Secret Agent Dad

by Metsy Hingle

  “Thanks,” he said, not even bothering to look up from his task.

  She’d hoped the reply would coax a laugh from him, or at least a smile. It didn’t. She was still mulling over her disappointment to lure him out of his unhappy mood when he handed her back the peaches. As she reached for the jar, their fingers brushed. And a sizzle of heat shot through Josie’s body. From the darkening of Blake’s eyes, she knew he had felt the spark, too.

  “This isn’t getting any easier for either of us, is it?”

  “No,” she admitted, not bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Sooner or later something’s got to give, Josie. I want you, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I don’t intend to let you hurt me.” But despite her brave words, she was no longer sure of that. And the realization unnerved her, frightened her.

  “I need answers—for both of our sakes. If you’ll watch the twins, I’d like to try to make it to my car. It’s a long shot that I’ll find any ID or that the registration papers will tell me much, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “You can’t go out in this,” she argued, panicked at the thought of him getting lost in the storm or worse yet, hurt again. “You’re injured, Blake. It’s crazy to even consider such a thing.”

  “I have to try,” he told her.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to know who I am. I need to know if you can trust me.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” he said, frustration in his voice. “Because even I don’t trust me—and I won‘t—not until I know why I was carrying a gun and all that money. And don’t tell me there’s a logical explanation. Because if there is one, I sure as hell haven’t been able to come up with it.”

  The scowl on his face and the tension in his body told her just how on edge he was. “It’s only been a week. Give yourself time. Your memory will come back.”

  “Always ready to defend me, aren’t you, angel?” he replied, stroking her cheek. “Honey, if you have an ounce of self-preservation, you’d kick my butt out of here right now.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, Blake.”

  He caught her chin in his band. “You should be,” he said, his voice as dark and dangerous as his expression. “I want you, Josie, and I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to keep my distance.”

  Her pulse scattered at his words, at the raw hunger in his eyes. She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe he could actually want her in such a way. And if she believed him, she would be a fool. “If that was meant to scare me, then you misfired, cowboy. I don’t scare easily, and I told you I’m not afraid of you.”

  He released her, but there was no mistaking the cool censure in his eyes. She didn’t know what to make of him. And she was terribly worried that she would read far more into the situation than she should.

  “Let’s at least be honest, Blake. I’m not blind. I know I’m not the kind of woman who drives men to lust. I’m just...me. Just Josie. And I know there’s nothing special about me. I’m a widow living on a farm for Pete’s sake. There aren’t any men beating a path to my door, and there never will be. And if you weren’t stuck here, you wouldn’t look at me twice.”

  He was furious, if the ruddy color in his cheeks was anything to go by. “Obviously you need a new mirror,” he said, in a voice so low and tight with anger that a chill chased down her spine. “And I can only assume the men around here are blind. As for me, don’t even attempt to assume you know what I would or wouldn’t do.”

  Unable to speak, Josie simply stared at him. She squeezed both of her hands around the jar of baby food to keep them from shaking.

  “You want honesty, my ‘nothing special, just Josie’?” he said, moving a step closer. “Then I’ll be honest and tell you that I am lusting after you. And there hasn’t been a single night that’s gone by that I haven’t lain awake on that couch when what I wanted was to walk down the hall to your bedroom and join you in that bed.”

  Words failed her. She felt hot. She felt cold. Her heart raced so fast that Josie was sure it would burst. She clutched the baby food jar even tighter to keep it from slipping from her suddenly damp palms. And despite the romantic flutter that went all the way to her soul, she’d be darned if she’d make a fool of herself—not with him, not with Blake. She simply couldn’t bear it if she did. Pride had seen her through the worst of times. Pride would see her through this. “What you feel is the need to reaffirm life. It’s a survival instinct.”

