Page 15 of What Doesn't Kill Her
“Coffee brownie bites?” Kellen was horrified.
“They make my lips vibrate.” Rae’s eyes got wide with awe. “What are you going to do now, Mommy?” Unlike Kellen, there was real interest behind her question.
“When I finish kicking the bag, I’m going to do a yoga routine. It’s good for stretching and balance, it includes meditation, and it will help me heal.”
“I like yoga! Can we do yoga now?”
Verona Di Luca stuck her head in. “Rae, come on. You’ll be late!”
“We can’t do yoga if you’re going to camp.” Kellen could not imagine Rae sitting still long enough to meditate.
“We can do it later!” Rae flung her arms around Kellen and kissed her.
Kellen patted her head.
Rae flung her arms around Max and kissed him.
He picked her up and smooched her neck, gave her a big hug and a pat on the behind as she ran from the room.
That was the problem in a nutshell. Kellen didn’t feel compelled to hug and love on Rae, and she didn’t meet Max’s gaze while he judged her. “Coffee brownie bites?” Kellen asked. “Does that kid need more energy?”
He could, and did, ignore her. “I’ve found you a job.”
She blinked. “You did?”
“You said you wanted one.”
So he had heard her sleepy murmur. “Great. Here at the winery?” Because as she’d learned when she worked at Yearning Sands Resort, a career in the Army had not prepared her to work well with the public.
“No. I called Uncle Leo and Aunt Annie—”
Kellen’s heart jumped. For her, in the months she had lived at Yearning Sands, the place had become her home. She had brought her military friends to be employed there, and rejoiced when they found their homes there, also. She had enjoyed supervising the huge resort, and more important, there was something about the wild rugged coast that appealed to her in a way that the tamed land of the Willamette Valley could not match.
But Max continued, “Aunt Annie said Brooks called. He was searching for you.”
“Nils Brooks?”
“He is the only Brooks we know, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Good. One is more than enough.”
Awkward.
Nils Brooks was the top dog at the newly re-formed government agency Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives. In World War II, the MFAA had been formed to rescue and restore the art stolen by the Nazis. Art historians and experts had saved towering cathedrals, priceless paintings, irreplaceable books...but so much more had been lost when, in their retreat, the Nazis burned everything in their possession.
After the war, the MFAA had been disbanded, and only recently through Nils’s efforts been revived to halt the flow of contraband antiquities that were financing the world’s terrorists.
Nils Brooks was understaffed, underpaid and a sneaky lying bastard who the previous winter had almost got himself—and Kellen—killed tracking down the notorious serial killer and smuggler Mara Philippi, aka the Librarian. Kellen had saved Nils, Max had saved Kellen, and Max cordially hated Nils for dragging Kellen into her near encounter with death, and for leading Max to believe Kellen was romantically and passionately involved with Nils.
Max might not be sleeping with her, but he didn’t want someone else to, either.
So having Max drop Nils’s name was both unexpected and required delicate handling. “What’s up with Nils?”
“He’s got a problem with a shipment.”
Patiently, she asked, “What kind of problem? What kind of shipment?”
