Bewitching: His Secret Agenda

by Carla Neggers

  “Oh, ha ha.” Allie cuffed his arm. “I’ll remember that this Mother’s Day when you come crying to me to help you pick out the perfect gift. And this year you have two mothers to buy for.”

  Jack winced. “Have I ever told you you’re my favorite sister?”

  “It’s too late to suck up now.” But Dean noticed she squeezed Jack’s arm. “Of course, bribes are always welcome. And don’t think Rachel didn’t tell me you said she was your favorite at the wedding.”

  Rachel, Dean knew, was the youngest Martin sibling, a doctor who lived in New York City. Dean stood there, hat in hand, and watched the byplay between this brother and sister. He hadn’t been sure what to expect. With Jack being a cop and Allie a defense attorney, he’d wondered if there would be friction between her and her family.

  He had his answer.

  But were they so close that Jack would do anything for her? Would he break the law? Bend it a little and use his love for his sister as justification? Would he help hide a woman and child?

  Dean couldn’t fault Allie for helping Lynne Addison keep her son away from a possible pedophile. Even if he did wonder how she could represent the man in court in the first place. But when Lynne took Jon with no custodial agreement, she’d broken the law.

  The same law Jack Martin had taken an oath to uphold.

  Allie tossed Dean’s coat at Jack and then gestured for Dean to follow her. He made a mental note to dig into the police chief’s past. There was right and there was wrong. And wearing a uniform and a badge didn’t absolve a man from those two basic facts. Facts that Dean based his career on. Based his life on.

  He followed Allie into the kitchen. The room was a mixture of dark and light—cream walls, white cabinets, granite countertops and a rich, wide-board cherrywood floor.

  “Dean, these are my parents, Larry and Helen Martin,” Allie said. “Mom, Dad, this is Dean Garret. My new bartender.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Dean said, shaking Mr. Martin’s hand. He knew Larry Martin had also been a cop, retiring a few years back from the position his son now held. Allie’s dad was a few inches shorter than his son, with more gray than black in his short hair. Dean turned to Allie’s mother. “I appreciate you having me for dinner.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” Mrs. Martin said.

  “We’re used to Allie bringing home strays,” Jack said drily.

  “Shut it,” Allie told her brother in a singsong voice. “Dean brought you these flowers, Mom.”

  “How lovely.” She took the bouquet and smiled as she trailed her fingertips over the petals. “Thank you, Dean.”

  He nodded, feeling an odd, fluttering sensation in his stomach. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve sworn it was guilt trying to worm its way past his defenses. Which was nuts. He didn’t feel guilty about working this case.

  Of course, he’d never been invited to share Sunday dinner with someone he was investigating.

  “You’ve met Kelsey,” Allie said.

  “Nice to see you again,” he told the redhead.

  Kelsey smirked at Allie, then wiggled her eyebrows. Allie coughed as if covering a laugh. “And this,” she continued quickly as a little girl scampered into the room, her dark blond hair in two high pigtails on top of her head, “is my niece, Emma.”

  Dean liked kids. Really. But they never failed to remind him of what he’d lost. Even his former partner’s three children. If he was still on speaking terms with his family, he’d have more experience around kids, since his brother Ryan and his new wife had a one-year-old daughter. A niece Dean had never met.

  If only Ryan’s new wife hadn’t, at one time, been Dean’s old wife.

  If only Ryan didn’t have what Dean had thought he’d never wanted—and would probably never have.

  He crouched so he and Emma were eye to eye. “Nice to meet you.”

  She pressed her small, warm hand into his. He gently closed his fingers around it, hyperaware of her delicate bones.

  Allie playfully tugged one of Emma’s pigtails. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

  The child’s grin widened, revealing a missing tooth on the bottom. She waved.

  Allie laughed. “What’s gotten into you? Cat got your tongue?”

  Emma shook her head so hard her hair almost hit Dean in the face. He straightened. When she stopped shaking like a wet dog, she stuck her tongue out at Allie.

  “Emma...” Jack said sternly.

  “Relax,” Kelsey said, moving to stand next to him. He slid his arm around her waist. “She’s showing Allie that she still has her tongue.”

  Emma nodded.

  Helen walked by, carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes. “She hasn’t said a word since she came inside.”

  “That’s because she’s not talking,” Kelsey said. “At least not until dessert. Right, Emma?”

  Again, the blonde pixie nodded. She sure was a cute little thing.

  Allie picked up the bowl of rolls; from the slight rise of steam Dean figured they were still warm. “I thought it was physically impossible for Emma not to speak. What’s going on?” she asked.

  “You’ll see,” Kelsey said with a sly grin.

  “Ooh...a secret, huh?” Allie handed the rolls to Jack. “I bet some tickling could get her to spill the beans.”

  This obviously wasn’t the first time Allie and her niece had played this game. No sooner had Allie said the word tickling than Emma gave a high-pitched shriek and bolted, Allie hot on her heels. Larry lifted the platter of sliced roast and sidestepped the pair as they raced out of the kitchen.

