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Well, damn. The thought of him standing out there, looking for something to bring home to me like an offering lodges emotion firmly in my throat. The little things he does for me…they’ve built up into this powerful need for him. To make him happy. To know him. To be part of his life.
I shake it off, because I need to know why he brought me up here. “Danny, it’s beautiful out here. But I’m guessing you didn’t come here for the second time in one day just because you wanted to show it to me.”
“Ididwant to show it to you. This is where I’d bring Ruthie when we were kids, when I had to get her away from the house. No one would ever come here to bother us.”
No one except the children who apparently came here to make out, I think but don’t say.
He squeezes me closer, “But no.” Another glance. “I wonder if Big Mike even has a daughter.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, completely thrown. I’d figured this was about the woman across the way. I definitely didn’t foresee it might have something to do with Big Mike’s status as a parent. “We saw her.”
“We saw a little girl. We never saw the two of them together. What if he stole the hamster from her or bought it so he has an excuse to wander around the building?”
“What brought this on?”
He unfurls his arm from me and rubs his hands over his face, wincing a little, so apparently the left one isn’t all-the-way better. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”
“I have my own crazy to share with you, so let’s start with yours. Why do you think Big Mike pretended to have a child and stole a little girl’s hamster?”
His mouth lifts at the corners. “When you put it that way, I definitely sound nuts. He was following me this morning, I’m pretty sure of it. And when I brought the hamster home yesterday, he invited us over for dinner. He was being really weird about it. He also said he couldn’t help going over the top for his little girl because he’s a single dad, but there was no kid stuff in his apartment. My sister’s place is like a minefield of toys.”
“Okay, that’s sort of weird,” I acknowledge. “But not necessarily damning. What about the woman who lives across the alley.”
“You’ve seen her again?” he asks, rubbing his jaw.
I tell him about what happened earlier and the weird vibe it gave me. Saying it, I feel a little ridiculous, too, especially since I’m the one who escalated things, but there was something strange about the interaction. Sinister, even.
“I’ll find out who owns or rents both units,” he says with a nod when I’m finished.
“You believe me?” I ask, relieved.
He takes my hands, sending a sizzle through me, and looks into my eyes with that intense gaze of his. “This is all my fault.”
“While it’s novel to hear a man admit to that, I’m going to have to ask what you mean. Do you think this has something to do with your job?”
He nods, glances around us as if he’s worried Big Mike and his hamster might have sidled up behind a tree, and then says, “Big Mike implied he’s interested in me because we live in Burke’s apartment, like maybe he’s working for the Burkes.”
A gasp escapes me. I know all about the Burkes, given my sister’s about to marry one of them. Burke’s parents, Lucas the second and Melinda, are despicable people, so I wouldn’t put it past them to try to intimidate us just because we’re Burke’s chosen family. But it feels like a lot of effort for them to put in, especially since they don’t have a particular reason to dislike Danny, as far as I know.
“It felt like he was trying to send me down the wrong path,” Danny continues. “I think my boss caught on that I’m planning to quit. Big Mike’s trying to pump me for information. That’s why he’s always being overly friendly, trying to get me to go to strip clubs, and—”
“Seriously? He asked you to the Treasure Club?”
“Seriously.”
“Maybe you should have gone to get information from him,” I say, mostly because it’s funny to think of Danny sitting on a stool next to Big Mike.
He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes moving over my face as if he thinks it’s worth remembering, then says, “I’m doing a bad job of showing I’m interested in you if you think I want someone else’s boobs in my face.”
Emotion scratches at my throat. I take his hand, weaving our fingers together. “I’m glad you don’t. Will you tell me why you think they’re following you? I know there’s an NDA, but there must be—”
He squeezes my hand. “I don’t care about that right now. My boss, Jarrod Travis, runs a huge web security company, Safe-T Net.”
“I’ve heard of them,” I say. “I get those pop-up ads.”
He laughs humorlessly. “They make damn well sure everyone knows about them. He and my sister were…involved for a few months, about ten years ago now. She didn’t know he was married. She thought she was pregnant, so she told him, and he insisted that she get an abortion because he’d never let a little slumming ruin his life. Turns out she wasn’t pregnant, thank God. But she was upset he’d treated her that way, and she told me everything.” He works his jaw, his eyes flinty and hard. “She was eighteen, and he was thirty-seven.”
“Asshole,” I say, squeezing his hand.
