by Tara Brown
Dash walks in wearing nothing but pajama bottoms. “Is she well then?”
“She seems to be. She is pretty happy that he’s a Scot like her and he’s rich.”
He nods and takes my yogurt, eating a big bite of the small cup and passing it back nearly empty. “Can we hire a cook?”
I wrinkle my nose, almost prepared to say no, but then I glance about the huge house. “Yeah. I think we can.”
“Can we hire Mrs. Starling?”
“No. Weirdo. She has her things she does. She doesn’t want a permanent job. And no Evangeline, not since you made the creepy joke.”
He grimaces. “I would never hire a young cook. Cook’s position can only be filled by an old, patient lady. She has to be motherly and cut the crusts off your toast.”
“Oh my God. You are kidding, right?”
“No.” He grins, drinking the orange juice right from the carton and licking his delicious lips. The side with the large incisor sticks out a bit, making me want to suck it.
I blink myself out of the Dash daze and mutter, “But then they’ll be here all the time, and then we can’t have sex in the kitchen or living room or random stuff like that. Is that what you want?”
He pauses, holding the jug. “Is that an option?”
“If we lived alone, it could become one.”
“Okay. But one of us has to learn to cook properly.”
I shrug. “We can just have sex in our room, then.”
“That’s probably the right idea. It’s not sanitary to have one’s bare arse on the table or counters anyway.”
“No.” I step toward him, taking the jug of juice from his hand. I take a big swig and swallow it as he plants juicy kisses on my neck.
“What’s the plan for the day?”
I press my lips together and think. “I have to talk to Antoine and Cami, find out where we are in the weapon-slash-drug lord situation in Panama. And I have to figure out how we can find the asshat who is trafficking the girls in Taiwan. I screwed that one up.”
He leans back. “You made a mistake?”
“Never. I just killed someone before I got the intel from them. But I wouldn’t change a thing.” The image of the Polaroid haunts me still if I’m not careful to keep the memories in check.
He looks concerned. “Why did you go back to active duty?”
“I needed it. It makes me feel strong and in control, and I needed to feel that. Everything was spinning out of control in my head, and going back fixed it. I knew I was done with the mind runs. I can’t help in that project anymore. And you and I were not in the place where I was feeling good about ditching my pension.” I take another drink.
He takes the jug and sips from it. “But now?”
“Now, I don’t know. I need to finish off the projects I have going. I need to catch the bad guys. It’s my gig.”
“You mean kill the bad guys,” he scoffs, and his eyes turn haunted for a moment.
I lean in, kissing his orange-tasting lips. “Sometimes the world is just a better place without those people. We don’t use warrants. We don’t worry about rules and laws. We just take away the bad people who are making the world a worse place. It’s the best unit for me. Every mission is about stopping something heinous. Half the time the friggin’ CIA knows about whatever we are hunting, but they let it run because they need a bigger fish. The bad guys die. The good guys are freed from the situations they have found themselves in.”
“When will you be done saving the whole world?”
“I don’t know. I can’t save it all, I know that. I can only stop the few things I know about.”
He leans in and kisses me once more. “Can we talk about the possibility of retirement? For us both?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Why?”
Dash looks hesitant, but he says the thing plaguing him. “The baronetcy comes with things—demands and expectations. My father is stepping down. His name is on the list after all. He knew it. He thought by distancing himself from my very guilty brother, he would be left alone. He is actually pompous enough to believe that his title will earn him clemency.”
I cock an eyebrow, pausing all my judgments and thoughts. “Are you serious?”
“He’s an idiot. That much is true. But you have to remember he’s the last of a dying breed. The men and women born in the forties and fifties were still quite the gentlefolk.”
“I expected your father to be a dipshit. Have you met him? He grooms more than any single woman I know. He fake-tans. It’s weird. The part I’m asking about is the title. We really have to take it on?”
He nods, as concern crosses his brow.
“I’m the worst person for this. I am actually the worst-case scenario. I am no Princess Di. I am the exact sort of girl families like yours run from. You can’t expect me to take a title from your mother?”
“She becomes the dowager, Jane. We have an obligation to my family. You will be Lady Townshend. You will be my wife. I will take this title and we will be responsible. That is what is happening.”
The lump in my throat burns, but I don’t argue. Accepting who he is to the world is half the battle of accepting who I am and who we are.
“You will be a beautiful bride and the world will call you humble and sweet.”
“Assassin. They will call me assassin if they ever find out.”
“A sharpshooter is not an assassin. And you forget I have blood on my hands too.”
I step close to him. “How is your baggage worse than mine?”
My question elicits a laugh as he plants another orange-flavored kiss on me. “My baggage is lifelong. Yours was fairly solvable. It isn’t hard to walk away from terrible things. But to walk from a thousand years of lineage is pretty impossible. My family came to the UK with William the Conqueror. My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was King Richard the Lionheart’s first cousin, and his father had been in the line of succession as a prince. My entire family has spent their lives as part of this. Sometimes they were in and other times they were out. Depending on the king. Most recently we were out and bought our way back in, very typical for the times. One thousand years of tradition. I cannot help but be proud, Jane. It’s who I am.”
