Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,43

and now be completely cut out and not effective at doing anything.”

“Well, the guys are doing something,” she said, “and that’s what happens. You initiate something like this, and people who are pros step in and take over.”

Kai’s voice was calm and practiced, as if she’d spoken to many an irate woman before. Joy looked at her with a lopsided grin. “You’re very good at what you do.”

“What is it that I do anyway?” Kai asked, concern in her voice. “It seems like I’m split between my own company—inventing and designing military-grade training equipment—and Levi’s outfit.”

“I guess because you’re with Tyson that it’s hard to not go on some missions, or at least want to go on some, yet still be pulled in the other direction.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Some of the stuff the guys are coming up with depends on us, and we’re really excited about developing it. And, while I’m sitting here, I’m looking at designs, and a couple more of them have been emailed to me that I hadn’t had a chance to even go over yet.” She looked at Tyson, his face buried in the laptop. “He, on the other hand, is probably digging up dirt on everybody who works at your company.”

Tyson didn’t respond, but the corners of his mouth kicked up.

Joy took that as a yes. “I need more coffee,” she said.

“You need less caffeine,” Kai said in a dry tone.

She looked at her friend and asked, “You want to go for a walk then? I’m bouncing around this small space, and I can’t do anything.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “How about we do a loop around the park? Do you have any shopping you need to do?”

She shrugged, looked around, and said, “We don’t have anything for dinner.”

“We can go out,” Tyson said. “Or order in.”

“Or we could buy groceries,” Joy said. “I don’t mind cooking.”

“It might give you something else to think about,” Kai said. “Come on. Let’s go.” The women quickly had shoes and sweaters on. Kai turned to look at Tyson, who stared at them steadily. She shrugged and said, “We’ll just go together, if you’re okay with that.”

He gave a slow nod. “Stay in touch.”

Kai walked over, bent down, and kissed him thoroughly.

Joy watched with envy because, not only did Kai have that well-loved look on her face all the time but, by the time she stepped back, Tyson did too. Kai sighed happily as they stepped out.

“It’s really good to see you two guys so happy like that.”

“Sure, but it took time,” she said. “Remember? It was a pretty rocky road at the beginning.”

“Has he gotten over the death of his wife and daughter?”

“Does anybody ever get over that?” Kai countered. “It has to be dealt with, as much as he can, of course. Is he happier and much more content to move on? Yes. Does he love me now? Yes.”

“I guess that’s what I was asking, clumsily though,” Joy said with a laugh. “I don’t want him to be pining for a woman who can’t come back, then cheating you out of a relationship.”

“No,” she said. “I can grieve with him because she was my first best friend. There was just nothing anybody could do.”

They looped arms as they headed out toward the park about a block away. “Outside of the mess at work,” Kai said, “how are you settling into Houston?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s definitely warmer than where I was, and I’m happy with that, but I really liked the work I used to do. This is just a stop-gap job. It’s just a paycheck,” she said with a shrug.

“And a lot of people only ever get that paycheck job,” Kai said. “They’re happy to have it. But you want something more.”

“I do, yes,” she said. “I want to have something like what I had—or another purpose. It’s okay to go to work and help somebody else’s company run smoothly, but it would be better, in my case, if I had something that I was achieving. I didn’t realize how success-oriented I was, and being here has shown me that I don’t really want to let go of something once I dig it up. Whether it was an issue in processes or details of a case or a possible crime, part of me just wants to get in as deep as I can and figure it out.”

“That’s the puzzle solver in you,” Kai said, laughing. “It would have been nice if you’d found something like a really crappy