Present Tense (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 2) Read Free

him when that confidence started to falter, but from the moment I met him I knew he was destined to go places and do great things.
    Or so I had thought.
    Now, to my utter astonishment, he sat cuffed to that armrest, staring at me as I stood in the small plane's doorway trying to convince myself I was merely hallucinating.
    In a voice laced with the same incredulity I felt, he said, "Kelsey? Kelsey Coe?" Then he glanced at the Glock holstered at my hip—my attempt to look badass—and shook his head in disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me."
    If you've been paying attention, you know that I'm rarely at a loss for words. But at that particular moment, as I looked into those intense brown eyes, I couldn't find any.  
    Not a single one.
    Ethan seemed to have expended his vocabulary as well, because he suddenly got quiet, and I knew his mind had to be tottering.
    Mine certainly was.
    Still fiddling with the controls, Hap filled the void. "I'm gettin' the impression you two know each other."
    Neither of us responded. We were too busy gaping.
    "Do I need to get Wilky back here? Because I've done enough of these runs to know a conflict of interest when I—"
    "No," I said, finally able to speak. "We'll be fine."
    "You don't look fine to me, young lady. What you look is flabbergasted, and in my book, flabbergastery and prisoner transport ain't a good fit. Maybe this boy needs a new escort. You look a little too young and delicate for this kind of work anyway."
    "Just fly the plane," I told him, then moved down the short aisle and dropped into the seat directly behind Ethan, feeling shell shocked and a bit numb.
    Hap stared at us for a long moment then shrugged, took a swig from his Thermos, and went back to his controls. "What the hell do I know? I'm just the chauffeur."
    He flipped a couple switches and got on the radio and a moment later the plane roared to life, the propellers kicking into gear. I wasn't paying much attention because a couple trillion thoughts were bumping and stumbling over one another as they raced through my mind.  
    I still hadn't quite processed what was happening here.
    Ethan, on the other hand, seemed well on the way to recovery and was once again the confident, gorgeous rock star I remembered from high school. He turned in his seat, opened his mouth to say something—
    —and my cell phone rang.
    The ringtone, a shrill rendition of "Boogie Oogie Oogie," was assigned to Parker (for reasons I won't disclose), and I immediately felt as if I had been caught in some kind of lie.
    I have no idea why.
    I answered it and Parker said, "You in the air yet?"
    The plane was rolling out of the hangar. "Almost."
    "Good. I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry for doubting you earlier. I have to learn not to turn into a overprotective dick every time you feel like stretching your legs."
    There was a joke to be mined in that statement, but with Ethan nearby I resisted the temptation. Besides, I wasn't feeling particularly humorous at the moment. I wasn't sure what I was feeling.
    "Don't worry about it," I said in a clipped tone. "What's done is done."
    Parker paused. "Is something wrong?"
    "No, why?"
    "You don't sound like you."
    Actually, I did. But it was a me that Parker had never heard before. He knew the indignant Kelsey, the scared Kelsey, the furious Kelsey, the incredulous Kelsey, the loving Kelsey and the yes, yes, oh God yes Kelsey.  
    But despite opening a skip trace agency with him, I had never conjured up the no-nonsense Kelsey—that reserved, all-business desk bot who had recently worked part-time in a law office. There had been no reason to. And to be honest, I wasn't sure I had one now, yet there she was, as distant as a third cousin.
    "I have to go," I said, "before the pilot yells at me for using my cell."
    "Are you upset with me?"
    "No, everything's fine. I'll call you when I get to L.A."
    "Kelsey…"
    We were on the runway now, the plane picking up speed. "We're about to take off. Talk to you