Pragmatically she said, “We can’t get married yet anyway. We have to get the license here in this county, where we live. Even though the courthouse isn’t in Hamrickville, too many people know me. The people we’ll tell will keep it quiet, but the average person in the county courthouse won’t know they shouldn’t Google your real name, and trust me, at least one of them would.”
He said something very graphic and pithy, not at all happy to see his plans put on hold.
She gave him an amused glance. “In a hurry to get me into bed?”
“You bet. I’ve never had married sex before. I wonder if it’s different.”
She laughed, and he used his grip on her hand to tug her closer and drape his arm around her shoulders. “Okay. I’m not happy about waiting, but I don’t see any way around it. I’ll be busy the next few days anyway: get a bank account set up in the Caymans. Bring the guys up to speed. Ammo to buy, security to set up, things like that.”
She digested all of that and asked only one question. “The Caymans?”
“A blackmail attempt won’t look legitimate unless I’m asking for serious money, which brings up the problem of how I’d report that to the IRS. They’ll expect me to know about things like that, which I do; I can’t have them wire the money into a regular stateside bank. The blackmail has to look real from every angle, so I have to have an offshore account for the money to be paid into.”
“How will you avoid getting into trouble over it?”
“Everything I do will be coordinated with Axel and documented. Yes, there are gray areas, but what matters is stopping them. I’m assuming their guilt until I’m proven wrong.” He paused. “I don’t expect they’ll ever appear in a court of law. This will be handled on the down low.”
“Meaning . . . what?”
“Meaning they may negotiate their way out of trouble by double-crossing the Russians, though they may not be in any position to do that. The flow of information may be all one way, in which case their asses are in a sling. However it ends, that’s not my problem. My job is to stop them.”
“Our job,” she corrected quietly. “We’re in this together.” She gave him a crooked smile. “That’s what being married means.”
They weren’t quite a mile from home; they strolled, they threw the ball for Tricks whenever they were in a clear patch. There was plenty of time before Bo had to go to work, so they weren’t in any hurry. He enjoyed holding her hand, teasing a grin out of her, watching the sun dapple her face as they walked through the trees.
He felt both drunk and sober, elated and nervous, numb and so hyperalert he was aware of everything, every bird song, every breeze, every rustle of the trees.
Damn. This must be what being in love felt like. No wonder it made people act like fools. The guys would never let him live this down—and he didn’t care.
Of all the things that had happened since Morgan Yancy turned up in her life, this morning had left Bo with the biggest sense of unreality. She couldn’t believe he’d asked her to marry him, but even more startling was that she’d said yes. But he had, and she had, and she still hadn’t recovered from the shock.
There were a lot of questions that needed to be asked and decisions that had to be made, but for now she couldn’t concentrate on any of them. She would deal with those later—after she’d come to terms with the fact that she was getting married. And not just married, but married soon, as in whenever he was freed from the need to conceal his real name. To him the delay was annoying; to her, events were progressing at breakneck speed. She was both dazzled and terrified; they were going from strangers to lovers to married in just two months? Well, a little over two months, by the time they actually got the deed done. Dear God, what was she thinking?
She was thinking that she loved him. She was thinking that living with someone was different from the on-off of dating, that she had gotten to know him faster than she would have from a year of dating. She was thinking that she relied on him, that he’d risked his life for both her and Tricks, that he always stood ready to back her up if she needed him. She didn’t know his birthday, or his mother’s name, or about a million other things about him—but she did know the important stuff, and she’d learn about the unimportant stuff as it came up.
When they got back to the house, he said, “I’ll grab a quick shower and help you with lunch.”
“Are you going to town with me today?”
“Not today. I’m going to do some thinking about beefing up the security here, walk the hills behind the house again to see if I overlooked anything, that kind of thing.”
He was serious about the security, and given that he was setting himself up as bait, she was all for taking any precautions they could. The thought of danger coming here, to this place she’d made her own, sent chills up her back. He truly could die. He’d nearly died before she ever met him, but he wasn’t hesitating to wade back into the fray, risking himself yet again. That was what he did, and who he was. She might fear what he did, but she wouldn’t change what he was.
She put some bacon in the oven to bake, then began tearing up lettuce and dicing fresh tomatoes into it. Morgan came down the stairs two at a time as she salted and peppered the mixture. “I smell bacon,” he said.
“BLT wraps. The tortillas are in the refrigerator. Hope you like them.”
“I’ve never seen a BLT I didn’t like, except for one that had avocado on it.”