by Dale Mayer
“Yeah, you think?” Noah got up. “If nobody needs me for a bit,” he said, “I’ll go grab my gear.” He turned and walked up the hallway to his room.
So many of the staff had their own room now. Up in his, one of the rooms for short-term stays, he quickly packed up his travel bag, which pretty much held everything he had because he really didn’t own much. That was good. He had several changes of clothes, and, other than that, he owned mostly fitness equipment, that he had put in the gym to use when he was here, and that wasn’t a whole lot either. He walked downstairs with his bag and dropped it in the front hall.
Stone walked over, took one look, and asked, “What are you up to?”
“Hey, when did you get back from Denver?”
“A couple days ago.” He nodded at the bag. “And?”
“I’ll go in to Houston with Di because she insists on returning to the conference, where she’s a speaker. I’m going along to keep an eye on her.”
“Good luck with that,” he said. “She doesn’t handle a guard very well.”
“Then I’ll have to go as her boyfriend,” he said cheerfully.
Stone started to laugh. “You know that just might work.”
Di apparently heard him from the kitchen, and she hopped up and raced out. “What?”
“You either get me as your guard,” he said, “or you get me as your partner.” He put his hands on his hips and glared at her. “So you might as well pick right now.”
“And what if I don’t want to pick?” she said, putting her hands on her hips, mimicking him. By now they’d attracted a crowd, with several other people standing around.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “if you don’t pick, I will.”
“What will you pick?”
He gave her a flashing grin. “I’ll pick partner.”
She immediately shook her head. “If you want to be a partner, then I want you to be a guard.”
“Too damn bad,” he said. “I made the decision first.” And cheerfully he picked up his bag, walked outside, and threw it into the same truck he had taken into the city earlier.
She followed him out. “You can’t just make a decision like that without my okay.”
“Well, I already did,” he said. “I gave you a chance to pick. You didn’t, so I did. Done deal. Go back inside and get another cup of coffee to-go.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said.
He looked at her with interest. “Will you ever stop arguing?” he asked.
She frowned. “I’m not arguing.”
He rolled his eyes at that. “Well, maybe you should ask some other people around here if you are or are not.” He watched as she turned to look at the crowd that had gathered. Flushed, she glared at him and said, “You’re making me crazy.”
“Hey, you were already crazy,” he said, as he walked up behind her and ushered her back into the kitchen. He grinned at Levi, shook his head, and said, “You sure you don’t have somebody else to go on this detail?”
“You’re perfect,” Ice announced from the table, where she sat, holding her son on her lap.
“I’ve got to wonder what you define as perfect in this case.”
She smirked at Noah. “Ask me that question in a few days.”
“Just don’t try any of your matchmaking stuff,” he said. He walked over, refilled his coffee cup, and sat down beside Di.
She glared at him. “You’re not my partner yet. No need to be so chummy.”
He snickered. “Glad you’ve adjusted to your new circumstances.” She shifted over in her chair, giving him the cold shoulder, and he laughed out loud.
Dianne faced Ice. “Really, is he the best you could do?”
Ice nodded. “Yep. He’ll look after you and keep you safe.”
Dianne’s shoulders slumped. “Fine,” she said, “but he wouldn’t be my choice.”
“Too bad,” Levi said, with a big grin. “He’s our choice.”
She sighed. “Well, can I stay here for a few hours?”
“Of course,” Ice said. “If you had a swimsuit, we could go outside and enjoy the afternoon sun.”
“I didn’t bring my bag with me,” she said. “It’s still at the hotel.” She frowned and looked at Noah, as if it were his fault. “I’m sure that’s your fault. We should have gone to get it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “When? When I was carrying you unconscious into the truck or trying to persuade you to go to the hospital or maybe when you were sound asleep while I was driving you here.”
“That’s no excuse,” she announced, then gave him a sharp nod, turned, and looked away. When she noted Ice and Levi both grinning at her crazily, she groaned. “You know that I’ll be absolutely stir-crazy by the time I’m done with this.”
“You might be,” Ice said. “I think he’ll be stir-crazy too, so take some satisfaction in that.”
At that, Dianne burst out laughing.
Chapter 3
“So you seem well equipped here. Do you have a spare bathing suit?” Di asked her friend.
“I sure do,” Ice said. “We actually have a selection. Come on. Let’s get you away from going crazy with Noah and out to the pool, where you can relax, and we can have a visit.”
“If I could even do some laps,” she said, “it would take care of some of this stress.”
“Do you want to work out instead?” she asked. “We have a big gym.”
“The pool sounds nice,” she said.
“What about your hair?”
“Screw the hair,” she said succinctly. “If I can get a shower afterward, that’ll be okay. Wash and wear, that’s my style.”
“What about those wounds?” Noah asked. “Is it okay to get that wet? Don’t you have stitches?”
“Yes, Mother, but don’t worry. I’m cleared to bathe, so I’m cleared to swim, not that it’s any of your business.”
And with that, the women left the kitchen.
