by Lori Ryan
He didn’t tell her, but Naomi had walked away with little more than bumps and bruises. It was a miracle he was grateful for, but one he knew had been extremely hard for Naomi to get past. She’d watched three people she loved die that day.
Lyra looked at him with soft eyes that held a world of emotion. “I’m sorry.”
The simple statement carried with it the weight of truth. It wasn’t one of those empty platitudes given by so many people.
Luke nodded and took a bite of his sandwich, using the excuse of a full mouth to give himself a minute before answering. “We had a rocky start and she needed some therapy to work through the effects of being in the car at the time, but things have been good for the last few years. We’re close. And my brother lives in town, too, so we have him.”
They ate in silence a few minutes more before she spoke again. “You said you were in the military before. I can imagine being a single parent in the military is difficult.”
“I was at the tail end of my tour when the accident happened. With the help of my CO and a few others I’d worked with over the years, I was able to leave a couple of months early. Zach still had another two years on his tour, so he stayed in.”
“Is he still in the military?”
Luke was a little too fascinated with watching Lyra’s mouth close over a piece of watermelon. Lord, he’d never appreciated fruit so much in his life. He wondered how she’d feel about him tracing watermelon over the curve of her neck and down to her breast, so he could lick the juice off before feasting on her.
What was wrong with him? He shifted in his seat and replayed her question in his head. She’d asked if Zach was still in the military.
“No, um.” Luke cleared his throat and forced his body to cooperate. “He’s a detective with the New Haven Police Department.” Ordinarily, he might not share many personal details—at least not real ones—when he was undercover like this, but he wanted to see her reaction. Not to mention, everything in him was starting to believe she wasn’t the person behind the online group.
Hell, that could just be his dick talking, though. He watched her face for any sign of a reaction to the news of his brother’s job, but there wasn’t anything suspicious. No flicker of concern for hidden secrets. No hint of guilt or fear.
Instead, she frowned. “Do you worry about him?”
Luke tilted his head as he answered. “Some. I think it was a little hard for Naomi when he joined the force. It’s why I’ve kept myself out of any work that puts me in the line of fire.”
Until now.
“What do you do?”
“I own a business running background checks online for people.” God that sounded boring as hell.
Despite that, Lyra’s eyes lit. “You own your own business?”
“It lets me work from home and be around when Naomi needs me. Well, it did until she up and ran off to school on me.” He tossed her a grin that said he was kidding and stood to clear their plates. “And I think it helped her to know I wasn’t doing any kind of work that put me in danger at all. Like I said, she has a hard time with Zach being in the line of fire sometimes, but I think she also knows he wouldn’t be happy if he wasn’t doing the kind of work he does.”
She brought the conversation back to his business. “So, I would have thought running background checks is all automated nowadays. You’re able to make a living charging people for doing them?”
He nodded and returned to the table, this time sitting one seat over, so he was next to her instead of across from her. “People can use other systems to run them for far less than I charge, but they don’t really know how to interpret them. A report might say someone has a trespassing charge against them, but that can stem from an awful lot of things. Could be a childish prank. Could be a guy stalking someone but the cops could only get him on a trespassing charge. I help them understand what they’re seeing or sometimes I dig into the details more and find out what’s behind the charge. I figure out what’s worth worrying about and what’s not for them. I get a lot of return business from human resources departments and things because they want someone to help them through the process. Some wealthy clients who want to run everyone they date or do business with or whatever through the ringer before they trust them.”
“Well, that’s a hell of a way to live a life.”
“I hear ya. It would suck having to be that distrustful all the time. But for the amount of money we’re talking about, they have no choice. A lot of them have been burned by people in their life who aren’t there for the right reasons. You can only tell so much by running a standardized report. I can tell them a little more. Help them make some decisions.”
“It must have been stressful doing that when you knew you had Naomi depending on you. Starting the business, I mean.” She clamped down on her lips as though she wanted to say more but didn’t, and he wondered what she wanted to ask.
“It was, especially in the beginning. I didn’t have a mortgage because my mom had left her house to me and Zach in the will and he let me and Naomi live there without paying him anything for his part of it. Still, paying for insurance as a self-employed person sucks, and I had to have insurance with Naomi. There are those kind of worries. I had some savings from when I was in the SEALs, so I had that to fall back on if things went downhill.” He shrugged because the truth was, even with all those things in his favor, it had been a stressful time, but he hadn’t had much choice. He wasn’t qualified to do much in the real world.
She looked entirely too thoughtful as she nodded.
“Are you thinking of starting your own business?” He had a feeling her head was working through something and the uneasy look she gave him confirmed it. Actually, there was excitement there was well, if he looked carefully enough.
She gave a tentative nod, as though she were testing out the admission before committing to it. “Yes. I have the plan written up and I think I’ve accounted for everything. I’ve got to save a little more before I’m willing to take the plunge, though. With Prentiss and Alyssa, I can’t afford to take chances.”
