“Yeah. He and your father. And they offed a detective and were going to off you. Sorry.” There were many moments Mia wished her mouth had a backspace key. “I know you’ve been working like hell to get past all that.”
Hence her new identity and being part of the Witness Protection Program. Leave it to Mia to ruin a fun bachelorette party by dredging up Lily’s trauma.
“It’s okay. It’s a lot to take in, and you haven’t had much time to process it all. Plus, I’m family now, so that puts you at risk as well.”
“No.” Mia stopped them and turned Lily’s shoulders so they were face to face. Or rather, face to chin. Lily had a solid seven inches on her. “We’ve all gone over this a thousand times. You’re not wasting your life worrying about our safety. We can look out for each other. And you said you have the FBI at your back as well.”
Lily’s gaze wandered back to the door where the home-wrecker loser ass had slipped through, and realization set it.
“Shit. The suit. He’s your FBI guy.” Over the years, she’d caught glimpses of him from afar and had teased Lily about hooking her up with the sexy agent. Up close and personal, he was even hotter. Especially now that she wasn’t hating him for being a dirty scumbag. When Lily didn’t respond, Mia’s French toast turned to cement in her belly. “Is there a new threat to you, Lily? Don’t give me this crap about not wanting to ruin Jenna’s bachelorette party. That’s a bunch of BS. We love you and will do anything to keep you safe.”
“I appreciate it.” Lily lowered her gaze to Mia. “But I told you last night. There’s no known threat to me or any of you right now.”
“So why is your FBI guy here?” When Lily didn’t respond, Mia stepped back. “Don’t tell me he’s always around? Ty must hate that, having him lurk around every corner. I didn’t know he—”
“No. It’s not like that. He checks in periodically, but I don’t have twenty-four seven protection.”
“So why is he here?”
Lily scratched at her chest and looked up at the door again. “My initial response when I saw him last night,” she whispered, “was fear as well. But he’s not here for me. He’s working a case at the casino.”
“You believe him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. Would he tell you if there was a threat?”
“Yeah, he would. He’s quite overprotective, if you don’t remember.”
Mia did. It was what almost cost Lily and Ty their relationship.
“Okay. Good. And you’d tell us as well.”
“Ty knows me too well now. I couldn’t keep a secret from him if I tried. I wanted to wait a little longer after learning we were pregnant, but he came home from work and took one look at me and knew.”
That far away over-the-top gooey smile thing appeared again on Lily’s face.
“And I’m out.” Mia looped her arm through her sister-in-law’s and hurried her along toward the spa, the worry free from her shoulders now that she knew her friend wasn’t being targeted.
There were too many lovesick women around her. She needed a night out. Bad.
Or maybe some time with her notebook and the ocean.
That was what she’d do. While her friends were all busy playing house, she’d visit some of the aquariums and fisheries as inspiration.
And maybe, just maybe, she’d run into that surly, dopey marine hydrologist again.
CHAPTER THREE
Ryan Thorne tapped the poker table cuing the dealer he wanted another card, and cursed his carelessness. First running into Lily last night, and then his confrontation with Mia Parker. At first, he feared she recognized him as the FBI agent assigned to her brother’s wife and would blow his cover.
Thankfully her first reaction was similar to her brother’s the first time he’d seen Ryan with Lily. Neither time had he corrected the Parkers. Not until he feared Lily would run off and put her life in jeopardy.
A life he was responsible for watching.
He peeked at his cards—a three and a five—and tapped for another.
In the five years he’d been assigned to the case, not a single blip had gone off on Damian Gervais’ circle. Ryan was ninety-nine percent sure Gervais and his people thought Veronica Stewart-Gervais was dead, or at least didn’t think she was a threat.
And as far as he could tell—and his intel was one of the best—no one had been snooping around to see who the newly surfaced Lily Novak-Parker was.
Ryan liked to be in control, and it killed him two years ago to allow Lily to tell Ty, and then her friends, the truth about her identity. The fewer people who knew the better.
But after Mia’s hit and run, it had spooked the hell out of Lily and out came the truth. As far as he knew, only her close-knit group of friends, and obviously her husband, knew who she really was.
He’d done extensive background research into each of her friends because you could never be too sure. And even then, even when their backgrounds checked out and they appeared to be faithful and honest, you never knew when someone would screw you over.
His ex-wife and best friend—former best friend—had been proof of that. It wasn’t like they disclosed top military secrets or anything. Their destruction was simpler than that.
Just his heart. His trust. His belief in humankind.
The fact that Lily had been so trusting irritated the hell out of him, but he could only control so much. That he’d learned over and over again as well.
So he did what he could and never got emotionally involved or attached. Not with a case. Not with people. The more walls he put up the safer everyone would be.
And then the spunky little sprite came along and turned his world upside down. Ryan never got distracted while working a case. Even though the illegal gambling circuit wasn’t as dangerous or deadly as some of his other cases, he still needed to be on top of his game.
The man sitting next to him who reeked of stale beer swore and tossed his cards at the dealer before leaving the table in a huff. Ryan flipped over his cards. Twenty-one. The dealer slid a stack of chips his way and shuffled the deck again.
