Fixed Up with Mr. Right?

by Marie Ferrarella

  She shrugged. “You’re smarter.”

  “Now you’re trying to flatter me into sweeping this under the rug?”

  She smiled up at him brightly, the soul of innocence. “Is it working?”

  “Call your friends at ICE. They’re going to be in position to take this guy down the next time Elena has an envelope for him.”

  Mentally crossing her fingers, Kate took out her cell phone to make the call. But not before she kissed Jackson. Long and hard.

  “What was that for?” he asked, recovering.

  “Call it a retainer—for later,” she told him with a wink as she began to tap out the phone number she needed on her cell phone.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The moment Jackson gave her the go-ahead sign, Kate did just that.

  She lost no time in getting in contact with Agent Howard Brady. She’d gone to school with Howard, who had majored in languages, and had been friends with his wife, Shelly, before the two had ever gotten married. After college, they’d kept in touch via newsy Christmas cards, which was how she’d initially discovered that Howard now held down a fairly responsible position at ICE.

  Meeting with Howard for lunch, Kate carefully sounded him out. She constructed a so-called hypothetical scenario in order to ask him what the department’s stand was on Elena’s situation. She knew, less than halfway through her narrative, that Howard was aware that the situation wasn’t really hypothetical, but he played along anyway and heard her out.

  With some cajoling, she finally managed to obtain a pledge of leniency from him. She had him put it in writing. They used the back of a napkin. When the “pledge” was safely in her purse, Kate gave him the rest of the details. She told Howard that as far as she could ascertain, the man holding Elena’s sister hostage was either the head of an illegal human smuggling ring, or at the very least, one of the ring’s main components.

  “I can get him on a platter for you,” she promised enthusiastically. “But only after he gives up where her sister’s being held. If you grab him up before that, the girl is certain to be killed by one of his henchmen.”

  Howard was silent for a moment as he ate. “And this banking district manager, Wainwright,” he finally said, “he can back up your story?”

  “Every last syllable.”

  Finished, Howard pushed away his plate. “Okay, you have a deal.”

  Elena looked fearful when she was introduced to Howard, and even more so when Howard informed her that she would have to be wired for her next meeting with her sister’s kidnapper. But with no other recourse open to her, she finally agreed. There was no other way to rescue Lupe.

  Kate wanted to go with Elena for the last meet, but she knew that if they deviated from the set formula, the man would turn and run and then Lupe would be lost to them.

  “I will be fine,” Elena told her, her voice quaking. Squaring her slim shoulders, she went into the fast-food restaurant alone.

  A few minutes later, unable to just sit and wait, Kate entered, as well. She mingled with the customers who, at that time of day, were a cross section of blue- and white-collar workers, all intent on grabbing a quick, inexpensive bite for lunch.

  The plan was that since this was the last payment, Elena told the former coyote that she had the envelope hidden in a safe place. She would give him the location once she was taken to where her sister was being kept hostage.

  Grumbling, the trafficker cursed her several times over, then finally agreed to her terms. He told her that he would bring her to her sister.

  And then his eyes drew together malevolently as he added, “But if you are lying about the money, it will be the last lie you ever tell—and the last breath your sister will ever take.” With that, he grabbed Elena by the arm, yanked her out of her seat and roughly guided her out of the establishment.

  Kate’s heart had almost stopped when she glimpsed the look on the man’s face as he passed her. Counting to five, she followed them outside, pretending to walk to her car.

  Instead, she hurried over to a van with the logo of a local utility company slapped on its side. Howard and his partner were maintaining surveillance from inside the vehicle.

  Glancing over to make sure that she wasn’t being observed, Kate knocked once and got in. Howard’s partner was already starting up the van.

  “Let’s go,” Kate cried.

  Howard looked at her, stunned. “You’re a civilian. We can’t take you with us,” he protested.

  “Think again,” she’d retorted. “I’m responsible for that girl being in this position. You can’t let her out of your sight and I’m not getting out. Now go!” Kate ordered.

  Muttering words in a language she didn’t understand, Howard tapped his partner on the shoulder. They were on the road a moment later.

  In the end, it all turned out better than they could have hoped for, Kate thought, relieved beyond words. For a while there, the outcome had been touch and go. Once or twice, she’d come very close to jumping out of her skin. But when the smoke cleared, figuratively and otherwise, Howard and his partner had an impressive bust on their hands. Almost thirty girls had been rescued from a very grim fate. Best of all, Elena was reunited with her sister. It was a tearful reunion.

  Because Kate as well as Howard had pulled a certain amount of strings, Lupe was going to be allowed to remain in the country in exchange for her testimony against the people who had smuggled her across the border. In addition, Elena would testify about the blackmail. There was no doubt that the traffickers were going away for a very long time.

  Kate caught herself singing as she drove back to Jackson’s office. Things couldn’t have gone better, she thought happily. Jackson had wanted to come with them, but there was a scheduled meeting he couldn’t postpone. She was now going to his office to fill him in.

