The Agent's Secret Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

Adam made certain to appear unfazed. “Word gets around. You’ve got a good product.”

  Sederholm nodded, preening. “Yeah, it’s damn good all right.” And then he frowned slightly. “But if you want that much of it, you might have to wait a little,” he warned.

  “If this is too much for you to handle, I can always take my business—”

  “I didn’t say it was too much for me,” Sederholm cut in angrily. “It’s just going to take a little longer to get it all together, that’s all.” Pausing, he was apparently trying to think, but there were times, like now, when the process appeared difficult for him. Undoubtedly, he’d been sampling “the product” again. “When do you need the stuff by?”

  Adam eyed the student. “I was thinking now.”

  Sederholm was taken aback. And then he laughed. It was a nasty sound. “Right, like I carry that kind of stash on me. What are you, crazy?”

  Again, Adam shrugged nonchalantly. “Got a lot of antsy customers.”

  Sederholm shut his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face. “How’s tomorrow sound?”

  “Not as good as today,” Adam replied without hesitation, “but it’ll do. Where and when?”

  “I’ll call you,” he said cavalierly.

  Adam resisted the urge to pat Sederholm on the head, the way he might have to a dim-witted toady who’d tried too hard. He didn’t want to put the kid off until the sting went down, and right now, the timetable was still unclear.

  So instead, he smiled complacently and said, “You do that.”

  Adam waited until he was back in his car, driving north on University Road and away from the forty-five-year-old college campus before he put in a call to his handler via his Bluetooth.

  “Looks like the plan’s working,” he told the man. “Sederholm’s going to his source sometime between today and tomorrow.”

  “The big fish?” he heard Hugh ask.

  He only wished. “Right now, it sounds like the medium fish. But it’s only a matter of time. We keep doing business with him and we place an order big enough, medium fish is going to have to get in contact with big fish,” Adam theorized.

  “And then we’ll reel them in.” He heard Hugh allow himself a sliver of optimism. “Meanwhile, you know what to do.”

  “Yeah.” He knew what to do. Continue leading his double life—and deceiving Eve. The longer he stayed undercover like this, the greater the odds were that someone was going to get hurt. One way or another, it seemed inevitable.

  “Something wrong?” He and Hugh had been together long enough for him to know that though it didn’t sound it, Hugh was concerned.

  “I’m going to need a little time away from the job today,” Adam told his handler.

  “All right,” Hugh allowed cautiously. There was leeway within their framework. “How little and is it going to get in the way of anything?”

  “An hour, maybe less. Around one,” Adam added. “And no, it’s not going to get in the way of anything.” Just my conscience, he said silently. “I’ve got someone covering for me at the bookstore.” He didn’t bother adding that the woman, somewhere in her sixties, was a dynamo who had reorganized all his shelves the first week she was hired. “You’re going to have to get someone to keep tabs on Sederholm. The kid drives a 2009 silver Lexus SC 430 convertible. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem spotting him wherever he goes.”

  Adam heard Hugh whistle. “Wish my mommy and daddy gave me a sixty-five-thousand-dollar car.”

  “More like sixty-seven point six,” Adam corrected. Handing over the keys to that kind of vehicle to an immature brat seemed unfathomable to him.

  “I can get Chesterfield to follow him,” Hugh told him. “Chesterfield likes surveillance work.”

  Surveillance work was something he really hated. Though he considered himself tenacious, sitting in a car for hours on end drove him up a wall. He could literally feel life slipping through his fingers on a stakeout. He was a man who valued action, not stagnation.

  “Different strokes for different folks, I guess,” Adam commented. “More power to him.”

  “That’s what makes the world go around,” Hugh agreed. The next moment, the line went dead. Adam closed his cell phone. He was accustomed to Hugh’s calls. The handler wasn’t one to stand on ceremony. When he was done, he was done.

