by Kay Marie
My Susanna.
Named for her mother. Only three people were allowed on board, and one of them was standing here.
Unable to stop her curiosity from taking over, Jo slid her gaze from the familiar to the deliciously new. The small fishing boat was far enough away that she could no longer make out anyone on board, but her imagination had always been rather robust, and it didn’t take much for her to imagine Mr. Stiff, shirt buttoned to the collar, light-brown hair ruffled in the breeze, full lips drawn in a determined line as he watched her.
Agent Parker, she mused. What am I going to do with you?
A small grin pulled at her lips as she shook her head.
I wonder if you gave in and tried one of my coopies yet…
Jo sighed and pulled her focus away, letting it drop to the shimmering aqua water lapping up against the dock as her mind jumped to the two people she actually should be concerned with, her father and Thad—the two people who would not be at all amused by the state of the kitchen or the state of her assignment.
It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll get everything done tonight. I’ll say I was worried. My father couldn’t possibly stay mad at me if he thought I was worried. Thad, on the other hand…
Well, Thad would see right through her. He always could. Just one of the many, many reasons they’d never worked out as anything more than best friends.
“Jo!” a deep voice called.
She snapped her gaze up. “Thad!”
He jumped over the edge of the yacht, as graceful as a panther. Before Jo knew what was happening, she was in his arms, wrapped up in a bear hug. Her feet came off the dock as he lifted her into the air and spun her until she was dizzy.
“Okay, okay,” she half griped, half laughed, slapping Thad’s muscular shoulders until he put her down. Jo leaned back, meeting his teasing eyes. His gray irises were usually the color of a storm rolling in over the sea, but every so often, they shone for her, the glinted edge of a steel knife, beautiful and a little bit dangerous. His sinfully dark chocolate hair was matted and tussled, yet somehow on him, it always managed to look just right. Jo grinned. Thad did the same. As always, she couldn’t stop herself from wrinkling her nose and pressing her pointer fingers into his dimples, one perfectly charming spot in each cheek.
“Jo Jo,” he pleaded, the only one to ever get away with calling her that nickname.
She dropped her arms with a satisfied smirk and stepped back. “How was the trip, Thaddy Bear?”
He grimaced, thunderclouds gathering in his gaze.
She’d never quite gotten away with using his nickname…the one she’d crafted at the ripe old age of six, after he’d stolen her favorite stuffed bear to give to his terror of a dog and she’d decided to simply use him as a replacement. Jo had spent the rest of the summer chasing him around, and he’d spent it running away, until the morning neither of them would forget. The morning his mom up and left, seven months pregnant with a sister Thad had never met. He hadn’t truly minded the nickname or Jo’s incessant pestering after that. Not really.
“The trip was successful,” an authoritative yet somehow warm voice interrupted.
Jo spun.
It was her turn for a full-frontal assault as she spread her arms wide and launched into the air before she had time to process. But even though her father was an older man, he was still sturdy and strong, and he caught her easily in his arms, pressing a loving kiss to her brow as she held him tight. After all these years, their homecoming ritual had never changed.
“Hi, Daddy,” she murmured.
“Hi, pumpkin,” he whispered for only her to hear. When she was a toddler, her hair had been a bright-orange mess of curls. Now it was a more muted auburn, but the name stuck for most of her childhood, and even now, on occasions like this, it snuck out of hiding. But Jo loved it because for a brief moment, she was a little girl again, not a care or a worry in the world, safe in her father’s steadfast arms.
She stepped back and looked into his face. Before they’d moved to the isolation of this island, her friends used to tease her by calling him a silver fox. In middle school, the idea had been met with mortification. But now, at her slightly more mature age, she could understand what they meant. His black hair was a salt-and-pepper gray, combed over the crown of his head and set off nicely by the perpetual tan on his freckled skin. Her hair had come from her mother, but her eyes were all Robert Carter. Bright green and filled with mischief, just like the ones staring at her now.
“Any particular reason for the enthusiastic greeting, Jolene?”
Jo grimaced. Damn. “No, not really…”
“Because I could have sworn I saw a jet ski racing toward the dock not even ten minutes ago.”
Thad snorted behind her.
Jo turned to make a face at him, but he was focused on tying knots and securing the yacht to the slip. She turned back to her father. “I just went over to say hello.”
“To the Feds?” he scolded as his attention slid to that old fishing boat, lightning flashing in his gaze. “They’ve been tailing us for days.”
