Page 29 of Almost Home
I tried not to glare at the man—my friend, my business partner. A guy who was moving to a place he’d never visited untiltodayon my word that it was great and we could build our business here. This jealous crap needed to quit. I had no claim on Sarah, even if that idiot animal instinct said otherwise, and I certainly didn’t bear any ill will to my best friend.
“How much longer do you have?” Sarah asked.
“A month and change. Really not even that long until I’m done, but then I need to stay in place for a few other details to wrap up.”
Interesting that he hadn’t mentioned Kiley, his much younger half sister and ward. She didn’t finish school until early June, and he didn’t want to do anything more than he had to that would create disruption for her.
Again—good man.
“I think looking for a home now makes sense. I’ve only gone through the buying process once years ago in Georgia, but it took a while to get the details ironed out. Maybe you can find something on this trip and get everything ready before you’re back so you can move right in.”
I watched Sarah smile like she was standing at the other end of a tunnel—far enough away to be in another zip code. Why would knowing she’d bought a house—by herself? With a partner?—make my stomach tighten and a knot loop around my neck?
It shouldn’t. I had no ownership or right to anything of Sarah’s, including information about her. I’d had to remind myself of that fact countless times over the years when the temptation to just look her up and do a little recon about what she’d been up to, where she lived, all that, rose to the forefront of my mind.
I hadn’t ever abused the access I had to things like records, nor would I now that I had all the PI and law enforcement certifications possible in this business. But the need to have her tell me more about her life clutched at me with an iron grip.
“I’d love it. If you two would give me an update, then we can get to our stuff and maybe fit in some house hunting later,” Bruce said, winking at me like he thought he was cute. No doubt he did.
He didn’t know exactly who Sarah was to me, but he had the same training I had. He’d known the second he saw us in the room together that we had more than a boss-employee relationship, and that was without any conclusions he’d drawn during our communications the last few weeks since my arrival and Sarah’s employment.
We sat at the conference table, and I launched into a brief overview of Bruce’s role for Sarah. She’d read this and knew it, but doing it in person seemed helpful because now she could put a face with the name. Bruce and I were co-owners of Saint Securities—poor sap had rightly agreed Camden just didn’t have the right ring to it. What I hadn’t drawn out for Sarah was the delineation of our work in the day to day when Bruce finally arrived here.
“I’ll take the tactical elements of planning security. Bruce’ll handle equipment acquisition, client relationships unless they specifically request me, and he’ll be the head honcho in the office.”
“So you’re not planning to be in the office?” Sarah asked, her brow furrowing slightly with the question.
“Only occasionally.” I couldn’t stay cooped up inside any more than I could stand on my head all day, nor did I want to. I’d always needed an escape hatch, and I planned to use the freedom I had in my own business to enjoynotbeing stuck in an office.
“Can you explain tactical elements? Or, is there something I could read? I’m sorry if this is all really basic. As you both know, I haven’t worked in security or anything like it, ever.”
Bruce smiled a shiny, brilliant thing at her.That ass.
“Don’t apologize. We’re running our business our way, so even if you’d worked for someone else, it likely would be different. As you may or may not know, both Wilder and I come out of careers in special operations with the military.”
“Oh, like the special forces guys who got Bin Laden.”
Bruce’s smile flashed wider, but there was that gleam. “Uh, well, no. That was Seal Team Six. They’re special operations. Specialforcesis a smaller subset of special operations, and is known as ‘white’ ops—not quite so covert. That’s the majority of your Navy SEALs, your Force Recon Marines, special forces Army groups, and so on.”
Sarah shifted in her seat and jotted a few more notes on her pad of paper. “Okay…”
“Seal Team Six is black ops, as is the unit where we worked, and of course numerous others no one knows about or talks about. Seal Team Six and Delta Force are probably the most famous black ops military assets, and where we worked grew out of those units.”
Sarah blinked at her pad a few times, then her eyes shifted to me. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Not to worry. Here we are, safe and sound. But the point is, we’ve got skills the government trained us to have and then some. We’ve got over thirty years of operational experience combined, and we’ve done everything from hostage extraction to… well, we’ve got a range most small-town law enforcement and many private security companies just don’t have.”
Sarah’s eyes had doubled in size, and she blinked again as she chewed her bottom lip. “Wow.”
“All that is to say, there’s no reason you should come in knowing what to expect. We’ll teach you what we want you to know. Don’t ever be afraid to ask questions, and please believe the old adage that there’s no such thing as a dumb question.” Bruce glanced at me, likely wondering why I hadn’t explained all of this in the first place.
I could’ve. Maybe I should’ve. But I couldn’t have done that until she signed the confidentiality agreements, and that only happened late last week. Then we had the meeting with Grenier, and the last few days had been crammed, so ultimately, I’d decided I’d let Bruce be the information dumper.
And maybe some ugly part of me wanted to withhold things from her. Not exactly a conscious thought, but she’d withheld herself from me for so long, it felt like a reflex more than anything else.
“Agreed. No stupid question,” I added, just to make sure she knew.
“Um, sure. I have about a thousand questions right now, but I have a feeling none of them are really applicable to the topic at hand, so I guess just keep going, and I’ll chime in if I have anything pertinent.”
