Carla Neggers - Keeper's Reach

He retreated, and she pushed back her dismay, frustration and mad curiosity as she walked over to the table where Ted Kavanagh sat with a pot of tea. “I didn’t take you for a tea drinker, T.K.,” she said.

“I’ve been here for an hour. I’ve already had coffee and a full English breakfast.” He motioned to the chair across from him. “Have a seat, Naomi.”

She didn’t want to but if she sat at another table, he’d still be here, a few feet away, annoyed and annoying. She sat, not much distance across the little blond-wood table. “First we run into each other in St. James’s Park in London. Now here we are in the Cotswolds.” She unfurled a cloth napkin. “Honestly, T.K., I don’t need a crazy FBI agent bird-dogging me.”

“Sure you’re not following me?”

“Yes. Positive. I need to get better at spotting a tail.”

“A good skill to have. What’s with the T.K.?”

“We’re in a foreign country. I figure it’s okay to be informal. Don’t your friends call you T.K.?”

“No.”

Probably true. Kavanagh wasn’t wearing a suit this morning, but he had a buttoned-down, perpetually suspicious look about him that she had come to know working with him in Afghanistan. She hadn’t expected to see him again after she left the State Department as an intelligence analyst, and then— poof —there he was in London.

Except there was no poof about it. Ted Kavanagh was a deliberate, calculating, experienced federal agent.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t crazy.

Naomi pulled off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. Kavanagh was a decade older than she was, and he had been married when she knew him in Kabul. Since he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, she guessed he wasn’t married any longer. She supposed he could have developed an allergy to metals. She didn’t plan to ask.

“In a perfect world, T.K.,” she said, “it would be spring, and I’d be having breakfast outside with the chickens and the scent of wisteria.”

“Wisteria’s a flower, right?”

“It’s a climbing flowering shrub. It’s all over the Cotswolds but it’s not in bloom this time of year. The flowers are typically purple.”

“I guess that’s good. People like purple.”

“You don’t care about wisteria. Did you stay here last night?”

He pointed at the ceiling. “Room above the pub. I rented a car and drove in from London.”

“Not me. I hired a car. Driving in London is a nightmare. A shame I didn’t know you were following me here. I could have bummed a ride off you and saved myself the money.”

“Traffic was terrible. I’ll never get used to driving on the left.” He didn’t sound as if he expected her to believe him. “You’re staying in the building across the courtyard. What is it, an old pigsty?”

“I don’t know. It’s charming. I wish I could stay longer.” She gave a slightly fake yawn. “I’m not a good conversationalist before coffee. What are my choices for breakfast?”

“Cold buffet and a choice of hot breakfast. English, grilled kippers, porridge.”

“As many times as I’ve been to England, I still don’t know what a kipper is.”

“Fish.”

“I know that much. Have you ever tried kippers?”

“Yes. They’re good grilled. Not the most attractive food.”

He was clearly not there to talk about kippers, either. The waiter returned with her coffee press. Naomi settled on porridge for her hot breakfast, and he again withdrew, giving no indication he sensed she wasn’t that happy with her breakfast mate.

She poured coffee into the mug already on the table and added cream from a small pitcher. Kavanagh eyed her without comment. He didn’t look tired or distracted or as if he’d had nightmares. He looked alert and impatient, a know-it-all who figured he could tell what she was thinking before she thought it. A good FBI agent, maybe, but not her favorite. She had tolerated him in Afghanistan because she’d had no choice.

Without comment, she got up and helped herself to the buffet. She filled a bowl with natural yogurt and added a couple of scoops of chopped fresh fruit, then put a croissant, still warm from the oven, on a small plate.

“I’m disappointed,” she said as she returned to her seat. “I wanted scones.”

Kavanagh frowned at her. “A croissant and porridge? That’s a lot of carbs, Naomi.”

“I’m flying later today.” She figured he already knew that. “Carbs will help me sleep. I have to tell you, T.K., it creeps me out that you’re here.”

He poured the last few drops of his tea. It was the color of coffee by now. “You should feel well protected.”

Naomi dipped a spoon into her yogurt and fruit. “Why is it that I don’t?”

“Because you have a habit of placing your trust in the wrong people.”

“If that were true, I’d be dead by now.” She leveled her gaze at him. “So would you.”

“Maybe so.”

There was no maybe about it, but Naomi didn’t argue with him. Kavanagh wanted her to have a habit of trusting the wrong people because it would help him somehow, if only to throw her off balance and get in her head.

He glanced at a row of framed botanical prints on the side wall. Local grasses, wildflowers and herbs. “What are you up to, Naomi?” he asked, shifting back to her.

She tried the yogurt. It was smooth and creamy, made without added pectin. With the fruit, it was perfection. “Are you following me because you think I’m up to something? As I told you in London, you’re wasting your time. I’m a crisis management consultant who met with a group of medical volunteers who are planning their deployment to a hot spot in Africa. I’m helping them assess their security needs and then take appropriate steps to meet them. That’s all I’m up to.”

Kavanagh smirked at her. “It’s not all.”

“I’m not arguing with you, T.K.”

“Why this particular twee English village?”

Naomi ate more of her yogurt and drank some of her coffee. What she wanted to do was to eat six croissants and go back to bed. She made herself smile at the FBI agent across from her. “ Twee . I love that word. I’ve wanted to visit the Cotswolds but never could find the time. Now I have, if only for one night.”

“That doesn’t explain why you chose this village,” Kavanagh said.

“This place comes highly recommended by an internet travel site I trust.” It was true, as far as it went. “What about you? Did you follow my car, or did you overhear me when I told the bellman where I was going? It wasn’t a secret, but the only person I actually told is my mother.”

“How is your mother, Naomi?”

“Great. Sewing up a storm. Think where I could be now if I’d paid attention and let her teach me how to sew drapes and beauty-pageant dresses.”

“Or if your father hadn’t been killed by an IED when you were a freshman at Vanderbilt,” Kavanagh said quietly.

Naomi finished the last of her yogurt. “Yes, that, too.” She refused to let him distract her, even if she had given him the opening. “This is a good place, don’t you think? I’d love to relax here for a few nights.”

Kavanagh leaned forward, his pale green eyes narrowed on her. “You’re giving me careful answers, Naomi.”

“Why wouldn’t I, seeing how you’re an FBI agent?”

Her porridge arrived. The waiter didn’t linger. Naomi didn’t blame him. Kavanagh wasn’t in full-blown FBI interrogation mode, but it was close enough.

She decided to lighten her tone and change the subject. “Did the rooster wake you up this morning? He did me.”

“I didn’t notice a rooster. I sleep soundly.”

She broke off a piece of croissant and popped it in her mouth as she noticed a drizzle of the promised blackberry compote in her porridge. Breakfast was delightful, she decided, refusing to let her companion spoil the moment. “Do you know what kind of rooster has white-spotted black feathers?”