Page 38 of Almost Home
The way he said it, the inflection especially, made me ask, “Being here in Silverton, or here with me?”
And it was only a short pause before he confirmed. “Both.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Wilder
Warrick radiated his usual bounding energy as we sat eating lunch. I worked to suppress the nerves that’d come out of nowhere in the last hour as the meeting with the biggest client I’d likely ever have approached. Bit of a rough way to begin things, but considering I’d escorted presidents and celebrities and done about a thousand other things that made me sweat, I shouldn’t have been stressing over the Reynolds meeting.
“So you really can’t tell me who it is that’s got you all fidgety?” he asked after finishing the last bite of his gigantic salad, favoring his injured arm just barely.
Internally, I worked to shut down that observation as though he was a mark I might need to disarm later with this weakness in mind. The default setting of my mind still needed a little work to adjust to civilian life.
“Nope.”
“And it’s definitely not Sarah? I heard you were out together over the weekend.”
That mischievous glint in his eyes had me shaking my head. “Nope.”
He blinked back at me over his water glass, his face so unamused, I almost laughed. But I couldn’t very well break now.
“Okay, so you’re giving me nothing. Why did I bring you to lunch?”
His tone stayed light, but I could feel the honest question in the words.
He’d done most of the talking in the last twenty minutes while we both scarfed down a meal at a table outside Diner. Fortunately for me, the late April day was gorgeous, and Warrick had suggested the outdoor option. I wasn’t certain it’d be a problem, but I remembered walking out of the old diner smelling like fries and didn’t relish meeting Madeline Reynolds with a cloud of fried food scent floating around me.
I should’ve nixed lunch today, but Warrick had shown up right on time, and I couldn’t bring myself to cancel or reschedule. At eleven thirty, he’d come in the front door and oohed and aahed over the office space after a short tour and then got that expectant look. Time for lunch. Since Reynolds and her entourage wouldn’t be arriving until two, I had time and no decent excuse other than wanting to fold in on myself before the meeting. But I was moving past that, working on being more present even when it wasn’t convenient. Plus, I’d needed the distraction.
One, because I had actually developed a small twinge of nervousness over this meeting, and two, because Sarah looked predictably beautiful, and our time together Saturday had given me all kinds of ideas.
I had no business getting ideas about Sarah.
Not long after we’d moved outside on Saturday, her sister had called from somewhere overseas, and when I realized it wouldn’t be a short conversation unless Sarah made it so on my behalf, I paid our tab and walked her out. Phone still to her ear, she’d given me a look and mouthed,I’m sorry.
Definitely an escape the lunatic who’d taken over my brain had needed because if she hadn’t gotten that call, I would’ve walked her home. Definitely would’ve kissed her if she seemed interested, and I was fairly certain I’d picked that up from her. But maybe it was better we hadn’t had the chance after our very first personal conversation.
The physical connection was still there—our bodies were drawn to each other. That was what a seventeen-year-old could not ignore and what a man my age should be able to. But that wasn’t all Sarah and I had when we were younger, and already, I could tell things were easy between us in that way they’d been. She wasn’t pressing me into a different shape, waiting for my conversational wings to sprout. She wasn’t impatient with the internalizing. And along the winding road she’d traveled to get back to Silverton, she’d kept the ability to be kind. To be gentle, even.
Sarah had the ability to connect with people in a genuine way I’d never grasped. I’d learned my fair share of skills, but in a mission set requiring charm or verbal finesse, we sent in Bruce or West, maybe even Waverly. Sarah could do the job though. I’d berated her for the way she spoke with Juliet but that was simply Sarah doing what Sarah did.
Maybe that was why her silence had felt so persistent. Even after I’d grown used to it, I’d wake from a dream andfeelit all over again.
So yes, I would’ve wanted to kiss her. I’d accepted since the first day she’d showed at work that I was pretty much doomed to want that. But it was the other part that should scare me—just what I’d told her. I wanted to know her, and I wanted her to know me. In the same way I longed for my family to know me in ways I hadn’t let them since I’d left, I wanted that from her.
Everything had jumbled together, wires with too many ends to be one clear line, and as much as having a mess like that made pressure mount in my chest, I’d learned to carry that around. I’d learned to handle pressure.
Her quick, repeated apology for the call Monday, my running around the rest of the day and being gone much of yesterday, and our too-short interaction this morning before we both dove into preparation for the Reynolds meeting mostly served to keep me only half-distracted.
I had no business thinking about Sarah. I needed to focus on this job—this meeting. Landing Madeline Reynolds would be a killer contract, and though it seemed like it was almost guaranteed based on Grenier’s recommendation, I didn’t assume. The job isn’t done until the mission is accomplished, and the mission right now was landing Reynolds’ contract and then nailing the job itself for her.
If I was going to think about anything other than work, it shouldn’t be Sarah. It should be family. I’d come back to Silverton to plant roots and repair wounds. Enter Warrick, and I had a legitimate distraction I didn’t need to feel guilty about.
Warrick front and center did the job. And I owed him more than one-word answers. He, even more than Sarah, had been at the forefront of my conversation with my therapist yesterday, and though I still felt like I had a mild hangover from the session, I also felt like someone had taken a weight off the top of a large pile.
Finally circling back to his question, which he’d probably given up getting an answer to, I said, “You brought me so I could apologize and clear a few things up.”
His brows jumped, but he recovered and waved a hand in front of him. “The floor is yours.”
