me what’s happening here? I feel like I walked into a movie a third of the way through.”
A door Lara hadn’t even seen on the house side of the enclosure opened and a tiny older woman walked out. “Is it time, Davis?”
Lara couldn’t help but stare. The lady wore a long royalblue robe buttoned up to her throat, dwarfing her under-five-foot frame. Her shocking white hair was long enough to tuck into her collar but thin enough for Lara to see the woman’s pale scalp underneath. Slippers and cheeks rubbed pink with bright blush rounded out the look.
Whoever she was, she knew Davis and wasn’t surprised to see him. She walked right up and put her hand on his forearm. Her eyes twinkled as she looked at him.
“Hi, Mrs. Winston.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back. “I need the car.”
“Go ahead.” She patted his arm then turned to Lara. “Well, who is this pretty young thing?”
“This is Lara, my…” He shot Lara a warning glance. “Fiancée.”
“Well, it’s about time, young man. Come here, dear.” Mrs. Winston gave him a squeeze and shuffled over to Lara.
It was her turn. Mrs. Winston hugged her, though her arms barely reached to Lara’s back.
“Uh, hello.” The older woman was so small and thin that Lara worried about crushing her by accident, so she kept the hold loose.
When the older woman pulled back, she took both of Lara’s hands in her curved ones and her smile faded fast. “Did that boy fail to give you a ring?”
Lara glanced at Davis. He stood behind Mrs. Winston with an unreadable expression. Clearly this woman viewed Davis in a grandson sort of way. Lara wasn’t about to unload about all their past problems. It didn’t hurt anything to let this woman think what she no doubt wanted to hear.
“Don’t worry. He gave me a beautiful ring.” And technically that wasn’t a lie. He had. A perfect solitaire with baguettes on a platinum band.
It had broken her heart, actually shredded it in two, to hand it back. Not because she loved jewelry—that sort of thing never mattered to her—but because of what it symbolized. The commitment she so desperately wanted from Davis.
Mrs. Winston reached out and absently patted Davis’s shoulder. “He’s a nice boy.”
He handed her a cell phone. “You remember what I told you, Mrs. W?”
“Stay inside, don’t talk to anyone including anyone in a uniform, put the alarm on, pretend I don’t know you and wait for you or Pax to come back.” She peeked around Davis’s muscled arm. “I guess I can add Lara to the list of people I can trust.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “Nicely done, Mrs. W.”
“My mind is just fine, you know.”
“All of you is.” He winked at her. “Now, back inside.”
Mrs. Winston padded away without asking for an explanation. The snide part of Lara figured that was why Davis liked the woman so much. She didn’t ask questions.
He closed the door, sealing them inside the odd parking space. When he turned back and walked to the front of the car, he whistled. The peppy tune continued as he ripped the slipcover off to uncover a pretty boring blue car.
Not Davis’s usual style. He didn’t go for flashy, but he usually chose trucks of some sort. This thing barely had a backseat.
With the driver’s-side door open, he reached under the dashboard and pulled out a set of keys. He smiled as he jingled them in front of her. “Ready?”
The man looked far too satisfied with this little scene. “What, no helicopter?”
“Not on such short notice.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He frowned. “Do you want to drive?”
“I’d prefer an explanation. You involved your neighbor in something dangerous. Since when do you do things like that?” That piece didn’t make any sense. If anything, Davis was overly careful.
He used to talk about contingency plans and had even run through a safety drill with her one time. The second time he’d tried she’d threatened to dump a pot of hot coffee over his head. Not that she would have, but coffee was sacred to Davis so he’d fallen for it.
He insisted civilians were the main problem in most difficult situations. Something about them taking away his options and messing up the fluidity of the operations. People without skills were fine as long as they listened. Mrs. Winston obviously listened. Looked as if she harbored a schoolgirl crush, too, but Lara wondered about her ability to follow directions.
“She thinks she’s my top secret assistant, but really she’s a nice old lady who never gets even a phone call from her deadbeat kids in Delaware. Her husband died more than a decade ago and she’s alone. I mow the back lawn, talk to her and, yes, play along with her active imagination, including installing a security system that rivals most high-tech office buildings.”
She listened but the questions remained. “I still don’t get it.”
Nothing in his explanation sounded like the Davis she knew. With his messed-up background he hadn’t learned much in the way of family coping skills. His bond with Pax was unbreakable, but coddling elderly women seemed outside of Davis’s skill set.
He smiled. “From the time I moved in she tried to wander into the house. More than once she set off my alarm by accident. Almost got shot another time when she snuck in the back while I was out front. It was a problem until she decided I was a spy.”
The word clunked in Lara’s brain. “Spy?”
“International James Bond type.”
They used to laugh about televisions shows and how they portrayed law-enforcement officials, especially those who worked undercover like he did. Expensive drinks and cars were so out of the realm of reality for Davis that he often swore his way through a program.
“You hate that term.”
He shrugged. “I tolerate the whole spy thing for Mrs. W because it makes her happy.”
The idea of Davis playing into that sort of nonsense to make an old lady happy made Lara’s stomach do a little dance. “That’s kind of adorable.”
“It was necessary. But, yeah, Pax also thought it was hysterical.”
The game came together in her head. “So, naturally, you told her Pax was a spy, too.”
Davis flashed her that sexy smile that had sent more than one woman into an eye-fluttering swoon. “I wasn’t about to go down alone. Point is, she loves it, and the wandering-around thing stopped. Now she watches the house for me and is much more careful because she’s helping me.”
“And she lets you keep a car here.” Lara ran her hand over the roof, marveling at how clean it looked for being held outside of a garage.
“I
