Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
In my mind, anyway.
Agent Simmons gave me a once-over and didn’t manage to hide his surprise as he took in my appearance. I knew what he was seeing. I was still wearing my clothes from last night, though I’d managed to remove my jacket and shoulder holster before collapsing on the bed. I’d always been so careful about looking like an immaculate professional, so it wasn’t a stretch for him to be momentarily left speechless as he took me in.
“Um, Arlington. Didn’t he… didn’t he tell you he wanted to go again last night?” Simmons asked.
I managed to school my reaction even as two very distinct thoughts went through my head.
One, Everett needed to stop visiting that place. I had no clue whose grave he’d spent so much time at this past week and unfortunately, I’d been too distracted the previous night to check the name on it, but whosever it was, it was fucking with his head.
And two, what the hell were we even still doing here? Hadn’t he made the call to the director to say he no longer wanted protection? Or, at the very least, he no longer wanted my protection?
“Uh, yeah, right,” I stammered. “Sorry, didn’t sleep well last night.”
That part was true.
I hadn’t slept a wink.
I’d been too busy cursing myself for my behavior.
In between fantasies of what it would have been like to seal my mouth over Everett’s before turning him and pressing him face-first against that door.
Predictably, my body reacted to the inconvenient thought and I had to use the door to shield my lower half. “I’ll, ah, be right down.”
“Sure thing,” Simmons said, obviously still taken aback. I closed the door in his face and then hurried to the bathroom so I could get cleaned up. I was out the door within a matter of minutes with a fresh suit and a mask of indifference that I had to give myself a pep talk all the way down to the driveway to keep in place.
I’d hoped to find Everett waiting in the car, but instead, he was leaning against the side of it.
It wasn’t a good place for him to be, especially since it served only to remind me of how good it had felt to pin him in place against it several days earlier. Last night I’d had him at my mercy…
“Agent Nash,” Everett said in greeting with a nod of his head. I glanced at Simmons who was waiting nearby and gave him a quick jerk of my head, releasing him from duty. He quickly disappeared to do a perimeter check before heading to our shared apartment to get some sleep.
“Mr. President,” I said.
As soon as I acknowledged him, Everett got into the back seat.
No, it couldn’t be that easy.
Could it?
I went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. I wanted so badly to ask him what the hell was happening, but decided to play it safe. It tore at my pride to admit it, but I needed this job. Not because I needed the income or because I was worried about finding another job to support myself, but because I needed it.
It was who I was. It was all I’d ever wanted to be.
I couldn’t fail at it.
I just couldn’t.
I started the car and got us on the road. Everett didn’t speak to me as we began the four-hour trek to Arlington, but with each mile that passed, I saw the familiar melancholy return and I instinctively knew that it would be another long day. The curiosity to know who the soldier was who was buried in that quiet spot on the small rise overlooking a sea of perfectly placed white headstones ate at me, but I wasn’t about to ask Everett about it. Or interject my opinion that maybe the daily visits weren’t such a good thing. I normally stayed several hundred feet back to give Everett his privacy, but maybe I could figure out a way to get close enough and not get distracted this time around, to see the name. After that, it should be pretty easy to figure out who the guy was.
We were three hours into the journey when Everett’s phone rang. Like most agents, I’d become good at tuning out my charge’s personal conversations, though admittedly, with Everett, it was more challenging than most. But this time around, I didn’t need eyes to discern something was very, very wrong.
It was Everett’s softly whispered, “What?” that had me taking my foot off the gas. When I glanced up in the rearview mirror, I saw that Everett had covered his mouth with his hand. His eyes met mine in the mirror and the fear in them had me pulling the car over to the side of the road. By the time I threw the vehicle into park, Everett was intently listening to whoever was talking to him.