Sleeping With the Enemy

by Tracy Solheim

  “Let me get Mr. McManus.” Linc’s eyes were round with concern.

  “No!” Bridgett said it more fervently this time. “My bag is in the limo. I just need to get it and I’ll grab a cab out front.”

  Linc looked like he’d rather streak through a football stadium than let her go, but Bridgett couldn’t be around Jay any longer. Especially not after today. And she had to get out of this hospital. “The boss won’t like you taking a cab.”

  “I’ll take her.”

  They both looked up to see the FBI agent from the night before standing beside them. Linc looked at him with relief, and Bridgett remembered that Special Agent Kovaluk and Jay were friends from their boyhood days.

  “Jay needs to be here with Charlie,” the agent said. He exchanged a look with Linc, who shook his head. “Besides, I have something I need to discuss with Ms. Janik.”

  He placed a hand on Bridgett’s back and began to guide her toward the exit. Bridgett glanced over her shoulder at Linc, and then at the closed curtain at the end of the hall. “Remember what you promised,” she reminded him. Charlie would need lots of emotional support these next few months, and while Bridgett had come to care for Jay’s sister, she couldn’t afford to be that close to his family.

  Linc nodded and Agent Kovaluk propelled them out into the sunny day. The world was going on normally, despite the fact that Charlie’s baby was no longer living. It had been the same way when Bridgett had lost her baby. The concept had taken her months to accept. It would likely be just as difficult for Charlie.

  Agent Kovaluk retrieved her bag from the limousine and stowed it in the trunk of the nondescript Chrysler he drove. He opened the passenger door for Bridgett and she slid in. Then he was behind the wheel and starting the car’s engine. The sportscaster on the radio announced that the Blaze were still trailing by one point in the game.

  “It looks like a missed extra point may be the difference in the game,” he said.

  Bridgett glanced out the window at the afternoon sun as they made their way to the airport. She wasn’t in the mood to make small talk, but the agent was doing her a favor. The least she could do was be polite. “I always feel sorry for those guys. They have to have an extra helping of mental toughness to be a placekicker.”

  “Don’t feel too sorry for them. They get paid a hell of a lot more than the rest of us for kicking a ball ten times a week, and they don’t even get tackled.”

  He glanced over at her and his charming smile helped soothe her frayed nerves.

  “You do have a point there.” She studied his handsome profile. With sandy blond hair, green eyes, and an easy smile, he was the light to Jay’s darker persona. Bridgett didn’t kid herself for one minute, though. Matt Kovaluk was also a federal agent, and an alpha male personality was practically a requirement to earn a badge. “You said you had something you wanted to discuss with me?”

  His lips flattened from a smile to a more somber grin. “I did.” His eyes left the road for a brief moment to study her. “I have to ask you if you ever met Delaney Silverberg.”

  The question surprised her and her legal training unconsciously kicked into gear. “Are you asking for personal reasons or professional ones?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Actually, this is just a friendly conversation. I was involved in the case investigating the gambling ring, but only tangentially with Delaney. But some things have surfaced that might come to light in her prosecution, so I’m trying to tie up loose ends.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  Agent Kovaluk paused for a moment, seeming to debate something with himself. “A letter.”

  “I never sent Delaney a letter. I never met the woman. We had one and only one conversation on the phone thirteen years ago and that was it.”

  He looked at her out of the corner of one eye before staring back at the highway again. “You seem pretty sure of your facts. And this isn’t a letter you wrote. It’s a letter Jay wrote to you.”

  The air seized up in Bridgett’s lungs. “Jay never wrote me a letter.” She was sure of that fact, too.

  “Well, it’s his handwriting on the letter and it’s addressed to you in Italy. My guess is Delaney intercepted it.”

  Gray dots were floating in front of Bridgett’s eyes and her mouth felt fuzzy. Jay had written her a letter. What would Delaney have been doing with it? “Do you have it?” she whispered. “The letter.”

