Page 37 of Beautifully Broken Control

“Thanks, Cain.” Jensen looked as if she were fighting the urge to hug me again. “You’re a good man.”

Her words seared my skin, but I said nothing. She shook her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I buckled down and got to work, doing everything I could to push the lingering memories from my mind. I focused on wires and sensors. There was so much out of my control, but giving Kennedy a safe home was something I could do, paying things forward just a bit.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I gave the screen a quick glance. “Hale.”

“It’s Jake.”

His tone told me all I needed to know. “What’s wrong?”

“We lost the Criterion account to Raider.”

I sucked in air. They weren’t one of our biggest, but it was still a blow. “What did they say?”

“They’re making cutbacks, and another company offered tech and software similar to ours at a more affordable price.”

My grip on my phone tightened. “Were you able to figure out the price break?”

“Twenty percent less than our starting packages.”

It didn’t add up. Either Raider was cutting corners on their equipment, or they were paying their employees next to nothing. Unless they had succeeded in getting their hands on some of our software. If they’d stolen that and didn’t have to pay anyone to develop their own, they just might be able to offer those prices. “I want a full diagnostic on our systems.”

“What? Why? What we need is a game plan to make some cuts so we can compete with Raider’s pricing structure.”

I began packing up the last of my gear on the floor. “Run the diagnostic. I’m almost positive they got in and stole some software. Tell Pete I want a report in an hour. Call my cell.”

“Fine. But we need to discuss a game plan.”

We needed a game plan, all right, but I wouldn’t be discussing it with him. For all I knew, he or someone else in-house could’ve given someone a back door into our system. Anyone on the alpha team could have. Right now, there wasn’t a single person at my own damn company that I could trust.

13

Kennedy

Late.I was so freaking late. And it was all Cain Hale’s fault. It had been years since I’d been that frustrated with someone. The more space I got from my outburst, the more I wondered if I’d overreacted. But second-guessing myself just pissed me off more.

I had started over. And the gift of erasing my past, of being a blank canvas, was that I got to decide what my life looked like. I got to choose whether I drove a car or rode a bike or…hell, if I trained a donkey and trotted all over town. It was my choice, and mine alone.

I drew up short as I entered the rec room space of the shelter. Lizzie was sitting on a chair, her back to Cain, legs swinging. She chatted up a storm as he braided her hair. And it wasn’t an awkward, uneven design either. He was weaving her hair into two intricate French braids without a single strand out of place.

What the heck?Nothing about this man added up. And yet again, I had to swallow my judgmental assumptions.

I slowly walked towards the duo, listening as Lizzie recounted the trip to a farm her preschool had taken that day. “They hadthreepigs and more chickens than I could count. There were horses, and I reeeeeally wanted to ride one, but my teacher said no because I didn’t have pah-mission.”

Cain nodded along with her chatter. “I would’ve wanted to ride one, too.”

Lizzie gave a little jolt in her chair, twisting to face him. “Maybe we can find a horse to ride together!”

Cain expertly followed her jerky motions, moving his hands so there was no pull on her hair, but he didn’t lose his hold on her braid either. “I think that sounds like a great plan. I’ll see what I can find.” He tied a bright pink rubber band around her pigtail.

“Kennie!” Lizzie leaped up and ran straight for me.

The collision knocked me back a step and startled a laugh out of me. “Hey, you.”

“Look what Cain did! Look at my braids!” She twirled in a circle, her pigtails swinging out around her.

“You are stylin’, Lizzie.” I tugged on one of the braids as she came to a stop. “I love them.” My gaze tangled with Cain’s over Lizzie’s head. “This is pretty impressive.”

---