Page 6 of Lost Truth
He blinked a few times. Good, she’d caught him by surprise as she’d hoped, but he recovered quickly. “Take any clear spot at the table if you can find one. Our team won’t win any awards for neatness.”
“Hah.” Jude pushed up to the food table. “Our team might not, but you would.”
“And proud of it.” Hayden glanced at Cady.
He seemed to be searching for her response to his need for order. She wished she could say she shared that trait, but honestly, she was a bit of a mess. Maybe neatness and organization weren’t important to him in a life partner—or maybe he couldn’t be with someone who didn’t value those traits.
Grr. Stop thinking about being with him.
She found an open slot in the middle of the table, dropped her jacket over the back of the chair, and sat. Her stomach rumbled again, and she stabbed her fork into a plump red strawberry.
Before she could bite into it, Nolan joined her and held out a piece of paper. “Here’s the nondisclosure we spoke about. I need to make sure everything we discuss tonight and in the future isn’t shared with anyone else and especially not published in any public format. If you’d look it over and sign it while we eat, then we’ll talk about working together.”
She took the document with her free hand and gave him a tight smile when she really wanted to grit her teeth. She’d told him and Hayden both in no uncertain terms she wasn’t here in a reporter’s capacity and wouldn’t be writing about this situation, but they couldn’t seem to let it go.
She understood their caution, though. They needed to protect their business and their clients. She would do the same thing in their shoes.
Stuffing the strawberry in her mouth, she laid the page down and chewed as the fresh sweetness saturated her tastebuds. She glanced through the legalese, bored after the first sentence. Too bad. She needed to continue to read. At least she had the tasty sandwich with the sweet pickles—something she’d never had on a turkey sandwich before—to chomp into as she tried to decipher the lawyer speak. It took her exactly half a sandwich to skim the agreement. Before starting the jalapeño one, she grabbed the pen and scribbled her signature.
Holding it in the air, she caught Nolan’s attention. “Here you go. Signed.”
He stepped over to her and collected it. “I hope you’re not offended by this. It’s routine business for us.”
“I understand,” she said, and tried her hardest not to be offended.
As a reporter, she’d developed a thick skin and was rarely put out by anything. Somehow, this seemed more personal. Maybe she believed because she was interested in Hayden, he and his team should trust her. But they knew nothing about her feelings, and her belief didn’t make sense.
She might be attracted to him. She might want to get to know him. She might even want a potential relationship with him. But the fact of the matter was, shedidn’tknow him, and he didn’t know her.
They would spend time together searching for her father’s killer, and she was sure she’d learn more about who he really was. Maybe, just maybe, they’d find they weren’t compatible at all. She didn’t expect that, though—just like she never imagined he’d hold her at gunpoint in a stranger’s house.
She had no idea what lay ahead—and maybe that was for the best. Hunting a killer was dangerous enough, but Hayden had shown her tonight just how quickly the search could turn into a life-or-death situation.
