Page 34 of Knox's Mission

“Yellowstone,” he responded.

“Wyoming?” she asked. “I thought you hated the cold.”

“Still do,” he said.

“How did you end up there?” she continued, knowing he could close up at any moment. This might be her only chance to learn more about who Knox had become in the years since he’d been away from Texas.

“Rehab,” he said, clenching his jaw. “Trying to get these old body parts to work again.”

“You are old,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood.

“Told you so,” he quipped. The break in tension was a nice change of pace.

“Ancient really,” she continued.

“Too old for you,” he shot back.

“Exactly,” she agreed. “I don’t want to be changing your adult diapers in a few years.”

“Damn,” he said, like he was offended. “That one cuts a little deep.”

“Truth hurts,” she said with a light elbow jab to his ribcage. This seemed like a good time to remind herself about the local woman who’d left his hut yesterday. He’d said nothing was going on between them, but why wouldn’t she look Amy in the eyes if that was true? Something had been going on. She’d been crying. Had he broken it off? Told her that they would never be a thing? Had she been waiting—much like Amy in some ways—for him to return? And then what? Sweep her off her feet like in some fairy tale version of life?

Last Amy checked, fantasy was for books and movies. The real world didn’t work out the same. Maybe it was time to stop measuring every man she met against Knox. Open her heart to someone? Because going back to Texas and living alone had never felt so empty.

“What about you?” Knox turned the tables.

“What do you want to know?”

“Do you still live in Texas?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I work at a bar to make enough money to pay bills and buy expensive waterproof, windproof camera equipment.” The last part was a little too real to be funny. “Thought the bar work would be temporary but here I am, still doing it.”

“Sounds flexible,” he reasoned. “Not that I think you should be working in a bar, walking to your caralone at night in a dark parking lot that could have drunk men on the prowl.”

“We have a bouncer who always sticks around late on his own time to walk us to our vehicles,” she said.

“I don’t like it,” he practically growled. She could feel the rumble in his chest. “Garrett wouldn’t approve of his baby sister in that setting.”

“First of all, I’m not a baby,” she felt the need to point out.

“No, you’re not,” he said before she could continue. “You’re a stunningly beautiful woman, which is precisely my point.”

“I doubt Garrett looked at me that way,” she said.

“No, but he wasn’t blind,” Knox stated. “Did he know about the bar?”

“No,” she admitted, her cheeks heating with embarrassment that she’d deceived her brother because she absolutely knew he wouldn’t approve. “I added a few letters.”

“Bar-ista,” he figured out.

“Exactly,” she said. “Which I was, of sorts.”

“Bullshit,” he said, masked through a cough.

“Okay, fine,” she said. “Garrett would not have approved, so I didn’t tell him. It wasn’t like he was coming home all the time to check up on me and I’m a grown-ass woman, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said quickly. “It’s impossible notto.” The comment was surely meant to qualify the first but, in fact, dug a deeper hole.

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