that drone can photograph, and you have a toothache or something and need to go to the dentist in town? Chase or someone he asks to go with you, will be in order. You go nowhere alone when you’re off his ranch. Okay?”
“Got it,” she said.
“We’ll be in touch,” Dan told them, rising.
Cari was glad to be out of the headquarters. The sunlight was bright and warm and felt life-giving to her. Chase walked at her side as they went around the building to the large parking lot.
“Waiting is the worse part,” she muttered, giving him a glance.
“Always is. That’s where patience pays off, but that’s also where your brain becomes a rat trap and finds all kinds of crazy thoughts to bring up to you while you wait.”
“Ugh,” she said, opening the door to the truck, “tell me about it!” She noticed that Chase was behaving a little differently. It was subtle, and if she didn’t know him as well as she did, she probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. As she climbed in, she asked, “What are you doing?” She saw his eyes sparkle.
“Just sussing out the area,” he said, shutting her door.
When he climbed in, she persisted. “Can you teach me what you’re doing?”
He belted up and started the truck engine. “It takes years to be hyperalert. That’s what you are sensing around me.”
“I’m sensing something, but I can’t quantify it,” she admitted.
“Something like having eyes in the back of your head,” he teased, giving her a quick glance before he pulled out onto the main highway.
“Oh . . . Well, you taught me how to walk silently. Why can’t I learn to do what you do?”
“We’ll try it. Maybe tomorrow? What’s on your schedule?”
It felt good to Cari to be talking about normal business and work with Chase. It settled her, and her stress began to slowly ebb out of her. He had been right. A human’s daily rhythm led to less stress, not more. It was a known quantity, familiar, and in her case, she felt very lucky that her job was something she loved so deeply: her beekeeping activities. “Theresa and I are meeting at nine a.m. and we’re driving around to all four hive platforms for our weekly maintenance checks. I’ll be making up a lunch and taking it out on the job with me.”
“Be sure to take the ranch radio with you,” he said.
“For sure.” She looked out the window at how beautiful the world looked and how awful she felt inwardly. “I just want to keep busy, Chase. That will help me so much.”
“I agree. Our daily rhythm is the best place to be when something as traumatic as this slams into your life. What can I do to help you?”
For a moment, Cari didn’t know what to answer, afraid and yet wanting so badly to let Chase know how much . . . well . . . that she was falling in love with him. How would he take such an admission? She wasn’t sure whether he felt the same way or not—or if he was like so many other males in her past who saw her only as a sex partner, and that was it. That’s not what she wanted. Not at all. She’d made her mistakes, and she’d learned from them. Getting older gave her a level of experience that saved her from making them again, and also a maturity within herself of knowing what was really important to her, and what was not.
Turning, she studied his rugged profile as he drove. “That’s something we both need to discuss, maybe me more than you.”
“Want to talk about it when we get home? Or are you feeling exhausted and want to do it another time?’
“I feel okay, better actually. And yes, I’d like to talk once we get home.” She changed topics, not wanting to pursue something so intimate and private with him in the truck. “I really like Dan. He’s cool, calm, and collected, just like you. And he has that deep background in black ops, like you. I don’t think I could get two better men to be at my side with this all happening.”
“I saw the look on your face when North came in,” he said, his mouth twitching. Slowing down, he turned into the ranch road.
“Oh . . . Well, I wish I wasn’t so readable.”
“It was subtle,” he assured her with a chuckle. “What was your assessment of North?”
“On a scale of