“It’s nothing new.” Jo shrugged. “Just thought I’d try being friendly for once, not that it made any difference. They had a map and some binoculars and a whole heap of frowns for me, nothing more.”
Much to my chagrin, she silently added as Agent Parker’s scowling face came to the forefront of her thoughts. Somehow, he made grouchy look charming. Remembering the scratch of his calloused palm on her arm and the little flash of desire in his eyes, well…it made her heart do a little flip in her chest. Jo was the queen of wanting things she couldn’t have—and a federal agent hunting her father, her best friend, and probably her as well? Yeah… He was at the top of the bad idea list. Number one. Underlined. In bold.
Jo did a mental shake, clearing her head and her heart, then returned her attention to her father. “So, how was the trip?”
Thad and her father had gone to the mainland to meet with a few of his former business associates and finalize the details for their upcoming trip to New York. As per usual, Jo had been left behind to man the fort. Not that she minded a few days on her own—after all, it was her only time to hunker down in the kitchen and bake to her heart’s content. But something had felt different about this trip, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint, a nagging fear she’d spent the past few days burying in the back of her mind.
Her father had promised her this would be his last trick.
He’d promised that after this trip to New York, they’d both be done.
Free of the shadows.
Finished.
Jo wanted so badly to believe him. But she couldn’t help but notice how neither he nor Thad would meet her eyes or answer her seemingly simple question.
“Successful, like I said,” her father muttered, gaze cutting to the small boat in the distance then returning to her for a split second before dropping to the briefcase he held made of dark, polished leather. “We’ll discuss it more when we’re inside.”
Jo swallowed her complaint and knelt to help Thad with the knots. Her father took off down the boardwalk, leaving the two of them alone. They worked in silence for a while, washing the salt from the deck and tidying the interior of the boat. When her father disappeared inside the house, Jo collapsed onto one of the leather sofas in the main cabin, worn out and exhausted even though it was hardly past midday. Her coopie energy was rapidly depleting, and the idea of spending the rest of the evening reviewing plans and catching up on the recon she was supposed to have finished days ago sounded more and more daunting with each passing second.
“Is there anything I need to know?” she asked as she dropped her head back against the seat, letting it roll to the side so she could watch Thad emerge from the lower level with a suitcase in each hand. He put them down before dropping into the seat beside her, then grabbed her hand in his strong fingers and ran his thumb over her palm.
“Don’t worry about it, Jo Jo. That’s my job,” he murmured. “T
he plan hasn’t changed. We fly to New York. Go to the gala. Grab the painting. In. Out. Back in a blink. One last hurrah before we send your dad into a much-deserved retirement. Leave the rest to me, okay?”
Jo bit her lip but nodded.
A few minutes with her computer and she knew she could uncover whatever it was they were hiding from her. And yet, she had no desire to do so.
Instead, she trusted his words.
His promise.
Because Thad had never broken a single one he’d made her.
He stood with a sigh, rolling his shoulders once before snatching the bags from the floor. Thad found her gaze again, this time with more life in his eyes. A smile widened his lips, digging those squeezable dimples back into his cheeks. “Besides, you have more important things to worry about. Your dad and I took a quick look at the security cameras on our way home. What in the hell were you doing all morning?”
“Crap!”
Jo jumped to her feet and raced past him, out the door. The kitchen was a disaster. The oven was still on. Her precious coopies were still cooling on the countertops. And, worst of all, her personal laptop was still open to the chat with her friends—and the dreams her father knew absolutely nothing about. Dreams to leave this island. To follow her own passions. To have her own life. Dreams he would never understand.
“Relax, Jo,” Thad called after her. “I told him to go the long way through the front entrance.”
She stopped cold and spun, relief flooding her chest. She should have known Thad would have her back. He was the only person aside from her online friends who knew anything about the bakery she one day hoped to run, and he’d always protected that hope as though it were his own, just like he’d always protected her.
“I know.” Thad winked as he jumped off the boat and landed smoothly on the dock. “You love me. I’m the best. What would you do without me?”
“I don’t know,” she said and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I really don’t.”
He rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. Jo took one of the bags from his arms, sparing a moment to glance over her shoulder at the boat still bobbing on the other side of the breaking waves. Then she closed her eyes tight, shook her head, and pushed all thoughts of those blue eyes from her mind as she followed Thad home.
- 6 -
Nate
“You going to come up for air, Parker?”
Nate jerked upright. The sudden movement caused a lump of dough to lodge in his throat, so he thumped his chest and coughed a few times to clear his airway. “What?”
