“Not too hard in this one-road town.” He offered her a chair.
“You’re chipper, too,” she said as she sat. “You don’t have the Orchard Bluff hangover this morning? Didn’t party hard enough after you returned to the event? I suppose you know someone spiked the alcoholic hot punch? The news is all over town.”
To the casual observer, her comments would appear offhand. But Jack knew her well enough to detect the undercurrent of accusation in her tone. She suspected he’d had something to do with the dastardly spiking. Which, of course, he did, and was proud of it. Pranking an entire town? That was epic. Who did she suspect, though—Con or Jack?
“Yes, it seems we have a fiend in our midst.” Jack gave her a confidential smile and raised a brow as if he were about to spill some top-secret intel to her. “Publicly, Aldo’s generally placing blame on some nebulous high school kid. In private, Aldo’s accused his friend Beck of the mischief. Beck hasn’t, to my knowledge, denied committing the crime. He reportedly thinks it’s funny and tipped his hat to whoever thought the prank up.
“Fortunately for me,” Jack said, lying easily, “I’m not a fan of hot punch. I stuck with the wine.”
“Me, too. We were both lucky.” She watched him closely. “Your accent, I can’t place it. What part of Italy are you from?”
Let the storytelling begin. Fortunately, he’d memorized his cover story dossier. “Little Italy, Chicago.” He grinned. “My father’s from a small town just outside Naples. My mother is American, from Chicago. She says I mimic Dad. My accent is a mutt, a mutation of theirs.”
Willow nodded and smiled at him from beneath her bangs with a come-hither twinkle in her eyes. “It’s sexy, like the gravelly tone of your voice.”
His heart skipped a beat as he picked up her clear signal. She was coming on to him. Whether she was pulling his chain or not about liking the accent, she probably thought she could trip him up and get him to drop it.
Good luck with that, Wills.
He hadn’t been able to lose it in two years.
He smiled back at her as his mind worked like an opposing football coach’s trying to determine his opponent’s next play in this game of Is he, or isn’t he, her late husband?
He had the feeling he was in for the Orchard Bluff inquisition. Willow could be persistent.
He tapped the table to distract her. “I asked you for coffee. What would you like?”
“A caramel latte. And tell Maddie, she’s the girl behind the counter, to use my caramel in it.”
“Only the best for you?”
“Why settle for anything less? Oh, and ask her to put our coffee in paper cups to go so I can take mine back to my booth with me.”
He popped up and ordered the coffee. As himself, he would have ordered a dark-chocolate mint mocha. But as Con, he settled for cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon on top to maintain the Italian façade. Besides, it was in his dossier—favorite coffee beverage: cappuccino. Did HQ ignore his secondary personal preferences on purpose? He would have been happy with a vanilla latte. He could have disobeyed, but, hell, right now it was just easier to follow the plan.
He returned to the table to wait for their order, aware she had been studying him intently and continued to do so without embarrassment, looking for anything that would give him away.
“You’re watching me like I’m still half apparition. I don’t scare you today? And here I thought I had the power to make women swoon.” He laughed, trying to be charming and not too intimate. “Even ghosts don’t look as frightening in broad daylight, is that it?”
“Spooks don’t scare me.” She let the words hang in the air.
He got the distinct impression she was using a double entendre now, referring to his occupation.
“Really?” he said, in a tone that meant you could have fooled me.
“I was never afraid,” she said. “Just startled by that line from Thunderball. For just a second, you sounded so much like my late husband.” She looked him in the eye as if staring into his heart. “I loved my husband. If I could will him back to life, I would.”
She sounded so sorrowful and sincere. And still hopeful. A lump formed in his throat. Damn, he hated this.
“Sorry to disappoint.” He didn’t have to fake his sympathy. She’d never know how sorry he was. He tried to change the mood. “In bright sunlight, there’s only a passing resemblance, anyway, right?” He turned from side to side so she could see his face from every angle. Then he arched a brow, waiting for her affirmation.
