TWO TO DIE FOR

by Allison Brennan

“I just wanted to know what’s going on in the office now that Noah is gone.”

  Lucy’s good friend SSA Noah Armstrong had been temporarily assigned to the San Antonio field office. Sean and Noah had their ups and downs—he would never be one of Sean’s favorite people because he knew Noah cared a bit too much for Lucy. Sean always had the sense that Noah was waiting for Sean to screw up so he could try to win Lucy’s heart. More than a sense, he knew it. Noah had told Sean more than once that he wasn’t good enough for Lucy, scratching at one of Sean’s deepest fears—that Noah was right, and Lucy would be better off without him.

  Sean had fought insecurity in his relationship with Lucy. He had screwed up more than once, but they’d worked through it. He knew he made Lucy happy. When he first met her two years ago, she had been stuck living in her traumatic past, unable to really move on with her life. He had vowed to make her smile. He took her ice skating and to Disney movies and taught her that she could put the evil of the world aside from time to time and just enjoy herself. There was nothing Sean loved more than when Lucy genuinely laughed. It worked. While Lucy would never be completely carefree—it wasn’t in her genes—Sean knew he’d brought her from the dark into the light.

  The last two months had been especially difficult for them, but they’d come out of it alive and together. That was all that really mattered. Sean could accept that Noah and Lucy were friends, though he was secretly pleased that Noah had declined the offer to be SSA of the Violent Crimes Squad permanently—even though Lucy was nervous about the incoming supervisor and the potential changes in the unit.

  “And? Any news?” he asked her. There must have been because she was fretting.

  “Nate emailed me. The new SSA started Tuesday. Rachel Vaughn, a lateral transfer from a Resident Agency under the Phoenix field office. He didn’t say which one. It’s lateral in the sense that she’s already an SSA, but moving from an RA to a main office is probably a good move, career wise.”

  “Why are you worried?”

  “Nate says the jury is out on her. I don’t think he’s telling me everything. I emailed him back, asked for more information, but he hasn’t responded.”

  “Probably because he wants you to relax and have fun on your honeymoon. He shouldn’t have emailed you in the first place.”

  “Ignorance is not bliss, Sean. I asked Nate to give me the heads up before I came back.”

  “You’re worried.”

  “I can’t help it. Vaughn is going to be there for nearly two weeks before I get back. Kenzie and I haven’t regained what we had before the whole Nicole Rollins fiasco, Ryan has put in a transfer to the Austin RA, and Rick had my file sealed for what happened in Mexico.”

  Sean tensed. It was his family’s fault that Lucy had been taken to Mexico against her will and put in grave danger. Everything that happened from that moment forward she had done to stay alive. “That was not your fault, and you shouldn’t have to answer questions about it. Why should she even care?”

  “You know why—a supervisor always wants to know about their squad. It breeds curiosity and creates questions.”

  “It’s still not any of her fucking business. Rick sealed it. That should be good enough for her.”

  Lucy reached out and put her hand on his leg. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “It’s fine.” Sean would never forgive Liam or Eden for what they had done. And while he understood why Kane had kept secrets from him about the twins, and Sean had forgiven him, it had changed their relationship. He would always be close to his brother, especially now, but he’d made it clear to Kane that he wouldn’t tolerate anymore secrets. Secrets hadn’t done their family any good in the past, and now that the past was out in the open, they couldn’t revert back to their old ways.

  Sean had almost lost Lucy. He was used to Lucy being in danger—she had a dangerous job—but this had been his family who’d put Lucy at risk. They needed this time away for more than a simple honeymoon.

  “I’m okay with Rick sealing the file,” Lucy said. “Not for me, but for everyone else. Noah and Nate don’t deserve to go up in front of the Office of Professional Responsibility and face losing their jobs, or worse. But mostly, you don’t need to have that information out there.”

  “I don’t care if the world knows what kind of people Liam and Eden are.”

  “But they are Rogans, and it would damage the reputation of RCK and place you all under intense scrutiny.”