Within fifteen minutes, the two women and baby Hunter were ensconced on the shaded side of the pool, while Di floated.
“Hey, this is nice,” she said. “I really need to work out, but right now I’m just exhausted. What about you?”
“No, I’m good,” Ice said. “Just go ahead and do whatever you need to do to decompress.”
And, with that, Dianne floated for a while, and then she swam a little. Soon she picked it up and got into her crawl rhythm and kept going. By the time she slowed, she felt the exhaustion all the way through her. She dragged her body up out of the pool and crashed on the big lounger beside Ice, who was working on a laptop while Hunter slept between her legs. “You have a beautiful place here,” Dianne murmured. “I know you’ve sent me photos, but they don’t do justice to the whole atmosphere here.”
“Yeah, it’s great. We’ve worked really hard for quite a while to get it this way.”
Di sat here in comfort and felt herself getting sleepy. She murmured to Ice, “You okay if I nod off?”
“Of course,” Ice said. “You’re safe here.”
And, on that note, Dianne drifted off.
*
Noah walked out to the pool area to see the two women lying on the loungers. Ice looked up at him and smiled. “You okay to go in to town?”
“I am,” he said, “and was wondering about the time. I don’t know how much prep time she needs before her workshop.”
Ice looked at her watch and nodded. “I was trying to give her as much time to sleep as she needed.”
“As long as she’s in the shade, we don’t have to worry about her getting burned, but she’ll need a shower, and we have to get her back in time to get her presentation materials, I’m sure.”
“Well, if you’ve got nothing else to do,” Ice teased, “I’ve always got paperwork you can help out with.”
He shuddered and stepped back. “Oh, no thanks. Appreciate the offer, Ice, but that’s the kind of training I’m not ready for,” he said. “I probably should go down and get a workout in.
You know? Kind of tune up in case there’s trouble—if you’re okay with that of course.”
“Sure enough,” Ice said, with a chuckle. “Come back in an hour.”
He nodded and headed downstairs. In the back of his mind he was still wondering about that car park and how she ended up in the hatch of her rental. Was it Maxwell or someone else? He crossed paths with Levi, who had just finished up a workout. “I know the hotel said they didn’t have any cameras in that garage level,” Noah said, “but do you think anybody else may have had a camera view?”
Levi stopped and stared. “Meaning?”
“Streets outside or anybody coming or going at the same time.”
“Yet we know who attacked her.”
“I know,” Noah said, raising both hands. “It just seems so weird, the way I found her.”
“I hear you, plus she had the head injury.”
Noah nodded. “And she said that could have been from the original attack, but I don’t know if it was or not.”
“A lot of unknowns,” Levi said, “but I wouldn’t let that part of it worry you.”
“I just—I guess I’m concerned that there might have been more than one person.”
At that, Levi slowly tilted his head. “And why would you consider that?”
“Seriously, just because of—never mind. Is anybody close to this Maxwell guy?”
“I pulled the files, and I sent it all to your phone. And I put a paper copy on top of your bed.”
“Okay, I should be looking at that now then.” He hesitated and glanced at the gym.
“Go ahead and get a workout in first,” Levi urged. “You know that’s good for mental fitness too.”
“My mind is going in a million directions right now.”
“So, make it a short and intense workout and then go over the material in the briefing.”
“Or I do a longer workout and you tell me.” And that’s what they did.
Levi filled him in on details. Maxwell’s wife had died, so his son was everything. “He’s in construction, has been for twenty-plus years.”
“But in Australia, right?”
Levi nodded.
“So why is Maxwell here in the States?”
“I actually looked into that as well. No clue but he arrived four days ago.”
“When did she arrive?”
“Two days ago.”
“Do you think it was a coincidence?”
“I have a hard time with those in general,” Levi said. “With the publicity for this international conference that Di is part of, I think Maxwell saw her photo, as one of the speakers, in an ad somewhere, and he traveled here specifically to target her. No proof, just my gut talking.”
“Sucks,” Noah murmured, “because we don’t have anything definitive.”
“We don’t. But I expect you’ll probably see him somewhere close by.”
“Stalking her?”
“Just as a threat on the outside.”
“Unless they followed us here.”
“And that’s possible too. We have a full alert on. Remember that.”
“Good thing,” he said. “Not too many people are set up for a deal like that.”
“I suspect he won’t come here in a full-on attack. It would be a lot easier for him to pick people off in town, where it’ll be more one-on-one.”
“That sucks too. What about the women?”
“All the partners are accounted for and are under lockdown as well. They won’t leave their businesses or work without their partners or another one of us there to pick them up.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” Noah said. He chose a machine, set the weights on, and got to work. By the time he finished his first set of reps and went through the second one, Noah was wiping down his face and shoulders.
“Other than that,” Levi said, “not a whole lot there.”
“I just wonder why here.”
“Because Ice is here. Because I’m here,” Levi said.
“Still,” Noah said, with a frown, “that’s a long way to come from Australia, without a plan.”
