His Secret Agenda

by Beth Andrews

  “So now you know,” Allie said, ignoring his question. “What are you going to do?”

  He set the file on the table. “Nolan found out that Robin Hawley is actually Sondra Wilkins.”

  Her mouth popped open. “Miles’s secretary?”

  Dean gritted his teeth. The idea of him and Nolan being so easily tricked still pissed him off. “Seems her skills are more diverse than just running Addison’s office. She’s also one hell of an actress. She played the part of repentant mother to a T.”

  “Next time you should check out your client’s background,” Allie said bitterly.

  Unable to stop himself, he asked, “Like you did before you hired me?”

  He was surprised she didn’t shove the Lego down his throat. “I hope you don’t have to give back any retainer she paid you. I’d hate for you to be out any money.”

  Right. More like she hoped he’d drop dead where he stood so she could spit on his cold, lifeless body. “Actually, we told her we were still on the case. In a few days we’ll tell her our leads ended somewhere west of the Mississippi. We were thinking Montana or Wyoming.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?”

  “So when Addison hires someone else to find her—and I’m guessing he will—it’ll throw them off the real trail.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nolan and I have a strict need-to-know policy with our clients. Ever since one of our first customers showed up in the same town where we’d tracked his teenage runaway daughter. Once she saw him, our cover was blown and we learned a valuable lesson. So Lynne—or Ellen—doesn’t have to worry about Miles knowing she’s here in Serenity Springs.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Because she’s not here.”

  “I know you’re mad at me, but you need to stop the act.” He jabbed a finger at the picture. “Ellen needs to be prepared when the next PI comes looking for her, and I need her to know—” He clamped his mouth shut.

  Allie laughed harshly. “You need her to know what? That you’re sorry? That you didn’t mean to ruin her life?”

  “Yes, damn it,” he growled. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “Well, you can forget about me passing on your apology. She’s gone. And before you ask, I don’t know where she went and I doubt she’ll be in contact with me anytime soon.” Allie picked up a folded piece of paper from the table and threw it at him. It fluttered to the floor at his feet. “Looks like you won’t be absolved of this particular sin.”

  He picked up the paper, unfolded it and read the neat writing: “Allie, thank you for everything but it’s time we were on our own.”

  He crumpled it in his hand. “Is this for real?”

  “The closets are empty. She must’ve taken off right after I called her this morning.” Allie slowly got to her feet as if it hurt to move. “It’s over.”

  He stood frozen to the spot as she walked to the door without a backward glance. He followed, brushing past her and jumping off the porch onto the sidewalk, blocking her.

  “It doesn’t have to be over,” he said. “We don’t have to be over.”

  She shook her head. “You’re kidding, right? After everything you’ve done, all your lies, you think there’s anything left between us?”

  He’d been in worse situations than this, he reminded himself. He’d been shot at, had things blown up next to him. He’d lost his son.

  He wouldn’t lose Allie. He couldn’t.

  He swallowed and reached for her hand, but the glare she shot him told him he needed to keep his distance. “Please, Allie.”

  She inclined her head and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m not proud of any of this,” he said. “Not how I allowed myself to be used by that prick to find his wife. And I’m not proud that I lied to you. I actually…I was going to tell you last night—”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “It’s the truth. When I went outside to warm up the cars I knew I needed to come clean with you. I realized I…cared about you and I didn’t want any lies between us anymore.” He prayed she believed him. One last time. “But then Richie knocked me out and—”

  “And you decided you no longer needed to tell me?” She glanced around and lowered her voice, even though they were alone. “You thought you’d sleep with me instead?”

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “I trusted you,” she declared, shivering in the cold. “I told you things I’d never told anyone.” Tears slid unchecked down her cheeks. “You used me. And for what? A job?”

  “I was wrong,” he said, hating the desperation he heard in his voice. “But I can make it up to you. I know I can.”

  “You can’t,” she whispered. “It’s too late.”

  His anger simmered. “So that’s it? You just—” he snapped his fingers “—and we’re through?”

  “You’re the one who lied—”

  “You’re willing to forgive Richie for holding a gun to your head, but not me.”

  “That’s right, I can forgive Richie. He didn’t betray me like you did.”

  Dean’s jaw dropped. “Didn’t betray you?” he asked incredulously. “He showed up for work high. He lied to you. He stole from you—”

  “He didn’t break my heart,” she cried. “But you did.”

  Dean couldn’t catch his breath. “Allie, I—”

  She ran past him, down the street.

  And he didn’t know how he’d ever get her back.

  MONDAY EVENING not even the latest song by Beyoncé, currently blasting out of her portable CD player, could lighten Allie’s mood. Not when she’d spent a sleepless night worrying about Lynne and Jon.

  And thinking about Dean.

  She wiped the back of her hand against her forehead and gripped the edge of the ugly wallpaper, tearing a long sheet off the wall. She was angry—at him for betraying her, at herself for believing him—not because he’d hurt her. For him to hurt her would mean she cared more for Dean than she was willing to admit. It would mean that the tears she’d cried last night were because she’d lost her chance at something special.

