His Secret Agenda

by Beth Andrews

  Her throat tightened. Dean had been right—Richie was using again. His pupils were dilated and he kept fidgeting. Picking at a small ding in the tabletop. Tossing his head to get the hair out of his eyes. And he’d hooked his foot around the leg of the chair next to him and kept pushing it away and pulling it back again.

  She clasped her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t reach over and shake the living hell out of him. How long had he been using? How could he do this to himself? What had happened to send him back to the drugs?

  And the biggest, scariest question of all: Why hadn’t she noticed before?

  “I need to ask you something,” she told him, trying to hold his gaze. “And all I want is for you to be honest. Whatever your answer, I hope it’s the truth.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He scratched his arm, his eyes flicking to Dean, then to her again. “What is it?”

  She linked her hands on top of the table. “Are you using again?”

  He reared back. “No.” But his voice shook. “I’m clean. You know that.”

  “You’ve been acting strange,” she said with a calmness she didn’t feel. “You’ve been late for work several times in the past few weeks—”

  “I told you, I had a flat tire that one day.” He ran a trembling hand over his face. “And that other time, my alarm didn’t go off.”

  And she was such a fool, she’d believed him both times. “Plus,” she continued, “you look terrible. You’re pale and sweating and—”

  “I’ve been sick,” he cried, slamming his hands on the table. “You know I’ve been sick. But I’m feeling better. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be fine. And I won’t be late again, I swear.”

  “I saw you using,” Dean said. Though the words were spoken softly, they seemed to fill the room.

  Richie jumped to his feet, knocking his chair backward. “You’re a damn liar.”

  Dean set his soda can on the table. “Sit down.”

  “He’s lying,” Richie repeated, this time looking at Allie as if willing her to believe him. Begging her to. “I’m clean. I swear it.” He looked ready to cry.

  She could relate.

  Allie stood, ignoring how unsteady her legs were. “Let me help you. Sit down so we can discuss—”

  Richie kicked the chair. It skidded through the meatballs and banged into the counter. “You either believe him or me.”

  Her heart pounded heavily. She stepped toward Richie, stopping when Dean took hold of her arm. She tried to shake him off but he tightened his grip.

  “We’ll get you back in rehab,” she told Richie. He looked at her with such anger and contempt, she shivered. “Your job is still secure. And once you come back, you—”

  “Forget it,” he snarled. He crossed the room and snatched his coat off the hook on the wall. “I’m not going to rehab and I don’t need your help.” He opened the door. “I thought you were different,” he whispered roughly. “I thought I could trust you.”

  And then he walked out and slammed the door.

  She jerked out of Dean’s hold and, willing her tears away, walked to the closet for the broom and dustpan. Feeling Dean’s gaze on her, she leaned the broom against the counter, picked up the baking dish and set it on the counter before sweeping meatballs into the dustpan.

  She emptied them into the trash, biting her trembling lower lip when Dean touched her shoulder. “Hey, you—”

  “Don’t,” she muttered, shrugging his hand off. She bowed her head and struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat. “Don’t…please…don’t ask me if I’m okay. Or tell me I did the right thing.”

  “All right,” he said. Then he took the broom and walked over to the mess.

  She frowned. “What are you doing?”

  He swept some of the meatballs into a pile. “You spend a lot of time cleaning up other people’s messes. Tonight, you don’t have to do it alone.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, Dean spent close to five minutes staring at the pink, heart-shaped wreath on Allie’s door while he waited for her to let him in. He’d rung the bell for the seventh time when the door opened.

  He’d obviously woken her. She wore a pair of baggy gray sweatpants, a faded Columbia University sweatshirt and a pair of fuzzy red socks. Her hair was a mess.

  And she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  His fingers tightened on the two plastic grocery bags he held. “Morning,” he said, working to keep his voice even. Not an easy task when she looked all warm and sleepy, as if the only thing she wanted was to crawl back into bed.

  Which, when he thought about it, didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  She yawned. “Hi. Everything okay?”

  “Fine. A bit cold…” Yeah, just a bit. He’d lost feeling in his fingers three minutes ago.

  She blinked slowly. “Sorry. Come on in.”

  He took his hat off as he stepped inside, careful not to brush against her. She closed the door and then leaned against it. A black, long-haired cat meowed and wound around his legs.

  Dean set his bags down and scratched behind the cat’s ears. She purred, lifting her head and closing her eyes. “What’s her name?” he asked.

  “Hmm?”

  He bit back a grin. He’d come here hoping to get more information about Allie, and he’d already learned something new. She was not a morning person.

  Not that he thought that insight would help him finish his job, but it didn’t hurt to know she wasn’t always at the top of her game. And part of the reason he was there was to try and catch her off guard, find out who the number from her cell phone he and Nolan hadn’t been able to trace belonged to. A friend? An ex-lover?

  Or Lynne Addison?

  “Your cat’s name,” he said. “I’m assuming she has one.”