  He didn’t contradict her. He simply waited, which only added to her uneasiness. “It’s the situation that we’re in,” she explained with a calmness that belied the turmoil going on inside her. “Proximity and the fact that we’re trapped here together in a life-threatening situation like this brings out the primal instincts in people. Your accident and the loss of memory have further triggered those instincts. Your need to mate with me is simply your way of reaffirming that you’ve survived.”

  “Angel, you really do take the cake! I tell you that I want you, that I’m within a breath of tossing you onto the nearest bed and having sex with you, and you stand there and lecture me about primal instincts and my need to mate to reaffirm my survival?”

  Excitement shimmered through her at his words, at the look in his eyes—like he truly wanted her, found her desirable. And darn it, if she didn’t want to believe him.

  “How in the hell have you managed to survive all these years?”

  His angry tone held the cold slap of reality and cleared away her fanciful notions. “Believe me, Blake, if there’s one thing I’ve learned to do it’s how to survive.” And with a heart that always dove first and regretted later, she’d had plenty of practice. Despite the emptiness that filled her when she thought of Blake and the twins leaving, she would survive that, too, Josie promised herself. Miranda’s whimper pulled her from her gloomy thoughts. “And speaking of survival, this pair wants to be fed. Or do I need to remind you of the joys of being awakened at 4:00 a.m. when these two get off schedule?”

  The reminder of the middle-of-the-night crying and subsequent bottle feedings should have cleared all thoughts of Josie and sex from his mind, Blake reasoned. It didn’t. Although the demanding wails of the twins had dragged him from yet another disturbing dream, when he’d stumbled from the couch to check on them he’d run smack into one of his fantasies come to life—Josie all soft and flushed from sleep, her hair loose and mussed, her feet bare. The cotton robe she wore was as practical as it was old. But the sloppily tied belt provided him with a front-row view of the silky, feminine concoction that she wore beneath it. The hint of curves shielded by that silk had him hard in an instant. So when she gazed up at him with those shy, hungry eyes, he’d been sorely tempted to part the robe and discover her secrets.

  That he could seduce her, Blake didn’t doubt. Josie was attracted to him—a fact she gave away each time she looked at him. But there was an innocence, a vulnerability about her that touched something deep inside him, a part of him that he suspected hadn’t been touched by anyone or anything for a very long time. He didn’t know how he knew that. He just did. And he couldn’t shake the feeling that whoever and whatever he was, there was no room in his life for a woman—certainly not a woman like Josie. She deserved better. She saw herself as ordinary—a woman not likely to turn a man’s head. But in truth she was far from ordinary and all the more special because of her strength and lack of artifice.

  Suddenly an image of another woman, an exquisite woman with long, blond hair, wide-set eyes and sculptured features, who possessed the same strength and determination as Josie, filled his mind’s eye....

  “I worry for Miranda and Edward,” she told him, her blue eyes filled with concern. Her gaze strayed out of the window of the plane waiting to depart Obersbourg with her and her son for Texas. “They are so tiny, helpless. It is wrong of me to leave them like this?”

  “Listen to me. You’re not leaving th
em. You’re entrusting them to me. You have got to get yourself and your son away from here. Let me worry about getting the twins out.”

  “But what if you fail? If the soldiers should discover you...”

  “They won’t,” Blake assured her. He didn’t need to voice what would happen to him if he failed—not when her eyes reflected her horror at that thought.

  “I have no right to ask this of you. The risk to you is too great.”

  “You didn’t ask, Anna. I volunteered to go to Asterland.”

  “I do not deserve your kindness, and I should refuse to let you take such a risk, but I cannot refuse, because each day that Miranda and Edward remain in Asterland, the danger to them increases, ” she said, the barest hint of an accent in her voice. “I fear for their lives, Blake. I keep worrying that—”

  He caught her cold hands and held them between his. “Let me do the worrying, Anna. You concentrate on turning little William into a cowboy. ”

  Her gaze shifted to the small, quiet boy playing with the toy horse. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  He nodded and released her. “Now, we don’t have much time. I need you to describe the layout of the palace for me....”

  “Blake?”

