“I know, right?” she replied proudly. “I thought it would take more for them to bloom this first time around, but I guess I have a green thumb.”
“You do,” Sarah agreed, and she stooped down to smell the peonies. Their sweet, rosy perfume filled the air around her, and she closed her eyes, trying to ground herself with a focus on the scent.
See? I’m fine.
She just needed to give herself a little more time, and focus her energy on the grounding and calming techniques she would have prescribed to any of her clients, and she would be back to normal in no time.
At least, that was what she had to keep telling herself. Because the thought of having to leave this place, for anything at all, was more than a little terrifying to her right now.
Chapter Three
Lawson strode down the main hallway in the lodge with purposeful strides. He went past Reception and the main gathering room, and was passing the dining hall, where he heard someone call his name.
“Hey, Lawson!”
He glanced around, and saw Xavier and Cade hanging out by the dining table in the center of the room, clearing out the plates from the recent meal.
“Can you give us a hand with all this?” Cade called to him. “Aaron’s out at the paddock and we could use an extra pair of hands.”
Lawson held up his phone and made an apologetic face. “Sorry, guys. I have to take this,” he told them.
Xavier shook his head at him. “Anything to get out of dish duty, huh?” he teased.
Lawson held his hands up. “You got me,” he joked. “See you guys in a bit.”
Truth be told, he didn’t have time to stick around and help out right now. No, he’d just gotten a text from someone he hadn’t heard from in a hell of a long time, and something told him that if she was getting in touch with him, something had to be going on. Something bad.
The text from Lainey Daye had told him to get to somewhere he wouldn’t be overheard and call her. He knew she wasn’t screwing around or being overdramatic when she’d typed that,either. Lainey had never taken a joking attitude. She always said exactly what she meant, and nothing more.
It was one of the many things that had made her such a good agent for the CIA. Lawson had trained alongside her, and she had worked in the agency for the better part of a decade before she’d left field duty and begun working as an analyst instead.
The two of them had kept in touch on and off, though they had mostly been focused on their own lives the last few years. Still, Lawson felt some loyalty to her, same as he was sure she did to him, and he wasn’t going to leave her out in the cold if something was going on and she needed his help.
He reached his room and pulled the door shut behind him, double-checking to make sure it was locked. He dialed her back and lifted the phone to his ear, and it rang a couple of times before Lainey answered.
“Lawson?”
“Lainey. I’m alone,” he told her. “What’s going on?”
“Good,” she replied, her voice taut.
Lawson could tell at once that something was up, and he didn’t like it. They’d worked together for long enough that he could recognize when something was wrong, and when it came to Lainey, he knew it wasn’t going to be anything simple. She had a knack for diving in headfirst when it was something important to her.
“What’s happening?” he demanded. “Are you safe?”
“For now,” she replied. “Can you meet me in town? I don’t want to say much over the phone.”
“In town?”
“I’m at a café, not far from the sewing shop,” she explained.
He frowned. “Wait, you’re…”
“Yes. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to get down here,” she replied. “Can you make it? I need to talk to you. In person. It’s really important.”
“Of course I can,” he replied without even really thinking twice about it. He was never going to leave Lainey out in the cold, and if she had come all this way to find him, she must have believed he was the only person who could help her. “I’ll need to shift a couple things here, then I’ll be on my way.”
“Good,” she responded. “Please, hurry. I’ll see you soon, Lawson.”
