Another reason he was certain she was a tigress in bed...Nope. Inwardly, he shook his head.
Not going there.
"Sometimes you turn to things because they are easy to lose yourself in when you don't have anything else. Things others might not understand or appreciate when they're not lacking what you are."
Was a need to lose herself what had drawn her to Space Adventures? He knew it was the perfect opportunity to ask, to delve a little deeper into what made Wendy tick. Only he wasn't going to. Not now, not ever. Once he opened that door, the one where they had more than a casual understanding of each other outside of work, he'd never be able to close it.
She'd hound him constantly with personal questions—as all women did—and he'd never have any peace. Eventually, he'd have to let her go if only to reset his equilibrium, and Wendy was far too important a member of his team to lose. Inwardly, he paled at the thought of having to train a new Handler.
"There is something, however, bothering me about this whole thing."
"Which part? The bit about the Aliens or the floral explosion in the living room?"
"Ha."
Wendy blessed him with one of her rare laughs. He had long ago decided she didn't think he was funny, didn't get his jokes, or had no sense of humor. Recently, he'd started believing it was a combination of all three.
"The living room is a bit...much." Color shaded her cheeks from the laughter.
Draco had to admit, he found the additional blush stimulating. Turning away, he adjusted his pants, hoping she didn't see the reaction her brief merriment had caused.
Pretending to look at the picture of one of the comic book characters, he spoke to her with his back turned. "Go on, what in particular bothers you about this missing teenager?"
"How are they paying for it?"
Raising his eyebrows, he turned to face her. His intuition dinged in his head, almost like a bell going off at the beginning of a horse race. "Continue."
"This house, while we might not like the decorations, is perfectly fine in a perfectly acceptable, compact, blue-collar kind of a way."
"And your point is what?" He already suspected he knew what she was going to say.
"Our clients, meaning specifically the ones who get sent up to you, aren't this type. Maybe they go to one of the other associates. When I worked for Colt, we would get sent to places like
this. But you..."
He grinned, amused by how clearly uncomfortable Wendy was. Her unease with the topic showed all over her pixie face. She bit down on her lower lip, as she looked everywhere but at him.
"So what you're saying is only the very rich avail themselves of Draco Powers?”
“Sir, our last job was in a penthouse apartment in New York City."
He shrugged. "The best always costs the most."
He wasn't surprised she was so off put at having to bring this issue to his attention. He read the newspaper; he knew what they said about him and the others who worked at his company.
Ever since it had become public that people with superpowers really existed, everyone had been waiting for a fictious character to fly into the area and altruistically defeat the bad guy.
He'd tried for a while. When he'd almost had to declare bankruptcy because he'd been so busy secretly helping everyone on the planet he couldn't get to work on time, and his brother had been evicted from his apartment because he couldn't pay rent, Draco had decided it was past time for his talents to help him pay the bills. People did it all the time. They were good at something and they made a business out of it.
So why was he constantly being criticized? Shaking his head, knowing he wasn't going to solve these problems today, and not caring for the direction his thoughts were going, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand.
"Clearly she can afford me or the credit department would have turned her down or insisted she see someone else."
Wendy flipped open her phone. After a moment, she spoke into the receiver. "Yes, it's Wendy. Uh-huh, I'm there right now." She paused. "I need you to pull up the financials on this woman. Yes, I know it's highly irregular but Draco wants it. Uh-huh."
Technically, he hadn't said he wanted it but he wasn't going to argue with her, not when she handled everything with the efficiency of a well-timed machine.
He walked to Lael's desk, looking around at the knick-knacks littering the top. The boy hadn't used the piece of furniture for studying, not with the amount of clutter on top of the display. It appeared he spent all his time reading comic books. Other than his reading material, the only picture of Lael resided in a folder Wendy had handed him before they arrived, and beside Lael stood an unknown older gentleman Draco couldn't identify. Lael's dead father, perhaps.
"Since when did we start taking donations from unknown charities? Yes, I'll hold, Denise."
Turning to Draco, her eyebrows furrowed, she rubbed her nose. "This is being paid for by a charitable organization. I guess Finance ran a check and the money's legit, meaning it's in the account and they didn't investigate further. She's going into the file to see if they have any other info, but no one felt the urge to look deeper since the money was in the account."
"An unknown charity?"
Hairs stood on the back of his neck as a scent wafted through his nostrils. The odor—the faintest trace of gunpowder—was undetectable by anyone but him.
Focusing, he let his super sight direct him to the source. There it was; in the basement, a homemade, badly crafted, but still very live bomb.
Shit, he had all of three seconds before the bomb, which had been set to kill them, exploded the home into a million unidentifiable pieces.
Chapter Three
Wendy held onto Draco, her body still shaking uncontrollably. He murmured something in her ear but she had no idea what he said. He'd snatched her up, taken flight and plowed through the ceiling, before she'd realized what was happening. She'd shrieked as the house had exploded around them, the rumble so deafening, her ears still rang now, fifteen minutes later. Draco had alit on the lawn next door, and he'd made no move to hush her hysterics. She swallowed and felt her body continue to shake. This wouldn't—no, this couldn't—do. She was Draco's Handler.
