Page 82 of Covert Operation
Savannah’s dark brows lift. “Everyone else?”
I pause my pancake flattening so I can pour her a cup of juice. Christian isn’t a fancy coffee drinker, so I can’t make her one of those things she gets with Elise. And I didn’t want to venture out to pick one up when I knew she could wake up at any minute. I make a mental note to figure out what I’m going to need to blend those things up and order it when we get back to Alaska.
Once she’s sipping her OJ, I go back to making the small, cheesy disks while the pan heats on the stove. “Everyone on Shadow is putting in to be transferred to Tennessee.” I finish up with the last of the dough then pour a little oil into the heated pan. “Last night they told me their only request is to have a place like the townhomes.” I lift my eyes to Savannah’s. “Or a place like Christian and his brothers have.”
She studies me. “Is that something you would like?”
I scoop up the first of the pancakes and set it into the pan. “I don’t think I would dislike it.” I wish I could give her a better answer, but that’s all I have. I’ve spent years being fine with the state of my life. Imagining it in such a different way isn’t easy. “But I’m not making any promises.”
After flipping the dough disks, I give them a minute or two to brown before sliding them onto a plate. The last step is to ‘dust’ them with powdered sugar. I have no fucking clue what that means, so I sprinkle some on with my fingers and pass them across the island along with a jar of strawberry jam. It’s not the fancy cream stuff the recipe said to serve them with, but fruit sauce was listed as an alternative. Hopefully jam is close enough.
Savannah looks the plate over. Then her misty eyes lift to mine. “These look perfect.”
Making her cry was not my intention. I just wanted her to see that I listen to what she says. That I will give her everything she wants. No matter how big or small. “No.” I round the island. “No, no, no. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying.” She sniffs, sucking in a long breath as she blinks rapidly. “I was just thinking about it.”
Sitting down in the chair next to her, I haul her onto my lap, tucking her close. “You can’t cry when I cook, Sweetheart. It’ll look bad.”
She snorts out a watery laugh as she wipes one eye. “First of all, you will never look bad.” After pulling in another long breath, she leans to hook one finger over the edge of the plate and drags it in front of her new place at the island. “Especially when you’re making these for me.” She picks up one of the disks coated in clumps of powdery sugar then takes a bite. Her eyes well up again as she chews.
“That bad?” I snag one of them for myself and shove the whole thing into my mouth. I don’t know what it’s supposed to taste like, but it’s edible.
“They’re perfect.” Savannah leans in and presses a kiss to my mouth as I continue chewing. “Thank you.”
I give her my best scowl. “You don’t have to?—”
My cell starts to ring and I push up to my feet, holding onto Savannah as I stretch to reach it on the other side of the counter. I’m not entirely surprised to see it’s Isaac calling. Hopefully Heidi finally found something for me.
“Tell me you have good news.” I settle Savannah back into place across my thighs and shove another pancake in my mouth. The things aren’t half bad.
“I’ve got another address for you.” Isaac rattles it off like he’s not going to have to send it to me. “Heidi thinks there’s a good chance they might still be there if you hurry.”
As much as I hate to have to do it, I place Savannah back onto the next seat over. “We’ll head out shortly.” I disconnect the call and rush to clean up my mess.
“Did they find something?” Savannah opens the jam and slathers some onto one of the pancakes. She takes a bite and her eyes roll back as she lets out a little moan that has my dick hard in an instant.
“Let’s hope so.” I rack up the dirty dishes and wipe down the counter then hurry to her side, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Because I’m ready to put this shit behind us so we can get busy with all those plans I’ve been making.”
I know everyone’s going to say it’s too fast, but I don’t fucking care. I’m ready to marry Savannah. Ready to give her kids and a home and anything else she wants.
And nothing and no one is going to stand in my way.
“IT LOOKS JUST as fucking deserted as the other one.” I pass the binoculars off to Luca, letting him look to see if he thinks the same. “I’m going to kill Vincent for this.” It will actually be the first thing I do when we get back to Fairbanks. I’m going to hunt his ass down and beat the shit out of it.
“I don’t see anything that makes me think anyone is inside this place.” Luca lowers the binoculars, switching to staring directly out the filthy window of the building we broke into across the street. “How long are we going to sit here?”
I have no desire to spend two more days sitting in an abandoned building for nothing. Two more days driving back to Memphisfor a few hours of sleep and a few hours of holding Savannah before coming back to sit in the cold and stare at nothing. “I say we go in now.”
It’s what we should have done at the last place, but I was still a little cautious after the explosion. One building falling down around me was enough for one trip. Finding out the building we were watching was empty chapped my ass, and I have a feeling the same thing is about to happen this time.
The only difference is, I’m not willing to wait around two days to find out this is another dead end.
Luca nods in agreement. “Might as well get started then.”
Activating the speaker on my earpiece, I spend the next few minutes formulating a plan with my team. Once we’ve decided the best way to move in, everyone disperses, taking their assigned location surrounding the dilapidated structure. I’m unsurprised to see no signs of life as I circle to the back. All the tracks are old and frozen over, and I don’t see a single movement through the broken panes of glass.
I’m positive the place is empty, but just to be safe, Luca and I are the only two who will be going in. That will leave as many eyes as possible on us while keeping risk of injury to a minimum.