  “Everyone take your seat,” Helen said. She opened a drawer and pulled out a corkscrew. “Jack, please tell your sister to stop chasing Emma so we can all sit down.”

  The pair in question burst back into the kitchen, Emma still giggling. Before Dean could evade her, she clutched his leg and swung herself around behind him.

  Allie skid to a stop. “No fair.”

  Emma giggled again.

  “Come on, squirt,” Jack said, picking up his daughter. “The sooner we eat dinner, the sooner we’ll get dessert.”

  At the table, Dean held out Allie’s chair for her, ignoring the chief’s scowl. He took his own seat and forced his mind to clear. To stop thinking about how all of this—the house, the food, the closeness of these people—reminded him of his own family.

  Of how they used to be.

  And he couldn’t believe he was going to admit this, even to himself, but he really did feel guilty, after all. That guilt made him even more uncomfortable when Larry Martin said grace and everyone bowed their heads.

  So what if they’d welcomed Dean into their home? Allowed him to share a meal with them? He had to keep his focus. Just because the Martins seemed like a nice family—hell, they probably were a nice family—that didn’t make a difference to him or what he had to do.

  Without lifting his head, he glanced over to find Jack watching him, mistrust clear in his cold gaze. Dean also had to remember he wasn’t dealing with regular civilians here. Not that some small town chief of police worried Dean. By the time Jack figured out what he was really doing in Serenity Springs—if he figured it out—Dean would be long gone.

  And he’d have the one thing he’d come here to collect.

  A missing woman and her child.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DINNER PASSED WITHOUT INCIDENT. Thank God. But Allie wasn’t taking any chances. She turned on the coffeepot and took down the good cups and saucers from the upper cabinet. During a delicious meal of tender roast beef and all the trimmings, the conversation had been steered toward neutral subjects.

  Mainly because Allie had rarely allowed Jack or her father to get a word in edgewise.

  Or to ask Dean too many personal questions.

&nb
sp; Sure, she was curious about Dean herself, but wanted him to open up on his own. Not because he was being interrogated.

  After Allie convinced her mom she deserved to relax after doing most of the cooking, Helen, along with her husband, Kelsey and Emma, went into the living room. Jack and Dean stayed behind to help Allie clear the table.

  Her best bet would be to keep her brother and Dean as far away from each other as possible. Easier said than done, since Jack seemed more interested in loading the dishwasher than joining his wife and daughter in the other room.

  Dean came into the kitchen and set a stack of dirty plates on the counter. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “You wash,” she said, tossing a towel over her shoulder before handing him a bottle of liquid soap, “and I’ll dry.”

  He unbuttoned his sleeves at the wrist and rolled them to his elbows before squirting in soap and filling the sink with hot water.

  “We’ve got this under control,” she told Jack, who’d just added detergent to the dishwasher. “Why don’t you join everyone else?”

  “No sense you two doing all the work.” He snatched the towel off her shoulder. “Besides, this is a great opportunity for me to get to know your new employee.”

  Oh, she didn’t like that glint in her brother’s eyes.

  “Allie says you’re new in town,” Jack said to Dean. He held the towel out of Allie’s reach when she tried to grab it.

  “I got in on Wednesday.”

  “What made you come to Serenity Springs?”

  Dean washed and rinsed the gravy boat. Handed it to Jack. “I heard about the job opening. Thought I’d check it out.”

  “Not very many people outside of town have heard about The Summit.” Jack handed the dry dish to Allie to put away. “Or that it had an opening for a bartender.”

  “That was so subtle,” Allie said. “Don’t tell me, when you were in New York, you always got to play the bad cop?”

  “Only on even days.” He dried a bowl. “I’m trying to get to know our guest. Unless—” he glanced at Dean “—you have something to hide?”

  “He doesn’t.” She snatched the bowl from him. “But that doesn’t mean you have the right to interrogate him, either.”

  “I spent the last few months in Syracuse,” Dean said mildly, “and I saw the ad for the job opening online.”

  “Syracuse?” Jack asked. “That’s a long way from... where is it you said you were from? Denver?”

  Dean kept his head down as he scrubbed the roasting pan. Why were men who were up to their elbows in dish suds so damn sexy? “Dallas.”

  “How’d you end up in Syracuse?”

  Allie managed to snatch the towel out of Jack’s hands. She stood between the men and glared at her brother, her hands fisted on her hips. “What is up with the interrogation?”

  She’d hate for Dean to be scared away by Jack’s tough cop routine. Plus, it was humiliating to have Jack acting like they were teenagers again and she’d brought home a boy for the first time.

  “It’s all right.” Dean skimmed his wet fingers over her arm, giving her goose bumps. “A buddy of mine from the Corps lives in Syracuse. He got me a job at a hotel his sister managed there.”

  “Since you’re here, I take it that didn’t work out. Did you get fired?”

  She squeezed the towel between her hands and pretended it was her brother’s fat neck. “Jack, I swear—”

  “My full name is Dean William Garret,” he said, shifting so that he stood beside her, facing Jack. Though his voice was still low, she detected a thread of impatience. “Allison has my social security number and birth date from my job application. I was born and raised outside of Dallas, joined up when I was twenty-one and spent the next nine years in the service.”

