I just shake my head and laugh, grateful for the camaraderie but not willing to go into detail about how complicated the situation already is between the two of us. “Perfect in theory, my friend, but I don’t quite trust her yet.” And of course now I have his interest piqued. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t understand why she came here telling everyone she was freelance when she had the job. Why not just tell the truth?” I hope my quick thinking pays off and Pauly doesn’t sniff out my lie. What was I supposed to tell him? Oh I slept with her and she didn’t tell me she was my new partner, but she denies that she knew?

He nods his head as he mulls over my comment. “Yeah but you weren’t here yet. Wouldn’t you have been pissed if you showed up and she was buddy-buddy with everyone and used your name as a way to get in with everybody?”

“You’ve got a point there,” I murmur, hoping the resignation in my tone helps bring the topic to a close.

“But you’re still going to tell me you don’t like her, right?”

He knows me too well. When I glance over to the pool table, Beaux’s chalking up her cue stick, but her eyes are on me. Her ears must be burning over the discussion I’m having. She stares for a moment, brow furrowed, but the minute she realizes I’ve caught her staring, she looks away.

“It’s not that I don’t like her per se, but it’s the babysitting job Rafe’s assigned to me that I hate. Since when does he get to judge if I’m okay or not?”

“So long as you do your job, it shouldn’t matter.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I take another drink of my coffee. The scalding liquid burns a path down my throat at the same time my phone buzzes on the table in front of me. In a move so practiced it looks natural, I slide my cell off the table and rest it on my thigh just below the line of sight.

I comment to Pauly about something random, keep the conversation going so that he forgets the little vibration my phone gave, while at the same time it feels like an ember burning a hole in my goddamn leg. If there’s a lead sitting here and I react, he’ll know and want me to share it. We may be friends, but all’s fair in friendship and getting the first wind of a breaking story.

Shifting in my seat, I glance down and see Omid’s name on my screen. The ember becomes a damn wildfire at the sight of my most elusive but most trusted source’s name. It takes everything I have to keep myself from pumping my fist in the air, because I feared he had disappeared on me while I was gone.

Or even worse in this land where someone who is your ally one day may turn on you the next, pledging his loyalty and allegiance to the terrorist just to save his own life. The possibility that Omid has been found out and turned against me is never far from my mind.

The familiar adrenaline rush hits me like a first fix to an addict. The rest of the message consumes my thoughts as Pauly drones on about nothing of importance.

“Ah, shit,” I say as I make a show of looking at my watch, causing him to narrow his eyebrows. “I’m gonna get my ass chewed. I missed a conference call with Rafe.” I scoot the chair back as Pauly laughs.

“Man, the jet lag fucks with your head.”

“Catch up with you in a bit,” I say as I start to walk away from the table.

“Not like I’m going anywhere.”

The minute I turn the corner and walk into the conveniently open elevator car to go up to my room, I enter the pass code to my phone. The message lights up my screen: Meet me at five. The usual place.

I let out the fist pump I’d held back downstairs as the doors open at my floor. I reply to Omid that I’ll be there, excitement ruling my thoughts and trepidation bringing me back down to Earth.

The last time I was out and about in everyday life here was the day of Stella’s death. The fractured images of the events of that day move through my mind like a kaleidoscope, never far from the surface, and of course my discomfort clears the path for me to worry that Omid is setting me up somehow. It’s a possibility with any meet, but I know his hatred runs deep for the terrorist faction that continually reasserts its stronghold in this country after losing his children to their brutality, so I try to shrug away the notion.

Stuck with the lie I told Pauly, I can’t return too quickly to the lobby, so I decide to head up to my room and reward myself with some sleep. Yet within seconds of closing my hotel room door and stripping off my shirt, a knock sounds at my back.

Shit. Pauly caught on somehow. Before I respond, though, he knocks again.

“Dude, hold your horses!” I walk over to the door. Just as my hand grips the handle, I hear Beaux’s muffled voice from the other side, and it surprises the shit out of me.

“Don’t even think you’re heading out without me.”

How in the hell did she know something came up?

When I turn the handle and let the door fall open, we stand motionless as she stares at me with her green, assessing eyes. The damn woman is observant, and I’m not sure if I love that or hate that yet, but I have a feeling I’m going to find out one way or another because she doesn’t seem to be a wilting flower in any sense of the word.

She enters when I take a step backward, and I like that the hard glint in her eyes goes hazy for just a moment when she takes notice of my bare chest. She stares a bit longer than is professional before dragging her eyes over my torso and back up to my face. Can’t say it doesn’t give me a small thrill of satisfaction to know she likes what she sees. Except there’s no way in hell I’m letting her touch me again.

And then of course she opens her mouth and ruins it all. “Going somewhere, Pulitzer?” She stands with her hands on her hips and her head angled to the side.

“You stalking me or something?” I prop my shoulder against the wall and shove my hands deep in the pockets of my cargos.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Last time I checked, I didn’t have to.” I could volley like this all day if she wants to.

“So where are you off to?” she asks again, this time with a bit more impatience.