  Just as quickly as the memory had come, it was gone. No beautiful blonde named Anna filled his line of vision now. Only Josie. While the other woman had been physically more beautiful and had moved him with her concern for the twins, she had not stirred his heart and body as Josie did. But Josie wasn’t a woman who would play games with a man, and she wasn’t a woman who would give herself lightly. When she gave herself, she would give her heart, too.

  That’s what worried him. Because no matter how much he wanted Josie, he didn’t deserve her or her love. Not when all he had to offer were patches of memory that pointed to a less-than-stellar past, a past that could hurt her. Honor demanded that when he left this place, when he left Josie, that he leave both her body and her heart untouched. But sometimes, he decided at the all-too-familiar ache below his waist, being honorable really did suck.

  “Um, Blake? Unless you want to wear that lunch, you might want to start feeding some of it to Miranda.”

  Blake jerked his attention to the baby, who was chewing on a fist that showed signs of a trip through the dish of peach mush. She angled her other fist for a second swipe at the baby food. “Not so fast, sugar britches,” he said, moving the dish out of harm’s way. “No two-fisted eaters in this house.”

  Evidently thinking it was a game, Miranda relinquished her tasty fingers to smack that hand into the dish. Gold and green yuck splattered on the table. Blake jumped back to avoid getting hit. “Talk about impatient females,” he muttered while he attempted to wipe up part of the mess.

  “Don’t worry about the table,” Josie told him, laughter in her voice. “It’ll clean easily enough.”

  “What about her?”

  Josie chuckled. “Her, too. You’ve done a good job with them, Blake. They’re both healthy, happy babies.”

  She was again referring to the twins as though they were his. He started to correct Josie, but decided not to bother. He may not remember who or what he was, but he did know that whoever Anna was, she and the twins didn’t belong to him. He had a nagging feeling that his life-style precluded a family—which brought back the question of who did the twins belong to and why they were with him. Miranda’s baby jibberish derailed his questions. He drew his focus back to her as she attempted to eat the spoon. He smiled. “Like that, do you?” he asked and gave her another scoop of peaches.

  From the corner of his eye, he spied Josie stealing a peek at his dish. “Is there a reason you aren’t giving her any spinach?”

  “Sure. I hate spinach, and this stuff looks particularly disgusting.”

  “Try alternating. Give her a bite of the peaches, then try the spinach.”

  He didn’t see why the kid couldn’t just eat peaches if that’s what she liked. But following Josie’s instructions, he offered Miranda a spoon of strained spinach. The little scamp spit it right out. After two more tries with the same results, he tossed down the spoon. “That’s it. She doesn’t like spinach, and I can’t say that I blame her. No way would I eat this stuff.”

  Josie sighed. “She’s a baby, and she needs the vitamins. Mix some of it in with the peaches, and then try to give it to her.”

  He did, but with no better results. “She’s not buying it,” Blake told her a few minutes later. “The kid’s too smart to fall for it.”

  “Keep trying. At least try to get her to eat a little of it.”

  Noting a change in the gibberish noises Miranda was making, Blake swiveled his attention back to her—just in time to see her warming up for a sneeze. “Wait,” he commanded and scrambled to grab a napkin.

  But the little darling didn’t wait. She sneezed, letting out a hearty “scheww,” that sent a spray of strained spinach and peaches across the front of his shirt and the right side of his cheek. “Oh, God, that’s gross!” Seeing no other option, he attempted to wipe Miranda’s little nose, then snatched another mountain of napkins and cleaned the mess off of his cheek. Josie’s laughter added insult to the injury. “Think it’s funny, do you?”

  Still laughing, she nodded. “Oh, Blake. You should see...your face,” she sputtered and broke into another fit of giggles.

  When she straightened to wipe the tears from her eyes, he was ready and catapulted a spoonful of spinach mush at her. It hit her square on the chin. “I wonder if it looks anything like that?” The shocked expression on her face was priceless, Blake decided, and he started to chuckle himself. He was just warming up to a belly laugh when she fired a spinach missile at him. It exploded on the corner of his bottom lip.

