The first he would have nodded and made some simple conversation with. The second he would spend some time figuring out to ensure they weren’t here to spy on him.
He had absolutely no idea what to do with the woman in front of him. “Uh, I don’t think he’s going to kill me.”
She was weirdly fascinating. And just plain weird. She had a messenger bag over her shoulder, and the wide strap was decorated with a bunch of buttons, one which proclaimed her the Mistress of Code. She seemed to like code and the color green since she had a big button with the words I Always Play Green and some weird figure on it. “Confident. I like it. Are you a client or a new hire?” She gasped as she seemed to think of something. “Or a new vendor? Because if you are trying to sell the big guy anything that’s not a lemon tart, he might kill you. We should rethink this.”
It was her smile that did it. A small uptick of lips that let him know she was fucking with him and probably fucked with every guy in her life. Not in a “I’m looking to screw you over, take your secrets, and then probably murder you on the way out the door” way he’d gotten used to.
In the “I don’t take life too seriously” way. Like the women he’d been friends with in college. The ones he’d been comfortable with in another lifetime. In the life he’d had before he’d so brutally destroyed everything around him.
He should walk away from this woman. He was toxic, and his world for so long had been blood and secrets and death. She wouldn’t even know how to walk in his world. She also wasn’t his type. The last thing he needed was even a casual flirtation.
“I’m the new guy.” He held out a hand. “Name’s Kyle Hawthorne. I’m starting in the bodyguard unit today.”
She was completely harmless. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to the cute goth chick while he was here. He wouldn’t be here forever. He was giving this two months tops. That should be enough time to satisfy his family and the higher-ups at the CIA that he wasn’t going to do something dangerous. And then he would go do something dangerous.
She reached out, that smile turning into something truly glorious. Her black-tinged lips spread and showed even white teeth, but it was the way that smile lit up her eyes that made him pause. “MaeBe.”
Oh, she was playing with fire because for the first time in months he felt his groin tighten as he took her hand in his and felt an actual fucking spark that probably wasn’t static electricity. He couldn’t help the way his own lips curled up, and the words that flowed out of his mouth could have come from his twenty-year-old self. “Maybe? I would say that’s a little presumptuous of you, but I think I’ll go with it.”
Who the fuck was he? He didn’t flirt with cuties. Not when information wasn’t on the line.
He didn’t want information from her. Not anything beyond why she only played green and what she was doing standing in front of an office filled with hardened ex-soldiers.
Her eyes rolled but it was softened with a laugh as she released his hand and stepped back. “It’s my name, Kyle. Not a prediction of the future. I’m Mae Beatrice Vaughn, hence the MaeBe nickname. My mom came up with it, and it stuck with me. I’m in cybersecurity.”
“Really? You work here?”
She pulled a key card out of her bag and held it up. “I do. I know it’s hard to think about. I should probably be getting ready to DJ a bar mitzvah or something. Or perhaps working in the dark corners of the web catfishing people for cash, but no. I’m here with the good guys. And don’t go with it, buddy. I only date weirdoes, and you, sir, are the boss’s nephew.” She looked at him critically. “You don’t look like the big guy.”
“Because he’s not my biological uncle, hence the we-don’t-share-a-last-name thing.” He’d been standing in this hallway for at least ten minutes trying to decide if he was actually going in, but now he found himself scrambling behind her so the door didn’t close and he was left on the wrong side.
She strode through, her combat boots clomping against the marble floors. “Huh. He told everyone you were his nephew. So you’re Grace’s kid?”
“I am not a kid at all but yes, Grace Taggart is my mom. But I do call Ian my uncle. It’s different when it comes to Sean. I had a dad. I didn’t have an uncle. I call Sean by his name since I was pretty much an adult when they met. Mostly.”
That seemed like a million years ago. A full lifetime he could never get back no matter how familiar this place was. The fact that a super-adorable woman with what looked like a banging bod worked here now was proof that the place was likely as changed as Kyle himself.
She turned, those dumb, shouldn’t-be-so-sexy pigtails swinging. “I didn’t think about that. You knew Sean before he was the Soldier Chef.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I knew him when he was the asshole who was trying to sleep with my mom. I actually called him that over the phone once. I hadn’t met him at the time. I kind of pictured him being this pudgy dude wearing khakis that came up to his nipples and had a pornstache. So I threatened him.”
That smile went nuclear again. “Bet you wet your pants when you finally did meet him.”
He hadn’t thought about that day in forever. He shook his head. “Not at all. I’d talked to him enough by then that I knew he was a solid dude. When I met him, we were at a hospital because my mom was in a coma. I hugged him, and he got us all through that and then we were family.”
Why had he said that? He was guarded. He didn’t blurt things out.
Her expression softened. “That’s great. It doesn’t surprise me Sean Taggart’s a good stepdad. Big Tag’s pretty much every sad-sack employee who needs one’s dad. Not that I would tell him that. Not the dad part.”
“You?”
“Absolutely. My dad sucks. I think when Ian picked up on that he moved into what he thinks is the big brother role, but he’s a dad. It’s probably because he’s got so many kids. They’re like everywhere. But you know that. You probably got to watch them grow up and stuff.”
He hadn’t. He barely knew his half siblings. He’d been around when they were little. Even when he’d first gone in the Navy, he’d come home on leave and he and David would take their younger sister and brother out to the movies and to baseball games, and then secrets had become his whole world and spies had replaced his family.
“I’ve been away for a couple of years. In the Navy.” He couldn’t tell anyone what he’d actually been doing the last three years of his life. Not even his parents, and definitely not his uncle or anyone here at McKay-Taggart.
He rather thought that was part of this whole sabbatical thing. His bosses wanted to see how wrecked he was and if he could still keep a secret.
What they didn’t understand was how far he would go to keep his family from knowing how badly he’d screwed up. His family didn’t know he’d worked with their CIA contact, Drake Radcliffe, for years. They didn’t know he had anything to do with the Agency at all.
They definitely didn’t know about Julia Ennis, and they never would.
“You don’t look military to me,” MaeBe said. “But then there are a couple of former CIA agents who I would never have guessed.”