He got up and ambled toward the group with his hands raised. “Hey, Dixie, is that you?” he called. “What are you doing up here in the middle of the night?”
Immediately, one of the men came toward him, gun drawn. “Stop right there,” he yelled. “What the hell is this—a damn convention?”
Nick asked in his most innocent voice, “What’s going on, guys? Are you lost?”
“Nick?” Dixie said. “You’re supposed to be playing cards at your restaurant.”
“Had a run of bad luck. Thought I’d take a walk, instead.”
“All the way up here?”
“Hitched a ride with Dan Pruitt, who was on his way home from the Cut Loose.”
The parka man said to Nick, “Get over there with that woman. Your luck’s just got a whole lot worse.”
Two more men approached, one sporting a baseball cap and another gun. Dixie said, “I’m the one you want here. I’m the one who’s the reporter and been trying to find you guys so I could scoop a story. Let Nick go. He’s just a cook, opening a new restaurant in town and not anybody you need.”
“Oh, really.” It was a statement, not a question. The man in the parka started to laugh and Nick felt alarm bells go off in his head. This guy knew something about him and it was more than Nick the cook.
Dixie nodded. “Yeah, really. The only thing he’s after is Emeril’s recipe for calamari, and the right wine to go with it. How about this? I’ll stay with you and you let him go. Even if Nick can recognize you, it doesn’t matter all that much. You guys are like smoke, floating around here and there. No one can catch you. They have no idea where to look.”
“You did,” the baseball guy quipped.
“Technically, you caught me, so it doesn’t count. Let Nick start walking back to Whistlers Bend. By the time he reaches anywhere that resembles civilization, you all will be long gone out of here.”
The man in the parka gazed at Nick and said, “She really does think you’re a cook. That is so rich. I bet you fed her a string of lies that would choke a horse.”
He nodded to Dixie. “Sweetheart, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your nice sweetie-pie man here is a big, badass FBI agent.”
This time Dixie laughed. “No, no, no. You got the wrong guy. Nick’s just a cook—well, not just because his ziti is to die for. For a while I thought he was gay, and then I thought he was a smuggler, but…”
Parka man’s eyes met Nick’s. “Gay? Oh, this keeps getting better and better. What the hell did you do—sing show tunes to her?”
Dixie said, “That was for his grandmother, but he’s great at decorating and picking out accessories.” Dixie took Nick’s hand. “Anyway, he’s a cook—or a chef, if you’re feeling fancy about it. Let him go, okay? I’m the one who’s making your life miserable and came up here to find you. He’s an innocent bystander out for a walk, a really long walk.”
The man sobered and waved his gun toward Nick. “Toss out your weapon.”
Dixie shook her head. “You’re not getting it. He doesn’t have one. He’s a cook. C-o-o-k! The only weapon he has is a carving knife or a cheese grater. He’s got a saucier that’s pretty lethal if thrown across the room. Believe me, I did it.”
The man waved his gun at Nick again. “Now. And do it slowly. Two fingers. Nothing funny if you want to keep this little lady healthy.”
The other men gathered around, and Nick reached into his pocket, and took out his SIG and dropped it on the ground. He watched Dixie’s eyes widen to cover her face as parka man said, “Some cook, huh?”
“How’d you get onto me?” Nick asked, trying to figure out where he’d blown his cover.
“We got people in town, too. You and that Wes guy aren’t the only ones with secrets.”
Nick mentally kicked himself in the ass. “Gracie’s ex, Glen. I should have guessed that scum was connected to this operation.”
“Bingo. He keeps an eye out for us—we pay him off. He’d snitch out his own mother for a buck. You must have done some number on him, scared the hell out of him. We had to up our payoff or he was leaving town. He overheard you and Wes talking about being agents. Last I heard from old Glen you and your buddies were doing poker at your place and Red here was doing cho—”
“You’re…you’re an FBI agent?” Dixie interrupted in a squeak that sounded as if she’d just found her voice. She was not taking the news well. What had he expected—hugs and kisses?
