He dropped his arm and released my hand but didn’t step back. The wheels were clearly turning in his head, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
A waiter circled by with champagne.
John glanced at the tray but didn’t take any.
“We should get . . . coffee sometime,” he said, spinning me around with his sudden suggestion.
“Coffee?” I repeated. Had he meant to ask me for coffee? Because he’d been looking at the drinks tray. His voice was champagne.
“Yes, coffee.”
We’d had coffee before. To talk about work. To trade theories on the investigation. The case was now closed, and his tone said drinks. But he’d definitely said the word “coffee”—twice.
And I wasn’t one to lean on subtext.
He ran his hand over his hair like he was nervous, which was not a word I would have associated with John Winston. Then the awkwardness was gone, and he seemed to regain his footing. “Let me know when you’re free.”
4
Mindy
Perhaps I had lingered too long on that memory.
It was one of my favorites, despite how it had ended.
But now, at breakfast in the Luxe, I stirred cream into my coffee. And continued to stir.
Until Brent reached across the table and stilled my hand. “Mindy, stop. I give up. Just, please—I can’t take one more clink of that spoon.”
Apparently, I’d been stirring for a long time, lost in my thoughts. “Wait, what are you giving up?”
“Bugging you about your not-as-unrequited-as-you-think feelings for John.”
With a huge sigh, I dropped my spoon on the table. “I’m telling you the truth, Brent. If something were going to happen between John and me, it would have already happened.” I picked up my cup in both hands and sighed more softly. I was going to need another reheat. “We had a chance. After the Thomas Paige investigation finally wrapped up, we even set up an appointment for coffee.”
“Coffee as in work-colleagues coffee or coffee as in a starter date?”
“Hard to say. The man is a bit inscrutable.”
He shot me a look that spoke volumes. “And your talent is reading people.”
“True. But I haven’t mastered reading that man. If I were a betting woman, I’d say yes, it seemed like a potential date. But I don’t like to assume. And maybe that’s for the best. Because the maybe-date coffee never happened. John was called to a homicide and had to cancel. And then the next time, I had an emergency at work.” I made a and so on gesture. Because so it went. “Then we started working out together, and now he’s my sparring partner, and . . .” I shrugged. “This is where we’ve settled, and it works for us.”
Brent frowned, but gently. “I think ‘settled’ is a telling word, Queen Mindy.” The affectionate nickname took any sting out of the comment. “If you have time to be friends, you could make time to be more.”
But did I? Could I? I wasn’t so sure. I’d always trusted signs, and they all pointed to the fact that we were buddies. John and I were best that way. Besides, I didn’t crave the same things my friends had in their lives. “Just because you’re all married and popping out babies, doesn’t mean everyone should be.” I stared into my lukewarm coffee. “Not everyone is meant for that.”
“I know.” He held up his hands in surrender, but he was serious when he added, “But I worry about you.”
I looked away. Truth was, sometimes I worried about me too.
Brent didn’t dance around the topic, which was one reason we were friends, but he spoke gently. “I worry that you put your heart on ice when Cody died in Afghanistan.”
My fiancé and I had been together for four years, engaged for one. He’d proposed when we both came back from deployment. I didn’t reenlist when my time was up, but Cody went back for a second tour and was killed.
That was six years ago.
Brent wasn’t wrong—I’d grieved hard, and, yes, it did feel as if the part of me that could love someone had died with Cody. But scars healed. I’d made it through, leaning on my friends and my job. Security work was not nearly as challenging as the military had been, but it was rewarding in its own way.
And it had provided a soft landing for me after Cody’s death.
Now, six years later, I still had work to fall back on—such that it was right now—and my friends and my sisters. Plus, I had a sacred duty as book supplier for my nieces and nephews—the ones in Colorado and the new ones I’d unofficially adopted here.
“You say ‘settled’ like it’s a bad thing,” I said. “I know what you mean, but when you feel unsettled—like you’re in zero gravity and nothing is bolted down to hold on to—stability and consistency trump romantic drama.”
Brent stared at me, looking dissatisfied with my answer and making sure I saw him looking dissatisfied with it. His eyebrow arch seemed to last a long time before he let it go. “Don’t think we won’t come back to that another time. But you just reminded me to ask how things are going at the Jade. It’s been almost a year since you left the Wynn for the new gig. I’m sensing lately it’s not all you’d hoped it would be.”
“Understatement of the year.” I leaned back in the booth, demonstrating how tired I was of the runaround. “My boss—”
I jerked my head up, making sure no one was in earshot. I even stretched up to look into the next booth. Las Vegas, especially the Strip, could be such a small world.
Satisfied we had a window of privacy, I went on, but didn’t name names. “I always thought that buyouts by soulless new owners were a cliché. But here I am, working on a temporary contract in a job I’ve been doing for nearly eight years. And there they are, stringing me along with the promise of a permanent job and benefits and a 401K. A 401K would go a long way toward making me feel more settled.”
He tapped his fingers on the table. “No promises, but if you want, I could check around—”
“Nope.” I held up my hands like double stop signs. “Do. Not. Want.” At Brent’s frown, I softened my tone. “Seriously, Brent. I don’t want favors.” I paused. “At least, not right now.”
“What do you want right now?” he asked. “Besides a retirement plan?”
“I’d settle for a freaking hot cup of coffee.”
And it came—the jolt of energy I needed for a nonstop day. The kind of day that invigorated me. That reminded me why I loved my job.
In spite of a classic sexist boss, I still loved every damn thing about this gig.
If only it came with a little more security.
When my boss called me into his office that evening, I sent a wish out to the universe that he’d finally offer me a permanent post.
But when I went in, the look on his face didn’t suggest an offer was coming my way.
The look on his face said you’re fired.
5
John
From the first bark that echoed from inside the rundown building on the outskirts of town, I knew.