She shuffled the jar to the counter and filled the other, then tossed two fern clippings inside before placing them on the sill. "She only tells me the basics about what happened with Gary Owens, so I worry all the more."
"The OSI agent leading the investigation seems sharp."
Rena sank into a chair across from him, nudging a line of tiny Tonka trucks across the table toward her son who ignored them in favor of his new favorite teething toy—dog tags. "So the worst that could happen is that Nikki—" she paused, swallowed, then continued "—killed him in self-defense as opposed to an accidental death."
The worst? Someone could be gunning for her, far worse.
And there were two women and a child here with just a college kid for protection. He didn't like this at all. To hell with worrying about treading warily while rebuilding a friendship. Damn straight he was concerned and he intended to talk to Reis about protection options. This would be easier if Rena and J. T. Price lived on base, except this whole mess had started on base. So if someone else had killed Owens, that someone had access to military installations.
All serious concerns, ones a pregnant woman didn't need. He studied her face as she rubbed her swelling belly.
"How are you feeling?"
She swung her feet up onto a spare chair. "Like I'll go stir-crazy sitting still for four more months."
"Seems to me there's plenty going on around here." He slid a discarded piece of junk mail across the table and started folding. "Don'tcha think, little guy?"
Jamie flashed him a gummy grin broken only by a few baby teeth and the remnants of graham cracker. Damn he was cute with all that dark hair and those saucer-wide dark eyes, in fact resembled the baby pictures of Nikki packing the house.
"You're good with children." Rena interrupted his thoughts.
Uh-oh. He knew that matchmaking tone well. He folded faster. "Uncle on-the-job training."
"You'll be a good father someday once you find that right woman."
He needed to put a stop to this line of conversation as quickly and politely as possible. He cranked a smile. "Why do all women assume a man's only single because he hasn't met the right woman?"
Her face pinked in sync with her embarrassed grimace.
"I'm sorry. That was presumptuous of me. Blame it on the inquisitive counselor not getting to log in those hours at work—" The phone chirped from the wall, interrupting whatever else she'd been planning to say.
Passing the kid the folded paper airplane to keep him quiet while Rena talked, Carson used the moment to gather his thoughts before the woman managed to wrench God-only-knew what else out of him. He definitely had too many secrets to let down his guard around her. He'd all but forgotten she was a shrink, she'd put him so at ease. Probably why she was reputed to be such a good one.
After the shoot-down and rescue in the Middle East, he'd been evaluated at a base in Germany. He'd managed to sidestep the head examiners over there, a skill honed in his childhood.
Hindsight showed him his mistake. His alcoholism had flared after his return until he'd hooked up with A.A.
However sharing details in a therapeutic setting was totally different than spilling his guts to Rena Price. He was coming to terms with his childhood, but that didn't mean he wanted to take out a billboard about all his neglectful parents had forgotten to do for him and all the things their coked-up friends had tried to do to him. He couldn't understand how his sister managed to trust her genes enough to marry, much less procreate.
Procreate?
He could almost hear Nikki teasing him for his stuffy word choice. She was every bit as full of humor and life as this house.
Rena tucked the cordless phone under her chin and reached for Jamie, clutching him close with an urgency that spoke of maternal fear. "I'll track down your brother to pick you up, sweetie."
Pick Nikki up? "What's wrong?"
She fished the paper airplane out of Jamie's mouth, hugging him tight again. "Nikki's stranded at the high school, car trouble."
Relief slammed through him. A simple spark plug or flooded car. Except wait, J. T. Price, a proficient mechanic, had taught his kids well. Premonition pricked a second before Rena continued.
"Someone slashed Nikki's tires."
* * *
Nikki kept her eyes on the access road leading into the high school parking lot, a preferable sight to her pitiful little truck with its deflated tires, currently being loaded on a flatbed tow truck.
Billy Wade shuffled from foot to foot, his baggy clothes defying gravity by staying on his body in spite of the weight of the mint of silver chains hanging off them. "Too bad we don't have four cans of that flat-fix-it stuff."