“Hey, man, I got this,” Micah assured him with an amused, patient smile. “Go find a little plaything of your own, why don’t ya?”
Tehya choked as she fought back a weary groan. She really didn’t need the male posturing right now.
“It’s fine, Casey,” she turned and said to him. “What my friend means is that he’s a smart-mouthed ass, but he’s cool all the same.”
“Oh.” Casey looked at Micah, narrowing his gaze on him, his expression forbidding. “He looks like bad news to me, Tey.”
“Naw, he just likes to bring bad news,” she told him. “Everything’s fine, Casey, I promise.”
Casey scratched his head in confusion, as he looked from Tehya to Micah and back again for a long moment.
“I should just go back and aggravate Journey some more maybe?” he suggested, though Tehya could see the suspicion still darkening his gaze.
Tehya’s nodded somberly. “Yeah, I’d do that, Casey.”
He gave another glance toward Micah before grunting irritably and returning to a still-silent, studious Journey.
“You know, Tey,” Micah drawled, “your choice of friends here is a little immature. Sure you don’t want to come out and play with the big boys and girls again?”
She gave a heavy sigh. “I guess you’re parked here until I leave, right?”
He leaned closer, his expression becoming serious. “It’s like this. I followed you from the house. You had a tail keeping well back for the better part of the way. When you turned in here, they drove off and simply disappeared. Now, what does that suggest to you?”
That she was in a shitload of trouble. That the panic building in her gut wasn’t simply paranoia, it was danger. The kind of danger that had murdered her mother, her friends, and had made her life hell until six years before. It told her she was in over her head here.
“Either his partner is here, or he would have arrived within minutes after I did,” she answered painfully.
He gave a subtle nod. “And I didn’t see anyone come in after you. Did you?”
She shook her head slowly. There were three entrances, impossible for one person to watch unless he were inside. Tehya had been inside and no one had entered after her, except Micah.
“No one came in,” she said softly, painfully. “They’ve been watching me long enough to know my habits, to be able to guess my moves.”
“Long enough to know if you have any weaknesses,” he reminded her.
She swallowed tightly, but forced herself not to look around. She knew everyone here. They were all regulars. That meant whoever was watching her had been here from the beginning. She had run a very thorough background search on everyone here, and they had all been above suspicion.
If Micah was right, someone was backed by a hell of a lot of money and power to be able to pull that off. Those commodities were essential to building a background that would pass a check like the ones Tehya was capable of making.
She let her gaze rove discreetly around the bar once again as regret built inside her.
She had needed to feel a part of something, and she had chosen this place because she had believed it was neutral enough, that it was safe enough. Had she been more wrong than she could have ever imagined? Who here had managed to fool her to that extent?
“The situation is delicate, then,” she murmured as she lifted the beer to her lips. “Explains why you’re in covert mode.”
She had wondered, when she had first seen him, about the slight differences in his cheekbones, the longer hair, the scar slashing down the side of his face that he didn’t really have. If a picture were taken of him, it would show other differences that she wasn’t catching in the dimness of the room. Differences that would disappear once he returned to his wife and children. Enough differences that he would never be mistaken for Micah Sloane, a personal security expert in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Yeah, that explains it,” he agreed as he turned his head and looked back at her. “Doesn’t explain why you’re here rather than safe at home helping everyone come up with the plans, the contingency plans, and countercontingency plans the boss man always requires, though.”
She was almost amused. Jordan definitely believed in contingency plans, and the countercontingencies.
She finally sighed. “All of you need to let me handle this myself.” Though she was beginning to suspect it was far