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They’d confessed their love for each other that weekend. Said the words out loud he’d been saying in his head since their first date.
He set the frame back where he found it. It didn’t make any sense. She was the one who’d walked away.
Nathalie would wonder what was taking so long. He took one last backward glance before leaving her office.
He had questions.
Before he left at the end of the week, she’d better bloody well have answers.
Chapter Five
WhatwastakingRyderso long?
Nathalie’s stomach growled. She cast a longing glance at the white paper bag on the passenger seat next to her before checking her phone. Okay, so it had only been five minutes, but it felt more like fifteen.
Was he okay?
She snorted. The Ryder she saw now easily fit the look of a special forces soldier, so if someone were in her home, they’d be on the losing end of any confrontation. Having grown up on Air Force bases around the country, and now working in the defense industry, she’d spent her life surrounded by current and former military men and women. They carried themselves differently than most civilians, especially the ones who had been in combat. There was an attentiveness to their surroundings, a quiet lethality they carried like an aura.
Ryder had that same aura.
My God.Her breath hitched.
The boy who’d been almost painfully shy with a still-waters-run-deep demeanor had probably seen and experienced things she couldn’t even imagine. And didn’t want to.
He could have been killed.
Like Reese.
She never would have known.
“But he didn’t.” She spoke the words out loud so the knife stabbing her heart would get the message. “He’s safe.”
A shadow fell over her. She flinched, her pulse taking off on a run.
Ryder stood next to the SUV. “It’s clear,” he said through the rolled-up window.
She turned off the Suburban’s engine and unlocked the doors. “You startled me.”
Something had changed. His eyes looked colder, his posture rigid.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes.” A lie, if the sharp edge to his reply meant anything. He took the food bag and stood aside to let her climb out of the vehicle. This time, he didn’t offer a helping hand.
“You can set the food on the counter,” she told him once they were inside. She dropped her purse and laptop bag on one of the bar stools at the kitchen center island.
Under normal circumstances, the island was her go-to dinner spot, but the stools were too close to each other, the seating more intimate than she could handle right now. She took two dinner plates down from an upper cabinet and gathered silverware from the drawer.
“Something to drink?” She set two places at her dining room table, across from each other.
“Water, please.”
Of course. He was on the job, wasn’t he? Well, she wasn’t. After pouring him a glass of cold water from the pitcher in her fridge, she took out the open bottle of Pinot Grigio and gave herself a generous pour.
Ryder pulled four white cardboard containers from the bag and opened their tops.
Nathalie took an appreciative sniff of the aromas of hot seared beef and chicken, sesame oil, ginger, soy sauce, and green onions. Her stomach rumbled angrily, reminding her she’d skipped lunch. Again. She added serving spoons, and they carried the containers to the table and sat down to dish out their meals.