It had been a few months since his last check-in with Lily, and everything was calm and peaceful in Crystal Cove, as it should be.
He had a love hate relationship with the town. While he’d enjoyed his summers with his grandparents on Emerald Pond when he was a kid, he hated being away from his friends back in Delaware. He and his sister Megan would fight over who had to sit in the back of the canoe, who had to wear the orange life vest that smelled like fish, and who had to say the evening prayers.
If only life had stayed that simple. July would drag during their first few weeks with their grandparents. With no technology—as limited as it was during his childhood—his grandparents forced him and Megan to read at least two books a week. They’d visit the local library every Monday, and if he they argued too much during the day, their grandparents would make them write a book report on the novel they read.
Even with the structured summer, he always missed the small town life when he went back to Delaware. His parents taught summer school, his mother at the elementary school and his father at the local community college, while he and his sister were away, and then they spent the month of August going on road trips and camping along the coast.
Not everyone was as fortunate as him to have such a normal upbringing. Boring, he’d called it in his adolescence. There were no skeletons in his family’s closets. No divorce. No mental illness.
With a college professor as a dad and a third grade teacher for a mom, his life was as privileged white middle-class as they came.
The FBI gave him the excitement he needed in his life. And then some. Maine reminded him of the boring and simple. Ironic that now it was something he kind of craved. Lily’s case kept him in Maine, which also meant low-action jobs like the casino case.
When he spotted Lily across the casino floor, he’d quickly assessed the situation and came up with two plans.
&
nbsp; One, he could stay out of sight which would be a challenge since his attention needed to be on Miller and Kaiser. Having to look over his shoulder every four seconds was nothing new to him, but he’d prefer to focus on one case at a time.
Which left him with option B. Pull Lily aside and let her know he was around, but it had nothing to do with her.
She’d been frightened at first, which he expected. Once he calmed her down and convinced her he was working a separate case, she went back to her friends. What Ryan hadn’t counted on was being spotted by Mia.
The woman was tenacious, that was for sure. After her accident, he’d kept a close eye on her. If she ever caught wind of him keeping tabs, she’d throw a fit. Not that he knew the woman. They’d never met, and she had no idea who he was.
But from his surveillance and other research, it didn’t take an FBI agent to put two and two together. Mia had a mouth on her that could compete with the harshest criminal, and she played by her own rules. At first, he worried she’d be a liability to Lily’s secret identity.
Another thing he’d learned—quickly—was that Mia had the back of those she cared about. He’d only witnessed it from afar until this morning. Her spunk, though, he could see from across the Atlantic.
It had been hard keeping his smirk to himself. He’d rather have her think he was a man preying on her married friends than know he was the FBI agent responsible for Lily’s safety.
Tossing another stack of chips on the table, he cursed his luck when the dealer turned over a king. Twenty-two.
Sliding from his stool, he took his remaining chips and tucked them under his arm. Gambling hadn’t been new to him, but he wouldn’t consider himself an expert either. Thankfully the men he was after weren’t high rollers at the Blackjack table. It was where they met their leads. Made their deals.
Word from his intel was there was one dirty dealer who didn’t cheat the cards or the casino but fed information to Miller and Kaiser. He’d have to make friendly with the dealers before they’d do an introduction.
While having conversations with strangers wasn’t a difficulty, it wasn’t something he enjoyed either. Ever since he caught Sharon in bed with Pete, he lost all interest in conversing with humankind.
He’d buried himself in work and sworn off women and friendships. Hell, even his family had seen the wrath of Ryan Thorne. Which really wasn’t wrath, per say. It was avoidance. The cold shoulder. Turning off and shutting down.
Ironically, this assignment required him to be social and engaging. Remembering work was his life, he turned on the role he was hired to do.
“Chip.” He read the nametag of the dealer he believed to be his point of contact. “Tell me you’re not going to toss me a king when I need a nine. Your buddy Carl at table nine screwed me out of two hundred bucks.” Ryan found an empty seat and set his chips down.
Miller sat three people to his left, Kaiser sat to his right. If he played his cards right, he could be on his way to cracking this case before the end of next week.
Which meant less of a chance of running into the people of Crystal Cove.
Although, his last two run-ins with Mia had been rather ... exciting. For someone who wanted to avoid running into people from that small town, he sure did spend a lot of time there.
MIA REACHED OVER THE center console for her messenger bag, double-checking to make sure her sketchbook and pencils were in it, and hopped out of her car. The past week had been a whirlwind of fun with Jenna and Tristan’s wedding and coordinating the summer reading program at Books by the Ocean and the local library.
It wasn’t a paying job, but she loved the role she inherited when Ruth Bergeron moved away over a year ago.
Unlocking her trunk, she reached in for her beach chair and tucked it under her arm. Her evenings by the shore gave her much needed time to reflect. Each birthday was a reminder she wasn’t getting any younger, and each wedding made her realize how alone she was.
Now that her five best friends were married and starting families, Mia wondered about her role with them. They still tried to keep their monthly book club meetings sacred, but children and pregnancy always came first.