Luke nodded and twisted the water glass he’d now drained in front of him casually, but his chest eased a fraction. No way she was planning a small business with such care if she was about to sell a truckload of classified information to some of the lowest of the low on earth. At least, it helped to tell himself that. “I can look your plan over for you, if you’d like.”
She sat forward. “Really?” Then the uneasy look was back and he realized she was worried about what he might think of her plan.
“I’m sure you’ve covered everything. You strike me as a planner.” He offered a shrug. “But if you want an extra set of eyes to see if you’ve missed anything, I’m happy to look at it for you.”
“Thanks, I’d love that. I brought it over to a nonprofit in town that helps small businesses and they looked over it and helped me make some adjustments to my estimates, but I’m still worried I haven’t come up with everything. It’d be a huge step to leave the job I’m in right now with all the flexibility they offer me.”
“Do you work from home every day?”
Soft tempting tendrils swished around her shoulders as she shook her head no. “I go in to the office at least once a week. My brother stays with the kids in the afternoons when I do that.”
Luke had met her brother the other day. The girls seemed to love him, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. He also just acted like a bit of a goof.
“Your brother is able to do that?”
“Yes, he works nights at a bar, so being around the afternoon to get the girls one day a week isn’t a big problem. I’m home before he has to go in. So, overall, working from home has worked out well. It was an attempt to keep my boss from showing up on my doorstep. He still shows up now and again, though.”
“Your boss just shows up randomly while you’re working from home? That doesn’t seem like it should be included in the telemarketing package?”
Lyra laughed
. “It shouldn’t be. My boss is . . . Well, let’s just call him a nuisance. The benefits and working from home are worth it, though.”
Luke probably sounded a little too much like a protective bear as he responded. “Nuisance, how?” Yep. A lot like a black bear.
Lyra waved away his response, but her cheeks flushed. “He’s harmless. He’s friends with my brother and I think there was probably a time when he hoped we might date, but he knows that’s not going to happen now.”
“Not interested in him? Or not interested in dating?” Why did the answer matter so damned much to Luke?
Her cheeks turned even pinker as she glanced his way. “A little of both, I guess. Part of it probably had to do with the fact that he’s friends with my brother. My brother might be a grown up now, or something close to it, but it’s still hard to picture him and his friends as anything but a pack of kids. And honestly, they still act a lot like it. My boss owns this company, but his dad is the one that funds it. If the company doesn’t do well one quarter, it’s not a big deal. He can always fall back on his dad’s bank account. Not exactly an appealing trait in a man.”
“And the dating in general part?”
Her teeth toyed with her bottom lip. “I guess I just haven’t had a whole lot of time for it. The girls keep me pretty busy, and it just hasn’t been high on my priorities.”
It wasn’t Luke’s imagination. There was a heaviness to the air between them that said they were dancing around the blatant attraction between them. “And now?”
He was teasing her a little, making her spell things out for him. He couldn’t help it. Things seems to have changed between them and he didn’t feel as much of an urge to hold back with her as he had before.
“I don’t know, maybe if the right guy comes along I’ll squeeze a date between my pedicure appointments and all my long hot baths.”
Luke groaned, and he didn’t try to hide it. Just the mention of her in a bath did things to him. Her eyes went wide and he grinned at her with a shrug. “Sorry. It was the bath thing.”
Now she looked at him, her mouth a small oh as she processed his comment.
Before she could respond, Luke heard the distinct buzz of his secondary cell phone. Even from within the desk drawer, he could hear it and knew it meant only one thing. New information in the case. Since they were waiting for proof of the information the auctioneers were selling off, he had a bad feeling about what he might find waiting for him on that phone.
He wanted to ignore it and keep flirting with Lyra, but that wasn’t really an option. It was a cold reminder of the fact that he was here to do a job, not here to start a real relationship with the woman across the hall.
Lyra stood, glancing toward his desk. “I need to get back to work, and you probably do too, it seems.”
Luke stood, as well. “Yeah, unfortunately, I do. I’m around if you need a break later, though. You know, in between those hot baths.”
The flush his comment brought to her cheeks had him grinning as he shut the door behind her. It didn’t last though. Not when he saw the text message.
It was a link to a news story. As he read through the details, he realized it could have been a hell of a lot worse. As it was, nobody had died. But the point had certainly been made. Whoever was behind the online auction had just proven they could redirect high-speed trains to send them barreling toward one another with hundreds of lives on board.
The sellers had even managed to make it look like a glitch was responsible, and to their credit, the train stopped moments before impact. One passenger suffered a heart attack that thankfully wasn’t fatal, and others received a variety of bumps, bruises, and cuts but nothing life-threatening.
As one of those who had put forth money to make the proof of product take place, he was now in on the online bidding that would take place shortly for the entire package of information up for grabs. The knowledge didn’t give him any comfort, because it also meant he was one of the people responsible for putting those passengers through what had to be one of the most frightening experiences of their lives.
CHAPTER NINE
Luke stood in his kitchen thinking he probably should have gone to the grocery store. He’d gotten tied up with running several background checks for Sutton Capital, a company his brother had connected him with that sent a lot of work his way. He’d spent an hour on the phone explaining some of the results to their human resources director.
