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“It’s hard! I bet you couldn’t do it.”
“I dunno, Oompa Loompa. They say I’m a cowboy at heart.”
“You don’t even like horses,” she grumbled as she dropped back to the ground. “Scott said we could have some, but you always say no.”
He tossed her his keys. “Make yourself useful and go get my duffel out of the trunk.”
She caught them and went around the back of the vehicle as Claudia walked up and kissed him. “Are we all right?”
She knew nothing about his involvement in the attack on the Syrian facility or the kidnapping of Aleksandr Semenov. Her concerns were centered on Damian Losa.
“Fine.”
“So, he agrees that our debt is paid?”
Rapp nodded as a high-pitched squeal rose from Anna.
“Is this for me?”
“What?” Rapp said, wandering to the back of the car and looking down at a diminutive mountain bike lying on his bag. “How’d that get in there? I’ve never seen it before. But it looks too small for me, so I guess you can keep it.”
“Take it out for me! Take it out! Take it out!”
“What, are your arms broken?”
She wet her lips before reaching in and giving the titanium tubing a yank. It came out so easily, she almost fell over backward.
“It’s so light! It’s like it doesn’t weigh anything! Like a feather!”
He ignored Claudia’s painful jab to his ribs. She thought he spoiled the girl, and she probably had a point. But he decided to ignore that, too.
“Didn’t we agree that the bike would wait for her birthday?” she said as her daughter pedaled enthusiastically across the lawn.
“It’s hard to find decent ones that size, and the way she’s growing, it could be too small for her by then.”
“Uh huh.”
The disapproval was obvious in her voice, but nothing like it would have been if she knew the full truth. He’d spent months scouring the planet for the parts he’d installed on the bike and the frame was a custom build. All in, he had put about thirty hours and eight grand into it.
Claudia wrapped an arm around his waist as Anna disappeared behind the house. “Irene says she doesn’t have anything for you on the horizon and the guys don’t have another contract starting until fall. Does that mean you’re home for a while?”
He retrieved the duffel that Anna had forgotten about and slung it over his shoulder. “For a while. Yeah.”
