He rubbed his burning eyes briefly, and resumed watching. Faces weren’t real distinct, but he was letting footage roll so he could watch it again and try to zoom in on the scene: on the faces and in search of any marks on the wooden crates.
One of the men looked familiar. Conall couldn’t swear to it, but a couple of times… The way the guy turned his head, gesticulated, hunched his shoulders like a bull ready to charge… “Goddamn,” he said under his breath. “I’ve seen him before.”
It would come to him. It always did. He had a near-photographic memory, another of his strengths. He could almost always get the girl, he rarely forgot a face and he was an icy-cold son of a bitch, which meant fear had no hold on him. He took risks the agents with families waiting at home wouldn’t.
Images of Lia whispered through his mind. The woman who seemed to have a bottomless heart. He and she were polar opposites. She cared, he didn’t.
He had to keep his distance. Conall did try not to hurt women. He steered clear of the home and hearth kind. She wasn’t quite that, though; he wasn’t sure he’d ever encountered a woman exactly like her, willing to give endlessly of herself to other people’s children. At the table tonight, he kept watching her thinking, What’s in it for you? He still didn’t know. Money? The state did pay her to care for each kid, but was it only a job for her?
Focus, he snarled at himself. The men all disappeared inside the garage. The dogs stayed where they were. Half an hour passed, one breath at a time. Conall waited with the patience of any hunter.
Behind him Jeff let out a couple of snorting breaths and then covers rustled as he rolled over in bed. They had no damn privacy up here at all. Conall for one was looking forward to the day little Julia and Arturo went away and freed up the bedroom. Conall didn’t sleep well when he wasn’t alone. He rarely stayed the night with women.
This time it was Lia’s bed that slipped unbidden into his mind. A couple of times her bedroom door had been open when he passed in the hall. He hadn’t been able to help looking. The room wasn’t any fancier than the rest of the house, but it unmistakably belonged to a woman. To Lia. She wore bright colors, and she decorated with them, too. He hadn’t seen any lace, but the duvet cover was a print of bright red poppies and green leaves against a white background. Puffy white and red pillows were heaped against a white-painted iron bedstead. Men never bothered with non-utilitarian pillows. That was a woman thing. The hardwood floor beside the bed was softened by a flower-shaped rug in the same poppy red. It was made out of torn strips of some soft fabric and he bet he’d sink ankle-deep in it.
He wanted to sink ankle deep in it while he was on the way to her bed, where she sprawled waiting for him. His body tingled as he imagined it. Her hair was loose…no, he wanted to take it out of the braid himself, comb out the curls with his fingers. Those glorious green-brown eyes were sultry…
He jerked and then swore when someone walked out of the garage. Two men. The dogs leaped to their feet but stayed silent. The two men got in the pickup, the garage door came down and a moment later he heard the muted roar of the engine. They drove away, still without turning on their headlights.
Conall hadn’t seen any sign the visitors had brought groceries or dog food. No packages of toilet paper. Sooner or later whoever was staying in the house would have to go out. Lia had said she’d seen them come and go. She said she’d waved at first but quit bothering when they ignored her. Idiots. That’s not how you went unnoticed in small-town or rural America.
After a couple of minutes, the dogs rose and trotted off, one around the house, the other loping along the fence line. Both wore thick collars and avoided the perimeter of the property, which likely meant they got shocked when they went too close. At least Lia could relax about her ancient horse and butterball pony.
Conall yanked at his hair. Why the hell couldn’t he keep her out of his head? He’d been here three and a half days, spent less than two hours in her company, and she was already a big-time distraction.
This wasn’t like him. He should be speculating on where he’d seen the one familiar face before. He’d encountered gun runners before, if that’s what these men were. He should be trying to figure out how to get into that garage. He should be thinking about anything but the home-owner who so happened to be a beautiful woman.