They’d gotten halfway across the open space of the yard when Connor Bowen slipped out the back door of the house and stood on the small porch, just under the overhang. He wore black dress pants and a long-sleeve blue dress shirt, and managed to blend in despite being totally out of place in the relaxed summer environment.
But that’s who he was. After years in the field doing work and traveling to places Pax could only guess about, Connor craved air-conditioning and a desk.
“So much for the idea of resting the leg,” he said as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared Pax down. Being only seven years older didn’t keep Connor from looking every inch the in-charge boss man.
Kelsey stopped biting her lower lip and came to a halt in the clearing. Her arm shot out and she grabbed Pax’s. “You really are injured?”
Connor’s eyebrow lifted. “You can’t tell?”
Joel snorted as he passed them all by and went straight to the back door. “I need food and the bathroom, and not in that order.”
“Knock yourself out.” Connor shifted to the side to let Joel pass, but then he restaked his ground. Legs braced, arms folded and hovering by the door as if to say anyone who went in had to go through him first.
Pax got secrecy and understood the operation, but they were blown. There was no way to salvage this assignment as set up and feed Kelsey some line about being legitimate agents who just happened to stumble into her coffee shop in time to rescue her.
Pax doubted any sane woman would buy the story, and he knew Kelsey was far too smart to go there. Combine that with her survival instinct, which appeared to tick in the expert range, and their options for handling this in a quick and easy manner decreased significantly.
She put her hand above her eyes and squinted against the sun as she looked Connor over. “Who are you … or am I not allowed to know that, either?”
“I take it from that response things didn’t go well this morning.”
Pax hid his smile. Connor knew exactly how the mess unfolded at Decadent Brew. He was tied in to the communications link, ran the unexpected removal of Kelsey from back in his office while watching his bank of monitors, and by now had placed the right calls and talked to the right people to keep the Corcoran Team’s name out of this and ensure the gas leak story led the news.
That was the job. He was the handler. The guy who made it all possible behind the scenes.
“Connor Bowen, my boss.” Pax put a hand low on her back, thinking to steer her inside. There was no need to stand out in the open and invite gawking.
She didn’t move. “And what exactly is your job again? All of you, any of you, any response would be welcome.”
Connor opened the back door. He threw out an arm and motioned toward the house. “We’ll explain inside.”
She hummed. The tune was quiet, almost as if it kicked on as her brain began to spin, but Pax could hear it. As a fellow under-the-breath singer, he recognized the almost imperceptible sound. And he’d heard it from her before when she made intricate coffee drinks for other customers while he waited in line for his.
He didn’t know what her humming meant or why she did it, but the idea of having some extra time with her to figure it out … well, he didn’t hate the idea.
Before he could push or try another attempt at issuing an order he knew she’d ignore, neither of which he wanted to do with her in this tenuous state and Connor standing right there watching, she moved. She hesitated before stepping inside, stopping to stare at the out-of-place dark square on the wall next to the back door.
A retinal scan and a handprint reader. Admittedly not the usual office setup, but he doubted she knew what she was looking at and since Connor had clearly disabled it remotely when he stepped outside, Pax didn’t have to give a demonstration now.
She pointed at the pad. “More secrets, I guess?”
The woman didn’t miss much. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Not so far.”
KELSEY TRIED TO take it all in. She’d expected a fancy high-tech room filled with gadgets. She got an open kitchen, complete with blue cabinets and a huge farm sink. No food on the counters, unless you counted the two half-empty chip bags.
The really strange thing was the overabundance of coffeemakers. Not fancy ones. Normal coffeemakers … all four of them. The sight made her wonder how many people worked here, if any were women and if they ever ate regular meals. It also made the shop owner part of her think they should pay for her to provide better beverages.
A swinging door led to a wide-open space. A double room, probably what should be a combination living and dining room, but in this case housed desks and computers in individual work spaces. Closed cabinets with locks lined the far wall, and a conference room table sat in the middle of everything.
Everywhere she looked she saw television monitors, some big and some small. One looked as if it piggybacked traffic cams, with images flickering from intersection to intersection. Another showed a front door, she guessed to this address.
On the one across the room … wait.
She headed for Joel. He sat slumped in a chair, running his hand through his dark hair, with his feet on the countertop and a mug of something she guessed was coffee in his hand. Peeking over his shoulder, she watched people scurry around out front of Decadent Brew, the place where she worked and lived and worried about losing almost every day.
A couple tested the doors and then stared at the sign with the posted hours. Being closed, knowing what the loss of income and product could cost her later, had a lump clogging Kelsey’s throat. Heaviness tugged at her muscles, and she had to fight the urge to sit down.
Everything she owned, all she was, centered on that building. The dark, strangely spooky building. The lights were off and something—she leaned in closer and studied the scene, maybe drapes of some sort—covered the windows.
She spun around and met Pax’s emotionless gaze. “Is this your doing?”
“Mine, actually.” Connor walked in, carrying a pot of coffee. He set it in the middle of the table on a tray surrounded by unused mugs.
It was all so normal yet so wrong.
“Where is everybody?” Pax dropped into a chair and blew out a long breath. He stretched his right leg out in front of him as he massaged his thigh.
She wasn’t sure what caused the injury, but she believed it existed. She was about to ask him about it when she sensed a gaze on her. A quick glance at Connor and she caught the small shake of his head.
“Davis is enjoying his final days in Hawaii, as you know. The rest of the group is cleaning up the mess in Catalina, except for Ben,” Connor said as he poured her a cup of coffee. “Ben is on his way to the hospital to check on your injured attacker. I’ll head out in a second. Sounds like I have a very angry investigator to calm down and a few explanations I need to give.”
Pax slumped down farther in the black leather chair. “I don’t ever want your job.”
Without turning around, Joel saluted with his cup. “Yeah, no envy over here, either.”
The information collected and piled, and Kelsey tried to mentally flip through and analyze it all. The really tall, dark and businesslike one was in charge. If this Connor guy wasn’t the overall boss, he should be because he acted like it and his six-foot-three-or-four height suggested no one mess with him.
The younger, black-haired, scruffy-chinned one, Joel, seemed to be connected to the monitor. There was a brother named Davis roaming around out there somewhere, some guy named Ben and a group of people, she had no idea how many, in California.
It was a lot to