Page 114 of At Her Pleasure
Vera’s brow reached her hairline. “Camping?”
“In his motorhome. No crapping in the woods or anything ridiculous like that.”
Cyn moved to the door, but when she reached it, she paused. She owed them more.
“I’m all right,” she said. “I appreciate you being my friends and family. Protecting me, and Mick.”
When she let her gaze move to the folder, Ros anticipated her question. “My contact told me to destroy the information. We’ll say nothing, Cyn.”
“Thank you.” Her phone buzzed. It was Bastion’s heads up that the client had arrived. “Shit. Gotta go.”
* * *
Ros opened the folder to look at the top photo. Mick’s disturbingly genuine smile, as he shared drinks with a lowlife responsible for untold amounts of suffering. “Another reason I believe her is how much I want to. I like him.”
“We all do. That’s been another commonality as well, hasn’t it?” Vera observed thoughtfully. “Each man, even before it’s settled between him and the woman in question, feels like he’s destined to be part of our family. When he leaves, it’s going to affect her profoundly. She’s already bracing herself.”
“She knows we know that.” Ros sighed and stabbed her pen into her desk organizer, creating another tiny hole. Bastion replaced it about once every three months. “But that isn’t what we need to worry about. The two of them aren’t going to be done after that trip.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re asking me questions you know the answer to.”
Vera grimaced. “I was hoping you might have a different opinion.”
Ros shook her head. “He’s the one for her, Vera. I feel it. So do Skye and Abby. Even Tiger, Neil and Lawrence see it, which is why they haven’t run him out of town on a rail.”
Vera glanced at the folder. “There’s no happy end to the life he’s living. Tiger barely got out of his family’s MC in time. But he wasn’t an undercover agent, trying to save people’s lives. This is a calling, not a job. How do you walk away from work like Mick is doing?”
You don’t. The response lay between them, unspoken but weighing heavily on their hearts.
“Cyn already knows that, too.” Ros dumped the information into her shredder and hit the on button, grinding it into confetti.
When Dale had instructed her to do that, his reasons had been chilling. “You don’t want this data connected to you. These people have a long reach.”
“I’m glad I didn’t have children,” Ros grumbled. “You all give me enough sleepless nights.”
Vera reached over the desk and patted her hand. “My money is on Cyn to figure this out. She conducts scenes like an interrogator. Or a treasure hunter. She gets as up close and personal with a man’s soul as his chosen god. Or goddess.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that.” Ros gave her a tight smile. “She reacts to the spiritual stuff the same way she does to ‘romance novel bullshit.’”
“We’ve always believed what’s in her past is better left undisturbed, until she wanted to share it. But we’ve also never seen her with a man who seemed like it would really hurt her to let him go. That could open up a lot of things.”
“Like an earthquake.” Ros tapped her pen again. “Figures the man she finally wants to keep is the one she can’t without endangering herself or others. She knows that, too, which gives her all the more reason to let him go. Damn it, she deserves a shot at it, just like the rest of us.”
Vera pursed her lips. “If we’re right about who they are to one another, we’re overlooking the important part. If he’s been doing this that long, then he needs her, too. Badly.”
Ros nodded. Cyn’s love expressed itself by protecting, providing. Not by leaning on anyone herself. But that didn’t matter. “So we be there for her, because she'll never ask. And whether she realizes it or not, she’s reached the limit of what she’s prepared to lose. Let’s be ready to back her up, however she needs it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
She was in a motorhome at a godawful early hour of the morning, heading for Texas.
Instead of the comforting sights of cheek-to-jowl buildings or mobs of people headed to work via trolley, car or on foot, she was on a rural highway where farms, marshland and dense stretches of forest surrounded the road. She smelled cow manure and nature instead of beignets from Royal Street or the pungent morning-after filth of Bourbon.
She’d lost her mind.
She felt mildly better when they passed through small towns. Skye had mentioned such places when she took motorcycle trips with Tiger. She often left her Harley at home, preferring to ride on the back of his, resting her hands on his waist, pressing close to him, her legs on either side of his hips as they leaned into turns together.