His words, the ones I have been chanting all along, sting when they’re thrown back in my face.
“Then it’s who I am too.” I nod, against my better judgment. I have no desire to be in the spotlight. Yet I would rather be a branch on his tree filled with great and terrible things, than be on the tree I belong to. Starting over with him is insane, but I want him and this is who he is.
He leans in, kissing me softly again. “We take it day by day. My brother and father will be cleared of this. They won’t be charged. They will plead out and testify in privacy that they have witnessed what they have. But on the off chance that there are damages assessed later in civil court, they are both stepping away from the baronetcy.”
“And adding me and my past to it, that seems like the right choice?”
“You are an orphan named Jane Spears who lost her family in a tragic accident. Kindly people in an orphanage raised you. You have a brilliant military career and everyone who knows you loves you. You are a better candidate than any one of my family members.”
I give him a look. “You created that lie.”
“It’s the truth. Check the records.” His green-gray eyes sparkle with humor and hope.
“No one will ever dig up Penny, the hooker who was left for dead?”
“No one but you and me and Antoine. No one else knows. It’s been seventeen years. Records of minors are sealed, and besides, no one knew your name. The moment you looked at the documents, Antoine destroyed them. He had to actually dispatch a team to burn handwritten records. The pictures are gone. There is no record of you existing. Antoine stole the pictures from your mother’s house. She
doesn’t even have a school picture of you, and the yearbook photos only go to thirteen. After that you were gone. At thirteen you look like any kid with a bit of an ethnic bloodline. Trust me, this has been wiped. It was only ever saved for you to see if, at some point, any of this came back to haunt you or you remembered anything. The files can’t even be retrieved now.” He kisses my cheek. “Your name is Jane Spears, Master Sergeant. You have created this life that you have.”
I step back and process all of that. It makes sense, even to my doubting brain.
22. WEDDING DRESS
I hurry up the steps to the door and look back at Angie. She shakes her head. “I think ya might be off base by being here. Ya pissed Georges off by canceling the wedding. Lady Townshend said he was very angry.”
I disregard her words—I love France, I always have. We have been here on missions a few times and it’s always made me happy. I love pastries and coffee and late dinners at small bistros.
I open the door and walk in, mesmerized by the beautiful dresses. I was so out of sorts in Manhattan, no wonder I didn’t notice the dresses. But here they are laid out simply and the design is the art. There is no fancy shop and fancy staff. There is one lady. “Bonjour!” she greets us and smiles.
I smile. “Hi. I’m Jane Spears.”
“I am Celeste.” It takes her a second to realize who I am, but when she does, her eyes widen. “Spears? You are here for za dress. You came for it?” Her English is still understandable through her thick accent.
“I did. If that’s okay.”
“But of course. Georges was certain you would come.” I love the way she speaks—with the accent of perfect Parisian French. She hurries to the back and returns with the massive dress bag and hanger. She nods at the changing room. “We are very ready for your fitting.”
There are no ladies or underwear or anything. I hurry to the room and step in. She comes with me, obviously. I undress, feeling less awkward with her than I did with the other ladies. She is efficient and fast at helping me into the dress. She doesn’t coddle me or gush. She doesn’t give two shits about who I am. This is a job and I appreciate that.
It’s nice not having Dash’s mom here either.
As the saleswoman clasps the last hook at the top of the back, she spins me around and straightens everything, fluffing out the dress. She smiles and steps back. There are no mirrors in the room so I have no notion of what she is seeing.
She opens the door and walks out, into the main area. Angie lifts her hand to her lips. Tears fill her eyes. I walk out, swishing the entire way. When I turn, my lips part as tears fill my eyes. “I’m a princess,” I whisper like a moron. But I can’t even help myself. I am a princess. For once I am fit for the social class I am marrying into.
The dress has a white satin choker round my throat—then sheer material down the chest to the heart-shaped neckline. Lace and pearls cover the sheer fabric of the bodice so my skin is visible, but the design is so heavy that the scars are not.
The bottom puffs out like a ball gown. The design of the corset is continued down the middle of the pleats in the front, and the firm pleats continue around the rest of the skirt in white satin and lace. She lifts my hair, revealing the back. The pearl buttons start at the choker and go all the way to the skirt. The sheer material is also heavy with design in the back so the scars are covered in the same way.
I am covered head to toe, but I feel beautiful and sexy. “It’s perfect.”
Angie walks to me, nodding. “More than.”
The French lady smiles. “Georges will be so pleased. He made it perfectly. It’s magnifique.”
I smile wide, suddenly eager to wear it in public. It’s a feeling I didn’t expect. I want Dash to see me in it and for him to be proud to be marrying me.
She leads me back inside, starting the daunting task of undoing the buttons. “Your scars are very thick. You have been at war? Georges said it was war.”
“I have. I have been at war a few times.”