  Lucy was right, and though that wasn’t the primary reason Assistant FBI Director Rick Stockton had the file sealed, Sean was pretty sure he did so in part to protect RCK and the work they did.

  “Nate did have some good news,” Lucy said. “A federal judge approved Joshua’s expedited adoption. The doctor who treated him in McAllen is married to a Coast Guard captain out of South Padre Island. They’re good people, cleared all background checks. They have an eight-year-old daughter and the resources to raise him and take care of his medical needs.”

  “I’m glad.” He glanced at her. Baby Joshua, who’d been born premature, was one of the many babies sold on the black market who Lucy had worked hard to find over the last two months. They’d rescued him from Mexico. His father was a criminal and his mother had been murdered. That he would have a chance to grow up in a good home with adoptive parents who loved him was more than a small victory, considering what could have happened to him.

  He said quietly, “We didn’t talk about adopting him ourselves.”

  Lucy didn’t say anything for a long minute, and Sean wished he knew what she was thinking. For the longest time, he always knew, but over the last few months, their lives had become so complex, sometimes he didn’t know where Lucy’s thoughts were.

  “I thought about it,” she said. “After Jack and JT rescued him, when I held him on the plane, I wanted to. Just like I considered adopting Baby Lucia when her mother was murdered. I want to adopt, someday. We’ve talked about it, but mostly we’ve talked around it.”

  Lucy couldn’t have children, and Sean had thought he’d made it clear that he didn’t care, that he was happy to adopt because there were so many babies and young children who needed a good home. But when he and Lucy learned that he had a twelve-year-old son, it had thrown them both into a tailspin. It took a lot of pain and heart-to-heart conversation to get to this point in their relationship.

  “You know I am happy to adopt.”

  “I know. But maybe for a while, I want to be selfish and have you all to myself.”

  “That’s not being selfish, Lucy.” Was that the real reason? He wanted to push her to say more, but he didn’t have to.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Sean.”

  “I’m not thinking anything.”

  “You’re thinking that maybe I’m doubting myself and my ability to be a good mother, or doubting you. That’s not it. I know we would make great parents, Sean. If I thought for one minute that Lucia or Joshua wouldn’t be adopted by good people, or that they would be sent to foster care for any length of time, I would have stepped up immediately. But Lucia has Assistant Sheriff Villines and his huge extended family to love her; she’s already thriving. Joshua has an emergency room pediatrician and Coast Guard captain to love him—and a big sister. They are where they are supposed to be, since they can’t be with their biological mothers. I know you’re not a big believer, but I think God had a hand in giving these kids great families because they were born in violence.

  “Someday, Sean, we’ll know when the time is right. We’ll know it deep down, and I’m okay with that. With the waiting and trusting our instincts.”

  He was relieved. Lucy spoke from her heart, and that was all that mattered. “I love you.”

  She leaned over in the seat and kissed his cheek. “Love you forever.”

  Sean considered calling Nate and telling him not to respond to Lucy, but she’d be angry with him. And he got it—-they hadn’t known when they planned the wedding and honeymoon that Noah would be leaving and L
ucy would have a new supervisor. They hadn’t known Liam and Eden would kidnap Lucy and take her to Mexico where the Rogan and Kincaid family enemies could find her. Sometimes, there was no perfect time for anything, and they just had to keep moving forward.

  And getting married was just the next step in a long series of steps Sean planned on taking with the love of his life.

  #

  The Ice Princess Art Festival was always the first weekend in November, before the weather turned and outdoor festivals were impossible. Lucy thought the weather had already turned frigid—she was raised in San Diego and anything under sixty degrees necessitated heavy jackets. She hadn’t even owned gloves until she moved to DC for college.

  Preview night was held in the courtyard of one of the resort hotels. Had it snowed or rained, the event could easily have been moved indoors, but tonight was crystal clear—just very cold for Lucy’s southern California roots. Heat lamps were used liberally and strings of tiny white lights wound through the trees adding a festive ambiance. The smell of rich apple cider hung in the air, and cinnamon and cloves that reminded Lucy of the mulled wine her mother used to make for Thanksgiving.

