Buch lesen: «Would-Be Christmas Wedding»

Chapter Two

Alexandria, Virginia, 2:15 p.m.

“I know you’re disappointed, Mom.”

Cecelia Manning filled two mugs of coffee and handed one to her daughter, Casey. She watched Casey add a scant teaspoon of sugar and a hefty dollop of milk.

When the risk of milk ending up on her counter was minimized, she said, “My application was accepted.”

“What?” Casey’s mouth dropped open in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am completely serious,” Cecelia replied. She decided hiding the pain her daughter’s reaction had caused was best for now. Neither her daughter nor her brother approved of her desire to go into fieldwork for the CIA, but Cecelia had had more than she could take of the boredom and routine of pushing paper around the agency office.

Her husband had worked in the CIA for the entirety of their married life, until he’d passed away just over a year ago.

Her brother was the director of an elite team of covert agents known only as “Specialists.” Her daughter had gone into CIA fieldwork, as well. Yet they all expected her to...what? Continue in her predictable, safe role, making Sunday dinners and birthday cakes and learning to knit while she waited for Casey and her new husband, Levi, to provide the grandchildren she wanted to spoil.

She sipped her coffee and saved the scream of frustration for when she was alone again.

“Mom, you can’t.”

“Can’t?”

Casey’s eyes flared as she obviously caught the warning Cecelia had packed into that one word.

“I didn’t mean can’t like that.”

Cecelia sipped her coffee, waiting. More than a little curious how her daughter intended to wrench her foot out of her mouth.

“It’s just...” She shrugged. “You’re my mom.”

Cecelia traced the handle of her bright stoneware cup.

“Fieldwork is crazy,” she added.

Holding her daughter’s gaze, she waited for an intelligent argument to arise. Not that she’d let anything deter her from her plans. Since her husband’s passing, she’d merely gone through the motions of day-to-day life and now she was ready for something new. She needed something new... Like a life where she felt needed and...wanted.

She’d survived the shock and grief of losing the man she’d loved and expected to grow old with. She’d learned to cope with a quiet house and the sympathetic looks of her friends and neighbors.

Her work had been an anchor, steadying her as she moved from one stage to the next. Now it felt like a stone dragging her to the bottom of the Potomac when she thought of sitting behind a desk for the rest of her working days.

With William buried and their daughter a happy newlywed, Cecelia’s life, unexpectedly, was her own, and she was determined to see just what she could do with it.

“Mom? You’re not even listening.”

“No,” Cecelia admitted. “I’m not. Whether you approve or not, I’m making this move.”

“Mom.”

“Casey.” She mimicked her daughter’s exasperated tone. “I appreciate your concern, but I didn’t leap into this blindly. This decision isn’t a whim or even a midlife crisis.” She saw Casey blush and knew her daughter had indeed suggested those unflattering theories. She and her uncle, Cecelia’s brother, had discussed this move at length. “The agency wouldn’t have accepted my request if I didn’t have the physical or mental fortitude to succeed.”

She held up a finger. “If you dare mention the Equal Opportunity Act, I’ll throttle you. Don’t think I haven’t learned a thing or two about minimizing risk already. I am not as naive or helpless as you seem to think.”

Casey held up her hands in surrender. “You’re a self-defense ninja.”

“Don’t you forget it, either.” Cecelia smiled. “I know enough about the process to know my two closest relatives did not recommend me.”

“That’s not true.”

Cecelia let the fib go unchallenged. Her family wanted the best for her, but they just had a different idea of what that looked like. “And don’t worry. You’ve been through the training yourself. It’s not like they’re dumping me out on the street first thing Monday morning.”

Casey sighed. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to take some vacation and travel? Field operations isn’t a game, Mom.”

Her daughter’s complete lack of confidence cut deep, but she supposed it was to be expected. When you walked one path for the duration of a relationship, changing directions was bound to stir things up.

Maybe there had been enough talk of change for the moment. “How is Levi?”

“He’s fine. His plane gets in around eight.”

“And being married is wonderful?”

“Yeah,” Casey admitted with a secret little smile. One Cecelia remembered wearing long ago when she was that age. “You’re sure you’re okay with us spending Christmas with Levi’s mom in Florida?”

“Of course. You’re now part of his family, too. Don’t worry about me. I have plans of my own.”

“You do?”

“Sure. I bought a ticket for—”

The doorbell rang and Casey shot her a curious look. Cecelia only smiled as she set her coffee aside. “I have friends. We even do stuff,” she added with a wink. “It’s probably about tomorrow night.”

Before she reached the front door, it opened and her brother, Thomas Casey, walked inside. The tension was a palpable force rolling off him and bouncing around the narrow foyer.

Worst-case scenarios bounded through her head before she regained control. She’d learned early in her role as a wife and mother that a cool head was the best asset she could bring to any situation.

