With a half-filled glass of iced tea in hand, I stood at the counter and watched Megan listen to Meli out on the back deck. The two women sat on the oversized patio furniture surrounding the stone fire-pit table, holding court. The setting sun picked up the subtle reds in Megan’s dark hair while streaking Meli’s natural red hair with hints of gold. Now that Meli wasn’t hiding from an asshole stalker, not only was her hair back to its natural coloring, but the dark bruises under her eyes were history as well. As for Megan, the lines of stress from earlier had eased. Meli’s interruption was well timed, and I was grateful for it. Once she joined us, any further discussion of Megan’s possible psychic ability was put aside.
As anticipated, once Meli was introduced to Megan, it wasn’t long before they clicked, and an invitation to dinner soon followed. The move was pure Meli, whose last job had been running a B and B outside of Vegas. Taking care of others and making them comfortable was part and parcel of Wolf’s woman. She was working her magic on Megan, who was currently smiling at something Meli said. I had no idea what they were talking about, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to interrupt.
“What did Rabbit say?” Wolf put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher.
Not keen on being overheard, I turned away from the open patio door and kept my voice low. “Let’s hit your office.” I drained the last of my iced tea and brought the glass to the sink as Wolf dried his hands and tucked the hand towel back on the oven’s handle. I hid a smirk at his highly domesticated habit.
Picking up on either my expression or my thought, he muttered, “Fuck you.”
I followed him down the hall to his office. “Just saying, this playing-house thing suits you.”
“You know, Bishop…” He stalked down the hall to his office and stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. He turned to me. “You make that green look good.”
“That’s not jealousy, brother. That’s me OD’ing on the hearts-and-flowers bliss you’re emanating.”
“Right.” He pushed the door open and waved me to one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. “How much you got on the pool?”
At the mention of the team’s bet on when Wolf would officially make Meli his, I chuckled. “Because I have your back, I’ve refrained from placing my bet.” Grinning at his disbelieving snort, I added, “Besides, it would be like taking candy from wailing babies.”
He took the other chair and eyed me. “You wait until it’s your turn.”
An image of Megan’s face popped into my mind, but I gently pushed it aside. I sat back, stretched my legs out, and crossed them at the ankles as I dropped my head to the back of the chair, my eyes closing as the day’s events caught up with me. “Going to be waiting a long damn time.”
“You sure about that?”
The level of seriousness in his voice had me opening my eyes and angling my chin down to find him studying me. “You know something that I don’t?”
“I watched you with her.”
I braced myself and bit out, “And?”
“And she’s getting under your skin.”
A flare of resentment rose, but I held it back. Wolf didn’t say shit just to hear his own voice. He was understandably worried about Megan and her role in whatever was swirling around us. I got it, but… “I’ve got it under control.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
His constant questions were pissing me off. “Yeah, I am.” When he didn’t back down, I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you pushing this?”
“Because I get the impression you’re considering something you probably shouldn’t.”
Like getting involved with a woman who could be an unintended enemy? Not ready to examine the surprising pinch of truth, I focused on more important things. “I know what I’m doing.” As a comeback, it sucked ass, but it was all I could muster.
Wolf’s lips twitched, but fortunately, he switched topics. “So, this almost hit-and-run. Was it deliberate?”
Since it was just the two of us, I gave him the truth. “Yeah.”
His face darkened. “Shit.”
“Yep.”
“What did Rabbit say?”
Taking the reprieve from talking about my personal life, I closed my eyes and shared. “Found the car.”
“Stolen?”
“Yep. Even better, about an hour after it tore out of the garage, it was found abandoned and torched in a vacant lot.”
“So, no way to identify the who or why behind this?”
I opened my eyes and stared unseeing at the ceiling as some of the pieces fell neatly into place. The who might not have a name yet, but it was easy enough to guess—that looming menace that hovered around the colonel. It was too damn bad my psychic premonition hadn’t come with a face or a name. But the whys worried me most. They had more holes than Swiss cheese.
“The who may be simpler than the why,” I said.
“How so?”
“It’s someone close to Delacourt.”
Wolf’s tone sharpened. “Did you tell her that?”
“Hell no.”
“Why not?”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“She’d take it if you offered it,” Wolf said.
Digging my heels into the carpet, I braced my arms on my thighs and leaned forward. “Yeah, she would, but then what? If I tell her it’s someone close to her, she’ll give herself away eventually, and any advantage we had would be lost.”
“You’re leaving her blind?” Wolf mimicked me, leaning forward, and when I didn’t answer, he rubbed his face. “Delacourt’s not going to be happy when she finds out.” He met my gaze and grimaced. “And she will, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” Navigating this treacherous game required maintaining what advantages I could, including keeping the colonel in the dark about certain things.
Wolf had been my friend for years and could follow my logic like no one else, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “You think whoever had Megan is still hunting her.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it. I know it.” I emphasized the word to make my point. My ability, that innate sense of knowing things, wasn’t an easy one to categorize, but it was enough to let me know that, much like the colonel, Megan was far from safe. She was being used, and whoever was pulling her strings was far from done.
“Are they part of Falcon?”
I nodded.
Wolf looked away for a minute, and when his gaze came back to me, it carried a cool calculation. “If they’re trying to take her out—”
“It’s because she knows something, and they don’t want to risk her remembering whatever it is she’s hidden.”
His head tilted, and his eyes narrowed. “You knew what I would find when I took her under.”
Sometimes it sucked having someone who knew you so well. As this was Wolf, the brother who always had my back, I shared information that I should have given Megan first. “Yeah. I was hoping I was wrong, but…”
“You’re never wrong.”
Not about things like this. I dragged my hands over my face and blew out a breath. “I didn’t know what ability they might have triggered.” But I had my suspicions, and spending time with Megan only strengthened them.
“You just knew she had one.” Wolf waited for my nod before continuing, “If she’s a dream-walker, she’s dangerous not just to us but to herself.”
He wasn’t wrong. Ricochet never shared much about what he could do, but he’d been part of the team long enough for me to see it in action. Navigating the dreamworld was more than tricky—it was downright lethal. “I know, which is why you still need to bring Rico in, because I don’t have a damn clue about how to break whatever it is she’s got going on.” I also didn’t like the fact that she was linked to an unknown in the first damn place—the same unknown who was stalking the colonel. It didn’t leave me with the warm fuzzies. And because we didn’t know who controlled the link to Megan’s dreams, the situation was dangerous.
Following my train of thought, Wolf muttered, “God, I feel sorry for her.”
“Don’t,” I said sharply. It was a knee-jerk response. Shaking my head, I held Wolf’s gaze. “Don’t. She’s a hell of a lot stronger than anyone, including she, realizes.”
Wolf studied me for a long moment. “For her sake, I hope you’re right, because she’s going to need a core of steel to get to the other side.”
Fortunately, Megan’s spine was a titanium rod. “She came to Delacourt, worried she was being used as a sleeper agent. Even knowing that what she shared might make us send her back to the damn hospital, she came. She didn’t try to handle it on her own. She knew she needed help, and she sought it out. Tell me, how many people do we know that would do that?” I needed to make Wolf understand that there was a hell of a lot more to Megan than met the eye.
His gaze took on a knowing glint. “I’m not Risia, but there’s no doubt you’re choosing a hell of a rocky path, brother.”
Again, he wasn’t wrong, because if anyone knew what the possible fallout scenarios were, it was me. Threat or not, there was one thing I was certain of—the only one dealing with Megan would be me. I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Whatever faint humor his face had held disappeared, replaced by a grim seriousness. “Just watch your step, because I’m not keen on watching you fall off that cliff you’re perched on.”