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“Or a wife?” she ventured.
His eyebrows lifted, and still he didn’t answer. Message received. His personal life was none of her business. She glanced at the large hand holding a spatula.
“I see no wedding ring.”
“Eat your muffin.”
“You make that sound almost naughty.” She broke off a piece and popped it in her mouth. “You really know how to issue orders, don’t you? Were you a drill sergeant at any point in your life?”
“No. But that is another of my faults,” he admitted. “It’s easier for me to give orders than to follow them. Just ask any of my superiors.”
“Maybe I should have. I did no vetting before we agreed to this arrangement. I put my trust in Kirk.”
“You can trust Kirk. You can trust me.” The firmness in his voice left no room for doubt. “But that’s why I’m listing my faults now, so they don’t take you by surprise at an awkward moment.”
“Speaking of awkward moments, what were you doing over at the Blue Drake?”
At his look of surprise, she explained. “Kendra Carter called me. She runs the restaurant there. She said you were lurking around in a very suspicious manner.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he lifted his fried eggs from the pan. Four, she noticed. Apparently it took a lot of food to keep that big frame going.
“It’s a very small town,” she said easily. “I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation. That’s what I told Kendra.”
He carried his plate of eggs and mug of coffee to the living room, where a small marble-topped table with wrought iron legs offered a view of snowy downtown Lake Bittersweet. “You stood up for me,” he commented after he’d settled in.
“I did. No questions asked. I get into plenty of inadvertent messes myself, so I get it.”
He nodded in a manner that he obviously meant to convey gratitude.
“But you could explain,” she suggested gently.
After a long pause, during which she watched the movement of his jaws as he forked down his eggs, he swallowed and cleared his throat. “It’s complicated.”
That wasn’t what she expected. “Why? How?”
“There was…an incident. I promised I wouldn’t say any more. It has nothing to do with you or your safety, I can tell you that.”
She rolled another bit of muffin between her fingers. “Kendra said she’s seen you around the Blue Drake a few times, but you never go in.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“It’s not your fault. You’re hard to miss. Small town and all.”
He shrugged. “And I don’t look like a Norwegian farmer?”
She tilted her head to look him over. “Not enough flannel for that.”
He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned back in the chair. For a moment she thought it might collapse and tumble him onto the floor. “It’s funny that you’re asking me all kinds of questions when you still haven’t come clean about your security needs.”
“I already told you, ‘security needs’ is an overstatement.” At least she hoped it was. Ever since she’d arrived, she’d been on edge, but it didn’t seem that anyone had followed her from Thailand.
She’d thought seriously about telling him the whole story. But he was a federal agent and who knew what he’d do with that information. Even if he wasn’t on the job right now, he’d probably feel some obligation to stillbehavelike a federal agent. She’d been down that road—the first call she’d made was to someone in the State Department in Bangkok. It had brought her nothing but trouble.
But just because a low-level State Department worker was corrupt, that didn’t mean Granger was. Surely she could trust him, at least with bits of the story.
“I think someone was following me before I left Thailand,” she blurted.
Apparently her impulsive nature had decided for her.
