from their two encounters.
Nervous chaos. A walking disaster. Even an undercurrent of mischievousness. Not pure.
But then he remembered his earlier thoughts about what lay beneath her outer appearance. While her nervousness presented a facade of fragility, he had a distinct feeling that there were deeper, more complex emotions at play within her. Something stronger than maybe even she knew.
The conversation flowed around him as his coworkers discussed Eggs’ “type.” He barely noticed, his thoughts too full of a woman he’d only met twice but couldn’t shake from his mind.
Her pictures still displayed on the screen didn’t help.
She smiled in all her photos except for the ones with one particular man.
From the images alone, Hoot could tell the man came from money.
He was too polished. Too sleek, with a gaze that was far too sharp.
As if he were scrutinizing those nearby, meticulously evaluating and mentally cataloging their net worth.
Speaking of romantic typing, it was immediately apparent to Hoot that the person could not possibly have been Lark’s.
So, what had brought those two together?
And more importantly, why was she never smiling while in his company?
Hoot wanted to ask Haley to suss out more information on the man, but bit his tongue.
It wasn’t any of his business. Yet the questions continued to crowd into his mind.
Hoot’s intrusive thoughts about Lark ceased only when their boss, Flynn “Flint” Condor, entered the room.
His former commander still dominated every room he walked into and was one of the few men Hoot knew who could make silence feel like an order.
Some things never changed as the joking around the table stopped abruptly and the operators they all were got down to business.
Soon, the images on the screen changed to clients and contracts.
With a nod, Flint signaled Haley to display a new job on the screen. “We have a new contract.”
Hoot leaned back reading the preliminary information on the client.
“Government?” Jeeves asked.
“Technically.” Flint opened the folder, preferring to access his information in an old-school, tangible format. “We’ve been asked to provide supplemental security for a private event in Washington, D.C.”
Eggs raised an eyebrow. “Supplemental?”
“Additional protection alongside the client’s existing security detail and Capitol Police.”
“Who’s the client?”
Haley projected an image on the screen while Flint read off his particulars. “Ambassador Charles Whitmore.”
Hoot studied the photograph. Whitmore was one of those men whose face seemed designed for Washington. Late sixties. Silver hair. A perfect smile in an immaculate suit. The kind of smile that had probably appeared on the covers of half a dozen political magazines.
“Former ambassador to the United Kingdom,” Flint continued. “Served under two administrations. Currently chairs the Whitmore Foundation, sits on several international policy boards, and has enough friends on Capitol Hill to make most senators nervous.”
Eggs whistled. “Big fish.”
“Very.”
Haley projected more information on the screen. “The event is the foundation’s annual international affairs gala. Three hundred guests. Cabinet members, senators, ambassadors, defense contractors, diplomats, corporate executives.”
“Great. Just when I thought my days of attending these stifling events was over,” Voodoo muttered, the words heavy with disdain.
He’d had his share of international affairs lately while accompanying world renown pianist Savannah Daniels on a world tour.
The pair had been childhood friends and had reunited and fallen in love during the tour.
Of course, things hadn’t all gone smoothly, and Savannah’s life had been threatened numerous times.
The final time being the finale of the trip at the Kennedy Center when a bomb had been placed in her piano and activated as she played the final note of the concert.
Hoot and Eggs had helped Voodoo weed out the bad guys and save the girl.
Now Savannah had semi-retired and was happily engaged to Voodoo. The entire affair left a bitter aftertaste, as a key figure in the scandal was not only a senator but also Savannah’s stepfather.
“Potential target?” Jeeves asked.
“Unknown.” Flint’s expression hardened. “That’s why we’re there.”
“Any credible threats?”
“Several chatter spikes over the last forty-eight hours. Nothing specific enough to identify as credible, but the client doesn’t want to take chances.”
Hoot scanned the photographs. Then he stopped.
A younger man stood beside Ambassador Whitmore in one picture.
Dark hair with an athletic build. Another sharp-jawed man in an expensive suit.
Something about him tugged at Hoot’s memory.
Using his own laptop, he brought the image front and center on the big screen. “Who’s this?”
“Bradley Whitmore,” Flint said. “Charles’s son. Thirty-eight. Works for his father’s foundation.”
Hoot stared at the picture. Then another. Same man. Different event. Different suit. He’d seen that face somewhere else. His gaze shifted toward Haley. She was already looking at him. Then she looked at the photograph. “Oh.”
Spark leaned forward. “What?”
Haley hit a few keys on her laptop, and a social-media profile filled the screen. There she was, the unsmiling Lark standing next to Bradley Whitmore. Hoot’s stomach tightened.
Haley shuffled through the images. Lark and Bradley had been photographed at several high-end affairs. At a gallery. At a charity event. On a beach. In front of some art installation.
Hoot stared. He didn’t like what he saw. Lark still wasn’t smiling in a single photograph. Not one. She stood beside Bradley in every picture, but there was a stiffness to her posture that Hoot recognized immediately.
Her shoulders were too tight. Her smile nonexistent. Her eyes distant. He’d spent too many years studying people to mistake that for simple shyness.
“What the hell?” Spark murmured.
Hoot continued to stare at her images.
“What?” Eggs asked.
Spark pointed at the screen. “She’s not smiling.”
“I noticed that too,” Haley said. “And she looks like she wants to be anywhere but there.”
