“A deadly wraith in the night, capable of almost anything.” He grinned.
“Almost anything, huh?”
The grin morphed into a tender smile. “I’m not capable of hurting you, Kennedy. I need you to know that.”
Just as quietly, she whispered, “I do.”
Satisfied by that, he said, “Four, when I have to be at the gym, you’ll go with me. I can instruct you so you’ll know some lethal shit, and when Cade is around, he can give you some pointers, too.”
A workable solution, except that... “I can’t keep up that pace for eight hours.”
“I know. I have an office there with a private bathroom, comfy chair, secure browser and a small fridge. It’ll be yours to use until I wrap up my day.”
She honestly didn’t know what to say, so she settled for, “Thank you.”
“No thanks necessary. I do what I do, when and how I want to do it.” He released her to stretch, which, yes, made her stare. He said, “I need to shower and shave and all that. Start a list of anything you might need. We’ll knock off what we can today. First, though, we’ll stop somewhere for breakfast. You might not be a fan, but I always put fuel in the tank before I tackle the day.”
“All right.” Thinking out loud, she said, “I have a pen and paper in my laptop case. I’ll get started on that right now.”
“Hey.” He touched her arm. “You can use your laptop, and even your phone if you want. But don’t contact Jodi. Let’s see if she reaches out to you.”
“She is a friend, you know.”
“If you say so, but she was there at the fire, so why hasn’t she reached out, if for no other reason than to make sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s an explanation.” She really needed to make it clear about poor Jodi.
Reyes didn’t give her a chance. “We’ll discuss it tonight, maybe on a conference call with Cade and Madison so we can put our collective heads together. How’s that sound?”
She wasn’t at all keen about the idea. Yes, she trusted Reyes, but there was so much she didn’t know about him, and it seemed that every new thing she learned only created more questions.
As he started out of the room, she realized he wasn’t waiting for a reply anyway. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”
Then he was gone, and she was left thinking about Reyes. About all he was doing for her.
And about him naked in a shower.
Things were going to get horribly awkward, and she couldn’t even blame Reyes. It was her own fault—for finding him so fascinating.
* * *
CADE CALLED WHILE they were still on the road, and since he wanted to talk about Jodi, Reyes put the phone on speaker. “I told Kennedy we’d go over this tonight.”
“It needs to be now,” Cade said. “Jodi was scoping out the gym this morning.”
The hell she was! When Reyes glanced at Kennedy, he saw the same surprise on her face that he felt. “Was she watching for Kennedy?”
“That’s the safe assumption. Maybe she’s hoping to touch base with her.”
Kennedy was already shaking her head. “I never told Jodi about the gym. If she knows, it’s because...”
Reyes didn’t need her to finish that thought. “She’s been keeping tabs on you? I’m liking this chick less and less.”
Madison interrupted, saying, “Be nice, Reyes. She’s Kennedy’s friend, and she was once a victim.”
Very quietly, Kennedy whispered, “Being a victim isn’t something that stays in your past.”
Reyes gave her a sharp look. “Meaning?”
Kennedy gave a slight lift of her shoulders. “You recover, you regain your strength—but you also learn, which means you don’t forget, you rarely let down your guard, and trust doesn’t come easy.”
“My wife would very much disagree with you,” Cade said.
Kennedy’s eyes widened. “Your wife was—”
“Yes.” He paused. “And she’s the strongest person I know.”
“I’m sorry, but strength doesn’t obliterate the aftereffects. We push on,” Kennedy explained. “We survive, and we put a pretty face on things, but for the rest of our lives we know exactly what can happen. Most people never give the risks a thought. They go through each day with the easy assumption that they’re fine, that they’ll always be fine, with no grasp of how quickly their safe, normal existences can be destroyed.” She drew a breath. “But I know. Those who have survived it know. And we don’t let ourselves forget.”
The sobering words brought down a repressive silence to hang thick and heavy in the air. Reyes reached over to clasp her knee. She covered his hand with her own.
Connected, he thought. He and Kennedy connected in ways he never had with any other woman. Damn, that was so unusual, it sort of shook him.
“You’re right,” Cade murmured. “It changes a person.”
Reyes asked, “Is that what happened with Jodi?”
“Yes.” Kennedy stroked over his hand, tracing along the hard ridges of his knuckles, then down to the sensitive skin between. The provoking touch didn’t feel deliberate, but rather a necessary distraction to her own thoughts. “I met her four years ago, when she was only twenty. I’d had one of my first speaking engagements at a college, and afterward, as I was leaving, I sensed her following me. She was this sullen figure, half-hidden under an oversize hoodie. I knew something was horribly wrong. It was there when her eyes met mine, and how she looked at me.”
“How was that?” Reyes asked.
“With desperation.”
He appreciated that his brother and sister stayed quiet so Kennedy could forget they were listening in. Not that she would. She was too sharp for that, and far too aware of her surroundings. Their silence offered only the illusion of privacy.
“I rarely take risks with other people, regardless if they’re men or women, young or more mature.”
“You shouldn’t.” Reyes found her touch incredibly distracting. “Evil has no gender or age.”
“I know.” Her explorations trailed along his thumb. “But something about Jodi was different. More vulnerable. She needed me, so I invited her to lunch. She doesn’t trust most people, either, and still she came with me, and we ended up talking for two hours. I got the distinct impression that she’d mostly given up on life.”