She reached across the table and put a hand on his forearm as if she couldn’t resist touching him. Either that or she feared he’d disappear, evaporate or something.
“Not many people here know this about me, but I have what my grandma called the Sense. It’s hard to describe. Basically, it’s a sixth sense that can tell when someone I love is in danger.
“I knew the minute that explosion blew Jack up.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “But now I feel like he might still be alive.”
Not cracking under that kind of emotional pressure was the hardest thing Jack had ever done, and he’d been in some tight situations. He’d been beaten nearly to death and he still wouldn’t talk. But here he was, fighting not to crack now, because he loved Willow more than she’d ever know.
His heart raced. His mouth went dry. He wanted her. He could have her. Anytime. And that was the greatest temptation of all. He fought to keep his expression calm.
Fortunately, Maddie called out their order. “Tall caramel latte! Cappuccino!”
He jumped up to get them. When he returned to the table with the two paper cups and sleeves for each, Willow was still watching him with that unnerving look of hers as he handed her her coffee.
He sat down and raised his coffee to his lips.
She blew on hers and took a sip.
Was it his imagination, or did she stare at him just a little too hard as she watched him take a drink? And then the corners of her mouth curled up so slightly it took an expert like him to detect that small microexpression of smugness on her face.
She was happy he was drinking coffee? What the hell?
And then it hit him.
Oh, damn! She thinks she can run a DNA test on me and find out whether I’m me or not. She’s planning on using the old steal-the-coffee-cup trick. Like hell.
He was going to take his coffee cup and DNA with him. In the meantime, though, playing a few head games could be fun. Someone needed to teach Willow how to use a poker face.
She studied him. “I love coffee shops. The first time I saw Jack, he was sitting at a table in one of the Starbucks in Seattle. It was a sunny day, like this one. Fall. September.” Her voice was dreamy, faraway. “Kind of a coincidence, meeting you now, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, just smiled back politely and made a show of taking a nice big gulp of coffee. The kind of gulp that left lots of DNA on the coffee cup lid. Hell, he felt like spitting on it just to get her goat. But he restrained himself.
Willow couldn’t let a silence go unfilled. Just as he figured she would, she stepped in and continued, “I was in pastry school at the time. Hurrying in before class for some caffeine so I could survive the morning. We had to be in class at five AM, like the professional bakers.
“Jack looked perfect, bright eyed, and fully awake. As if he never needed sleep. He looked up at me, caught my eye, gave me his devil-may-care grin, and I fell in love.”
So she was going to torment him with memories. See if he’d go all gooey eyed and drop his guard. It was a decent strategy. It might work on a lesser man. But Jack would lie to his own mother to save the world or accomplish a mission. Not that that was saying much. He didn’t like his mother. But he’d been confronted by tyrannical foreign dictators and all manner of terrorists and never, ever cracked.
She could sentimental him to death and it wouldn’t do her any good. She should remember he never cried at the tearjerker movies she used to drag him to. He never cried,
period.
“Fell in love? At first sight?” he teased her. “Before the guy even opened his mouth?” He shrugged. “That’s better than fainting, I suppose.” He winked.
She tilted her head and smiled. “That’s the other thing about the Sense—it lets me know when I’ve found a soul mate. I knew right away with Jack.” Her smile deepened.
Damn that Sense. The look she was giving him now meant either she knew he was himself or she’d found her next soul mate. Both of which were correct, but he wasn’t falling prey to either.
A sane man would have run for the hills right then, terrified out of his mind by the smug, knowing look she was giving him, the one that meant he was already caught, snagged, snared, entrapped, bagged, and ready for the altar. But Jack couldn’t run. He had a mission—convince Willow he wasn’t himself and keep her away from the Rooster.
He took a deep breath and glanced heavenward for inspiration. As he did, a movement in the upper story caught his eye. A rack of ruffled aprons rustled and a large cast-iron statue of a rooster teetered on the open woodwork railing above him.