  At first, she didn’t think anything was wrong. His meeting over, Jackson listened to her narrative attentively. He was a little quieter than she’d become accustomed to, but he did have a great deal to take in.

  His expression darkened noticeably when she came to the part about getting into the ICE van and going with the agents as they followed Elena and the trafficker.

  He hadn’t heard her right. She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. The woman was smarter than that. “You did what?” Jackson demanded.

  She was so wrapped up in her narrative that, for a moment, Kate didn’t understand what it was that Jackson asked. Or why he sounded so angry. In the time they’d been together, she’d never seen that expression on his face before.

  “I’m afraid I don’t—” Kate didn’t get a chance to finish.

  “But you did, that’s just it.” Didn’t she understand the kind of risk she’d taken? A completely unnecessary risk. The woman could have been killed.

  A cold chill went down his spine, reminiscent of what he’d experienced when he’d learned about Rachel being run over in the crosswalk. Damn it, he couldn’t go through this again, couldn’t stand having his gut ripped out again.

  “You’re not supposed to go running down the street after human traffickers, especially the kind who would just as soon kill you as look at you.”

  Kate resented his tone. Resented, too, that he made her sound like some kind of empty-headed nitwit. “I didn’t go ‘running down the street’ after him,” she corrected tersely, “I was in a car.”

  One wrong move and she could have become just another memory. What the hell was wrong with her? And what the hell was wrong with him, opening himself up to unspeakable pain again?

  “Like that’s supposed to make a difference?” he snapped. “You shouldn’t have done it. You should leave things like that up to the professionals.”

  Maybe the man still didn’t know what made her tick, Kate thought. Maybe she didn’t mean enough to Jackson for him to understand the kind of person she was.

  Was he going to be another prince who turned out to be a frog? Had she been right all along, to be afraid that he’d be like all t
he rest? Oh God, her heart began to hurt.

  Damn it, Mom, I told you this was going to happen. Why couldn’t you just have left things alone? Why did you have to bring him into my life?

  “I don’t do standing on the sidelines too well,” she ground out.

  “Maybe you should learn.” If anything had happened to her, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself. Wouldn’t have been able to recover. If not for him, there was no way she would have gotten involved in this.

  “Standing on the sidelines is your calling, not mine.” The accusation came out before she could stop it.

  Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She was not about to explain something he already knew. “I think it’s self-explanatory.” Her voice was cool in sharp contrast to the anger she was feeling.

  He wasn’t in the mood for games. It was all he could do to keep from shouting. “If it was, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

  Kate blew out an angry breath. Maybe he was that dense. “How long have we been seeing each other?”

  Jackson felt as if he’d just been dropped in the middle of the forest in the dark—blindfolded. He knew the answer—almost seven weeks—but it had no bearing on her reckless act. “What the hell does that have anything to do with what we’re talking about?”

  Oh God, it was worse than she thought. He was completely oblivious, wasn’t he? Or, more likely, he didn’t care. How, after all she’d been through, could she have willingly walked into the same situation again? Even idiots learned from their mistakes.

  “Everything,” she retorted. “Where do you get off, telling me what I can and can’t do?”

  “I’m the guy you’ve been sleeping with.” The guy who loves you too much to survive having anything happen to you. He’d been right to try to protect himself. This wasn’t going to work.

  She was right. He didn’t care. He just wanted to control her. No matter how much she wanted him to love her as she was, it wouldn’t change anything. She was an idiot for ever putting her guard down. An idiot for loving him. It was final. Another prince had turned out to be a frog.

  “Is that all that you are?” she challenged.

  This whole conversation was getting convoluted and ridiculous. If he had to explain things to her, maybe there was nothing to explain, at least, not as far as she was concerned.

  Exasperated, he cried, “What do you want from me?”

  “Apparently more than you can give.” She grabbed her purse and pushed the strap on her shoulder. “I have to go.” She didn’t wait for him to say anything. Instead, she crossed straight to the door. “I told Elena and her sister I’d be right back. I just thought you’d want to hear what happened.”

  “Kate—”

  But she didn’t stop, didn’t turn around. Reaching the door, Kate marched out without another word. It took all she had not to slam the door in her wake. That would have been childish. It would have felt good, but it would have been childish. And the pain she felt didn’t belong to a child.

  She forced herself not to run, but it didn’t matter. Jackson didn’t come after her, didn’t call out. Didn’t make any attempt at all to bring her back.

  The pain in her heart grew more intense as she went on walking.

  Jackson stared at the door that Kate had just closed in her wake. He was angry and utterly at a loss as to what had just taken place here. Until she’d walked in, he’d spent the entire morning feeling as if his whole life was being precariously balanced on the edge of a razor-sharp saber. More than once he’d upbraided himself for letting Kate go along with the agents and Elena for the last exchange. So many things could have happened to her. The last half hour before Kate arrived in his office, his head had been filled with recriminations as he cursed himself for not stopping her. Or, since she was determined to go, for not going with her, meeting or no meeting. But he had been needed here and in a moment of weakness, he’d kept his protest to himself.

