Page 10 of Spring L.A.W.
He didn’t smile, but his eyes crinkled slightly. “That depends. Are you?”
Rayna leaned back and sipped. “I try not to be. But people keep making assumptions.”
“I don’t make assumptions,” Payne said. “I gather data.”
“You say that like you’re not already writing a file on me in your head.”
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he unfolded his napkin with military precision and placed it on his lap.
“And what about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“Areyoua threat to national security?”
He laughed. “Well, not unless I’m ordered to be. Listen… You gave yourself away,” he said. “Back at the bookstore. There was a flicker of something when you rose from the table. Subtle. But detectable.”
“Residual ward magic,” Rayna said easily. “I’d just been in a protective circle. You can’t be too careful with disappointed fans if you run out of books. You’re lucky I didn’t glow.”
“You nearly did,” he said. “It didn’t match anything in my training, but it wasn’t nothing. And then there was the man across the street.”
Rayna’s smile faded. “You saw him.”
“Tall. Gray coat. Didn’t move a muscle, right?”
“He wasn’tours.”
Payne finally looked uneasy. Just for a second. “I didn’t think so.”
The waitress arrived with plates. A Reuben sandwich for him, avocado BLT for her. A side of fries landed between them like neutral territory. Rayna nodded her thanks, then leaned forward slightly.
“If you’re worried about him,” she said, “you should be. But I’m not your enemy, Major. I’m trying to stay out of the kind of messes that require men like you to come sniffing around.”
“And yet here I am.”
“Here you are,” she agreed. “Sniffing. Like my perfume? It’s expensive.”
He studied her face for a beat. “What exactlyareyou, Ms. Blackstone?”
Rayna popped a fry into her mouth and grinned. “Hungry. You gonna eat that pickle?”
Payne nudged the plate toward her, silently ceding the pickle. Rayna bit into it and chewed slowly. Who knew eating a pickle could be sensual?
“Are you always this charming during intelligence briefings?” he asked, half a smile ghosting his face.
“Only when the agent in question has the bone structure of a Greek statue and the emotional availability of a broken vending machine,” she said, licking pickle juice off her thumb.
“Sounds like your type.”
“It’s alarmingly consistent.”
He chuckled, soft and short, like laughter was a language he wasn’t fluent in but understood when spoken slowly.
They ate in near silence for a few minutes. The noise of the restaurant rose and fell around them: the rhythmic clink of forks, the hiss of soda fountains, a toddler somewhere screaming about ice cream like it was a betrayal of biblical proportions. The atmosphere was normal. Comforting, even.
Rayna found herself watching him again, not with suspicion, but with the kind of curiosity she usually reserved for cursed objects and prospective boyfriends.
“You served overseas,” she said.
