Secret Agent Groom (The Bridal Circle #2)

by Andrea Edwards

Alex looked up. “Heather?”

  She appeared not to have heard him. Or was so scared that she couldn’t hear him. Her face was as white as a sheet, but in her hands was a huge old rifle and she was holding it steady.

  “The police are on their way,” she called out, her voice shaky but loud enough. “So everybody stay nice and still.”

  What the hell was she doing? “Heather, get back in the house,” Alex snapped. “We’re taking care of everything out here.”

  She turned to look at him then and she went paler if that was possible. “Alex?”

  “Get back in the house, ma’am,” Casio said. “Everything’s under control.”

  But as she turned her gaze to Casio, she raised the gun just a hair and deepened her frown. “Move away from Alex.”

  Casio muttered something, but stepped back. “There, I’m away from Alex,” he said loudly. “But you remember me, ma’am. I work with him. We met up at the cabin.”

  “For God’s sake, Heather,” Alex growled as he got to his feet. The scumbag who’d been trying to harm her just lay on the ground, quivering. “Get back in the house before you get hurt.”

  She lowered her gun slightly as sirens could be heard in the distance. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped and kicked the knife farther from the scumbag. If he could discount the terror running through his veins.

  What if he’d come home a half hour later? What if he hadn’t been at his window to see the thug in her yard? What if she’d come out to confront him alone?

  Anger burned like a flame, licking at his senses, at his emotions until they were all caught up in it. He didn’t know who he was angry at—himself mostly, for the danger she’d been in. But her too, for being so gentle and innocent and trusting, and needing his protection even as she denied the need.

  “I’m fine,” he said again, his voice hoarse with the anger and fear. “I’m always fine. I live for this kind of stuff, remember?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Her voice was soft, hollow, filled with pain that tore at him even more. Damn her for being so... so... Heather.

  He looked away from her then, picking up his gun as two other agents came into the yard from the alley. With them in handcuffs were the two thugs who had roughed Alex up ten days ago. Casio rushed over to secure the man on the ground as the sirens were coming closer.

  He wanted to walk away. He wanted to go meet the local police cars and fill them in on what happened, but somehow he found himself walking slowly over to the steps. He looked up at her.

  Heather had lowered the gun into the shadows, but he could still see her pale face. Her eyes were swimming in tears. He wanted nothing more than to go up and take her in his arms, but that wasn’t to be. He didn’t have the right. He didn’t have the courage to face her rejection.

  He took a long slow look at her in her teddy bear pajamas and his heart grew even heavier. If he’d ever had any doubts, they were gone now. She was teddy bears and he was handguns.

  “Go inside, Heather,” he told her softly. Suddenly he was exhausted and it was an effort to speak. “We’ve got everything under control now. You don’t have to worry.”

  Heather just looked at him and looked down at the gun still in his hand. She nodded, then went silently into her house. She didn’t argue, didn’t ask him to come in, she just closed her door. He stood for a long moment, staring at it, knowing that inside was warmth and joy and togetherness.

  And that it would never be his. No matter what, he didn’t belong in her world. He would always be just a rescue to her.

  “Does anyone have any more questions for Officer Tollinger?” Heather asked.

  Toto smiled, waiting for inevitable questions about how many bad guys had he caught and did Junior have to wear a badge, but twenty solemn little kids just stared at him from their half circle on the rug. No one spoke, not even any questions about the incident at Heather’s house early this morning. They had to know, though. Nothing stayed a secret in this town long.

  But Heather just smiled at her class. “Let’s thank him for coming then, shall we?”

  Twenty separate thank yous sang out in the room.

  “Thank you for being such a good audience,” he said. “Next time we’ll talk about calling 911.”

  “Miss Mahoney called 911,” Barbara Sue Dentman sang out.

  Ah, so they did know.

  Heather’s cheeks turned pink. “We’ll talk about that later,” she said with a smile and took Toto’s arm to lead him to the door.

