Chapter Fourteen Reed
Chapter Fourteen
Reed
Charleston, South Carolina
I waited for Secretary Chandler’s text message to finish decrypting so I could see if we had new marching orders. There was a chance POTUS would reroute us to a safe house instead of returning home.
We were already closing in on the last two turns for my street in our gated community, and it’d be too hard to reintroduce Hollis to Audrey, Chase, and the others only to pull her away five seconds later.
Though maybe a safe house would be better?
I wouldn’t have to live alone with her, only having Ranger as a barrier between us.
Of course, ever since she woke up in Surrey on Friday, she’d been a lot less “bane of my existence” and far too something else I couldn’t yet identify.
I just knew it both worried and scared me.
“Text come through yet?” Ryder glanced at me as he slowed down, going over a speed bump.
“Finally, yeah.” I read the message, shaking my head at the mission name Chandler had assigned it. “Operation Return the Crown,” I muttered.
“But I have been returned.” Hollis unbuckled and leaned forward, bracing the back of my seat. “And why am I being called a crown?”
Because you’re a royal pain. I held back the joke I’d have said if she were herself.
Old you was a pain, at least. Until she was herself again, I had to behave and monitor my tongue.
It was known to unleash ugliness. I also had to do my best to stop touching her.
I’d set my hands on her too many times already.
“I assume it has something to do with your family bloodline,” Alex said when I’d yet to wrestle open my jaw and speak.
I’d done a decent job in keeping my distance from Hollis on the flight over, but we’d had an entire cabin of space between us. Now? About four inches, give or take.
“Yo, you good?” Ryder swatted the back of his hand against my chest, forcing me to face forward and drop my thoughts. “What’d Chandler say?”
That I’m screwed because she’s staying with me.
“The orders are to stick to the plan. Our neighborhood for now, and to be on standby in case we need to head to a safe house. He’s concerned her family will intervene if we try keeping them in the dark by going into hiding.
They may have let us leave without a fight, but that doesn’t mean they’re not monitoring our every movement.
” I could feel Big Brother, in the very literal sense, watching us.
“Sounds about right, and I don’t even know them,” she said softly.
“I assume Chandler agrees it’s safe for me to be here, though, because if someone went to the trouble of ensuring I was found, then why come after me again, right?
You, um, alluded to that back in that face-off with my brother this morning. ”
“Right.” I’d also discussed that with my team as to why it was okay for her to leave with us. They’d stared at me with shocked expressions over the fact I was volunteering to have Hollis live with me. Yeah, well, I’d clearly lost it.
“Am I also bait? Do we want someone to come after me so we can finally get some answers?”
“Not bait, no.” I stupidly turned and put eyes on her, because I was a glutton for punishment. “You’re not a damsel in distress. If someone does show up, you can hold your own.”
“I don’t know about that.” She slumped back in the seat. “Sometimes I feel helpless and even understand why my mother can’t stand the look of this weaker version of me. Other times?” She lifted one shoulder. “I feel like if it was me against the world, I’d actually have a fighting chance.”
“The second one,” Alex said before I could find the right words. “That’s you. The first?” He side-eyed her. “That’s just normal to feel that way, given your situation. Ignore whatever your mother said, will ya?”
My sentiments exactly. And now that I’d met Hollis’s mother and siblings, I was pretty sure I understood why she enjoyed pretending to be normal and hanging out with Audrey so much.
It was an escape from not only the pressure of her family but also probably from having to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. I knew that feeling all too well.
“Anything else from Chandler?” Alex asked.
I reread the text. “Same orders as we had in the UK. Find who took her, and if her memories don’t return naturally, then figure out a way to get them back.”
“So, you all have to be scientists along with being operators to help me?” There was a touch of both guilt and frustration there.
“We’ll be whoever you need us to be,” I promised without hesitation, but my tone was huskier than it needed to be for a man speaking to an off-limits woman I supposedly couldn’t stand.
Alex shot me the look of the century, too. He’d heard what I said and how I’d spoken, and now I couldn’t shake our conversation from the office in Surrey. I had lost it when she was taken, then lost it a second time when learning her memories were gone.
Prayers and duct tape may have held me together before, but I’d need an intervention by God to get me through the rest of this mission with Hollis living at my house.
Ryder broke the silence while adjusting his rearview mirror toward Hollis. “Tonight, let’s just get some shut-eye so we’re fresh to go over everything tomorrow.”
She slid farther back in her seat, and I turned myself around again, just in time to see Audrey, Chase, and Ranger waiting for us outside my house.
“We’ll swing by your place tomorrow and get started on the case,” Ryder added while parking in my driveway.
“I take it I’m rarely at the center of a case, more like the one helping solve them.” Her voice was softer that time. I hated this for her. Hated it so damn much I couldn’t put it into words.
“You’ll be okay and back to kicking ass in no time.” Trevor joined the conversation for the first time from the third row, which had to be a tight fit for him back there.
The back doors opened, and I was surprised Hollis didn’t take a minute to steel herself before facing off with people she was supposed to remember but couldn’t.
“Hold up,” Ryder said as I unbuckled and returned my phone to my pocket.
He waited for the others to clear out, and I could feel a lecture coming. Already got one from Alex yesterday, I sure as hell didn’t need another from my team leader.
I kept my eyes on the window, watching Audrey clinging to Hollis, and Hollis shocked me by returning her hug.
“You really okay with this?” Ryder finally asked after letting me stew a little too long.
“Of course I’m not. You know how I feel about her.” Well, how I wanted everyone, including myself, to think I felt about her, at least.
“You’re not a people person, man.” He followed up with a quick, “Sorry,” to what I didn’t take as an insult; he was only telling the truth. “But she’s going to need you to be one, so are you—”
“I’m not sure of anything.” I left behind the calm mental state I’d somehow been in when facing off with Gideon a few time zones ago.
Ryder removed his ball cap and tossed it on the dash. “Is there something you’re not telling me? You’ve seemed off these past few days.”
“Nope,” I said through clenched teeth, going for the door handle. “I’ll do what I have to do for the sake of the mission. Survive living with her for a few days, or however long I have to.” I forced a tight-mouthed smile. “Have I ever let you down?”
He angled his head, scrutinizing me like I’d gone mad.
I mean . . . maybe I have? Because my house was a short walk away from where we were parked, and I was starting to sweat bullets now that we were actually here. It was a reality, not just some wild idea she’d proposed back in Surrey.
“Your wife is waiting for you. Go to her, will ya?” I gestured with my head in the general direction of somewhere else, hoping he’d change his mind about riding my ass.
Because yes, there was a problem. But no, he couldn’t help.
“So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a woman to babysit that is more than capable of protecting herself.
” I shoved open the door, but he parked his hand on my arm in a request not to get out.
“Your mood went from zero to sixty the second we pulled into the neighborhood, but you’ve been acting cagey since England. So if you plan to continue working this mission, then you better tell me what the hell is going on, and right damn now.”
Great, this really was turning into Alex 2.0 when it came to questioning my ability to operate with a clear mind.
Now I had no choice but to tell him part of why I was so out of my head and hope he’d accept it.
I released the door handle as hot air filled my lungs. A deep breath later, I rushed out, “My father has dementia, and he doesn’t remember who I am.”
My heart was speed-racing as I stared at Hollis petting my dog and smiling as if her world hadn’t turned upside down, and she wasn’t turning mine that way right along with hers.
I slowly turned to face him, to share a secret fear I’d been hanging on to ever since this morning. My voice was raw as I forced out, “I’m terrified she learned somehow about my dad’s condition, and she was searching for a cure to help him.”