Sitting in my office on Saturday evening, left leg propped up on two of Deacon’s boxes, I sorted through the retired agent’s files. I only loosely thought of them as “files.” The man had been a packrat. He had notes written down on fast food bags and the paper placemats filled with advertising that smaller diners used. The scuttlebutt recorded didn’t always have geographical notations. I figured the location likely coordinated to the area around the relevant diner or burger joint, so I made piles for each establishment.
Deacon’s wife, still distressed by the heavy toll of the job on her husband, had told me to burn everything for all she cared. Moske had told me to shred it—that any useful information would already be in the official files since Deacon had no open cases or trials at the time of his stroke.
I couldn’t bring myself to do either. Deacon couldn’t talk for himself yet. He might never be able to talk for himself again. But I would hold onto all of it until Moske forced me to take action. In the meantime, what wasn’t a recordable lead last year might be worth something this year, especially where Willow Gap was concerned.
Placed atop a stack of McDonald’s bags, my phone vibrated, its unsteady support threatening to dump it onto the floor. I snatched the phone up and answered without looking at the caller.
“Agent Callahan.”
Walker’s voice came through smooth and mellow. “Hello, Agent Callahan.”
“Oh, hey…” I fumbled with the phone, accidentally scattering the bags. “Sorry if I gave you the brush off yesterday.”
I must have picked up my cell a dozen or more times in the six hours I’d been in the office, all with the intent to call Walker Turk. I just didn’t know what to say after the curt text replies I’d sent on my way back to Billings the night before.
“If?” he teased before immediately offering me an exculpation. “You had a lot to think about with the packs gone and the timing of their disappearance.”
“Yeah.” I growled at how convenient the timing was. Sure, it could be coincidence—or our Wednesday scouting trip with the drone could have spooked the people who placed the packs. Either way, I couldn’t get it out of my head how Moske had delayed me a day and given me next to no resources to check things out.
“Sorry,” I sighed. “I’m not handling things well.”
“So Moske shut it down?”
“For now,” I answered, knowing, as far as my boss was concerned, the investigation was shut down for good.
“Did he take your intern back, too?”
“No.” The first grin since my discovery of the packs being removed skimmed my face. “I didn’t mention Thomas yet. But I sent him home for the weekend.”
“I see,” Walker answered, a delicious note of speculation warming his voice. “So you’re not going to be out in the field the rest of this weekend?”
“No,” I agreed, a little breathlessly, thankful that he was willing to move past my shutting him out the day before after all the help he had already given.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “For yesterday. I really was being a pouty brat and you have gone above and beyond to be helpful.”
Walker chuckled, the sound rippling down my spine so that I was hot and cold all at once.
“Happy to serve,” he said.
I sucked my bottom lip in, brows lifting as I imagined other ways he might serve. Finding him in a forgiving mood, I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about the times we had kissed.
“So,” he started, his voice changing tack to something a little more formal. “Mama wants you to come to dinner tomorrow. I am, of course, volunteering to pick you up and return you home.”
I didn’t need but a blink to consider the offer. Lindy’s amazing cooking was its own reward, but I would also have three hours in the vehicle with Walker, talking, maybe holding his hand or delivering a casual brush to his leg, all the while bathing in his scent and that deep rumbling baritone. Later, when he returned me to my doorstep—well, anything could happen at that point.
“I’d love to,” I answered. “Just tell me what time you’ll be there and the dress code.”
Walker’s first response sounded like the purr of a mountain lion. All the way until he gave me a real answer, I imagined him making that sound again, his lips against my ear, the two of us curled up on my bed with no dress code.
“We’re pretty casual,” he said. “No shorts or flip flops at the dinner table. No work boots.”
He paused, voice dropping a few decibels. “Skirts are always nice.”
“Okay,” I rasped before quickly recovering with a joke. “But I’m not sure how I’m going to like seeing you in a skirt.”
“Careful, Agent Callahan,” Walker purred. “The Turks may be Irish, but Mama has more than a few Scots in her family tree. It’s been a while since she opened up her heirlooms chest, but I seem to recall an actual kilt in there.”
Warm blood infused my torso at the idea of Walker Turk shirtless and wearing a kilt with nothing on beneath to cover the big cock he had swinging between his legs.
Opening my mouth to shoot back a reply, all I could do was cough.
“I thought so,” he laughed. “I’ll pick you up at two-forty-five. That’ll give you about half an hour to mingle with the family before dinner is on the table.”
Right, the family, its scope nearly overwhelming for an only child like me. So far I had met Lindy, Siobhan, Leah, Sutton, and Emerson. I had heard of Adler and his new wife, another brother by the name of Barrett, and Leah’s father Jake. There were no other siblings—still alive. But there were more cousins, an uncle and his wife. And I had seen the dinner table, the one in the long dining hall with its wide fireplace and a family tree etched on copper leaves that extended from about a foot above the mantle up to a few feet short of the ceiling on a two-story room.
“Who…uh…how many?”
“A lot, but they’ll love you,” he promised. “Every last one.”
I drew a breath in and held it.
Love me? What was that about?
“Everyone has been so kind,” I said after a second’s delay. I felt like a broken record or one of those antique tin toys that, for a penny, would perform an act over and over. Like bowing and incessantly repeating “so kind, so kind.”
“Two-forty-five,” he repeated. “I’ll leave my kilt at home.”