  “Umm,” she said to Sean, “do you think we can find that warm cider? Or maybe the wine?” Lucy wasn’t a big drinker, but right now a mug of mulled wine sounded really good. “You’ve corrupted me with the bellinis and mimosas every morning. I’m going to turn into a lush.”

  “You’ll be the prettiest lush at the party.” He kissed her, then turned her to face a vendor near the exhibit entrance. Moonbeam Photography by Abigail Geiser. Right beneath her sign was a picture of the lake Lucy loved, the one she could see from her deck.

  “Are you Abigail?” Sean asked the college-aged girl behind the table.

  “Yes,” she said with a nervous smile. She sounded younger than she looked.

  “My wife would love that picture.”

  He knew her well.

  With a wink and a kiss, Sean left to get the wine. Lucy almost laughed at him. They both needed this vacation, and sometimes she wondered what it would be like if she just quit her job and not face danger on a regular basis.

  But quitting wasn’t in her blood, and facing danger seemed to be par for the course when you were a Kincaid.

  “You like my photo?” Abigail said, almost in disbelief.

  “Yes—you’re very talented.”

  She beamed at Lucy, almost to the point of blushing. “Thank you.”

  “This is almost the view from my deck,” Lucy said. “And the colors are amazing. It’s just how I see it every morning.”

  “You’re the one who bought the Henshaw place?”

  Lucy almost said no, my husband did. Instead, she nodded. “Do you live up there? We only met one of our neighbors.”

  Abigail shook her head. “My parents own a restaurant here in town. We live in an apartment above it. But I take pictures everywhere I can. That picture you like? I borrowed a drone from one of my dad’s friends and mounted my camera. Scared me to death that I would lose my camera or the pictures would all be fuzzy. I set the camera to take an image every two seconds until the memory card was full, and this is the best picture. Once I got the hang of flying it and learning how to hover, I got some great shots.” She gestured to another. “I took that one this summer over the village during the fourth of July.”

  A vibrant blast of fireworks filled the sky, and the village lit up below.

  “You’re in college?”

  “Next year, hopefully. My mom’s been sick, so I need to help in the restaurant. Are you living here year-round, like the Henshaws did before they moved to Arizona?”

  “We’re on our honeymoon. We live in San Antonio. Sean bought the house as a wedding present.”

  “Nice wedding present.”

  “Understatement,” Lucy said. “I told him it was too much, but Sean does nothing small. We’ll come up a couple times a year.”

  Sean returned with a glass mug of mulled wine. She breathed in deeply and her hands absorbed the warmth. She sipped. “Perfect.”

  He kissed her nose. “Did you buy it?”

  “Not yet.”

  He looked closely at the photos. “Did you take these from a drone?”

  Abigail seemed stunned that he knew that. “Yes.”

  “Very, very cool. Can I hire you?”

  “Hire me?”

  “To take pictures of our house from the air. What do you think, Luce? We have that huge bare wall in the dining room.”

  She loved Sean for many reasons. His generosity was one of them—it was clear he liked the girl’s work, but she was also young and didn’t have a large business. A commission would greatly help her. And Lucy loved the idea of a picture of their vacation house for their home. It would be a daily reminder of their perfect honeymoon. “I would love it.”

  Sean picked up one of Abigail’s cards. “And Lucy wants the picture of her lake.”

  “Her lake?”

  Lucy hit him. “That’s what I call it in the mornings when I’m drinking coffee on the deck.”

  “I’ll wrap it up and you can pick it up at the end of the night if you’d like so you don’t have to carry it around.”

  Sean handed her his credit card. “I’ll call you about commissioning the photos.”

  “What about the fireworks?” Lucy asked.

  “Do you want that too?” Sean nodded. “It’s nice, though I don’t know where we’d put it.” He leaned over and whispered, “Maybe over our bed?”

  She felt her skin heat, and Sean laughed and kissed her cheek.

  “For Jack and Megan,” she said. “There’s something about the picture that makes me think of Jack.”

