Page 12 of Shadow Games

Rowan's eyes went wide and she swallowed heavily, then nodded. “I have documentation of all the shady shit Ken was into before he died. I dropped a copy of what I had off to my lawyer.”

Wyatt winced. Did she even know that the man was dead? “Carmichael?” he asked.

“Yes, why?” she asked carefully.

“They took him out,” he said simply.

Tears filled her eyes. “I know. They're fucking assholes.”

He agreed completely. “Well, I took out three of them in the school, if that makes you feel better.”

She nodded. But she didn't lift her head. “Can you excuse me?” she said, slipping out of the booth.

4

Rowan felt sick to her stomach. The man who had helped her over the past year, fighting for her divorce, was dead. Carmichael had been a decent man. Now he left a little girl fatherless and a woman a widow.

The cartels were assholes. And the Navy were assholes. The DEA were assholes. They all wanted to be on top, no matter who it hurt.

She slipped into the bathroom stall and did her business, then came out to wash her hands. The mirror above the sink was unforgiving. Dark circles rimmed her eyes. Her hair was a mop, even though she’d brushed it. But she just didn't care. So much had happened in the past week.

When she had first seen Wyatt, she'd thought he was there to kill her. Ken had told her that Wyatt had gone private, taking jobs only for money. When she'd asked what that meant, he'd given her a lazy smile.Killing people for money, baby. She could still remember the abhorrence she'd felt for the words. Wyatt wasn't like that. Yes, it had been a while since she’d seen him, but she knew what kind of moral standard he had.

That first moment when she'd seen him, though, the doubts had gotten the best of her. She had no idea what Navy SEALs could do after they were washed out of the Navy. Maybe hehadtaken a job doing what he knew…

It took her a moment to even recognize him. Last time she’d seen him, he’d had shorter dark brown, almost black hair, and a short scruff of beard. Now his hair was down over his collar, and it was a lighter, nut brown, like he’d been in the sun a lot, and his beard was at least three inches long. However, the intense, penetrating blue stare was the same. It made her feel like he saw everything. His hands, long-fingered and sure, seemed stronger now, his palms square with muscle. Everything else seemed to be the same. He towered over her, like most men did, but the way he did it made her feel protected. Maybe it was the way he bent his head to her or something. She wasn’t sure.

Rowan washed her hands, then used some of the cold water to splash her face. She was so tired of this sick feeling in her stomach. She'd given Carmichael a thumbdrive of recordings of Ken. Rambling and drunken rages. The man had been a super soldier, but his weakness had been his ego. Get a little liquor into him and he would tell her anything. The recordings were to be used as leverage to get him to sign the divorce papers. If he'd sign the papers and let her go without a fuss, she never would have brought them to light.

Actually, she probably would have, just not at that moment.

She’d also given her attorney pictures of Ken’s logbook. It was the book he’d made notes in about who he was doing business with, who he’d paid off, who he’d cut ties with… All listed in his nearly illegible scrawl on the pages of the book. She’d only gotten pictures of the first part of the book before she’d been interrupted and had to scramble to put it back on the nightstand where she’d found it one day.

A chill raced over her. Someone had made him pay for all those misdeeds. She assumed it had been the cartels, but it was hard to tell with Ken. He tended to piss lot of people off.

Scrubbing her teeth with a finger, she tucked some hair behind her ear. Wyatt had done a good job picking out clothes for her, and they fit okay, though they were scratchy. If she needed to run, she would be able to do it. She left the restroom and went back to the booth.

Wyatt was chatting up the server. The woman was grinning and nodding with animation. She looked a little disheartened as Rowan took her spot on the bench.

Wyatt looked at her and smiled. Rowan was struck again with how good he looked right then, kind of wild and wooly, but handsome. No wonder the server was looking at him, a little starstruck.

Rowan could remember the first time she'd met him. It had been at a backyard cookout and she was on Ken’s arm. She shouldn't have even thought about any other man, but Wyatt had drawn her gaze over and over again. At the time she'd been ashamed, because Ken seemed to be a great guy. She'd had no business wanting more.

“Rowan. What do you want to eat?”

She snapped back to the present. “Give me an omelet with mushrooms and ham and cheese.”

“Will do,” the server said happily.

“Are you okay,” Wyatt asked her.

“I'm fine,” she answered automatically. “Just trying to find my bearings.”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that. We have to talk about some things, though.”

Rowan looked up at him, her heart hurting. “Like?”

“Like whatever you dropped off at the lawyer, we have to now assume is in the hands of the cartel.

---