“Zis one here, it’s bad.” She runs her nail along the thickest of them on my back. No one has ever touched my scar that way before, out of curiosity. I don’t show them to people because I don’t want pity, but she doesn’t have that in her tone. She sounds like she admires me.
I remember the moment I got the scar and smile, lost in it for a second. “I was twenty-two when that happened. I was in Afghanistan and a man had worn a bomb into a building. I followed him, stalking him. I was just trying to figure out where the remote detonator was for him to blow the building. The moment I had him in my sights, a man leaped from a doorway and stabbed me in the back. I broke his neck and managed to kill the man with the bomb before he detonated it. I defused the bomb, but then I passed out from loss of blood. I woke up in the infirmary. The Afghan people had saved me. They knew I had saved their lives. So they carried me out to my team and told them what I had done.” She doesn’t feel sorry for me and that makes me proud of the scars. Proud of them in the way a man would be.
She looks over my shoulder. “You are very brave for a girl.”
I laugh and nod. I love that statement. We’re all girls in a shop like this.
Her cheeks flush. “I just mean—”
“I know. It’s true. Not a lot of girls show how brave they are.”
“But we are all brave, you zink?”
A peaceful smile crosses my face as I relive all the moments that equaled heroism in my head. They do not all belong to me, but they start with a small girl climbing through a dirty window. “I do. I have met the bravest girls in all the world. Girls who died to save other girls. Girls who would kill to stop a monster. Girls who turned and ran into the fight instead of away from it. I have met them all.”
“And you are all of zem?”
My wide smile returns. “I guess so—well not the girl who died obviously. But I have been in the position to have to be all of them. That changes you. You cannot escape who you will become when it comes down to your life or someone else’s.”
“I believe zis is true.” She pulls the dress down and lets me step out of it. I pull on my clothes as she bags it up again. “We will ship it to za wedding. Georges is invited, so he will dress you.”
“Merci.” I smile.
She bows slightly and carries the dress from the room.
We leave without escaping the French way of hugging and kissing strangers. She waves after us as we hurry down the street.
“I hope ya get an amazing cake. English cakes really are some of the best, but wedding cake is always shite.”
That puts a look on my face. “Really?”
“Shite.”
I nudge her the way Angie always nudges me. “How are things with Charles?” I say his name with a snooty affect.
She sighs and says his name like she is saying her very favorite thing. “Charles. He is amazing. I could love him. Easily.”
I think she already does but doesn’t want to be the first one to say it. It isn’t like she hasn’t been burned before.
My cell phone rings, and when I pull it out, I wrinkle my nose. “Hey?” I don’t know why Antoine would be calling me.
“I have something. I don’t know what you want to do with it, but I have it.”
“What do you mean?”
He sounds funny. “It’s a name. That facial recognition program, I ran your guy from the store, the one who followed you out the night you were attacked.”
My insides tighten. “Yes?”
“His name is Denis MacDougal. He’s a baby broker. His face didn’t flag in the system, because he’s never been caught. But he has been under surveillance for a while for tax evasion. So he flagged with the IRS. I have an address. It’s in Montana.”
My mouth is dry but I manage to speak, just manage. “Send it.” I look at the text on my phone. “Get one of the ladies to book me on a plane h
ome to Missoula. Have Cami meet me there as well as the ground team for backup.” I hang up the phone and turn, giving Angie a look. “I have to go home.”
She pouts. “We need French lingerie for yer wedding. It’s a must.”
“The dress actually comes with it. I tried on the lingerie in New York. Remember?”
She nods, but I can see she is not really recalling. Her memory is not detailed like mine is. “No. But I trust ya remember. Ya remember everything, and that would have scarred ya for life.”
I laugh, still unsettled by the phone call. “Yeah, it did.” I hug her and flag a cab. “I will see you in London, then.”
“At the church!” She sings her words, knowing I hate that.
I get in the cab the moment it stops. “You’ll be all right, right?”
She waves me off. “I’ll get the Métro back to the hotel and see ya in a few weeks.”
“The airport, s’il vous plaît.”
The driver nods as I dial Dash. I don’t want to keep things from him.
“Hello, my love.” He sounds more English now than American. It’s a bit funny watching the layers of lies peel away.
“Antoine call you?” I ask softly.
“No.” He sounds confused.
“He called me. He found something in Montana.”
He pauses. “Montana? I can’t even imagine what it is. Is it something to do with Rory? Please lie and tell me it has nothing to do with Rory, or his past.”
“No. It’s a broker, someone avoiding taxes who has been under the scrutiny of the IRS.”
“Are you lying and telling me this because I told you to?”
I laugh. “No.”
The cabbie’s eyes watch me in the rearview. I smile at him, not letting myself suspect he’s also a spy and listening to me for something other than jollies. The paranoia of the mind runs has got to end.
“A broker? Is this code or did you actually want to invest money or something?”
“He deals in babies.”
Dash is silent for another moment. “Dear God, how did he find him? Antoine scares me sometimes.”
