by Lexi Blake
“Another operative?”
“She was a trainee at the time.” His heart twisted at the thought of Kayla Summers. “She was one of my worst mistakes. Not because she was bad. She was excellent, but…” The last thing he needed was for her to find out how ruthless he could be. “You don’t need to hear this. Uhm, I can go work at Seth’s if you would rather be alone.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment. “Are you worried she’s in trouble?”
“Yes. I don’t like the pattern I’m seeing, and I don’t like what I’ve found out about the man who took over my job. I fear he’s manipulating the situation, and now he’s got Kayla involved, and weirdly enough, a Hollywood action star.”
Nell’s chin came up. “I’d like to hear this story, Henry.”
“I don’t come off looking good.” He wasn’t sure telling her this particular story would help his cause, but at least she wasn’t kicking him out.
“You wanted to tell me before. I’m ready to listen.”
“I wanted to tell you a breezy version that makes me look noble for choosing love,” he replied, a wistful tone to his voice.
She grabbed a mug and placed it on the counter. “Well, I want the real version. This feels like something you’re going to have to deal with, and I’d like to know why.”
He’d been thinking the same thing—that he might have to insert himself into this situation. “I’m not sure how I would handle it. I can’t exactly walk in and announce myself. I would have to be sneaky, and I have no connection to some Hollywood actor.”
It was obvious to him that the Agency was using the actor to get to the head of the cartel and likely to put Kayla into whatever place they wanted her in. The easiest thing to do would be to inform the actor of who his “friend” really was. If he could break the relationship between the actor and the man he didn’t know was a criminal, then Kayla would no longer be in danger.
But somehow he didn’t think an email would do the trick. He needed to get into Josh Hunt’s circle, but without Kayla knowing about it.
The kettle started whistling. “Of course you do. There’s always a connection. That’s the funny thing about our world. There’s only a few degrees of separation between any two people. The key is finding the connection. Now tell me the story.”
It was the most assertive he’d heard her talk in days. Well, besides yelling at him in the parking lot. “All right. But like I said, I’m not the hero of the story. It all started when I discovered the MSS agent I’d been going up against for a couple of years had a twin sister here in the States. It was then that I realized I could have a double agent if I played my cards right.”
He continued, and for the first time in weeks, she actually listened to him.
Chapter Six
She couldn’t have written that story if she’d tried.
The next morning Nell sat at her computer contemplating the problems Henry had laid out for her the night before. When he’d been with the Agency, he’d found out about a young American woman named Kayla Summers and her twin sister, who worked as a spy for her home country of China. He’d manipulated the situation so Kayla had believed her sister to be dead and had taken her place at MSS, while her husband had taken the other twin and had the best of both worlds.
He was ruthless. Or at least he used to be. She’d watched the guilt he felt play out on his face as he’d told her the story. He’d lied and manipulated and placed a young woman in a position she shouldn’t have been in, one that could have led to her horrible death.
Would he have ever seen how wrong that had been if he hadn’t come to Bliss? Would he still be out there, still pulling strings and playing games? Had this place truly changed him? Or was it one more manipulation meant to make John Bishop’s life more comfortable?
She’d managed to shove those questions aside briefly as she’d worked on the problem at hand.
“So Kayla is now the bodyguard for Joshua Hunt. I can’t say I like his movies. The romantic comedies are good, but I don’t love action. It’s filled with white male rage.” She wasn’t sure what they had to rage about, but they did it a lot.
“It’s not my favorite either. They often get things wrong, and that’s not how gun fights normally go. It’s way more boring. It’s better to snipe your opponent.” Henry looked up from his laptop. “Sorry.”
It was actually kind of nice for him to be honest. “I take it you’ve sniped a lot of people?”
His eyes went back to his screen. “Probably more than my fair share.”
She didn’t want to find him fascinating. The night before she’d sat and drank her tea while they’d eaten black bean soup and he’d told her the whole story of Kayla Summers going from college student to CIA double agent. Now the young woman was with a security firm, but Henry believed she was still doing side work for the Agency. She was currently the bodyguard for a Hollywood star who had connections to a drug lord.
Henry thought the star had no idea he was dealing with a drug lord. Or the Agency. He feared that someone was using his former protégée in a way that could get her killed.
“I’ve thought a lot about this. I think you should go and deal with it.”
He looked up, frowning. “I’m not sure how I would deal with it. I can’t walk in and announce I used to be with the Agency and I think you’re in danger. Oh, and your bodyguard is also Agency and I’m definitely worried she’s in danger, and hey, she thinks I’m dead and so does her boss. Could you keep that secret?”
Put like that it did sound silly. But she’d lain in bed and all she could think about was the fact that those poor people didn’t know what was coming for them, and Henry could help. He’d explained that he didn’t trust the man who’d taken over his job. Someone who went by the name of Levi Green. Henry was worried Green was manipulating the situation and potentially working with the head of the cartel.
His old world was shadowy and dangerous, and he’d worked in shades of gray.
It was so hard to think of her husband in that world. And yet she also wanted to know more. That world had shaped him in so many ways, ways she hadn’t contemplated.
