“Didn’t I tell you to stay in?”
“I did.”
“I don’t recall having that dress in my wardrobe.”
“Oh. Yeah. I didn’t have any clothes. I didn’t want to be sitting around in your boxer shorts and a t-shirt when the doctor came by. I called up a friend who owns a boutique and had these delivered to the front desk. Berta brought them up to me.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I should have offered to go by your place and get you some clothes. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. You had other things on your mind.”
“So, the doctor’s been by and checked you out then?” he asked.
“He did. He says it sounds like ketamine that they gave me, but he took some blood to run tests and confirm.”
“And the fatigue is normal, I take it?”
“Yes, just a residual from having been so heavily sedated and then compacting that effect into a much smaller form, though even as a mouse, my healing properties outweigh those present when I’m in my human form.”
“Good. Did you eat?”
“No, not yet.”
“Hungry?”
“Starving.”
“How about a big, juicy steak and a baked potato with everything on it?”
“A man after my own heart, but I thought we needed to stay in.”
“We are, sort of.”
She raised a single eyebrow at him.
“Come on; I’ll show you,” he said, leading her around the corner to the roof exit. It was somewhat hidden by a door that looked as if it went into the bathroom but led to the stairs behind it instead. He lifted the panel to punch in a code that unlocked it, and they walked up to the rooftop garden.
“Wow. I had no idea this was here.”
“It’s not easily visible, not even from the sky,” he said, pointing upward toward the large canopy that reflected back at anything above it or just slightly below. It had not been his design, but that of the previous owner. It did provide some privacy for when he was on the roof, though.
He looked back at Adrian, who had a strange look on her face.
“What is it?”
“I just realized how you got to dinner so quickly the first night we met and why you had to leave so early. You flew into here from your parents’ house and changed for our date but had to get back out while visibility was low.”
“Are you ever not a journalist?”
“Nope,” she laughed.
“Come on, let’s get this grill started and then I’ll go back down and work on food to go on it.”
She sat in a nearby chair and watched as he pulled a bag of charcoal from a cabinet to one side of the rooftop where he kept things that needed to stay dry and watched him load up the grill with it before spraying on some lighter fluid and tossing a match on it.
“Alright, we’ll let that get going while we get the steak and potatoes ready downstairs.
“Can we sit up here in the fresh air while it cooks?”
“Sure. You want some wine?”
“No. I think I’ll pass on that. I still feel a little nauseous.”
“But not so nauseous that you can’t eat a big steak?”
“Oddly enough, no. I could gnaw on a whole cow right now.”
“That’s my girl,” he told her, kissing her softly and then taking her hand to lead her downstairs.
She sat on a stool nearby while he tenderized the steaks and wrapped the potatoes in foil, handing her a bottle of wine and a bottle of sparkling water while he carried a tray with the food and a couple of glasses back up the steps to the roof.
Once he had the potatoes going, the two of them sat looking out at the night sky while the potatoes cooked. Dane extended his hand toward hers, and she took it. He was content to just sit here with her, not doing anything. No talking. Just being. It was about as comfortable as he could ever imagine being with another person. After a bit, he got up and added the steaks.
“That smells so delicious,” she said once they began to sizzle on the grill.
“It sure does. I don’t know about you, but I’m suddenly starving.”
“Me too,” she laughed.
They returned to their quiet mutual existence as the food cooked, all their worries cast aside—at least temporarily.CHAPTER TWENTY-ONEAdriana
“Do you think it will work?” Adriana asked.
Dane had told her about his plan while they ate, and it seemed like a good idea, but she wasn’t so sure it would be as painless as he seemed to think. The Black Talons were notorious for their viciousness. They would want revenge for him screwing over their operations.
“I hope so. I guess we will see,” he replied. “I’m more concerned about the backlash I’m going to get on the business front once the construction company is tied in with money laundering.”
“But it all pre-dates you. There’s no reason for the FBI to come after you, especially since you were the one who brought it to them.”