“I’m sure you’re thirsty,” Grange said as he leaned against the kitchen counter. “Coffee, something cool to drink?”
“Coffee, please.”
She waited for a bevy of servants to come running, but Grange made the coffee himself.
“Is this your place?” she asked.
“No. It belongs to a friend. He’s on a conference call right now. He’ll be joining us shortly.”
“So he lives here. By himself?”
Grange handed her the coffee. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Just cream.”
He opened the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of cream, and handed it to her. Very understated for a place so elegant. She poured some and put it back in the refrigerator.
“Take a seat. We’ll wait for Pete.”
She sipped the coffee and nearly died. Whatever kind it was, it was heavenly to her sleep-starved and stressed-out body, so she focused on it instead of Grange and Jed, who huddled together just out of earshot for a few minutes before coming back in to sit across from her, staring at her as if she were some lab animal they intended to dissect after breakfast.
“Hungry?” Grange asked.
She shook her head.
“Sorry I’m late. Overseas call and I have to be on their time zone.”
She looked up as a man entered the room. Dressed in khaki shorts and a flowered, button-down shirt, he was tanned, with a shock of white hair. Mid-fifties would be her guess.
“Elena Madison, this is Pete Northram, a friend of mine.”
Elena nodded. Pete came over to shake her hand. “Miss Madison. So happy to have you as my guest.”
So this was his place. “Guest, or prisoner?”
Pete frowned and looked at Grange. “She doesn’t know why she’s here.”
He turned his attention back to her. “I assure you, Miss Madison. You are not a prisoner here. You’re welcome to roam the house and the grounds. Make yourself at home.”
She leaned back in the chair and wrapped her hands around the mug of coffee. “I kind of liked my house.”
“You weren’t safe there,” Jed interjected. “Or maybe you forgot about the guy who broke in last night. The one with the gun.”
She shot him a glare. “I appreciate you being there to take care of him. But we could have called the police.”
“We don’t want the police involved,” Grange said.
This was getting ridiculous. “First, who is ‘we,’ and why not? And what’s going to happen to the dead guy in my apartment? We’re supposed to just leave him there?”
“He’s been taken care of.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she asked Grange. “Who are you people?”
For the first time in the short period of time since she’d met him, Grange let down the façade of military bearing. He seemed to slump in the chair and ran his fingers through his hair.
“I know you want to protect her, Grange, but she has to know the truth,” Pete said. “Then maybe she can help.”
He shook his head. “Not supposed to work that way. I promised. That’s why I sent Jed.”
“What? Why you sent Jed to do what?” She stood, tired of being the last person to know anything, and having a very bad feeling she’d been used. She cast her gaze to Jed, who was looking at her with a solemn expression that screamed guilt.
She palmed her stomach, suddenly feeling sick. The oversized kitchen seemed to close in on her and she had to get out of there. She pushed away from the table and walked out of the room, eyeing the double doors leading to the backyard, the early morning sunshine and the pool area.
No one stopped her. She didn’t see guards, so she headed toward the edge of the pool, kicked off her shoes and sat down, dipping her feet in the heated water.
Thankfully, no one had followed her because her head spun and she needed to process what Grange had said.
Not supposed to work that way. What wasn’t supposed to work what way?
I promised. Promised who?
That’s why I sent Jed. This was the worst. Jed had been some kind of plant, sent to her to do what? Their meeting hadn’t been coincidental; it had been orchestrated to end up this way, to bring her here. Everything that had happened between them had been a lie.
Everything she had been feeling for him had been real. Her stomach twisted and tears pricked her eyes. This was not the time to be a girl wracked with emotions. Not when she was in the middle of something she didn’t understand, kidnapped and tossed on an island with three strangers. Her life was in danger and she needed to keep a clear head.
Jed could just go fuck himself.
“Elena.”
So much for time alone to think. At least it wasn’t Jed. Right now she’d deliver a punch to his midsection that, twelve-pack abs or not, would rock his world.
Grange came and pulled up a chair next to her.
“We need to talk.”
She peered up to him. “It’s about time somebody said something to me. I’ve been kidnapped and lied to.”
“You weren’t kidnapped. You’re being protected.”
“From whom, exactly?”
“Someone who has a vendetta against me.”
She pulled her feet out of the water and turned to face him. “What? What does that have to do with me?”
“It’s kind of a long story, and you aren’t going to like a lot of it, but bear with me while I explain it to you.”
She nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Your mother is missing.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Missing?”
“You already know that, don’t you?”
She shrugged, refusing to give him any more information than necessary. “I haven’t been able to get hold of her, but that’s not unusual for my mother. She’s often out of touch.”