She'd been in dangerous situations before and never reacted like this. What was different this time?
Death. This was the closest she'd ever knowingly been to having her life ended. But she was alive; so where was her world famous control? Closing her eyes, she knew what she had to do.
She needed to reestablish order. The only way to do that was to focus on facts. Not a problem.
Wendy could recall facts about Space Adventures in her sleep.
The first season of the show...she would start with the first season. Basic facts. "What are you doing?"
Draco's voice sounded distant, though she knew she sat in his lap. That had to be a sign of something bad. Was she going into shock? Was she injured?
Draco smoothed the hair on her forehead to the top of her head. "Wendy, I asked you a question. Answer me."
She always obeyed his commands. This time was no different. "I'm trying to pull up facts.
They calm me down. I'm trying to think about Space Adventures. I can always think about Space Adventures. Only now I don't seem to be able to."
"Your brain's working fine. You're shaken up. We just got blown up." He cleared his throat.
"It's not my first time but, if I'm not mistaken, it's never happened to me when I've been with you. So if you need facts to create order out of this mess then I'll help you get them. Tell me about Space Adventures."
Wendy knew she would be humiliated when this was over. "Sorry, I—"
"Quiet. Only speak if you say something about that space show. Do it."
She nodded. He was being harsh, but distantly, she knew he was trying to help calm her down. Giving orders was something Draco did very well. "The first season was about one ship, one space ship, I mean."
"I've seen the show a couple of tim
es. There're always three vessels."
"No." She shook her head. "There weren't three until season three; the ratings picked up then and more people started watching so people don't realize the first two seasons only had one ship."
"Interesting."
Gentle rain came down on her head, like teardrops from the heavens. She raised her eyes, not minding when the coolness splotched her vision. In the distance, she could hear sirens whirring, drawing nearer.
"Ah, at last the authorities. I wondered when they would get here. Continue, Wendy, you were telling me about the ships."
"Right, there was one ship in season one. It was called The Amazon. The captain, Artie Grayson, was from the planet Ecubar. He was blue."
"Ha. It's amazing the show made it to season two at all."
Her shivering had ceased. He exhaled the breath he hadn’t known he held. "The Science Fiction channel had low ratings back then. They couldn't afford to be picky."
"There now, I think you are calming down talking about this stuff."
She smiled as she allowed herself the luxury of actually staring into Draco's eyes.
When she bothered to eavesdrop, she'd heard his gaze described as hypnotic. For her part, she couldn't agree. If anything, Draco's blue eyes were addictive. One could get lost in them and never want to come home.
Swallowing, she smiled. "I'm okay." She pulled her gaze away and stood from his lap.
Looking down at her ruined uniform—covered in soot, dirt, and any number of unknown things she'd rather not think about—she tugged at the shirt to straighten herself as best she could.
"Good." Draco nodded but made no move to get up off the ground. "I knew you just needed a few minutes."
"I apologize for my meltdown, sir." She knew he hated when she called him 'sir'. But she couldn't seem to stop doing it. Using the word was like shielding herself from opening up to him.
Since he didn't seem at all interested in pursuing a friendship with her, it was better for both of
them if she maintained the emotional distance.
"You've never let me down, Warner, and you didn't today either." He finally got to his feet, his gaze still not leaving her to look anywhere else. "What do you think the people at the soup kitchen are going to say when you walk in looking like you've just been through an explosion and come out the other side?"
Damn. She'd forgotten about the soup kitchen. She looked down at her watch, which was cracked, and saw it had stalled. "What time is it?"
"It's almost time to go. We're going to have to speak to the authorities. They can figure out if our client is still alive or not." From the tone of his voice, she could tell he didn't really care one way or the other on the subject. Wendy shivered. In the extreme terror of the situation, she'd not given the strange little woman one thought. "Clear my day tomorrow from twelve o'clock on. I want to find out who blew us up. We're going to start with the charity supplying the money."
"You don't want to leave that to the police?" They wouldn't be paid for any work they did investigating the charitable organization.
"Warner." Draco's eyes blazed and she swallowed the nervousness threatening to close her throat. "Being blown up is very bad for business, plus it really, really pisses me off. Cancel the damned afternoon."
"Yes, sir." Somehow she suspected life was about to become really dramatic until they got this all figured out. She'd never liked high drama. Hopefully, it wouldn't last too long.
****
"Do you have concrete in your hair?" Kyle picked at her hair and sure enough little particles of concrete dust fell from her always-a-mess-and-now-even-more-so locks.
"Yes, but as I told you when I arrived, I really need to go home. So don't blame me for looking terrible. I'm never going to get this uniform clean. I'm going to have to order another one before the national convention in May."
"You are." Kyle had been her best friend since together they'd formed their chapter of Space Adventures fans after meeting at a convention. Besides his obvious distaste for where she worked and more specifically, whom she worked for, they never had any disagreements.