  “Of course. It’s Persephone.” Allie yawned again. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”

  He picked up the bags and straightened. Held them up as Persephone meowed again and nudged his leg with her head. “I’m making you breakfast.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’ve fed me for almost a week. I thought I should return the favor.”

  She frowned, looking adorably confused. “But…that’s a perk of your job.”

  “Dinner Sunday night wasn’t.”

  “Still, you don’t need—”

  “I want to.” He stepped forward so that only a foot separated them. Wariness entered her expression. “Besides, I thought maybe you could…use a friend. After what happened last night.”

  Her mouth popped open and she acted as if he’d thrust the bags at her and demanded she make him breakfast.

  “I really need coffee,” she muttered.

  She shuffled away and around a corner, Persephone giving chase. Still holding his hat, Dean rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, noticing a wooden bench, like an old church pew, against the wall behind him. He tossed his hat on the glossy, dark wood, then sat. After taking off his boots and setting them on a heavy mat under the bench, he stood and laid his coat down. With the bags in hand, he went in search of his unwilling host.

  And if he felt like the biggest jerk for using her innate goodness and her worry about Richie to worm his way not only inside her home, but inside her head as well, he’d get over it.

  The end always justified the means.

  When he found her in the small kitchen, he pursed his lips. Bent at the waist, her ass in the air, her head resting in her folded arms on the counter, she was muttering at the coffeepot to hurry up. Beside her were two mugs and a container of some sort of flavored creamer. Persephone, sitting at Allie’s feet, purred loudly.

  He cleared his throat. “Does talking to the pot like that make it work faster?”

  “I hope so.”

  He set his bags on the table and started unloading them. “I hope you like pancakes. I make my mother’s secret recipe.”

  She grunted. Allison Martin—classy, stylish, always put together, always one step ahead of ever
yone—just grunted at him.

  Was it any wonder he got such a big kick out of her?

  “Hallelujah,” she breathed at last. She poured coffee into one of the mugs, then added at least as much creamer. He grimaced. Why ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee by making it taste like sugar cookies or some other crap?

  She wrapped both hands around her mug, lifted it to her face and inhaled.

  “Are you sniffing your coffee?” he asked.

  “Please. I’m having a moment here.” She sipped, her eyelids drifting shut in apparent ecstasy.

  And damn if he didn’t want to see if he could put that look on her face. Even if he couldn’t, he bet they’d have a lot of fun trying.

  After a few more sips, she poured him a cup. “Do you want anything in yours?”

  “Black’s fine.” When she handed it to him, he purposely allowed his fingers to linger over hers. As a test. For both of them. “Thanks,” he said.

  She swallowed and he noticed she curled her fingers into her palm. She nodded at the groceries on the table. “I’m fine, you know. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I want to.”

  Last night she’d been so upset, she hadn’t said a word after Dean told her he’d stick around and help her clean up. But it wasn’t her silence that had bothered him. That had him wanting to take her in his arms and tell her that no matter what happened, everything would work out. That made him want to protect her.

  It was because she’d seemed so vulnerable. So crushed.

  She opened a can of cat food and dumped it into Persephone’s dish, then filled the other dish with fresh water and washed her hands. “Well, since you’re sort of insisting and all,” she said, drying them on a tea towel, “what can I do to help?”

  “I need half of these chopped.” He tossed her a small bag of pecans, impressed by her one-handed catch. “Where are your mixing bowls?”

  She picked up a cutting board and knife and gestured to her left. “Bottom cupboard.”

  By the time he found the bowls, she’d set out measuring cups and spoons.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked.

  She poured the pecans into a large glass measuring cup before scooping out exactly half onto the cutting board. “I’m fine.”

  He crumpled the plastic bags and set them on a chair. “You seemed pretty upset last night.”

  “I just…I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No talking.” He saluted her with a banana. “No problem.”

  She set to work chopping pecans, one nut at a time, into tiny, even pieces.

  “They don’t have to be quite that…perfect,” he said.

  “Is it hurting anything if I do it this way?” Her chilly tone told him that was a trick question that had no right answer.

  “No?”

  “Then I guess I’ll keep doing it the way I want.”

  And if he’d said yes, she would’ve challenged him on why the pecans had to be chopped a certain way. See? No right answer.

  He poured buttermilk into the large bowl and added three eggs and some vanilla before whisking them together with a fork. Patience was all a part of the game, of his job.

  Not that he’d have to wait long. He’d been around Allie enough to know that she didn’t stay quiet for long. At least not once she had her morning coffee. She always seemed to be engaged in conversation, be it with a customer, an employee or the guy who delivered the beer. She also had a bad habit of saying whatever was on her mind.

  It was only a matter of time before she cracked. After all, he hadn’t come here just to make pancakes.

  He stirred the dry ingredients together in the small bowl. Dumped the rest of the pecans back into the bag so he could melt butter in the glass measuring cup in the microwave.

  “I feel so stupid,” Allie blurted.

  Damn, he loved being right.

