Live and Let Love

  But that wasn’t the mission plan. Though he was sure as hell going to suggest it to Emmett as soon as he got back to Aldo’s.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” Willow said as she apparently lingered, too.

  Her assistant watched them as she helped a customer.

  “Yeah, that didn’t exactly go as planned, thanks to old Cogburn here.”

  Willow smiled and touched Jack’s arm in the gentle way she had. “I think we need a do-over, something not quite so dramatic.”

  The store owner, her friend Ada, had made them each another cup to go. Willow set hers on the table.

  Jack wasn’t sure a nice, quiet meeting between them was possible. Not as far as his emotions were concerned.

  “Let me make you dinner,” Willow said.

  The woman was not going to give up on trying to get his DNA. He read the sneakiness on her face as easily as he read coded intel.

  “Monday evening? My place. I’ll clear the house of all potential falling objects. Promise. Besides, it’s just a single-story house with my shop in the basement. Around seven?”

  Her tone was pleasant, flirty. Her eyes pleaded with him to accept. She was desperately hoping he was Jack. He could tell that much.

  No doubt she was already devising another plan to out him as her husband.

  Eating dinner alone with her at her house was dangerous business. And yet there didn’t seem to be any way to decline without looking like a jerk and hurting her feelings.

  He wanted to see her again, to spend a few more hours with her after he’d killed the Rooster and before he blew this town. Make sure she’d be okay. Say good-bye in his own way.

  “Sure,” he said. “Love to. Let me bring a bottle of Aldo’s wine. White or red?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that.” Her eyes sparkled. She looked too happy. And too devious.

  Someone should really teach her how to hide her emotions better.

  A crowd of customers wandered up. The festival was growing busier by the minute.

  Willow glanced at her assistant. “I’d better go help Shiloh. She looks overwhelmed already. See you Monday?”

  He nodded. “If not sooner.”

  She leaned forward, rising slightly on her toes, looking as if she was about to kiss him good-bye. As she always had.

  He took a polite step back. Nice try, Wills.

  She cleared her throat and looked down, probably to cover her embarrassment. “Great.” She turned toward the table in her booth.

  He started walking away.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped and turned toward her.

  She handed him a bag of caramels, brushing his hand with hers as she did, a gentle caress. The kind of touch she knew he liked. “My compliments. Thanks for the exciting morning.”

  He took the caramels, trying not to let his reaction to her touch show—he’d felt it in a shiver of pleasure all the way up his back. “Thanks.”

  As he walked away, he looked at the bag she’d given him—her largest package of Lucky Jacks.

  Yeah, she was sending a message. Damn, he had to work harder at fooling her.

  He took old Cogburn back to Aldo’s guesthouse, which in reality was a small apartment built over the tasting room. He carefully unwrapped the old rooster and set it on newspaper on the table.

  If Jack was right, and no doubt he was, he was always right about matters of assassination, the Rooster had worn gloves when handling Cogburn. The statue would not have any of the Rooster’s prints. But Jack had to check anyway.

  It’s what Jack, or any good killer, would have done—leave no evidence behind, only prints that would implicate someone else: whoever had last handled the Rooster.

  He got out his dusting kit and tested the rooster. Sure enough, no prints large enough to be the Rooster’s. Just a few much smaller prints, likely Ada’s or Maddie’s. Which didn’t dissuade Jack from the belief Cogburn had been pushed with intention. Had the attempt been successful, it would have been first-degree murder by rooster statue. Now wouldn’t that have made a lovely headline?

  It’s a good thing it hadn’t succeeded or Jack would have had to die of embarrassment. Can you imagine the jokes that would have gone around the Agency once they found out that Sariel had actually been alive and then been offed by the Rooster with a rooster? Jack’s reputation would have never lived it down. So to speak.

  Even though he was officially dead, Jack had a legacy to maintain and he’d be damned if he’d let Kennett sully it by killing him. Again. Especially so ignobly.