Tall, although nowhere near Draco's glorious six-foot-four height, Kyle was the type of man
she knew she should be attracted to and yet wasn't. There was nothing wrong with him, per se.
His looks were perfectly nice, perfectly safe, and perfectly average. He worked, and within the next year, would run his father's import-export company in Jersey City.
He was steady, nice, and was likely never to be blown up in an explosion. And she found him completely wonderful, in a big-brother-she-never-had kind of way.
Years ago, he'd suggested they try to date, and she'd politely turned him down. Not because she thought she was such a great catch or because she was too good for a man like Kyle. Just the opposite, in fact. When it came down to it, Wendy was nothing more than an adult orphan who worked as a glorified personal assistant to a Guardian.
In reality, she'd watched one disastrous relationship after another happen to other people.
She'd learned that you had to have some kind of physical attraction to the other person if you wanted even a fighting chance at success. With Kyle, there was...nothing.
When she'd arrived at the soup kitchen, she'd tried explaining to Kyle that she needed to go home. Clearly, she was in no condition to help. Except, then it had become painfully obvious with the rain—which was much worse on the Lower East Side of Manhattan than it had been in Pennsylvania—they were incredibly short staffed and would have to cancel the entire thing if she didn't stay. Kyle had assured her all she'd have to do was, literally, spoon the soup into the bowls.
Deciding she could handle such a simple task, she'd persevered and agreed to stay.
Only, that's not what had ended up happening. The bread had not been placed in the oven.
She'd handled that with very little effort—right after she'd broken up the scuffle occurring outside as the starved people waited anxiously for a warm meal.
Now, she sweated over the food, watching the clock. Not exactly an embodiment of Space Adventures' principals. Patience was the ultimate virtue expressed on the show, followed immediately by taking care of your fellow shipmates, or in this case, the homeless she'd volunteered to feed. There was no backing out.
Clearing her dry throat, which she wouldn't be able to refresh for some time yet, she looked at the back of Kyle's head as he placed some mashed potatoes on a plate. "Let me ask you a question."
He nodded. "Sure."
"Do you believe in Aliens?"
"I do." Kyle picked up another plate and scooped mashed potatoes onto it before handing it to a homeless Veteran.
"Do you think everyone in the club believes in them?" She'd been dwelling on this subject since their now-deceased, floral-loving client, who'd looked at Wendy like she had two heads for wearing the costume, admitted she believed in them.
"Believing in Aliens is not a prerequisite for joining, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say most of us probably do believe." He raised a brown eyebrow as he looked at her. "Do you believe?"
"I'd like to believe." That was the absolute truth. "I'd like to think somewhere out there in the universe is a place where people take care of each other; where their goals are not just about personal gain but for the betterment of all peoples, where they're one giant family."
She spooned some soup into a bowl and glanced at the clock again. Only two minutes had passed since she'd last looked. She sighed.
"Where there would be no such thing as an orphan because if a child's parents both died, someone from their crew would step up to raise him or her?" Kyle had stopped serving altogether as he delivered his question, which earned him rude glares from the next person on line.
She hadn't known she was so transparent, or maybe it was because she knew Kyle so well.
Smiling, she spooned out more soup and indicated for Kyle to keep going.
"I guess I'm pretty transparent."
&nb
sp; "I think you're pretty amazing." Kyle smiled apologetically at the man who'd had to wait.
"Now, I want to ask you a question."
She nodded. "Shoot."
"What the hell are you doing still working for Draco?"
"What?" She realized she sounded incredulous, but she hadn't anticipated his question, at all.
"From all accounts, he's rude, demanding, and something of a womanizer." A womanizer?
Wendy had never heard anyone say those particular words. "Now, he almost got you blown up."
" He didn't get me blown up. Some nefarious person or group did. He saved my life." As she uttered the words, a thought occurred to her. She had never thanked Draco. He'd saved her life and she'd done what she'd witnessed hundreds of clients do; she'd neglected to acknowledge he'd saved her. She sighed, an overwhelming sense of disappointment filling her veins. Her shoulders
sagged. Wow, it had been a really long day.
"It doesn't change the fact that you wouldn't be blown up at all if you worked at a steady, normal job."
Kyle looked so intensely serious she didn't have the heart to tell him, since she'd been with Draco, it was possible she'd become an adrenaline-by-proxy addict. Draco had all the dangerous adventures, but she got to hear about them, got to help. In her own way, she was making a difference. If she had to leave her job, if she had to sit behind a desk somewhere, or become the personal assistant to some celebrity, she might just lose her mind.
But she couldn't say such things to Kyle. Right or wrong, she didn't want him thinking badly of her. She didn't have many friends. The Space Adventures crew was really it. She'd not kept up with any of the girls who'd come and gone from the orphanage, and she'd been so busy supporting herself through college, she'd not had time for any of the things she knew other people did during their early twenties, like actually having a life.
"There's nowhere I could go where I could make as much money as I do at Powers, Inc.
Really, it's almost embarrassing they pay me as much as they do." It was. "The slight hazards are worth the risk."
"I'll pay you what they pay you."