Page 12 of Kane (Ghost Ops #4)

Chapter Seven

First they went to the Indian restaurant. Kane ordered chicken vindaloo—spicy—and garlic naan. He’d wondered what Daphne would get, thinking she was probably a chicken tikka masala girl. Mild. Plain naan.

Nope, not at all. She ordered chicken saag, asked for spicy, and her own garlic naan.

Then she proceeded to eat everything as if she hadn’t eaten in two days.

Of course he ate all his food, but he was a big guy and he worked out often.

She didn’t eat all the rice, because there was a lot, but she mopped up sauce with her naan and ate all the chicken.

When she noticed him watching, she arched an eyebrow.

“What?”

“I was wondering where you put it all.”

She frowned at him. “Seriously, Kane? Are you food shaming me?”

“What? No.” He shook his head emphatically. “Of course not. I’m just amazed you’ve got room.”

“I ate yogurt for breakfast and nothing for lunch because I was busy, so I’m hungry now. Also, if you talk to the women you date about how much they’re eating, how the hell are you getting so many of them in bed?” She mopped up more sauce with her naan. “Because that shizz would make me ragey.”

He held up both hands. Daphne was as prickly as a cactus tonight. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be offensive. Just making small talk.”

She finished the bread and smiled at him. “Actually, I know. I’m just razzing you.”

“Brat,” he said, throwing the balled up wad of paper from his straw at her.

She ducked and stuck out her tongue at him. “You missed, old man.”

“Old man? Seriously?” He was only slightly offended. And trying not to think about her tongue and all the places he’d like it.

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. He found himself wishing she’d move those arms lower so that her breasts would be forced upward. Like a pushup bra, but with her arms.

He gave himself a mental shake to clear the image.

“Hey, you insist on calling me a kid, I’m calling you an old man. Or gramps. I kinda like that one, too. Should we tell the salesperson you’re my dad tonight?”

She was roasting his ass over a barrel. He probably deserved it, but shit, he was only trying to protect her.

From him. Keep her from making a mistake.

If he gave in to the tingle of desire he felt every time he looked at her, it wouldn’t turn out well.

No matter what she’d said earlier about meaningless sex and scratching an itch.

“I think we can skip that scenario. How about I just be your friend?”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself, gramps.”

“You’re going to keep busting my balls about this, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” She batted her eyelashes.

He snorted. “Come on, Sunshine. Let’s get moving and find you a car. Before I dump your ass on the side of the road and make Blaze and Emma come get you.”

“Like you’d do that,” she said, standing.

He gathered up their trash and tossed it as they walked out the door.

And then, for reasons he wasn’t certain about, he walked her to the passenger side of the Yukon and opened the door for her.

It wasn’t that he didn’t do things like that when he took a woman out, but she was Daphne and he was determined to keep her in the friend camp. Friends opened their own doors.

She gaped at him, and then smiled and slid into her seat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He started the Yukon and headed into traffic.

Daphne tapped her fingers on the armrest, gazing out the window with her head turned away from him.

He wanted to know what she was thinking about, but he also didn’t want to know.

Would asking her be the kind of thing he’d do with a friend?

Or was it showing too much interest in every little thing she did?

Good lord, he really didn’t know how to be friends with a woman who wasn’t in a relationship with one of his teammates. If Rory or Emma or Callie were sitting there, what would he say?

“You planning on going to the Independence Day celebrations in town?”

She swiveled around to look at him. “Not sure. You?”

“Hadn’t planned on it. I don’t care for big crowds and loud booms all in the same space. Pretty sure the other guys are the same way.”

She nodded. “The fireworks sound too much like gunfire, right?”

“Yep. I’m not wigged out by it or anything. It’s the addition of the crowd. That’s when I start thinking too hard about how easy it’d be for some nut to open fire, and how I’m gonna stop it if so.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Most people don’t. But I do. The guys do.”

“Which is why y’all are so good at the defensive training.

Have you ever thought of hiring more people to work the range and you guys building the self-defense business into something bigger?

You could do survival training, complete with camping trips into the wilderness.