  Jack needed to report in. He scanned the apartment for bugs and set up the shielding device he affectionately called the Cone of Silence.

  Then he called Emmett. “Chief, the Rooster’s trying to kill me. And my cover may have been blown.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Jack. Of course the Rooster’s trying to kill you.” The chief laughed. “That’s his MO. He doesn’t care whether Con is really Con or not. He doesn’t give a damn about killing innocent people. If there’s a chance Con’s you, he has to strike. Relax. Your cover’s safe.”

  Jack took a deep breath. He didn’t want to have to tell the chief about his screwup, but he had no choice. “Yeah, I know, Chief. I’m not worried about the Rooster. I can handle him.

  “It’s Willow. She’s getting suspicious. Permission to kill the Rooster with a bullet and get the hell out of here?”

  “What did you do, Jack?” The chief’s amusement evaporated.

  “I may have accidentally used one of my favorite Bond lines around her. But it’s so common—”

  “Jack! Did you learn nothing in the Agency acting classes? You can’t act like you. You have to find your motivation and act in character as Con.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’m an assassin, Chief. I don’t usually have to do this undercover shit. And Willow has the Sense. Just because I may have danced like me—”

  “Danced? No. Jack!”

  “At the growers’ dinner. I couldn’t help it. I was in character. Mostly. The Rooster was trying to kill me during a dancing competition. If I’d been me, I would have simply killed him back. But instead I had to do something showy to distract the crowd from what was really going on.”

  Even though he wasn’t Skyping, Jack could almost see Emmett scowling and shaking his head. “So even knowing that Willow knows your dance moves, you went twinkle toes on me. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds worse than it was.” Jack cursed the Rooster beneath his breath. This whole scenario was making him sound like a wimp before his boss. “So? Permission to use any force, any means, necessary?”

  “Permission denied. Stick with the mission, Jack,” Emmett said. “The intel you retrieved from the drop is invaluable. We’re still deciphering the details, but it looks like the Rooster was contacting other terrorist sleeper cells.

  “But we need more. We want his plans for the G Eight Summit and we can’t leave a mess behind and have local law enforcement breathing down our necks. Make it look like an accident.

  “And for pity’s sake, make Willow believe you’re Con, not you. Stay the hell away from her if you have to.”

  * * *

  By eleven, the town of Orchard Bluff was packed, not a free parking spot in sight. Willow worked on autopilot as her thoughts kept returning to Con and Jack.

  Despite the accident, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Con had acted so like Jack. Jack would have thrown himself in front of a bus to save a stranger’s life. That’s the kind of heroic man he’d been.

  And Jack was always totally attuned to his surroundings. Sometimes annoyingly so. She’d be talking to him as they took a walk around the park by their house and he’d mention something out of the blue about a plane flying over. Or, “Look there. A beaver has been gnawing at a tree.” Or, “There’s new graffiti on the fence.” Or some other detail she hadn’t paid any attention to. Sometimes she wondered if he was list
ening to what she said at all.

  Which was a long way of saying that Jack would have noticed that rooster as it began to topple. And he would have been looking for the cause, just like Con had done.

  Brick by brick, fact by fact, she was building the case that Con was Jack, even without that blasted coffee cup. Either Con was incredibly helpful or he was Jack and savvy enough to know she wanted that cup and destroy the evidence. Well, Mr. You’re-So-Smart, I’m going to get your DNA and out you one way or another. Even if she had to sleep with him and see if he purred like Jack.

  Not that sleeping with him would be a chore, not if the tingles she’d felt while straddling him were any indication of the chemistry between them. It would be a great pleasure.

  A commotion in the crowd caught her attention. Willow looked up from where she was making change for a customer to see Shane pushing his way through to the front toward her.

  He came to a stop in front of her table. “Willow! I was making a delivery to the growers’ booth in town when I heard about your mishap with a rooster. How are you? Are you okay?”

