“Why the Towers?” Joe planted his elbow on the table and pressed his chin into his hand. “Why didn’t Lisa live with Susan and Ben at Three Gables?”
“She refused,” Mark said. “Dutch was capable of anything, and if he did something awful, she didn’t want it to be anywhere near them.”
Nick frowned. “There’d be no one left to help her.”
Mark nodded. “Later on they had Christopher too, and Lisa worried about him getting caught in any cross fire.”
“But she was a kid,” Tim said. “What kind of judge agreed to her living on her own?”
“She didn’t live on her own.” Mark hadn’t mentioned that? “Nora moved in with her at the Towers.”
Mark advanced the slide to a photo of Peggy Crane. Round and affable, she smiled directly into the camera, still wearing her hair in a bob. “Don’t be fooled by this one’s soft looks. Peggy has a will of steel and a backbone to match. She’ll take on anyone short of God. Him, she serves with her whole heart.”
“Doesn’t everyone at the center?” Joe asked. “I saw the chapel. It’s well used.”
“It is. Everyone working there is a believer.”
“So Peggy Crane is a vintage southern woman,” Nick said. “I’ve always liked southern women.”
Good news. Nick actually liked something. “Then you’ll love Peggy. But be warned. Do not engage in evasive tactics, and do not cross her. She’ll get meaner than a junkyard dog.” Mark swiveled around. “Sam, scrub your language.”
“Sam, not curse?” Nick snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Not even a little.” Peggy would take serious offense and, as Nora puts it, blister his ears.
Joe parked his arms on his knees. “You could end up with jalapeño pepper juice in your iced tea.”
“No way.” Sam cast a doubtful look at Mark.
He didn’t deny it.
“Seriously?” Nick asked.
Joe shrugged. “She warned me first, but I slipped.”
“I like this woman.” Nick almost smiled. Not quite, but closer than Mark had ever seen.
Tim laughed. “Bet you haven’t slipped since.”
“My mother isn’t from the south,” Joe said. “But on some things, moms are universal. When they set a rule, it’s set. Break it and you suffer the consequences.”
“But she’s not your mother and you’re not a kid.”
“No, I’m not.” Joe sent Nick a level look. “Which means I should’ve had an adult’s self-discipline and respect.” He rocked back and parked an elbow on the edge of his chair’s back. “If I’d been a kid, I’d have gotten a few drops, not a full ounce.”
Tim slapped his thigh. “I like this woman too.”
“I hate jalapeño peppers.” Sam groaned like the dying. “Party manners are officially on.”
Nick harrumphed. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Believe it.” Sam stiffened, a pretzel hung midair to his mouth. “In thirty years, my mother has never heard me curse.” He grinned. “She doesn’t use pepper juice, she uses hot sauce. Three drops break you into a sweat and burn your gut out for the better part of a week.”
Tim leaned forward. “Is she from the south too?”
“You know it, bud.” Sam tugged at the brim of his ball cap. “Alabama born and raised.”
“Roll Tide, roll.” Joe lifted his glass, citing the ball team’s familiar mantra.
Mark advanced the slide. “This is Nora.” Old, bent, and wrinkled, yet there was something defiant in her Mark couldn’t peg. “She takes care of Three Gables for Ben and mothers us all, including my security staff.”
Tim sat up straighter. “She’s long in the tooth for that kind of job, don’t you think?”
Some would mistakenly think so, gauging just by her age. “Actually, she’s half blind, Scots, and as opinioned as a heart attack. But she runs the place with a cast-iron fist.”
“Velvet glove?”
“No glove, Tim. Just the fist.” Mark narrowed his eyes. “Do not mess with her. No exceptions.”
Tim slid Sam, Nick, and then Joe a quizzical look.
Joe answered. “She’s his surrogate mom, and if you think crossing Peggy is bad, it’s only because you haven’t yet ticked off Nora. Everyone in this village will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”
“Got it,” Nick said.
“No, you really don’t.” Mark couldn’t resist feeling a little proud. “But once you meet her, you will. With just a glance, Nora can filet you like a fish and have you begging her pardon and thanking her for doing it.”
“So who’s that old guy with Nora?” Sam pointed to the slide. “Her husband?”
“No, but they’re always together.” Mark glanced back to the photo projected onto the screen. “Clyde Parker is a widower. Supposedly retired, but he does odd jobs at the center. Kelly Walker and he are close. Neither of them has any family left, so they’ve kind of adopted each other.” Like Jane and Mark .
“Very cool.” Leaning forward, Joe nodded. “I’d opt for handpicking my family.”
“I guess you would. Your family is a nightmare.”
“Watch it, Nick.” Joe stiffened. “Mine is no worse than anyone else’s. They might be drunks, thugs, and thieves, but they’re mine.”
Mark stepped in. “Can we get back to Clyde Parker?”
“No offense, Joe.” Nick laced his hands behind his head and stared at the screen. “Proceed.”
“Clyde rebuilt a beach house Kelly Walker inherited from her aunt. Lisa plans to move into it in about a week.”
“With Annie?” Astute as always, Joe checked Mark for signs of confirmation.
“With Annie.” It couldn’t come soon enough to please Mark, even though it meant Lisa would go into hyperprotective mode. She was already protective, but knowing Dutch would do all he could to cause trouble, she’d be worse—and even more afraid. He hated Lisa’s fear.
“Good security?” Nick asked.
Mark crossed his arms. “I designed it.”
“Enough said.”
Mark advanced the slide. The man on the screen could as easily have been a professional athlete as a doctor. Tall, muscular, lean like a distance runner. “I mentioned Dr. Harvey Talbot. He’s Lisa’s immediate boss. Harvey’s a good man. Divorced, which eats him up. Otherwise he’s about like the rest of us.”