  “Daddy said she should get a medal for—”

  “Timmy!” Heather’s cheeks went from pink to red.

  “Officer Tollinger has to get back on duty. We mustn’t keep him here with our chatter.”

  She dragged Toto to the door, obviously associating the comments with him. By the time Junior was out in the hall with them, Toto was laughing openly.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, leaning up against the bright red lockers. “Don’t you like being a hero to your class?”

  “There was nothing heroic about it,” she objected, then leaned through the open door to address her class. “Take your traffic signs back to your desks now and put them in your folders. When everyone is sitting up straight and tall, we’ll go to recess.”

  “Lots of people just ignore noises from outside and wouldn’t even get involved enough to call the police.”

  “Well, we all know I have no such limits on my involvement. Neighborhood busybody, that’s me.”

  Toto was surprised by her nervous embarrassed laugh and puzzled by her words. “Good citizen, I’d say.”

  She just sighed and after glancing into the classroom briefly, she leaned against the open door. “Come on, Toto,” she said softly. “You talked to Alex afterward. You know that they had everything under control by the time I went out there to help him. The only good thing was they didn’t know my gun was fake.”

  Toto just stared at her, feeling as if the air had all been knocked from his lungs. “You went outside?” he asked her. Her words only slowly making sense. “With a gun? With a fake gun?”

  She looked startled. “I thought you’d talked to Alex afterward.”

  “I did,” he snapped. “But he apparently neglected to mention a few facts. Maybe he knew I’d wring his neck if I found out.”

  Little storm clouds appeared in her eyes. “Why would you wring his neck? He didn’t send me out there. It was my choice.”

  “It was his fault you were involved at all,” he pointed out, then bit off his angry words as a class passed behind them. He could feel the kids’ curious eyes on him and held his tongue until they went around a corner. “Damn it, Heather. You could have been hurt.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. Nothing happened.”

  “But something could have.” He couldn’t believe the chance she had taken. “Damn, a fake gun. Where the hell did you get one?”

  She shrugged, looking more embarrassed than anything else. “It goes with your Oz Emerald City guard costume.”

  “An Oz gun? You went out there with an Oz gun?”

  Junior whined as if he were as shocked as Toto. Heather glanced around at the long halls. Voices from the classrooms drifted out to them but no one was in sight.

  “Would you keep your voices down, you two?” she whispered. “This isn’t something I want the whole school to hear about. It’s bad enough that I have to live with my stupidity.”

  “Stupidity?” Yeah, that was one way to look at it. Or else she had been incredibly brave. An uneasy realization began to settle over him. Little timid Heather had done what he’d thought was impossible. “Hell. It looks like I’m gonna have to go to Paris.”

  “Paris? Why?” Heather repeated, then she must have remembered their bet for she shook her head. “You mean, because of last night? I don’t think so. I was supposed to do something brave that had to do with Alex, but I wasn’t brave last night. I was scared to death.”

  He sighed and lo
oked down at Junior, his conscience screaming out in protest. As much as he’d like to weasel out of the bet, he couldn’t let her go on with this crazy idea about bravery. He looked up at her and took her hand.

  “Heather, that’s what bravery is. Being scared to death but doing something anyway. If you weren’t scared, it wouldn’t be special.”

  She just frowned at him, wearing her schoolteacher look that said he was talking nonsense. “You don’t understand. I almost threw up when I went back inside.”

  “No, you don’t understand. You did something unbelievably brave when you went outside. You can’t argue this one away. You did it, and now I have to go to Paris.”

  “Listen, Miss Bossy Britches, you’ve had enough olives,” Heather said to Victoria. “Go eat your cat food if you’re hungry.”

  The calico cat gave Heather a glare and flounced away, leaving Heather to go back to cutting up the olives for the pasta salad for dinner. It seemed that no one was happy with her these days. Not Victoria, not Toto. Probably not Alex, either, though maybe she was assuming too much. He probably had forgotten she was alive.

