to go into something where there’s a disproportionate chance that I’ll fail.”
“That’s because you’re a salesman.”
He blinked her back into focus. “A sales—why on earth would you say that?”
“Because you aren’t the type of man who’d come home from work every night. You’d be off on some perceived adventure, and forget you even had a wife.”
“Probably. All the more reason not to get something I’d be so careless with. I suppose you hanker for marriage, a white picket fence, kids, and a minivan?”
“I do want to get married. Sooner rather than later. I like the idea of a sweet little house somewhere in the burbs, and a husband who comes home to me every night. Call me sentimental and old-fashioned, but that’s what I want. I enjoy my job as a photographer. Quite a lot, actually. But it isn’t a career, and I can’t make money taking pictures of cloud formations or sunlight on a snapdragon petal. I get my creative yaya, but those images don’t pay the rent.”
“So you want to marry for financial security, then?”
“I want a man who considers motherhood a full-time job, which it is. I’d work until the children came along, then I want to be a stay-at-home mom. I spent most of my life traveling between my aunt and my father, living in a cramped apartment or a tent. I want roots. Stability. To spend the rest of my life with someone I love, someone who loves me. I’d like to have three children—two boys and a girl, or the other way around. I’m dying to make school lunches and belong to the PTA. I can’t wait to drive my daughter to soccer practice and my sons to dance classes, or vice versa.”
His lips twitched, because she’d barely taken a breath in that litany of wants. It was good to want things. Better not to expect them. “If you’re so gung ho about marriage, then why are you still single?”
“Because I’ve had two lovers, and I sincerely believed each to be the one. But it turned out that both were the ones before the one.”
“What’s the point? The next can just as easily be yet another one before the one.”
“Maybe. I might not have a great track record, but I’m willing to keep trying.”
“I’m not opposed to you trying with me until you find that elusive one.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’ll pass,” she told him cheerfully, eliciting a muffled cough from their driver. “My future husband is out there. We just have to find each other.”
“I hope for your sake you stumble across this paragon, and he gives you everything you think you want.” Oddly, the thought annoyed the hell out of him, although Thorne couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. She was a free agent. None of his business beyond him doing the job he was hired to do. She could trot off and marry whomever she bloody well pleased, and good luck to her.
“So do I,” she told him, sounding like she meant it.
And probably regret it after the honeymoon period was over, he thought sourly, grateful to see that they’d arrived at the parking lot behind the mosque.
“Park over there; we’ll walk it.” Thorne ignored the ache in his leg, as well as his client’s chirpy confession about true love, puppy dogs, and fucking rainbows somewhere over a suburban soccer field. He was grateful all around for the reminders to be cautious.
Heustis parked the black sedan under a tree and popped the doors.
Thorne slid out after Isis, so she was sandwiched between the two men. The driver fell back a few feet. Isis moved closer to Thorne as they entered the underpass. It looked different during the day—not better, just different. At night he’d only smelled the filth; now he could see it.
Once again she was wearing her camera bag bandolier-style, slung across her body, the strap bisecting her breasts. The brown leather saddlebag, about the size of a small loaf of bread, bounced on her hip.
“Want me to carry that for you?”
“No, I’m good, thanks. I never let this baby out of my sight. And thank God I don’t, because after yesterday’s drama, I’d be out three grand, with no recourse.” She nudged his arm with her shoulder. “Why’s the driver following us?” she stage-whispered, taking a double step to match Thorne’s stride, then slipping her hand into the crook of his arm as if she had every right to do so. At least his