Lib Novel Page 58
“I thought it would put you at ease.”
Emma shook her head. “It’s clear you don’t like me.”
That surprised him and he didn’t try to hide it. “I didn’t say I didn’t like you.”
She snorted and looked out the window again. “If you cuss as much at your friends like you did to me, I would hate to see what your enemies would deal with.”
“First of all, I’m a guy. A lot of us cuss. I know Sean has a pretty bad vocabulary. Add in the fact that you hit me with a board and broke my nose, and I think I have every right to cuss.”
“We all have the right to say what we want. It doesn’t mean you should though. There are limits to honesty. Or that’s what people tell me.”
He caught on to that last bit like a starving man. Del had always been someone who dealt in information. If he could know everything he wanted to about a situation, he could figure out what to do about it. It had to be the only reason he was so intrigued by Emma Taylor.
“So, people think you are too honest?”
“It’s gotten me into trouble before. I don’t always understand little cues other people pick up on. I often say things that offend others, even if I don’t mean to.”
Del digested that bit of information, then pulled to a stop in front of Cat’s house. “You sound rude, but you’re not trying to be.”
She turned her head to study him. Even in the cab of his pickup, he could see her surprise.
“Yes. When I try to explain, I make it worse.”
Sighing, she glanced past him to Cat’s house. She looked so damned lost that he felt the need to fill in the moment.
“Hey, it will all work out.”
She looked at him. “You can’t know that. No one knows what will happen from one moment to the other. We can calculate every move we make, and it can all explode in your face. Letov is acting erratically, and that works for us on certain levels. But we can’t be sure that he won’t just pop off. Life is like that, you know. Sometimes things are going along and everything is just fine. Then, all of the sudden it isn’t. Plans don’t always work.”
He knew she was talking about more than the present situation. There was a tone in her voice he had not heard before. She was almost wooden in the way she talked, as if she expected the worst to happen. Just knowing a bit of her backstory made him realize that most of her life had probably taught her that. Losing her parents, and now everything she had dealt with recently, it made sense.
Maybe it was because she looked so sad, or the fact that he had a couple younger sisters, he broke down. He couldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want to do. He agreed with Sean though. She needed to be in a separate house than her brother. Which left him with only one alternative.
“Would you feel more comfortable at my place?”
She blinked, then focused on him again. “Your place? As in your house?”
He nodded.
“I could go to a hotel,” she said in a hopeful tone.
“Out of the question and you know it,” he returned in a stern voice.
She frowned.
“Listen, I have a guest room you can use, and it’s closer to headquarters where I plan on stashing you tomorrow night. After tomorrow night, you can go stay wherever you want.”
And just like that, her tension seemed to drain from her. “You don’t mind if I am up? I tend to drive people crazy when I work through the night.”
He shook his head. “I’ll have no problem ignoring you.”
She offered him a shy smile, and he felt as if had won the lottery. “I would really like that. I don’t do well with new people.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” he said. “Let me go tell Cat you’re staying with me.”
She nodded and he slid out of his truck to make his way up to Cat’s door. His lieutenant opened it before he could knock. Average in height and small boned, Cat often surprised people with her strength. That along with her amazing sniper skills, black belt in karate, and intelligence made her one of the best team members he had ever worked with.
She’d pulled all her hair up into a braid, and she had no makeup on. She was also in her PJs.