by Julie James
Hi, Hormones. This guy? Yeah, that’s still a no.
“Thanks,” she said.
He peered down at her through his sunglasses. “You might want to lose the heels for the weekend, city girl. That is, unless you’re trying to get my hands on you.” With a cocky smile, he turned and headed toward the front door, all broad shoulders and lean muscles in his jeans and T-shirt.
Sidney glared at his back as she followed him up the cobblestone pathway.
It was going to be a long two days.
Ahead of her, a petite, sixtysomething woman with dark hair was greeting Isabelle with a warm hug. Seeing Sidney approach, Kathleen Roberts pulled back from Isabelle and smiled. Her hazel eyes were Vaughn’s, and her voice carried a hint of an Irish brogue. “And this must be Sidney.”
Sidney held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Roberts. Thank you for having us here.”
“Of course!” She waved them all vigorously into the house. “Come inside, you must be starving after the drive.” She paused in the doorway, two disapproving eyes falling on Vaughn.
He held up his hands. “I just got here. How can I be in trouble already?”
She pointed to his dark, stubbled jaw. “They don’t have razors anywhere in the city of Chicago?”
Sidney decided then that she was going to like Kathleen Roberts just fine.
Eight
ONCE INSIDE, SIDNEY and Isabelle were introduced to Simon and Vaughn’s dad, Adam Roberts, a tall, big bear of a man with a thick shock of silver hair. They all moved into the family room, and Sidney mostly hung on the sidelines of the conversation as Kathleen and Adam got acquainted with Isabelle. The Robertses’ house was sunny and brightly decorated, with beautiful oak bookshelves in the family room that Sidney guessed were Adam’s handiwork—Simon had mentioned once that his father used to be a carpenter.
The initial awkwardness of Simon and Isabelle’s meet-the-parents moment quickly dissipated, and everyone fell into comfortable, easy conversation. Afterward, Kathleen moved into the adjoining kitchen to finish preparing lunch, while Simon gave Sidney and Isabelle a quick tour of the house.
“And this is my old room,” Simon said, looking semi-embarrassed. “I keep telling my parents they should turn it into an exercise room or something, but my mom says she’s too nostalgic for that.”
Isabelle peeked in and covered her mouth in a half-hearted attempt to hide her giggle. “Oh. My. God. There’s a poster of Heidi Klum on the wall. And look at that glamour shot of you on your desk.” She peered closer. “Are those laser beams in the background?”
“Yep. That would be my high school senior photo,” Simon said.
Isabelle laughed and kissed his cheek. “It’s adorable. Show me more.” She eagerly stepped inside his room.
Simon gestured for Sidney to join them. “Care to join us?”
“As much as I hate to pass on the glamour shot, I’ll let you two have this moment to yourselves.” Truthfully, she felt a little like a third wheel right then. “I think I’ll see if your mom needs any help getting lunch ready.”
She headed down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. She found Kathleen rinsing a carrot in the apron-front sink while chatting with Vaughn, who sat in one of the stools by the island.
Both of them looked over when Sidney walked in.
Kathleen smiled. “Sidney. We were just catching up. Come join us.”
Sidney eyed the empty bar stool, which sat close to the one already occupied by Vaughn. Too close. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked Kathleen.
“How sweet of you to ask.” Kathleen nodded toward two plump red tomatoes that sat on a cutting board on the island. “I still need to dice those tomatoes for the salad, if you’d like to help with that.”
“I’d be happy to.” Sidney headed over to the island, looking around for a knife.
“On the counter, by the refrigerator,” Vaughn said.
Following his direction, Sidney spotted the knife block. “Thanks.”
With a skeptical expression, he watched as she selected a long, large serrated knife and returned to the cutting board. “Watch those fingers,” he said. “The nearest hospital is forty-five minutes away.”
While his mother’s back was to them, Sidney gave him dry look. “I’ll do my best.”
