replied smiling and nodding to her as a confirmation. They had always understood each other without saying too much. As a kid Angela was herself a little bit of a tomboy and living on a remote farm might have played a major role into it. They hang around quite a bit and played together all the cowboy games. By the time she reached puberty she knew how to kick a ball, use a pocket knife, jump a fence and even ride a horse without a saddle. Not that many other girls her age could do that.
At one time her mother become quite frustrated with her behavior and worried that she will never have a future. By that she meant, marry and have children like any other girl with lady like attitude. So it was a bit of a surprise for everyone when Angela married first at the age of 20. Unfortunately it did not last long. The second marriage wasn’t more successful either. No kids from either of them and some thought that it was better that way.
‘So you changed a blue uniform for another blue one? It suits you by the way, ’ he said to her with a wink while his eyes were examining her body. She was a good looking woman and quite feminine now. No trace of the tomboy girl left there, he thought. ‘And you wear pink? ’ James continued to tease her seeing now her painted nails.
‘And no more Minecraft, ’ she answered with a giggle and he enjoyed with some pleasure her feminine laugh. She alluded to the computer game they used to play relentlessly as kids.
‘Yeh, no time for that one either, but they were good times, ’ he said with some nostalgia referring to their teenage years and letting his guard down a bit.
‘There wasn’t much else to do, I guess. It was definitely fun, ’ she reassured him. As she was saying that she had a fleeting image of him riding a horse and waving to her. It was the day he went to high school. She had a crush on him at the time. After that they saw each other less often and she started to put more effort into becoming a girly girl. Her romantic ideas about him eventually fizzled out. And here she was now looking at him and not really knowing what to say. She reminded herself to avoid the subject of the ex-s and not to show too much interest in him, and found the last one was really, really difficult. She will need to make time and read that book that she bought some weeks ago about how to tell if a man likes you.
James on the other hand thought of Angela like a dear old friend or brother and tried to reconcile that mental image with the feminine side of Angela that was obviously coming through. Still tomboy, he concluded at the end of their conversation as he heard nothing much about the ex-s or concerns about weight gain or being single. And he liked that.
While they were still talking her male colleague and work partner, Paul, approached them with some trepidation. He was becoming curious and wanted to meet this civilian that was making Angela laugh. James, as usual, was not wearing a uniform. Angela introduced him as a neighbor and James left it like that. It suited to his needed cover for his work.
As a chief inspector for the security services he learnt quickly the importance of having a private life. It was definitely challenging at times and he wasn’t even married. When working undercover like now was quite a struggle and he wasn’t sure he would like to do this for too long. He was a stubborn man and thrived in solving difficult cases but he wasn’t unrealistic. Keeping an eye on Rose was the easiest and fun part of a bigger case. After her uncle, a secret agent himself and former colleague of James, was killed while working on a case, the agency had to regroup and reconsider all the angles possible.
With the arrival of Rose in the city and not knowing to what extent she was involved in the matter James acquired one more task. Now he had the assignment to keep Rose safe while at the same time solving her uncle’s death and ensuring that Rose was not an agent herself or even a murderer. The fact that she was a woman was not making their problem less significant.
James’s next planned stop was at the city’s library. Easy to meet people as everyone ignores you and he took advantage of that to meet with his informers. But today he also wanted to read more on Rubber Bridge. Now that he was pretending to be an expert on it he needed to brush up his skills. When he accepted Rose’s case he didn’t know how different from poker this bridge game really was, with so many damn rules and systems. Not that he would ever admit to anyone but he was finding it a bit annoying, however that was balanced by the feminine presence and he had to admit to himself that he has started to like Rose. He was hoping that she was on the good side of the law although that would mean another cold case for him.
…
‘Do you know what will make me really happy James? ’ his mother Nicole said when he left the farm that Sunday afternoon. She was smiling with mischief at him and he wondered what she was plotting on now. She kept a very active life even now in her 60s and after all the hard farm work over the years. She was still good looking; a tall, lean woman with curly honey blonde hair that she kept at the shoulder length. Her eyes were animated and playful and he could see how happy she was to have him around. He tried to keep up with the plots in all her books and enjoyed listening to her planning a new one. Sometimes he felt they were a bit too sweet and he pointed that to her.
‘Oh James, you are not a dreamer at all, ’ she would protest but then make some changes.
‘I’d like to see you married and settled down. And I’d like some grandkids, please, ’ she said today.
‘A bit busy right now. One day, ’ he said hugging her. It was the only admission that he was under some pressure from his job right now and his parents understood. Secretly however they were both hoping that one day he will meet her, the girl of his dreams and then everything will fall in place. Of course they had no idea how close that day was.