  But there were so many variables that went into comprising the scenario, so many things that could have gone horribly wrong. Even now, it made him sick to his stomach just to contemplate them.

  Because the thought of losing Kate was too awful to think about. It was Rachel all over again. He’d barely survived that. He couldn’t, wouldn’t go through that again.

  Even so, he could feel himself wavering. Jackson was torn between going after her to tell her everything that was in his heart—and just pulling back and cutting his losses. Reclaiming himself before he was hopelessly and forever lost.

  The decision was taken out of his hands the next moment as his phone rang. Picking up the receiver, he heard the bank’s vice president on the other end. His presence was needed at the Aliso Viejo branch.

  His private life was being temporarily preempted by his professional one.

  “I’ll be right there,” he promised.

  Maybe this was for the best. Maybe he’d just been saved.

  Kate did her best to remain in perpetual motion. She kept busy by helping Elena and Lupe square things away, smoothing out every possible feather that had been ruffled. She called in every favor she could to insure that the sisters would not ultimately be deported. In the interim, she worked with each to insure that their testimony against the traffickers went smoothly.

  Even though he hadn’t tried to contact her since she’d walked out of his office, Jackson was a man of his word. Kate was confident that Elena would not be charged with embezzlement. Kate believed her when Elena tearfully swore she would be grateful for the rest of her life.

  “Just don’t get into any more trouble,” Kate warned affectionately. “And if you need anything at all, be sure to come to me.” She’d pressed one of her business cards into Elena’s hand. Elena held it against her heart as she waved goodbye when Kate drove off.

  With that settled, Kate tried to fill every waking moment with work. She volunteered to pick up the slack at the firm, coming in early, staying late and helping the other lawyers put together briefs.

  But eventually, she had to go home.

  Home to an emptiness that slashed at her as painfully as any knife making contact with her skin.

  She put the TV on the minute she walked in the door and kept it on until she left for work the following morning in an attempt to slay the silence.

  She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t really eat.

  This was ten times worse than when she’d fallen for Matt, she thought. She didn’t know she could hurt this much. There was no place she could go to hide from the pain.

  Jackson’s sudden reversal of behavior had come without warning. Up until then, there hadn’t been so much as a hint of this other side of him. All along, he’d been perfect. His sense of responsibility to his brother, his way of operating at work, the displays of charity, all of it shouted of a man who was decent and kind and good. Granted she’d gradually grown more and more concerned when he hadn’t said anything about his feelings for her, but she’d tried to be patient, because everything good was worth waiting for.

  But she’d gone on waiting. If he did have any deep feelings for her, he kept them to himself.

  It was Jackson’s presumption that he could order her around without verbalizing the least sort of affection for her that finally set her off.

  Damn it, she thought, staring at the ceiling in her bedroom, watching shadows ebb and flow, when was she going to learn? Hadn’t she been the one to profess that she was tired of kissing princes only to discover that they were actually frogs? How many times did that have to happen before she finally got the message?

  The message that not everyone was meant to wind up with someone for life? Her lot fell in with that number, not with the starry-eyed, happily-ever-after crowd. The sooner she accepted that, the better.

  Kate buried her face in her pillow and cried.

  She’d been like this for two weeks now, feeling tears gather in her eyes for the third time that night as she wandered about her house like a gho
st, unable to find a place for herself. She’d rebuffed all her mother’s attempts to get in contact with her, claiming she was incredibly busy. She was not about to talk to her mother about Jackson and that was all her mother was interested in discussing.

  If she didn’t get more than ten minutes’ worth of sleep soon, Kate thought miserably, she was going to fall apart.

  Maybe she needed a prescription for sleeping pills. She really didn’t want to have to go that route, but if she kept up like this, she was going to wind up driving up the wrong freeway ramp or something equally as disastrous. The idea of hurting someone else by accident chilled her heart.

  First thing tomorrow, she decided, she was going to call her doctor and—

  Was that the doorbell?

  Finding herself in the kitchen, Kate stopped and listened. That was the doorbell.

  She glanced at the clock on her microwave. It was almost eleven. Who’d be calling her no—

  Oh God, no. Not now. She shut her eyes, searching desperately for strength. It was her mother, she just knew it. Since she couldn’t get her on the phone, her mother had come in person.

  Go away, Mom.

  The doorbell rang again, longer this time. And then again for a fourth time. Kate sighed. She knew her mother. The woman was quiet but as tenacious as a pit bull when she wanted to be. Her mother would be leaning on that doorbell all night until she opened the door.

  “All right, all right, I’m coming,” Kate shouted as she made her way to the living room. “Did it ever occur to you that I might be sleeping?” she demanded, looking through the peephole.

  “Were you?”

  The voice on the other side of the door was a great deal deeper than her mother’s. And with good reason. It wasn’t her mother.

  It was Jackson.

  “Your mother sent over chicken soup,” he announced, holding a container aloft so that she could see it through the peephole.

  That got her to open the door. “You went to see my mother?” Kate demanded incredulously. He didn’t bother calling her, but he was socializing with her mother?