Chapter Eleven – Hunter

 

“Your place, then?” I asked as we climbed into my BMW. The sleek luxury sports car, for all its speed and technological excellence, could barely contain both our bags at the same time. We’d had this same problem when we’d come out to the airport three long months ago.

“Fuck, no. Office.”

“You sure?” I asked, checking my watch for the time. “It’s nearly four already. By the time we get there, half the office will be gone.”

She turned slowly to me, her jaw set in a characteristic “don’t tell me what to do” position.

Eyes wide, I turned the key in the ignition. The engine heaved for a second, the battery struggling to turn over before it finally purred to life, and I began to pull out of my long-term parking spot. “Office it is, then, mistress.”

Thank God I’d had enough sense to use a trickle charger on my car, and to have the extra life battery installed.

“Well, I don’t think that’s fair,” she said, crossing her arms over her safety belt as she settled back in the car. “I just need to get Tabitha looking into what the colonel’s been up to ASAP. I don’t see why you need to be flippant with me about it. And, besides, if you drop me by the office, I can just grab my car from there.”

“What about my response seemed flippant?”

“Mistress?”

“Fine. Fair enough. I just have my own life to tend to, Kris. Have you considered that at all? I have duties to consider at my own home.”

“Oh, like what?”

“My houseplants, for one,” I said, not glancing in her direction, my attention focused on getting us out of the parking garage and to the toll booth.

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“I do not shit people when it comes to horticulture. I save that for fertilizing.”

She just looked at me.

“I guess you have to be a gardener to get that one.”

She snorted. “You like houseplants?”

“Houseplants? That’s a little bit of a simplification, Kris. I have flowers, small trees, ferns, ivies. They’re beautiful, they keep the air fresh, and they brighten my room. There are gardens in Europe that have been around for centuries. The greatest impressionist painters of their generation got their start designing gardens for the wealthy. Why wouldn’t I like plants?”

She didn’t say anything at first, just looked out the window as we pulled out and headed for the toll booth. “Well, they’re probably all dead, Hunter. No need to worry about them, now.”

I sighed. She was probably right. I’d had an automated system of misters and drip-watering set up for the week’s duration we’d originally planned to be gone, with more than enough to go an extra week. I just hadn’t accounted for being gone for three months. Of course, none of this changed the fact that her comment stung a little.

We pulled up to the toll booth, and I handed in my parking pass, wincing at the price handed back to me.

Kris whistled low as I handed my card over. “Seven hundred?”

“Did I not say we should take a cab?”

“If I remember correctly, you wanted to take my car.”

I gave her a withering look before taking my card back from the attendant.

“Oh, stop pouting,” she said as I pulled through the raised gate. “We’ll get a check cut for you as soon as we get to the office.”

“It’s not about that. It’s the principle of the matter. I could have bought a pair of boots for that.”

She laughed. “That wouldn’t cover half the price of any of your wardrobe, and you know it. Stop faking outrage.”

“A man is allowed to look nice and care about his appearance.”

“You probably have more shoes than I do at home.”

I shrugged, nodding my agreement. “Well, you make a valid point. I do have better taste than you. You have what? Combat boots for normal work, and combat boots for evening wear?”

When she replied, I could almost hear the smile in her voice even if it wasn’t evident on her face. “Oh, shut up and drive, Hunter. If I’d known you were going to be this talkative, I would have just taken a cab back to the office. At least cabbies have enough sense to not bother their passengers so damn much.”

“One would think that, after three months locked up, a little bit of conversation would be preferred.”

“Know what the best part of the flight here was?” she asked, pausing for a moment to grin. “Your snoring.”

Thirty minutes later, as we were pulling into a spot on the upper parking level of the garage, Kris muttered to herself.

“What was that?” I asked as I turned off the ignition and pulled the trunk release.

“Said I need to get you a reserved parking spot that’s closer to the building. So far away I might as well have walked from the damn airport.”

“Well, maybe I can have yours when you decide to leave?”

Her smile faded, and my heart sank at the same rate of its disappearance. “Sorry. I didn’t—”

“No, it’s fine,” she said, opening the passenger side door and climbing out. “In fact, you’re almost right.”

I climbed out after her. “Kris, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said as I came up beside her.

“Didn’t mean it like what? You’re just stating facts. I know you weren’t trying to hurt my feelings or anything. I’ve got a decision to make, and that decision involves whether or not I’m going to stick around. You know it, and I know it. It’s fine.” She reached into the trunk, grabbed her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. She slipped her arm through the other strap and hitched it up. When she spoke again, she looked me right in the eyes as she reached out and lightly touched the back of my hand. “Thank you for the ride, Hunter. I really do appreciate it, even if I was giving you hell about your plants.”

The sudden contact was like a shock of electricity minus the transference of electrons: startling and unexpected, making the hair on my forearm stand on end. My thoughts traveled back to the lie I’d told her on the plane, about how I always told the truth to people I was working with.

To be honest, I’d double-crossed more people than I’d ever played it straight with. My long life was littered with the relationships I’d burned to the ground like bridges engineered from kindling. That was the only good thing about living for centuries: the people your human partners warned about you all tended to die of old age.

I forced the sudden feelings down, though, and plastered a crooked smile on my face as I nodded. “Yes. Of course. My pleasure.”

Headed for the stairs with determination scrawled on her face, she brushed past me as I shut the trunk. I closed my eyes for a moment, remembering the touch of her hand. Whatever Harrington was up to, it was going to stink to high heaven once she looked into it more closely. Why else would he enlist me through blackmail to help him swing her decision?

“Hey, Hunter?” she called from a few cars away.

“Yes?”

“You’re coming in to the office, right?”

I looked down at the flannel shirt I was wearing, plucking at it with my fingers as if it were a dead thing. The guys would never let me live it down if they saw me dressed this way. Carter would probably joke about how I was stealing his fashion tips, if only he had them to steal. “Do you need me to? I’m not exactly clothed for the part.”

She rolled her eyes, putting a fist on a cocked out hip. “Come on, I might need the assistance when it comes to looking at everything.”

Here was the in I needed. The opportunity to help mold her opinion and the way she looked at the facts. But, still, the sudden opening did nothing to cheer me. All it meant was that it would be easier to nudge her towards Harrington.

Internally, I smiled wanly, while on the outside I smiled with genuine friendship and gave her a nod. “Does this mean you suddenly trust me?”

“Um, I’m saying I value your opinion,” she said, the statement coming out more as a question. “That’s not the same thing as trust. That doesn’t mean I’d leave you with the keys to my house or car.”

“Think that would hinder me?”

“No, of course not. But that doesn’t mean I’d want to make it easy on you, either.”

I sighed, slamming the trunk lid shut. She might not trust me, but this was still a start, something I could build off.

“Yes, then, I suppose so. Besides, it wouldn’t suddenly mean you had anything worth stealing in the first place.”