  The breeze ruffled his thick light-brown hair, which brushed the collar of his open denim work shirt. Beneath the shirt he wore a red T-shirt with the apple growers’ logo. He’d rolled up his sleeves to just below his elbows, showing off powerful forearms and giving a hint of his well-defined biceps. His thighs bulged in the legs of his jeans. The man was powerfully built and stocky.

  Even now, Willow noticed women in the crowd noticing him. She noticed him, too. But not in a good way. She recognized his cocky stance as a threatening, dominant pose. It was the way dogs stood when they meant to intimidate intruders on their territory. And his concern wasn’t sincere—the words were right, but the tone was faked.

  He removed his sunglasses. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

  There was no concern in his eyes, either.

  She quickly looked away from him, hoping he didn’t see the growing uneasiness in hers. “I’m fine.”

  “You haven’t answered my texts.” He was trying to sound contrite, but that seemed false, too. There was a tight edge to his voice that didn’t jibe with an apologetic spirit.

  She stole a glance at him. His jaw was set, his eyes hard. His fist clenched.

  “I’ve been busy—”

  “Look at me, Willow. Please. I’m sorry. What do you want me to say? It wasn’t my fault. Someone spiked the punch.”

  “I know.” She tried to sound neither angry nor encouraging. Just neutral, hoping he’d get the message she was no longer interested in him. That she’d never really been in the first place.

  “The guys have been ribbing me all morning.” He may have been trying to sound light, but all she heard was anger beneath a veneer.

  Shane prided himself on holding his alcohol. Russian ancestry, he claimed. Prize drinkers.

  “I suppose Con was hungover, too? That’s why he was having coffee with you?”

  Why should it matter to Shane what she did or whether Con was hungover or not? Something kept her from telling the truth. Even though she knew very well he did not have a headache and he had a perfectly good explanation why. She held that bit of information back from Shane. “Yeah, he was miserable. The same as everyone.” She wasn’t going to apologize or explain herself. She could do what she wanted. She didn’t need Shane’s approval.

  “Let me make things up to you. Come out with me tonight after you close up. Meet me at Beck’s. I’ll buy you a drink.” He made his voice low and sexy. “We can loosen up together.”

  “No thanks, Shane. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have customers waiting.”

  Shane’s eyes darkened with anger, but he kept his tone friendly. “Sure. Another night.” He tapped her table with his fist and walked off.

  Willow tried hard not to shiver as she watched him go. Shane wasn’t asking. He was commanding.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jack broke into Willow’s house. He had a dog treat in his pocket for Spookie. But he wasn’t overly worried about his killer attack dog. If the little ball of fluff failed to recognize him, he still knew how to make the scary face.

  Jack, of course, was an expert lockpick. And he knew a thing or two about security systems. Which was absolutely useless information on this excursion—Willow didn’t have one.

  He frowned. Wills, didn’t I teach you that evil lurks everywhere?

  Emmett should have insisted she have one. Jack would remedy that now by installing his own, one that would alert him if she was in trouble. He’d have to be her security. Him and his bugs and GPS devices.

  He had a bug-planting plan. He’d start upstairs and work his way into the candy shop in the basement below. He just hoped Willow didn’t come home early and catch him in the act.

  He stood in her living room and surveyed the area, listening for Spookie and doing a bug and camera sweep of his own, just to make sure the house was clear. He hadn’t been in Willow’s home before, no farther than the entryway, anyway.

  Where was that little mutt?

  He moved quietly, with the stealth of a trained assassin and spook, as he cleared two bugs and a covert camera from the living room. His blood boiled as he thought about the Rooster watching Willow in her private moments. Using her to get at him. He swept the kitchen. Assured that the main living space was bug-free, he stomped around on purpose to alert the dog to an intruder.

  “Hey, girl! Hey, Spookie, where are you, girl?”

  He heard a yelp, followed by the click of dog toenails on the floor. Spookie barreled around the corner.

  He kneeled and got down on her level so she could look him in the face. This time he let his joy at seeing her shine through as he smiled at her and coaxed her closer.

