would be impossible unless they’d been in the DNA database. No wonder Owen felt he needed to appease the local law agencies. “Tell me you’re not sending me away.”
“I’m not sending you away.”
“Because I really can’t—” Oh. She looked at him, realized she’d been about to say she couldn’t leave Rio right now, not again. Not with his grandmother sick. Then she realized she didn’t actually know if that was best. Maybe Rio just needed to do his thing. “Okay, then what’s up?”
“You’re going to put your unique abilities to work right here.”
She tipped her head at him, an unspoken is that so?
“The governor is making his rounds across the state this spring,” Owen said. “Election year prep. I’ve offered Hunter’s services as backup security. You won’t be the only one. I want you working undercover as he comes through Watkins Glen next week. From arrival to departure, I want you in the background. Watching.”
Because if someone aimed to cause trouble, she’d spot it before anyone else. He didn’t have to say it. Hunter had taken advantage of her knack often enough that such things had been said many times before.
“The others?” she asked.
“Three other agents. Also in the background, but in an obvious security capacity. You won’t have to interface with them. You’ll be reporting straight to the chief of police. You’ll also be blending in to their arrangements, not the other way around. The point is to provide a seamless extra layer of protection without causing them any extra work.”
Kimmer tapped her fingers on her knee. “Are we expecting trouble?”
“Not at all.” Owen smiled at her, the look he got when he was happy at how he’d worked things out. “It was an offer I made to take some of the pressure off the department. A gesture of goodwill, you might say. Or even by way of apology.”
Some gesture. Hunter Agency time didn’t come cheap. Kimmer winced.
Owen raised a hand. “Look at me,” he said. “I want you to know I’m not trying to pull one over on you here. The truth is, it’s good for us to make these gestures now and then. We want the local law to think of us as people who work with them and within their boundaries. We want them to understand that this is our home, too.”
Kimmer looked. She found him unfazed by her scrutiny…possibly even slightly amused. She made a grumbling noise and settled deeper in her chair. “So when—?”
“The end of the week. Give the chief a call first thing tomorrow.” He tossed a business card across the desk—one of his own, but he’d scrawled a phone number on the back. A real high-tech moment.
Kimmer stretched forward to scoop up the card…and then she sat there, deep in the chair, flipping the card back and forth in her fingers.
After a moment, Owen raised his eyebrows. “This isn’t about the new assignment.” When she shot him an annoyed look, he just grinned. “You know, the rest of us are able to make observations and deductions, too. I know you well enough for that. More than well enough, for all you don’t like to hear it. So spit it out—what’s bothering you?”
Kimmer hesitated as something on his flat screen computer monitor caught his attention. He turned to type in a few quick words and then turned back to her, expectant.
Damn. Maybe she should have run while she had the chance.
But she hadn’t, so she took a deep breath. “You have a family…”
“A rather large one.” Owen smiled a compressed and crooked smile.
“Then…when you get bad news about one of you…”
After she’d hesitated long enough, he prompted, “Bad news as in ‘Dave’s breaking away to do his own thing instead of following the family business,’ or bad news as in someone’s dead?”
“Jeez, Owen, you’ve got to let that thing with Dave go,” Kimmer said. “He’s still in the family business. He’s just doing it differently.”
“Excellent use of distraction,” he said. “Two points. And minus two points for evading the question.”
Kimmer gave him a sulky look, just because she knew she could get away with it. “As in bad news, someone’s sick. Someone old is sick. Someone who means a lot to the whole family.”
“Got it. What about it?”
“What’s…someone else supposed to do? Oh, screw it. Me. I. What am I supposed to do? I don’t get the whole family thing. I don’t get hanging together through thick and thin. I don’t get how you drop everything and try to make things right even if you know you can’t. I don’t get any of it! How am I supposed to do the right thing?”
Owen cleared his throat. “Rio has had some bad news, I take it.”
Kimmer nodded. “I feel like I’m supposed to do something about it. But I can’t fake it. I can’t even truly believe it—that his family could be that close.”
Owen hesitated for a long, long moment, looking at Kimmer until she felt uneasy. He thought she should have this answer. And at last, he gave it to her. “What if it were your mother?”
She almost jumped right to her feet. To prevent herself, she froze, stiffening enough that she thought she might even creak. “That’s not fair, Owen. It’s not the same, not the same at all.” She and her mother had been bonded by abuse and adversity. They’d never had a normal relationship—just an intense one. “My mother taught me how to survive. But she also married my father in the first place…and then she left me with him. I don’t have a relationship with her, I have a memory of her. And I learned the very hard lesson that even the people who might love you still end up leaving you.” A long speech for her, especially when it came to this topic.
Owen shook his head. “You can’t truly believe that. Or why invite Rio down here?”
That was easy. “Because he was willing to take the chance.” She relaxed slightly; it was either that or turn into one giant body cramp. “Don’t get me wrong. What we have is…something I’d never even considered for myself. But that doesn’t mean it’s forever. As soon as he sees an advantage in being elsewhere…” She stopped herself. She hadn’t meant to say that much. Not nearly that much. In fact, she hadn’t even realized she believed it possible of Rio until she heard her own words.
Maybe she was just afraid of it.
Owen regarded her for a good long while—one of the few people comfortable enough with himself that he could do that, knowing of her knack. Most people fidgeted, wondering what she saw. Owen held himself quietly, with the unusual dignity he carried around like an extra jacket. “As to your original question,” he said finally. “Think of your mother in those days when she was the most important to you. When she could still protect you. And then think what would have made you feel better when you were frightened for her.”
Not to wonder if my damned father would come for me next. But that was the easy answer, the smart-ass answer that while perfectly truthful, also didn’t plumb the question as deeply as could be done. So she nodded. “You think I don’t have to get the whole family thing
