Page 6 of Defenseless
“Holding a casual conversation won’t kill you, you know,” she said.
At that, Chad looked up, and his dark eyes bored into hers. “You’re right, it won’t. But when someone wants more than just casual chitchat, it starts to feel tedious.”
She drew back at that but held his gaze. A little fluttering of unease swooped through her stomach. The man sitting across from her did not look like a man who was willing to compromise. In fact, he looked like a man who knew exactly who and what he wanted and wouldn’t settle for anything less. A man who would rather take nothing than bits and pieces of something.
But bits and pieces were all she’d ever be able to give. The things she’d seen and the decisions she’d made years ago had set her on a path that wasn’t entirely her own. And there was too much at risk if she veered off it.
A hollow feeling washed over her at the realization that she and Chad would never be more than professional colleagues. Until this moment, this one specific moment, she’d harbored dreams that one day they’d be able to laugh and hang out and do the things friends did. But in the space of a single breath, she let that vision go, releasing it forever. She didn’t have any other choice. No, that wasn’t quite right. She always had a choice. She’d made hers years ago, though, and she wasn’t willing to alter her course. Not even for Chad. No matter how much she wished otherwise.
Flashing a smile that she didn’t feel, she nodded to his computer. “What are you working on?”
Disappointment flickered across his features, but it was gone before she could contemplate it. Then he cocked his head and grinned. “Budget forecasts. Want to see?”
She gave a shudder that wasn’t altogether feigned. She might be a data geek, but shehatedbudgeting. “That one’s all you, big guy,” she said. “I’ll stick to researching Mystery Lake.”
If she couldn’t have him for a friend, or more, she was going to be damn grateful to have him as a colleague.
CHAPTERFOUR
“Is therea different system we can put in?” Sabina asked.
Chad racked his brain at her question as he studied the documents spread across the table. Together, they were studying the architectural plans for the server room being built on the new premise.
“Maybe we can install it on the walls rather than the ceiling?” he suggested, then quickly shook his head. That wasn’t a good option.
“What about putting it behind glass, like the old-school fire alarms?” she countered.
He leaned down to get a closer look at the wall depth. It wasn’t a bad idea.
“What are you all doing?”
Chad straightened as Ethan, one of his cousins, sauntered into their temporary digs. In four weeks, they’d be moving into their permanent offices. But in the meantime, they’d set up shop in the prior owner’s cabin rather than Chad’s house. The building was a bit primitive, but he was grateful for the neutral meeting ground. Not only did it allow him to separate work from home, but it also meant he hadn’t had to experience Sabina making herself comfortable in his private space.
“Ethan, good to see you,” Sabina said with a bright smile. As if his arrival was a pleasant surprise. Which it wasn’t. It might be pleasant, but it was hardly a surprise. The security system had let them know he was on his way up the drive five minutes earlier.
“You too, Sabina. What are you two up to?” he asked again.
Chad was certain his cousin hadn’t stopped by to talk construction, but he shifted to the side and gestured to the papers. Ethan, a former naval officer and current sergeant with the Mystery Lake Police, stepped up to the table.
“We’re trying to decide where to put the universal kill switch for the server room,” Chad answered. “Each server has its own, of course. But in the event that something catastrophic happens, and we need to kill all servers at once, we need a way to do that.”
Ethan looked down at the plans and frowned. “What’s the problem?”
“The fire suppression system is the problem,” Sabina answered. “We don’t want the universal switch located anywhere near where that system might—or could—interfere with it.”
Ethan studied the documents, his arms crossed over his chest. Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved Henley, it was almost as if Chad were looking into a mirror. His cousin might be seven years younger, but all the Warwick men seemed to have the same look about them. Athletic builds, six feet tall—give or take an inch—dark hair, and their grandfather’s sharp facial structure. The only thing that really set the eight Warwick males in his generation apart was their eye color. Chad’s were dark brown, whereas Ethan’s were a deep green. The rest of his cousins and brothers fell at various places on the spectrum. For as similar as they looked, it was an oddity that not a single one of them had the same eye color.
As for his female cousins, Ethan’s twin sisters Joey and Charley, they shared their brother’s green eyes. And although they were as athletic as their male relatives, both were petite—barely five foot five—with their mother’s Mediterranean skin tone and auburn hair. A color that had more red than brown and that no one knew from where it had come.
“What if you moved this part of the wall out about six inches? If you did, you’d be able to create a small room, like an entryway, here,” Ethan said, pointing to the east wall. “Then you could put in two doors—one to enter the small room and one to enter the server room—and put the kill switch in that space? With nothing in there, you wouldn’t need to run fire suppression to it at all.”
Chad and Sabina dropped their attention to the plans. In his mind, Chad reconfigured the wall and saw what Ethan was suggesting. To enter the server room, a person would walk through one door, which could close behind them, then a second door would open to the server room. Ethan was right. If they did that, they wouldn’t need to run any suppression system into the small space and there’d be no risk of it interfering with the kill switch.
“You are a genius!” Sabina exclaimed. “What do you think, Chad?”
“I think he solved a problem in less than five minutes that we’ve been discussing for an hour,” he responded.
Sabina grinned then started to roll up the plans. “Let’s sleep on it. If we still agree in the morning, I can take the plans to Josh and go over the change.”
