The man who had proposed the first time he made love to her.
She cried out his name, contracting around him as he drove faster and faster into her, grunting with strain. Holding on tight, Jenna watched his face, the shadows of the nearly dark room shading most of his features, but his blue eyes burning like coals over her. Letting her own flutter closed, she focused on the sensations, on the joining of their bodies.
“Jenna,” he panted. “Jenna, I thought I’d die without you.”
She cried while he poured his seed inside her, tears sliding down her cheeks to soak her hair and, once again, her poor, abused pillow.
When Gordon fell to lie beside her, she curled into him, too emotionally wrung out to do anything but savor his presence. He’d have plenty to answer for in the morning, but it could wait until then. Surely, after so long, she’d earned a few hours of peace and her husband’s arms around her.
Jenna opened her eyes to dawn’s light glowing in her window and no Gordon. He’d left during the night, promising to be back to explain everything in the morning, but she couldn’t stop to think after oversleeping on such a busy day. Scrambling from bed, she thrust her arms into her old plaid flannel robe and shoved her feet into fuzzy slippers. She had to get the prepared dough from the refrigerator into the oven if the rolls were going to be ready in time for breakfast. She always provided some sort of baked goods for her guests for breakfast, and the fat, gooey cinnamon rolls were always a hit.
After filling trays with strips of bacon, she dusted them with brown sugar and thrust them into the lower oven and set the timer. A goat cheese and tomato frittata went onto the shelf below the rolls in the upper. Thank heavens for advance preparation. While everything baked, she ran back to her room and dressed in tree-patterned leggings and a golden-brown tunic then pulled her hair into a ponytail. The face looking back at her in the bathroom mirror showed no signs of the upheaval that had occurred last night. Same Jenna, thinner than she used to be, but nothing about her high cheekbones or short, straight nose said her world had been turned upside down.
Not only didn’t she know where Gordon had been since his “death,” but she also didn’t know what made him come back…or leave in the middle of the night.
Back in the kitchen, Jenna diced potatoes, onions, and multi-colored peppers and got them frying in a huge cast iron skillet. She checked off the dishes on her fingers. Bread, bagels, and English muffins waited by the big eight-slice toaster in the dining room, along with the slow cooker of oatmeal, and she could already hear cheerful chatter from out there. While she filled the buffet, she talked with the early risers, making idle conversation in a voice she barely recognized as her own. More and more guests came downstairs, most talking with excitement about the upcoming wedding. Some were heading into Sacramento for wedding gift shopping or sightseeing, others getting together with local family and friends, but all so carefree.
The teen who helped serve breakfast in the summer was not part of the wedding party, but she was also a MacKay and had begged for the week off to hang out with the cousins from Oregon she rarely got to see, leaving Jenna busy enough to push away any decision making at least until Gordon’s return. Would he return?
The two elderly ladies who’d agreed to share a room sat at a corner table, heads close together, giggling like schoolgirls. She’d gotten lucky there. Even if they learned the other room had remained open, they might not mind. On her way to let them know they could take the other that night, Jenna was flagged down by another client who wanted to rave about the cinnamon rolls, and, by the time she finished the conversation, the ladies were making their way up the stairs, arm in arm.
She’d tell them later. They were having a great time. Like everyone else in the knotty-pine paneled dining room.
But why not? None of them had a husband who had been dead for two years then reappeared. It wasn’t until she loaded the last dish she had time to absorb what had happened in the last twelve hours and consider what the heck she was going to do now.
At the very least, she owed Gordon a chance to explain why he’d left. He should be back anytime to do that. Although everything in her insisted she should hold out, she’d already given it up, as the kids said. The only question was whether she would continue to do so. Whether she could allow him back all the way into her life, her inn. Despite her initial anger, doubts, and just about every other emotion on the scale, Jenna wanted him back. Why shouldn’t she? His return answered all her prayers. Jenna MacKay could pick up her life where she’d left off. But why had Gordon, when he kissed her good-bye in the middle of the night, asked her not to tell anyone he was back?