The Bankhead Forest is only an hour away, or you could just disorient them on Monte Sano.

I know there are a lot of people who’d pay good money for that. ”

He could hear the excitement in her voice as she talked. Daphne was the one who’d structured their schedule to allow for more training, and she booked the groups and individuals into the appropriate classes. It’d started as a logical part of the business, but he could see where it could be bigger.

If they were really in business to be in business. If this was a real gig and not a cover.

“It’s a thought, but I don’t think any of us are ready for that yet. We like what we do.”

She seemed to deflate a fraction. “I know. It’s something to think about for the future, maybe.

When you want to grow beyond the range and the consulting.

Don’t get me wrong, the range is a great business.

You could do even more with it, really. But it requires help beyond the seven of us and two part-timers. ”

The seven of us. He always thought of his team as six people, but she was right there were seven. Because she worked at the range every day, too. He liked the way it sounded to include her.

“What kinds of things did you have in mind?”

“You have a beautiful property and two houses on it. Some of the trees are huge and gorgeous. They’d make great backdrops for wedding photography.

You could create an event space that people could rent.

And not just for weddings, but birthdays and one-day business conferences.

Think security presentations with catering and a hundred guests paying a premium to be there.

” She waved her hands around. “It’s a lot, I know, but these things can work. ”

They reached the first car dealer and he found parking before turning to her. “What do you know about event spaces and catering? Is that something you did before?”

Her enthusiasm seemed to fold in on itself.

“I, um, it was just an idea. I read a lot, that’s all.

You have a beautiful property and a lot of potential.

It wouldn’t have to add work for any of you, not if you hired people to oversee that part of the business, to get bookings and arrange for the seating and food. It’s just a thought.”

He couldn’t help but stare at her. Something was prickling inside his brain, tickling the corners, making him think.

Not that he hadn’t wondered about Daphne’s past before, but this was the first time she’d really talked about something in a way that told him she knew what she was talking about.

It was more than reading. She’d been involved in this kind of thing. The event space and catering, that is.

Nothing wrong with that, but the fact she didn’t want to tell him was concerning.

“It’s not a bad thought. Seems like it’d be a lot of work, though.”

“Maybe it would,” she said, her voice smaller than before. “Like I said, it was something I read and then I started thinking about how it could apply to the range. I tend to get carried away sometimes.”

She sounded more apologetic than he liked, and he couldn’t help but touch her arm to reassure her.

The contact with her skin was like a lightning rod to his groin.

He focused on her pretty face, the way strands of her red hair had fallen out of her ponytail and framed her face.

The light smattering of freckles across her nose and under her eyes.

Her pretty, pale green eyes that reminded him of a cool, clear stream in summer that reflected the moss in its depths.

Her lips were full, kissable, and they parted as her eyes met his and held. All he needed to do was lean forward…

He shook himself, took his hand away, and the fog in his brain cleared.

“It’s a good idea. Getting carried away is how all good ideas become reality, don’t you think?

I mean what about the guy who thought the most efficient way to ship a package across town overnight was to actually send it to a hub in another state and then fly it back to be delivered the next day?

Sounds crazy, right? But FedEx works or it wouldn’t still be around. ”

Her smile was soft, and he knew he’d said the right thing. “I hardly think my idea is FedEx, but thanks for not laughing at me.”

“I would never laugh at you, Sunshine. Not for being filled with enthusiasm over ideas.”

Her smile widened. “But you would laugh at me.”

He grinned. “Oh yeah, definitely. Like if you squirt mustard on your shirt when you’re trying to put it on a hotdog, I’m laughing.”

“I don’t like mustard, so guess that one’s out.”

He clutched a hand over his heart. “What? No mustard on your hotdogs? What kind of barbarian are you?”

“I prefer ketchup.”

“Damn, honey, that’s brutal. Ketchup? Here I thought you were civilized.”

“You’d be surprised,” she said, opening her door. “You coming with me or what?”

“Coming.”

She jumped out and shut the door, then walked around to the front of the vehicle to wait for him. He stared at her back, wondering what kind of secrets she carried.

Because it was becoming clearer to him than ever that she was hiding things about her past.