  One o’clock had Adam hurrying down the corridor of the maternity ward. He carried a bouquet of red roses in one hand and a teddy bear sporting a pink bow and a pink tutu in the other. Neither, he knew, was exactly very original, but the offerings were the best he could do on short notice. Undertaking yet another life, bringing him to a grand total of three, was running him ragged.

  Eve didn’t even know his real last name. He was still lying to her and calling it the truth. How was she going to handle that? he thought uneasily. How was she going to feel when she found out that all of this, the secondhand bookstore, the so-called life of a drug dealer, all of that was just a setup, a sham, a means to an end?

  Why was he even wondering about that, he upbraided himself. He would be out of her life before that happened, not settling in for good.

  If a part of him yearned for love and family, well, he would have to bank it down. He knew what he was signing on for when he volunteered for this kind of work. There wasn’t going to be a happy ending for him after two hours, when the credits rolled. This was real life and it was gritty.

  When he reached Eve’s room, he heard voices coming from inside. Specifically, a male voice. Was that her doctor?

  The moment he opened the door, Adam knew the small, trim, older man, dressed in tan slacks and a dark blue sports jacket, was not a doctor. Doctors were given to scrubs and lab coats, not expensive suits he was fairly certain came from a high-end shop. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, the man wore a tie. The tidy Van Dyke gray beard he sported made him look old enough to be her grandfather. But Adam knew she didn’t have one.

  Who was this man?

  Adam cleared his throat, crossed the threshold and gave the door a little push with his elbow, closing it behind him. When Eve looked his way, he said, “Hi.”

  Everything inside of her lit up before she could tell it not to. Why didn’t she know better?

  “Hi,” she answered. Her eyes strayed toward the bouquet. There were at least a dozen and a half roses swaddled in green and white tissue paper with sprigs of baby’s breath tucked in between the blossoms. “Are those for me?” Eve prodded when Adam made no effort to give her the bouquet.

  “Well, they’re not for me,” the man on the other side of her bed observed. “For one thing, this young man had no way of knowing that I would be here.”

  “They’re for you,” Adam murmured, feeling damn awkward as he almost thrust the bouquet at her. This was a bad idea, he thought. He should have realized that she’d have company. She was far too outgoing a woman not to.

  “They’re lovely,” she said, inhaling deeply. They were the fragrant kind, her favorite type of roses.

  Adam could feel steely gray eyes regarding him for a long moment, obviously assessing him.

  “And you are?” Eve’s dapper companion finally asked as he passed the man while crossing to the sink. Opening the cabinet below, Adam took out a pink pitcher and filled it with water, then brought it over to Eve. Only once he deposited the bouquet, stripped of its tissue paper, into the pitcher and placed it on her table did he answer the man’s question. “Adam. Adam Smythe.”

  The look on the older man’s gaunt face seemed to say that he knew better. “Of course you are,” he said with the air of man humoring someone of far less mental acuity. “Well, Adam Smith—”

  “Smythe,” Adam corrected, giving it the standard British pronunciation.

  “Sorry, Smythe,” the older man amended, “I’m Josiah Turner.”

  Adam’s eyes widened and he looked at Eve. “That’s Josiah Turner?”

  Until that moment, she’d forgotten that she’d referred to Josiah as the man she was currentl
y involved with. Eve pressed her lips together. “I was in labor. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Josiah’s voice warmed as he turned toward Eve. “I’ve known Eve since she was a little girl. I’d bring my dogs in to be treated by her father and Eve would be there, soaking up everything her father did like a sponge. I knew she’d be a good veterinarian even then.” The steely eyes narrowed as Josiah shifted his focus back to him. “And how do you know her?”

  Adam had no idea how much or how little Eve wanted him to admit, so he kept the narrative vague. “I met her when she came into my bookstore in Santa Barbara. She was looking to buy a first edition Mark Twain for her father. I had an original copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Just yesterday I ran into her again.” Adam looked at Eve. “Small world.”

  Josiah obviously had another take on the events. “You were stalking her?”

