— FOUR —
ZANDER didn’t want to admit that his sister was right, but after meeting with Fred at the farm equipment store and some of Jake’s contractor clients over the weekend, he was decidedly pessimistic about the prospects of a full-time, full-service security firm surviving in Pine Harbour.
The only immediate answer was to drown his sorrows in a cheeseburger. He headed for the diner on the edge of town.
Mac’s was humming with activity, and every booth had at least one person in it. Zander headed for a stool at the counter when he heard his name.
Dean Foster waved from where he sat alone in a booth along the window. When Zander slid onto the opposite bench, Dean shoved the menu across the table. “Good timing. I was just about to order.”
Zander didn’t need a menu, but he took the world’s quickest look before setting it down; the waitress wouldn’t come over until he did, and his stomach was growling. To distract himself, he started stacking the little creamers and sugar packets.
“You sure you don’t want to go into the house building business with Jake?” Dean finally said, laughing as he pointed at the house Zander had built out of plastic and paper.
“Dani’s already got opinions about the business I want to start on my own, can you imagine how bossy she’d get if I went to work for her fiancé?”
“What kind of opinions?”
Zander shrugged. Good ones, apparently. “She thinks there isn’t enough security business around here.” He cracked his jaw. “Unfortunately, I’m realizing she’s not wrong.”
“We’ve talked about this before.” Dean was a cop, and familiar with the needy, high-maintenance wealthy cottagers who showed up every summer and called 911 every time a raccoon busted into their attics. “It’s gonna be a leap of faith, but once you’re here next summer, customers will come out of the woodwork. Besides, I thought you didn’t want something full-time?”
“I don’t.” A vein started to throb in his forehead. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not old enough to retire, man.”
Dean laughed. “Buy yourself a boat and call yourself a fisherman. And shut the fuck up about retiring, okay? I’m still looking at another fifteen years.”
Where Zander had joined the army right out of high school, Dean had gone to university, getting two degrees before joining the provincial police force. “Could’ve gone reg force with me.”
Dean snorted. He’d thought about it. Zander could still hear the lap of water against the dock as they sat there in their last year of high school, talking about joining up. But Dean’s father had been an officer, and officer’s kids didn’t enlist. They went to university and became officers. Or went to university and pretended they’d become officers long enough grow a pair of balls and do whatever they wanted.
“How’s work going, anyway? Law and order being maintained?”
Dean shrugged. Yeah, Zander knew the feeling. He had six more months of shrugging to do. He couldn’t imagine another fifteen years. His friend leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “It feels like there’s more and more politics every year, you know?”
“Yep.”
They paused their conversation long enough for the waitress to bring them both coffee and for them to order lunch, then Zander changed the subject. “How’s the social life? Still seeing that doctor?”
Dean shook his head. “Nah. It was good while it was good, but then it wasn’t. For the best that it ended.”
Zander recognized the look on Dean’s face—relief that the break-up hadn’t been ugly, and maybe some disappointment that the casual relationship hadn’t continued with ease. But none of the angst that their brothers Jake and Rafe had felt over not having a better half. Even Tom and Matt and Sean made noises about getting married and having kids someday. Dean and Zander, on the other hand, were both bachelors. For life, Zander would have said a week ago. He’d never thought about settling down. Guys in the forces did it, but he thought they were crazy.
One fascinating night and one frustrating afternoon with a single mother later, and the word bachelor left a sour note in his mouth.
Faith’s serious face popped into his mind for the umpteenth time. He’d fallen asleep thinking about her and her kid. Getting involved with a single mother was a terrible idea in general—one who’d been widowed and hauled herself back from that, built herself a career—because he’d looked her up, and holy shit, was F. Davidson doing well—and a new life…that wasn’t someone a dedicated bachelor should mess with.
His gut tightened, and he shook his head. He was hungry and needed that cheeseburger. Nothing else.
“How about you?” Dean asked over the rim of his coffee mug. “Leaving anyone behind out West?”
Zander shook his head. “Nope.”
“I hear you chatted up a friend of Ryan’s yesterday at the barbeque.”
Fucking small towns. “Who told you that?”
“Who didn’t?” Dean laughed. “Faith Davidson, right? She’s pretty. Lives in Tobermory? I’ve met her a few times through community outreach events.”
Zander gave his friend a thousand-yard stare. They weren’t talking about Faith. That ache in the pit of his stomach intensified. Where the hell was his cheeseburger?
“Not my type, of course.” Dean kept going, because he apparently had a death wish. “Maybe Matt’s—”
“Shut up.”
Dean stopped for a few seconds, and when he started again, he’d dropped the badgering edge to his words. “Ryan says you met her two nights ago?”
Zander rolled his eyes. “You’re a bunch of old gossips.”
“Nah, man. I’m not going to report back to anyone. I’m just curious.”
He didn’t believe that for a hot second, but he had to give the guy something or he wouldn’t stop. “She’s a writer. I stopped at Greta’s on the way in—”
“For pie?”
“Of course.” And a last bit of peace and quiet, although he hadn’t minded in the least giving that up for an hour with Faith. “And apparently I looked like a guy who knew his way around weapons.”