  The cuts on her palms weren’t yet completely healed but she needed to do something to keep busy. It was tear apart either her kitchen or The Summit, and at least she could be alone in her kitchen.

  She crumpled the wallpaper and threw it across the room. Persephone gave chase.

  “You throw like a girl.”

  She jumped, glaring at Dillon before shutting the music off. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “From the looks of it,” he said, taking in the torn wallpaper still on the walls and the balls of it littering the floor, “you’re in a scary mood.”

  “Don’t you even knock?” she asked, spraying solution on the wall to loosen the glue.

  “I knocked,” he assured her. “But when you didn’t answer, I thought I’d better let myself in.”

  She really needed to start remembering to keep her door locked at all times. “I’m sort of in the middle of something…” She wiped her sticky hands on her threadbare jeans. “So unless this is important, can it wait until tomorrow?”

  Dillon kicked a pile of scraps out of his way as he crossed to the table. “No. Kelsey asked me to check up on you.” He sat down. “She’s worried.”

  Allie’s lower lip trembled so she bit it. “I told her when I called that I’m not feeling well. That’s all.”

  “Funny, Kelsey said she tried to get your new bartender to work tonight, but he wasn’t answering his phone. Is he sick, too?”

  A lump formed in her throat. “I—I don’t want to talk about it,” she stuttered, keeping her back to Dillon.

  “Okay.”

  She turned and eyed him suspiciously. “That’s it?”

  “Sure. Hey, you got anything to drink?”

  “In the fridge.” He got up and opened the door, took out two bottles of beer. “Help yourself,” she told him drily.

  He grinned. “I got one for you
, too.”

  “I don’t want one,” she said, not caring if she sounded petulant. She wanted to be left alone.

  “Then sit with me while I have mine.” He hooked his foot around the leg of a chair and pulled it out. “Come on. You can finish destroying your kitchen as soon as I’m done.”

  She huffed out an exasperated breath and dropped into the chair. “Fine.”

  Dillon retook his seat and opened both beers. Slid one toward her. She rolled her eyes and pushed up the sleeves of her baggy sweatshirt before reaching for it and taking a drink.

  He raised his bottle as if making a toast. “Nina said yes.”

  Allie froze, the beer halfway back to her lips. She squeezed his hand. “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you.”

  He touched his bottle to hers. “Thank you. Now, quit messing with me and tell me what’s wrong.”

  She sat back, placing both hands in her lap. “You said I didn’t have to talk about it.”

  “I lied.”

  She was too raw. “I can’t.”

  “I’m warning you, if I don’t get the story, Kelsey’s going to send Jack over here next. The only reason he didn’t come tonight is because he’s working.”

  Allie tipped her head back. And wouldn’t that be the perfect ending? To have her brother know all about her latest—and greatest—screwup. “I don’t want Jack, I don’t want anyone to know. Not Kelsey. Not Nina. No one.”

  He nodded slowly. “You have my word.”

  “I ruined everything,” she whispered.

  She filled him in on the whole story—from her representing Miles, to helping Lynne and Jon escape, to finding out about Dean’s investigation. She managed to get through her confession dry eyed, but when she finished, she felt as drained as if she’d just run a marathon.

  Dillon whistled. “When you break the law, you go all out.”

  She sipped her beer. “I did it for a good cause. But now Lynne’s on the run again and has no one to help her.”

  “You already gave her money and helped her get away from a bad situation.”

  “That’s what Dean said,” Allie admitted. “But it was my fault her husband wasn’t in prison where he belonged. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Sounds like you did everything you could.” He leaned back. Picked at the label on his bottle. “The cowboy did a number on you, huh?”

  And the last thing she wanted was to think about how Dean had made a fool of her. Or worse, her conflicted feelings over him. “He lied to me.”

  Dillon waited patiently, as if he had all the time in the world. “He said he didn’t want to scare Lynne off,” she added. “That he wasn’t sure what I knew.”

  “And if he’d asked, straight out, if you knew where Lynne was, what would you have done?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with any—”

  “What would you have done?”

  She squirmed, realized she was, and forced herself to sit still. “I wouldn’t have told him. But that’s different.”

  “Doesn’t seem so different to me. And all this time,” her friend continued mildly, “when someone asked you why you quit your job and moved back to Serenity Springs, what did you do?”

  Her stomach turned. “I never lied to you or my family.”

  But guilt pinched her. She hadn’t been completely honest in so long, she was afraid she’d forgotten how.

  “So omitting certain information is all right? As long as you’re the one doing it?”

  Stricken, she sat up. “That’s not fair. I didn’t want you all to know how I failed.”

  “So your pride kept you from telling us what really happened. From helping you during a difficult time?”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. “You know, if Jack were here listening to me, at least he’d want to go kick Dean’s ass.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned the past few months it’s that our fears can keep us from what we really want. They can keep us from living the life we’re meant to live. They can even keep us from being with the people we’re meant to be with.” He paused as if letting that wisdom sink in.