  The accusation, politely worded, stunned Adam. “No,” he denied vehemently. Who was this man?

  Josiah didn’t seem particularly convinced or contrite. Instead, his shoulders shifted in what constituted a minor shrug.

  “My mistake.” However, he gave no indication that he was ready to move on to another topic. “So you both just happen to transplant yourselves to the same city—or are you here on a visit, Adam?”

  Adam felt as if he was being subtly grilled. “I relocated my shop.”

  “Interesting,” Josiah commented. “And what is your shop called?”

  “New Again,” Adam told him.

  Josiah nodded. “I must look you up when I get the chance. As it happens, I like first editions myself. Of course,” he slanted a glance toward Eve, and Adam noted that the older man’s look softened considerably as he did so, “I’m old enough to have been around for a great many of these books when they were first editions.”

  “You’re not that old, Josiah,” Eve insisted with a warm smile.

  The man leaned forward and patted her hand. “You have no idea how old I really am, my dear. It’s a state secret—and I intend to keep it that way.” He took her hand in his. “Since you have a visitor, I’ll take my leave now. But I’ll be back tonight. Call me if there’s anything special I can bring you when I return.” He kissed her hand, then released it as he straightened. The smile on his face vanished as he regarded Adam. “Adam,” he acknowledged with a nod of his head, and with that, moving with considerable grace and agility, Josiah Turner made his way to the door.

  Adam watched the door close behind the man. “That’s quite a character. Is he a relative?”

  “In name only.” When Adam looked at her quizzically, she explained, “When I was a little girl, I thought he was my father’s uncle so I called him my great-uncle. He’s a very sweet man. He had a daughter, but she’s married and living out of the country. England, I think. I’m the only ‘family’ he has, if you don’t count Lucas.”

  “Lucas?”

  “His driver. Actually, Lucas is more of an assistant slash companion, although I doubt Josiah would call him that.”

  “How did he know you were in the hospital?” Adam asked, rearranging the roses so that they were more even. He had a thing about symmetry.

  “I forgot he had an appointment this morning,” she said ruefully. “Annual shots for his Doberman, Edgar. When he found Vera there instead of me, he asked her where I was and she told him that Brooklyn arrived early. He brought the baby a present.” She’d assumed that the old man would, but she hadn’t been prepared for what the gift turned out to be. She glanced down at the card Josiah had brought. “I’ve got to find a way to make him take it back.”

  Eve didn’t strike him as the type to refuse a gift. Doing so would most likely offend the man and that didn’t seem like something she would be willing to do. “Why? What is it?”

  Instead of telling him, Eve took the card out of its envelope and opened it. She held up what had been tucked inside the card.

  Taking it from her, he turned it around. It was a check. A rather large check. Adam looked at her incredulously. “He gave you a check for twenty thousand dollars?”

  What kind of man just hands over a check for that amount of money?

  She nodded, taking the check and putting it back into its envelope. For now, she put it into the drawer of her side table. It made her uneasy just looking at it. “It’s the tuition to an exclusive nursery school,” she told him. “He told me he had a friend who could get her placed near the top of the waiting list.”

  Adam looked at her sharply.

  Chapter 7

  Because of the deceptions he was forced to employ in his daily life, Adam’s suspicions were immediately aroused. “Is this Josiah guy usually so generous?”

  It was the largest monetary gift Josiah had ever given her, but as she thought back, Eve realized that the man had been generous to her over the years. There’d been a sizable “contribution” to her college fund when she’d gone off to become a veterinarian. And every birthday and Christmas were observed with cards. The cards were never empty.

  “Pretty much,” she confirmed. “From what my father indicated, Josiah has a sizable amount of money, more than he needs.”

  “How much is ‘sizable’?” he asked her. Was Josiah involved in this drug cartel he was looking to bring down? Stranger things had turned out to be true. Maybe this man with no visible means of support actually made a living importing drugs.