Chapter Five
Electronic surveillance equipment crowded the back room of Lace and Veils. Even after taking over one of the dressing rooms, the space barely qualified as a large closet. A full wall of monitors hung above the ancient steel desk and three chairs comprising the furnishings of The Omega Team’s temporary Cedar Valley location. Not the most comfortable digs, but they only needed it for a couple of more days anyway.
Gordon braced his hands on the table and half stood. He’d been brainstorming with Scott since three a.m. and now, at after ten, they’d come no closer to solving their issue. The note pinned to the church door only added more mystery to the situation. Before the guest list grew out of control, the girls had planned to marry in church. The hackers must not have gotten the update about the wedding moving to the town square. Maybe their information was not perfect, after all. He’d picked the note up on his way to the shop. Even though he doubted they’d find any real evidence, he’d handled it with gloves and slipped it into a plastic bag that lay next to Scott’s keyboard.
Two days and counting. Ka boom!
Scott brought images from one monitor then the next to the one in front of him, staring at each for thirty seconds or so. “How did they leave that there without registering on any of the cameras? The one pointed at the front of the church doesn’t even show an interruption in feed…but there must have been.”
The call pulling Gordon from the first night of peace he’d enjoyed in years had left him grumpy as well as wary. “We’ve done it ourselves on other occasions. I just didn’t think our equipment was vulnerable to the hack.”
“Athena is chewing nails.” The co-owner of The Omega Team took attacks on their tech to heart. “So is Jacquie LaSalle.”
Gordon could only imagine. The tech genius had been his supervisor while he was “dead,” and one of a very few people who knew his real identity. Athena and Grey had rightly assumed they couldn’t keep anything from her that she chose to know. “If anyone can find it, she will. And probably make sure they don’t have the ability to do it again.”
Scott brought another image to his monitor and studied it. His expression gave nothing away. “She’ll do it, but that won’t solve our problem unfortunately.”
“Why would they threaten a wedding? They don’t even know the couples who are getting married, do they? Kat is a fire inspector marrying a guy who delivers equipment around the country. Brigit is a fire copter pilot. The only one I considered was Carter Kohl, Brigit’s fiancé, but none of his assignments for Jessica Parker, the detective from Florida, should be drawing international interest. And certainly not the jobs he’s done for the Sacramento insurance company he works for. From what Grey turned up, it’s been mostly small-time stuff. And all local.”
“Nothing any of them are doing should draw the cell you dealt with before you went dark. We’ve kept Carter out of it, so far, at Grey’s insistence. The big guy doesn’t want to ruin his wedding…but he’ll have to know soon.” Scott shrugged. “It’s puzzling. But if we can’t get it figured out in time, we’ll have to get them to call off the ceremony.”
“You don’t know my family.” Gordon shuddered at the thought. “Some of these people came from pretty far away. One from Tahiti, a couple from Australia. One distant cousin works at an animal preserve in Kenya. Do you know what it takes to get Cousin
Liz away from her lions?”
“Maybe she should have brought them.” Caroline breezed in from the front of the shop and pulled the door closed. “Keep an eye on the front, Scott. I don’t know how long I can manage to stay in here with nobody noticing.” The tall brunette sat down and kicked off her high heels.
“You sure make a stunning wedding planner, Caroline.” Scott flashed her a bright smile, the most expression Gordon had ever seen him exhibit. He had good taste. If not for Jenna, he’d have been looking in her direction himself. She wore a forest-green suit over an ivory silk blouse, her dark hair pulled up in a French twist, subtle makeup enhancing her clear, smooth complexion.
“I’m sure I can’t figure it out. With the note on the church door, we know they’re in town, but with so many visitors, it’s nearly impossible to sort them out.”
