His Secret Child (Slade Security Team 2)

Chapter 9

Bethany knew when she was being brushed off. The fast change of topics made it clear—Slade didn’t want to talk about his reasons. She had no way to make him talk, so either she accepted the situation or she threw him out. “Harry’s the local handyman. His number’s by the phone. You can call him to help you with fixing things up, but I’m not looking for a rebuild, so no contractors.” She started for the house. On the porch, she turned back. “Jason’s next appointment is next Thursday.” She headed inside.

She did what she usually did when she was upset—she lost herself in code. When she looked up, the house had gotten dark. She stretched. Her back popped. Shutting down the computer, she blinked. Usually, Jason came to break her out of her work—he knew to ask her if he was hungry or needed anything. She headed into the living room and found Slade sitting in front of a flats-screen TV hung on the wall. She blinked at it and at him, and then at the rest of the room.

“What happened to the living room?”

Slade had his bare feet up on a new coffee table made from varnished pine. The thick legs of the table—more pine—gave it a sturdy appeal. The old couch had been replaced by something in chocolate leather. A matching leather chair sat at a ninety degree angle. The old TV was gone, along with the rest of the mismatched furniture that Tayra had scrounged up for the house.

Slade had been watching a baseball game with the sound turned low. He muted the TV and put his feet on the floor. Oh, there was a new throw rug—a nice big one in dark, soothing colors with an oriental pattern. Bethany itched to pull off her shoes and dig her toes into it, but she wasn’t going to go for being bought.

She looked at Slade again. “When did this all get here? Did you ever think I might have liked things as they were?”

He didn’t seem at all embarrassed that he’d changed everything. “You like sagging couches? Come on, that was stuff Tayra bought, I could tell that from the flowers all over everything. I went ahead and ordered a few things yesterday.”

“I could have done that.” She crossed her arms.

“You’ve got a lot on your mind. I get that.”

“And they got here today?” She groped her way to the overstuffed chair, sank into it. The smell of leather rose around her and the cushions wrapped around her butt like a lover’s embrace. Okay, so she could get used to this. She looked at Slade. Damn him for being right so often.

He drank the last of his bottle of beer. “Yeah, they got here today. By the way, Jason’s in bed. We had the rest of the pizza for dinner, and he rooked me into a bedtime story, so I told him about having to extract a client from a drug lord in Bolivia.”

“What!” Bethany’s mouth dropped open. She snapped it closed.

Slade grinned. “Don’t worry. No shots fired. No one died. Well, if you don’t count the iguana that became dinner one night. It wasn’t a blood and guts story.”

She frowned at him. “Was it a true story?”

“Embellished. I threw in a little lost Inca treasure.”

“Incas? In Bolivia?”

“Yeah, Jason caught me on that one, too. He’s a smart kid.”

Bethany pushed up from the chair. “Did you save me any pizza?”

“One slice and a beer. Both in the fridge.”

She came back with the pizza on a plate, the beer open—a local microbrew she’d had before and like

d—and sat on the couch next to Slade. She waved the beer at the TV. “How about a movie? Or are you married to that game?”

He handed her the remote. “You pick.”

She found a movie channel and glanced at Slade. “You installed cable, too?”

“Satellite.” He leaned back on the couch, arms stretched out along the back. He propped his feet back on the table, and she had to look. He had great feet—long and shapely, long toes, too. A white scar ran over the back of one foot. She wanted to ask about that, but it seemed like prying to her.

Instead, she went hunting for a movie. She found an on-demand showing of Lord of the Rings, and went for it. Too bad if Slade wasn’t geeky enough to enjoy Tolkien—she was a hard-core fan and she had the special edition back home. Maybe it was time to get her things sent up here and close up her apartment for good; but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She’d loved her independence. She’d loved taking Jason down to Portland with her almost every summer—Tayra had been fine with Bethany taking him for months at a time. She’d also been fine with Bethany visiting, and Bethany’s freelance work had given her the flexibility to do as she liked. But now…now she wasn’t certain. The future seemed to be hanging—would Jason’s father want him? Would she be able to adopt him? Would the courts step in? She shut down the questions and lost herself in the movie.

At some point, Slade got up. She heard the sounds of popcorn snapping, smelled the lush butter and salt aroma. Slade came back with two more beers and the popcorn. They sat through the first movie, she glanced at him, and he waved his beer bottle. “Go for it. I can’t remember the last movie night I had.”

Another round of beers got them through the third movie. Bethany yawned through the ending credits and shut off the TV before she got started on the Hobbit, which was coming up next. She glanced over at Slade. He’d fallen asleep with one hand on her thigh and the other stretched out behind her.

For an instant, she was tempted to simply snuggle up in his arms. It’d be so easy to lean over, put her head on his shoulder, breathe in his scent, and sleep. Or do even more.