Page 16 of Securing His Family
“That’s low even for you, but…” Lauren sighed and tugged her ponytail. “Even though that’s what I did, it doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your comfort by staying in your car.”
“I’ve stayed in worse places.” Reed noticed that Charlee was standing at the door, she hadn’t come out, which surprised him. Or maybe she was worried her mum was going to scold her. “Charlee’s at the door.”
Lauren waved at her daughter as though to let her know everything was okay. “I need to go. I need to get her to school and then to work.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to follow me aren’t you?”
“I am.”
She nodded slowly. “And what are you going to do then? You can’t split yourself in two and be at the school watching Charlee and at the bakery watching me.”
Of course she’d state the obvious. “The café has cameras, so you’re covered there. As for the school, as much as I want to stay out the front and watch her, that’s not going to happen because all it would take is for one person to notice my car hadn’t moved for hours and call the authorities. But I also know the school Charlee goes to has measures in place where they won’t release students to anyone not on an approved list and they’re very conscious about who they let onto school grounds.”
How did he know this information? Had he asked Wilt to provide it for him?
“Of course, you know all this,” she mumbled. “As you can see we’re safe, so we don’t need to be watched all the time. You can go home and catch up on your sleep. And…” She leaned forward and sniffed. “Shower.” She said the last with a smile on her face so he knew she was teasing.
“I’m wounded. Are you saying you don’t want a hug?” He made a move to hug her, and she squealed and took a couple of steps back. He clutched his chest. “You wound me.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She turned and headed back to the house. She was wearing a pair of jeans that hugged her ass nicely.
Stop staring. Stop staring.
He couldn’t drag his gaze away, not only from her shapely ass, but the slight sway of her hips. Everything about Lauren was alluring, and now that he’d spent time with her, he wanted more. Wanted to know all about her. What had it been like when she’d been pregnant? How was Charlee as a baby? Where were her parents? Did they live somewhere else? Was that why they weren’t in her life?
The door shut behind her, and he blew out a breath. Now that Lauren knew he was here and that he would follow her, there was no point standing in her backyard, he may as well get in his car and wait until they left.
He’d reached his car when his phone rang again, this time it was Steve. “Hey boss, what’s up?”
Reed had texted the team Saturday night stating he wouldn’t be at PT for a couple of days, and no one said anything. It seemed word had spread about the creep that harassed Lauren and how he’d stepped up to the plate. Of course, no one knew he’d told Patrick he was Lauren’s fiancée, although Steve and Tabitha had heard Lauren when she’d berated him at the café for being bossy. Neither one had said anything, but Steve had probably guessed his reasons for saying it.
“You coming into the office today or will you be watching your girls?”
Your girls.
Reed liked the sound of that. “I’ll be following Lauren when she drops Charlee off and then when she goes to the café. I got Wilt to run a check on the school and their safety procedures. They’re solid. I’ll need to go home and shower before I come into the office, but I plan to be there. Why?”
“I’ve been talking to Damon and we’ve both decided that we need to set up a roster to watch Charlee’s school. We’ll contact them about our plans, too. Wilt also sent me the report on Patrick, and what’s in it doesn’t match up to what I saw on Saturday. I also rewatched the security footage. If he is as clean as what we found out about him, I don’t think he would’ve acted the way he did. Something’s not adding up, which is why I think we need to take some precautions.”
One of the main reasons Reed had followed Steve when he started Power Security was because the guy was a brilliant leader and he never discounted something anyone said. If anyone of them had any doubts while they were on a mission when they’d been in the Army or on the ones they did for the Federal police, he would listen and they would all talk it out. He’d already solved the problem he’d deduced about having a car out the front of Charlee’s school. “I need to see that footage. Lauren said something to me Saturday night that I want to check out.”
“I’ll have it ready for you. What time do you think you’ll make it into the office?”
Reed glanced at his watch. “About an hour.”
“Sounds good. We’ll call a meeting when you get here, because I’ll be interested in hearing what Lauren said about this guy.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lauren’s car reversing out of the driveway. “Gotta go, they’re leaving.”
“Copy that.”
Reed ended the call and started his car. He would have preferred to have been the one driving them. Maybe in a few days he could persuade Lauren to let him.
ChapterEight
For the first time since they’d moved to this new location, Lauren was conscious of the security cameras recording her every move. Was Reed watching her right this moment? Was Steve? Would they spend their whole day looking at a screen of two women working in a café?