“Nobody’s seen anything strange?” Scott clicked away on his keyboard, fingers a blur. He never seemed to sleep, only taking a few hours off after Caroline closed her shop and could sit in for him. Someone always watched the feed from cameras set up at various points in the town where they believed the criminals might show up. “I mean stranger. You really related to all these people, Gordon?”
He scooted his chair to look over Scott’s shoulder. “Most of them. See that lady on the monitor on the right? That’s Aunt Becky. She’s a witch.”
“I know a lot of witches. I think it’s cool your aunt follows the old ways.” Caroline joined them and peered at the black clad woman inching up Main Street past Penny’s Greengrocer. “Oh. She looks a little like Morticia Addams, doesn’t she? All that long black hair.”
“Yeah. And she’s not a practitioner of any old religion, just 1960s sitcom kitsch.” He held up a hand. “Don’t ask.” The three of them watched people coming and going. Cedar Valley’s sparse population had been augmented by so many this week, it could have been New York City without the skyscrapers. The sidewalks were packed.
Caroline pointed. “Is that guy on a unicycle?”
“Yeah.”
“A cousin? An aunt?”
“I have no idea.” He chuckled. “Not everyone different and interesting is related to me, you know.”
Scott zoomed in on another group of pedestrians. “We were starting to wonder. But we have only a couple of days left, and if any more MacKays arrive, I’m worried we may not be able to protect all these people.”
“I told you they aren’t all relatives,” he protested as Caroline pointed to a pair of brunettes gliding through the crowd. They wore white sundresses, similar in style, their necks circled by colorful leis, Kat’s bright pink, Brigit’s vivid blue. They turned broad smiles on each other and passersby, stopping often for hugs. “But those two are cousins of mine.”
Caroline groaned. “The brides. They are wearing me out.”
“They were the biggest tomboys ever, you know? Always covered in mud, knees skinned, braids flying around.” Gordon smiled at the happiness of his two favorite younger cousins before he remembered the danger they were in. Then determination set in. “They deserve their special day.”
Scott looked away from his ever-present scanning of the camera feeds. “We’ll make it happen.”
Caroline nodded. “You know it, Gordo.” Only she called him that, and he let her. She’d been his contact in town for the past two years, keeping watch over his wife and making sure the threat did not return.
Then it had.
Caroline groaned. “I think your cousins are very sweet girls, but they’re headed this way again. This is the biggest wedding I’ve managed in the two years the shop’s been my cover, and their ceremony and reception have the most moving parts.”
“I’d think being a wedding planner would be a piece of cake, so to speak, after some of your recent assignments,” Scott said, focused on his screens again, working his way from group to group. “Damn, it was much easier keeping track of things before the influx.”
“I’m sure,” Gordon said. “Focus in on that guy right there.”
“Okay.” He clicked a few keys, bringing the dark-haired, olive skinned man into sharp relief. “Recognize him?”
“No.”
“The fact you don’t recognize him makes him someone to watch.” A bell jangled in the front of the shop, and Caroline sighed. “Duty calls. Want to come say hi to your cousins?”
“You know I can’t do that.” Their happy giggles carried to him, making him even more resolute. They’d have their day and never know it had been endangered.
“Gordo…you think you can trust Jenna not to tell anyone you’re back?”
Good question. “I think so. She was pretty emotional, but I’ve never known her to break a confidence.”
“Even though she doesn’t know all the details?”
“Yes. And it’s just as well. And I don’t want to make a big fuss until Jenna decides whether she wants me to stay.”
“She didn’t welcome you with open arms?”
Like he’d kiss and tell. Although, by saying nothing, he probably told the tale. “We have a lot of talking to do before she can make an informed decision.”
“Good idea, stud.” Scott let the image of the dark man go and continued searching. For what, Gordon didn’t really know, but he had no doubt his colleague had an agenda.
“I’ll go see what the brides want now. We’ve hit the stage where there really can’t be any changes, but none of them realize that. They probably want to swap out the roses in the bouquets or something. Like the florist could change his order. That takes at least a week for an event of this size.” She headed for the door to the front.