She picked up the first tomato, and began making slices almost all the way through, a quarter of an inch apart. Then she turned the tomato and did the same thing, bisecting her original slices. When she’d finished that, she flipped the tomato on its side and diced through, the tomato falling onto the cutting board in perfect, ripe cubes.
She set down the knife, and looked at Vaughn with satisfaction as she wagged her fingers. “Still have all five of them.” Then she popped one of the tomato cubes into her mouth.
Kathleen came around to check out Sidney’s handiwork. “Somebody knows how to cook,” she said, impressed.
“Only a little,” Sidney said, with a conceding smile. “Back in New York, one of my friends roped me into taking a Knife Skills class. I thought it was a self-defense course.”
Kathleen laughed at the joke, and then turned around to get something out of the refrigerator. Sidney grabbed the second tomato and saw Vaughn watching her.
She glared. What?
His hazel eyes crinkled at the corners as he kept right on looking.
Her scowl deepened. Go away.
He winked.
Clearly, the man lived to annoy her.
When Kathleen shut the refrigerator door and turned around, both Sidney and Vaughn resumed their normal expressions. Kathleen put a bottle of what appeared to be homemade salad dressing in the middle of the farm table that sat on the other side of the island.
As she passed by Vaughn, she gave her son’s unshaven jaw another once-over. “So that’s the look now, is it?”
With a mischievous smile that said he’d gotten more than a handful of lectures from his mother over the years, Vaughn got up from the stool and walked over to the sideboard across from the kitchen table. “It’s only temporary, Mom.” He opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a stack of plates.
“Sidney, is that what you girls go for these days?” Kathleen asked, pointing toward her oldest son. “All this scruffy whatnot?”
Well, nothing like putting her on the spot here. Personally, Sidney thought that the dark hint of scruff along Vaughn’s angular jaw looked fine. Better than fine, actually. She would, however, rather be trapped for the next thirty-six hours in a car with the crazy pregnant lady before admitting that in front of him.
“I generally prefer clean-shaven men.” She shrugged—sorry—when Vaughn gave her the side-eye as he began setting the table.
“See? If you don’t believe me, at least listen to her,” Kathleen said, while peeling a carrot over a bowl at the island. “If you want to find a woman of quality, you can’t be running around looking like you just rolled out of bed.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. But for now, the ‘scruffy whatnot’ stays. I need it for an undercover role,” Vaughn said.
Surprised to hear that, Sidney looked over as she dumped the tomatoes into a large salad bowl filled with lettuce. “You’re working undercover now?”
“Well, I’m not in the other identity right this second,” Vaughn said. “I’m kind of guessing my mother would be able to ID me.”
Thank you, yes, she got that. “I meant, how does that work?” Sidney asked him. “You just walk around like normal, being yourself, when you’re not . . . the other you?”
“That’s exactly how it works. At least, when we’re talking about a case that involves only part-time undercover work.”
“But what if I were to run into the other you somewhere? Say . . . at a coffee shop.” A little inside reference there. “If I called you ‘Vaughn’ without realizing that you were wor
king, wouldn’t that blow your cover?”
“First of all, like all agents who regularly do undercover work, I tell my friends and family not to approach me if they happen to run into me somewhere—for that very reason. Second of all, in this case, the ‘other me’ doesn’t hang out at coffee shops.”
“Where does the other you hang out?” Sidney asked. Not to contribute to his already healthy ego, but this was pretty interesting stuff.
“In dark, sketchy alleys doing dark, sketchy things,” Vaughn said as he set the table with salad bowls.
“So the other you is a bad guy, then.” Sidney paused, realizing something. “Is what you’re doing dangerous?”
“The joke around my office is that the agents on the white-collar crime squad never do anything dangerous.”
Sidney noticed that wasn’t an actual answer to her question.
When the room fell momentarily quiet, Kathleen looked between Sidney and Vaughn. “You know, Sidney, when you girls first came in, I spent so much time catching up with Isabelle, that I feel like we didn’t get to talk much. Tell me more about yourself. What is it that you do for a living?”
