Page 8 of Creeping Beautiful

I certainly didn’t.

I still don’t know all the specifics. All I know is that one day I was living at home with my family and the next I was living in New Orleans with the Bouchers.

The day we got home—my new home—Adam’s father took me into his office and sat me down in a chair that was monumentally too big for me and started spelling things out.

Adam would be leaving soon.

I would be staying behind.

We didn’t have much time to put this whole thing together.

Adam had a job and I had a job. This was the way of the world we lived in.

I just kept nodding my head. Yes. Yes. Yes. Whatever you say. It’s not like I had a choice. My decision had been made. He had already explained some things to me back in Alaska. He had already spelled out my choices in no uncertain terms before we left.

So there was nothing else to be said on my part. Just… yes, yes, yes.

But Adam didn’t go away. Something happened. His father changed his mind? He got kicked out of the program? I’m not sure.

All I know is that Mr. Boucher’s grand plan for Adam and I was upended. Never happened.

And everything was pretty normal after that—if you don’t count the martial arts training, the trips to the private shooting range, and the way Mr. Boucher, and about two hundred other Company higher-ups, died that night in Santa Barbara all those years ago.

Everything was pretty damn normal until Adam went down to that island in the Caribbean and came home with Indie Anna Accorsi.

I wondered about that a little bit back when it happened.

But I never quite wondered enough.

“Knock, knock.”

I glance up and find Indie leaning against the doorway peeling her wet jeans down her legs. She kicks them aside and then sighs. “So, really. How have you been, McKay?”

“I’m OK. I can’t complain.”

“Still building things with your hands?”

“I do a job here and there.”

She lifts her t-shirt up over her head and lets it fall to the floor. I know I shouldn’t look but I look anyway. Her bra isn’t sexy. There’s no lace. No flower pattern. It’s just black cotton. Same as her underwear. More practical than anything else.

I distract myself with thoughts about her gun. Where did she put it? It doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that it’s not still tucked away in her jeans. And that means she’s not here to kill me.

I stand up and push past her. Go out into the hallway and walk into the kitchen to try to collect myself.

“I had a job too,” she calls from the bathroom. She shuts off the water in the tub and gets in, hissing at the heat.

“What kind of job?” My heart is pounding. I place my hand over it as I wait for her answer.

“I was a dog walker.”

I smile, then huff out a small laugh. “When was this?”

“Oh…” She hisses again. Then I think she goes under. But a few seconds later there’s that sound people make when they resurface and then some sputtering. “Like… last year, I think.”

“Last year? What have you been doing since then?”

She sighs in the other room. Says nothing. So I go back down the hallway and now it’s my turn to lean against the doorjamb. I fold my arms and wait her out.