  “Enough,” she answered carefully. She didn’t like his tone. An uneasiness began to weave itself through her. She could feel herself growing very protective of Josiah. “What is it you’re thinking?”

  Adam shrugged. He couldn’t very well come out and tell her what he was thinking. “Just wondering how he made his money, that’s all.”

  That wasn’t all. She was willing to bet on it. “The old-fashioned way,” she answered tersely.

  He’d annoyed her. That wasn’t his intention. Adam backtracked and guessed teasingly, “He stole it? Printed it?”

  “He earned it. Josiah was some kind of a businessman before he retired.”

  “What kind of business?” he asked casually.

  “I don’t know. But he did a lot of traveling, I know that. And when he did, he’d board the dogs with my dad.” She drew in a breath, then let it out again slowly as she regarded the table over her bed and the check that was inside the drawer. “But I still can’t accept a check that large.”

  “Sure you can.” He saw the look that came into her eyes. She probably thought he wanted to use it. “Still don’t trust me, do you?”

  “You have to admit, it’s a little hard.” Especially when one minute Adam was all but accusing Josiah of being a robber baron, the next he’s pushing her to take the money the man had given her. Just which way was Adam leaning? And why?

  Adam inclined his head. “I can see how you might feel that way,” he allowed.

  And if you ever find out the rest of it, you really won’t trust me.

  Knowing how she might react if she found out the truth weighed him down. He found himself wishing that he could just be himself, in a position to tell her he was a law enforcement officer. But it was the undercover work that got drugs off the streets and provided the information that sent the dealers and suppliers to prison. He had to remember the game plan—and it didn’t include falling for a civilian.

  “Josiah didn’t seem like the kind of man who would take kindly to having his gifts refused,” Adam continued out loud. “If you don’t want to use it for the baby, you can always donate the money he gave you to a charity—anonymously or even in Turner’s name.”

  “To a charity,” Eve repeated, rolling the idea over in her mind. She had to admit that Adam had come up with a decent, win-win suggestion. She knew that Josiah meant well, but she was hardly in a bad way. Her father’s practice was a very established one and she could more than afford to take good care of her new daughter with the income she generated.

  Adam’s smile was encouraging. If only it wasn’t so damn sen
sual, she thought. “Yes,” he said. “To a charity.”

  She raised her eyes to his. “And not to you.”

  That caught him up short. But then, what did he expect? She thought he was a drug dealer. Reformed or not, that didn’t exactly put him in the same league with martyrs and saints. And philanthropists.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked.

  “Because I’m not exactly all that clear about who or what you are.”

  The situation pained him more than he would have ever expected, but he could do nothing about it—at least, not yet. After this sting went down, then maybe he could tell her some things. Not everything, but enough to make her understand that he wasn’t the devil assuming a pleasant form.

  “Since that seems to be a stumbling block for you, why don’t we just set that aside for the time being?” he suggested. “Let’s just leave it at my wanting to come by to give you those.” He nodded at the roses in the pitcher. “And to see how you were doing.”

  He sounded as if he was about to go. “You’re leaving?”

  It was better that way, he thought. For both of them. “I’ve got to get back to the store,” he told her. “The sales clerk I hired might feel a little overwhelmed being in the store alone for so long.”

  “Oh? Doesn’t he or she like books?” She was stalling, but who knew if she’d see him again once he walked out that door. Suddenly she wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  “She,” Adam specified. “And she doesn’t like books, she loves them. That’s just the trouble. Jennifer’s busy reading instead of assisting customers.” He laughed shortly. Now that the woman had organized everything, she’d dived right into worshipful reading. “She’s practically ignoring them because they’re cutting into her reading time.”

  He’d already asked Hugh to send him someone from the department to act as an assistant, in case he had to quickly “take care of business” during normal work hours. Hugh had told him he’d look into it.

  Eve nodded. Without realizing it, she wrapped her arms around the teddy bear he’d brought, holding it close to her. The softness against her chin penetrated, and she flushed.