“I can explain, Dixie. My plan was to tell you as soon as we caught these guys.”
“FBI as in Federal Bureau of Investigation? Not Food, Beverage and Indigestion or something like that? All those feelings I had were right on, and you let me think they weren’t? All this time I thought you were a cook and that was it, and you agreed? And just for the record, your plan to get these guys sucks.”
Her brow furrowed so deeply her eyebrows met her hairline. Her lips thinned to a slit and she snarled, “You lied to me, Nick Romero. You played me. I was ready to give up my dreams for you.”
“You were?” His chest tightened and he felt sick at what he’d just lost.
She looked at parka man. “You don’t have to bother shooting him. Don’t waste the bullet. I’m going to strangle him with my bare hands.”
She threw down the bag of Peeps, spewing them everywhere, and lunged for Nick, yelling, “You creep! You bastard!”
There was a simultaneous sucking in of air as all the men stepped back and Andy—huffing and snorting—trotted in. All eyes cut to him as Jack yelled from the other direction, “Nobody move. This is the sheriff. Drop your weapons and put your hands over your heads.”
Nick shoved Dixie behind him to get her the hell out of danger as he pulled the gun from the holster at his ankle and trained it on the smugglers. Swear words polluted the air and guns hit the ground like heavy raindrops. She whispered in his ear from behind, “I don’t know how you did that, but it was very cool. But I’m still going to strangle you dead.”
He glanced back to her and gave her a crooked grin. “You’ll have to wait. Jack needs my help right now and I can’t take credit for Andy. I think that was you and the marshmallows. Nice touch.”
“FBI? How could I have missed that one? How could I be so stupid?”
“You’re not stupid. You trusted me, and I’m sorry I betrayed that trust, Dixie.” He didn’t have time for a full apology, but a short one was better than nothing.
“Some investigative reporter I am.” Without waiting for his answer, she started walking toward Jack.
Dammit all. He couldn’t go after her; he had work to do. Maybe later he’d sit her down and explain all this and hope like mad she understood. Except, that could be a hell of a lot of understanding for someone he’d lied to about so much.
FROM THE DEPOT PORCH, Dixie watched Nick handcuff bad guys and collect weapons, and Andy scarf marshmallows. All things considered, it had been a big night for excitement, except that she’d lost Nick along the way. A black Jeep that she didn’t recognize from the Bend approached, adding more headlights to illuminate the area. Two Humvees followed, more tank than truck. Men in black collected the smugglers; others rummaged through the contents of the vans. A box slid from the back, spilling out purses. She remembered the fakes in Nick’s room. Guess he needed visual aids to track down the smugglers. Purses weren’t his specialty. Well, he sure had lying and deception down pat. In that, the man was a real pro.
With everyone busy, she felt it was a good time to make her escape. She’d had enough of smugglers, the FBI and especially Nick Romero to last her awhile. Slowly, she backed around the side of the depot—right into Nick’s front. She’d know the feel of that torso anywhere and she’d never forget the scent of his soap.
“Leaving so soon?”
She turned. “Home would be nice.”
“You have to answer some questions for us, give a statement.”
She parked her hands on her hips. “Okay, here’s a statement for you, buster. Go to hell.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I understand you’re really upset right now and—”
“Upset! This is more than a burned casserole. This is us, you and me. I felt upset the minute FBI got thrown into the mix. Danny going off on a business trip, coming home and making love to me, then serving me with divorce papers, was the lowest of the low. You even got him beat. Congratulations. At least Danny didn’t pump me for information, use me to show him around the town and help him fit in. Although you’ve both succeeded in making me look like a damn fool—I’ll give you that.”
“It’s business, Dixie. FBI business that’s important to a lot of people.”
“Was making love to me part of that business, too?”
“No, dammit. You got caught in the middle. We got caught in the middle. You mean a lot to me, more than you realize. I made love to you because I care for you. I swear I never meant to hurt you.”
“Well, you did, Nick. You really did.” She punched his arm because it was a better solution than crying and she refused to cry, especially over a man. “If you want me to answer questions, you’ll have to arrest me, because I never intend to talk to you again.”
