by Geri Krotow
“There’s some good news.” Henry nodded at Jeb. “Tell them.”
Jeb’s stony expression revealed nothing. Where was the man she’d always been able to read? To count on as the one consistent source of understanding in her life?
It was as if that man had been lost in the Paraguayan third circle of hell—about where she’d left her CIA career and any sense of self-respect.
She’d messed up. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t cost anyone their life. Except Brandon—she’d cost him his life’s work. And Jeb—he was without work, too. Since finding out that Boats by Gus had closed up shop, she’d wondered about the relationship between her brother and his best friend. They’d been inseparable since the day Brandon brought Jeb home to play after school in their New Orleans backyard; Jena didn’t believe Brandon would get over this that quickly. There was no way a best friend and confidante made off with your life’s earnings without telling you and the bond survived intact.
And it was her fault.
“What is it, Jeb?” Her irritation made her voice sound harsher than she expected, harder than she ever intended. She was in no place to demand anything from anyone—but most especially Jeb.
“As you all know,” he looked at her with intent again, letting her know he’d said nothing, “the FBI helped me get Jena out of Paraguay alive. They’ve also managed to get a portion of the ransom back, by intercepting the last bank exchange.”
It was distributed in thirds. “So you have—”
“Five million. The FBI has retained five million dollars, and they’ll transfer it to Brandon as soon as the red tape is cleared.”
“A percentage of it is your money, too, Jeb.” Brandon’s quiet conviction angered Jena. How could he be so forgiving?
She had to take this reprieve, though, if it helped Jeb get his job back. “You wouldn’t have taken the money without me reaching out to you, Jeb.”
“We were partners.” Brandon looked at Jeb. “We’re not arguing about this. You earned that money, too.”
“Bullshit.” Jeb’s harsh reply startled Jena. Jeb never swore, except when asking her to let him fuck her. Stop. She couldn’t afford to revisit sexy memories.
She tried to shrug the errant thought away as if it were a horsefly. Problem was that sex with Jeb was anything but pesky. She bit her cheek hard, hoping that the pain would knock the tantalizing images out of her mind. How could she feel like this when Jeb was the last person she ever wanted to spend time with again? When she needed him to take his new job and get out town, out of her life?
“Hey, it’s all good, folks.” Henry attempted to smooth it over with his best lawyerly skills. “We’ve got to go inside, or Sonja and Poppy will wonder what happened to us. What Brandon and I wanted to say is that we’re glad you’re home safe, and if you need anything, we’re here. I was worried you might have money concerns since leaving the Navy and not getting a paycheck recently. But from what Brandon just said about having money stashed away, he’s your man for a loan.” Henry and Brandon laughed, but she noted that Jeb stayed as silent as she, as if he, too, had more on his mind than money matters.
She risked a glance in Jeb’s direction and immediately knew she’d made a mistake. White-hot heat smoldered in his brown eyes. For a split second, it was just she and Jeb, their attraction as sizzling as ever.
That was all it took—less than a second and she may as well have been pressed naked up against him, his cock pounding into her as she screamed out his name. Like they’d been in the shower last spring, before she’d had to leave on one of her assignments.
That was before she’d ruined everything with a single stupid text. Before she had a chance to shake herself out of it, Jeb broke eye contact and his stony, detached expression returned.
If she had any doubts about how rude they’d been to one another yesterday, they were burned away by the scorching disdain seeping from his pores as they stood too close on Brandon’s porch.
She and Jeb were done.
After they entered the house, Jena wished she’d thought of something scathing to say to Jeb. To prove she didn’t want to be near him any more than he wanted to be near her. Why had he come this morning, anyhow? He had to have known she’d be here.
It took some patience, but when she and Jeb passed one another in the small hallway between the kitchen and back porch, Jena saw her chance to speak to Jeb and went for it. She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the half bathroom off her brother’s screened-in veranda. He looked at her and she leaned in, nose-to-nose.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
He reached over her and snapped the fancy blinds shut to prevent anyone outside from seeing them. His insouciance drove her mad, and she knew the tips of her ears had to be crimson.
“What’s the matter, Jena? Isn’t your return to your roots going exactly according to your super-secret plan?” His dark eyes glittered and his hair—thick and collar-length, contrary to the current shorter fashion—taunted her. Reminded her of how much they’d shared.
“My ‘return’? You say it like I had any control over what happened…before.”
“You had control over what you told those closest to you.” She didn’t think he meant just her family.
“You’re still angry that I never told you I was CIA? I thought you’d understand by now that my job description was classified. I’ll tell my family after my resignation is official.”
“All I saw in South America was a woman who came as close to being killed as I ever want to see.” His words rang true, but they weren’t enough. He didn’t mention that he’d cared for her, that her death would have affected him. She hated herself for wanting it.
She looked away from him, anywhere but into those eyes, and saw their reflection in the spotless mirror her brother paid a housekeeper to polish. At least, he had before he’d lost it all.
