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“You can’t go in with me.”
“I’ve made my decision. You go in, I go in.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Candace
If I go in, he goes in.
I push back on that point. “If you go with me, Rick, you ruin the entire point here. I’m supposed to be getting him to talk. And furthermore, if he works for Tag, I promise you, he knows who you are.”
“I’ll stay back and blend in,” Rick says.
I gape at him and look at the other men. “Is there anyone here that thinks this man,” I wave my hands up and down at him, “blends in?”
Asher laughs. “She has a point.”
“I blend just fucking fine,” Rick snaps, scowling at Asher before he returns all that fiery attention to me. “I’ll follow you in. I’ll be there, but you won’t know it.”
I scowl this time, but I stop fighting. I’m not going to win with him. “Who’s he here with, by the way?”
“His roommate, Casey Allen,” Adam says. “New guy. Med student. He looks unremarkable. Studies. Works. Occasionally comes here. Know him?”
“No,” I say. “But he probably knows me because of Gordan and my father. Or of me. That’s what happens when you’re a general’s daughter.” I shiver as an evening breeze gushes over us and promises more while reminding me that Halloween has just passed, and the holidays are fast approaching. “I’m going to get this over with.” I start walking.
“Strong-minded,” I hear Asher say. “She’ll fit right in.”
Rick catches my arm and turns me to face him. “You forgot something.”
I push to my toes and kiss him. “That too,” he says, “but this is what I was talking about.” He opens my purse and pulls out the gun, handing it to Asher. “They’ll search your purse and they have metal detectors. The tactical pens will be an issue as well, but you can get a couple by in your purse. Move them once you’re inside.”
I do some adjusting, removing pens from various places and sliding them into my purse. “Anything else?”
His hands come down on my arms, he pulls me to him and he kisses me. “Make this fast.” He turns me toward the door of the bar. I don’t hesitate. I start walking and I keep walking, already planning where to hide my pens on my person once inside, but somehow my mind darts in another direction, to Asher’s comment: She’ll fit right in. It begins to play over and over in my head even as I weave through parked cars, my skin prickling with Rick’s determined presence at my back. That’s a good thing, but I don’t know where this is headed. He lives in New York. I live here, but he’s asked me to go to New York with him. To visit, I remind myself. Why am I thinking about this now? Music lifts from inside the building that is more warehouse by design, the walls rattling. I approach the short line by the door, thunder rumbling overhead. Wonderful. I love the rain when it includes Rick Savage, but right now, this night, it needs to go away.
I step into the line that is about six deep, while several people follow behind me. Rick is one of those people. I don’t actually see him. I don’t dare look behind me, but I feel him there. I can always feel this man. The wind gusts again, and I hug myself, wishing I had a jacket. The doors open in front of the line and an old-school George Strait song lifts in the air. “All My Ex’s Live In Texas” teases Rick’s past here with me. Thankfully, it ends by the time I’m at the door, showing my ID and allowing my purse to be searched. The process goes quickly and as Rick assured me, the pens gain no attention. He was right. They’re a weapon no one sees as a weapon, and that offers me an edge.
By the time I’m walking down a hallway that leads to the main bar, I’ve shoved a pen in my pocket, placed one behind my ear, and placed another in the outer pocket of my purse. My cellphone buzzes with a text and I glance at a message from Rick that reads: You still have a damn fine ass.
Just that easily, I forget that I was an ex because this is his way of telling me he’s got my back. I not only believe him, but I’ve missed the way this man always makes me feel so—his. He always made me feel like I was his. Despite my worries about him joining me, I’m glad he’s here. I enter the main room, with Luke Bryan’s “Strip It Down” blasting through the speakers now, and into a swarm of boots, hats, and southern drawls. A bar sits directly in front of me, inviting newcomers to spend money and get their drink on quickly. To my left is a dance floor. To my right, a couple of pool tables. My phone buzzes with a text and when I pull it from my pocket, I read another message from Rick: At a bar table by the dance floor.
