Protective Operation

by Danica Winters

  She didn’t want him. That was fine. Better, even.

  He stomped up the wooden steps and let the door boom shut behind him as he closed up the cellar. For once, he wished he hadn’t stayed quiet.

  Chapter Five

  Ever since Chad had come back, he seemed to be in a sour mood. When Shaye caught him looking at her, he quickly looked away, and when she had asked him what was wrong, he had simply mumbled something and then disappeared into the back bedroom.

  Not for the first time, Shaye questioned her choice in coming here. She tapped on her phone, looking for an Uber to take her to the airport, but the closest Uber was forty minutes away.

  For now, she would stay put. Maybe call a taxi or get an airport shuttle.

  She didn’t know where she would go, or to whom, but anywhere had to be better than here. Chad had been a mess, emotionally and physically, since she had gotten here and she had a sinking feeling that his downward spiral was her fault. For both their sakes, she needed to go.

  It was just... Well, she had thought he felt something for her. Especially when he had looked at her last night, when he’d first seen her across the room at the dance. All the distance that had been between them over the last few weeks had disappeared. He had been standing across the room from her, but it was as though they were pressed against each other. She had nearly been able to feel his breath on her skin and smell the sweet scent of his cologne and the heady aroma of his sweat.

  But that feeling had been an illusion. He had made it clear with his actions last night that he wasn’t the man she had thought him to be, and he was certainly not interested in her for anything more than a simple tryst.

  If she wanted to get laid, she could have had any number of men. Sex and lust were easy to find, and truthfully she wanted neither. She wanted more. She wanted something like she had with Raj. She wanted to come home to her husband at night and find him happy to see her. She wanted someone to travel the world with, who had the same wanderlust that beckoned for them to keep moving, experiencing, finding adventures and perhaps a bit of trouble. She wanted to live with someone she loved, a man who could be her partner for life. Someone who wouldn’t leave her bereft.

  Not that Raj had wanted to die—no, he had died to be with her. And yet, he could have handled things so many other ways and instead he had pitted himself against her father, taunting him instead of playing the political games that could have kept him safe. He had known the risks, but he had refused to listen to her advice to make himself invaluable to her father. Things could have been different if he had listened to her; instead he stayed stuck in his ways. He had gone against her father after she had begged him to go along with him. In the end, he had been killed for his failings—but he had stayed true to who he really was.

  She should have never let Raj into her heart. She should have known he wouldn’t change to please her father. And if she had been smarter, she would have learned the same lesson sooner. If she had, perhaps she could have saved Raj. He had sacrificed himself by falling upon her father’s contemptuous sword, all to stay true to who he really was.

  If only she had been braver sooner.

  Tears started to well in her eyes.

  And here she was again, starting to feel something for a man—a man her father had already deemed unworthy. If she stayed, if she allowed herself to feel anything beyond friendly for him, then she would be repeating her mistakes all over again.

  She had to be brave.

  Chad walked into the living room, slipping his leather wallet into his back pocket. The truck keys jingled in his hand. “I need to run into town, go to the hardware store and pick up some parts for the water heater. You want to go with me? If you’re going to stay, I’m sure you’re going to need a few things.”

  She glanced over at him and at the purple toothbrush still poking out of his pocket like a businessman’s pen. “Actually, I forgot my toothbrush,” she lied, as she tried to come up with any reason to be nearer to Chad.

  Sure, she needed to be brave. She also needed to prove to herself that what she had said to Zoey was true—she didn’t want anything more than a friendship with Chad. And besides, he could give her a ride to the airport. It couldn’t be too far from the hardware store. And then she wouldn’t simply run out on him.

  Though, if she did run out on him, would he follow her?

  Would he even care that she had left?

  He probably wouldn’t even bat an eye when she asked him to drop her off and would likely drive away as soon as her feet touched the curb.

  How had she misread this situation so badly? All she had wanted was...well, to see him.

  Mission accomplished. And failed.

  Ugh.

  It was painfully quiet as they rode toward the small town. The deeper he drove into the town, passing the late 1800s redbrick buildings with Western fronts and chipping and fading paintings on the sidewalls advertising long-gone pharmacies and bars, the more she started to wonder exactly where he was taking her.

  She pulled her purse harder against her chest. If only he would just talk to her, tell her what he was thinking about, what he was feeling. She just needed some kind of sign for what she needed to do with the feelings in her heart.

  She glanced out the window and watched as they passed by a hardware store. That had to be the shop he was looking for, but he hadn’t even slowed down. “Hey,” she said, motioning toward the store.

  He looked over and slammed on the brakes. “Damn it.”

  Here she figured she was the only one who had been lost in thoughts of what could be, but there he was just as lost as her.

  “Chad?” she said, his name barely a whisper.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine,” Chad said, pulling into a parking spot right in front of the building. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Actually, that’s crap. I need to know why you really came here. Is it for me, or did you just need a place where your father couldn’t reach you? If that’s why you’re here—”

  “Chad, stop.”

