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A senior-looking, very disappointed man enters next, his FBI badge hanging like a giant bread tag around his neck. Senior Director of operations.
Without a word he ushers his two out and my guys follow, leaving me free to make my call.
Gillian picks up on the first ring.
I breathe for what feels like the first time since she was left at the medical center.
“Do you always answer private numbers?” I ask, smiling at the sound of her voice.
“Only when I know it’s you,” she tells me truthfully.
“That’s my girl. How’s the ankle?” I ask. Genuinely hoping she’s okay.
“Uh, apparently it broke and was healed all in less then twelve hours,” she says, sounding like someone who has some questions.
“That’s great news,” I smile. “I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I also met...” she starts, lowering her voice but thinks better of it.
I don’t press it, just want her back with me. Want us home. But I’ve got a nagging suspicion I’ll have to be away from a few days to tie off some loose ends.
I want us to have some time before then though. More than time. I want her, me and a bed. Alone for a very long time.
It’s all a lot to tell her now, so I’ll see how things pan out once I get the heads up on who and why the feds are poking around in my yard in the first place.
Second, but not least important. “We’ve got a house to clean,” I remind her, making her groan.
“Can’t we just grab some lunch first?” she asks, my own belly groaning at the thought of food.
I’m pretty sure we didn’t have dinner last night either.
“Sure,” I tell her. “You’re still at the medical center?” She confirms that.
“I’ll come get you myself, but if you see some guys in dark suits and sunglasses wanting all your x-rays and taking your doctors away, don’t be upset, okay?”
“What?” she asks, but I just want to get to her.
“I’ll explain when I get there.”
Or not.
“Just concentrate whether you want waffles, pancakes, or steak,” I add, feeling like all three myself.
“You will come?” she asks a nervous edge in her voice now.
“Gillian, I had no idea those clowns were coming today. It won’t happen again. I won’t leave you like that again, I promise,” I tell her, wincing as soon as the words leave my mouth.
I know full well I’ll have to leave her just one more time, but it’ll be for the last time.
“Just hang tight, I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I tell her. “Oh, and Gillian?”
“Yeah.”
“I...I love you,” I tell her, chickening out a bit and hanging up. But now she knows.
And I can’t wait to show her just how much, several times tonight if I have my way.
Hustling out the precinct, I’m glad to see Hank Stanton filling up at a hot dog stand, he hasn’t left yet.
I sidle up next to him, resisting the urge to order myself a dog, not wanting to eat if I can’t share it with Gillian.
“Apology accepted,” I murmur into his ear, making him jump with fright, shooting mustard all over his tie and badge.
That should be punishment enough. Mrs. Stanton will have plenty more to scold him about now than I could.
“That was quick,” he says, recovering himself as well as trying to chew what looks like two hot dogs at once.
“Yeah, the old mistaken identity thing I think. Because you know how many seven foot tall college professors there are within fifty miles of every woodland crime scene for the past decade, right?” I ask, raising both brows.
“Huh?” he says as I hand him some napkins so he can finger paint the rest of the mustard deeper into his shirt.
“Anyway, I thought by way of apology you could drop me back at the medical center, to collect Ms. Parker and then back to my place?”
“Thu ‘east I ould oo,” he manages to say, still trying to swallow his lunch while quite possibly turning me off hot dogs forever in the process.
There is one dog we have to collect, and if he’s learned his lesson, little Orion can play deputy Alpha for just one more day.
Chapter Eleven
Gillian
Feeling quite forgotten in all the excitement at the campus medical center, I cry my last tears before my cell hums.
It’s been an emotional four years and an even more emotional twenty-four hours, so I welcome the relief of having let some tears flow.
It’s a private number, ones I don’t usually answer, but something tells me it’s Xander.
I just know it is.
I manage to answer within the first ring and hope he can’t tell I’ve been crying.
He’s the one thing I could never really cry about, only tears of joy whenever I think of Xander.
He asks how I am, reminding me again of the million questions I have, but he sounds so happy to hear I’m okay that I can’t press him over the phone.
