Page 9 of Watch Over Me

At some point during the course of the afternoon, he even got to talk with his own family members. Rebecca was the hardest to get a hold of, which was understandable, but she finally seemed to need a break from charming the crowd with subtle promises of changes she envisioned.

They were out on the backyard patio now, where she'd found him lounging in a chair, a bottle of wine he'd snipped from the kitchen half-hidden behind his seat. She sat down on the other chair and handed him her empty glass, which he dutifully filled.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Good, I'm good." She took a sip of the wine and sighed, relaxing into the chair more and tossing her hair back. Theyboth had gotten the Baileys' blond curls in the genetic shakeup, but hers were long and much more impressive. His were mostly falling into his eyes if he didn't reign them in properly. "I'm keeping busy."

"I can see that," he told her with a smile, so she knew he was teasing. "Quite the crowd in there for a small gathering."

"You know how they get. A family dinner can become a catered event, which means that a small gathering of friends and family…" She waved towards the house. "It's good, though. I need those connections if I want this to work."

And do you want it?Eddie wondered, but then answered his own question right away:Yes.Yes, she did. Rebecca had always dreamed of following in their mother's footsteps.

"You seemed to be making some headway in there," he offered. And it was the truth—quite a few people had mentioned to him they were excited to see Rebecca in the House of Representatives and beyond.

"This is a soft start." She stared ahead. "These are people who are supposedly on my side already. The real challenge will be convincing others."

Eddie nodded. He'd heard a lot about political strategies over the years, and how it all worked on different stages of the campaign and during a term, if one was lucky enough to get elected.

"You like challenges," he said, and she grinned.

"I love them."

And that was every member of the Bailey family in a nutshell, except for Eddie. They all liked the challenge, the rush, the calculated danger of going out there for what they wanted.

Meanwhile, Eddie liked his computers and his job, he had no desire to be in a spotlight, and he got all the adrenaline he wanted from making sure the field teams were as safe as possible. He wasn't even brave enough to ask his crush out on adate, leaving it all up to James.

If Eddie didn't look like a leaner copy of his father with his mother's eyes, there would be some difficult discussions to be had at the family dinner table.

"And how about you?" Rebecca asked after another sip of her wine. "How are you?"

"I'm good," he told her, glad he could be honest about it. "Same old, same old, but I like the old," he added with a smile and toasted her with his glass.

"How long have you been working there? Three years? Four?"

"Close to four."

As Rebecca tilted her head, Eddie's stomach clenched, already anticipating what came next.

"Isn't IT the field where you're supposed to change jobs often?" she asked, well-meaning, he was sure, but still delivering a hit.

He shrugged. "If you find something better, I suppose. I haven't."

"Did you try?"

Eddie drained the rest of his wine.

"No, because there's no better. There were companies that reached out to me, but I wasn't interested. I'm good where I am."

"There's a bunch of security companies in this town alone, not to mention outside of it. If that's what interests you—"

"Rebecca," he cut her off as he sat up straight. "You're not listening to me. I'm good where I am. I love my job, and I don't want or need to search for a new one. Staying put in KRK, which is a well-respected and highly sought-after company, by the way, is the best I can do for myself."

She raised her hands in a peaceful gesture and lifted her eyebrows, clearly surprised by his reaction.

As if he had no reason to feel attacked.

Or maybe she was surprised he defended himself like that, which,ouch. But Eddie didn't want to get into it now, so he pushed it away and sagged in his chair again, staring ahead.

---