Page 65 of S.O.S. Mizzay

Andy shrugged. “Condo’s maybe? Townhouses?”

Cobble posed a question. “I’m not remotely interested inapartmentliving,” he speculated, “but if his plan is for multi-story townhouses with small yards, what would you think about an end unit?”

Andy blinked up at him. “Seriously? I thought you’d want a place in the burbs where you could have a big vegetable garden and some dogs.”

Cobble grinned. “I might have been daydreaming a little while you had your meeting, and because of where my mind went, I got busy on-line. Did you know that just seven miles south of here there’s a farm that lets people lease their own plots of land to work? Any size? I’d be down with something remote for a crop.” He reached a hand out and swept it across the ocean vista. “Especially if we have this view. And what better place to have dogs, than here?”

Andy snorted. “Do you know how many baths we’d have to give them after they swim in the salt water and roll in mud-flats?”

Cobble wasn’t deterred. “So, we’ll get your friend Tucker to put an outside shower on our unit. Does he like dogs? Will he be easy to convince?”

Andy laughed. “Tuck’s got a grouchy old bulldog named Jeb whom he adores. I’m sure we can talk him into letting us have a mutt.”

“Apairof mutts,” Cobble corrected mischievously.

He wasn’t completely set on the number of animals he might want, but it was so much fun speculating about the minutia of their future.

Cobble hadn’t had a chance to muse like this—about what was to come—in averylong time.

He wasn’t going to miss out on that now, because…

What if things went sideways with the op they were planning?

Yup. He’d let his imagination run rampant on his future with Andy.

He’d be able to dream at least for a day or two more.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Monday morning came around too fast. Why was it that those weeks she wasn’t with Cobble dragged, and the time they spent together flew by.

Andy couldn’t wait for that chapter of their lives to be over.

Her phone next to the bed rang.

“It’s done,” Smalley told her as she picked up. She and Cobble lay sprawled on Cobble’s large king mattress. She put Chuck on speaker.

“Cobble is listening in,” she warned him, in case he had something to say that might be confidential. Not that she didn’t trust Cobble with her life, but he didn’t need intel that might put him in more danger. “Does that mean Tertia’s been fired and stashed in a cell?” Andy wanted confirmation. “And was it done loudly?”

“She is, and it was,” Chuck laughed, albeit wryly, and that was rare for Chuck. He was normally very buttoned up. It sounded like he was coming around on things.

“Cool,” Andy snorted. “The bosses are damned good at that kind of shit.” She couldn’t help but remember when Director Baskins had canned her ass; making it so the entire eastern seaboard could hear.

“Yup,” Chuck agreed. “He’s an efficient bastard. And in that regard, the next step is already in the works. He’s called an emergency meeting for two o-clock,” Smalley told her. “This time it’ll be the group from last Friday, but with the addition of our five, prime suspects.”

Andy could almost see him rubbing his hands together in glee.

Yup.There was nothing Chuck loved more than a good sting. The thought had obviously mellowed his negative feelings.

“I can’t wait to see their faces when I make an appearance and they find out I’ve been the one keeping Cobble hidden all this time,” Andy told him gleefully.

“That should be pretty epic,” Smalley agreed. “Especially since the rest of us will all be watching closely to see their reactions.”

Not that the perusal would probably amount to anything. Whoever the rotten apple or apples were in the agencies’ barrels, they’d been damned good at keeping themselves outwardly shiny for years. Andy’s guess was that they wouldn’t betray so much as a flicker of what actually lay beneath their skin, even when plucked off a tangled vine they’d clung to, for years.

“If you make inroads into anything when you see their faces, you’re a better agent than me,” Andy allowed. “I’ve studied them for a long fucking time, and have never come up with a thing.”

“Well, it’ll be a nice change if I can out them, because to date, I feel like I haven’t been much help,” Smalley admitted.

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