Dean’s eyebrows hit the ceiling. “What?”
“She writes novels. Demon slayer books. Wanted to know about katanas and sawed-off shotguns.”
“Huh. Maybe she’s my type of girl after all.”
“No.”
“But she’s your type?”
“She deserves so much better than either of our ugly mugs.” Zander took a deep breath and pointed at the approaching waitress. “Now eat your damn lunch and leave me alone.”
The cheeseburger hit the spot, but it didn’t get rid of the twinge inside. The one that said he shouldn’t hide the fact that he wanted Faith, even if they couldn’t happen for a dozen good reasons.
“Listen, about Faith…” He trailed off and rearranged the now-empty dishes in front of him. “There’s something about her. I don’t know what it is, but it’s enough for me to want to figure it out. So fair warning: any Foster who starts nosing around her is going to get their ass kicked.”
Dean just laughed. “Man, you don’t think we already knew that? That’s why Ryan called me. Not to gossip. To tell me that the north end of the peninsula had been marked by a Minelli.”
“Not to gossip?” Zander snorted. “The lot of you can’t help yourselves.”
Dean just grinned. Then he crossed his arms and changed the subject. “Listen, about the security business—I might have a proposition for you.”
“Yeah?”
Dean shifted in his seat, then pulled out his wallet. “Not here. Let’s head outside.”
They paid and headed out to the gravel parking lot. Zander had parked his bike in one far corner, and now that the lunch crowd was thinning out, he could see Dean’s truck backed in to a spot in the opposite corner, military-style.
“What’s up? You thinking of a career change?” Zander asked with a chuckle.
Dean wasn’t laughing. He gave Zander a hard stare and nodded. “Yeah, I might be.”
“Shit.” No wonder he didn’t want to talk about it in the diner. “I’m not sure this security thing is viable for one person, let alone a partner. I can’t promise you anything.”
“Not asking for a promise. Tell me more about your sister’s ideas.”
Zander scrubbed his hand over his face and into his hair. “She thinks I should use the fact that I’ve met Hope Creswell once and Trojan horse my way into being some kind of celebrity bodyguard.”
Dean laughed. “Right. You can’t do that.”
“Thank God, you get it.”
“But you could—we could—start a local firm that sub-contracts to some of the big hitters.”
“What?” Zander stared at Dean, who stared right back with a bland, mildly amused smirk on his face.
“That never occurred to you? There are firms all over the place that get accredited with the top international security companies, and when a star lands in the area, the smaller firm is the one that provides the local bodyguard.”
No, that hadn’t occurred to him. “Huh.”
“And as Dani pointed out…that’s a need from time to time around here. Brewsters sent up security from Toronto for the film shoot.”
Damn. He owed his sister an apology. “Right.” He rolled his shoulders, refusing to let the encroaching tension settle in. “That sounds more complicated than what I originally envisioned.”
“Don’t want to settle your roots too deep here?” Dean crooked one eyebrow. “When are you going to get that we don’t want to let you go, man? That’s where I’d come in. If you want to take off for a while, I’d still be here.”
“That doesn’t sound fair.” And it wasn’t that he needed to run away, exactly. Not permanently. He was going to buy a God damned house after all. Maybe. “We just need a generous vacation plan.”
“Sure.” Dean grinned and held out his hand. “We can talk more about this, but give it some thought, yeah?”
“Deal.”
“I’m off tomorrow as well. Think you can squeeze me into your schedule? I’d like us to sit down with an accountant I know and talk about a possible business structure.”
“You’ve been giving this more than a bit of thought, eh?”
“Sure have.” Dean squinted into the sun, then looked toward the town, and the glittering blue lake in the distance, visible above the low-lying buildings because the town ran down the hillside to the harbour. “I’m getting too old to care about the shit they send us out to do sometimes. I’d keep this town safe…the peninsula, too, but that’s not all the job is. There’s a lot of political shit, and it ends up with good people dying.”
Zander knew about the grow-op raid that had gone sideways, of course. His brother had been shot, and Ryan Howard’s wife had died in the crossfire. A lot of folks had strong opinions about what had gone down that day, none aimed at the officers themselves, but the fallout had to still be draining.
Dean kept talking, and Zander let him. He’d learned over nine tours in Bosnia and Afghanistan that talking was the best thing for the demons. Let them out.
“Last week we had to raid a farm for not pasteurizing milk. Nobody got hurt, but a lot of community folk came out, and there were legal, registered weapons on the farm. And the tactical response team was called. Over fucking raw milk. It was a shit show. I don’t know…I think if I can’t do it with my whole heart, then I need to get out of the way and let some younger, smarter, braver kid have a shot.”
“Takes a brave man to admit that.” Zander clapped his hand onto Dean’s shoulder. “And an even braver one to think about going into business with me. You know I’m a wild kid at heart, right?”
“Hey, this way it won’t get awkward if you go speeding past me on that death trap you call a bike.”
Zander just laughed. “Where should I meet you tomorrow?”
Dean backed up a few feet, smirking. “I’ll text you the address. It’s in Tobermory.”
Of course it was.