  “I heard you talking to Zoey.”

  She gulped. “So that’s why you’ve been in such a foul mood,” she said. “Just so you know—”

  “You don’t need to recant what you told her. It’s fine if you don’t have feelings for me. It’s probably easier that way.”

  Anger charged through her. Zoey had told her that he was hurting, and she was seeing it firsthand, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have her own feelings, too. “I’m sorry, Chad, that you overheard us and took it at face value. But please understand that there were things happening in that room that you may not have been privy to.”

  “Like what?” he asked, looking over at her with the raise of an eyebrow. In fact, he looked a slight bit hopeful, like somehow, somewhere deep within him, he wanted her to tell her that there was something more between them than just a simple friendship.

  But she was probably misreading everything. And, even if she wasn’t, she had already decided that it was best that she leave. This wasn’t the right place for her. Nothing had gone the way she had imagined since the moment she had set foot in this stupid town.

  “I think that maybe you and I...maybe neither of us really fit in the other’s real lives.” The words carried the sting of truth. “We are friends. We will always be friends. And, to be totally honest with you, I thought maybe we could have been something more. But I don’t think we really know each other. You know?”

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “You and I have a lot more in common than you think.” He sighed. “What happened since you got here, it’s not how things normally are with me. Kash... Well, Kash has me pegged wrong, and no matter how much I want him to know the truth, sometimes not all truths are meant to be told.”

  Just like the fact that she still cared for him...no matter how poorly they fit.

  “I get it
,” she said, looking into her bag. Lying on top of her pocketbook was a set of keys—Oh, her rental. How had she forgotten about the car? “Crap.”

  “What?”

  She twisted her purse closed, afraid that if Chad saw the keys he might somehow figure out that she was planning on running away. It didn’t make sense, all that she was feeling. Why did being around Chad always make her feel like she was totally out of control and that nothing made sense anymore?

  With Raj, her feelings had been so much easier to understand...at least when they had first met. Things between them had been uncomplicated. And yet now, the only thing she seemed to have in spades was complications.

  “Nothing,” she said, faking a smile. “Why don’t we run inside and grab the parts you need.” She hurried out of the truck before Chad could say anything. Talking would only make her leaving that much more difficult. If she left now, at least she would do so knowing that it was the right thing, but if he said one more thing about truths, she would undoubtedly lose her nerve.

  She glanced down the road, where she saw only a smattering of parked cars. Snow had started to drift down from the sky, reminding her of last night. So much had changed in such a little amount of time. A chain creaked in the breeze, and she caught sight of the same little wooden sign she had seen when she had arrived. Just a few feet away was her magenta rental car.

  She could just send Chad inside and disappear.

  There was a little bell as Chad opened the door to the hardware store. He stood waiting for her.

  “You coming?” he asked. “You’re gonna freeze out here.” He pulled his jacket tighter around him.

  It was the perfect weather to sit beside a warm fire, wrapped in a quilt, and sip hot cocoa with someone she loved. She glanced over at Chad.

  Not that she loved him. Attracted to him? Definitely. But love?

  Her body didn’t shout no.

  She hurried inside, brushing past him but careful to keep from touching him. As if touching him would weaken her resolve about leaving and the truths she was afraid of facing would bubble to the surface.

  For now, they would worry about one simple water heater.

  That was about as uncomplicated as life could get. Right?

  She didn’t even really know what a water heater looked like, but she was sure she had a better chance of fixing it than she did in setting things right with her life.

  The hardware store smelled of grease and, oddly, popcorn. And aside from the elevator music playing from the sound system, the place was eerily quiet.

  Was this what it was normally like, living in a small town?

  A man came walking down the white-tiled aisle in front of her and gave her a nod. “Good morning, folks. Can I help you with anything?” he asked with a strong Canadian accent.

  “Actually, we need some parts for our water heater,” Chad said, standing beside her as he addressed the man. “Could you tell me what aisle we can find them?”

  The guy led them toward the back of the store, asking questions about the model and what seemed to be the problem. It was a wonder that one person could know, or rather would want to know, so much about a single item in this store.

  And then she felt like a jerk. Just because this man didn’t have the weight of a country on his shoulders didn’t mean that he didn’t have passion for his job. In fact, maybe if she’d been more like him, with his clear love of all things tool-related, then maybe she wouldn’t be in the position she was in now.

  She chuckled as she thought about how her life was filled with tools, but not the same kind.

  Chad’s brow furrowed as he looked at her, and she stifled her laughter as she realized that it must seem as if she was laughing at the man.

  “That is amazing,” she said, as the man stopped walking and turned toward a long row of free-standing cylinder-shaped devices. On the other side of the aisle was what Shaye assumed were all the things necessary to install a water heater, including a menagerie of cords and doodads and a few different kinds of tubing.