Now he was left with either cold cereal for dinner or ordering takeout.
The dilemma was put off when he heard a knock on his door. He opened it to find Alyssa and Prentiss dressed in matching green dresses with bows on each pigtail.
“You’re invited,” they said, in near-unison.
Luke knelt and grinned at the girls. “Invited where?”
“To our birthday party.” This came from Alyssa but Prentiss nodded as though adding her stamp of approval.
The door to their apartment opened and Lyra stepped out, digging through her purse. She smiled when she saw him. “Hi, Luke.”
He wasn’t given the chance to return the greeting. Alyssa spoke up before he could. “Luke is coming!”
“Coming where?” Lyra looked at him and he raised his hands to let her know he had nothing to do with the plan the girls seemed to have concocted.
“To our party!” They were in unison again.
“That’s about as far as we got before you came out.” Luke said. He wasn’t sorry the girls had invited him.
Lyra laughed. “Tomorrow is the party with ten four and five year olds running around in a park screaming. Tonight is the friends and family pizza party. And you’re very welcome to come to either of them, but for your sanity, I’d recommend coming to tonight’s.”
Luke schooled his features and looked at the girls. “I live for pizza.” He said this with the most serious face he could muster and the girls dissolved in giggles.
He glanced up to find Lyra smiling at him. Bingo. Just what he’d been going for. Each of her smiles seemed like a prize to him. A prize he liked earning.
Alyssa and Prentiss each took a hand and pulled him out of his apartment. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to crash?” Luke said to Lyra as she locked her apartment.
“Absolutely. It’ll give me one more adult to talk to and I’m all about adult conversation.”
Christ. He wanted to know what other adult activities she might enjoy. He was all too ready to offer up his services in any way she wanted him.
Luke pulled his keys out of his pocket and locked his own door while the girls objected to their mom’s viewing them as “not adults”.
The party also included Mrs. Lawson and her grandson Murphy, who had spent twenty minutes folding paper into three types of origami fish for the girls, as well as Billy and his friends. Lyra’s boss, Joel, who was friends with Billy was there, as was Damon, another friend who Lyra told him completed the triangle of three who had lived together at different points on and off. While Joel seemed happy enough to spend time with the twins and answer any chattering the girls threw at him, Luke got the distinct impression he was really there to drool over Lyra.
It wasn’t an impression that sat well with him.
Damon, on the other hand, did little to hide the fact he’d rather be anywhere else and was killing time until Billy could leave. He spent a lot of time on his phone and didn’t seem to have any interest in talking to anyone there, no matter their age.
Tracy and Savannah were there, along with their children. Luke liked them. Both women made no effort to hide the fact that they were trying to push Luke and Lyra together. If for no other reason, he liked that about them. But they were also funny and he got the sense that they had been there for Lyra through a lot. They were close. He liked that about them, too.
The evening revolved around the girls, with cheese pizzas, hot fudge sundaes, and what seemed to be hundreds of tokens spent in the arcade at the back of the pizza place. Billy, Joel, and Damon ended up crowded aro
und one of the race car games where they took turns in the two seats competing against each other.
Tracy and Savannah scored more points in Luke’s book when they took all the kids to the arcade, leaving Lyra and Luke to “watch the table.”
“So you’re doing all this again tomorrow, but with more kids?”
“Yup, this is the easy one. This is a tradition Billy started a couple of years ago to get out of having to go to the kids version of the birthday party. He prefers beer and pizza and the girls think it’s fun to have a grown-up party, so I never argue with it. Besides, he pays for this one.” She said this with a grin and Luke laughed.
Murphy came over and interrupted. “I’m going to get Grandma home, Lyra. She’s not feeling well.”
Lyra looked toward the other of the two booths they’d commandeered where Mrs. Lawson sat. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is she all right?”
Luke had to admit, the woman looked pale.
Murphy nodded, but his face was set in a grim line. “She just needs to rest.”
They said their goodbyes before Luke brought the conversation back around to Billy. He hated to think it, but he had to wonder if Billy was involved with the Brain Trust. He spent a lot of time at Lyra’s apartment. “I guess I wouldn’t have pegged the bartender as someone who wants to throw around a good chunk of money on a beer and pizza party for twin girls.”
“Billy likes to spend money on anything that doesn’t smack of too much responsibility. Since leaving school, he’s started and stopped several businesses, and most of them failed because he doesn’t like to be locked in by a business plan. His words, not mine. Billy is a very fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy.”
“You don’t strike me that way.” Luke looked at her and noticed the tinge of pink that lit her cheeks. “Not that that’s a bad thing. I like planning.”
“Yeah, Billy and I are definitely opposites as far as that’s concerned.” She looked over at her brother where he was currently spinning the handle of his race car and hooting as he bested Joel on the track. “He’s a good guy, he’s always there for me, but he’s still very much a kid at heart. I’m not sure he’s going to be ready to grow up anytime soon.”