“Oh, he’s got a plan. Now, whether seeing Dianne changed his plan or was a part of it, we don’t know,” he said. “To just run into her in a secluded spot like that, I don’t buy it. Even with this conference being a big international deal, maybe advertised in all countries, even then, how would Maxwell know? His forte is construction, not healthy cooking.”
“I don’t like the whole thing,” Noah said. “I hate it when we have no answers.”
Levi laughed. “Most of the time we don’t have any answers. All we ever have is more questions.”
Noah nodded, and, at that point, with the briefing finished, Levi got up and left. Noah quickly finished his workout, working harder and heavier than he had before, while listening to Levi’s briefing. By the time he was done, it was shower time. He headed up to his room for a quick shower, noting the file on his bed. Dressed again, he dropped off his laundry and headed back down again, this time adding the file to his travel bag.
He walked out to the pool to find Di, sitting up and scrubbing her face. “You want to shower now or back at the hotel?”
She sighed and said, “Back at the hotel would make more sense, since all my things are there.” She got up, leaned over, gave Ice a big hug, and said, “Love you to bits. I’ll see you this weekend.” And, with that, she grabbed up the clothes she’d borrowed from Ice to replace her bloodstained ones from the attack and said, “I’ll just go get changed. Thank you for the loan. I’ll bring these back.”
As Di left, Noah sat down beside Ice. “How’s she doing mentally?” he asked.
“Honestly I think she’s doing pretty well. She’s aware it’s still a highly dangerous situation, but she’s determined to go back.”
He nodded. And they sat in comfortable silence, as he stared around at the gorgeous outdoor spa area that they had built, with beautiful palm trees and plants of all kinds. “You’ve really got yourself an outdoor oasis here.”
“We need it too,” she murmured. “Just so much wrong is in the world, so we need to come home from time to time and regroup and rebuild, mending from the inside out. It takes a soul space to do that.” He nodded.
Just then Di walked out, took one look at the two of them, and said, “I’m ready.”
He hopped to his feet. “Let’s go then.” They walked back through the front hall, where he grabbed his bag and said, “Come on, out to the same truck.”
She frowned. “Do you always just give orders?”
“It’s easier,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “We’ll get on a whole lot better if you just ask.”
“Please, would you get into the truck?” he said very nicely, … too nicely.
“Okay, that’s worse,” she snapped. She hopped up into the truck and slammed the door hard.
He got up into the driver’s side. “Maybe so, but that’s what you asked for.”
“Well, just go back to being an ass then.”
“Perfect,” he said, “that’s much easier.” And, with that, he started up the engine and headed back to town.
Chapter 4
Dianne sat quietly the whole way back to town. Noah looked at her a couple times, and she noticed it, but just sank lower and lower into a fugue, as she got closer to where the attack occurred. When they came up to the parking lot, she stiffened. He reached over, linked his fingers with hers, and gave a gentle squeeze. She was surprised at his understanding and the gentleness of his touch. She sighed. “I didn’t realize how much it would bother me.”
“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t bother you,” he said. “It’s all about the trauma.”
“I didn’t think it would bug me,” she said, with a shake of her head, as she motioned at the car park. “I honestly thought I would just park in a different place, and it would all be fine.”
“Maybe to a certain extent it would be,” he said. “But now you’re thinking about it because y
ou’re not driving, so you’re not focused on everything else.”
“Actually, I think, if I were the driver,” she said, “it would make it even worse.”
He looked at her and then said, “Maybe. Do you want me to park somewhere else?”
“No,” she said, “I want to deal with this and get it over with.”
Just enough firmness in her tone confirmed she was telling the truth. So often people presented this false sense of bravado, just to make sure they could get through something, but she really wanted to try getting through this, even if she failed. She wanted to find a way to get to the other side.
She watched as he pulled in and went up to the second level. As luck would have it, the very same spot she had parked in was open, and he pulled right in.
She sucked in her breath and said, “And, of course, you had to do that.”
“Yep, you said you wanted to get it over with,” he said, with a gentle smile.
She nodded, opened up her side, and hopped out. She looked around at all the vehicles, and many of them were likely different cars and people than when she had been here earlier today. As she had been dealing with her injuries, nobody else had even been aware. Nobody else had even been close to being aware. They had all moved on; whereas she was the one dealing with whatever garbage was still in her head. She shook her head and smiled at Noah, as he walked to the tailgate and looked at her.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just another one of those realizations, you know? That what you think is so important, so major, and so traumatic, but the rest of the world isn’t even aware of—and wouldn’t care about it, if they were.”
“That’s because they’re so struck by what’s important and traumatizing in their own world,” he explained quietly.
“And I get that, and it’s funny because I’m not even thinking about what they’re going through, but I’m automatically assuming they don’t care about me.”
“I think we’re all just human,” he said. “So don’t be so quick to judge yourself or others and just realize that we all do the best we can.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but you have to take a hard look once in a while to see the differences in the world around you.”
