Page 23 of Imminent Danger

Tank watched Dave drive away with Kaylie and Lia, wishing he’d been able to convince her to let him take her. Or better yet, to stay here. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight. The woman still had several days of the flu to fight through. The dark circles under her eyes and lack of color in her cheeks didn’t make her any less enticing, though.

He just wanted to take care of her, and the fact that she wouldn’t let him do that was going to drive him crazy. He couldn’t very well kidnap the woman and force her to let him feed her chicken noodle soup while Lia watched Paw Patrol cartoons. But that was exactly what he wanted to do.

Exasperating, headstrong, amazing woman.

He groaned in frustration. How on earth had he fallen for his housekeeper? He’d been the one who made the rules about not having contact. And here he was, buying her cold medicine and making pancakes for an adorable pixie in a princess dress.

Tank lifted his eyes to the sky for a moment, the swirling gray clouds reflecting his own restlessness. Then he groaned again and headed inside. What a mess.

After a morning filled with endless chatter from Lia, the house felt too quiet now. Tank flipped on the TV and turned off the cartoon channel it was still on. The talking heads on the 24-hour news station filled the screen and big block text framed the bottom.

Tank did his best to clean the kitchen as he absently listened to the discussion between the pundits.

“Thank you for coming on, Senator. Senator Rush from South Dakota, everyone. We’ll know more about the defense appropriations bill after the final session next week. Let’s move on to the newest buzz around the capitol, shall we? There is new speculation that President Harrison Coulter may have been involved in the assassination on President Walters.”

Tank growled in disgust. President Coulter hadn’t had jack squat to do with the assassination, other than ordering Black Tower to capture the assassin, despite the forces within the FBI desperate to prevent it. Harrison Coulter was a good man, and Tank hated that his name was constantly smeared in the political landscape.

“After all, who had more to gain from the president’s death than the sitting Vice President–the man who now sits in the Oval Office himself?”

The woman to the left chimed in. “I think anyone making these sort of accusations better have rock solid evidence to back it up. The ramifications of something like this would be unprecedented, Jack. We’re talking bigger than Watergate. You can’t accuse the president of treason.”

“I’m just reporting the news, Louise. But you bring up an interesting–”

Tank rolled his eyes and hit the power button, cutting off the smarmy face of the news anchor. If you could call it news at all.

He glanced around the family room, missing the small traces of Lia that had been here all evening. He settled into his favorite recliner and grabbed his phone, punching Hollywood Dave’s contact info.

Dave answered the phone almost immediately. “I was just about to call you, you impatient brute.”

“Are they home?”

“Safe and sound. The mom doesn’t look too good, though. She’s dead on her feet.”

Tank sighed. “She’s… independent.”

Dave barked a laugh. “The good ones usually are, my friend. It’s like God’s little joke on us. We want them to need us, and they want to do it themselves.”

“I don’t like it,” he grumbled.

He could practically hear his friend’s easy smile through the phone. “It just makes it that much sweeter when they finally trust you.”

Tank wasn’t sure that was ever going to happen. Not with Kaylie. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. And considering her arms were toothpicks and he was built like an NFL linebacker, that was approximately zero.

“You really like this girl.” Hollywood Dave’s words were a statement, not a question, so Tank didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure what to say anyway.

The word ‘like’ seemed… insignificant as a way to declare how he felt about her. But he knew he didn’t have a right to feel any sort of way about Kaylie or her daughter. He was in way too deep with no way out.

“I gotta get to work,” he said instead. He hung up on Dave without waiting for a response, but he could have sworn he heard the retired officer’s laughter as he pulled the phone away from his ear.

Tank had met Dave when they were both in the military, though Dave was older and left the service soon after. He felt an easy camaraderie with Dave, which his friend said was because they shared the same protective instincts. Dave’s had come from growing up in a loving family of seven kids, whereas Tank’s had come from the exact opposite–the only child of a monster who tried to form him into his image.

Dave was also someone most people might initially view as intimidating, but he had the advantage of an easy smile and an extravagant nature. He was a born story-teller and would have a room full of people hanging on his every word. That over-the-top flair for the dramatic was how he’d earned the nickname Hollywood Dave, after all.

Tank’s mind was on Dave’s words as he drove to work. He wanted Kaylie to trust him, even if he knew it was impossible. He didn’t bother showering before he left. His first stop would be the gym. Technically, Tank had let the team at Black Tower know he wouldn’t be at work today, but that was when he’d planned on taking care of Cecelia all day while Kaylie rested. Throwing around heavy things while listening to loud music sounded like the best way to sort out the way her rejection made him feel.

An hour in the state-of-the-art gym in the basement of BTS headquarters left him physically exhausted but no less twisted up emotionally. Not that anyone else would be able to tell. That was one benefit of his “resting murder face.” At least, that was what Hannah had called it. Joey and the team at Black Tower had immediately agreed it was the most accurate term for it.

For the next two days, he didn’t mind his default expression and the mask it provided him. No hint to anyone that the casual text messages he’d sent to the woman who had him tied up in knots had gone unanswered. If it hadn’t been for Hollywood Dave checking on their trailer and reassuring him that they were fine, he would have been concerned. Tank couldn’t fight this desperate need to make sure she was safe. Especially now that he knew about her past.

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