Page 19 of Crowe
“I hate leaving Carina short-handed, but she can hire someone else, so I don’t have any reason to rush back.” I paused.Shit. I did actually have a reason. Things had been so crazy yesterday I hadn’t even thought about it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s this fundraiser that I agreed to speak at. It’s really important, Jackson. I can’t back out.”
“Fundraiser?”
“Yeah, it’s to help raise money for the victims of human trafficking. Not everyone has Three Bears Tactical on their team, and therapy and starting over isn’t cheap.”
“How did you end up involved with that?”
“My therapist is on the organizing committee, and she asked me to speak. I’d told her I feel a lot of guilt because those assholes treated me differently than the others, and she thought doing something to help other victims might help.”
“Was this fundraiser publicized? What’s it called?”
“The Freedom Forward Gala, and yeah, it’s pretty well publicized. It has to be for them to meet their fundraising goal, but they assured me they wouldn’t use my name.”
“Okay, I assume they didn’t, or Kat would have seen it. Give me a second.” He pulled out his phone and made a call. “Hey, Kat, can you do me a favor? See what you can find out about an event coming up in Houston. It’s called the Freedom Forward Gala. It’s a fundraiser…Yeah, thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up and then shot off a text to someone before turning back to me.
“We’ll talk to Wolfe about this when we get to HQ. My guess is he isn’t going to want you to attend, but that’ll be between the two of you. Besides, maybe it won’t be an issue, and we’ll have this all cleared up before the fundraiser takes place.”
I wasn’t going to argue with Jackson about it. I would save that for later when I talked to Wolfe, but I wasn’t going to miss the event. I agreed with Dr. Reyes. I needed to do something. Telling my story didn’t feel like enough, but it was a start, and I was doing it.
The day went by quickly considering the fact that we were cooped up in a cabin. I worked on a jigsaw puzzle while Crowe read. Every so often, he would get up to get a drink or a snack and stop by the table and insert a piece like he just knew where it belonged.
He did that a couple of times before I said, “Why don’t you take a seat and help me?”
He didn’t agree; he just pulled out a chair and sat down. I watched him for a minute as he methodically started sorting thepieces into shapes, and I couldn’t help but smile at him. You could learn a lot about a person by the way they did things like puzzles, if you paid attention.
He looked up and saw me watching him and grinned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“So, flowers, huh? Was that what you did before?”
He didn’t have to explain what he meant bybefore. My whole life was divided into two parts. Before I was kidnapped and after.
“Yeah, it was. I love arranging flowers. They make people happy, and not just at events like weddings or birthdays, but even during sad times, flowers make people feel better.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “That’s really nice, and it suits you.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
“Well, I think Three Bears suits you, too.” I reached across him to grab a piece that I needed.
“Oh, really?” He smirked at me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what I said or because I’d found his puzzle pieces sorting useful.
“Yeah, I mean, you have that whole protector vibe down pat.”
“You know I’m not usually a bodyguard, right? I run the training camp.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but you’re still really good at it. Trust me, I would know.”
Crowe