What the hell? Where did that come from? It shouldn’t be there. If that thing fell—
Coffee still in hand, he bounded out of his chair, kicking it over behind him. He leaned forward to grab Willow and pull her out of the path of that rooster.
At the same time she jumped up with a look of fear on her face. “Get out of the way!” She rammed into him with the force of her slight body so hard she sent him flying onto his back, knocking his coffee from his hand. She tumbled over with him, landing straddling him.
He looked up past her shapely, silhouetted form just in time to see the cast-iron rooster topple off the rail above them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
One minute Willow was staring as dreamily as she could into Con’s eyes, letting him know exactly where he stood—he was either Jack or her new soul mate—when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her mouth went dry and her pulse jumped into fight or flee, run for your life mode. An airplane from the local air force base rumbled by, shaking the walls. The next she looked up and saw a cast-iron rooster tumble from the story above, headed directly for Con.
She’d lost Jack once. She wasn’t letting a rooster bean Con or Jack, or whoever he was, to death. Not on her watch.
She jumped out of her chair, threw herself at him with the full force of her 105 pounds, and knocked him on his back. He grabbed her, pulling her down with him. She landed breathing hard as she straddled him, her hair tumbling down around her face. The breathing hard wasn’t just from the scare. She hadn’t straddled a man like this since before Jack left for Ciudad del Este and was blown up.
Con rose to the occasion. She felt his arousal through his jeans. She thought about Jack, the passionate way he made love to her and purred. She’d give anything to hear him purr again.
The rooster crashed into the floor next to them, exactly where Con had been sitting, landing with an explosive bang that made everyone in the room jump but them. They were mesmerized by each other.
At least, she was mesmerized as Con stared up at her with Jack’s eyes. A sense of complete calm washed over her.
She sat there, enjoying the view, until she heard the buzz of the room around them—the concerned murmurings, the sense of shock.
People began gathering around them.
Con cleared his throat and looked over at the rooster next to them. Willow followed his gaze. The rooster had hit the floor so hard that it left a dent.
Con held up his fingers to measure an inch. “Missed us by that much.”
Willow recognized Get Smart humor when she heard it. So much like Jack, again. “Yes, it did, Max.”
He grinned up at her. “You saved my life.”
“Luck of the fall.” She shrugged modestly. “You were trying to save mine.”
“Did you see anything?” he asked.
He suspects foul play. Just like Jack would.
She shook her head as a shiver of fear washed over her. “No, nothing. Just a falling cock.”
His words brought Willow back to reality. She became aware of their surroundings. Maddie hovered over them. A dozen other people crowded about them.
Ada pushed her way through the crowd toward them wearing a worried expression, a new dish towel, with the tag still dangling from it, in hand. Ironically, a dish towel in a rooster motif. “What happened? Are you okay? Should we call for help?” Ada fired the questions off too rapidly for Willow to answer.
“We’re fine. The rooster fell.” Willow pointed. It was probably time to get off Con. Lingering much longer would be highly inappropriate.
Ada scanned the damage and held the crowd back. “They’re fine. They’re not hurt. Give them room. There’s nothing to see.”
The cast-iron rooster sat in the middle of it all, looking, well, cocky. Remarkably, it had landed on its feet and seemed none the worse for wear.
Ada helped Willow up off Con. Willow would have loved to linger on his lap forever.
Con sat up, rubbing the back of his head and staring at the rooster. “Being coldcocked suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.” He looked up at Willow. “You’re sure you’re okay.”
“I’m great, fabulous.” And on a certain level, she most certainly was.
Ada took a step closer to the rooster. “Where did this come from?”
Con pointed to the upstairs loft and stood. “Up there. It was sitting on the railing. I noticed it just before it fell.”