  “You don’t have to tell him any of this,” Allie said.

  Dean dried his hands on the towel she still held. “As you said, I have nothing to hide.”

  She bit her lower lip. She believed that. Didn’t she?

  “I’m divorced,” he continued. “No kids. I served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. After my discharge—”

  “Honorable?” Jack asked.

  Allie tossed the towel at him, but he caught it before it hit his face. “You are going to pay for this,” she promised.

  Jack slung the towel around his neck, held on to the ends. “You’ll thank me if he’s AWOL and they have a warrant out for him.”

  This whole thing was surreal. Jack had always been overprotective, but he was going overboard. Just because she’d been taken advantage of by a few of her previous employees... It was as if she was seeing her brother as a cop, for the first time.

  She couldn’t say she much cared for it.

  And honestly, witnessing these two facing off was getting on her nerves. Jack was cool and in control, while Dean stood unflinching, his attitude laid-back. But his body was tense, as if gearing up for a fight.

  And wouldn’t that be a lovely way to end the evening?

  “I’m not AWOL,” Dean said. “I served my country and was honorably discharged.”

  “And haven’t had a steady job since?” Jack pressed.

  “That’s it,” Allie snapped as she seized Jack’s arm and hauled him toward the door. “Go into the living room and cool your jets,” she told him, “and maybe I’ll speak to you again in five years.”

  “I was trying—”

  “Yeah, yeah. You were trying to help. Trying to protect me. I get it.” She shook her head, unable to keep the anger and disappointment out of her voice as she said, “But you overstepped, Jack.”

  He stared at Dean for two long heartbeats before nodding.

  Her shoulders slumped as she watched Jack disappear into the living room.

  “You all right?” Dean asked.

  She straightened and faced him. “Fine.” She crossed back to the counter and picked up a large serving tray. Yanking open the silverware drawer, she scooped up a handful of dessert forks. “I’d apologize for my brother, but really, what’s the point?”

  Dean let the water out of the sink. “He’s just doing his job.”

  She slammed the drawer shut. “Even cops have days off.”

  “Not that job.” He dried his hands. “The job of watching out for you. That’s what older brothers are for.”

  “Is that what you do for your brothers?”

  His hesitation was brief but noticeable. “I think it’s different with sisters.”

  She tossed the forks onto the tray with a loud clang. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Give me a nonanswer when I ask you something? If it’s too personal, just say so.”

  “It’s too personal.”

  “See?” she asked irritably. “That wasn’t so hard.” She turned her back on him, set dessert plates on the tray before spinning around again. “It’s not like I expect you to share all your secrets with me just because I hired you—despite your less than stellar résumé.”

  His brow furrowed. “You hired me because you were desperate.”

  She waved that distinction away. “I’m giving you a chance.”

  “And I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude,” she almost growled.

  “What do you want then?”

  A straight answer. To stop feeling like she’d been wrong to hire him. To trust him.

  She wanted him to do or say something that would put her mind at ease about him.

  “Nothing.” She went to the refrigerator for the milk. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at Jack and taking it out on you.” She poured milk into a ceramic creamer. “It’s not like we’re friends, right? And it’s obvious you want to keep it that way—”

  “You’re my boss,” he pointed
out.

  She flashed him a forced smile as she put the milk away, opened the freezer and took out a gallon of vanilla ice cream. She set it on the counter. “That I am. And even though I have friendships with several of my employees—and am related to my manager—you and I will keep our relationship strictly business from here on out.”

  Despite the fact that she’d invited him to Sunday dinner. And that he’d accepted.

  Or that he’d kissed her last night.

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “I doubt someone like you needs any more friends. You probably have more than you know what to do with.”

  “True.” She put the coffeepot on the tray along with the sugar bowl. “I just thought...”

  “What?”

  “I thought maybe you could use one.”

  He looked shocked and, to her surprise, insulted. “I’m an island.”

  She grinned. “Like I said, I’ll leave you alone. Can you get the tray for me, please?”

  She picked up the apple pie and ice cream and headed to the door. She’d made it to the threshold when he said, “It’s nothing personal.”

  “You don’t have to ex—”

  “I had a...falling-out with my family,” he said, unrolling his sleeves, “and we haven’t spoken for a while.”

  “I’m sorry.” Even as mad as she was with Jack, she couldn’t imagine not seeing him, talking with him—or anyone else in her family. “I shouldn’t have pressed. Let’s forget I said anything.”

  “I hate spiders.”

  She frowned. Maybe all of this talk about opening up had pushed the poor guy over the edge. “Excuse me?”

  “Spiders.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I hate them.”

  She adjusted her grip so that the pie pressed against her rib cage, taking some of the weight off her wrist. Dean seemed at ease in her mother’s kitchen. He leaned back against the counter, his shoulders relaxed, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

  But there was a challenge in his eyes. As if he was daring her to say something about what he’d admitted. And that’s when she realized he didn’t just hate spiders. He was afraid of them.