“What is it?” She said a quick prayer that it wasn’t his new wife, but her mind absolutely blanked when he laid his hands gently on her shoulders.

The doctor who’d explained William’s terminal diagnosis had done that, wearing a similar grim expression and looking at her with an emotion caught somewhere between sympathy and pity.

She shrugged out from under her brother’s touch and shook off the uncomfortable memory. Whatever had brought Thomas rushing into her home, she instinctively understood she wasn’t going to enjoy the news.

“Casey’s here,” she said, stepping out of his reach. “Come on back to the kitchen and have some coffee.”

“We need to talk.”

She swallowed the bitter words dancing on the tip of her tongue. Why did her family have so little faith in her abilities? “Not if you’re here about my move to ops next month.”

“That got approved?”

She rolled her eyes. No amount of good manners could have stopped the exasperated reflex. Temper wasn’t something she frequently indulged in, but right now she was ready to do the one thing she’d never done in her life: kick her family out of her home.

Casey brightened considerably when she spotted her uncle. After a warm hug, they stood side by side and faced Cecelia.

“Go ahead and say whatever you need to say.” Let them try to deter her. Teaming up against her would get them nowhere. She was making the move to ops, regardless. She’d already made arrangements for a house sitter while she was training.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Casey?” Thomas nudged her to the stool at the counter beside Cecelia. “You may as well know the truth of what we’re up against.”

“I beg your pardon?” Cecelia stared at her brother as a fresh wave of concern rolled over her. “What truth?”

“You have to go into protective custody. Today. Right now, Lia.”

A chill raised the hairs at the back of her neck. Her brother didn’t shorten her name unless he was seriously distressed.

“I’ll go pack a bag for you, Mom.” Casey hopped off the counter stool, but Cecelia stayed her with a look.

“Why do I need protective custody?”

Thomas slumped forward, leaning his forearms on the counter and lowering his voice. “The analysts picked up some chatter about you.”

“Me?”

“You’re in danger. A pawn in a bigger game,” Thomas growled. “It’s my fault.” He pushed back from the counter and paced away, then swiveled back. “One of my enemies plans to kidnap you. At least that’s the rumor making the rounds.”

“Oh, that’s going too far, Thomas. We both know none of your enemies could possibly know about me.” Her brother was the director of Mission Recovery, a covert team so dark, not even the president was routinely briefed on their operations. When Thomas or his Specialists were in the field, their cover stories were solid, with no links to their real lives. The only way an enemy could know about his connection to her... Oh, dear God.

“He has a mole inside my team. The kidnapper is likely to be one of my own Specialists.”

That was all Casey needed to hear. She slipped by Cecelia and rushed up the stairs.

“That’s impossible. It doesn’t make sense. Your team is devoted to you and their work. You handpicked each one of them.”

Thomas grimaced and scrubbed a hand across his short hair. “Well, I clearly made a mistake somewhere.”

“Who?” Stunned, she took a moment to wrap her head around such a ridiculous idea. No one betrayed Thomas Casey. “Who on your team would dare to cross you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m setting up an op to take him down.”

Cecelia relaxed a fraction. “Then there’s no reason for me to run and hide.”

Thomas glared at her. Having grown up with him, she didn’t find the expression so intimidating.

“Lia, this mole is devious. He’s been operating right under my nose for months now. When we make the arrest, it’s going to stick, but he’s going to fight back. Locking down the evidence for this kind of thing takes time. I’m not going to allow you to get caught in the middle.”

“Allow?” She laughed. “I’m a grown woman.”

“I know that.” He clasped her hands in his. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”

“So we agree.” She met the determination in his blue gaze with an equal measure of her own. “I’ll be careful, keep your number on speed dial, but I’m not going into hiding, Thomas. Not under any circumstances. It’s my turn to challenge myself.”

Besides, even if she wasn’t making this career change, she just didn’t think she could manage that kind of drastic shift in her plans. Not in the middle of this holiday season.

Last year’s holidays had been marred by her husband’s death. She’d still been receiving sympathy cards amid the annual Christmas letters and greetings. The abundance of charitable donations made in his name had been kind and wonderful expressions from caring friends.

And nearly unbearable as she wrote out each and every thank-you note. She felt awful and it was as if every bright moment last year was eclipsed by the darkness of her loss. It had been sheer determination and more than a little detachment that had got her through.

Promise me you’ll live your life. It was the last coherent conversation she’d had with her husband before the aggressive brain tumor had made her a widow.

She’d been trying to honor that request, and she had no intention of letting a rogue agent and a vague threat get in the way. She was living her life.

“You can’t be that selfish,” Thomas barked. “Or that foolish.”

She reeled back as if he’d struck her.

“I’m sorry. Sorry,” he repeated, holding his hands up. “But don’t you see if you’re out there—” he flung a hand wide “—you become leverage they can use against me to get what they want?”

