Chapter 10 #2
Maren felt a little bad for him. He really was trying, just as hard as she had right after Mira died. And Juni, who usually collected friendly adults like shiny rocks, had apparently decided Mac was acceptable but not essential.
Colin was essential.
Maren gently set that thought on fire and walked toward the kitchen.
“I was thinking about breakfast. I’m not sure what’s here, but I can probably manage something.”
Mac was on his feet immediately. “I can help.”
“Oh, you don’t have to.”
“I know.” He set his mug down near his coloring page. “Still can.”
Juni looked up sharply. “Are you leaving, too?”
Maren caught the way his eyes flicked toward the front window before returning to Juni. “No, ma’am. I’m just going to the kitchen. You can see me from there.”
Both Maren and Juni double checked. The kitchen was central and opened to the front room. Mac would still have a view of the table, the dining room, the front door, and the windows. He was warm, yes. Easy, yes. But still a Watchdog bodyguard.
“Okay,” Juni said finally, and went back to her unicorn.
Mac’s smile returned, but it was gentler now. “Thank you kindly.”
Maren waited until they were in the kitchen before she said quietly, “You’re good at this.”
“At coloring? I’m adequate, but I appreciate your support.”
“At making her feel like she has a choice.”
His smile dimmed into something more serious. “Kids notice more than people think.”
“Yes, they do.”
Mac glanced back toward the table. Juni was now explaining something to Snoopy, low and serious, while she selected a green crayon. “She’s a great kid.”
“She is.” Maren opened the refrigerator. Eggs. Milk. Butter. Creamer. In the crisper, fresh fruit. Orange juice. The remains of the lasagna in its casserole dish. “And I’m not biased at all.”
“Not even a little,” he agreed.
She found pancake mix in the pantry beside an unopened bottle of real maple syrup, because apparently Arden stocked safehouses the way other people stocked vacation rentals—with terrifying competence and emergency syrup.
“Pancakes?” she asked.
Mac put one hand over his heart. “You are speaking my language.”
“You’re Canadian. Isn’t your language maple syrup? If you want some, we’ve got that, too.”
“That is a hurtful stereotype,” he said, pretending to wipe away a tear. “But yes.”
Maren laughed before she could stop herself.
It felt strange to laugh after the last two days.
She pulled down a mixing bowl. “Do you know when Colin will be back?”
There. That sounded casual enough.
Mostly.
Mac leaned one hip against the counter, arms loose, body relaxed. But his gaze sharpened a fraction.
“He went to meet with Kyle and the others. Same crew from yesterday, I’d imagine. Elissa on the phone. Flint digging into things.” He paused, then added, “They’ll want to see what came in overnight.”
Maren cracked an egg into the bowl. The shell split unevenly and one jagged half fell in after the yolk.
Perfect.
She dug it out with her finger. “Right.”
“Maren.”
She looked up.
Mac’s voice was still warm, but quieter now. “Colin’ll tell you what he can when he gets back.”
What he can.
Not everything.
Her stomach tightened. Because they were looking into Mira.
Into everything her twin had apparently hidden so well that Maren had raised Juni for almost four years without knowing any of it.
What if Mira had not just been brave? What if she’d been involved?
What if she’d lied to Maren because the truth was ugly?
What if they find something worse?
Oh, God. What if they find out something horrible about Sean?
What if the people who had opened their gate yesterday looked at whatever Flint and Elissa uncovered and decided Maren and Juni were no longer grieving family but liabilities?
She poured milk into the bowl too quickly, splashing some onto the counter.
Mac looked at the spill, then at her.
“I’m guessing,” he said mildly, reaching for a towel, “that you almost poured too much milk in, then saved the batter by purposefully pouring the extra on the counter.”
Maren let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Yes, exactly. How’d you guess?”
He didn’t push. Instead, he wiped the counter while she stirred.
Bless him for that.
Mac found plates while Maren found a skillet. Juni narrated her coloring process from the table, occasionally asking whether unicorn hooves were allowed to be orange. Mac assured her there were no laws against orange hooves in Colorado, though he couldn’t speak for Wyoming.
By the time the first pancake hit the pan, the safehouse smelled like butter and coffee.
Juni abandoned her coloring page and appeared at the edge of the kitchen, Snoopy tucked under one arm.
“Are those pancakes?”
“They are,” Maren said.
“Like yesterday?”
“Better than yesterday. These aren’t from McDonald’s.”
Juni nodded, accepting the upgrade. Then she looked past Maren toward the front door. “Will Colin get pancakes?”
Maren’s heart gave an annoying little kick.