“I’m a director at a private equity firm.”
“Oh, that sounds impressive. Have you always worked in Chicago?” Finished with her peeling, Kathleen grabbed a shredder out of the cabinet in the base of the island.
Sidney rinsed off her knife at the sink. “Actually, I first worked in New York as an investment banker after finishing business school. I just moved back to Chicago two months ago.”
“Your father must be so glad to have you back in town.”
Sidney kept her expression nonchalant, not wanting to reveal the complexity of her relationship with her father. Professionally speaking, she had a great deal of respect for him. Coming from a middle-class background, he’d put himself through business school and now ran one of the most lucrative hedge funds in Chicago. He was a natural leader: sharp, decisive, and cool and collected when taking risks. Her father knew how to command a room; she remembered being in awe of him when she was younger, watching him at her parents’ parties and noticing how he always seemed to be the center of attention no matter who he was talking to. But his devotion to his career, and the egotism that had sprung from his success, had put a distance between him and his daughters—and had undoubtedly contributed to the problems in his later marriages.
Clearly, their upbringing had been a lot different from that of Vaughn and Simon. This whole cozy scene, the sit-down family lunch on a Saturday afternoon, was something she hadn’t experienced since she was a young girl, before her mom died. But for simplicity’s sake, Sidney nodded and gave the expected response. “Yes, he is.”
Over in the adjacent family room, whatever sporting event Adam had been watching must have ended. He shut off the television and stood up from the couch. “What time is lunch?” he called over.
“Now,” Kathleen said.
“That’s the best time,” he said.
Vaughn was dispatched to alert Simon and Isabelle that lunch was ready, and within moments they were all seated around the knotted pine farm table. There was a bounty of food on the table: freshly baked soda bread, salad, and the main course, shepherd’s pie. Kathleen led them in saying grace, and Sidney and Isabelle shot each other we’re-such-heathens looks as they bowed their heads, not having done this in years. After a chorus of amens, Vaughn and the other Robertses all made the sign of the cross, and then everyone heartily reached for whatever dish was closest.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Kathleen momentarily left the table and came back with a bottle of wine. “Since this is a special occasion, our first time meeting our future daughter-in-law, I thought we should celebrate.” She handed the bottle to Vaughn, along with a corkscrew. “I can never work those things.” She turned back to the rest of the table, explaining. “One of Adam’s clients gave him this bottle years ago. We’ve been saving it for the right moment.”
“Rich family, big house just outside of Milwaukee,” Adam added. “They wanted two walls of built-in bookshelves in their living room, and they asked me to do it in two weeks, before some big family party they were having. We got the job done in twelve days,” he said proudly. He gestured to the bottle. “I don’t know much about wine, but they said this is a good one.”
“I think it’s time we found out.” Kathleen took the open bottle Vaughn set in front of her and poured each of them a glass. She then raised her glass in toast.
Next to Sidney, Isabelle shot her a silent plea. Help.
Sidney gave her a reassuring look that said she would take care of it.
“There’s an Irish blessing that I think fits well here,” Kathleen said. “May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home.”
After a round of “Cheers,” Sidney took a sip of her wine. She waited as Isabelle faked a sip, then deliberately set her glass on the table right next to her sister’s.
Isabelle glanced over and smiled, catching on. The Robertses’ bringing out a special bottle of wine for a toast—that Isabelle obviously couldn’t drink—was a small hiccup in the let’s-pretend-nobody’s-pregnant plan, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved with a few stealth maneuvers. Sidney simply would drink a little of Isabelle’s wine when nobody was looking.
People passed food every which way, and Sidney paused at the delicious aromas coming from the shepherd’s pie, the hearty layers of mashed potatoes, sautéed lamb, carrots, peas, and onions. “This smells incredible, Kathleen.”
“It’s the boys’ favorite,” she said. “Isabelle, I’ll have to give you the recipe.”
“I’d like that. Thank you.”
