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“I…listen, I went totally off-grid when I thought someone was after me.”
“With Hudson.”
“Yeah, with Hudson and…and…”
Silence.
“It was the best week of my life.” She drew in a breath. “Okay, fine, yes, I thought maybe there was something between Hud and me, but…” Her eyes had started to burn. Maybe the smoke from the cast iron pan.
“But loving Hudson would mean letting go of that tough exterior, letting him in and receiving grace,” said Pippa.
Iris looked at her.
“We feel ya,” Sibba said. “But the best thing you can do in your life is swap captivity—your fear—for love. Let God be in charge of your heart, and He will surprise you.”
And for a second, she was in the tasting room, Hudson’s arms braced around her, hers in the scruff of his shirt, his whisper against her ear.
Because you’re beautiful and strong and smart, and you make me see myself as more than I am. And I’d like a go at helping you see that too.
She closed her eyes. Saw Hudson’s expression last night as he overheard her talking to Fraser.I can go back to my life?
No wonder he’d left. He wasn’t the one doing the pushing away.
She opened her eyes. “I’m an idiot.”
Sibba grinned at her. “Don’t worry. If he wants you, he won’t give up.”
“I don’t know. That’s the second time I’ve let him walk away. But maybe I’ll see him in Amsterdam. I can talk to him then—”
“You’re going back to Europe?” The voice came from Shae, walking down the stairs, wearing yoga pants and a long-sleeve pullover, her blonde hair back in a low, messy bun. She held her new cell phone, the one she’d purchased when she dropped off Ned at the airport.
“I just figured out how to get email on this thing, and I have about two thousand messages,” she said. “But one is from the advertising firm who hired me to take pictures of that Lauchtenland stadium.”
“You took pictures of Titus Stadium?” Pippa said.
“Yeah, I told you that last week when we were looking at the blueprints. The firm wants me to take pictures of the Vienna Vikings for social media purposes, but I don’t have my camera. The Petrov Bratva took it when they kidnapped me.”
She said it with such nonchalance it shouldn’t have silenced the room like it did, but it seemed that everyone always forgot that Shae had recently been kidnapped.
Or maybe not everyone. “You were kidnapped by the Russian mob?” Sibba said.
“Did Jonas not mention that?” Pippa said.
“Just that you were in Russia, but…wait. The Petrovs were the people who deployed a dirty bomb in my country a month ago. And who stole the caesium-137—”
“That Ned’s SEAL team is trying to recover,” Shae said.
Fraser had come out of the den and now stopped in the hallway. “I think that’s classified.”
From the stove, the omelet sizzled. Her mother added cheese, glancing at Fraser.
“Oh.” Shae took a breath. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”
Fraser walked over and grabbed the empty coffee pot.
“It’s hard to keep anything classified in this family, Fraser,” Iris said.
“What happened to the caesium?” Sibba said. “I thought they brought it to some secure location in Europe.”