  “Oh my,” Josie exclaimed, evidently surprised by what she’d done. “Blake, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  He spit out the spinach—which tasted even more disgusting than he’d imagined. “What do you say, Miranda? Should we retaliate?” Miranda gave him a toothless smile and clapped her messy hands together. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Now, Blake,” Josie said, scooting her chair back from the table. “You don’t want to do something you’ll be sorry for. Not in front of the children.”

  “You guys mind?” he asked, pausing to swing a glance at the twins before he advanced on her. “They don’t mind.”

  “Blake, no!”

  She shrieked and turned to run. He tackled her and they both hit the floor. Straddling her, he stretched her hands above her head, where he locked the delicate wrists in one of his fists. Feeling lighthearted and caught up in the silly mood, he adapted what he hoped passed as a pirate’s voice, “Okay, mates. She’s our prisoner now. How shall we punish her?”

  Giggling, Josie bucked beneath him, her body pushing against the area between his thighs. He responded immediately to the innocent caress—a fact that she didn’t miss. She tipped her gaze up to his, and suddenly the laughter died on her lips. The surprise and yearning in those green eyes stole his breath, and what started out as a game threatened to become a lot more serious. Fighting for control, he released her hands and started to lever himself away from her when she whispered, “Blake?”

  He froze, every muscle in his body strained at the invitation in her eyes. The male animal in him screamed to accept her invitation and lose himself in her softness. But his conscience told him he couldn’t. “The crew says I’m to let you go.”

  Her hands cupped his face, and he shuddered at her touch. He could feel himself sinking fast. “Funny,” she said, “I could have sworn they said they wanted me to give you a kiss for them.”

  “Angel, we agreed this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “No, Blake. ‘We’ didn’t agree on anything. ‘You’ told me it wasn’t a good idea.”

  “And it’s not,” he insisted.

  “You’re right. It probably isn’t,” she told him as her fingers traced the shape of his lips. “But being a good girl hasn’t
exactly paid off for me. None of those fairy-tale dreams I had of a handsome prince falling in love with me, of having a family of my own ever came true. I’m tired of being a good girl, Blake. For once I think I’d like to be bad.”

  He sucked in a breath as she planted a string of soft kisses along his jaw. With effort he kept his body rigid and his hands from reaching for her. “You’d do better to hold out for that prince, angel. I have nothing to offer you.”

  She lifted her gaze, met his eyes. “I don’t recall asking you for anything. All you have to do is let me give.”

  Then she was giving, pressing her lips against his. Her kiss was shy and sweet and brave. Like her. When she probed the seam of his lips with her tongue, he tried to resist her and failed. He opened his mouth. Blake told himself he could control things. After all, they had kissed before. How much harm could it be to share another kiss with her?

  But this wasn’t just another kiss. She touched her tongue to his so innocently, so sweetly, that he couldn’t stop himself from responding. He tangled his tongue with hers, touching, exploring, feasting. He wanted to give back to her some of the magic she gave him, to show her she was beautiful, desirable, special—not ordinary as she believed. He wanted to show her all of those things that he couldn’t find the words to say. So he deepened the kiss.

  As though she’d been waiting for some signal, she turned to wildfire in his arms, and her response dragged him deeper into the flames. Nothing had changed, he reasoned, even as he felt himself being sucked under. He still didn’t know who he was, what kind of man he was, what in the hell he was involved in. But at the moment none of it seemed to matter. All that mattered was Josie. Here. Now. In his arms. He wanted her. He wanted her more than his next breath.

  Any noble thoughts he’d had about being honorable deserted him. Honor couldn’t fill this emptiness inside him. Honor couldn’t make him feel whole. Josie could. He reached for the snap of her jeans, already anticipating the feel of her skin. Then he heard it—the sudden thud, the sound of glass shattering and the startled cries of the babies.