  “It’s part of the evidence file.”

  An embarrassing squeak escaped the back of her throat.

  He sighed. “I have a copy of it on my iPad.”

  “Please, let me see it.”

  With another resigned sigh, he switched lanes to pull off at the exit, driving into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. He reached into the seat behind her and grabbed his tablet. Bridgett could hear her heart pounding as he powered it up. After punching in a code and opening the file, he handed it to her, pausing before he released it fully. “I have to remind you that you’re an officer of the court and what I’m about to show you can’t be discussed with anyone.”

  She nodded, anxious to lay eyes on the letter. The page with the envelope came up first. It was addressed to her, care of the DiSantis villa. She’d have to take the agent’s word that it was Jay’s handwriting, because they’d never had a chance to exchange so much as a note. Bridgett scrolled down to the next page, gasping when she read the date: It was dated six days before she’d called Jay to tell him about the baby.

  “Are you okay?” Agent Kovaluk offered her a bottled water, but she shook her head.

  Jay’s handwriting was a lot like him—neat, bold, and dark. She bit back a smile at the sight of it. Her smile turned to tears as she read the letter. He wrote that he was going to New Zealand to sell the rights to the wine labels left from his grandfather’s winery. Jay explained that his stepfather had not left him any inheritance. Bridgett was surprised by the lack of bitterness in the letter. But he needed the money to buy the fermentation formula so that they could start their vineyard. His constant reference to them both as a couple robbed her of her breath. Agent Kovaluk seemed to understand and he pushed a button to roll down the window.

  Jay asked her to wait for him, explaining that it might take weeks for the process to be completed, and Bridgett gulped down a sob. If only she had known. She would have waited forever.

  The final page proved to be her undoing, and her body shook as she read it.

  I love you. I should have told you that night you left me in the airport. You make me whole, Bridgett. My life is a little unsure right now but the one thing I am sure about is that you’re the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. Please be patient and believe in me. Believe in us. For years, I’ve dreamed of carrying on my family legacy and passing it onto my children—our children—and I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful person to share that dream with. One day we’ll walk through our vineyards with them by our side and that dream will be a reality. All because of you. I love you. And I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again. Stay out of the mud until I get back. I don’t ever want to lose you.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “He didn’t desert me. I just didn’t believe in us enough.” Her thoughts were scattered, and Bridgett couldn’t seem to stop shaking. “Delaney said he was at a Cubs game. But he was in New Zealand. He wouldn’t have known about the baby.”

  Had Delaney ever told him about the baby? But Jay had been angry when he confronted her in Boston. So he’d known about the baby then. What must he have thought of her? Bridgett gulped another sob as she sank more fully into the seat. No wonder he hated her.

  “Maybe I should take you back,” Agent Kovaluk said softly.

  Bridgett shook her head. “It was a long time ago. It’s too late now.” It was too late for them. She could no longer blame Jay for not trusting her. She hadn’t believed in what they had.
Worse still, she was no longer able to give him what he wanted most of all: children. “Please, take me to the airport.”

  He hesitated a moment before solemnly putting the car into drive and entering the highway.

  Twenty-three

  They’d taken Charlie into an exam room to do an ultrasound, and when the doctor came out, she confirmed their fears: His sister was no longer pregnant. Jay thought he should feel a tremendous sense of relief—after all, he didn’t want her having some deadbeat’s child. Instead he felt immense sadness. He hadn’t realized how much he was looking forward to having a child running around the vineyard, even if it wasn’t his own. The thought of being an uncle had secretly delighted him. And now it wasn’t going to happen.

  He could hear Charlie’s soft sobs from inside her hospital room, but still he remained outside, grateful that his sister was willing to accept comfort from their mother. If their mother was shocked by Charlie’s condition, she didn’t show it. Instead, she’d quietly offered her daughter unyielding support. Jay was optimistic that if something positive could come out of this situation, it would be the reparation of the rift between the two women in his life.

