Page 26 of Crosscurrent

“Do you want to see this guy?” Gabe asked.

That was the real question underneath all of it.

Skye brushed one toe across the floor. Finally she exhaled. “Yes.”

Tom made a sound in his throat. “That feels strategically unwise.”

“Most human relationships are,” Reagan said.

He rolled his eyes. “I hate it when you say emotionally correct things during operational discussions.”

“You hate it all the time.” Reagan shot back, but they were both grinning.

Cara moved a little closer to Skye. “You don’t have to decide because everybody’s staring at you.”

“If Ray sent him,” she said quietly, “then whatever’s in that envelope matters enough to risk it.”

At the conference table, Wade nodded.

Decision made.

Gabe tossed his pastry aside. “Let’s go see what Owen Harney brought.”

9

Cara reached for her shoes. "I'll go up with her."

You stay, she mouthed at Gabe.

Something about Skye gave her the sense Skye would be more open with another woman there.

Skye set down the pencil she’d been balancing on her finger. "A sound move. You don't trust me alone with a civilian."

"That's not why."

Skye tilted her head slightly. The small analytical tilt Cara had already started to recognize. The one that meant she was recalculating.

"There's no reason you should have to handle whatever's in that envelope alone," Cara said. "That's the reason."

Skye shrugged. "No worries. I work alone. That's how I've survived."

"Not anymore." Cara picked up her coffee mug, realized it was empty, set it back down. "Not when you're with us."

Skye looked at her for a beat that stretched past comfortable. "Noted."

Cara couldn't tell if the word was an acknowledgment or a warning. She decided it didn't matter, and headed for the stairs.

She observed him from the doorway — corduroy trousers, trail runners that had never seen a trail, the manila envelope beside him placed and not dropped. Academic. Careful. Here to do one right thing and increasingly uncertain what right was going to cost him.

At her side, Skye was doing the same thing. Cara wondered if she’d come to the same conclusion.

Diane had clearly been managing Owen Harney. There was a fresh pot of tea on the table beside him, a scone he hadn't touched. She glanced at Cara when they came through the kitchen door. One eyebrow, a fraction of a millimeter. Cara gave her the smallest nod.

Harney stood up when he saw them. True manners, not performance. Cara noted the difference.

Owen Harney was a man who'd prepared for this moment and was discovering the preparation wasn't quite right. His tea had barely been touched. Not because he wasn't thirsty. Because he was waiting.

He wanted to do this right.