Chapter 40

By the timeAsh emerged from his building, Mason had arrived with the Audi and Kayla was ensconced in the back seat. Although she was still keen on participating in Linda’s interview, she had no intension of driving the thirty minutes to and from the woman’s home with the agent.

As soon as Ash cleared the building’s steel door, he keyed in on her transportation change and didn’t look happy about it. Too bad.

The small part of her that didn’t want to strangle him was pleased to see his encounter with his brother hadn’t left him bruised or bleeding. Maybe the same couldn’t be said for the absent Zeke.

When he reached her car, one of his big hands gripped the open window frame. No split or bruised knuckles. Another good sign.

“We need to talk,” he said, bending at the waist to look her in the eye.

“Not today.” She nodded toward his vehicle parked along the curb ahead of them. “Mason will follow you to Linda’s. You have her address?”

“Come with me. We’ll talk on the way.”

A sensation of pain made her glance down, take note of her white-knuckled clasped hands. She spread her fingers wide and placed her palms on her thighs before meeting his gaze again.

“If we talk now, you won’t like what I have to say.”

“That may be, but?—”

“And neither will I.” She nodded toward his vehicle again. “We’ll follow.”

He wanted to argue. She could see it in the clenching and unclenching of his jaw. Instead, he pushed away and marched to his SUV.

Kayla rolled up her window, released an unsteady breath, and waited for the avalanche of questions from her driver.

They never came.

Relief compressed all the oxygen from her lungs. As Mason pulled away, she saw Zeke standing outside the building’s entrance, arms crossed and a pensive expression on his handsome face. How long it would take for Liv to text, demanding details?

Despite everything, Kayla couldn’t muster a proper rage. She’d understood Ash’s objective from the start. Had expected Joyce Ann Carlson would run to her cousin. Knew by-the-book Mitch Lawson would forward the complaint to the Bureau’s local art crime team.

Had anticipated Ash’s knock on her door. Dreamed of it.

Planned it?

No, not that far. But she’d certainly seized the opportunity to bring Ash into her orbit. Her mother’s invitations had fallen into a black hole. But she knew he couldn’t ignore a twenty-five-hundred-year-old Celtic artifact.

Then someone had murdered her godmother, and all of her maneuverings seemed trite, self-serving. Desperate.

What she hadn’t expected was the Blackwells’ lack of faith. The notion pierced a part of her heart she’d hidden away long ago. Ash’s family—the same people she’d gladly helped over and over, the ones who’d become a second family to her—had sent their duly sworn son to find out if she was buying votes.

What did they expect him to do? Give her a stern lecture? The man sworn to uphold the law. The man who had avoided her like a cloud of mosquitoes.

A broken laugh escaped her throat.

“Are you okay?” Mason asked.

“Not really.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Got a time machine?”

“If I had one, I’d get first dibs.”

Mason always had a knack for calming her. Despite the hollow space expanding in her heart, her eyes crinkled at the corners when she met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “What’s the matter? Did a bird poop on the Audi?”

He gave her an answering crinkle. “Worse, I got dirt on the floorboard.”

A thought struck her, and just like that, her humor faded. “Tell me, Mason. Would you sleep with a woman knowing it would jeopardize your career?”

“Since I don’t have a career, absolutely.”

Though he worked for her during the week, he sometimes did contract jobs on the weekends or participated in war games or training or whatever they called it. He had the kind of professional freedom many would envy.

“You have a career. Just not the nine-to-five variety. Would you jeopardize that for a woman?”

The car slowed to a stop, and he glanced in the mirror again, no doubt weighing the seriousness of her question. “Depends on the woman. There aren’t many men who wouldn’t give up everything for you, Kayla. Cameron Blackwell included.”

“Why do you say that?”

The stoplight turned green, and Mason’s attention switched to the road. “I’ve seen the way he is with you. The way he looks at you and the way he gets when other guys show you attention.”

Kayla’s pulse quickened, recalling an exchange she’d had with Rohan and Phin when the former had been a bit short with her after she’d comped a thousand-dollar, last-minute ticket for him to attend a political benefit so he could ensure Lena Kamber was safe.

“I recognize the Lost Blackwell look by now,” she’d told Phin, who’d apologized for Rohan’s bad manners. “Once a Blackwell man loses his heart to a woman, he wraps his entire, protective universe around her.”

Mason continued, “So I asked around. My sources say he lives and breathes for the Bureau. Even gave up the family business for it.”

From what Kayla had observed, he’d lost more than the business. There was a deep fissure between Ash and his family, or more specifically, between him and Zeke.

If being a special agent was important enough for him to lose so much, why would he sleep with a woman he’d openly disdained and was currently investigating?

Only one reason came to mind and it both elated her and froze her pulse.

The Lost Blackwell.