She hummed and opened to him for a moment, then seemed to remember they were in public and pushed him away with a smile that promised to pick up where they'd left off later. "Give us a hand moving these tables around, will you? Spa day ran later than originally scheduled, so we're tight for time."
He shot a look at Wade, who had his arms around Erin. "Told you we should have waited another hour."
Candace snorted and shoved him toward the nearest table. "Here. Start with this one."
Twenty minutes later they had everything arranged and the staff began setting the tables, so Ryan went up to the room and grabbed a quick shower. When he came back downstairs, most of the guests had arrived, including Erin's and Wade's families. After he'd made the rounds to meet everyone with Candace, he left her at their table and went to the bar to get them a drink.
"There you are."
He mentally cringed at the sound of that smoke-roughened voice behind him, and put on a smile before turning to face Ruby-who was technically now his grandma too, at least by marriage. A terrifying thought. "Hey."
"Hear you met Poncho," she said, stopping next to him and waving the bartender down.
He shot her a sharp look and yeah, that was definitely a smirk on her face. "I did, yes."
"How did you boys make out?"
"Fine. Didn't come across any game, but we did find some type of training site up there."
"What kind of training site?" she asked, falling into step with him as he made his way back toward Candace with the drinks. For once, Ruby didn't have one in her hand, apparently distracted by their conversation.
"Well, guess it could have been something else, but there were a shi-uh, crapload of spent casings on the ground and the trees were riddled with holes. That's a whole hell of a lot of firepower to waste using trees for target practice." He edged past an elderly couple he thought might be Erin's grandparents and made it to the table where his wife waited with the rest of their gang.
"Whereabouts was this?" Ruby asked, taking Jackson's chair just as he was about to slide into it. The PJ stood awkwardly to the side, between her and Maya, but didn't say anything and Ruby didn't seem to notice-or care-about her faux pas.
"West of here, in the foothills."
"Yeah, but where?" she pressed, sounding exasperated.
Candace leaned forward, winding an arm around him, and he tucked her tight into his side. "What's this about?" she asked.
She smelled so damn good. "I told her about the site we came across." They'd mentioned it to the girls while they set up the tables.
Ruby was frowning. "Be more specific."
Ryan eyed her. "You want like, coordinates or something?"
She raised an eyebrow at his dry tone, her green eyes locked on his like a laser range finder. "Yes."
Seriously?
She whacked him on the shoulder. "Come on, humor an old woman. If something like that's going on near my resort, I want to know about it."
He paused and looked around the table. Everyone was watching him, and Cam seemed to be biting back a smile. "Okay then." He pulled his phone from his pocket and pulled up the nav app he used, but Ruby made a disparaging noise and flapped a hand in annoyance.
"Not on that thing. I need a map. A real map, made of paper." She turned in her chair and glanced around the crowded conservatory. "Anyone here got a map of the area with them? An actual map?" she called out.
Candace winced and reached across the table to set a hand on her wrist. "Grandma-"
"It's fine, dear. Anyone?" Ruby said, a little louder this time.
A man three tables over rose awkwardly and pulled a folded map from his back pocket. "I've got this," he offered as he walked over and handed it to her. "Will that do?"
"Perfect, thanks." She looked at Ryan. "Will it?"
Withholding a sigh because he wasn't completely sure she wouldn't slap him if he didn't, he dutifully unfolded the map. Just a regular road map, the kind you got at a gas station. No good topography marks or anything like that. "Hang on a sec."
He was aware of Cam and Jackson leaning closer to take a look, and Wade walking around the table to look over his shoulder while he pulled up his nav app and accessed the coordinates. "Here," he told Ruby at last, tapping the exact spot on the map where the coordinates intersected.
She squinted and leaned farther over the map to study it. "Uh huh," she murmured to herself. "And where are we now?"
"Here," Wade said, reaching over her shoulder to put his finger where the resort was located.