  She ran up to him, tail wagging, pausing a few feet away to stare him in the eyes. She gave a happy bark, jumped forward, and licked his face.

  He scooped her up and hugged her, scratching her beneath her ears as he slid a bug into her dog collar. “That’s my girl! Good girl. Boy, have I missed you.”

  Then he rolled around on the floor, playing with her until they were both out of breath.

  He set her on the floor, where she flopped onto her back, begging to have her belly scratched.

  “You are a brazen hussy, you know that, right?” He scratched her tummy and stood up. “Time to get to work, kid.”

  He studied the living room. He recognized some of the furniture. But Willow had bought a bunch of new stuff, too. A new sofa. A large, bright area rug that covered the bare wood floor nearly from wall to wall.

  Pillows. Damn, she had a whole lot of pillows. Floral affairs. Pillows with buttons. Some embroidered with ferns and leaves. She’d collected a regular pillow forest.

  And she’d painted the walls a warm yellow he’d never have chosen. There was a bookcase full of cookbooks. A flat-screen TV. A feminine upholstered chair that no guy would be caught dead, or living, sitting in. The chair looked uncomfortable as hell.

  There were a few picture frames, including a digital one, on the mantel of the fireplace, filled with photos of her mom and friends. A set of silver candlesticks she and Jack had received as a wedding gift, filled with beeswax candles in white. A crystal candy dish on an end table along with a fall floral arrangement in a vase he recognized.

  But no pictures of him. Anywhere.

  Agency policy. Emmett had told her to get rid of any or to keep them hidden. Never put them on display. For her own protection.

  Jack was just surprised she’d obeyed. Grateful—no one in Orchard Bluff would recognize the slight likeness between him and himself—but surprised. And glad. He wanted her to be safe. Always. That’s why he’d come back.

  He walked around the room with Spookie on his heels, planting bugs in the kitchen. The guestroom. The bedroom Willow used as her study. Clearing the Rooster’s monitoring devices and bugs as he went, seething as he found each new device. Thinking through the consequences of removing the bugs as he went.

 
Once the Rooster discovered his monitoring devices had all gone down, he’d be on even higher alert. Taking them down threw even more evidence on the fire that Con was Jack. But the thing about monitoring devices—to be effective, they had to be monitored. Today the Rooster would have to be out and about playing the part of the good apple grower at the festival. He wouldn’t have much monitoring time. By the time he did, he’d be dead.

  Jack found Willow’s laptop on her desk. Earlier, on his way past to meet Willow for coffee, he’d seen a guy from a cell company delivering a new modem. She must have had modem problems.

  Jack picked up her laptop, tried it out. The new modem was working. He swept it for keystroke-monitoring software and got rid of the Rooster’s. He installed his own monitoring software and moved on to her bedroom. Spookie had a frilly bed in the corner. Willow had a new armoire, nightstand, and bed frame. But not a single reminder of him.

  None of his clothes in the closet. No pictures.

  He swept the room, barely containing himself from crushing the hidden camera he found to a pulp beneath his heels. Ground glass wasn’t good for carpeting. Or Willow’s bare feet. He restrained himself.

  The Rooster was a dead man for violating Willow’s privacy. For peeping at Jack’s wife.

  He ran his hands through his hair and plunked onto her bed. He scooped up the little dog. “It’s like she’s erased all traces of me.” He sure as hell didn’t like being erased even though it was necessary.

  Spookie wiggled out of his arms, jumped down from the bed, and barked at the bed skirt.

  Jack frowned.

  Spookie growled again and barked. Thinking she smelled a mouse, he got onto his hands and knees on the floor and pulled back the skirt to see what had Spookie so riled up. He leaned down to take a look and found himself staring at several large, plastic storage boxes.

  Spookie gave her happy bark. And it could have just been him, but he thought she looked triumphant.

  He pulled the first plastic box out and opened the lid.

  His breath caught. A lump formed in his throat. He set the box on the bed and scooped Spookie up to sit next to him.