“You’ve become quite a wedding planner, Sarge,” he said. “One would think you had a calling.”
She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. An old drill sergeant like me?” Caroline flipped him the bird then blew him a kiss before gliding through to the front, going from her Omega Team presence to charming wedding planner in the blink of an eye. Her voice carried back to them. “My dears, I’m delighted you could stop by. The gorgeous charms you ordered for the bridesmaids have arrived. You’re going to be so pleased.”
From the squeals and giggles, they were more than pleased. When had his cousins turned into girls? Well, they’d always been girls, but now they sounded so feminine. The fire fighters would all get a kick out of this unexpected side of the hard ass fire inspector and horoscope-reading, daredevil chopper pilot. Love changed people. He hoped not too much.
Dismissing the brides, Gordon returned his attention to Scott. “Our clan can overwhelm anyone. You’re sure that before this week, while the population was still manageable, there was nobody of interest floating around?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, then. I’m going to head out and find Mac. If one person in this town needs to know what’s going on, it’s the chief. He’s got a finger on everything that goes on, and the brides are the two granddaughters he raised. He may order the weddings canceled now.” Gordon peeked out the window beside the back door. It opened on a side street, little better than an alley, which, even under the current circumstances was empty. Nobody needed tires or welding—the other shops facing the narrow street—two days before the wedding of the century. Using the back exit beat a couple of guys wandering in and out of the very frou-frou wedding salon, which was sure to garner unwelcome attention. He grabbed his duffel and briefcase, stored there on his arrival in town. Unsure of his reception at the inn, he’d not wanted to show up with luggage.
He’d look for Mac at the chief’s favorite getaway first. If he guessed right, the legendary chief would be there to avoid dealing with a houseful of hysterical bridesmaids, some of whom would definitely recognize him and start a chain reaction he would do almost anything to avoid.
“Later, Scott.” He closed the door and listened to the lock click into place. When he’d gone dark, Gordon had hoped Cedar Valley would be safe. In fact, he’d had no reason to think otherwise. The threat had been job related. If it was the same
criminals now—and Grey and Athena were confident of the fact—what did they want from a thousand of his family and friends? They’d threatened mayhem but not made their demands known.
On one level, Gordon wanted to ride through the town like Paul Revere, yelling, “The hackers are coming!” Warning everyone to go home and be safe. But would they be? As long as they did not know what the criminals sought, they could not guarantee they would not pursue them elsewhere. And so many lived in Cedar Valley already. They couldn’t abandon their lives to head for the hills just in case they’d been targeted.
He pulled a baseball cap on, covering his distinctive red hair, and headed for Jenna’s nondescript SUV parked the next street over. His own ride would have been his first choice, but everyone in town knew the bike he’d rebuilt in high school and named Bianca. He’d passed at least a dozen white SUVs like this one just this morning. Nobody would give it a second glance.
Chapter Six
In the quiet after breakfast, Jenna sat going over her checklist for the wedding. The inn did not serve lunch, and her dinner cook and waitstaff were fortunately not members of the wedding party so she wouldn’t have to do their job. With a full house, plus outside reservations, they’d be busy for the full three hours they served. Then, after dinner, they’d be staying on to start cooking for the wedding. An outdoor feast under fairy lights in the town square for one thousand, give or take a few shoestring relatives. Easy! Not.
It looked as though she had everything she’d need until she reached the bottom of the list and saw bananas foster ice cream. Be sure to pick up bananas. Brigit’s fiancé loved the dessert, and she’d asked specifically if it could be converted into ice cream to serve with the tropical-flavored blue velvet cake being made by Desserts du Jour. The bananas should work nicely with the pineapple, coconut, vanilla combo…all colored bright blue. Jamie had some out-of-the-box ideas, for sure.
The Omega Team: Hidden Asset (Kindle Worlds Novella) (MacKay Destiny Book 8) Page 3