She stepped around him and made for the Camaro, fired it up and headed for Sky Notch. She should tell Maggie and BJ she was okay. She was over her two-hour curfew and they’d be frantic. And she really, really deserved another piece of chocolate cake.
No one stopped her. They probably knew better than to mess with an irate forty-year-old woman who’d just been messed over by one of their own.
She took the back road slow, the night as empty as the feeling in her heart. She should get an SUV…then again she should just sell the Camaro. What good was it if she worked in the city?
She drove up to Maggie’s big post-and-beam house and sat in the car for a moment. She was a jerk magnet. If there was a rotten guy within a fifty-mile radius, she found him.
Well, no more. After the lump in her breast, she’d sworn to follow her dreams, live life on her own terms. She had to focus on that, not Nick and how he’d hurt her and how darn much she cared about him. She’d go home tonight, write her “Smuggler Meets Small Western Town and the FBI” story and send it out to the papers. If she got a job offer anywhere—Alaska, Maine, Timbuktu—she’d take it.
She went inside without knocking. Maggie and BJ sat at the kitchen table and stopped talking. Maggie said, “I got to tell you things were a lot simpler around here when you were content being a waitress at the Sage. Where have you been?” They stood and came over to her. “We were frantic, and Jack and Flynn aren’t picking up their cells. We were getting ready to head into town or go looking for you or something. What the heck happened to you this time?”
“Nick happened.” She sat at the bar in the kitchen, dragged over the cake platter and grabbed a spatula. She scooped a chunk, making sure she got as much icing as possible. This was a big-icing kind of night.
“Well, let’s see,” BJ said. “You’re here eating cake, so you’re safe. That’s good. And we’ve ruled out Nick as gay and a smuggler. So, what’s next?”
“FBI.”
Maggie stared at her for a full minute. “FBI, as he’s in the FBI.”
“Life is full of little surprises. The good news is he and the rest of the band of mighty men captured the smugglers.” Dixie smiled at BJ. “Which means the boys and your mom can come home.”
“I…I had no idea,” Maggie said. “Bet Jack will be shocked Nick is an agent. He didn’t have a clue.”
“Ha!”
Maggie’s eyes drew together and she studied Dixie as she spooned more cake. “Define ha.”
“Jack knew. Flynn knew. Wes is an agent, too. All part of the band of mighty men. I say we take them out back and beat the hell out of ’em.”
BJ stood. “Flynn knew Nick is an agent? My Flynn?” She sliced her hand through the air. “Wait just a minute.” She massaged her forehead. “They were all there tonight with the smugglers. But…but Nick, Jack, Wes and my Flynn stood in that sheriff’s office two days ago and—”
“Your Flynn what?” asked Flynn in a too-cheery voice from the hallway. His tone said, I am in so much do-do, but I’ll try to fake my way out of it. He trooped into the kitchen, followed by Nick and Wes and Jack.
The three women glared at their men.
Chapter Eleven
Maggie nailed Jack with a stare guaranteed to freeze water in ten seconds flat. “You stood in that office of yours and told us—” she waved her hand to include BJ and Dixie “—that Nick Romero was a cook, a chef, nothing more. That you had him checked out—I believe those were your exact words. That he and Wes were just who they said they were, period.”
Jack swallowed. “He was undercover, Mags.”
“Don’t you ‘Mags’ me. You lied to me, to all of us. You didn’t have to do that.”
“And if who Nick really was had slipped out, he would have been in danger and the whole smuggling operation would have been blown to hell and back.”
Flynn folded his arms and said with a disarming smile, “We got the smugglers. Mission accomplished. Everything goes back to normal.”
BJ stared back, not disarmed one bit. “If normal is sleeping in your Jeep tonight.”
“Jeep?” Flynn unfolded his arms, his smile gone. “That’s…unreasonable.”
“What’s unreasonable is that you didn’t trust me to keep your secret.”
“You all talk at the Sage,” Jack said to Maggie. “What if someone overheard you?”
