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“Yep. Khakis, golf shirts, sweaters. Everything on Mr. Fashionista Barbie’s list. A full-on discount dork wardrobe is hanging in your closet.” McGee thumbed over his shoulder toward my bedroom, then looked at me with a little frown. “You good, boss?”
Was I? A woman I’d trusted for over a decade was throwing around accusations. I was stuck on a bus with a man I absolutely couldn’t have and also couldn’t stop thinking about. I was already tired of glad-handing, and this was only day one.
But I knew what I needed to say. “I’m good. Just let me get out of this damned suit, and we can go.” I looked at Reagan, who was sliding off his coat, and added, “Then you and I need to talk.”
Chapter Seven
Reagan
…He’s a silver-tongued, provoking little shit. But he’s not a liar. He’s not manipulative. And he’s not a person who’d callously put someone else’s livelihood at risk for his own gain…
On the all-time list of compliments I’d received, this should have ranked somewhere near the bottom with the thinly veiled insults. But hearing those words in Thatcher’s deep, confident voice, in this particular context, gave them a totally different spin.
He’d defended me.
My chest squeezed at the warm comfort of it. Thatcher Pennington had defended me, and that meant…
Nothing. Come on, Reagan. You’re his friend’s kid. Of course he’d defend you. It’s not personal.
“Reagan? You okay?” Thatcher emerged from the bedroom quickly, wearing casual pants, another of his incredible sweaters, and a concerned expression, possibly because I was standing next to the refrigerator, staring blankly into space.
“Never better. Nothing I love more than randomly being accused of things.” I forced myself to move, to grab a drink from the refrigerator, to keep my cool, though it felt like a losing battle under the circumstances. “I was just standing here wondering what the hell someone thinks I’ve done now. I haven’t fucked up anything that I’m aware of.”
“I know.”
Thatcher slid onto the front-facing side of the booth, as usual, and I took the seat opposite him. As though McGee had sensed that Thatcher was finally sitting, the bus pulled smoothly out of the parking lot toward Wichita, and I looked at Thatcher expectantly.
But instead of talking, explaining, Thatcher took out his phone and started tapping—maybe another of those incredibly awkward, type-erase-repeat texts he’d sent Brantleigh earlier that had made my stomach cramp with all sorts of gushy, sympathetic feelings—and I found myself filling the silence.
“All I did yesterday was make media packets for the trip. I didn’t even write any of it—just formatted it and printed copies and delivered them to McGee,” I said.
“Okay.” Thatcher didn’t glance up.
“I worked all day. I barely took a break. I didn’t even take time to go on TikTok and see the Nova footage for myself. I wasn’t gossiping or chatting—” I thought of my brief talk with Nataly and hesitated. “—much.”
He grunted.
“And the tweaks I made to your speech were solid, based on the talking points that the team already prepared. If you disagreed with any of them, you could’ve told me?—”
“Mmm.”
“So what’s the issue, then?” I demanded, unable to take him ignoring me any longer. “What am I being accused of? Because if I haven’t made it clear, I care about this job, Thatcher. I care about doing it well. And I’d really like a chance to defend myself?—”
Finally, Thatcher set his phone facedown and looked at me. “Calm down.”
“Calm down?” I repeated, incredulous. “Are you kidding? Never in the history of humanity has a person calmed down because they were instructed to calm down. And how would you feel if you were being accused of something bad enough that it wasn’t being reported to your boss, or your boss’s boss but to your boss’s boss’s boss? Something that ‘could put people’s livelihood at stake’? Because I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be with calm.” I slapped my hand on the tabletop for emphasis.
“Reagan.” Thatcher laid his larger hand over mine, holding it firmly in place. His voice was deep and commanding, and I instinctively responded by snapping my mouth shut. “You heard me tell January that you hadn’t done anything, right?”
I breathed in through my nose, which was a mistake because all I could smell was Thatcher—woodsmoke and pine, sage and sex—a scent that fried all of my synapses and… alright, yes, calmed me down. “What does January think I did?”
“January doesn’t think you did anything either.” Thatcher’s voice had dropped even lower now, and he hadn’t let go of my hand. I felt surrounded. Cradled. Like he was holding me together. “You’re not in trouble. Layla made some ill-considered comments, probably because she’s sick and lashing out?—”
“Layla?” Just like that, I was amped up again.
“Take a couple of deep breaths, and I’ll explain.” His voice was soothing, but when he squeezed my wrist to get my attention, distracting images of the other night flashed through my mind. Of him pinning me down, taking me.
I closed my eyes tight.