Mac’s mouth twitched. “Colin mostly runs on coffee.”
Juni frowned. “That’s not breakfast.”
“It is for Colin.”
“That’s not healthy.”
“No, ma’am, it is not.”
Maren flipped the first pancake and tried very hard not to smile too much. “We can save him some.”
“With syrup.”
“With syrup,” Maren promised.
Juni looked relieved.
Mac leaned closer to Juni and lowered his voice in a stage whisper. “Between you and me, for your aunt’s pancakes, I bet he’d make an exception.”
Juni climbed back into her chair at the table. “Colin will eat his pancakes. He promised he’s coming back.”
Maren’s hand stilled on the spatula. There it was again. The real question under the pancake concern.
He promised he’s coming back.
Mac heard it too. “He’ll come back,” he said, steady and certain. “Colin doesn’t break promises.”
Juni studied him with those silver-gray eyes that had undone half of Watchdog in less than twenty-four hours.
Then she nodded and picked up her orange crayon again.
Maren turned back to the stove because apparently pancakes required her full attention if she didn’t want to stand there with tears in her eyes over breakfast food and a man who wasn’t even in the room.
Mac stepped closer, voice low. “You okay?”
No.
“Yes.” She poured another circle of batter into the pan. “Just tired.”
That at least was not a lie.
It just wasn’t anywhere close to the whole truth.
“Then we’ll get food in you,” he said. He gave her that open, easy smile again, but his eyes were still watching everything. The door. The windows. Juni.
Her.
One crisis at a time.
She made a plate for Juni first, cutting the pancakes into small squares the way Juni liked, with a pat of butter melting into the top and just enough syrup to make her happy without turning breakfast into dessert.
Juni took the plate with a solemn thank you, then immediately inspected the syrup distribution like a tiny health inspector.
“Is it good?” Maren asked.
Juni took one bite and nodded. “Better than McDonald’s.”
“I’m honored.”
Mac accepted his own plate. “Thank you kindly.”
Maren slid two more pancakes onto a plate for herself. Then, because Juni was watching, she made another small stack and covered it with a clean kitchen towel.
“For Colin,” Juni said.
“For Colin,” Maren agreed.
Mac looked at the covered plate, then at Maren.
She pointed the spatula at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You had a face.”
“This is just my face.”
“It absolutely is not just your face.”
Mac’s mouth twitched, but he wisely went back to his pancakes.
Good man.
For several minutes, the safehouse settled into the closest thing to normal Maren had felt since coming home to a ransacked house.
She listened to the scrape of forks against plates, Juni humming to herself between bites, Mac asking if orange unicorn hooves were considered a trendy fashion choice or a personal statement.
Maren had almost relaxed when she heard the SUV pull up.
Mac’s attention sharpened as his gaze went to the door. He stood, crossed the room, looked out the window, and nodded to Maren before she heard the sound of the front door unlocking.
Colin stepped inside. For one terrible half-second, Maren forgot how to breathe. His mouth was set in a straight line, his eyes dark.
They found something bad.
The thought went through her so cleanly and sharply that she almost dropped her fork.
Something about Mira? Sean?
Something about me?
Colin stopped just inside the door. His gaze moved over the room in one quick sweep, taking in Juni grinning at the table with syrup on her chin, Mac’s plate of half-eaten pancakes, and Maren sitting in the chair beside Mac.
For just an instant, something in his face closed even more. Maren couldn’t read it. Hurt, maybe. Or annoyance. Or maybe she was only seeing what fear wanted her to see.
Then his gaze fell on the place setting with the covered plate at the same time that Juni lit up.
“You came back.”
Whatever darkness Colin had brought in with him didn’t vanish, exactly, but went into hiding. Maren watched his jaw ease, his shoulders lower, and his eyes fill with sudden warmth.
And that made him ten times sexier.
He crouched slightly, bringing himself closer to Juni’s level even from across the room.
“Promised, didn’t I, Junebug?”
Juni nodded, all solemn satisfaction, and went back to her pancakes.
“Everything okay?” Mac asked, casual enough that Juni probably heard nothing under it, but Maren caught the current of unease.
“Yeah.” Colin’s answer came too quickly. “Fine.”
Maren had already learned from her brothers that quick answers from military men like him could mean a thousand different things. Fine outside. Fine for now, but look out; the explosion was still incoming.
Colin’s gaze went back to the covered plate on the table.
Juni sat up straighter as she pointed to it. “We saved you pancakes. With syrup. Way more than I got.”
Humor flickered in his eyes.
“That so?”