  But she didn’t want it to sink in. She just wanted to stop hurting. And more importantly, to stop wanting Dean.

  “Did the cowboy say why he didn’t tell you what he was really doing here?” Dillon asked.

  “Not that it matters,” she said, holding on to her righteous anger as tightly as possible, “but he said he was trying to reconcile a woman with her family. That he didn’t know the client who’d hired him worked for Miles.”

  “Reuniting a family sounds like something you’d do,” Dillon stated.

  Her face heated as she remembered she’d tried to do exactly that yesterday when she’d called Dean’s mother.

  But Allie hadn’t lied to him. Well, she had, but it had been for the greater good. She had to keep Lynne and Jon safe.

  Her actions were justified.

  Weren’t they?

  Dillon finished his beer and stood. “I guess I’ll be going, since you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “I do.” So why did she feel so sick? So unsure? “It’s for the best that Dean’s gone. I can’t trust him.”

  “This isn’t about trust,” Dillon said, his expression understanding and—to her horror—pitying. “It’s about forgiveness. And the first person you need to forgive is yourself. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to forgive him. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll also be brave enough to give him a second chance. To give you both a second chance.”

  DEAN STEPPED INTO The Summit’s kitchen. He’d waited until late afternoon, knowing the bar would be empty, then paid Noreen a hundred bucks to keep Kelsey occupied in the office long enough for Dean to slip into the building unnoticed. He took his hat off and stood in the doorway. Allie had her back to him as she worked at the counter. A sense of déjà vu hit him so hard, he had to grip the doorjamb to remain upright.

  It’d been one month since he’d first seen Allie shaking her hips at the stove. And over two weeks since he’d seen her last.

  The longest two weeks of his life.

  “Hello, Allie.”

  She spun around, a knife in one hand, a large onion in the other. He drank in the sight of her. Her hair was braided and she had on jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She’d never looked more beautiful.

  Or stunned.

  She finally blinked and shut her mouth. “Dean,” she said, setting the knife and onion back on the counter and wiping her hands down the front of her jeans. “What are you doing here?”

  Not quite an enthusiastic response, but she hadn’t thrown anything at him or called the cops on him, so things were going better than he’d hoped.

  “These are for you,” he said as he crossed the room. He held out the bouquet of red lilies he’d picked up at the florist down the block. She made no move to take them so he thrust them at her, forcing her to accept them or let them fall to the floor. “And in case you’re thinking about dropping them off at the hospital, I want you to know I already ordered a dozen bouquets of something called gerbera daisies to be delivered there. The lady at the floral shop said they were real cheerful flowers so the patients should like them.”

  “You sent flowers to the hospital?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

  She shook her head as if coming out of a trance. “I thought you went back to Texas.”

  He switched his hat to his other hand. Prayed he wouldn’t blow this, not when she was at least listening to him. “That’s right. After you walked away from me, I took the first flight I could get. I figured the best thing to do was pretend none of this ever happened.” He inhaled deeply but couldn’t get rid of the constricted feeling in his chest. “It was easier than staying and risking you not forgiving me.”

  “And yet here you are,” she said softly, but he couldn’t tell if she was happy about that or not.

  Please, God, let her be happy about it.r />
  “I did a lot of thinking when I got home. Hell, all I did for a week was think about the choices I’d made. I was too scared to work at my marriage and I let my pride and anger keep me from my family for two years.” He tossed his hat on the table before reaching for his wallet. He pulled a picture out of it. “I figured since I couldn’t fix what happened between us, I should do everything in my power to fix the other aspects of my life. Starting with my family.”

  He handed her the picture, waited while she set the flowers down on a chair before taking it. Noticed that her hand wasn’t quite steady.

  He watched her face as she looked at the picture of him holding a little girl. “Is this…”

  He nodded. “That’s Rene Susan. My niece.”

  Allie’s expression softened. “She’s beautiful.”

  “She is. Which is surprising, since she takes after her daddy.”

  Allie handed him the picture back and smiled. “Sounds like you made some real progress with your family.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” he admitted, sliding the picture back into his wallet. “I thought for sure they wouldn’t forgive me. That I didn’t deserve forgiveness.”

  “Is that why you’re here? Absolution?”

  He swallowed. “I’m here to fight for you.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you. I know it’s going to take time to learn to trust me again, so I’m going to stick it out until that day comes.” He did what he’d been wanting to do since he first walked into the room—he touched her. Just a light brush of his fingertip down her cheek, but when she didn’t flinch, his heart soared. “I want to be with you, Allie,” he said huskily. “I want you in my life. No matter what it takes.”

  She stepped back and his hope waned. “I haven’t done much else but think about what happened. Between us. And with Lynne and Jon. You were right,” she said, glancing at him, “I was so scared of not being able to make it up to them that I lost myself. And when I found out the reason you were here I realized I wouldn’t be able to protect them any longer. Yet I felt I had to. To make up for what I’d done.”