“If it eats him up, why did he get a divorce?” Joe asked.
“He didn’t. His wife did. She was gone before I got here, so I don’t have deep background, but Harvey’s a workaholic—most at the center are—and supposedly his wife got tired of him putting his job first.” Mark turned to the men. “It’s kind of the same for them as it was for us. The staff can’t put victims in crisis on hold—they need help now—so they put everyone and everything else on hold to help them.”
“I hear that.” Nick dragged a carrot stick through the bowl of ranch. “So is Harvey hot for Lisa or what?”
“No. He’s strictly a good friend.”
“Friends can hook up, bud.” Sam studied the screen and chewed on his lower lip. “Man, I wouldn’t want him as my competition. Too easy on the eyes, and women like those gentle doc types.”
“He isn’t competition. We’re on the same side, Sam.” These men knew him better than anyone else in the world. They wouldn’t buy his sidestepping tactic, though they might let him slide by on it.
They all laughed.
Guess not. “Jerks,” Mark muttered.
Tim walked over and slapped Mark’s shoulder. “Look, buddy, we’ve never had a reunion, and you wouldn’t have called us for one now—too many people out there would love to see us all dead, and you’d never lump us together and make it easy for them. Not unless your back was against an impenetrable wall you couldn’t blast through on your own.”
“Yeah.” Joe stood. “One of my sources confirms NINA could be active here again, but I strongly suspect this summons is more personal. And nothing puts a man’s back against an impenetrable wall like a woman.”
“Correction,” Sam said. “Not just a woman. The woman.”
Joe pointed with a chip. “Actually, loving the woman.”
“Scratch that.” Tim paused until the others fell silent. “Nothing puts a man’s back up against an impenetrable wall he can’t blast through like trying to protect the woman he loves who is in danger.”
Mark wasn’t the least surprised they’d recognized the reunion for the help-me summons it was. And Joe had seen far more at the center with Lisa today than he’d let on. Mark had never admitted his feelings for Lisa to himself much less to anyone else. It felt scarier than infiltrating the terrorist cell in Iraq.
Tim smiled. “So what’s up?”
This is where things got touchy. “One of our former friends sent me a video. Fifteen seconds long. It’s of two women fighting.”
“You called us here because of a cat fight?” Sam grunted. “Man, go to Hooley’s Bar at home any night of the week—”
“It’s not just a cat fight, Sam. Reportedly NINA controls the fighters, and they fight to the death.”
Nick cleared his throat. “I heard they were into prostitution but not fighting. Did you see the death?”
“No.”
“The cartels do both and have for years,” Tim said. “Guess NINA saw income potential.”
Mark agreed. “They apparently need more funding to carry out their agenda than they’re getting through their normal channels. Word is they’ve joined forces with the criminal culture to get it.”
“That’s pretty much what my source said,” Joe told him.
“Consider it confirmed, then.”
“Why wouldn’t NINA do that? Money is its primary objective. It doesn’t care about the source.” Tim sat forward, braced his arms on his knees. “Iran’s been working on infiltrating the Mexican cartels for a couple of years. Seems logical NINA wouldn’t want to miss that opportunity.”
Nick raised his forefinger. “What does this have to do with the princess in peril who’s stolen your heart?”
“I don’t know that it has anything to do with it. My source says the same thing as Joe’s. There’s chatter NINA is active again in this area. If so, odds are good they’re coming after Kelly Walker. She can tie one of their bigwigs, Karl Masson, to bringing terrorists into the country. If they come, I need help I can trust to protect her. So I summoned you.”
“You run the video through official channels?” Joe asked.
Quantico . “Redundant. I did ask a friend here, Beth Dawson, to see if she could study the tape and pinpoint the source or the location.”
“You went to an outsider?” Sam sounded horrified.
“Beth’s not an outsider. She’s volunteered at the center for years—and don’t sneeze at that. The woman happens to be one of the leading computer experts in the country. She co-owns a killer software firm.”
“Unnecessary risk.” Nick wore his objection on his reddened face. “If our guys can’t find it, why bring her in?”
“Because when our guys are stuck, they go to her for help. They’ve tried to recruit her, but they can’t afford her.” Mark cut to the chase. “What she does for them she does out of duty. What she does for the center she does out of faith.”
“You trust her?” Joe called the question, but they all waited for Mark’s response.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, bud. Enough said. Let’s see your princess.” Sam motioned with his pretzel. “Where’s her picture?”
Mark advanced the slide. His breath caught, hitched in his chest. She stood on the church lawn in a flowing dress, her head thrown back, her long blond hair loose to her shoulders lifted by the breeze, laughing, a wide-brimmed hat dangling from her hand at her side. “This is Lisa.”
“The picture doesn’t do her justice.” Joe offered his opinion. “Trust me, I’ve seen her. She can kick his backside in hand-to-hand too. Fights dirty to do it, though.”
Sam scrunched his shoulders. “That’s not good.”
“Sam … Sam.” Tim shook his head. “How often must it be said? Ask the right question.” Tim focused on Joe. “ How does she fight dirty?”
Joe grinned. “She kisses him.”
The guys got a good laugh out of that one. “Enough, Joe.”
He cut his glance to Mark. “Uh-oh. This isn’t the brotherly kind of love like you had for Jane. You’re in love with Lisa.”
“Oh, man.” Sam whacked his thigh and expelled a sigh so deep it lifted his linebacker-sized shoulders. “Another bachelor bites the dust.”
“Not hardly. Not yet, anyway.” Lisa had no idea he was romantically interested. With the demands on her and her schedule, it had to be that way.