“What? No! Old Cogburn here doesn’t belong upstairs. On the rail? That’s crazy. That’s courting disaster.” She frowned. “Who moved him? He has a corner downstairs in the rooster section where all the red and black country patterns are. He’s been there since he came in six months ago. He’s a hard old cock to sell.”
Ada put an arm around her daughter Maddie.
“Maybe a customer moved him, Mom. Took him up there and saw something they liked better, then just left him there without thinking.”
Maddie’s theory explained the facts well enough for most of the crowd. But Willow felt as if a shadow had crossed her path. Something wicked this way comes, she thought.
More fodder for her theory that Con was Jack. Wherever Jack went, trouble was sure to be as well.
Ada’s frown deepened. “No, but I would have noticed him from the cash register. I can see the railing from there. I keep an eye on it just because something like this could happen. He wasn’t there earlier. I’m sure of it.” She reached for the rooster.
Con stood and stepped in front of her. “Let me.” He took the dish towel from her and, using it as an oven mitt, picked up old Cogburn. “I’d like to buy this from you. And the dish towel, too. It’ll make a great souvenir, the rooster that tried to kill me.” He laughed. “Besides, Aldo will love it. I’m surprised he hasn’t bought it already.”
Con set the rooster on the floor and reached for his wallet in his pocket.
Ada put a hand on his arm and shook her head. “It’s yours, my gift. I couldn’t stand to have it around here anyway. Take it away with my compliments. Please. Just promise not to sue me.” She shuddered.
“Sue you? For an accident? That’s crazy.” He gave her a warm smile. “You have a deal.” He put his wallet back in his pocket and picked up Cogburn with the towel.
Why with the towel? Willow wondered as she inched toward Con’s coffee cup. Victory was almost hers. All she needed was that cup.
Ada turned to her daughter. “Maddie, get a mop. Let’s get this spilled coffee cleaned up before someone slips on it.”
As Willow took another step toward Con’s cup he blocked her. Ada made an end-round maneuver and reached for the cup on the floor just as Willow dashed around Con on the other side and bent to get it. As the two women nearly conked heads Con leaned down and scooped it up. “Allow me.”
Still holding the toweled rooster, he carried the cup off to the trash can by the counter and Willow saw him toss it in.
&
nbsp; Curses, foiled again. How am I going to convince Ada to let me paw through her trash for that cup? And how will I know if I get the right one?
* * *
Willow could dig through Bluff Country Store’s trash to her heart’s content, but she’d never find Jack’s cup. He’d only pretended to throw it away. In reality, he’d hidden it under the towel with the rooster.
While he was recovering from the explosion Emmett had sent agent Lani Silkwater, code name Magic, to teach Jack sleight of hand to help him regain his small motor and shooting skills. He had gotten pretty skilled at it, exactly why no one saw him hide the cup.
Willow’s attempt to gather intel amused him more than it should have.
He walked her back to her booth in the center of town with his new friend, old Cogburn, wrapped in a towel and bagged in a shopping bag from Bluff Country Store for added protection. He wanted to preserve any fingerprints on it. Not that he expected to find any of the Rooster’s.
Jack lingered at the booth. He hated to leave Willow unprotected, but he had to get back to the guesthouse, dust Cogburn for prints, and contact Emmett. Old Cogburn was meant for him—a message from the Rooster: If you’re Sariel, I’m going to kill you.
The Rooster had never been known for his subtlety. But then again, he’d never been known to miss before. That is, until he only thought he’d killed Jack in that explosion. Now the Rooster’s perfect record was toast, and the hell of it was—he wasn’t certain Jack was still alive.
The turn of Jack’s thoughts was dark. He felt like grabbing his sniper’s rifle and taking Kennett out right then and there. One well-placed shot between his eyes as he sold his apples should do it. A nice, clean kill shot.
That should send a clear message to RIOT. Jack could take out one of their assassins whenever he felt like it. Like now.
It sure seemed like a good message to him.
And hell, when weren’t his shots always placed exactly where he wanted them? He made those guys on Top Shot look like amateurs.