by Cindy Dees
She sighed blissfully and relaxed in his arms. “What are we going to do with ourselves now that our family is all safe and Super Mommy can hang up her diaper bag?”
Smiling, he replied, “That’s one heck of a diaper bag I’ve got to live up to. I was thinking about getting my shipping company back and cleaning up its act. I’ll teach Adam how to run it when the times comes.”
“And Ellie,” Laura added firmly. “This is an equal-opportunity family.”
Nick smiled broadly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He pondered with no small wonder what kind of woman Ellie was going to grow into with a woman like Laura to raise her. “What about you, darling? What do you want to do next?”
“First, I want to pick up Ellie and take my whole family home. Then I was thinking about going back into the daddy-finding business. It’s a whole lot safer than tangling with kidnappers and double agents.”
Thank goodness. He’d had all the excitement he could handle for a few decades.
Laura’s cell phone rang and she dug it out. “Huh. It’s Clifton Moore.” She spoke to her former boss briefly. “You’re sure about that?” A pause. “Okay then. Thanks.”
Nick waited until she disconnected to ask, “What was that about?”
“His people have found Meredith’s mole in the CIA. He was Kent’s old college roommate, and he rolled over on her man in the FBI. They’re both in custody and singing like canaries. She was Russian mob. It looks like we smoked out a whole network of arms dealers, human traffickers, and smugglers.”
“Not a bad day’s work, Mrs. Spiros,” he murmured.
“Mmm, I like the sound of that.” She snuggled more closely against him.
“Get used to it, darling. You’re going to be hearing it for the rest of your very long and happy life.”
“I love you, Nick.”
He was never going to get tired of hearing that. Even if she spent a hundred years saying it to him every day, those words were always going to make him feel like the luckiest guy alive. And just maybe he was.
Epilogue
Laura glanced up from her computer as Nick entered her office. “Hi. How was the meeting today?”
“Couldn’t have gone better. You’re looking at the brand-new chairman of the board of AbaCo Shipping. And as my first act in the job, I made a motion to change the name of the company back to Spiros Shipping.”
“Did it pass?” she asked eagerly.
“Unanimously.” He came over to her desk chair and leaned down to nibble on her ear. Ripples of pleasure spiraled outward from her earlobe. If he wasn’t careful, they were going to have that third child they’d been talking about soon rather than later.
He whispered in her ear, his lips moving deliciously against it, “Then, in another unanimous vote, the board appointed me CEO.”
Beaming, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. “Oh, Nick. That’s wonderful.”
“Are you busy this afternoon?” he asked, glancing significantly at her. Deliberately misunderstanding his intent in asking, she answered casually, “I got an email from Todd Blackledge. I was just replying to it.”
“What did our favorite FBI agent have to say?”
“He’s been reassigned to the New Orleans office. He got promoted to agent-in-charge of something or other. At any rate, he likes it down there. He mentioned a little problem he’s having, though.”
Nick massaged her neck under her hair just the way she liked it. She was going to be putty in his hands if he kept that up for much longer. She murmured, “Apparently, there have been several suspicious disappearances of babies down there.”
“Is he investigating it?”
“There’s no case, formerly. The local police are handling it. But he was wondering if maybe I could look into it. Unofficially, of course. See if I can turn anything up.”
“I thought your thing was tracking down missing dads.”
She frowned. “Yes, but these women’s babies are gone. Many of them are single moms with no family or resources to track their children down. I know exactly how panicked and helpless they’re feeling right now.”
Nick’s gaze met hers soberly. Neither of them would ever forget what it was like not to know where their son was or if he was safe. “I think you should help them.”
“It might mean more time working for me. More time away from you and the children.”
“I know you. If you might help a mother get her baby back, you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t try.”
She tugged on his tie, bringing his mouth down to hers, and whispered against his lips, “Thank you.”
“I can think of a better way for you to thank me—”
“Mommy! Daddy! You’ll never believe what we saw at the zoo today!” Adam burst into the office with Uncle Joe in tow. The older man had fully recovered from his gunshot wounds and taken to his duties as bodyguard to Adam and Ellie like a fish to water. Lisbet followed more sedately, carrying a sleepy but smiling Ellie.
Nick scooped up Adam, exclaiming, “Pee-Yaw! You smell like an elephant. You need a bath!”
“With bubbles?” Adam asked eagerly. Even Ellie perked up at that suggestion.
Laura laughed and followed the entire entourage upstairs. “Now you’ve gone and done it, Nick. We’ll be mopping up the mess for hours.”
“Ahh, but you’re so good at cleaning up messes,” he retorted, laughing.
He wasn’t too bad, himself. Between the two of them, they’d managed to put not only their family, but their romance, back together, stronger than ever. Laura stepped into the bathroom and laughed as a fistful of bubbles came flying her way.
“Oh, it’s on now,” she said, laughing.
Yup. Life didn’t get any better than this.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1249-7
THE SPY’S SECRET FAMILY
Copyright © 2011 by Cynthia Dees
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*Charlie Squad
**The Medusa Project
†H. O. T. Watch