Jeb’s back was to the mirror as he leaned against the sink, his arms crossed against his chest. Did he think she was going to harm him? She stood to his left, and when she saw herself in the mirror, her figure gave her pause. She was hunched over, the circles under her eyes pitiful.
Nothing had been easy since she’d returned home. Nothing.
“Jena.” Quiet, commanding. The new side of Jeb she hadn’t noticed before. The one he hadn’t had to use, not before her frantic text when she’d been locked in that closet of a room, sure that her captors were returning to assassinate her.
She summoned her courage and looked at him. “What, Jeb? What now? Because if you’re going to tell me again that we’re through, save it. I get it, I get you. ‘We’ never ‘were.’”
* * * *
Jena spit the words out, and Jeb took them as the sharply honed weapons they were. He deserved it. As mad as he’d been, mentally fuming at her for never revealing her line of work, or at least hinting at it, nothing topped the anger he had toward himself for not being more in tune with her.
Her hand moved to her face, and belatedly he noticed the tears. Goddamnit.
“Jena, look.”
“No, you look.” She shook, her thinner-than-usual frame wracked with emotions. The attempt on her life was still taking a toll on her, no matter how tough she tried to act. “I trusted you. I shouldn’t have texted you. It was a mistake. But for what it’s worth, I really did think I had no choice—I wanted my family to know I loved them, and I knew you’d tell them.”
He wasn’t going to call bullshit, as much as he wanted to. She’d known exactly what would happen with her text. They’d always shared a close bond, and for the past couple of years they’d been exclusive sexual partners. Family friends with sexy benefits.
She absolutely had to know he’d find her.
“All’s fair in war, right, Jena? I never had to tell anyone in your family bad news. You’re alive, back home. Mission accomplished.”
“And we don’t ever have to deal with one another again.” Her bottom lip trembled and, to her credit, she didn’t draw attention to it by biting or licking it. Thank God. Was she emotional because she’d picked up on how he’d left out the other part of the quote? All’s fair in love and war.
“Nope.” God, was she playing him even now? Had that been what the past two years were about?
“Fine.” She eyed him before she grabbed a tissue and blew her sniffles away. “You leave first. I’ll follow in a minute or two.”
He laughed then; he couldn’t help it. “You mean like we did during the Christmas Eve party?”
She didn’t laugh with him, though. Her stricken expression stomped the humor right out of his heart. Hell. His brain knew that Jena possessed supreme skills of manipulation and control—it was in her goddamn job description. Or had been, if what she said was true and she was no longer employed by the CIA.
Is this how she wanted him to feel? As if he’d hurt her, sliced open her heart and left it trampled on the dirt next to the big tree in her childhood backyard, where he’d carved a heart for her more than two decades ago?
Shit. The woman had been manipulating him since day one.
* * * *
Jena waited the prerequisite five minutes before she, too, left the bayou boat-themed bathroom and rejoined her brothers at the large island that dominated the immaculate contemporary kitchen. She noticed definite spots of bright color—potted flowers, fresh linens. Poppy’s touch.
“Jena, help me make the corn casserole, will you?” Brandon grinned from the other side of the island, where Poppy stood next to him whisking eggs, her expression unruffled. Poppy struck Jena as a self-contained woman by the way she observed them all as if studying laboratory rats behind glass.
“Sure, bro.” She took the cans of creamed corn he’d nodded at and picked up the can opener.
“There’s a casserole dish in the cabinet next to the sink, Jena.” Poppy smiled.
As she turned to find the ceramic dish, she bumped into Sonja, her brother’s fiancée.
“Whoops, I’m sorry, Sonja!”
Sonja laughed. “No worries. It’s hard to miss me right now.” She rubbed her swollen belly. Sonja looked as cool as a cucumber, which was quite an accomplishment for a woman several months pregnant in the midst of the late summer heat. Not that Sonja hadn’t had practice keeping her cool around their family—Hudson and Gloria had been complete jerks since the moment Henry announced his and Sonja’s engagement. They’d been cool with the pair living together, but when Henry decided to marry Sonja, Hudson’s dark beliefs surfaced.
Jena loved how Sonja and Henry were so open about how they’d fallen for one another immediately. They’d met at work, in the New Orleans law office owned by Hudson, and according to each of them, it had been love at first sight.
“How are you feeling, Sonja?” Jena wondered what it would feel like to be an aunt.
“I’m good. Tired, but nothing too unbearable.”
“She’s lying. That baby never stops kicking—he woke us both up last night.” Henry’s fatherly pride was sweet. Jena wouldn’t have pegged her brother as touchy-feely, but obviously Sonja’s pregnancy had changed him.
“So it’s a boy?”
Henry looked caught in headlights, then his smooth attorney mask fell back in place. “No, we’re waiting to find out.” He kept chopping carrots for the crudités.
“How are you doing, Jena?” Sonja’s soft voice cut across the chatter on either side of them.
“I’m okay. It’s been an adjustment coming back this time.”
Sonja’s brow wrinkled. “Henry said you’re done with your Navy stint, though, right? Will you keep working at the same place? For the state’s social welfare offices?”
