And he was a big ox in rut.
So he spent half the night exchanging text and email with her—when they were right there in the same room—because it made her more comfortable. She hadn’t objected when he’d taken over one of her desks to work. The air-conditioned front room beat the bug-infested humidity of the porch.
But he couldn’t adapt to her vampire hours. He fixed her midnight meal, sent off a host of inquiries on their bitcoin research, and quit for the day. He needed to get his exercise in the early morning hours, before heat stroke set in. His leg was healing, but it wasn’t there yet.
Ariel didn’t notice his departure.
Monday morning, Roark got in his run, took his shower, and debated moving back in with Evie and the guys. Ariel was seriously messing with his head. He’d stayed here because it was isolated, and if anyone was hunting him, they wouldn’t find him this far off the grid. But apparently no one cared if he’d been blown to hell or set fire to the town.
And if his da really did have dangerous connections who might trace him, Ariel would be safer if he was out of her house, surrounded by ex-military like Jax and Reuben—and Evie’s dotty witches.
But Ariel had him hooked. He simply couldn’t leave her alone—especially not when she left him a recipe for beignets and ordered a deep fryer delivered to the door.
The woman was certifiable—but independent as all get-out. And she wastrying...
That’s what got him, he decided after he set out the dough to rest and settled at her desk to see what she’d found overnight. He had this niggling hope that Ariel was preparing to step outside her boundaries, and he wanted to be there when the chrysalis opened.
He dug into the wealth of detail she’d compiled, whistled softly, and decided the feds really needed to hire her. Although whatever she was doing for the bank probably paid better and was a lot safer. He wanted this secret weapon for himself. This was some heavy-duty shit.
He texted Evie and the guys.sunshine all over. incoming
Then he emailed Ariel’s elaborate spreadsheet.
Evie’s tiny Subaru drove up half an hour later, spilling Reuben, Jax, and the Italian stranger like overgrown clowns from a toy car. Evie stepped easily from behind the wheel, following the clowns to the trunk. Under her guidance, they unloaded an enormous barbecue grill.
Roark hooted in delight. “Where’d you get dat baby? We ain’t got a gas hookup but—”
“Already done.” Jax sounded just the slightest bit surly. “I found it cleaning out the garage, polished it all up, and Evie waited until then to show me the dangerous propane modification.”
“One of my aunt’s boyfriends somewhere along the line nearly blew us up, maybe intentionally. He didn’t hang around long after that.” Evie turned to introduce the newcomer. “Roark, Cajun spy; Dante, Italian archeologist. Dante wanted to meet his cousin Ariel, and I thought you might fix the grill properly. And then we could have barbecues out here where Ariel could stay in her zone but still participate.”
Roark held out his hand to the tall Italian but concentrated on Evie as they shook. “I love the way you t’ink, bébé. Let’s take it ’round back, near the kitchen.” He lifted one end of the heavy old grill while Reuben and Dante took the other. “Jax, ain’t you got work to do?”
“After that spreadsheet of more aliases you sent? Are you kidding? This is the best I could come up with to prevent Batman and Robin here from committing felonies. It was either this or tie them up.” Jax took a corner.
“Which one of us gets to be Robin?” Evie followed as they carried the grill around the cottage.
“Robin’s prettier.” Reuben grunted and eyed the jungle of the backyard.
“Do we need judges to decide which one of us is prettier?” Evie inquired.
Ignoring their idiocy, Roark tilted the grill and cursed. “Nowhere to set this."
Dante let down his side, glanced around, and strode directly to a patch of dirt and grass. “I’d say there are stones under here preventing the grass from growing.”
Huh, maybe the pretty boy had some use after all. Roark waited while Dante and Evie explored.
Evie scuffled at the dirt spot, then yanked at the grass. “You may be right. Good eye.”
“It’s what I do for a living. Anyone got a shovel?”
“No garden, no shovels.” Along with Reuben and Jax, Roark hefted the grill again and hauled it over. “This will do, if it’s level.” The ground felt pretty solid.
Setting his side down, Reuben returned to the earlier argument about Robin. “It’s all about the muscle, not the pretty face.”
Roark scuffed his bare foot over the grass, locating more stones. “Neither of you got brains, so that works. Brainless superhero dudes, what the hell you think you can do to catch a cartel?”
That’s what Ariel’s research seemed to have turned up—a banking connection run by an unknown entity who raked in the profits and turned them into untraceable cryptocurrency.