“For how long?”

“Pardon?”

“How long would you keep me in protective custody? Where would I be? What excuse would I give to the people who are counting on me this weekend?”

Thomas blinked rapidly and frowned as if he were trying to catch up. “I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”

That would never work. Cecelia shook her head adamantly. “This is the wrong time, Thomas. I realize you didn’t plan this, but you know I have commitments.”

“The charities and parties can manage without you.”

“But I don’t want them to. And I won’t let a vague ‘maybe longer’ interfere with my plans.” That was exactly what she was trying to change in her life. The idea everyone else seemed to have that nothing she did mattered enough that it couldn’t be cast aside at the drop of a hat.

“Cecelia, please cooperate. The man pulling the strings on this won’t hesitate to hurt you. He turned one of my own people against me. He nearly killed me a few times over between the airport and Casey’s wedding.”

“And yet you made it.” She patted his cheek. He really didn’t need to go so far in his effort to talk her out of this move. “I’ll make it, too—if this threat to me even proves more than a rumor.”

“I had years of field experience and another trained agent at my side,” Thomas protested.

“I’m not hiding.”

“Mom,” Casey hesitated in the kitchen doorway, a big suitcase behind her. “You might put your friends in danger.”

“That’s hitting below the belt and it won’t work.” Cecelia set her hands on her hips. “Your father didn’t marry a bubble brain, no matter how the two of you believe otherwise.”

“You’re twisting things up,” Casey said. “This has nothing to do with your career change.”

“Maybe it should.” The words were out before she’d really thought it through, but she warmed to the idea immediately. “I’m taking leave through the holiday until I report for ops training. Why not use me to trap the traitor on your team?”

“How can you help if you’re a victim?” her brother demanded.

“If they make the attempt, you can close in and you’ll have your rogue agent. If—big if—I get kidnapped, you’ll have someone on the inside.”

Thomas shook his head. “No way. I won’t risk your life that way. Even if we wired you, this guy would either find it or jam the signal, rendering the exercise pointless.”

Cecelia held her ground, undeterred. “You can get creative and use me as an asset, or stop wasting your breath. Even if you put me in a safe house, I wouldn’t stay there.” Not this year. She had plans, a ticket to the Caymans and maybe even a new friend who might be encouraged to join her on a holiday getaway. But she wasn’t sharing that. As unsettled as these two were about her career change, she didn’t want to see how they would come unglued over her personal secret.

“If you were asset material, I’d have recruited you already.”

Casey gasped, but Cecelia gave her brother her most serene smile. “When is this kidnapping supposed to happen?”

“I don’t have a hard date. The analysts are working on it.”

“I see.”

“Who is the mole?” Casey wanted to know.

“I’ve narrowed it down to two people.”

Cecelia arched an eyebrow. He’d already avoided this question once.

“Has to be either my deputy director or his assistant. They’re the only ones who have the access to the information we’ve discovered that has been leaked to my enemy.”

“And your gut says who?” Cecelia pressed.

Thomas sighed, rubbed his temples. “My money’s on Deputy Director Holt. He’s the only one who would know where to start looking. I just don’t think his assistant could manage this alone. As much as I hate to admit it, it has to be Holt.”

Cecelia rode out the jolt of surprise, hoping the two people staring at her didn’t notice. She thought about it for a minute or two as Thomas went on about how he was still having trouble accepting the man would turn like this. Cecelia sipped her coffee, found it had gone cold. She dumped it out and poured a fresh cup.

Okay, reality check. What were the odds that two men named Holt would come to her attention within weeks of each other, one working for her brother and another through the online dating site?

Didn’t take a master spy to figure that out. Slim to none, she figured.

Might as well put it on the table. “Emmett Holt?” she asked.

“Yes.” Thomas scowled. “How do you know his name?”

“A man by that name was a last-minute donor to tomorrow’s gala fundraiser,” she hedged. And he’d been flirting with her online for the past few weeks. Those emails and text messages had been fun and full of life, but those feelings were fading quickly with Thomas’s bleak news.

She’d learned long ago that coincidences usually weren’t a matter of chance. She wouldn’t put it past her brother to encourage a member of his team to make a dating connection and set her up like this, just to keep an eye on her. And he’d be feeling pretty guilty if the man he assigned to such a task was working against him.

But Thomas didn’t look the least bit guilty, only stunned.

She moistened her lips and asked the question. “You didn’t know he contacted me?” If this wasn’t Thomas’s idea, she wasn’t about to clarify the precise manner of contact had been a dating service. They’d balked enough at her career plans.

She held her breath, a big part of her hoping there really were two Emmett Holts.

“How does this guy spell his name?”

She glanced to her daughter. “Casey, bring me my purse, please.”

