Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas GiftThe Soldier's Holiday HomecomingSanta's Playbook

by Allison Leigh

  Unconcerned, Hayley waved her hand toward Jane. “You’ve met Arlo,” she said to Sam. “Tell her he’s a nice guy.”

  “He’s a nice guy,” Sam said obediently. Her dark blond hair was pulled into the usual knot at the back of her head. “No arrests since I’ve been here.”

  Hayley grinned. “See, Jane? No arrests.”

  Jane set a bottle of light beer in front of Sam and flipped off the bottle cap in the same motion before turning back to her order. “High praise, all right.” She wondered if Casey had ever been arrested.

  Probably not. From all appearances, as a general rule the Clays seemed to be a highly upstanding lot.

  “Arlo might not want to go out with me, then.” She pulled the bottle of Grey Goose down from the shelf behind her and poured it liberally over ice. “I have been.” She followed the vodka with a splash of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and set the drink on another tray. For whatever reason, cocktails seemed to be the order of the evening among the crowd. Usually beer and margaritas were the heavy favorites but that night she was serving up everything from Manhattans to Slippery Nipples.

  “No way.” Both Hayley and Sam looked agog.

  She paused in front of them, long enough to pull another steaming rack of glasses out of the dishwasher. “That’s how I met Gage in college. A couple dozen of us were protesting the unfair firing of a professor and we all got picked up.” She set the rack on the rubberized mat next to the small sink and moved down to the taps. “Eventually, the charges were dismissed.”

  A burst of laughter came from the crowd of Clays surrounding the pool tables, drawing more eyes than just Jane’s. Which was fortunate for her, because she had no witnesses to the way she managed to spill Guinness over her hand while she watched Casey’s fine, fine behind as he leaned over for his shot. She shut off the tap and swiped her hand over her apron, then loaded up another tray. She had three cocktail waitresses on hand that night, and they were stretched to the max. Pulling someone over from the restaurant wasn’t an option. Every table there was full, too, with a line of people stretching out the door, waiting.

  A fine October night in Weaver. The weather was good, no snow yet, and people were out for a good time.

  Rather than let the orders keep stacking up, she stepped out from behind the bar and delivered several herself and collected quite a few empties on her way back. Some young guy was trying to chat up Hayley and Sam, and her friends looked amused and happily occupied.

  Everything was exactly as she’d planned when Gage had given her the money five years ago to buy Colbys, and she couldn’t help smiling to herself as she went behind the glossy wood bar again and pulled up the next order.

  One root beer. One designer microbrew that she ordered from Montana. The microbrew that she’d begun carrying only because it was Casey’s favorite.

  The combination was what Casey and his cousin Erik usually ordered and she figured now was no exception. She glanced over at the pool tables. Only this time, instead of seeing Casey’s rear end, she saw him leaning against the wall, staring boldly back at her.

  Heat shot through her, and she tore her gaze away from his. She pulled out an icy bottle of root beer along with a frosted mug, filled another with Casey’s beer and stuck them on a tray before going back over to her girlfriends.

  She had a plan and she was sticking to it.

  “Give your neighbor my number,” she told Hayley. She had to raise her voice, because the jukebox was blaring, billiard balls were clacking, and the crowd gave off a general blur of chatter and laughter.

  Hayley’s eyebrows lifted. She glanced from Jane’s face across the room toward the pool tables. Then she nodded.

  Satisfied, Jane washed her sticky hands and reached for the next order.

  She didn’t allow herself any more glances toward the pool tables and the very unreachable Casey Clay.

  * * *

  Even though Casey saw Jane play server several times, she didn’t play server to his party. And when he was called into work just before ten o’clock, he was glad for the excuse to escape. Glad, at least, until he got to his office and spent the next twelve hours studying satellite feeds and reports regarding three agents who’d gone missing in Central America.

  By the next night, the situation had escalated even more, and the next thing he knew, he found himself sitting beside Tristan on a plane to Hollins-Winword’s headquarters in Connecticut.

  Four days later, he was watching two caskets being carried off a plane while rain poured down on their heads.

  “This isn’t your fault.” Tristan stood next to him on the tarmac, looking as grim as Casey had ever seen.

  “Feels like it,” Casey returned flatly. “I was the last one in communication with them.”

  “And their status was still clear,” Tristan pointed out.

  “Was still my watch,” he said. It didn’t matter that there’d been others on shift, as well. Casey was their commander. He was supposed to be the one who could find a gnat on a wall eight thousand miles away.

  “At least we had something to recover. There was a time we wouldn’t have even been able to retrieve their bodies.” Tristan’s boss, Coleman Black, stood on the other side of Casey. Coleman was a hard-looking older man with gray hair and a face lined from sun and responsibility. The only time Casey had ever seen him really smile had been on the rare occasions he was around Casey’s sister Angeline and her husband, Brody Paine. Casey’s brother-in-law was Cole’s son—a rarely acknowledged fact because of the inherent dangers that went along with that—and his visits were extremely rare; Casey could count them on one hand.

  But in his role with Hollins-Winword, Casey had had many more encounters with the agency’s head.