Mia was pretty good about rescheduling, and as long as at least four of them could make it, they’d have an extra meeting just to chat. If it wasn’t at her mom’s bookstore, it was at Jenna’s house since she didn’t have children and Tristan worked a lot of nights.
Opening up her chair at the far end of the short beach, Mia paused to take in the view. Breathtaking and perfect. She was blessed to live so close to the ocean. She dropped to her chair and opened her bag, taking out her sketch pad. Now that Jenna and Tristan’s wedding was over and everyone was back to their normal busy, Mia contemplated again about her place in life.
She needed a job. A real job. The thirty-two candles on her birthday cake last month was a reminder that she didn’t have much going for herself.
A loving family and a supportive tribe of friends should be all a girl needed, but she needed to find herself as well.
“Freaking midlife crisis,” she muttered and found a clean page to sketch on. Her pencil moved across the cream paper automatically while Mia got lost in her thoughts. Sad thoughts. Not normal for her.
She was too young for a midlife crisis, especially since she hadn’t even really started her life yet. What was she in the middle of?
Nothing.
Realizing her pencil hadn’t sketched anything but a pile of seaweed, she closed her book and stood, tossing it on the chair.
Before the wedding she’d thought about visiting an aquarium or fishery for inspiration. There hadn’t been time, so she’d checked out a bunch of books, but no stories stirred her imagination.
Looking out across the ocean, she imagined the world of fish and sea creatures living under the water. Chuckling to herself, she thought about the marine hydrologist who insulted her a few weeks ago.
Hydrant, she had thought he’d said. An idea struck, and Mia jogged back to her seat and picked up her sketch pad. She drew standing up, facing the water. A talking hydrant spilling water out of its spout. A fish and tangle of seaweed caught in the stream.
Scrunching her nose at her drawing, she let out a frustrated sigh and slapped the book shut again.
What good was a picture with no story to go with it? Is this what people called writer’s block? Deciding a field trip was the only way to fill her too empty mind, she packed up her stuff and shuffled across the beach to her car.
Once home, she looked up the directions and hours to aquariums and fisheries. Not promising. Most of the local ones weren’t set up for tourists, but offered special educational programs for school field trips. With school ending in a week, she doubted many group tours would still be running.
She wrote down a list of names and numbers to call in the morning when they opened, and tossed her mother’s manicotti in the microwave.
One thing about being the unmarried child was her mother sent her home with leftovers on a regular basis. It wasn’t the only reason Mia visited her mom at the bookstore a few times a week.
She loved her mom, loved the smell of books, and felt most at home there. She wouldn’t have imagined feeling that way a few years ago. As a child, she’d curl up in one of the bean bags in the children’s corner and eagerly waited for her mother to bring home new books for her to read.
When she hit middle and high school, reading became a totally uncool thing to do. Having a mom who ran the local bookstore was a way to earn geek status, not that she could keep her mother’s profession a secret in such a small town. Still, she boycotted books like a teenage girl boycotted her mother’s advice.
When her twenties hit and she made friends with Hope, she realized reading wasn’t as dorkalicious as she’d once thought. It was actually kind of cool. The perfect escape when her life wasn’t going as planned. Or rather, when she didn’t have a set schedule, or places to be.
Not having one in her twenties was the definition of li
ving the dream. Not having one in her thirties was bordering the line of loserville.
But she had a plan now. Well, maybe not a plan, but a dream. If only she could turn that dream into a goal, she wouldn’t be as mopey about not having a man as charming as Cam, or as sexy as Ben, or as loyal as Brady, or as beautiful as Tristan, or hell. Even as sweet as her brother.
Mia Parker wasn’t the poor-me-mopey kind of girl. She kicked ass and took names and numbers along the way.
The hell with it. This dream wouldn’t be a dream anymore.
It was going to be a reality.
THE SUN WAS HER WORST enemy in the morning. It meant it was time to crawl out of the comfort of her bed and face another day.
She hadn’t always felt this way. The past two years were hard on her. Friends getting married, age creeping up on her, no career path, and no guy.
“Shut up, Parker,” she scolded herself. She’d already been down this road last night.
Pushing up from the bed, Mia rubbed the sleepy seeds out of her eyes. A minute later, she got to her feet and took care of business in the bathroom. And then, coffee. Oh, how she needed coffee.
It was only seven-thirty, but the website said the fishery was open at seven. Probably earlier knowing fisherman liked to be on the water at the ass crack of dawn. Or earlier.
Not that she was visiting fisherman, but she figured everyone in the industry were early risers.
Unplugging her cell from its charger, she made some calls. Twenty minutes later, she headed to the shower with a pep in her step. Stan had been extremely helpful on the phone. He’d promised her a tour and to answer all her questions.
It didn’t take long to get ready. Leaving her hair wet, she let it curl into its natural waves and slid a hair tie on her wrist for later, in case the mop got in her way. Grabbing her most comfortable pair of jeans, the ones with the rips on the thigh her father always poked fun of her for, she slid into them and then into a long-sleeved maroon Henley. No need to dress up to visit a fishery.
Something More (A Well Paired Novel) Page 3