I gesture toward my bed. “I’m about to take a nap, actually. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like, but for some reason I don’t take you for the type who likes to spoon.” I raise my eyebrows in a taunt as I wait for her rebuttal.

But she says nothing. She just stands there with arms akimbo, eyes reflecting her inner struggle over whether to believe me or not.

“I don’t trust you,” she says, throwing my own words at me as she steps backward into the hall.

“Good to know,” I tell her as I shut the door in her face. Feeling like an ass, I stand there for a moment with one hand pressed flat against the door, the other on the handle, and indecision clouding my thoughts.

I’m not sure how long we both stand on opposite sides of the slab of wood waiting the other out, but eventually, I hear her feet shuffle away and the ding of the elevator. I run a hand through my hair and flop on the bed on my back, set my alarm on my phone, and find myself staring at the cracks in the ceiling again.

I can’t help but question myself – technically she is my partner, so why am I keeping the information about the meet from her? For one thing, I’m not ready to have a partner again, not ready for some fresh-faced rookie to come waltzing into this position and fill Stella’s shoes like she never existed.

But I signed up for this, right? Begged to get back here. How can I keep shutting Beaux out when I need to let her the fuck in so I can do my job to what the brass considers the best of my ability?

Add to that this is going to be my first time out in the field since the day Stella died. Do I really want to be so preoccupied with making sure that Beaux’s okay when the last time I tried that, I failed miserably? Stella’s blood still stains my hands.

Even with all of my reasoning, my justifications keep missing the mark. I doze off, still trying to grasp the concept that if I let Beaux come along, she’s not replacing Stella.

And I’m not forgetting her either.

The sounds of the late-afternoon traffic on the streets travel up to my hotel room as I prepare for the meet. I know it’s early, but I plan to get to the meeting location ahead of time and scope out the surrounding area to make sure no surprises await. My hands have a tremor with the adrenaline coursing through me as I open the bottom drawer of the hotel dresser and shuffle clothes around until my hand connects with cold metal. With caution, I lift the Glock 19 that Pauly has kept safe for me from its hiding place.

Taking a moment, I look over the gun again like I did yesterday when he returned it. I push the magazine into the grip and pull the slide to make sure the chamber is empty before tucking it in the back of my jeans. The weight offers a false sense of comfort but one that I find necessary nonetheless.

I pull on a baggy, button-up shirt that I can leave untucked to hide the weapon in my waistband before picking up my San Diego Padres baseball cap. I should be focused on the task at hand, but the defiant look on Beaux’s face keeps flickering in my mind as I tug my hat down and tuck my sunglasses in the neck of my shirt.

I start to walk out of the room but stop to take my wallet out of my pocket and empty it of everything but my reporter’s credentials, two hundred dollars, and my driver’s license. The cash is merely bribing money in case I should fall into trouble, which is quite possible, and everything else is to identify my body should something go awry.

Wouldn’t Rafe be proud? All of that new training they gave me, and I remembered to empty my wallet. Go team!

And I don’t know why all of a sudden I’m in a foul mood. I’m getting my first taste of action again; I should be ecstatic, but I’m not because I know that even against my own common sense, I’m not going to leave this hotel without Beaux.

It’s a bittersweet sense of resignation. Having her with me means I have another set of eyes watching for danger, but it also means that I have someone to look out for besides myself.

And it’s pretty obvious by what happened to Stella that I can’t protect anyone from shit, so I’m not real thrilled with the prospect.

As I begin to walk out of my room, for some random reason I’m compelled to turn back and pick up a pad of paper. In a moment of indecision, I toy with the edge of the paper, thankful for the first time ever that our living accommodations are without housekeeping services, because that means no one will ever see this unless something happens to me. Moment of indecision over, I go with my gut and jot down where I’m going and whom I’m meeting with. It’s something I have never done before in all of my years in the danger zone, but after Stella’s death, I feel a whole lot less invincible than I used to.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Maybe it’s not.

All I know for sure is that it had better not interfere with getting the job done or I’m in for a whole fucking world of hurt.

Once I leave the room, my feet prove they have a mind of their own. Each step I take up the stairwell, I become more agitated with my obvious lack of follow-through on the promises in coming back here: first and foremost, to look out for myself and myself only. Knocking on Beaux’s door proves I can’t even do that.

How I guessed correctly that she’s in her room, I have no clue, but when she opens the door, a visual sucker punch hits me square in the gut. An obviously just-awoken Beaux stands before me, eyes heavy, lips swollen, that curtain of hair covering her bare shoulders like a caress, and body warm like something I want to curl into. She has on a tank top and the tiniest pair of shorts that show off her toned legs.

If I thought coming up here was a mistake before, I know it for certain now. Every cell in my testosterone-driven body screams for me to back her up against the wall and see if her lips are as warm and inviting as they look.

And a distraction is exactly the kind of thing I don’t need as I prepare to walk out of the hotel and into a possible lion’s den.

So I shake the sparks of desire from my mind as I barrel past her into her room without being invited.