  If only she could do the same in regard to him, she thought with a sigh.

  Aunty Em came into the kitchen. “Table’s all set,” she said. “Anything else I can do?”

  Heather put the olives into the salad and stirred it around. “Just grab the pitcher of iced tea and we’re all set.” She carried the salad into the dining room. “I’m so glad you called to tell me you were coming into town for a doctor’s appointment. What did he say about your knee?”

  “That it’s fine. Said I could drive. Told him I have been for a couple of weeks.” She put the pitcher of iced tea on the table and gave Heather a piercing look. “You’ve been going on with that investigation of Alex? I guess you know then that he’s talking about leaving.”

  Heather’s heart practically stopped, but she wasn’t surprised, was she? He was an undercover agent, for goodness sakes. Once a job was done, of course he would move on. That’s what agents did.

  Heather put a bright smile on her face to cover the ache in her heart. “Help yourself to everything,” she said and picked up the bowl of fruit salad. Her appetite was gone, but she spooned a bit onto her plate anyway. “I’m not surprised to hear that he might be going. I’m just surprised he came back in here the first place.”

  “Never did trust the man, myself,” Aunty Em said.

  But Heather had, and look where it had led her. Then she stopped, her hand mid-way to her glass of iced tea. “What is trust anyway?” Heather asked. “And how are we measuring it?”

  Aunty Em gave her a sharp look that questioned sanity among other things. “Would you trust him to take care of your cats?” she asked.

  Heather looked at Victoria still pouting about having her olives limited and at Henry who was sitting on the edge of the sofa, next to Bonnie as she slept and making sure she didn’t fall off. They were so dear to her. Would she trust Alex with them? “Of course,” Heather said.

  “Would you trust him to manage your money?” Aunty Em pressed on.

  Heather nodded and reached for her glass. The tea was cold and refreshing. “Absolutely.”

  “Would you trust him with your heart?”

  Heather froze, then slowly put her glass down. “I don’t know. Though if he’s leaving, it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you want him to stay.”

  “That’s not up to me. It’s his decision.”

  Aunty Em sighed long and loudly. “Heather Anne, what world did you grow up in? You never let a man make his own decision. You only let him think he’s doing it.”

  But Heather just shook her head. Aunty Em didn’t understand. Not really. “I wouldn’t want him to stay if he didn’t want to. What good would that be?”

  Aunty Em looked as if she were losing patience. “You don’t ask him to stay, land’s sakes. You make him want to stay. Good lord, girl, put up a fight. Let him know you’re in love with him.”

  “In love with him?” Heather cried.

  Her heart was suddenly frozen with fear. Love was supposed to be soft and warm and dreamy, like riding on a merry-go-round. Being with Alex was like riding a roller coaster, with sudden drops and wild highs and all the while a tension that took her breath away.

  “I’m fond of him,” she said. “But I’m not in love with him.”

  “Of course you are,” Aunty Em snapped. “I can see it in your eyes every time I mention the bum’s name and you’ve had that dreamy look in your eyes since you came back from your Labor Day vacation.”

  “No.” Heather was definite. “I can’t be in love with Alex. He doesn’t love me back.”

  The older woman frowned. “A man like that is too afraid to admit to himself he’s in love. If you want him, you’re going to have to rescue him from his fears.” She reached for her iced tea, then growled at it. “Helping to keep that bum here. I don’t believe it. I need a beer.”

  “Looks like you’re going to have another commendation in your file,” Casio said, hands folded on the desk. His smile actually touched his eyes.

  But it didn’t touch Alex. “What the hell for?” he asked.

  “For the great job you did on this case.” Casio smirked. “Sure as hell not for your sweet personality.”

  Alex wasn’t into jokes and innuendos. He was exhausted and could barely handle straight, clear conversation. “You want to clue me in? Or are you going to just play games all evening?”

