“I need my phone. Half my life’s on that phone.”

“I’ll get it back to you.” He stroked a hand down her hair one more time, rose. “You were heading out of the house when I walked up. Alone.”

“I was mad, insulted. Stupid. God, I didn’t even take my purse.”

“As long as you recognize the stupid, and don’t do it again. I’ll go call Fine, fill her in. Are you all right up here?”

“Yeah. I’m okay now. I need to go back to the book—I can dump myself in it, let this go.”

“Do that, then. I’m downstairs or in the studio. I’m here,” he said. “I’m going to be right here.”

“Ash.” She slid off the bed, onto her feet. Because her stomach quivered, she started fast. “My father’s a really good man.”

“I’m sure he is.” Something here, he thought, and brushed her hair back from her face.

“He’s a military man. It wasn’t that he put his duty before his family. But that duty came first. I’d never blame him for that because it makes him what he is. And he’s a good man. But he wasn’t there, a lot. He couldn’t be.”

“That was hard for you.”

“It was, sometimes, but I understood his service to country. My mom’s great. She made her life without him when he couldn’t be there, set it aside without a blink when he could be. She can really cook—I didn’t get much of her skill there. She could, and can, juggle a dozen things at once, which I’m pretty good at, too. She couldn’t change a lightbulb. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.”

“So you learned to fix things.”

“Someone had to—and I liked it. Figuring out how to fix things. And it made him proud. ‘Give it to Lila,’ he’d say. ‘She’ll figure out how to fix it, or it can’t be fixed.’ That meant so much. At the same time, when he was home, he ruled. He was used to giving orders.”

“And you didn’t like taking them.”

“You cope with the changes, being the new kid—again—finding your rhythm in a new place—again. You get self-sufficient. He liked that I could handle myself—and he taught me how to. How to fire a weapon, clean it, respect it, basic self-defense, first aid, all of that. But yeah, we did rub up against each other when it came to doing it because I said to do it. You’re a little like him there, but you’re more subtle about it. The Lieutenant Colonel is very direct.”

“People who don’t rub up against each other from time to time probably get very bored.”

She laughed. “They probably do. But the point is, I love him. You love your father, too. I could see it, even though you were really angry, even disappointed in him. You let him think he’s the head of the family when he’s not—not really. You are. But you let him have that because you love him. I accept that my father couldn’t be there for prom night or high school graduation. I love him, even though the times—a lot of times I really needed it—he couldn’t say, ‘I’m here.’”

And there, he understood, was the center of it.

“But I will be.”

“I don’t know what to do when someone sticks, when I start wanting them to.”

“You’ll get used to it.” He trailed a finger down her cheek. “I’d like to meet them, your parents.”

Not quite panic, she thought, but a clutch in the belly. “Oh. Well. Alaska.”

“I have a private plane. Whenever you’re ready. Dump it into the work,” he said. “And I am here, Lila. You can count on it, and eventually you will.”

Alone, she told herself to go back to work, just go back into the book and not think about anything else.

What kind of man offered to leave everything, travel the world with you to keep you safe and give you new spaces? He saw her as a gypsy—and she often thought of herself that way. On the move.

Why not just do it, then? Pack up and go, as she had countless times, only now with someone she wanted to be with? She could take it a day, a place, an adventure at a time.

She should jump at it, she realized, gradually shift her house-sitting business international. Or give it a rest, just write and travel.

Why wasn’t she jumping at it?

And more, could she really get used to—let herself get used to—counting on someone when she knew herself well enough to understand she worked it the other way? She was the one people counted on.

With their homes, their pets, their plants, their things. She was the one who tended, who could be relied on to be there—until she wasn’t needed.

Too much on her mind, she told herself. They needed to deal with what was—the egg, Vasin, Maddok. No time to be building pretty fantasies.

Reality came first.

She went back to her desk, read over the last page she’d worked on.

But kept thinking of traveling wherever she wanted. And couldn’t quite see it.

Twenty-seven

Ash asked Fine and Waterstone to come to his loft—a deliberate move. If Vasin still had eyes on the loft, the claim of police harassment would hold more weight.

He gave them credit for listening to what he’d done and planned to do—and to Lila for recording the phone call from Jai Maddok.

“I made a copy.” Lila offered Waterstone a memory card she’d put in a small baggie, labeled. “I don’t know if you can use it, but I thought you might need to have it. For your files. It’s legal to record a phone conversation, right, since I was one of the parties? I looked it up.”

He took it, slipped it into the pocket of his sport coat. “I’d say you’re clear on it.”

Fine leaned forward, gave Ash what he’d come to think of as her hard-line cop stare.

“Nicholas Vasin is suspected of international crimes, including murder-for-hire.”

“I’m aware, since my brother was one of his victims.”

“His hired gun made personal contact with you. Twice,” she said to Lila. “Personal’s what it is now.”

“I know. That’s really clear. Um. Biao zi is Mandarin for ‘bitch,’ which is pretty tame. Bi is . . .”—she winced because she hated saying it out loud—“cunt. That’s really ugly, and I consider that a lot more personal.”