  “Back when your uncle here was a young buck,” Cole was saying, “we wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the things we can now.” He shook his head as they watched the caskets being loaded into a waiting black hearse.

  “Jefferson’d be the first to confirm that,” Tristan murmured.

  Tristan’s older brother Jefferson had been an HW field agent back in the day. During an especially tricky assignment, he’d landed in a third-world prison; ultimately, he’d escaped, but his partner hadn’t. Even though Jefferson had returned to Weaver to become a horse breeder, had gotten married, had two grown kids and an ever-growing herd of grandchildren, the experience all those years ago still colored his life. When his son, Axel, had followed in his footsteps with the agency, he had not been particularly thrilled.

  “We should’ve been able to do more,” Casey said now. Failure. Grief. Responsibility. It all weighed inside his gut like concrete blocks holding him below water. “Kept those caskets from ever being needed, and we damn sure should’ve found McGregor by now.” The third part of the missing trio was still a big fat unknown. They didn’t know if Jason McGregor’s body was lying in a ditch somewhere, tossed aside the same way Jon and Manny had been. They didn’t know squat.

  “It’s not your fault,” Tristan said again. “You’ve got to have something to go on and we’re flying blind.”

  Cole made a sound Casey figured was meant to be agreement, though with the cagey old guy, it was hard to tell. He clapped Casey once on the shoulder before letting out a sigh and walking out from beneath the shelter of the airplane hangar into the rain toward the hearse.

  “He’s going along to meet the families,” Tristan said.

  “Will he tell them the truth about how they died?”

  His uncle’s lips twisted and he shook his head. “If he follows his own protocol? No. But it never pays to anticipate Cole’s actions too much. The man’s a law unto himself.”

  He turned and gave Casey a long look. Even though Casey was tall, his uncle still topped him by an inch. “I’ve been in your shoes, Case,” he reminded him. “I was never in the field eit
her. Stayed safe, closed up in an office miles—usually countries—away from the action. But we’re supposed to be the guardian angels, making sure those guys taking their chances out there in the field make it safely back home again. And I know only too well that it’s not easy to handle when that doesn’t happen.”

  “I want to know what went wrong,” Casey muttered. “I want to find McGregor.”

  “We will. We’ll investigate.”

  “I know. And I also know that not every investigation bears fruit.”

  The hearse, with Cole inside, drove away. The private airfield where the plane had landed was once again empty.

  “Take my advice.” Tristan nudged him back toward the black SUV in which they’d arrived. “Go back home. Put your arms around that pretty bartender of yours—”

  Startled, Casey shot him a look. “What?”

  “You’re Hollins-Winword, kid,” Tristan drawled, looking vaguely amused. “Nephew of mine or not, you know what that means. There’s nothing in your life that you’re going to keep secret from us.” He climbed behind the wheel of the SUV himself, having dismissed the driver he’d been assigned even before they’d left HW’s headquarters.

  Casey got in the passenger seat and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing away the headache that was forming. “Secrets aside, she’s anything but mine.”

  “Most of us start out thinking that way.” His uncle drove out from beneath the hangar and headed in the opposite direction the hearse had taken. “Regardless, I’m telling you to focus on something good. Don’t take the crap that happened here home to bed with you. When they went off grid, you did everything anyone could have done to find them. You can’t control from a distance what those guys do once they’re on an op. That buck doesn’t stop at your door.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel and he sighed. “It stops with Cole. And he’s been dealing with that reality since before you were a sparkle in your daddy’s eye. McGregor is good in the field. If he’s able to lift his head, we’ll find him. Bring him back safely. But in the meantime, you’ve got to let go of the things you can’t change or you’re going to end up useless. Not just to the agency but to everyone who cares about you outside of the agency, as well.”

  It was probably the longest speech he’d ever heard from his uncle. “Easier said than done.”

  “I know.” Tristan waited a few beats. “Your bartender—”

  “She’s not—”

  “The bartender, then,” Tristan fired back. “What’s the problem there?”

  Casey hadn’t discussed this particular situation with anyone. Not Erik. Not even his own father. But Tris wasn’t his father. He was his boss. His mentor. “She wants to get married.”

  “Then put a ring on her finger already,” his uncle said as if the answer were obvious. “You’ve been sleeping with her for more than a year, for God’s sake.”

  Casey felt his neck get hot like some kid called on the carpet. He stared out at the Connecticut countryside. HW’s compound—hidden in plain sight—was located inside a toilet-paper factory. “She doesn’t want to marry me. She was plenty clear about it.”

  His uncle waited a beat. “And you believed her?” He sounded as if he wanted to laugh and Casey looked over at him. “Son, you have a lot to learn about women.”

  Casey grimaced. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She only wants a husband so she can have a baby.”

  Tristan’s eyebrow lifted. “So?”

  “I’m not interested,” he said flatly, and looked out the side window again, ending the conversation.

  But it seemed that there were some things the omniscient Hollins-Winword didn’t know after all.

  Because even if Casey was interested in making a baby with Janie Cohen, he was incapable of it.

  Thanks to a case of the mumps while he’d been doing a semester of college in Europe, he was sterile.