Voodoo leaned over. “She’s an artist?”
“Yes,” Haley replied, having already read through Lark’s resumé.
Flint’s eyes narrowed. “What are we talking about?”
Nobody answered immediately. Everybody’s gaze landed on Hoot. He sighed. “She’s the woman from the other night.”
Flint’s eyebrows rose. “The island?”
“Yeah.”
“The woman who dumped you into Bell Creek?”
“She didn’t dump me.”
Eggs coughed. “She absolutely dumped you.”
Hoot ignored him. “Her name’s Lark Meadows.”
“Marilyn Lenzer’s niece,” Haley supplied.
Flint looked at the photograph. “And she’s connected to Whitmore’s son?”
“We don’t know how,” Haley said. “Not yet.”
Spark looked between Hoot and the screen. “So, Hoot’s woman is apparently friends with the son of our client?”
“She isn’t my—” Hoot stopped. He wasn’t sure what he was about to say. Friend? She wasn’t, despite what she had promised as he’d left the bakery.
Girlfriend? Definitely not. Acquaintance? Technically. Woman who had somehow managed to occupy far too much space in his thoughts? Unfortunately.
Flint looked at him. “Start at the beginning.”
Hoot rubbed a hand over his jaw. So he told them everything that had happened over the last few days involving that woman again.
The island. The missing boat. The rescue.
The accidental swim. Then the coffee accident this morning at the bakery.
Hoot omitted several details he didn’t particularly want his coworkers discussing for the next six months.
Eggs supplied them anyway. “She also called him grumpy.” Hoot shot him a glare.
“Because you are,” Spark said.
Everyone nodded and Eggs affirmed, “Very.”
“Can we get back to the point?”
Haley tapped her keyboard. “What we know about Lark is limited.” The screen changed. “Her full name is Lark Meadows. Thirty-one. Artist. Recently moved to Bell Creek. She has a small online presence, mostly art-related. She specializes in large-scale community installations.”
“Why Bell Creek?” Flint asked.
“I can only assume because her aunt owns Flour Power Bakery.” Haley clicked again. “She doesn’t have much of a digital footprint. No criminal history. No obvious financial problems. No known political affiliations.”
Haley clicked a few more times before stating, “There’s a lease for a storefront rental in her name here in town.”
Hoot frowned remembering something the women had been talking about while he tried not to stare too hard at Lark. “Marilyn mentioned something about a studio.”
“For her art?” Spark asked.
“Don’t know,” Hoot replied. In all honesty, his attention had been so engrossed in carefully observing the subtle details of Lark’s behavior that he hadn’t been paying attention to the discussion taking place.
“And Whitmore’s son?” Flint prodded.
“That’s where it gets interesting.” Haley enlarged one of the photographs. Lark stood beside Bradley Whitmore at an art exhibition. His hand rested on the small of her back while Lark looked stiff and uncomfortable.
“She obviously dated him,” Haley said.
Hoot's jaw tightened.
“How long?” asked Flint.
“Still working on that. But pictures of them together seemed to have ended eight months ago.”
“Wonder what finally ended it?” Sparks inquired.
“Still working on that, too.”
“Well, she looks miserable in every photo,” Eggs interjected. “Hopefully she’s the one who walked away from the douchebag.”
Flint looked at Haley. “Find out everything.”
Haley nodded. “Of course.”
Then Flint turned to Hoot. “And you.” Hoot already knew he wasn’t going to like what came next. “You’re helping Haley.”
“No.” The answer’s swiftness and his own ragged breath disrupted his usual calm. Everyone looked at him. Hoot cleared his throat. “I mean, why?”
“Because you know her.”
“I’ve met her twice.”
Flint folded his arms. “You’ve interacted with her in person. Haley can find information. You can tell us whether what she finds matches the woman you’ve met.”
Hoot stared at his boss. Just what he needed. More interaction with Lark. More questions. More reasons to think about those chestnut curls, those expressive eyes, and the way her mouth curled when she was trying not to smile.
Haley pointed at him. “I’ll get you more information on your girl ASAP.”
Hoot’s head snapped toward her. “Don’t start. She’s not my anything.”
Haley smiled. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“She isn’t my girl,” Hoot reiterated.
“Future girl?”
“No.”
“Potential girl?”
“Absolutely not.”
Eggs leaned toward Spark. “This is going to be fun.”
Hoot ignored him. “She’s not my anything,” he tried again.
Haley grinned. “Yet.”
“Ever.”
She laughed. Hoot leaned back and stared at the ceiling. This was ridiculous. Lark wasn’t his anything. She wasn’t going to be his anything. There was an attraction, he wouldn’t deny that. He’d noticed her. Any man with functioning eyesight—and a dick—would have.
But attraction wasn’t a relationship. It wasn’t a reason to get involved. And it certainly wasn’t a reason to let himself become entangled with a woman whose past appeared to intersect with one of their clients.
Especially when something about those photographs bothered him. Something about the way Lark stood beside Bradley Whitmore. Something about the absence of a smile. Something about the way her eyes seemed to be saying something the rest of her face refused to reveal.
Hoot had learned long ago to trust that instinct. The same instinct that had warned him before missions. The same instinct that had kept him alive. And right now, it was telling him one thing. There was more to Lark Meadows than met the eye.
Unfortunately, he was beginning to suspect he wanted to know exactly what that was.