Page 59 of Mongrels United
“Then make it personal,” he said. “Come with me as my friend.”
Grady paused, her heart doing skittery, fluttery things that made it hard to think. He wanted her to be with him, in public! But…
She shook her head. “No, Nash. No. It doesn’t matter if I say I’m there just as a friend. I’m still the Captain’s Chief of Staff. We’ll still scare them into hiding.”
Nash pressed his fingertips together, the longest tips resting against his mouth. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “When we finally do speak to someone involved in the Bellish, wewillscare them. I’m positive of that. But I don’t think they’ll hide. I think they’ll come after us.”
Dread washed over her, almost exactly like the first deluge of a cold shower. It stole her breath.
When she could speak, Grady said hoarsely; “Youwantthem to come at you.”
Nash nodded, still thoughtful. “If I can provoke a reaction, it will give me something to work with. Something I can track back.” He looked at her. “You being with me makes it official, and almost guarantees they’ll react.”
Grady swallowed. “I…this…” She realized what she had been about to say and fell silent.
Nash lowered his hands. “Better spit it out, now. You’ve given yourself away. What passing thought did you nearly stammer out?”
Grady could feel her cheeks heating. “It’s just me being stupid and feminine.”
“You’re allowed to do that with me, remember?” He often chided her to stop being the Chief of Staff for a while.
It was too late to turn this conversation, and she was deeply reluctant to lie and make up something. Nash had been lied to far too much, for all his life. “It’s just…I thought that when you were ready to be seen with me in public, that it would be…I don’t know. Dinner at the markets. Or drinks in your tavern. Me wearing anything but my office suits.”
Nash’s gaze was steady. There was warmth in his eyes. “Maybe this is how we get to that point,” he said softly.
Grady tried to disperse the disappointment spearing her. To ignore it, at least. “Perhaps,” she said crisply, reaching for her notepad. “So, let’s put Mihael Rogerson on your list for today.”
“Ourlist,” he amended. He stroked her arm. “And afterwards, let’s have lunch in the Esquiline markets.”
Grady’s breath stopped.
Nash was watching her with close attention, she realized. He’d made it sound off-hand, but he would use her reaction as a measure of…what?
“Ah…that makes a difference, doesn’t it?” Nash said softly. “Too close to home for you, Grady?”
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s not dinner and it’s not a dress I’ll be wearing, but it will do just fine.” She paused. “Actually, I think I’m both nervous and excited about it. I feel like a kid about to have her first date.”
Nash pulled her toward him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been a first date.” He paused. “I don’t think I’ve ever dated. Not that way.”
“A first for both of us, then,” Grady admitted, and kissed him lightly and moved away from him before he distracted her all over again. “Give me fifteen minutes, then we can leave.” She needed to shower and change, and she would have to let the Bridge, and Luus, know she would be in later today.
“Print flat shoes!” Nash called out, from behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nash’s warning about the flat shoes had been worth listening to, for they walked from Nash’s tavern building through a bush-filled belt of land, with fields on either side. There was a faint trail through the bushes, showing that others used this as a through-way, too, which reassured Grady that Nash knew where he was going.
Far to the right, the dark treeline showed where the Palatine forest began, nearly a kilometer away. The distance made the trees seem small, but the old-growth forest had been cultivated since the ship had left Earth and some of the trees were massive.
Nash moved in long easy strides, just ahead of her, for the path was too narrow for them to walk abreast. He paused to point ahead. “The Table.”
Grady had seen images of the Table before, but from down here on the ground, it looked very high. “We can climb it?” she asked doubtfully.
“There’s a path, and steps when it gets steep,” Nash told her.
“You’ve climbed it, before?”
“A customer told me about it.” But he sounded confident that he could find the path.
