Chapter 14
Did people actually think this neighborhood was safe just because it was expensive and had aesthetically pleasing white picket fences and meticulously trimmed hedges?
Cole snorted. What a joke. Like bad things couldn’t happen in places with HOA-approved mailboxes and pristinely organized two-car garages full of tools that’d never get used.
The truth was that bad people loved places like this.
People in this neighborhood were comfortable. Complacent. Easy targets.
Cole did a slow walk of the perimeter, hands in his pockets like he was just another homeowner admiring his new lawn. In reality, he was mapping every angle, every blind spot, every place a man could hide.
And in his experience, shit always went sideways at some point.
It didn’t take someone with Cole’s level of black ops expertise to notice that whoever designed this house was an enemy of all things secure. It was a miracle that every house in this neighborhood hadn’t been a crime scene at least once since it was built.
Glass panes in the door. Great for natural light and aesthetics, terrible for not getting spied on or becoming the victim of a home invasion.
He palmed the deadbolt, testing the throw, then the knob, and finally, the cheap-ass latch on the decorative side lights. Any burglar worth his salt could break into this place in thirty seconds flat.
If this was his place, he’d put reinforcement plates on the locks. Longer screws in the strike plates. A door brace for overnight.
But if there really was a sleeper agent in the neighborhood who’d be checking up on them, Cole needed the place to look like a regular Joe Suburbs lived there. The current lock situation clearly signaled that. So, even though it hurt his soul to leave it all untouched, he’d do it.
He moved on, following the line of the house to the side gate. Decorative black metal, waist high, with a latch that could’ve been opened by a determined raccoon. “Outstanding,” he muttered dryly.
The fence itself was a suggestion of security rather than actual security.
He wasn’t much of a hurdler, but even he could clear it without a running start.
And he’d just bet the HOA had insisted on this size and style.
People were paying thousands of dollars a year to be forced into making their homes unsafe. Pathetic.
The pool in the backyard glowed a soft blue. Hadley would probably call it magical. To him, it was a drowning hazard and a giant reflective surface that could silhouette them at night.
He walked to the back edge of the patio, counting off under his breath. There were three houses with a direct line of sight into their yard. Two with second-story windows that were perfect for prying eyes. The house catty-corner had a pergola that’d make a decent hiding place for a sniper.
Cole rolled his shoulders, shoving down the familiar coil of anxiety in his gut. Snipers weren’t a given. This was a simple intel-gathering op. Smile, grill burgers, water the lawn, play house. There was no reason to think he’d end up fighting off an assassin here in the heart of suburbia.
That knowledge would probably be comforting if he was on his own. But with Hadley here? The pressure to play it safe and plan for the worst was even stronger than usual. In his mind, protecting her was the main mission. Even if it meant protecting her from himself.
Hell, especially if it meant protecting her from himself.
Which meant, no more watching her mouth move, remembering what her plush, pillowy lips felt like against his own. Not remembering how perfectly her soft curves molded to the hard edges of his body when she’d been in his arms. And most certainly not taking her up on her offer to share a bed.
Jesus, what a nightmare that’d be. Waking up with Hadley next to him in bed, all warm and sleepy, bathed in early morning light, and not being able to roll her under him to…
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Fucking hell, he needed to get his shit together.
Hadley deserved better than an emotionally stunted, broken-down spy who’d apparently forgotten (or maybe never even learned) what it felt like to be normal, he reminded himself.
When all this was over, maybe she’d be able to find a guy who worked a regular, steady, nine-to-five job who’d look at this suburban nightmare with the same joy she did.
A guy who’d give her a nice, boring, normal, happy life.
The kind of life someone like him could never give her.
Cole shook off the very unwanted feeling of jealousy that stabbed him in the chest. Or he tried to, at least. Didn’t quite manage it. But he did figure out how to at least squash the feeling down like a semi-repressed memory.
So, yay him, he guessed.
Cole went back inside through the sliding door, locking it, then unlocking it, testing the sway of the glass. It was tempered, not laminated. That made it easier to break in an emergency. Easier for someone else to break, too, though.
“Everything OK?” Hadley’s disembodied voice floated down from upstairs, bright and a little breathless. Lord help him, she sounded so genuinely excited to be here that he felt like a total asshole for hating the place from the shingles on the roof down to the millennial gray hardwoods.
“Fine,” he called back, trying to keep his voice neutral. Happy was beyond him, but neutral was at least partly doable.
Cole moved into the living room, trying not to cringe (again) at the neutral, soulless décor, and dropped to one knee at the outlet behind the TV console with his surveillance case in hand.
First up was a camera disguised as a smoke detector.
He popped the fake fixture open, checked the board, then closed it and stood on the arm of the couch to mount it, angling it to capture the whole living room and front door.
He jumped down before the stupid piece of crap couch could shatter under his weight.
Setting up the rest of the hidden cameras throughout the house only took a few minutes. By the time he was done, he was starting to feel better about his chances of getting this mission done before he did something stupid where Hadley was concerned.
You can do this, he told himself. Focus on the job. Laser focus. There’s only the mission.
He glanced up the staircase just in time to see Hadley step out of the master bedroom, holding a handful of girly, silky things he imagined would be almost as soft as her skin. The sun pouring in from the skylight shined on her like a golden spotlight, lending her the visage of an angel.
He did not care for the effect it had on his heart rate.
“If you do decide to share the bed with me, which side do you prefer?” she asked.
Such an innocent question. The direction of his thoughts when she asked it? Anything but.
Fuuuuccckkk.
So much for his laser focus.