“First thing tomorrow, I’m asking Buchanan to take me off this assignment. I didn’t need your rude and inappropriate demonstration tonight to solidify that decision, but congratulations. It did.”
Her leaving would effectively end the op. After tonight, she couldn’t assume her duties with the Bluelick PD without blowing both their covers, and she probably wasn’t interested in taking a leave of absence of undetermined duration to wait for him to close the investigation alone, assuming he could. “Can we talk about this before you make a final decision?”
“I don’t see any point.”
A weight of failure settled on his shoulders—which was exactly where it belonged, he admitted as he started the engine. He’d told her he wouldn’t let her fuck things up, and then he’d gone and fucked them up himself, because as effective as their performance had been tonight, it amounted to wasted time if he’d alienated her to the extent she wouldn’t finish the assignment. And he didn’t want to alienate her. Not professionally. Not personally. Not at all.
The silent treatment continued for the rest of the drive home, which gave him time to acknowledge the bitter disappointment piled onto the heavy failure. He tried to tell himself it was rooted in his desire to successfully execute the op according to plan, but some of those roots tangled around less straightforward reasons. Reasons like he had something to prove. To Eden. But he wouldn’t get the chance unless he could convince her not to go to Buchanan. He’d crossed a line tonight due to his own hang-ups, and frankly, she had every right to be pissed. He owed her an apology, but offering one now amounted to wasted breath. She wouldn’t believe him, and he couldn’t blame her for it. He had to find something to say that she would believe.
As soon as he pulled into the driveway, she hopped out and walked to the porch. “Eden.”
She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder, impatience coming off her in visible waves.
“I know you don’t trust me.” True words, those. “Ought not trust me, when it comes right down to it, considering those born-and-bred talents I have. I’ve lied convincingly on both sides of the line of duty.” Also completely accurate. “But you’ve got expertise of your own, and between the two of us, we have the skills and opportunity to do this right. At first, I wasn’t convinced we could make it work—I said as much when they pitched this to us, so you know that’s the gospel truth—but we can. We proved it tonight. This might not be an easy partnership, but it’s an effective one. If you leave the assignment now, you kill the op. We’ll be letting down both our departments and all the people we’ve sworn to protect and serve if we don’t see this through.”
Eden’s reaction to his little speech was no reaction at all, but at least he’d said his piece. He started the engine.
That got a reaction. “Where are you going?”
“That’s classified,” he replied. “Need-to-know basis only.” He was going to get a fifth of whiskey, park at the jobsite, and drink until he forgot about shit like failure and disappointment, then sleep it off in the bed of the Bronco while the mosquitos ate him alive.
And that, she most definitely did not need to know.
Chapter Eight
Eden sat at the small kitchen table, sipping her third cup of coffee and ignoring the two slices of wheat toast she’d fixed almost an hour ago. Her stomach didn’t want food. It wanted this call to be over. She watched the tiny readout on the top of her phone change from 8:59 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. before she dialed Buchanan. Yesterday evening, he’d instructed her to give him a report this morning, but it was a Saturday, after all. He answered on the first ring with a simple “Morning.”
“Hi, chief. It’s Eden,” she said, wincing because she’d just stated the obvious. The department provided the phone. He knew who was calling.
“Hey, Eden. Heard you had quite a first night of undercover work.”
“You did? From whom?” She hadn’t noticed any officers from the Bluelick PD in the bar. Had he snuck one in to keep an eye on them? Dear God, had he or she seen…everything? Her already tense stomach knotted. Maybe she wouldn’t be removing herself from the assignment after all. Maybe her boss already knew what an unprofessional clusterfuck the whole evening had been.
“Swain gave Malone his report last night. Malone reached out this morning to bring me up to speed.”
Buchanan certainly sounded relaxed about the whole matter. “Sir, I apologize on behalf of Deputy Swain and myself. He’s extremely…unorthodox in his ideas about how we should execute this assignment, and I’m afraid—”
“According to Malone, you hit it out of the park. You, specifically. Swain indicated you made contact with Kenny and Dobie, and Dobie, in particular, would willingly offer up a kidney if you asked for it. Sounds like a complete success to me. What am I missing?”
Well, a fuck ton, but now that Swain had gotten his report in ahead of her and made her sound like the linchpin of the op, she’d look like the unprofessional one, asking to be taken off the assignment.
And you don’t really want to admit defeat, do you?
She didn’t. The knot in her stomach loosened as she acknowledged the truth. Tamping down on a sigh, she said, “Nothing, I guess. It’s just—”
“Sorry, hold on a moment.” From a distance away from the receiver, his voice carried over the line. “Sweet Virginia, give me a couple minutes, and I’ll carry those downstairs.”
From an even greater distance, a female voice replied, “Relax, Wolverine. I can handle a couple cases of beer.”
So, he was home this morning. He definitely didn’t need her dumping a load of interpersonal drama on him during his personal time.
His reply was partially muffled by the sound of a chair squeaking across a floor, but Eden thought she heard a low murmur of “…better things for you to handle,” followed by a feminine giggle.
Okay, then. Time to wrap this up. Right now, she had a clearer mental picture than she oug
ht to of Bluelick’s tall, dark, distractingly good-looking police chief and his lovely wife canoodling in their kitchen. God, she really needed to get laid.
“Sorry.” His voice returned, full force, to the call. “What’s the next move you and Swain want to make with this op, and how can we help?”