“Oh, it’s not so bad,” she laughed. She thought to herself that it wasn’t actually so bad anymore, now that she was talking to him.
She really couldn’t wait to see the MBLIS agent again. Since she first met him what felt like a lifetime ago in that little cave off Miami where she found the remains of an old sailor, her life had felt like a whirlwind of different adventures.
It wasn’t like her life wasn’t already like that before she met Ethan, given the nature of her own profession. But there was something decidedly different about these new adventures, something a little more thrilling, or at least a different kind of thrilling than her usual fare of traipsing around the world taking photographs of landmarks and wildlife. She also couldn’t help but feel that it was nice to share those adventures with someone for once, instead of just an ever-rotating cast of crew members who may or may not accompany her on any given shoot.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Ethan chuckled, and man, had she missed that sound. “I’m calling to let you know that I booked my own flight. I should arrive at around five o’clock. That’s probably a little before you.”
“Yeah, I should be getting in around 6:30, without any flight delays,” she said, hoping that she wasn’t jinxing herself into any delays by relating the time. “You can go ahead without me if you’re anxious to get there.”
“Oh, no, I’ll wait for you,” Ethan said quickly, not even stopping to consider this. “We can grab dinner and then find a hotel. Then we can get a fresh start tomorrow with the museum. How does that sound?”
Tessa thought it sounded just fine, and she couldn’t say she didn’t relish the opportunity to get a night with Ethan without any of the Dragon’s Rogue stuff looming over them. Not that she wasn’t excited to get to the bottom of the mystery of the old pirate ship the MBLIS agent had been after for so long, but she was looking forward to getting some time alone with Ethan even more. His New York visit had been a bit of a whirlwind, to put it mildly.
“That sounds lovely,” she said honestly, unable to keep the smile off her face.
Maybe she wore her emotions on her sleeve a little more than the average New Yorker after all. At least where Ethan Marston was concerned, that was.
“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Ethan said, sounding relieved, and Tessa was glad that the feeling appeared to be mutual.
“You were able to get that time off without much trouble, then?” she asked him, as a gaggle of frat boys to accompany the sorority girls came running down the hallway to join them. Somehow, it didn’t bother her quite as much as before.
“More or less,” Ethan said, and she detected a hint of reticence in his tone that hadn’t been there before, or in their conversation the previous evening.
“What is it?” she asked warily. “Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s nothing,” he said dismissively. “Just something with work that’s bothering me this morning.”
“If something’s come up, I understand,” she said quickly, though her stomach sank at the notion of having to cancel their trip, especially after she’d already suffered through a layover at LAX of all places.
“No, no, it’s fine,” he said with a small sigh. “Well, I think it’s nothing, anyway. We may have a lead on the Hollands, that couple I told you about from my case down in the Keys.”
“Oh, well, if that’s the case, then we really should reschedule,” Tessa said, not wanting to inconvenience him. “I know how important that case is for you guys.”
“It is important, but it’s really not the best lead,” Ethan admitted. “I mean, I don’t know that I would even consider it a full-blown lead at this point, just a kind of ribbon, maybe? I don’t know if that metaphor works.”
“I get what you mean,” Tessa laughed. “What is it? I’m invested, too, now that I’ve listened to all your grand tales of chasing after the bad guys.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Ethan chuckled.
“Please do,” she told him.
“Anyway, yeah, I guess they caught sight of the guy, Chester, at the Atlanta airport,” he explained.
“Ooh, another bad airport,” Tessa said with a grimace. “Not as bad as this one, I’d say, but still pretty bad. Bigger, but better organized, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Ethan said, and she could hear the smile back in his voice. “But yes, Diane’s not pleased with how little it gives us to go off of, as you could probably imagine.”
Tessa vaguely remembered the head of the Miami MBLIS office, who had emanated a kind of stern competence that she respected, and she nodded before realizing that Ethan couldn’t see her since they were speaking over the phone.
“Oh yeah, I can imagine,” she said dryly, and he laughed again.
“So yeah, it’s like a needle in a haystack over here, and we’re just kind of waiting on the FBI and TSA,” Ethan continued good-naturedly. “The picture wasn’t very good, so we’re not even sure that it was him. It could take a while. It took two days for them to even realize we had this much, I guess.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot to unpack there,” Tessa pointed out.
“Uh, yeah, I would say so,” he chuckled. “But I don’t really feel like debriefing it all over again. I just had the longest conversation about it with Diane and Birn.”
“He’s the agent who was kidnapped, right?” Tessa asked. “How’s he doing?”
“Bounced back like a yo-yo,” Ethan said. “Wouldn’t expect anything less. Anyway, yeah, I’m good to come to Virginia still. I just need to keep my phone on in case anything else happens. I hope you don’t mind that I’ll be sort of on-call while we’re there.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Tessa assured him. “I’ve figured out that you’re pretty much always on call by