“It’s right here.” Casey already had it balanced on the top of the suitcase.

“Aren’t you efficient?” Cecelia pulled out her tablet and brought up the details about the charity gala she’d organized for the pediatric children’s oncology unit in memory of William. “There.” She highlighted the line on the screen that showed donor names, addresses and emails, and then turned it so her brother and daughter could see it. “I was told he called the office yesterday morning, asked how close we were to the goal and then donated the balance.”

“Holt?” Thomas gaped at her.

“So it is the same man?”

Her brother nodded then growled. “Looks that way. Think about it, Lia, why pick your cause?”

“Generosity? Maybe he needed a tax write-off. That happens this time of year.” She could tell her brother didn’t put much stock in either possibility. Yesterday she’d thought it was the gesture of a wealthy man more than a little smitten with the gala’s organizer. Now... Well, now he had more than a few questions to answer.

Just her luck. The first guy who managed to stir any feelings in her and he had an ulterior motive.

“This would put him right next to you tomorrow night.”

“You’re being melodramatic.” Truth was she had asked for tomorrow’s seating chart to be adjusted when she learned he would attend. She’d had every intention of getting “next to him” and thanking him personally during their first real date, scheduled for this evening. She wasn’t about to mention those plans in front of her brother and daughter.

“He might not even show up.” She wouldn’t think twice about having him tossed out if he didn’t clear up a few things tonight.

“Oh, he’ll show.” There was a calculating gleam in Thomas’s eyes. “And he’ll find a way to kidnap you. It’s the perfect venue and it would be a terrible embarrassment to me if I’m not there to protect you.”

“That’s absurd. Tomorrow’s venue is perfect for raising money for the charity. Besides, I’ll be surrounded by the trained agents and retired spies who make up our extended family all night long.”

“Then it’s a scouting mission,” Thomas argued. “I’m telling you, Holt doesn’t do anything on a whim. Every mishap of the past two months points directly to his office. This is the beginning of the grand finale. I can feel it, Lia.”

Casey gave a thoughtful hum. “Wouldn’t a guy who’s made it to the second in command at Mission Recovery be more careful than that? Sounds a little half-baked to me.”

Cecelia could have hugged her daughter. She thought the same thing, but knew Thomas wouldn’t have entertained the suggestion if she’d offered it. It wasn’t that she blamed him—he only wanted to protect her—but she was weary of being overshadowed and underestimated.

As the wife of a CIA operative, she’d learned to support and assist her husband in the real world, she had her own security clearance and even though she’d spent her career to date in the completely safe admin side of the agency, she knew how to think through a problem like an operative.

Her daughter’s and her brother’s consistent underrating of her was her own fault, she supposed. She’d let it happen by design and circumstance. They were used to her in a certain role: sister, mother, head chef, cheerleader and most recently caregiver and occasional confidant. Change was difficult, and she hadn’t discussed her plans with them; she’d just put in the request to move to ops.

She’d told herself it was to see how she fared on her own merits, but it was just as much about delaying their inevitable resistance.

“Relax, Thomas. I’m safe and I’m perfectly capable of staying that way.” She infused confidence into her voice. “You’ll both be at the event tomorrow and we’ll be surrounded by a room full of people. Go vet the hotel security staff if it makes you feel better.” She wrote down the contact name from her notes. “Your Mr. Holt can scout all he wants, but we all know he won’t be able to lift a finger against me. At least not and get away with it.”

Thomas took the note and stalked out of the house without another word.

Cecelia turned to Casey. “Well, since you’ve got everything packed, I might as well go check in at the hotel and make Thomas happy.”

“I can move there with you. Keep you company.”

Cecelia bit back the frustrated reply as she loaded the used coffee mugs into the dishwasher. “You stay here like we planned and enjoy some quiet with your new husband when he arrives.” She’d have to put this place up for sale one day, but it didn’t have to be today. The place was just too large for her to keep up on her own. Especially if she was away a lot.

“We came to see you, Mom.”

“And I appreciate it, sweetheart. We both know your uncle’s already assigned a detail to hover over my shoulder.” She flicked a hand in the direction of the street. “I know for a fact the Millers haven’t had a week’s worth of plumbing trouble and yet the van is still out there.”

Casey walked toward the front window to look. “He just wants to keep you safe,” she said with a soft laugh.

“I know that. It’s only a ten-minute drive to the Plaza.” She was already mentally adjusting her plans to give her date a chance to explain himself before Thomas barged in and wrecked it.

Was she that desperate? Maybe.

Whatever Emmett’s reasons for reaching out to her through the online dating site and making the donation, she felt there was potential for a real connection between them. What she didn’t feel was that he posed any threat to her.

Thomas would call that naive. Casey would call it wishful thinking.

She called it intuition, and she’d learned to trust her instincts long ago.

Cecelia was going on that date.