“. . . or someone you are in contact with as one.” Sasha directed her look at Cooper.
Claire felt Cooper’s hand squeeze her shoulder. “We have very minimal contact on campus, most of which is on the track.”
Neil cleared his throat and focused their attention on another monitor.
Claire recognized the front of her house. In the frame, Cooper was pulling into the driveway after the sun had set. When Jax jumped out of the back seat, Claire knew what was coming. Neil fast-forwarded until she’d run from the car.
He stopped the image with Cooper standing behind her, his body well inside her physical space.
Claire glanced over and found Neil looking between them.
At her side, Sasha was silent.
“Eastman has seen something,” Neil told them.
Cooper spoke for both of them. “There is nothing more to see than this.”
Sasha made a clicking noise. “Emotion is felt.”
Claire sometimes hated that Sasha was sharper than a samurai’s sword.
Neil was pinning his eyes on Cooper. Tension in the room simmered.
Claire reached up, touched the hand on her shoulder, and held it firmly in place. They’d done nothing to compromise this case. “Then we need to flush Eastman out. He’s at the decoy house because that’s what’s on file. Gathering Cooper’s address isn’t as easily obtained.” She turned back to the monitors, reran the images of Eastman walking around.
“What are you looking for?” Sasha asked.
“If I was a cop, good or bad, I’d plant some kind of bug so I could sleep at night.”
Cooper set his coffee beside hers and pointed. “There.”
Claire backed up the image, frame by frame. A tiny flash of light reflecting was all they needed. Something was in the bushes.
“Looks like I’m moving in.” Which did not make her happy.
“Do we have a tail on Eastman?” Cooper asked.
“AJ is on him now. We’ll have wherever he’s staying staked out and online within twenty-four hours.” Sasha’s husband, AJ, was an occasional helper to the team.
Claire patted Cooper’s hand and scooted back in the rolling chair to stand.
“Sasha is coming with you,” Neil said. “You’re not alone in the house until we understand the danger level.”
Claire nodded.
They all started to leave the room.
Neil stopped Claire and Cooper. “You have a few minutes in private to work out whatever is going on here,” he said to both of them. “But it stays here and not out there unless it can work to our advantage.”
Claire and Cooper stayed back, watching the other two walk away and close the door behind them.
“This is on me,” Cooper said the second they were alone.
“We don’t know that.”
He turned her to face him. Shook his head. “My thoughts are less than pure when I see you on the field. If Eastman is watching, or someone reporting to him is . . .”
She smiled, looked up. “Don’t kick yourself too hard. I might have been checking out your ass when you were elbow deep in that engine today.”
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, and instead of feeling the need to pull away, she wanted him to pull her close.
“I knew I felt heat on my backside,” he teased.
Claire placed one hand on his chest. For several seconds she looked at her fingers and enjoyed the strength of the man under them.
Cooper placed a hand to her cheek and tilted her head.
She felt her lips pulling into a smile and her gut suggesting she move in closer. Instead of questioning, she reached for his neck and met him halfway.
His lips were warm and soft, gentle with the first taste.
Inside she felt her gut celebrating their first kiss, telling her she was doing the right thing.
Cooper wrapped one arm around her back and pressed their bodies close from knees to lips. Then reason took a back seat to the desire that started to churn. Mouths opened and her tongue pressed against his. All the wonder of what it would be like to be kissed by this man fled with the reality that it was spectacular. Both hot and sweet and nothing like anything she’d ever felt before. Probably because she knew the man kissing her more than any other in the past.
She felt his kiss soften and his hands grip her harder right before he ended their first taste.
Her breath came fast and her eyes opened slowly to find him staring down. “I guess that answers that,” she said in a whisper.
Cooper closed his eyes, and wrapped her close for a hug. “Thank God,” he said against her ear.
They walked out of the surveillance room holding hands.
Sasha stood in a flight attendant uniform, the appropriate luggage at her side. Her expression completely neutral.
Neil’s jaw, on the other hand, was tight.
“Are you ready?” Sasha asked in Russian.
Claire nodded. And with a squeeze of her hand holding Cooper’s, reluctantly let go.
Cooper watched her leave, and for the first time since they met, hope flared so brightly inside of him he wanted to scream. The cruel irony that their first kiss was going to be their last until . . . he had no idea how long . . . was the only thing biting at his joy.
“Remove that expression from your face before I’m forced to remove it for you.” Neil’s words were measured.
Yeah, even that didn’t dim Cooper’s sunshine. “Are you telling me you don’t approve?” he asked Neil flat out.
His boss, and friend, was slow to respond. “Why do you think I sent you away?”
Cooper remembered their conversation. It had been short and clipped.
“I see what is going on. Do I need to remind you how old she is?”
“Eighteen going on thirty.”
“Stop at eighteen. And under my protection.”
Cooper had already concluded his attraction wasn’t appropriate and was doing everything he could to stay away. But he loved his job and couldn’t imagine finding work somewhere else.
“Everyone here is my second family.”
Neil looked him dead in the eye. “Second. We are her first.”
“What do you want me to do, quit?”
Neil shook his head. “I’m expanding in Europe. Many of our clients have second homes there. My wife’s family . . . Richter proved there is need. I’d like you to head the operation.”
“You’re sending me to Europe.”
“I’m suggesting you request a transfer.”
Which was better than being fired.
“You need distance and she needs an opportunity to figure out what is best for her without distractions.”
Much as Cooper had wanted to argue the point, Neil had been right. And his solution made sense.
Cooper pushed his memories aside. “I requested the transfer.” He looked Neil in the eye, saw some of the tension fade.
“I would have fired you if I didn’t approve and wouldn’t have let you come back if I thought Claire wasn’t . . .” Neil didn’t finish his thought. “Just don’t rub it in my face.”
Cooper wanted to laugh so hard it hurt. “She’s a daughter to you.”
Neil wasn’t one to overtly show his emotions, but he was failing that self-imposed rule with Claire.
“We’re the only family she has.”