  And there wasn’t one damn thing he could do to change it.

  * * *

  “So, Jane.” Arlo smiled down at her as they stood on her front porch. “I hope you enjoyed yourself this evening as much as I did.”

  Jane squelched the pang inside her. Arlo was a perfectly attractive guy. He was intelligent. Well-read. Humorous. He hadn’t talked about an ex-girlfriend all night. He had no ex-wives. No baggage at all from previous relationships. He had insisted on paying for their dinner—Chinese—at the restaurant they’d gone to in Braden. His car had been spotless inside, he wore a suit and tie with comfort, and he even had a full head of brown hair.

  And most of all, he’d talked about how—now that he was well established in his career—he’d realized there were things missing in his life that he wanted.

  Like a wife.

  A family.

  He couldn’t have more perfectly matched her requirements if he’d tried.

  “I had a very nice time, Arlo.”

  He smiled and kissed her cheek. “So when I call you tomorrow, you’ll answer?”

  She couldn’t help smiling. He didn’t make her bells and whistles ring—yet, she made herself add—but he was exactly what Hayley had said. A nice man. “Yes, I’ll answer.”

  His eyes crinkled a little as his smile widened. His teeth were white and perfectly straight. Then he pushed open the door that she’d unlocked. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  “Until tomorrow.” She waited in the doorway, watching him until he reached his sedate Volvo. In a community dominated by pickup trucks and SUVs, his choice of a sedan certainly set him apart. He sketched a wave before climbing in and driving off.

  She let out a sigh and slowly stepped into her house and closed the door.

  “Thought good ol’ Arlo was never gonna leave.”

  She screeched and threw her keys at where the voice was coming from before it penetrated that Casey was the one speaking. She pressed her hand to her racing heart and leaned forward slightly, feeling a little dizzy from the fright.

  But then she snapped up, straight as a board, and glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He was sprawled on her couch, looking way too much at home in his worn jeans, ugly red shirt with cartoonish fish swimming across it and cowboy boots. “Waiting for you, obviously.”

  She closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them again, he was still there. Messy butterscotch hair, gray eyes and all. She tried again. “How did you get in?” she asked with what she considered to be extraordinary patience.

  “You left your back door open.” He pulled his boots off the arm of her couch and sat up. “You ought to be more careful, sport. No point in locking the front door if you ignore the back one. You never know what sort of trouble you might be inviting.”

  “Weaver’s as safe as a church,” she muttered crossly. She dropped her purse on the glass coffee table in front of the couch and tossed her lightweight wool coat on the armchair. “Turns out you’re the only trouble I needed to worry about. Do I need to count the silver?”

  His lips curved but the amusement didn’t seem to quite make it to his eyes. “What sort of grade did Arlo earn?”

  “An A,” she said crisply. “Plus.”

  “Liar. I saw that tepid cheek kiss he gave you.”

  “So not only do you break and enter, but you spy, as well.”

  “Door totally unlocked,” he repeated. “A regular invitation, I figure. If you were really interested in Arlo, you’d have invited him in.”

  “And we’d have found you squatting in my living room. How were you planning to explain that?”

  He shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t invite him in.”

  She snorted. “You knew nothing of the sort.” She strode into the kitchen and pulled a half-empty bottle of chardonnay out of the refrigerator. Arlo, it turned out, was a teetotaler. Which she completely respected. Even thoug
h she owned a bar and grill, she wasn’t much of a drinker. But finding Casey in her house was more than she could take.

  She grabbed a glass from her cupboard, wiped the dust out of it and poured the wine. She took a fortifying gulp, then carried it with her back to the living room. She pointed her finger at him. “Do I need to call the sheriff on you?”

  He pulled out his cell phone and handed it to her. “Max is on my speed dial,” he offered, annoyingly helpful. “All of my cousins are.”

  She exhaled noisily and collapsed on the other end of the couch. “Casey—”

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  She slowly closed her mouth, absorbing that. Her fingers tightened around the glass. She could have offered him one. He’d been the one to introduce her to that particular winery in the first place. The first time she’d invited him to her place after they’d moved their relationship into the “benefits” category, he’d brought a bottle of wine.

  She’d been wholly unnerved by it and told him they weren’t dating—just mutually filling a need—and to save the empty romantic gestures.

  He hadn’t brought a bottle of wine ever again.

  She shook off the memory.

  He was here now, in her home, uninvited, and she’d be smart to remember that. “Why?”

  He pushed off the couch and prowled around her living room. He’d always been intense. But she’d never really seen him tense. And she realized she was seeing it now.

  She slowly sat forward and set her glass on the coffee table, watching him. “Casey, what’s wrong?”

  He shoved his fingers through his hair, not answering. Instead, he stopped in front of a photo collage on the wall above her narrow bookcase that Julia had given her last Christmas. “You going to go out with him again?”

  Something ached inside her. “Probably,” she admitted after a moment.

  “He’s a good guy,” he muttered. “A little straitlaced, but otherwise okay.”

  She didn’t know what was going on with him. But she suddenly felt like crying, and Jane wasn’t a person who cried. “Casey.”