“You’re doing the right thing here,” Sasha said. “Maybe not the matchmaking part . . . but taking care of her.”
“Claire could have ended up like her . . . or you.”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t remember that.”
“Then you know why we’re here.”
“We all do.”
Neil smiled and left the room.
“Stop fidgeting.”
“I’m not.”
Pam glared with a stink-eye stare that had Olivia holding her breath and standing still.
“There.” Pam eased back, looked at her handiwork.
“It’s only one hole,” Olivia told her.
Pam stared in the mirror. “One hole. One soldier at a time.”
Olivia let her gaze shift. “When did you serve?”
Pam’s eyes caught hers in the reflection. “A long time ago.”
“You’re too young to say that.”
“I’m twenty years older than you.”
Olivia felt a smile on her lips. “Considering I don’t know how old I am . . . that’s safe.”
Pam chuckled. “I’ll take a bullet wound any day over a bomb. A hole . . . so much easier than a dripping mess of bone and flesh with no skin to pull it together.”
That was a visual Olivia would take some time to get over.
And from the look in Pam’s eyes . . . yeah, her, too.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia found herself saying.
Pam blew out a breath. “Long time ago.”
“Still affects you.”
She shrugged. “And you don’t remember what you did last summer.”
For reasons Olivia couldn’t name, she started laughing.
And laughing.
“Touché, mademoiselle.”
“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
They descended the stairs together.
The crew, a term Olivia had coined for the lot of them, had gathered around the kitchen. Someone said something about the temperature of the flame for the eggs being prepared on the stove, and someone else questioned to what level the bacon had been cooked.
“Good morning,” AJ said from his perch in one of the many chairs in the open living room.
“Morning,” Olivia greeted him. Her eyes moved around the room, did a quick inventory.
Lars and Isaac were wrestling in the kitchen in an episode of “I know more about cooking than you do.”
Neil sat in one of the high counter chairs, a duffel bag at his feet.
Sasha and Leo were both absent.
“Where are the others?” she asked, really only interested in Leo.
“Sasha’s in the surveillance room, and Leo is doing his best Sleeping Beauty impersonation,” AJ told her.
Pam left Olivia’s side once she’d cleared the last step of the stairs. She moved into the kitchen as if she was now the boss. “Is this going to be a daily thing with you two?”
“Bacon should be close to burned, right, Neil?” Lars asked.
“I’m staying out of this.” Neil gave Olivia a sideways glance. “How did you sleep?” he asked her.
“It’s very quiet here,” she said.
“Everywhere is quiet compared to Vegas,” Lars said.
“And dark,” Isaac added.
Olivia only had the trip from the hospital to the airport to compare. And she’d been so busy watching Neil and Leo as they escorted her, she didn’t think to look out the window. The men had a laser focus on everything going on around them and the car as if they were truly worried someone was going to jump out at any second and shoot her again.
Of course, the lead vest they’d put on her before leaving the hospital would have clued her in to the threat even if they’d said nothing.
She looked at the bag on the floor at Neil’s feet. “Are you leaving?”
He offered a single nod. “I’ll be back in a week. Sooner if I’m needed.”
“I doubt it will take this many people to keep me safe.”
Isaac started laughing, then seemed to catch himself before turning around and going back to preparing breakfast.
“I thought the same thing,” Pam said as she removed juice from the refrigerator.
“If you knew the players, you might think differently.”
Olivia moved to stand beside the kitchen counter. “Who are the players?” she asked Neil.
He paused and weighed his words. “A large international family. People that don’t like going to jail.”
“Does anyone like going to jail?” Pam asked.
“I’ve been avoiding it for years,” AJ said from the living room.
Isaac and Lars stopped arguing about the bacon long enough to laugh at AJ’s statement.
Olivia found herself staring at AJ, a tilt to her head. Is he serious?
“Time to eat.”
She was shooed out of the kitchen when she attempted to help. After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she took a seat at the table and let the crew serve her.