AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’d do anything for her, but I don’t want her having to take my problems on.” At the back of his mind it was the legacy of his hacking days that made him want to end it with Sky, to protect her from his mess.
“You get used to it, Rory. It’s just the way it happens. You wouldn’t be involved in each other’s lives and supporting each other if you didn’t care, and I mean care a lot. You know what I mean.”
“Yes.” Rory felt awkward.
“Was it the trip home to Wales, all the family stuff?”
“Maybe. We were fine. We talked, yes, a lot of us stuff came out. I think it did us good, you know.” He sighed, and pushed his fingers through his hair. “I’m only guessing, but I get annoyed deep down because she thought I acted like a stepbrother. You know, when I tried to take care of her. Hell, I don’t know, really I don’t.”
“Do you think you did act like a brother?”
Rory went through it in his mind, and then shook his head. “I don’t think I ever did, not even back in the day….back in our home town.”
George smiled.
“Any need I have to take care of her is because I want her as a girlfriend not a sister.”
“It might be difficult for her to tell them apart, if you don’t tell her that yourself.”
“Yeah, you’re right, if that’s what it is. I
can’t see what else it might be.” He looked at the clock.
“You want to go tell her that now?” George smiled and stoked his beard. “I can lock up.”
Taken aback by George’s eagerness to push things along, Rory frowned. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Course I am. I’m too old for my own adventures of the heart, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy yours.”
Rory lifted his eyebrows. “That’d be weird if I didn’t know you so well.”
“We know each other now. We make a good team, buddy.”
It was the first time George had ever called him buddy. He’d often called him son. It pleased him. He smiled and nodded. “We do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Some guy’s over there waiting for you.” Mandy, one of Sky’s coworkers, gestured across the station concourse.
Sky’s hopes lifted because she assumed it was Rory. When she looked over where Mandy pointed she didn’t see Rory, she saw another guy. His face looked familiar. It took a minute for her to place him. It was that Jackson bloke, the one who wanted Rory’s hacking kit. Sky stiffened. How in hell had he found her?
“He asked for you by name,” Mandy added, “and he came by yesterday when you were away in Wales.”
Jackson gave her a smarmy smile when he saw her looking over, and waved with just his fingertips.
Sky felt in her pocket for her phone, but Rory was on the other side of London busy at work. There was only one thing to do, face up to this guy. She could do it, she did it before. What the hell does he want from me anyway? She didn’t have the USB.
She might have had it, but he wouldn’t believe it, since she’d given him her own as a decoy. That’s when it occurred to her—the Art History reading list wasn’t the only thing on there. There was a copy of the latest shift timetable for The Coffee Hut. That’s how he’d found her. It had the location highlighted for staff distribution. He must have been hanging around while they were in Wales, waiting for her to turn up on one of her shifts.
He sauntered over.
Flustered, she busied herself wiping surfaces and kept on working, determined not to let him know he’d got to her. “What do you want?”
“Rory asked for you, he’s at my office. He won’t give me what he owes me until he knows you’re safe.”
Sky didn’t believe it for a minute. This guy either thought she was stupid, or didn’t know Rory as well as she did.
She could refuse to go with him and call security from across the station concourse, but the problem would remain. Thinking frantically, she knew she had to act fast. She had time to send a text to warn Rory, and if she did it under the counter he would scarcely know what she was up to.
