she was not going let it go easily, so Royce presented one more detail, “The collection is worth a lot of money, Becki.”
“Do you realize you have never shown any interest in the crate that was stolen from my back yard?” Becki pressed suddenly. “Kurt acted really funny about that, Royce, and I thought at the time he was being overprotective. I’ve thought about your conversation with him, and the fact that I had to leave my own deck so you could talk privately. Something is not adding up, Royce. Are you really here just to look for some coins that a collector hired you to find?”
“I am,” Royce answered in all honesty.
“Great, then I can help.” Pulling out her cell phone, she opened messaging and looked at Royce with an expectant expression, “Explain what you are looking for, and I can get some of my friends…”
“No.”
“No?” Becki repeated.
“No,” Royce repeated firmly.
Becki’s phone beeped at that moment and flashed message from Natie; Catch ya this pm 6 at Kurt’s”
As he watched Becki respond to the text message, he thought about his current predicament. Finding this coin was proving to be more difficult than he had initially anticipated. The Council thought they were getting close to being able to lift the cloaks currently surrounding each coin. Sean was here hoping to use the new software and receptors he had developed to pick up a trail of digital bread crumbs that should have been left behind by the coins. He was not certain how long the digital trail might last or how close to the trail the receptors had to be in order to pick it up. The software was still in the final stages of development, but if Sean could collect enough data at this location, he might be able to better use the technology to locate the remaining coins.
Joanna would be arriving in the morning to work the magic angle; together, hopefully, they could peek through the cloaking spells.
Coins and spells. Grim reminders to Royce that he could not allow himself to be become emotionally entwined with someone like Becki. Someone good, someone blissfully unaware of all things immortal, someone unaware of the reality that things do go bump in the night, someone sweet and innocent.
“That was Natie,” Becki announced. “Come to think of it, she could help too. Now, back to my original question: What is it exactly that we should be looking for?”
Turning to look across the water at Fort Sumter, Royce pulled Becki close to his side and tucked her under his arm. “I’m not going there with you Becki, so just stop. I can’t share the details of the recovery mission; the owner insists on privacy.” Regretfully he continued, “I also can’t get involved with you.”
Becki immediately stiffened and shifted to pull away from him.
“I can’t get involved; no matter how intelligent, sexy, and beautiful you are,” Royce pinned her once again with his beautiful eyes, continuing, “not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t.”
Royce still held onto her, cherishing these few moments, tucking away a memory to pull out on a lonely day. His thoughts drifted to the coin collector, the one found dead in Savannah. He stiffened his resolve and forced himself to say, “There are things you wouldn’t understand; things I can’t tell you. Unscrupulous people are involved; people who will hurt or kill anyone who gets in their way. I can’t risk it, Becki. I can’t risk you being in danger because of me and what I do.”
“Wow, I guess I just don’t appreciate antiques and art near-enough, because I’ve never seen anything worth killing someone for. In fact, most of what is considered ‘art’ seems just plain ugly to me.”
Royce chuckled. “You have a point there. I do wish things were different, Becki. You are a breath of fresh air. Someone will be very lucky to call you his own.”
“By someone, you mean someone other than you,” Becki clarified, her arm around his waist, her head tipped looking at him from under long dark lashes. “If that is how you feel, then you need to stop kissing me and stop with all this touchy-feely stuff, because you are sending mixed signals. I know you feel what I feel, or at least something similar, and to think that you can just turn and walk away from it, from me-”
She stood watching emotions play over his face-- waiting for Royce to say something.
“Can you do that Royce? Can you really do