“The actor is working on a film about a DEA agent.” She knew how to look things up, too. “Joshua Hunt is known for meticulously researching his characters. He’s probably planning on meeting with a DEA agent.”
“Yeah, I read an article about how he always tries to have a consultant on set.”
It seemed to be the easiest solution. “Why couldn’t that consultant be you? You know about those things. It would be simple for you to answer his questions and then suggest a meeting before you go to the set. You could meet with him and show him what you’ve found out.”
“I’m not a DEA agent.”
She shrugged that off. “But you could be. You’re good at playing a part.”
His jaw tightened. “Nell, this isn’t a part I’m playing.”
That’s what he kept telling her. He claimed he wouldn’t leave Bliss if she decided to end the marriage she still wasn’t sure was legal. “You used to go undercover, right?”
He sighed. “Yes. I did. I often went undercover.”
She bit back all the questions that sprang to mind. It wasn’t the time to be the curious writer. “Why don’t you go undercover as a DEA agent?”
“Because I’m not a DEA agent. And I don’t know one. Even if I did, how would I ensure Hunt would pick me?”
“He doesn’t pick. He asks whatever agency he’s researching to send someone. You might not know a DEA agent, but Nate and Zane do. He came to visit them last summer.”
Henry leaned forward, nodding. “I remember that. He was roughly my age.”
“If you could ensure Nate’s friend gets picked as the liaison, then you take his place and you warn Hunt.” It seemed fairly simple to her. “You can even go down to the set. It’s in Mexico, not far from the state of Jalisco.”
Henry had explained that he was certain that was where it would all go down.
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“I could figure out what’s going on and if I need to intervene further.” Henry’s expression had turned distinctly thoughtful. “I would have to go to California, and then possibly to Mexico. I don’t want to leave you.”
He would be off on a mission. It was so hard to think of her Henry that way, but she had to wrap her brain around it. “Will you be able to live with yourself if something happens to Kayla Summers?”
The hollow look was back in his eyes. “No.”
“Then we have a plan. We need to talk to Nate.” Nate would put them in touch with his old buddies at the DEA, and if they needed more influence they had Stef, who could talk anyone into anything, and Seth, who could simply go in and change the records and suddenly reality was whatever Seth wanted it to be. It was good to have a plan.
“Nell,” he began.
She shook her head. “I think you should do this. I don’t like the idea that you lied to that young woman so she would do your dirty work. You have to make it better.”
“Will you forgive me if I do this?”
She sighed. He was trying to make this far less complicated than it was. She couldn’t simply turn off her hurt and suspicions. “Henry, it’s not about forgiveness. I can forgive you but I can’t go back to the life we had before. You’re not the man I thought I married. Can you understand that?”
“No. I am the man you married. I don’t know how to prove it to you. I changed my whole life to fit into yours because you’re everything to me.” He stood and started pacing. It was something he did from time to time, but now she caught the predatory grace to his movements. “I never protested a damn thing in my life before I met you.”
A flare of anger lit inside her. He wanted to argue about what he’d had to give up? “I’ve never been anything but honest with you. You knew exactly who I was when you married me. You never asked me to be anyone different. I don’t know what I would have done, but you didn’t even give me the chance to try to bend for you. So don’t come back and tell me I’m some kind of tyrant who forced you into this. Do you even like tofu? Do you eat meat when I’m not around? I’m not going to judge you for it. I just want to know.”
He stood and crossed the space between them. “I haven’t had a bite of meat since the day before I came home to you. I do not miss it. I love your food. I love eating the way we do because it makes me feel healthy and it makes you happy. I know you think I’ve used you as a cover, but our marriage is the best thing that ever happened to me. Loving you is my whole world.”
She wished she could believe him. “I need…”
“Time,” he finished for her with a sigh. “And me being out of Colorado would give it to you. If I leave you’ll have to go and stay with Stef.”
She stood up and faced him. “I’m not leaving my home.”
“Then I won’t go. I can’t be certain they won’t show up while I’m gone.”
“You don’t know for sure anyone’s coming at all,” she pointed out. “You won’t know until you figure out what the situation is. You can do it by going to Mexico yourself, or you can turn yourself over to the Agency.” It was the only solution she’d come to. He needed to know what was happening or they would be in this perpetual state of fear and anxiety. They wouldn’t be able to figure out if they could move on until they could breathe.
He moved to stand in front of her. “I can’t leave you here alone with no one to protect you. I won’t be able to work if I don’t know you’re all right. I’ll spend every second of my time worried about you.”
She didn’t like the fact that he was so close. It would be far too easy to put her arms around him. “I don’t want to be at Stef’s. I want to be home.”
“Then I’ll call the Agency and I’ll admit that I’m alive and inform them of what I think is happening. I’ll agree to go into custody but only if they give you protection.”
He was good at putting her in a corner. She loved Stef and Jen, but they had a pretty full house between the two of them, their newborn son, his father, Sebastian, and stepmom, Stella. There was a housekeeper, too. Jen and Stella would ask her all sorts of questions. Stef would push her to talk to a therapist. They would all mean well.