“I know. But this time is different. You can call her phone and leave a message and she’ll always get around to calling you back. She hasn’t, has she?”
Elena didn’t answer.
“And as flaky as she is, if you need her, she’ll be there for you. Isn’t that right?”
She narrowed her gaze. “You know my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No. But I’ve been trying to find her for the past month. She’s never out of touch this long.”
“What is your relationship with my mother, Grange?”
He looked at her for the longest time.
“She’s my sister.”
TEN
Elena didn’t believe it. Not for one second.
“My mother is an only child.”
“No, she’s not. I’m her brother.”
“Bullshit.” She pushed off and stood, then started toward the house. Grange stopped her by stepping in front of her.
“Elena, your mother is my sister. She was born Carla Suzanne Lee on January twenty-fifth, 1957.”
“Easy enough information to obtain.”
“Ask me anything about your mother.”
“Who was her best friend in high school?”
“Trick question. It was Bobby Ross. She befriended him in study hall freshman year. They never dated, became best friends and were inseparable throughout high school. Bobby was a war-protesting, antiestablishment, pot-smoking hippie, just like your mother right up until he got accepted to Harvard. Then he had a complete turnaround and decided he wanted to be a lawyer. And not a people’s lawyer, either, but a corporate one. Your mother was devastated because she lost her best friend.”
Elena eyed him suspiciously, still not convinced.
“Keep talking.”
?
??Despite her big talk about communing with nature, she loves meat, especially hamburgers. Her favorite is smothered in steak sauce with cheddar cheese on top. She hates tomatoes and is allergic to peanuts. She has a purple birthmark on the back of her neck and a scar on her scalp where her hairline meets her forehead, on the left side. It happened when we were kids. She was eight, I was twelve. We were playing on some equipment at the gym and your mom was a tomboy when she was a kid, so she always played with the boys. I pushed her, she fell and hit her head on the edge of the cement. She got sixteen stitches and a concussion, and I got grounded for two weeks.”
“She told me about the scar. Said one of the boys in the neighborhood pushed her. And she never told me she had a brother.”
“Because it wasn’t safe for her.”
Elena frowned. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a retired U.S. Marine general. I work for the government running an undercover operation. Jed works for me.”
Of course he did. And she’d been just a job.
Ignoring the hurt of that revelation, she asked, “What kind of undercover work?”
“I run a crew of Harley-riding operatives. They do some down-and-dirty special ops work as bikers, usually infiltrating biker gangs involved in smuggling, gun running or drug operations.”
“Sounds fun.”
He laughed. “It can be an adventure, but also dangerous. And in my line of work and the things I’ve done both in the military and in my special ops work over the years, I’ve made a lot of enemies. It caused me to cut ties with my family—with your mother—because I didn’t want anyone using her—or you—to get to me.”
She stared at him, at this man who looked so hard. Could he have that much of a soft side? “You cut yourself off from us to keep us safe?”
“I tried to. I stayed in touch with Carla to the best of my ability so I could make sure you both were taken care of. Our parents died. She had no one to take care of her and didn’t exactly do the best job taking care of herself. And then you came along, so I had to make plans for your well-being, but I couldn’t play an active role in your life. I’m sorry for that, but it was necessary.”
“The money for the shop. That was you?”
He didn’t say anything.
All this time she thought the only family she had was her flighty, undependable mother.
She had an uncle. And as she looked at his face, she could see the resemblance between him and her mother. The eyes were the same color, the chin the same. They could even have the same smile, except that Grange had yet to offer one up.
“So what does all this mean? Do you think someone connected my mother to you and kidnapped her? Is that why you sent Jed out to watch over me?”
“Yes. And yes.”
At least he wasn’t bullshitting her, pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
“Why didn’t Jed just tell me right off who he was?”
“Because that wasn’t his assignment. We didn’t know for sure if someone would come after you, and I didn’t want to scare you. My intent was for you to never know about me unless absolutely necessary. Until the attacks started up, until someone broke into your apartment with the intent to kidnap you or possibly hurt you, Jed’s assignment was to watch over you. If we could have found your mother and no one came after you, you would have never known about me.”
And Jed would have disappeared in a puff of smoke after that.
Way to go, Elena. She’d guarded her heart so carefully all these years, never letting anyone get close. Then the one guy . . .
She could sure pick them, couldn’t she?
“You ready to go inside? We can talk more with the team about strategy.”
She wasn’t ready to face Jed, but she needed to find her mother. “Sure.”
Grange held out his hand. She took it.
“I have an uncle.”
For the first time, he cracked a smile. And there it was. Her mom had that exact same lopsided half smile. Her heart tugged.
