Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109299 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109299 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“Hell, I’m a little tense about the job,” he continues.
“Yeah?”
“I’m so over working for other people,” he says as I reach the corner of the fields, then turn up the street that runs along the back of the farm. “Did that long enough for Stan. Don’t want to do it again.”
There it is. The reminder. “Same, brother. Same.”
He blows out a breath. If a breath could sound hopeful, this one does. “It’ll be good,” he says, like he’s reassuring himself more than me.
“Absolutely,” I say, because it fucking will, I’ll make sure of it. We won’t miss a thing. No one in the whole damn world is more organized than I am. Being a little bit of a control freak goes a long way in my field.
“And how’s the sister?” he asks.
It’s a standard business question. A normal check-in about the client. A conversation we’ve had a hundred times before in the last year as we’ve worked together, running our firm. But also in the years before when we were working for Stan Withers and our didn’t-give-a-shit boss sent us too-thin briefs without any real research, leaving Dean and me to sink or swim, whether it came to field work or cybersecurity.
Plus side though? We learned by doing, because we had no other choice but to figure out the jobs all on our own.
No job, though, has ever been this tempting.
In all my years in close protection, I’ve never warred with desire for a client. I think about the answer I can’t give to Dean’s question.
Ripley Addison is sexy. Fiery. Challenging. All the things she was the night I met her and even more. But I don’t say any of that because I don’t want Dean to worry. Like it’s no big deal, since really, it has to be no big deal, I say, “She’s a typical non-celeb client. Doesn’t think she needs a bodyguard. But it’s fine.”
He chuckles. “Know the type well.”
“Yup. How are things with the McKellar project?” I ask, shifting gears to a corporate client, since I don’t want to dwell on me and these feelings I can’t entertain.
He slides into those details easily and when I’ve rounded the property a third time, we’re done. “Keep me posted,” he says.
“You know I will.”
“I do,” he says.
I hang up, wishing I didn’t feel like I’d lied to my friend and business partner. But when I reach the main gate for Lavender Bliss Farms, I try to shrug off the uncomfortable feelings, vowing to focus on the client’s needs—giving her the space she asked for while watching her back.
That I can do without lying.
By the end of the evening, I’ve finished some admin work, helped pick and prune flowers with Ripley, and accompanied her on some deliveries. I stayed in the background, giving her space to chat with her customers, her employees, her friends. While she talked to Ramona by the lavender maze about something that clearly distressed the woman in the shop, I hung back, out of earshot. When she ran into a woman with heavily pierced ears and a nose ring, I gave them space for the convo.
As we return to the farm, Ripley heads inside the home, and I go to the shop, on a mission. A guy I’m pretty sure is Cyrus is working there today, bobbing his shaggy head of hair to something that sounds like Jack Johnson. He’s a white surfer dude with long hair, a deep tan, and an obvious vibe—that his life is a vibe.
“Hey, bro,” he says with a smile. “What can I do you for?”
“How’s it going?” He doesn’t have a name tag, but Ripley told me the names of everyone who worked here so I can surmise. And I like to use people’s names when I can. That’s something my mother taught me. It personalizes interactions. Shows them you care, even if it’s someone you’ll never see again, she says. “I’m Banks. You must be Cyrus.”
He puffs out his chest. “I am. And you’re like Kevin Costner, right? I love that movie. I mean it’s old, but old movies are so cute, man, aren’t they? But hey, no surprise there. Old people are rad. I wonder what it would have been like to be an old person back then?”
Wow. That is quite an if you give a moose a muffin train of thought. He seems to be enjoying it since his gaze is drifting off, and perhaps he’s picturing himself in the good old days of the nineties.
I wait for him to come back to the present moment.
He shakes his head. “Anyhoo. Talk to me, bro.”
I nod toward the lavender eye masks. “I’ll take one of those, Cyrus.”
“Sweet,” he says, then hands me one, not making a move to ask for payment.
My brow knits. “How much?”
“Bro, you’re keeping my boss safe. It’s on the house.”