Page 17 of Stay Close
CHAPTER 6
Lucas
Edie drifts off tosleep as I steer the car over the hills into Handsel. Reaching into the back seat of the car, I pull a lap blanket forward and shake it out over her as she emits a tiny snore. A smile shapes my mouth. Don’t get soft, Lucas. Having videos of myself pop up all over the internet wounded my reputation as a veteran protection officer. Actually developing a crush on my client will send it into an early grave.
Traffic is heavy at this hour, and I’m in no hurry to return to the palace, so I let Edie sleep, taking surface streets, tooling through quiet neighborhoods. Lights slide over my hands and her face.
The car slows, and I realize I’ve lifted my foot off the accelerator. With a shake of my head, I discipline my thoughts. They get away from me.
Dinner was good. I asked her about the lipstick, mostly to divert her attention from my activities in Seong. I recognized the tube as an expensive brand used by a former client.
“That lipstick,” she laughed. “I’m seriously horrified by how much it cost. I broke out in a sweat before I bought it, sitting in the parking lot for twenty minutes and plucking up the courage just to go into the store. They light those places up like a crime scene. Tiny bottles everywhere, sales clerks who look like they’re doing everything right. I should have been experimenting with cheap drugstore foundation when I was a teenager, but I didn’t see the point.”
She bit her lip while she made this confession, and my heart turned over. In my line of work, I meet people who don’t trust easily. Usually, I’m treated like the hired help.
“Just because you throw up before the game doesn’t mean you don’t belong on the field.” There’s never a bad time for a SEC football analogy, but mostly I said it to make her laugh.
We talked about D.C. About the cicadas and the cherry blossoms. She told me her favorite Smithsonian is the National Portrait Gallery. I told her mine is the Natural History Museum.
The more I think about it, the more it sounds like it was a date.
I glance over her sleeping figure, turning up the long sweep to the palace.
It wasn’t a date. A meal that could go on her expense account or mine definitely wasn’t a date.
Edie wakes when I roll down the window and flash my security badge at the gate, the guard shining a light over the passenger seat. Her transformation is abrupt. In one second, she goes from drowsy and sleep-tousled to the picture of an international lawyer, sitting primly next to her security detail.
Clear of the security stop, she stretches, arching her back and pushing her fist under my nose. I capture it, and she retracts her hand with a murmured apology.
I’m not sorry. A client has to trust her protection officer, and we’re building that. I try to strongarm all these feelings into a box. If she can be herself around me, it’s good for the job.
I idle the car under a side entrance, protected from the cold drizzle by the high, brightly-lit portico. “It’s been a long day,” I say, trying not to look at her any more than I have to. “You’ll want to rest.”
She wraps her arms around her stomach in a gesture I recognize. The fear and anxiety of the day is catching up. “I’ve been resting.”
“Relax, then. Go do whatever it is you do for relaxation.”
Her brow furrows. “Yes. Relaxation.”
Something about the confused, shifty look she gets in her eyes has me following up with a question. Maybe it even sounds professional. “What will you be doing?”
She looks like a deer in the headlights, and I’m filled with the certainty that I’m about to be lied to.
“I’ll watch something on TV.”
“Like what?”
“A baking show.” But the end is pitched up slightly, gauging whether I’m buying this.
I am not buying this. Edie’s going to sit and stew for the next several hours if she can’t get out of her head.
“I love baking shows,” I say. I don’t love baking shows. Mom didn’t become the Cookie Queen of West Texas without our house being inundated with flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. I don’t see the point of watching something I used to see for free every day of the week. “We should watch it together.”
It’s the only way to be sure she really will.
A line forms between her brows as she considers her next move. “I could just go to sleep again.”
For the good mental health of my client, I ignore that obvious gambit. “I’ll change and bring some snacks.”
