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I dipped my chin slightly and clarified, “Well, I didn’t personally construct the homes, but yes, I’m the reason they exist.”
His eyes roamed over my face, and there was no denying that he looked a bit bewildered by the information he’d just been given.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, unable to stand the pressure I felt being under such intense scrutiny.
He moved his head back and forth slowly. “How… well, it’s just that you’re so young.”
So that was it.
I couldn’t say it didn’t make any sense. I might have had a similar reaction if he had told me he was the owner of a property that wasn’t necessarily struggling, but didn’t have a waiting list that was months long to get into, either.
“I’m twenty-nine, so I’m not as young as you might be thinking,” I told him. “And I got the money for the property from an inheritance.”
Understanding moved through him, and some of the tension eased out of his frame. Until I saw that, I hadn’t realized he was so concerned.
Then again, doing what he did for a living, even if I didn’t know all the ins and outs of it, I had to assume that he was probably thinking I did something illegal to get the money. Heck, one look into my past, and he might find that I was a homeless criminal as a teenager.
A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of him learning the truth about me.
Not wanting to focus on me or my past any longer, I figured it was best for me to change the subject. “So, what about you?”
“What about me?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, you know what I do, but I’m not entirely sure I know what you do, other than the fact that you work with Kane.”
“Right. Well, even though Kane and I both work at Harper Security Ops together, we have very different job responsibilities.”
“Oh. Are you his boss or something? Or is it the other way around?” I questioned him.
Leo chuckled, the sight of it sending a shot of heat through me, and he replied, “Neither. The owner and head honcho at Harper Security Ops is Royce Blackstone. Kane and I simply work in different units within the company.”
Truth be told, I didn’t really know much about the scope of what Harper Security Ops did. Everything I knew, I knew from Ellery. And since I only knew about the self-defense training she’d been receiving from Kane, I had assumed that was all that they did. Apparently, I was wrong.
“You mean, it’s not just self-defense training?” I asked.
Leo shook his head. “No. Not at all. There are currently four different units within the company, and each one is responsible for a different task. Each team is comprised of men who’ve served time in the military and wanted to come back home to do something that felt like we were making the best use of the skills we’d earned while enlisted. Everyone excels at something different, and Harper Security gives each of us a chance to hone and utilize those skills. We’ve got the self-defense and tactical training unit, which is where Kane spends most of his time. We also have a kidnap and ransom unit, where Mallory’s fiancé, Nixon, works. Harper Security Ops also provides private security and bodyguard services, and we have a team of guys who work as private investigators.”
I’d had no idea there was a place in Steel Ridge that offered all that Leo had just shared that Harper Security Ops did, but I thought it was incredible.
“What do you do?” I asked, suddenly curious what role he played on the team.
“I’m one of the private investigators,” he revealed.
Upon hearing those words, I had two immediate and very opposing reactions.
The first was that of all the units he could have been in, I liked that Leo was in the private investigation one. Of the four units, it felt like one of the safer ones. Then again, I wasn’t sure why I was concerned about danger when it came to him at all. I barely knew the guy. Plus, he’d served in the military, so I had a feeling that anything he might do here in Steel Ridge would be like a walk in the park.
But the other reaction I had to learning Leo was a private investigator was not a good one. Because it meant that he was good at figuring things out. If he had questions about or for me that I chose not to answer, he could probably just go do five minutes of research and learn anything he wanted to learn about me.
Another chill ran down my spine.
Maybe I should have thought this whole thing through a bit better. I’d thought I was proud of myself for winding up here with Leo, but now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be the start of something new and wonderful in my life. Opening myself up to this lunch with him today might have inadvertently set me on a path to destruction. If anyone found out who I was and what I’d done all those years ago, there was no question I’d never want to forge another friendship again. The truth was, I probably wouldn’t be able to, anyway.
Realizing I had taken far too much time considering all of this, I forced a smile and said, “That’s cool. I assume it’s pretty challenging.”
He tipped his head from one side to the other as a pensive look washed over his face. “I guess it depends. Sometimes, we get to the bottom of things rather quickly. Other times, it’s a bit more time-consuming. But I’ve never really considered it to be difficult. If anything, I try to rely on my gut instincts when I’m investigating. It’s rare that they’ve ever steered me in the wrong direction.”
And yet, he was sitting here across from me.