  “Sorry, I just can’t believe it.” Casio leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. “The case is broken. That guy you decked in your neighbor’s yard is singing his head off. And since he was one of the operation’s bookkeepers, he’s got a lot of interesting verses to his song.”

  That didn’t make sense. “A bookkeeper? What was a bookkeeper doing there?”

  Casio shook his head. “Trying to earn approval apparently. The other guys all had records and he thought they didn’t respect him.”

  Alex frowned at his supervisor. “So he figured attacking Heather was going to make him a big shot?”

  “I’m not sure what he had planned. I’m not sure he knew. He just thought by scaring her, they’d have more control over you. Now he’s singing so fast, we can barely keep up.”

  Alex leaned back in his chair. “So the job’s over,” he said.

  That meant Heather would be safe. It also meant he’d really be moving on, not just moving away from Chesterton to keep her safe while he finished this job. He’d get another assignment and move to another location.

  He frowned; the idea made him even more tired.

  “The job’s over and we’re all stars,” Casio was saying. “Commendations for all of us.”

  “Great.” Like it mattered anymore how many commendations were in his file. “So what’s next on the agenda?”

  Casio shrugged. “Who knows? This thing went down so fast, they haven’t even begun to think of where to send us next. I guess that means a nice vacation is in order.”

  Vacation? Going to yet another place alone? Hadn’t that been the story of his life? He stood and wandered over to the window, looking down on the backsides of some nondescript brick buildings. Nondescript. Anonymous. Could be in any town, any country even.

  Just like him. Not a part of anything.

  Alex turned. “What about my teaching job? Won’t this leave them in the lurch? They were awfully cooperative when we were setting this up.”

  Casio shook his head. “Keep it if you want. You could probably finish out the fall semester.”

  Did he want to? The idea was appealing, but was it wise? He couldn’t go on living next to Heather. The past week had been pure hell for him. Seeing her and not being a part of her life anymore. It was like slow, excruciating torture.

  But the nights were the absolute worst. That’s when she slipped into his bed, close enough for him to feel the heat of her body but not close enough to wrap his arms around. She s
pent the whole night dancing out on the edge of his conscious so that he woke up exhausted in the morning.

  “I wouldn’t mind finishing out the semester.” Alex said as he came back toward the desk. “But maybe I’ll sublet a place near campus. No reason to make that long commute anymore.”

  Casio just looked at him. “Sure. Whatever you want. Just stay in touch.”

  Alex nodded, then left. Whatever he wanted. But what did he want?

  Moving in a daze through the rapidly deepening shadows of dusk, he got in his car and started on home, not really aware of his surroundings until he was well down the Dan Ryan Expressway. An exit sign plucked at his memory and, without thinking, he pulled off the expressway. Bright streetlights drew him down the depressing streets until he came to the shady gambling den. It was empty now, shut down by the feds once the bookkeeper had started to sing.

  Alex pulled up to the curb, looking across at the empty parking lot and the sagging decrepit building next to it. The streetlights threw long shadows across the landscape, making it all look lonelier and more empty.

  But then in his mind’s eye, he saw something else. A blond, blue-eyed little elf coming to his rescue, taking his heart into the shelter of her arms and, most cruelly of all, giving him a taste of what life could be like.

  He turned off the motor and got out of his car, walking over to the far side of the gravel lot. The area where Heather had rescued him. Maybe he was hoping he could capture the essence of her and lock the memory away where it would never touch him again. Fat chance.

  He leaned on the chain-link fence, staring out at the dirty streets and the dilapidated houses, looking even more depressing in the faint light of the night. He should be glad the assignment was over so fast and so safely. Bad guys locked up. Nobody hurt. Well, not in ways that showed.

  So why was he feeling so down?

  Maybe the undercover work had lost its edge. Maybe he ought to look at teaching for real. See if Midwest would keep him on or send out some inquiries to other area schools. Hell, why local? It wasn’t like he had a reason to stay around. Heather wasn’t going to forgive him for his deception.