Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(17)
Well…save for that time on the beach…
Grief. Grief. That’d been guided by grief…hadn’t it?
Yes, it most certainly had. Anything else was just too bizarre to consider.
She shook her head. “But…but whenever I start to chatter, you always eyeball me like I’m some sort of bizarre bug that’s just crawled over your shoe.”
Ethan/Ozzie turned a chuckle into a cough and she was reminded they had an audience. Glancing over, she saw the guy try to appear industrious as he waved that black wand-thing over her empty suitcase.
Well whatever. This conversation was far too compelling to worry about something as insignificant as another set of ears listening in.
When she swung her gaze back to Nate, his black eyes were shrewd. “There, you see?” she pointed at his face. “You’re doing it again.”
He sighed heavily and began a thorough examination of his boots. “I don’t mean to. I don’t think you’re a bug at all. I think you’re…” he shook his head and slanted a look at Ethan/Ozzie, who was no longer even trying to pretend he wasn’t listening. The guy was gawking in slack-jawed fascination.
Nate grimaced before he shrugged, seeming to search for the right words. “When you talk, you always sound so happy, so sunny.”
Ali was rooted to the spot, her heart beating a mile a minute while her brains scrambled like breakfast eggs.
Things were definitely getting weird. As if the whole day, nay, the whole past three months, weren’t already redlining her personal bizarre-o-meter, now Nathan “Ghost” Weller was actually being…nice. “I think…I think that might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she admitted slowly.
He shrugged again and she thought maybe there was a slight flush staining his cheeks.
Nate blushing? Forming whole sentences? Actually smiling? Had she missed the warning signs somewhere and been sucked into a parallel dimension? A parallel dimension where Nathan Weller acted like a human being?
“Grigg once told me you rarely spoke, but when you did it was usually something erudite,” she confessed while warily watching to see just what strangeness he might attempt next. “I didn’t believe him then. Now maybe I do.”
His face instantly darkened.
Startled by the swift change, she lifted her brows. “You don’t like to talk about him?”
“Can’t.”
She huffed out a peeved breath. He’d forced the word through a hard set of sawing teeth. “So we’re back to monosyllabic answers?”
He only grunted and she realized they’d gone one step further, back to mere guttural responses.
“Perfect. That’s just perfect,” she hissed through her own set of grinding teeth. She’d thought they were making some sort of progress…
Yeah, what a joke.
She spun around, stomping toward the bathroom to remove her underwear. She wasn’t even going to think about the upcoming humiliation of handing over her dirty panties.
Crapola.
Chapter Four
“Why don’t you start by telling us what brought you here, Ali,” Frank said as the three Knights in residence settled themselves around the conference table. The group was mighty thin, what with Steady in California at some fancy-dancy medical conference while Rock and Wild Bill were away covertly keeping an eye on a bigwig politician during his ill-advised trip to the Sandbox. He wasn’t even going to think about Christian and Mac and that goddamned Mossad agent.
Man, he absolutely hated having so many of his men out at once, especially when he wasn’t with them. It gave him a severe case of nut-shrivel every time because he was used to being in the thick of things, neck deep in reconnaissance or bad guys, not sitting all snuggly warm at a conference table.
But that was the price he paid, he supposed, for running his own crew. And it was a small price indeed when he considered the fact that it was in exchange for choosing which assignments they’d take and more importantly, having the green light to gather Intel and carry out those assignments as they damned well pleased without any input from some desk-surfing, thumb-up-his-butt, pencil pusher in Washington.
Of course, it also meant he had to deal with visitors who strolled into his shop at the most inconvenient times.
And speaking of that inconvenient visitor, Ali Morgan stared at the cup of coffee Patti placed in front of her like it was an unstable nuclear warhead.
Uh-huh. He and the rest of the guys preferred their caffeine able to stand up without benefit of a cup, but it obviously wasn’t for everyone.
Standing, he made his way over to the refrigerator where he removed a can of Coke, popped the top, and set it on the table in front of Ali before claiming her cup of coffee for his own and retaking his seat.
She shot him an oh-god-you’re-my-hero smile right before she chugged down a healthy slug of soda. Wiping the back of her hand over her mouth, she took a deep breath, gathered herself, and blurted, “Someone’s after me.”
Ghost twitched.
That was the only way to describe the subtle tightening of every single one of the man’s muscles.
Well, now, isn’t that interesting?
Frank recognized Ghost’s intensely neutral expression. It was obvious the man was rigidly controlling his responses because he was scared shitless he might give something away. Anything away. Frank could certainly identify with that unfortunate predicament. He found himself in the same situation every goddamned time Becky walked into the room.