Sidney peeked over, expecting to see a big grin on her sister’s face. After all, this was exactly what Isabelle had been hoping for—to bond with Kathleen this weekend.
But instead, she looked pale while staring at the shepherd’s pie on her plate.
Isabelle exhaled slowly, speaking under her breath. “Oh, boy.”
Sidney’s hand froze. She knew that Oh, boy.
Seriously, they couldn’t take the pregnant lady anywhere.
Nine
VAUGHN HAD TO give the Three Amigos credit: they worked well under pressure.
Next to him, Simon “stole” the last bite of Isabelle’s shepherd’s pie off her plate.
“Simon,” she pretended to protest.
“Sorry,” he said with an impish grin, gesturing to the empty casserole dish. “There’s no more left, and I’ve waited months for that pie.”
“Now how could I begrudge you that?” They smiled at each other, all schmoopey-like.
It took all of Vaughn’s undercover skills to keep from rolling his eyes.
This performance had been going on for the past twenty minutes, in which Simon had managed to eat every bite of shepherd’s pie on Isabelle’s plate. There’d been a lot of coy looks between them, but Vaughn had pretended to be oblivious to the whole thing—just like he was pretending to be oblivious to Little Miss Sneaky Drinks across the table, on Isabelle’s other side.
To be fair, Sidney at least managed to be subtler in the charade, with the sleight-of-hand routine she had going on with Isabelle’s wine. She’d taken a few sips from each of their glasses, seemingly with neither of his parents being the wiser. But, apparently, these three also believed they were fooling him, an FBI agent, and for that Vaughn didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted. Perhaps a little of both.
After lunch, Sidney and Isabelle offered to help with the dishes, while the three men headed out to the backyard. Vaughn and Simon planned to re-shingle the shed roof that weekend, undoubtedly with a whole lot of micromanaging from their retired-carpenter father, who’d been strictly forbidden by their mother to undertake any strenuous labor after his heart attack six months ago.
“I called in all the supplies at McGovern’s,
” their dad said, referring to the local hardware store. “You can take my truck to pick everything up.”
Simon nodded. “Sidney and Isabelle can follow us into town so they can get settled in at the hotel.”
“Assuming your mother will let you pry those girls from this house,” Adam said. “You should have seen her these past two weeks. I think all of Apple Canyon has heard about her son and his fiancée.” He looked proudly at Simon. “We’re happy for you, son. Isabelle seems like a wonderful girl.”
Simon answered without any hesitation. “She is, Dad.”
For a moment, Vaughn caught himself wondering what it felt like to be that certain—to know, without a doubt, that he’d found the one person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Between Simon’s getting married and suddenly having a baby on the way, Vaughn would’ve expected his brother to be in a mild-to-moderate state of panic. But instead, Simon seemed completely calm about the whole thing.
Vaughn watched as his dad pulled Simon in for a hug and patted him heartily on the back in congratulations. He smiled at that, then left them to their father-son moment while he headed back inside the house to grab the keys to his dad’s truck.
Enough of the sentimentality—he, at least, had a shed to re-shingle.
• • •
A HALF HOUR later, Vaughn and Simon stood in the driveway, leaning against their father’s pickup truck and waiting as the women said their temporary good-byes in the doorway. Vaughn’s gaze fell on the cute curve of Sidney’s ass as she laughed at something his mother said.
“Mom really seems to like her,” Simon said.
Vaughn grunted, having noticed this, too. Seemingly, the elder Sinclair sister was perfectly capable of piling on the charm for anyone except him. “I think she won Mom over the minute she diced that tomato.”
“Talking about Isabelle again.”
Obviously.
Vaughn tore his eyes away from the saucy auburn-haired woman who was here, in his parents’ house, winning them over with her smiles and making them laugh with her self-deprecating, I-thought-it-was-a-self-defense-course jokes. It was a good thing she was heading to the hotel for a few hours, because he needed a break—a break from those legs, and the blue-green eyes, and the flirty wrap dress that tied at her waist, and could easily be undone with one sharp tug.