“You do. I’ve always been here for you, Elena. I always will be.”
She missed her mother, and for the first time realized how serious this all was. She nodded and they went back inside. The smell of bacon made her stomach rumble. She followed the scent and saw Jed in the kitchen fixing breakfast. Pete had disappeared again.
“Smells good,” Grange said. “I’m going to go check in at headquarters, see what’s going on with the current missions. Don’t eat it all before I get back.”
“No guarantees, General.” Jed was working busily in the kitchen and didn’t bother looking up. He had a pan of bacon going, one with eggs, and another with pancakes. The toaster flipped out four slices. He grabbed them, slathered them with butter and threw them on a stack, flipped the pancakes, turned the bacon and stirred the eggs.
“I thought you said you couldn’t cook.”
He didn’t meet her gaze as she stepped fully into the kitchen. “I might have exaggerated that part.”
“You lied.” She took over the bacon and eggs while he concentrated on the pancakes.
Now he did turn to face her. “Yes. I lied. Part of the job sometimes.”
She grabbed the bacon with the tongs and put it on the plate, then added more into the pan, stepping back when it sizzled and popped. “You’re really good at it.”
“Cooking?”
“Lying.”
He stacked the pancakes on a platter, then leaned his hip against the counter. “Look, Elena. I’m sorry about not telling you who I really was.”
She couldn’t look at him, not when her emotions were so raw. “You could have kept your distance from me.”
“I could have.” His voice lowered. He moved in and put his arms around her. “I tried to, but it didn’t work. And what happened between us wasn’t part of the job.”
She ached, partly because she was hurt, but also because she needed to feel his arms around her again, to know that what had happened between them had been real.
He tipped her chin up with his fingers, forcing her to meet his gaze. He looked as wounded as she felt inside.
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say now?”
“I don’t know. I’m still Jed. I just have a different background and a different job.”
“So everything you told me was bullshit.”
“Yes.”
She sucked in a breath and pulled out of his embrace, grabbed the tongs and turned the bacon. “All lies. Everything.”
“No. Not everything.”
“That smells great, and I’m starving,” Pete said.
She blinked back tears as Grange and Pete entered the room. She and Jed finished cooking. Everyone piled up their plates and took a seat at the kitchen table.
Pushing thoughts of Jed aside, she turned her focus on Pete. “You live here alone?”
He nodded as he munched on a piece of bacon. “I won it from a sheik in a high-stakes poker game.”
She laughed. “You did not.”
“Actually, he did,” Grange said.
Her eyes widened. “Seriously? The sheik bet his house? This house?”
“This house was nothing to him. To people like us, it would be like betting pocket change. Losing it made him laugh.”
“As I recall,” Grange said, “he wasn’t happy when he lost that hand. Or the house.”
“That’s because he thought he had me beat.”
“What did you have to wager?” Elena asked Pete.
“Not a house, that’s for sure. I think it was my diving watch. The sheik liked all the bells and whistles on it.”
“He put this house up against a watch?”
“It was a nice watch,” Grange said.
br /> She shook her head. “So you live out here in this—palace—all by yourself?”
Pete got up and took his plate into the kitchen, started running water. “No. I travel quite a bit for my job. But I come here when I want some privacy.”
She leaned back in the chair. “Yeah, I imagine you get plenty of that here.”
Grange picked up her plate. She stood. “I can do that.”
“You and Jed cooked. Pete and I will clean up.”
She turned her attention on Jed. He shrugged. “It’s the rule. Whoever cooks, the other cleans up.”
She liked that rule, just didn’t expect them to follow it. Seeing two men in their fifties doing the dishes kind of surprised her.
She stood and leaned over the counter, watching them. “Your wives must appreciate all this domesticity.”
“Don’t have one,” Grange said.
Pete didn’t say anything, and since he didn’t offer information, she didn’t want to pry. Maybe he had an ugly divorce in his past and was still sensitive about it.
“So how do you two know each other?” she asked Grange.
“We did military time together. Met each other in boot camp, have been friends ever since,” Grange said.
“We had the fortune—or maybe misfortune,” Pete said with a laugh, “to be stationed at the same places time and time again. We kept running into each other, so we became friends. I never would have made it through some of the tough times in my life without Grange.”
Grange squeezed Pete’s shoulder. Pete nodded and they went back to cleaning the kitchen, laughing and cracking jokes as if that whole sentimental moment hadn’t just happened.
Elena wondered what that exchange was about.
When they finished the dishes, they led her down the hall and into Pete’s office. He had a giant screen and multiple computers going. It looked more like a war room. They sat at a large table in the center of all the whirring gadgets and multiple screens.