Page 137 of Guarding Grace

Winston nodded. “Fucking A.” It was police sirens approaching and not far away.

“Jordy, we hear sirens,” I said.

Jordy’s voice lost its cool tone. “Hold fast one—shit. You’re blown. Cops incoming, three blocks out.”

I swallowed hard. That wasn’t enough time to get out the door and around the corner.

Grace

Constance wasin my office with me today, and Zane was outside. Lucas had assigned them to be my bodyguards at work. Terry and the others were on the hunt for the case that everybody wanted, which meant finding Rudi Sanchez, if Elliot could be believed.

For purely selfish reasons, I’d wanted Terry to be with me, but Lucas had insisted that Terry knew the city better than Zane, and that was the end of that discussion.

“You really have it bad, don’t you?” Constance asked after I finished my sales spiel over the phone to a new potential client.

“Pardon?” I wasn’t following.

She moved from across the room to the chair in front of my desk. “Yourfeelings for Terry.” She pointed at the compass I had my finger on. I’d played with the tiny thing all during my customer call. It had been a present from Terry this morning.

I sighed. “Surprising, I know. If you’d told me last week how I’d be feeling about him now, I would have laughed my head off.”

“Keep this with you,” Terry had said when he’d placed the compass in my hand. “It’ll help when it comes time to make a decision about Elliot. Always knowing which way was north helped me when I was deployed.”

He’d been referring to the difficult decisions he’d faced as a sniper. Elliot had dug himself one hell of a hole, and I didn’t see a way out of it for him.

Constance nodded. “I’m happy for you. He’s one hell of a good man.”

“That he is.” Smiling, I remembered exactly how good he’d been to me last night and this morning.

“I have to admit,” she continued, “I wasn’t originally in favor of this thing between you two.”

As the woman on the team, I would have thought she’d be supportive. “And now?”

She leaned forward to place a comforting hand on mine. “I’m happy for both of you. My training dictated that we needed to keep emotional distance from our protectees to be objective about risks.”

I nodded.

“But now that he’s not the only one on the case, and I see how happy you’ve made him, I’m rooting for you both.”

“Thank you.” It was more than a blush the way her words warmed me. To hear that she thought I made him happy was a gift.

Terry

“Shit,”Jordy exclaimed. “We’re blown. Some neighbor must have seen you. Cops inbound. Exfil back fence.”

“Roger, exfil back fence.” I turned and pointed to the back of the property. “Cops on the way.”

Winston double-timed to the back door with the case.

I pushed Rudi ahead of me. “We’re going out the back.”

“But there’s a fence,” he complained.

“Simple, we go over it.” The sirens were getting closer.

Winston reached the fence first. “There better not be a dog.” He handed me the case and was over in an instant.

I heard the rip of fabric as he landed, but no barking. I handed the case over the fence to him before hefting Rudi up. “Over you go.” Lucky for both of us, he was on the scrawny side.