  He took the butter from the microwave and set it on the table before adding the dry ingredients to the larger bowl. “One thing you’re not is stupid.”

  Finished with the pecans, she brushed her hands together. “I didn’t know Richie had started using again.”

  Dean mixed the ingredients together and added the butter and chopped pecans. “It’s hard to see things we don’t want to see.”

  That he knew from firsthand experience.

  “You saw it,” Allie groused, making it sound like an accusation.

  “I’m not emotionally invested in what happens to Richie. Sometimes you have to step away from a situation to be able to see it clearly.” He handed her three bananas. “Want to slice these for me?”

  “Bananas in pancakes?”

  “You’ll love them. Trust me.”

  While she worked on the bananas, he found a large skillet and set it on the stove, turned the flame on underneath it.

  “So, your theory on stepping back…is that your educated opinion? Or are you speaking from experience?”

  He added butter to the pan, listening to it sizzle as it melted. “Experience. Definitely experience.”

  “I WAS MARRIED,” Dean said, his back still to her.

  “I know,” Allie replied. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Remember? Sunday when Jack was interrogating you, you told him you were divorced.”

  Dean nodded and turned back to the stove. She sipped her coffee. It was lukewarm, so she got up and refilled both their cups. The scent of melted butter filled her kitchen. Dean poured batter into the hot pan and then picked up the cutting board with the sliced bananas.

  This entire…thing…was too weird. And growing weirder by the moment. The last person she’d ever expected to see on her doorstep was Dean Garret. And yet there he stood, in her kitchen, big as life. It was surreal. To be honest, she should be freaked out. She hadn’t brushed her hair or her teeth yet, for God’s sake.

  But she couldn’t muster the energy to care.

  She took down two plates and set them by the stove, then added cream to her coffee. “Divorce is never easy,” she said, a not-so-subtle nudge to get him talking again.

  He pressed some banana slices into the pancakes. “You divorced?”

  “Well, no—”

  “And your parents have been together how long?”

  “Thirty-five years,” she admitted, leaning back against the counter, her feet crossed. Persephone curled up next to her. “But half of all marriages end in divorce, and I have friends who’ve been through it.”

  He smirked. “Darlin’, having friends who get divorced isn’t quite the same as going through it…or your parents splitting up.” He expertly flipped the pancakes.

  She kept her hands wrapped around her mug. She knew if she touched him like she wanted to, he’d shrug her off. “That must’ve been rough.”

  He slid the cooked pancakes onto a plate before adding more batter to the pan. “My mom made these pancakes on special occasions, like our birthdays or Christmas. And the last day of school. She always said the last day was more cause to celebrate than the first day.”

  “Smart mom.”

  “She is at that.” He added the bananas and then went to the table and poured maple syrup into the measuring cup, placing it in the microwave to warm. “The only other time she made them was the morning she told us Dad had moved out. There was no warning, just…Dad’s gone and he won’t be coming back.”

  “You had no idea they were having problems?”

  “If they were—and the fact they started divorce proceedings the next day tells me they were—we didn’t know it.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eleven.” He finished the pancakes. Handed her both plates to carry to the table while he grabbed the syrup. “Ryan was nine and Sammy was six.”

  She set the plates down, wondering what he’d been like at that age. Had he ever really been young and carefree? Or was he always serious and contained? Did his parents’ divorce force him to take on that protective outer shell? And if so, what did he think he needed protection from now?
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br />   “How did you deal with it?” she asked, placing glasses, forks and napkins on the table before getting a carton of orange juice out of the fridge.

  He snorted. “We had no clue what she was telling us. What she meant by they weren’t in love anymore. That Dad had decided to take a job in Austin, but we could still visit him. Maybe stay at his new house for a week or two during the summer.” He added whole pecans to the syrup and pulled her chair out for her, waiting for her to sit before he did the same. “It wasn’t until about a year later that I realized all the signs were there.” He tapped his fist against the table. “I’d just been blind to them.”

  His voice was flat, his face expressionless. She knew discussing this was hard on him. And even though he probably didn’t want her sympathy, she couldn’t help but offer it in some small way.

  She covered his clenched hand with her own. “Give yourself a break. You were just a kid.”

  He slid his hand out from under hers and poured syrup over his stack of pancakes before passing it to Allie. “It happened again when I was older. In my own marriage.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened again?”

  He picked up his fork and cut into his pancakes, but didn’t eat. “My not noticing what was right in front of my face. Not wanting to see how unhappy my wife was, so I could pretend that everything was all right.”

  After a long silence, Allie turned to her plate of pancakes and began to eat for lack of anything helpful to say. They were light and fluffy, and the bananas added a touch of sweetness while the pecans added crunch. She hesitated and then finally said, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I can’t believe your ex-wife wouldn’t stay married to you just for these pancakes.”

  One side of his mouth quirked in that half grin she found so appealing. Some of the knots in her stomach loosened. She didn’t want to see him morose. She had that emotion covered, thank you very much.

  “Actually, I don’t think I ever cooked for her. Something else I screwed up.”