Page 5 of Solid as Steele
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Mackenzie held on the phone while Jeffers added the black cross tattoo to his search. She looked at the man. He might really be a believer. Or not. A rough, almost violent-looking cross didn’t necessarily mean it symbolized Christianity. And why did he keep running his finger over it?
If the cross did relate to being a Christian, it gave her a bit more confidence in his trustworthiness. But she’d spent years as a trooper and knew cross tattoos didn’t always symbolize Christianity. In fact, they often didn’t. For now, she would take this new bit of information at face value.
“Owen,” he blurted out.
“What?”
“Owen seems familiar.” He sat forward, his eyelashes beating rapidly. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s my name, but it feels right.”
“Then that’s what we’ll call you.”
“Okay.” The insecurity in that big tough body that she imagined would portray a demeanor of confident and in charge behavior had to leave him hurting something fierce.
At least she’d be hurting. She liked to control things. Way too much. One of her downfalls.
She turned her attention back to her call. “Hey, Jeffers. Add the first name Owen to the search too.”
She picked up her coffee and took a long draw. Cold. Yuck. She hadn’t had her fill this morning and would get another hot cup when she got off the call.
Then what? What if Jeffers didn’t locate any matches? Could she send Owen packing?
She could hear her dad and grandad lecturing her on safety. Her cousin Thomas had been violently murdered, and everyone had a heightened sense of the bad things that could happen. Not only had they personally experienced the terror of violent crime, but they’d also witnessed it on the job for years.
But when everything became too much to bear, her mom and gran would remind her to have compassion and live her faith. Which she did.
But which should win out here? Safety or faith?
“No matches on the tattoo,” Jeffers said. “And really nothing remotely resembling the description you gave me. But I can dig deeper and keep at it if you want.”
“That would be great.”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“No.”
“You know I don’t like that, but I have to respect your decision.” He let out a noisy breath through the phone. “Be careful, Steele. You might not be one of us anymore, but we don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
“Thanks.” She ended the call and looked at Owen. “Would you agree to be fingerprinted?”
“Fingerprinted?” He gaped at her as if she’d asked for his firstborn child. “Man, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t have anything to hide, right?”
He tilted his head, and that razor-sharp gaze locked on her again. “What if law enforcement is involved in whatever incapacitated me?”
Interesting take on things.“The odds of that are very slim.”
“But not impossible.”
“No, not impossible.” She resisted sighing over his stubbornness. “Ever think it’s as simple as you fell and hit your head?”
“My gut says it’s more than that, but I could be exaggerating things.”
“What if I take your picture and do an internet image search?”
“Hey, yeah.” His expression brightened. “That sounds good.”