Nick stepped forward. “This is all my and Wes’s fault.” He nodded at Jack and Flynn. “They had to keep their mouths shut. The FBI works that way, especially this time, when we were trying to track down smugglers and had no idea where they were. Passing me off as a cook was the simplest plan.”
He glanced from BJ to Maggie to Dixie, keeping his eyes on her. She didn’t want to look back, but something made her put down the spatula and do it, anyway.
“I apologize for any problems I’ve caused all of you,” he said.
“Me, too,” Wes chimed in.
Nick continued. “Lying is part of this job. And with Dixie after the smuggling story and knowing I was FBI, she would have dogged me at every step and put herself in more danger than she was already in.”
BJ rounded on Dixie. “Danger? What happened? You were there with the smugglers, weren’t you? You didn’t arrive after the fact or watch it from afar the way you promised.”
“Hey, I found Andy. I threw Peeps out the car window on the way here so he’d follow.” She went to cut more cake, but Maggie snagged the platter.
“What happened tonight?”
“The smugglers showed up,” Dixie said. “And Nick came along, and the smugglers recognized him, and that’s how I found out what was going on. Andy charged in, followed by Jack, Wes, Flynn and Sam, and they got the drop on the smugglers. Nick shoved me out of the way, so I wasn’t in all that much danger.” She snagged back the cake.
Maggie cut her attention to Jack. “You saved Dixie?”
“So did I,” Flynn said as he pointed to his chest, the hope of not sleeping in the Jeep shining in his eyes. He tried a sheepish smile. “I’m forgiven?”
BJ closed her eyes for a moment. “Maybe.” She scooped up Angela and headed for the door. Flynn’s grin grew and he gave the thumbs-up sign to the other men as he followed BJ out the door.
“Don’t even think you’re getting off that easy,” Maggie said to Jack. A slow grin brightened her face. “But now that I think about it, there is a way to make it up to me.” She hooked her arm through his and headed for the living room. “I’ve picked out the perfect tux for you. You’ll just love it.”
He turned and frowned over his shoulder, giving Nick the thumbs-down sign.
“I better tell Gracie what’s going on,” Wes said. “My confession’s not going to be pretty, but it’ll be better if she hears it from me instead of the gossip mill, and even though nothing’s official, people will
talk.” He heaved a deep sigh. “She really does think I’m a photographer.” Then he ambled down the hall and left, closing the door after him.
“Well,” Nick said. “That just leaves us.”
“There is no us.” Dixie got a glass of water and studied Nick. So handsome, so strong and brave and determined—and so two-faced.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could think of something else to say, Dixie.”
“There’s nothing left. You’re a terrific FBI agent, and some part of me understands why you did what you did, but I can’t live like that, Nick. How can I ever trust you again? I’ve been down this road before, and I don’t like the view. It’s too…bumpy.”
He sat on a barstool, suddenly exhausted to the core. “I’m retiring, Dixie. That was the plan all along. This is my last job. I’m quitting the bureau and opening a restaurant for real. I thought about opening it in another town, where no one knew me, but I like it here. Whistlers Bend suits me fine…and you’re here.”
“Do you really have a grandmother?”
He grinned. Using his index finger, he swiped icing from the edge of the cake. “You bet. You’d like her, and she’d like you. You have spunk and you don’t let me get away with anything. Everything I told you about her is true except for me giving her the purses and designer stuff for gifts. The guys at the bureau slipped Cher and Oklahoma! in the box for fun. Some fun.”
Dixie leaned against the counter, suddenly feeling as beat as Nick appeared. “Well, there you go. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? One part’s true. One part’s not. What part of you do I trust, Nick? What do I believe in? I’m supposed to think that you can simply quit the bureau and leave your old self behind?”
“Yeah.” The sincere expression on his face nearly convinced her…except he was a skilled liar.
“Maybe…maybe not.” She turned for the hall and he said, “Since you hate my guts already, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
She stopped by the stove and glared. “Good grief, now what?”
“That story you’re going to write about the smugglers—you can’t do it.”
A Fabulous Wedding Page 15