She gave him a cheeky smile and said, “Still like to have all the answers locked down first, don’t you?”
“Yes, and so do you,” he said with a nod. “So where are we going?”
“Where would you like to go?” she asked.
“No answering a question with a question,” he said. “That’s called deflection.”
She smiled and said, “Fine. I would like to see where a romantic relationship between the two of us could go,” she admitted. “We’ve never come to this point before. We always had other people in our lives.”
“I never looked at you that way before,” he said cautiously.
“Didn’t you?” She frowned. “So maybe you don’t feel anything then.” She took several steps back. “Maybe this is just on my side. In which case I’ll have to sit down and take another look at that.”
“I didn’t say that,” he said, his tone grumbling.
She looked at him. “No, you didn’t, but you’re not saying anything in the other direction either.” She took another step back, shoved her hands in her pockets, and said, “Go on and save the world now. We’ll be fine here.”
She picked up her bag and placed it on the bed, ready to unpack her few things. Inside, she was shaking. She had been so damn sure that he felt for her what she felt for him that it had never occurred to her that he was completely flummoxed by it all. Or that he wasn’t in the same boat. She’d never felt lonelier in her life, as if everything in her world had just come crashing down. Yet she had no idea why. She’d never thought of him as a lover until this mess.
But he’d been the first one she would have depended on and the first person she’d call if she were in trouble. Even now, the thought of going back to California felt right because he was there. How much of what she wanted was because he would be there? She slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. When she heard his voice again, she looked at him, startled, because somehow she thought he had left. “What?” she asked.
“I said, I care,” he grumbled.
“I’m sorry. Of course you care,” she said. “We’re friends. We’ve been good friends for a really long time.”
“Exactly,” he said. “It’s not a good idea to change that.”
“That’s just old talk in your head,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “The bottom line is, if you don’t feel anything, then that’s just the way it is,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what good old friends we are or whether this is what I want or not. It has to be mutual. And, if that’s not the case, then nothing is here. So we’ll just go back to being friends. It’s not like we ever changed that anyway.”
She got up and resumed putting away her things. As she went back to the bed for the third trip, studiously ignoring the big stalwart presence in the small room, she was snatched into his arms and held against him. She looked up at him in surprise. “What brought this on?”
“You,” he said in despair.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re still friends. That’ll never change.”
“Yes, it will.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s okay, you know?”
He shook his head, as if unable to speak, then his arms crushed her even tighter against him. She settled in, not sure what was going on, but willing to see where this was going—although she felt the hot tears inside, the tears of loss that he didn’t feel what she did.
Finally he let out a deep breath. “I have to leave,” he said.
“I know you do,” she said, immediately withdrawing.
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I can’t leave it like this.”
“But you have to go. We don’t have time to talk out the whole thing.”
“I know,” he said. “So this will have to do for now.” He gently tilted up her chin, and he crushed her mouth with his, sending shards of passion and heat spiraling through her and shooting down to her toes. By the time he lifted his head, he looked at her with satisfaction. She could barely even keep her eyes open to see him. “Much better,” he said, and then he let her go.
She stumbled backward. “What the hell was that all about?” she cried out, reaching out a hand to stabilize herself in a world suddenly awry.
“I couldn’t say the right words,” he said, “so it felt like action was better.”
She stared at him mutely, still dumbfounded. “I see. Do you want to explain that?”
“I think you can figure it out from here. I’ll see you when I get back.” And, with that, he whistled and headed out the door.
As he walked away, Shane heard Shelly throwing things at the door, and he laughed out loud. Diesel looked at him, heard the items banging against the wall, the door, the floor, and asked, “What’s that all about?”
“We just have to clarify a few things,” he said with a big grin.
“Ah, so you’ll finally take my advice, will you?” Diesel said, beaming.
“I think I am,” he said. “I couldn’t find the right words back there just now, but I think I found the right actions.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Just then the door opened, and Shelly screamed down the hallway, “Stop scrambling my brain!” Then she slammed it shut again.
Diesel howled. “A perfect match, just like I said.”
“Well, better than I thought anyway,” Shane said. “I don’t know how, but I didn’t see it at all.”
“Well, it may not have been there before either,” Diesel said. “Maybe you both had to get to the same time and place.”
“Well, we’re there now,” he said. “Wow.”
“You sure you’re ready to head out and do some work now?”
“Yep, we need to make sure this place is safe, or as safe as we can make it.”
“And MI6 showed up?”
“Yep, three men.”
“And Gavin?”
“He says that two of the MI6 men he trusts. He doesn’t know the third one,” Shane said.
“Which means we’ll automatically look at him as a weak link.”
“But no guarantee that he is.”
“No, of course not,” he said.
“And just thinking about it will put us in the wrong spot.”
“Told ya,” he said, grinning at his buddy who found love.
“I guess,” Shane said. And, as they walked back outside, he turned and looked around. “Can’t even see anybody, so that’s good.”
“You want to just stand guard?”
“I feel like that would be way too obvious.”
“Well, it would also give you something to think about other than your family,” Diesel said. “And Shelly.”
“I would much rather be rescuing my sister right now,” he said with a growl.
“Can’t afford to be thinking about that. Come on,” Diesel said.
“I know, but only because they’re still in the US and I’m here in England.” They stepped off to the side into the brush, as Shane turned to look around at the small house, settled in a little bit of the countryside, a good twenty miles out of London. With little houses on either side but set on large properties, so they weren’t butted up against each other.