  “Both pictures,” Sean said to Abigail, “and I’ll give you an address to send one of them to Lucy’s brother.”

  Abigail beamed as she wrote up the ticket. Sean signed the receipt, then led Lucy through the rows of artists. There was live music and passed hors d’oeuvres and wine samples distributed throughout. A large buffet was set up inside the doors to the ballroom, where a few vendors were set up, along with tables and chairs for those who wanted a bigger meal. Definitely more high class than any other craft show Lucy had gone to. No wonder they needed tickets—though all proceeds, Sean had told her, went to a local charity.

  “You are very sweet,” Lucy said and leaned into her husband. It was still weird, thinking of Sean as her husband, but she was happily getting used to it.

  “Yes I am,” he said.

  She sipped her wine, content. It had been a good week, and they still had another week to relax. She wasn’t someone who relaxed easily, but she was getting better at it—and here, in the Rocky Mountains, she found it much easier to forget about her demanding job and responsibilities.

  They enjoyed browsing the booths of hand-crafted treasures. Most were high-quality art, the displays arranged to showcase the best examples of the crafter’s talents. More photography, though Lucy thought Abigail had that special something most of the others lacked; paintings in oil and watercolor; pencil drawings so intricate they looked like black-and-white photos; handmade jewelry, and more.

  A turquoise necklace caught her eye and Lucy knew Siobhan—Kane’s girlfriend—would love it. She spontaneously bought it. “I’ll give it to Siobhan for Christmas,” she said. Then she snapped her fingers. “Christmas!”

  “Is still two months away.”

  “Seven weeks. We should send that picture to Jack for Christmas. We have a huge list.” She hated waiting last minute to buy presents, and inevitably ordered most gifts off the Internet to save time, but that never felt right to her. She liked to put more thought into presents for her family and closest friends.

  “We don’t have to buy presents now. On our honeymoon,” Sean reminded her.

  “Maybe not ... but then we won’t have to worry about it when we get home. And we’ll never find the time to shop.”

  “I don’t worry about it. That’s what the Internet is for.”<
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  “But these are all handmade. Special. I like to find the one perfect present.”

  “What, you don’t like my presents?” he asked with mocked insult.

  “I love your presents.” Lucy looked around. They had reached the far back of the courtyard and she had finished her mulled wine. She found a tray to the side with other empty mugs and put hers down.

  Sean plucked two mini-kabobs off a passed tray and handed one to Lucy.

  She ate it—the appetizers were yummy—then tossed the long toothpick into the garbage.

  “Humor me.” She took out her phone and typed in all her brothers and sisters and spouses or significant others, all of Sean’s brothers, her mom and dad, and their closest friends. She typed fireworks photo next to Jack and Megan, and necklace next to Siobhan, then turned the screen to Sean and said, “See? We have our work cut out for us.”

  “I don’t see my name on the list. Does that mean I’m getting coal?”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “One hour, and I expect us to cross off half the names on this list.”

  “Sounds like a competition. You know how much I like to win.”

  “If we get more than half the names crossed off, maybe you’ll get lucky tonight.”

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky tonight, Mrs. Rogan.”

  She leaned up to kiss him. “I’m always lucky.”

  “Though I can’t stand to part from you for even a mere hour,” Sean teased, “what if we split the list and have a competition? Whoever wins gets breakfast in bed.”

  “That means if you win, you get a bagel and coffee because that’s all I know how to make. And you don’t like coffee.”

  “And I get you, so I still win.”

  “Okay,” she said and looked at the list she’d just typed. “I’ll take ...”

  “Nope, you can’t choose.” He took her phone from her hand. “We’ll do every other name in the order you wrote them down. You get Patrick and Elle, I get Jack and Megan—”

  “That’s not fair! First, Patrick and Elle aren’t married, so that’s two presents.”

  “They’re living together.”

  She ignored that. She loved her brother Patrick to pieces. His girlfriend? Not so much. She was adjusting; it was just going to take some more time. “And Jack and Megan we already bought for.”