Page 59 of Eyes in the Shadows
“Like?”
“How old are you?”
“33.”
“Oh.”
“Oh? You were hoping for more of a May-December thing?”
She smiles, looking down, starting to crack eggs into the bowl. “No, I just… I’m really bad at guessing people’s ages. And you did add yourself as ‘grandpa’ in my phone.”
I laugh at the memory. “Oh, that. It’s just a contact name that people wouldn’t think to look at closely.”
She nods, accepting that, then gets distracted by chopping some vegetables. I let her work, not wanting to split her focus when she’s holding a knife. So, I start checking the messages on my phone, and the omelet comes together so quickly that she’s sitting at the table before I can even finish typing my email.
“Thank you, darlin’.” I tuck in with gusto, noticing how much larger my portion is than hers. It’s perfectly cooked, seasoned, and filled with vegetables that are somehow delicious, in spite of their greenness.
“Do you have siblings?” she asks between bites.
“I’m the seventh of eight kids.” Her eyes widen, then her smile is wry. “What?”
“Wow. Eight kids. I can’t even imagine. That explains why you eat like you’re afraid there won’t be enough.”
I set down my fork, and let loose a surprised laugh as I dab the egg off my face with a napkin she brought. “Wouldn’t have put that one together, but you’re probably right. Nothing was ever mine. It’s why I decided to serve—the military was a way out of rural life. It gave me something my family didn’t have, that they couldn’t give. And it felt like a better option than settling down, getting marriedto someone in the area and always wondering how close my family tree actually was to hers.”
She snorts. “Did most of your siblings do that—settle down?”
“They all have at least two kids of their own now, except my younger brother. But he’s the baby, so he’s not leaving home until he’s got a boot print on his ass. I usually go home for Christmas and they all pity me because I haven’t found my ‘true purpose.’”
“So, your family doesn’t know what you do,” she surmises.
I shake my head. “They think I’m still in the Marines. My mother tells everyone she knows that her son is saving the nation.”
“I mean, technically you still are. Your methods are different…”
“Frankly, they’re not even that different,” I admit. “But it’s safer if they don’t know. I have Wes keep an eye on traffic through the major airports near them but I’m not really too concerned. It’s a whole lotta nothin’ down there. You have to know where to look to find people in that mess of forests and mountains.”
She smiles, and finishes her last bite. “So, where do they think all your money comes from?”
“Oh, they don’t know anything about it. Except for the kids, I guess. All 19 of my nieces and nephews have accounts in their names that’ll get them through college, if they want, and buy their first home. But on the condition that they don’t tell their parents where they got the money.”
“You don’t want your brothers and sisters knowing how rich you are?”
“Nope. Appalachians are a proud people, so they’d expect me to convince them to take my money. I don’t really feel like doing that. Besides, I’m not trying to turn my family into The Beverly Hillbillies.”
She laughs.
When she tries to protest me taking her plate, I shut it down with, “You cooked, I’ll clean.” I give everything she used a quick scrub and set it out to dry on top of the other pans, then take her hand to lead her back to the elevator.
It feels like we’re a normal, 10-years-married couple as we brush our teeth and climb into bed. She sits up against the headboard, applying more cream that she lost in the shower, and I stretch out next to her on my back, hand on my full stomach, watching.
“Can I ask something a bit… strange?” At my smile and nod, she breathes in deeply and asks, “Have you always been so… possessive? Do you always fall hard?”
I tilt my head. “That’s getting dangerously close to talking about exes, darlin’, which isn’t going to end well for whoever you might have in your past.” As long as she never brings it up, I can go right on with my life, pretending they don’t exist. Otherwise, her closets might pick up a few real skeletons.
“No,” she hurries to assure me, laughing a little. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s really… flattering. I just—I’m surprised, I guess. You don’t even know me that well, but you keep saying that I’m yours. And there’s a difference between finding each other attractive—like we both obviously do,” she hurries to add, seeing my lifted brow, “—and learning all the stuff that you can like about someone. Not, like, favorite color; more like the way they interact with the world and how they treat people and what they want from life.”
“I do know some of that. You forget—I was watching you.” As she nods, the memory flashing across her face in that subtle pink blush, I stretch an arm behind my head. “I also bugged your apartment.”
