“The negatives are at my house,” she said, searching for any reason to put distance between them. “I could save time by picking them up while you email the digital pictures.” She held out her camera but he snagged her elbow instead.
“We’ll get your negatives, Jen. Together. After we email Cole. You won’t go anywhere alone until we neutralize this threat.” He sounded so professional. So detached.
Clearly, she’d hurt him by pulling away. She wanted to apologize…but maybe it would be better this way, if they both behaved as if this was just a job to him. A job like any other job. Protect the client, find the bad guy and go home.
After the way she’d bailed on him, only a fool would believe that things could ever go back to the way they had been between them.
Then she was a fool because even in the face of overwhelming odds, she wanted to believe it.
Seeing him again, his smile, his strength, the unwavering confidence, made her want him to care. And that, more than anything, said she couldn’t spend time with him. It wouldn’t end well, for either of them.
She opened her mouth to object to his plan, but he said, “Until this is resolved, someone will be with you 24/7.”
“Someone, or you?” Her tone came out terse.
“Don’t worry, Jen. I get it. You don’t want to be with me.” She thought she heard a hint of sadness in his voice, but his face remained impassive. “You heard Madeline. She insists I head up your detail and she’s an old family friend so I won’t disappoint her.”
Of course he wouldn’t. She’d once fallen for this Ethan. An honorable man even when it caused him pain. Not that she could presume to know how he felt about being around her. It had been years since she could read his every expression. But still, it couldn’t be easy for him to work with her, could it?
She’d try to give him an out. “I respect your desire to help Madeline. Really I do. But I’m sure you could convince her to let someone else from the agency work with me instead.”
“No.” His dark eyes dared her to challenge him and his adamant tone left her speechless.
The Ethan she’d known had been more laid-back, but that was before his stint with the FBI and before his parents were murdered.
She hated to see the way pain and harsh experiences had hardened him, but she couldn’t deny that his new fierce determination was attractive—too attractive.
Her work was her priority—she couldn’t let any chance of a relationship get in the way of that. Especially not a relationship with Ethan, which would be doomed to failure if he ever learned about her past. It would be far wiser to avoid him.
But what choice did she have?
None.
If she wanted to help the children and live to tell about it, then she’d have to let Ethan back into her life no matter how difficult it would be for them both.
* * *
In the gallery’s refreshment area, Ethan slid onto a chair across the table from Jennie. She opened her camera and pulled out her memory card. He glanced back at his computer, watching it run through the start-up screens, and tried to concentrate on the job at hand.
Focus on the threat. Keep things professional.
Yeah, right. Easier said than done.
Especially when she held out the memory card and searched his face. He’d have to be blind not to see the hope these pictures brought. She believed they would lead straight to her attacker and end the case so she wouldn’t have to spend time with him.
He wasn’t as optimistic.
A good lead? Maybe. If it panned out. But finding the man’s picture in the database was a long shot.
He took the card, and when his computer chimed, signaling the end of boot up, he entered his password. He inserted the card into the slot. “You want me to sort through the pictures or do you want to do it?”
“I have a ton of pics on there, so it’ll be faster if I do it.”
He slid the computer across the table, and she went straight to work.
Her knee bounced as if she couldn’t wait to get out of here. He took the time to study her face. The sweet, soft face he’d once thought would grow old alongside his.
Not that it mattered. Not one bit. They’d never get together again.
Even if she wanted to, which she clearly didn’t, she’d left him once. She’d do the same thing again. After his ex-fiancée, Carla, had bailed on him, he’d sworn off dating. Let other men be taken in by promises women made. He was done with that. So done.
She ejected her card then pushed the computer back to him. “I saved all the pictures of him in a folder on your desktop.”
As she put the card back in her camera, he opened the first picture and sought out details he’d not caught when watching the guy.
Hard eyes. Experienced eyes. A criminal’s eyes. His attack on Jennie wasn’t his first such act. Wouldn’t be his last. Ethan clicked through the others. In an early one before he’d put up his hood, she’d caught something unusual on the back of his neck.
Ethan enlarged the picture. A tattoo with a scrolling S in bright red ended with a vivid green snake’s head, mouth open and tongue extended at the base of the guy’s neck.
“Did you see this tattoo?” Ethan asked.
She shook her head, and he swiveled the computer so she could see.
Her knee calmed, and she stared at the screen. “I’ve seen a tattoo like that before.”
“You remember where?”
“Yeah. A worker at Photos of Hope’s distribution center had one in the exact same place.”
“I didn’t know your charity was large enough to have distribution centers.”
“Just one. In Brownsville, Texas. When Photos of Hope started, we gave all the money we raised to other charities, and that still works well in the United States. But with all the corruption in Mexico, if we want to be sure the right people receive help, we have to purchase and distribute the items ourselves. So a few years ago, we obtained the necessary permits to distribute food, household items and medical supplies. We still have problems with corruption and supplies not getting where they’re intended, but it’s on a much smaller scale.”
“So this guy works in Brownsville, then.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure his tattoo matches the one in this picture?” Ethan pointed at the screen.
“Positive. I even talked to the warehouse manager about it. This isn’t the kind of image I want to portray for the charity.”
Ethan was starting to get excited. “Firing him