  Maybe she was wrong in thinking she could understand and fix water heaters better than she could her own life. Each had a thousand different options.

  “I know, right?” the man continued, completely oblivious, or perhaps choosing to be oblivious, to her total lack of knowledge on the subject.

  “We certainly do appreciate your time,” Chad said.

  “Don’t be afraid to ask me if you need any more help. As you can see, it’s pretty quiet in here.” The man waved around the nearly empty store. As he dropped his hand, the bell rang as someone else made their way inside.

  “Absolutely,” Shaye said, equal parts nervous and relieved when the man headed down the aisle and toward the sound of the front bell. It was nice to have another person there, filling the silence that rose up again between them.

  She felt a leave-it-alone attitude coming off Chad, different from the need to talk that had burst from him in the parking lot.

  She walked across the aisle and ran her finger over the steel boxes. Their edges were razor-sharp and the metal was cold on her fingers, reminding her that this really was her life. She really was here.

  Maybe what she needed more than anything was a minute to just breathe. She had been going nonstop ever since Raj’s death. That had to be part of what was going on within her. This was nothing more than a bit of anxiety with everything that had changed in her life. Chad was her friend, and even if she was attracted to him, there couldn’t be anything between them. Maybe he was right to clam up. If they talked about it, there was a large probability that it wouldn’t end well.

  Though she was tempted to run, maybe the best thing she could possibly do was just stay put for a week, at the very least a few days. Get some rest, and let her body recover from the stresses of travel before she started moving again. In the meantime, she and Chad... Well, maybe it was best just to leave that whole idea alone.

  Or maybe she really should run.

  “I have to admit,” Chad began, “I have no idea what I’m looking at. Did you get anything that guy tried to explain to us?” he asked.

  She laughed and some of her anxiety slipped away. “No, thank goodness you admitted it. I felt utterly daft for not understanding a single word that came out of his mouth.”

  Though they were only talking about water heaters, it felt good to get her mind off the swirling enigmatic torture she was putting herself through.

  “I think I’m just gonna order a whole new water heater.” Chad opened up his phone and pulled up a picture he must’ve taken. “It seems like this one is the same size.” He pointed to a random tan-colored water heater, which to her eyes looked like every other one there.

  “Do you think we need anything else to go with it?” she asked.

  Chad tapped on his phone some more and stepped over beside her, pulling a random set of tubes off the wall. “According to YouTube and Google, I’m going to need one of these tubes.” He lifted them like they were prize ribbons he had won for being the manliest man standing in the aisle.

  “You know Google can be wrong sometimes, right?” she teased.

  “Which is why I got corroboration on YouTube.” He whirled the tubes around in the air victoriously.

  She giggled at him. He was such a dork sometimes. Maybe that was one of the things she had missed most about him—his ability to walk into any snake pit of emotion and make a joke that changed the entire mood of the room. In fact, he was one of the few people she had ever met who had that ability. He could take her from raging bull to demure house cat in twenty words or less.

  “Are you sure you grabbed the right size?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at the number of different kinds of hoses and tubes that were still on the wall. “And what about like clamps and stuff?”

  He huffed and grabbed a box of clamps from the wall, acting like he was almost doing her
a favor by getting parts that she was sure he would need by the time this entire thing was over. She could see that they were going to be spending more than their fair share of time in this hardware store before he was done completely fixing what was broken.

  “Hey, now,” she said, holding up her hands in mock surrender, “if you don’t think we need the hose clamps, be my guest and leave them behind. You don’t have to do anything because I think it’s a good idea.” She could barely hold back her smile as she wondered how long he would go before he admitted that he had missed something.

  He chuckled as though he was aware of the game she was trying to play with him. “We’ll see if we need hose clamps or not. Really, I was just thinking about recycling. I’m sure that whatever parts we need are already on the water heater that’s down there. Why replace good parts? I just care about the environment. Reduce, reuse, recycle—am I right?”

  She rolled her eyes, the simple gesture making her feel like a teenager. But if he was going to act like a petulant teen, then she could, too. “Recycling, my ass.” She laughed, the sound bouncing around the empty aisle like a rubber ball. “You and I both know that you need that part.”

  “Oh, you want to make a bet?”

  “Okay, mister, but be prepared to lose.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you prepared to lose if you do end up needing those clamps?”

  He tapped the box of metal clamps against his chin, making like he was thinking. He made a show of it, taking his time, but she had no doubt he had something in mind before he had even offered to make a deal. He was far too smart a man not to always have some kind of endgame.

  “If I don’t need the clamps, you have to—”

  There was a loud thump, making her jump. “What was that?”

  “Wait here.” The playful edge left Chad’s voice, instantly replaced by the cold sound of a trained member of a black-ops crew.

  “No,” she said, but as soon as she spoke, she realized how weak she sounded. “I should go get the salesman.” She jabbed her thumb in the direction the man had disappeared.