Page 40

“Hey, asshole. Don’t give the dog any more food.” That’d been Winters’s line all night long. Too freakin’ bad. He should feed his dog.
“Call me asshole again, the pup gets beans. And Mia told me the dog sleeps next to you.”
Roman sidled up to Cash and joined him in throwing scraps to the dog. “So Nicola drove out with you?”
“Yup.” This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with Roman in front of the guys. Hell, he didn’t want to have it at all. The girl was throwing him an ice-cold shoulder, and he wasn’t at all sure why he cared. Except for the whole maybe he still cared for her thing. But other than that…
“I’ve calmed down about you two back in the day. It was more than what you said? You know. The other night.”
“Yup.” He picked up his beer and drained it. Maybe they were standing too close to the bonfire. He started to sweat a little.
“Huh.” Roman genuinely sounded at a loss for words, which was unlike the guy.
Cash grabbed a fresh beer from the cooler behind them. “You going to ask more questions or something? Or are we done talking about me and her?”
“You two really done?”
Well, shit.If that wasn’t the question, he didn’t know what was. “Not sure I want it to be.”
“Huh.”
Cash cracked half a smile. “Yeah, how about that?”
“Well, then maybe you should do something about boss man leaning into our girl and her giggling. It’s enough to make me sick.”
It didn’t take much of a push. His boots were moving before he realized he was closing in on her. Why? Something to prove? Something to say? Who knew? Maybe he wanted to be closer and make sure no one thought she was a free agent. But then again, she was. Shit, he had no claims to her. Even if there was a flicker of interest in her eyes.
What he felt was more than a flicker. Too bad he still couldn’t catch his breath.
He walked up as Jared said his goodbye. “What’s up with you and boss man?”
“Shop talk.”
“Great.” His brows furrowed. Not what he wanted to hear, but it was better than Jared throwing lines, ’cause he’d have to throw punches. It wouldn’t be good for his employee review. Well, if they had things like that. “What would you do if life hadn’t pushed you toward the CIA?”
“What do you mean?”
He perched beside her on the tailgate. “Like, if you finished studying linguistics in college. Maybe you’d be a teacher or something? A professional translator?”
She laughed, a beautiful sound that churned his guts. “What’s funny?”
“Cash, I’d be here. Doing the same thing.”
“No—”
“Yeah, I would. I love this. I’m good at it. There’s nothing else I want to do.”
She was almost finished with the beer Jared’d brought her. He should’ve done something smart like that.
“But you’re—I don’t know—home, for lack of a better word.”
“I wasn’t lost. I’m not the prodigal daughter returned.”
“But you’re—”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d be doing the same thing, whether I stumbled upon you and Roman or not.”
“Why didn’t you call us? Once you knew everything was okay? I mean, come on, you live so damn close. Why not—”