  The two women in his life.

  His mother and Charlie. But not Bridgett. Never Bridgett. Jay was glad that she’d been the one to be there for his sister, but then she’d disappeared. Again.

  “Linc, could you stop pacing, please,” Jay commanded. “I’m getting a sore neck.”

  “We ended up losing by eight points,” Linc said as he slid into the chair next to him. “Today hasn’t been a good day all around. Mr. Osbourne wanted to come by the hospital but I told him it wasn’t necessary. I don’t think Charlie will be happy that it’s on the Internet already.”

  Jay sighed as he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. “Maybe you should call Mimi. She should be able to help spin this.”

  Linc nodded. “At least Ms. Janik read the EMTs the riot act already.”

  His eyes snapped open and he turned to face his assistant. “She did?”

  “Oh, yeah. The nurses said it was something to behold. She threatened to sue them, the county, and the state if any of the conversation in the ambulance was leaked.”

  Jay was suddenly very curious about what was said in that ambulance.

  “I underestimated her,” Linc said.

  “Who?”

  “Ms. Janik. I didn’t think she was much of a ball buster, remember?” Linc asked. “But she was. She is. As my grandmother would say: She’s good people.”

  Jay swallowed hard. There were so many sides to Bridgett Janik that he wasn’t sure which one was the real woman. But Linc was right, she’d been “good people” today when it came to helping out with Charlie.

  His mother popped her head out of the door. “We’re all done in here.”

  He was reluctant to go into the room, into the world so obviously female, but he wanted to help reassure Charlie. The doctor was pulling off her gloves when he entered.

  “Well, if there’s any good news today, it’s that this wasn’t anything traumatic to your system. You’ll be able to conceive both via in vitro again or normally with no problem. Unfortunately, a spontaneous miscarriage happens in fifteen percent of all pregnancies and we don’t often know the cause. You’re in good health otherwise, but we’ll run some blood tests just to ensure nothing is amiss. I’d like to see you back here this week just to make sure you’re recovering fully.”

  “We’ll have her back whenever you say, Doctor,” his mother said as she gave Charlie’s hand a squeeze.

  “Good. I want to keep you on IV fluids for a little longer, so you just rest here until I’ve got the preliminary blood work back from the lab. I’ll be back to see you before you’re discharged.”

  Jay waited for the doctor to close the door. “What did she mean ‘by in vitro again’?”

  Both women in the room donned mulish masks. Great, now that the two had made amends, it seemed he was on the dark side of the estrogen triangle.

  “Bridgett really didn’t tell you?” Charlie asked.

  Jay ground his back teeth. “Obviously not.”

  His sister’s face, still splotchy from her tears, softened a bit. “She’s a keeper. Whatever you’ve done to her you need to make up, because you’ll never find anyone as nice as Bridgett. She’s good for you. Where are you hiding her anyway?”

  “She’s gone home to Boston,” Linc answered from somewhere behind him. He wasn’t even aware his assistant had followed him into the room, but he’d deal with Linc’s nosiness later. Right now he wanted to get to the bottom of Charlie’s pregnancy.

  He reached up to knead the muscles squeezing at the back of the neck. “Charlie, are you saying you got pregnant in a lab!” His mother shushed him as his sister began to sob again. Jay didn’t care—he wanted answers. “Why in the hell would you do something like that?”

  “Because,” Charlie cried, nearly launching herself off the bed at him. “I wanted something of my own. Someone to love me!”

  Jay felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He didn’t understand his sister at all. Worse, his mother was looking at him as if he were the villain in this drama. “I love you, Charlie.” The words stuck in his dry throat. “I’ve loved you since the day you were born. I don’t know how you could have ever doubted that.”

  Charlie sobbed even harder and Jay felt like he’d been kicked in the head. He seriously didn’t understand his sister’s rationale. Jay shot his mother a pleading look.

