don’t speak?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”
“No, you’re great at what you do,” I pointed out.
Her face flushed at my praise.
“Would you be okay if I continued working? I know it wouldn’t be exactly the same, but I feel like I could make it work,” she said. “I mean there’s not exactly an opening for a spy who specializes in disguises around here.”
“Actually, there’s…” My phone rang and interrupted me before I could tell her about the job Patrick and Silas wanted to offer her.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” I told her before hitting accept on my phone. “Grant.”
“Hey Grant, it’s Patrick,” I heard him say, just as Taylor got up and gave me a wave, blew me a kiss, and then headed for the kitchen. “Can you talk?”
“Yeah, sure, what’s up?”
“I was wondering if you had a chance to talk to Taylor yet,” he said.
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted.
“Really? Because I thought you were super excited about it.”
“I know, I was. I am,” I corrected. “It’s just that, things have changed, and some stuff has come up, and I just don’t know if that’s something she’d be interested in.”
“And you won’t know, until you ask her,” he said logically.
“I know, but I don’t want her thinking I’m just planning her life out here. She can make her own decisions.”
“Yeah, given her background, I can see your point. Would you be okay if I talk to her then?”
“I have no problems with that. I’m still all for it, I just don’t want her to feel trapped here. I need this to be her choice without my influence,” I explained.
“You’re a good man, Grant. She’s a lucky girl.”
I snorted. “I have no clue what I’m doing, Patrick.”
“But you’re doing it?”
“Looks like it.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and then I hung up.
I laid there for a few minutes before Taylor returned with the box of cold pizza and the tiniest laptop I’d ever seen. Or at least I thought it was a laptop.
“That mission you have next week, is it going after a ring in Berlin?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t get full info until we’re on the plane in route.”
“Yikes, that sucks. How do you guys even plan for that?”
Grant shrugged. “That’s just the way it is.”
“Well, there’s a call out for it, and look at it,” she said turning the screen again. “That’s another shifter depiction.”
I looked closely. “I think you’re right. Two in as many weeks is really odd.”
“It is. This one goes for auction next week and since you were talking about needing German, I wondered if it was the gig before I accept it.”
“Wait, you’re going back to work?”
“You said you would be fine with that. Besides, you’ll be gone anyway.”
“Yeah, I guess I just didn’t think life would come crashing in on us quite so quickly.”
“I took a lot of shit for not delivering the vase, and there are still people out there trying to track it down. I don’t really want to compete against you again for this ring, so before I accept could you maybe ask Silas or Patrick about it?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. I wanted to say, “Just work with me here and we could be a great team,” but I refrained. Her independence was important to her, and I was worried I was crossing a line. I felt like we were in a good place and I didn’t want to do anything to screw that up.
“How about I help you with some German while we eat,” she suggested.
“Okay. Ich liebe dich,” I told her.
She stared at me, her pizza halfway to her mouth and her eyes misting over. She shook her head. “How can you be sure?”
I had just told her I loved her. I’d never said those words to anyone before and it wasn’t something I took lightly.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it happened sometime out on the water yesterday.” I reached for her hands. “I know it’s scary, T. I’ve been more than a little freaked out too, and then something just snapped into place. We fit. I can’t think of tomorrow without you in it. I can’t. And if that’s not love, then I don’t know what is, because there’s no one else I’d rather be with. Before you I just had my team. My parents passed on years ago. I’m an only child. I have my team and I have my pack. I never