Jena sighed. “I don’t know. I haven’t been back to the office yet; I’m still on an unpaid sabbatical, basically. I’ve learned a lot more working for the state’s child welfare system than I would have if I’d struck out on my own right away, but I’m tired of working for the government. I want something different. I may have to work there for a few more months, though, until I find another job.” She didn’t have any other options—she didn’t have the funds to open her own nonprofit organization like she’d dreamed about each time she completed another undercover mission.
“You’re a gifted social worker from all accounts. I know firsthand how thorough you are.” Sonja’s words were kind, especially since she’d helped Jena out with cases involving foster children and their biological parents’ custody rights.
“Thank you. I’ll never stop doing it; it’s just a matter of which direction to take it in. Are you still interested in doing more pro bono work at the firm?”
“Definitely. The baby’s starting to take priority, but after my maternity leave Henry and I are planning to address changing the firm’s mission.”
“That’s fantastic! But what about my parents?”
Sonja smiled. “Henry has convinced your dad to sign the firm over to us. Your father only wants to be responsible for the Baton Rouge office.”
“Yeah, Dad says he’s going to spend more time doing charity work with Mom, give back where they should have in the first place,” Brandon chimed in and Henry nodded.
“It’s true.”
Jena looked at Sonja. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with their crap.”
“It’s not your fault, Jena.” Sonja’s grace was certainly something to emulate. Jena knew Sonja didn’t blame her or Henry or Brandon for their parents, but Jena had never been able to shake the guilt-by-association.
“I do have to admit, it’s a relief that they’re finally figuring out what matters.” It’d taken over a decade to get this far, and there was still a long way to go.
“You mean figuring out that they were complete asses?” Brandon handed Jena a large measuring cup with beaten eggs. “Here you go.”
She poured the eggs into the cornbread mix, stirred in the creamed and regular corn, and then dumped it all into the baking dish. “I do love corn casserole. You’re using Grandmom’s recipe, I see.”
“Not quite.” Brandon reached over for the dish, and Jena slid it across the gray granite surface. Her brother doused the top of it with hot sauce.
“I hope we don’t choke on it.”
“Never. We’re bayou born and bred.”
“Have you thought of getting your doctorate, sis?” Henry spoke up.
“No way.” Getting her master’s in social work had been excruciating, balancing night school with her “Navy” schedule. She shuddered. “At least, not for now.” She looked around the room, and no one reflected any type of disappointment. Quite the opposite. Her brothers and their partners all looked like she’d given them the answer they wanted. But why?
She sought out Jeb’s gaze before she remembered that it wasn’t her place to do so any longer. Apparently he’d forgotten, too, as his eyes were on her, and she watched his cool assessment melt into something hotter. Primal.
This had to stop, but how? She offered him a small smile, a way of saying sorry. As if they stood a chance of moving into a casual friendship again.
Jeb looked away, and the loss of warmth made her shiver. No matter what he did or said, they’d always have this connection—which made it smart to break it all off completely now, while they were both young enough to move on. Except she felt like she was eighty, and in truth they didn’t have a hell of a lot to move on from. Their relationship had been shallower than she’d thought.
Brandon coughed. “Um, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jena. You’ve mentioned in the past that your dream is to run your own social work business, maybe an NPO, I don’t know—you’ll figure that part out.”
A tiny glimmer of hopeful comprehension dawned. What was her brother saying?
Brandon cleared his throat. “Dad’s s
igned over the NOLA law practice to Henry. He and Sonja are opting to eventually turn it fully nonprofit, or at least take on a heftier amount of pro bono work. Did I say that correctly, you two?” He addressed Henry and Sonja, who smiled as if they’d won the lottery. Sonja’s relaxed posture, with her arm resting on her baby bump, underscored her belief in the work she and Henry were going to do.
“We definitely need more time to transition fully to nonprofit, but we’ve already been able to take on cases that need our help.” Henry placed his arm across Sonja’s shoulders and she reached up and grasped his hand. A stab of envy hit Jena’s solar plexus and she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath as her training had taught her to do when faced with something unpleasant. But no amount of training eased the constant heartache that had plagued her since Jeb found her in Asunción.
“Dad offered to help Brandon get back on his feet,” Henry began.
“Which I turned down, even before we knew that Jeb hadn’t blown through all of the money. Taking financial—or any other kind of support from Mom and Dad isn’t in the cards for me. No matter how much they’re changing.”
“Now that you have some resources again, will you quit your new job?” She couldn’t imagine Brandon working for someone else. He’d been his own boss since they were kids, really.
“I’m not certain. I was hoping Jeb and I could explore some new opportunities, or even start over with Boats by Gus. But it doesn’t look like that’ll happen.” Jena noticed that Jeb didn’t voice support for Brandon’s words. The weight of how her failure in South America had affected her family blanketed her with exhaustion. As Jeb remained silent, Brandon turned his attention back to her.
“I may have a business opportunity for you, Jena.”