She wanted to be in her cabin. She wanted some quiet.
She had an idea. “If I hire a bodyguard, will you let me stay here?”
He stood in front of her, suspicion plain on his face. “It can’t be Irene. I know she says she can build a circle of protection around people, but all that salt and chanting will not stop a bullet.”
Did he think she was foolish? “The circle of protection is spiritual, and no, it doesn’t work since she put one on me a long time ago and we’re in this situation. I was thinking of someone else.”
“Who?”
“I should talk to him first.” She didn’t want Henry to put pressure on the poor man. He’d been through enough, and if he didn’t want to do it, she could ask Irene. Irene, while she was a spiritual jack-of-all-trades, also worked at the Dairy Queen in Del Norte and knew a surprising number of interesting people. Or she could use someone Henry might be more comfortable with. “If it doesn’t work out, we can call Seth. He certainly has contacts.”
“You’ll accept a bodyguard?”
She wasn’t going to be the character who was too stupid to live. “Yes. But I need to be home. I need the comfort and peace I find here.”
“All right, but I get to interview this person.”
She wasn’t sure that interview would go well. “I’ll go and talk to him.”
Henry frowned. “You’re going up the mountain, aren’t you? I don’t know about that. He’s…different.”
“There is nothing wrong with being different. He had his heart broken. I think he’ll be perfect.”
“He has to take a shower,” Henry complained.
This new Henry was on the judgmental side. “His cabin doesn’t have running water.”
“Once I spent three months in a desert waiting for a bombmaker to make a dead drop. I never smelled as bad as Michael Novack.”
Yes, very judgmental. And she didn’t want to know about the bombmaker and the desert. Not at all. “Nevertheless, I’m going to hire him. He used to be a US marshal. Protecting people was his job.”
“And now his job is growing facial hair and drinking whiskey.” Henry groaned. “Fine. But I’m going to drive. There’s barely a road to where he lives.”
She got her purse. She hoped Michael Novack liked tofu.
* * * *
Henry parked the Jeep outside the…would he call it a cabin? At one point it probably had been, but now it was more of a shack, and there was another tiny shack outside. The man had an outhouse.
Michael Novack had shown up roughly a year ago when he’d been on assignment to protect Alexei Markov. He’d come to town with his partner, a woman named Jessica, who hadn’t bothered to mention to her lover that she was on some bad guy’s payroll. She’d died trying to kill Alexei, Holly, and Caleb, but only after drugging her partner so he couldn’t stop her.
Novack had not taken the news well.
“I think it’s charming.” Nell always saw the sunny side of things, including the rundown shack in front of them.
Henry thought it was a menace, but she likely didn’t want to hear that from him. “I think you should let me go talk to him first.”
“Why?” She looked so pretty sitting next to him in her cotton skirt and shirt. Her belly had the slightest swell that he wanted to touch and cup and protect. It wasn’t that pregnancy had made his wife more beautiful. She was always beautiful. It was that pregnancy had reminded him of how delicate and precious life could be, how much he treasured every moment with her.
“Because a wounded animal can be a dangerous one.” He didn’t want her to even get out of the Jeep. The ground wasn’t close to level. It was late summer, so there could be any number of animals out and about. Then there was the man himself.
The door opened and Michael Novack proved Henry�
�s point by walking out on the rickety porch wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, his big muscular chest on display, and one hand holding a rifle at his side.
Nell merely opened the door and waved the man’s way. “Good afternoon, Michael. I hope you’re having a lovely day.”
Henry scrambled to get out of his side. He should have brought his own gun, but he hadn’t wanted to upset Nell. It was the first time in days that she’d been willing to go somewhere with him, and he wasn’t taking any chances.
Except this was all one big chance. He was trying to hire a bodyguard so he could go on one last mission.
Would Nell be upset if he died, or would it all be a relief?
“I’m having the same day I’ve had for a year,” Novack admitted.
The man needed a shave. His beard was growing a beard. “We’d like to talk to you, but if this is a bad time we can come back later.”
If he could put this off, maybe he should. It occurred to him that this man could be dangerous on a lot of levels. After all, his partner had kept secrets from him, too. The idea of the remarkably fit man watching over a woman as wounded as he was sounded like the plot for one of Nell’s books. In this case, Henry was the bad guy, the obstacle the heroine would have to overcome in order to find proper true love.
Novack frowned. It wasn’t like he’d been smiling before, but the expression took on a deeper tone. “You here to throw me out? I heard this is now some kind of nature preserve.”
A few months before, a friend of theirs had needed them to help the town out by becoming the owners of a large tract of land a group of developers wanted to purchase from his company. Cole Roberts had come up with a plan that cost him, but saved the land from transforming from gorgeous forest to an outlet mall and all the stuff that came with it.
Roberts had trusted Nell to protect the land. It was a good thing, too, since Nell would have been the chief protestor of the development.
“Of course not. We would never do that,” Nell assured him. She started walking toward the dilapidated cabin.