Ruby muttered to herself for a moment, then raised her gaze to Ryan's. "Did any of you see a big rock formation anywhere near there? Granite, I think. Kind of looks like a grizzly bear hunched over. Sort of."
He exchanged a surprised look with Cam and Jackson across the table. "Yeah, maybe what, a half mile east of there?"
Jackson nodded, his gaze shifting to Ruby. "You know the area where we were?"
"Yes, I know the place. Our bunker was near there."
Ryan swung around in his seat to stare at her. "Your what?"
"Bunker." She gave Candace a gentle swat on the upper arm. "Candy Cane, be a dear and go get me a drinky-poo. Your handsome man distracted me so much I forgot to get one while I was at the bar." She reached up and patted Ryan's cheek. Way gentler than she had been the last time she'd touched his face.
"But I want to hear-"
Without looking up from the map, Ruby tutted and pointed a finger in the direction of the bar. "Go."
Candace shut her mouth, gave him a long-suffering look and muttered something under her breath as she got up and left the table. Ryan blinked in astonishment. "Wow, that was impressive. Is that all I have to do to get her to do what I want? Give her a command and point my finger?"
The shiny tines of a fork appeared an inch in front of his nose. He yanked his head back and jerked his gaze up to hers, startled. What the hell?
Those shrewd green eyes narrowed on him in warning. "You even think about speaking to my granddaughter like that, I'll stab you in the heart with this thing."
Maya chuckled darkly across the table. "You tell him, Ruby."
Ruby gave a decisive nod and aimed the fork at the other guys, one by one. "Same goes for the rest of you boys. I don't ever want to hear you've been disrespecting these women."
Cam held up his hands in self-defense, dark blond eyebrows hiked up. "No, ma'am."
Ryan scowled at her. Cam was too damn polite. "I was kidding."
"Just making sure." Ruby lowered the fork and went back to the map. "Now. About this site you saw."
Wade slid into Candace's vacant seat and took off his Stetson, staring at the woman who'd just threatened to do him bodily harm with a damn fork. "What kind of bunker?"
"Secret, underground type," she said with a knowing smile that told Ryan she was enjoying herself and the attention way too much. "A system of them."
"What were they for?" Ryan pressed. There was something to this. Ruby might be a crazy old lady sometimes, but she was also sly as a damn fox.
Ruby paused and glanced around them, as if to make sure that no one else was listening in. She had everyone at the table on the edge of their seat, including him as she focused on Wade. "You're with the CIA, right?"
Surprise flickered in his dark eyes for a moment before he masked it and put on a blank expression. It was damn eerie to see, but explained why Wade had managed to infiltrate the infamous-and now dead, by Wade's hand-terrorist Rahim's network and serve as his second-in-command for years without detection. "I've worked with them from time to time in the past," he said, his tone guarded.
She snorted. "Still do, from what I hear."
He frowned, his gaze sharpening. "Where'd you hear that?"
She flapped a hand dismissively. "Around. I know people. You don't get to be my age without making important connections, young man."
Wade's gaze cut to him, and Ryan gave a slight shrug. Her son was a senator, so who the hell knew what kind of connections she had in the government?
Candace arrived back at the table and thrust a tumbler at her grandma. "Your drinky-poo. And by the way, when I asked the bartender, he told me this is already your third of the afternoon." She sidled up to Ryan and slipped her arms around his chest from behind. He reached up to rub her hand, enjoying her easy affection and the fact that she wasn't mad at him anymore.
Ruby took it with an innocent smile. "Thanks. So," she said, totally ignoring Candace's comment as she turned back to Wade, "tell me. Ever heard of Project Sentinel?"
Wade's face went dead still. "Yeah," he said slowly, searching her face as if he was either looking for something, or unable to believe what he was hearing.
Ryan couldn't stand it. "What's Project Sentinel?" It sounded really cool.
Ruby smiled and tipped her head at Wade. "Ask him. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go have a smoke." She picked up her drink, rose from the table, and sauntered away with a swish of her hips, sipping on her rye.