  His mother sighed as she held Charlie’s head on her shoulder and gently stroked her hair. “It’s not about you and I loving her. Your sister was lonely and searching for something to do with her life. You and I both have careers. She chose motherhood for hers.” Their mother shrugged, as if it were the most logical answer in the world.

  “And I failed at it miserably,” Charlie cried.

  “Hush,” their mother said. “You heard what the doctor said. You’ll be able to have children in the future.”

  “With the emphasis being on ‘in the future,’ Charlie.” Jay was having trouble keeping his tone neutral and his mother shot him a glare that very clearly said, Now is not the time. He threw up his hands in frustration.

  “I stand corrected,” Charlie snapped. “Bridgett is too good for you. I wish that she’d stayed and you’d left!” She buried her face into their mother’s shoulder.

  “It’s just the hormones talking,” his mother said quietly over Charlie’s head. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “Yes, I do.” Charlie’s voice was muffled but no less belligerent. “At least Bridgett could relate to what I’m going through. She lost a baby, too.”

  Jay stiffened at his sister’s words. How the hell did Charlie know about the baby? He locked gazes with his mother, whose eyes were wide and confused. She shook her head at his unvoiced accusation. His mother hadn’t told Charlie.

  “It’s not exactly the same thing, sweetheart,” his mother said. “Bridgett had an abortion. She didn’t lose her baby.”

  Charlie pulled out of their mother’s arms, her face scrunched up with anger now. “Mother! How could you say such a thing? You don’t even know Bridgett. She lost her baby. She told me so. Bridgett didn’t have an abortion.” The monitors they had Charlie hooked to began to beep.

  “Sweetheart, you need to calm down,” their mother said.

  “I won’t! She was in love with the baby’s father. Madly in love. She told me. And then he deserted her and she was all alone.”

  Jay seethed at the revisionist history Bridgett had given his sister. “That’s not exactly how it went down.”

  Realization began to dawn on Charlie slowly and Jay watched her face begin to crumble just as the nurse charged in.

  “There are too many people in this room.” She pointed at Jay and Linc. “You
two—out!”

  “I don’t believe you, Jay,” Charlie whispered. “She loved you and she mourned your child. Damn it, she was still mourning it today. Something isn’t right with all this. I know it isn’t.”

  The nurse pinned Jay with an evil look, gesturing for him to leave as their mother settled Charlie back into the bed. Jay woodenly exited the room, Linc at his heels. He stopped inches from the wall and banged his forehead against it. It didn’t help.

  “Is there anything I can do, boss?”

  Jay kept his head pressed to the wall. “Just take my advice and become a monk. Life would be a hell of a lot easier.”

  The sound of a resigned sigh had Jay turning away from the wall and staring at Matt Kovaluk’s familiar mug.

  “Not all women are evil, Linc.” Matt was talking to Linc, but his eyes never left Jay’s face. “And not everything is always as it seems.”

  A chill ran up Jay’s spine at this friend’s words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Remember last night when I told you they’d found some papers with your name on them at Delaney’s?”

  Jay’s body stiffened in defense of the figurative blow he felt was coming. “Yeah. You said you’d show them to me today.”

  Matt’s eyes darted to his shoes and Jay knew whatever was coming he wouldn’t like. His friend fumbled with his tablet. “They found a letter written by you in Delaney’s stuff.”

  “I don’t remember ever writing her a letter. Maybe a postcard or two.”

  “The letter wasn’t addressed to Delaney,” Matt said, but Jay didn’t hear the rest because suddenly there was a loud roaring sound in his ears.

  He slumped down into one of the chairs lining the wall and tried to breathe normally, but that was proving difficult. “She never mailed the fucking letter to Bridgett,” he murmured. “Bridgett never saw it.”

  Matt shifted his stance. “Well, no, not until an hour ago.”

  Jay’s head shot up and he stared mutely at his friend.