A spew of crumbs may or may not have been released along with the word.
Nate wiped his mouth and spun to face his partner, resisting the urge to slap the grin from Leo’s lips.
“You’ve had like five of those things in ten minutes.”
Nate dropped his gaze to the table, noticing that the bag of cookies was half-empty and he himself was feeling a little light-headed from all the sugar. But he’d always been stubborn until the end, so he just shrugged. “I’m hungry.”
Leo’s lips twitched. “I see that.”
Nate clenched his teeth and turned back around, lifting his binoculars to his eyes. Jo and Ryder walked down the dock, looking rather cozy. He had one arm draped across her shoulders, holding her close as he leaned down to whisper something in her ear. Jo’s head dropped back as her entire body shook with unabashed mirth, auburn hair cascading over her shoulders, a trail leading down the curve of her spine all the way to that bright-red bikini that barely covered anything at all.
“Jolene Carter,” Leo murmured with an appreciative sigh.
Nate banged the binoculars back on the table—a little too hard—and lifted his fingers to the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his skin.
“Do we know if she’s going to New York with Ryder and Carter?” Leo continued, unaware of the way his words grated like nails on a chalkboard, making Nate’s shoulders writhe. “I wouldn’t mind tailing her for a couple of days. Not at all. Might be—”
“She’s a wanted criminal,” Nate interrupted. Suspected of hacking into a government database, a private security firm, a museum archive, and probably a million other places we don’t know about yet.
“She’s a fine piece of—”
Nate shot a glare over his shoulder. “Of what?”
“Of a woman, Parker,” Leo finished. “You’d have to be blind not to notice. Or, you know, a straitlaced stickler who only sees the world in black and white.”
Leo pointedly lifted his brows.
Nate ignored the teasing jibe, because oh, he saw it.
He saw it all right.
“She’s beautiful, and she knows it,” Nate admitted, keeping his voice even. “A woman like that can be…” He paused, drawing out the syllable as he searched for the right word. “Tricky, in our line of work. She knows how to muddy the waters, how to blur lines you thought were drawn with steel.”
“I was trained to withstand torture,” Leo argued with a laugh. “I think I’ll be okay.” And then his eyes narrowed. He focused on Nate, one brow lifting as his lips puckered, holding back a grin. “Unless I’m not the one you’re worried about. What exactly happened up here, Parker, while I was busy puking my guts out in the bathroom downstairs?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled, turning around in time to see Jo disappear behind the tinted windows of the house. Ryder followed close behind.
“Hmm…nothing?”
“She jumped back on her jet ski and took off.”
“Leaving her, uh, cookies behind?”
“Apparently.”
There was a distinct pause in the conversation.
“Did that red bikini leave an impression, Parker?” The words carried an unmistakable undertone of laughter.
“Leo.”
“Oh, you’re Leo-ing me, are you?” His partner snorted. Nate could imagine him shaking his head, not bothering to hide a wide smile. The very idea made him wince. “I have to say, I didn’t give thieving little Jolene Carter nearly enough credit if she stole her way under your skin in less than five minutes.”
Just as Nate turned to offer his overly cheerful partner a death glare, the two-way radio sparked to life.
“Parker, Alvarez, update?”
Saved by the boss…
“Carter and Ryder arrived,” Leo spoke seriously into the radio, back to business in a heartbeat. Nate turned around, folding his hands in the space between his knees. “The daughter was waiting for them on the dock. They had a short greeting, but we couldn’t see or hear anything. Within a few minutes, Carter was inside the house, carrying a black leather briefcase with him, likely the one you spotted when they exited the plane in Nassau. Ryder and the daughter lingered for a while. They appeared to be cleaning the boat, and then they disappeared into the house, both holding small rolling suitcases.”
“Did you get anything off the mic?”
Nate resisted the urge to curse under his breath.
Leo didn’t. “Shit.”
“Shit, what?” their boss drawled.
Nate jumped to his feet and reached back to grab the radio from Leo’s hand. “We had some complications, sir.”
“What complications?”
Robert Carter’s private island was immune to FBI penetration. A cleaning woman who came by once a month was the only other person allowed inside the premises, but she wasn’t an American citizen, and there was only so much they could do to try to turn her into an informant. After their failed attempt, it hadn’t gone unnoticed that a couple hundred thousand dollars miraculously appeared in her bank account the following week—a presumed gift for her loyalty. They’d tried bugging food deliveries, but Carter was a magician at locating the devices. With an elite security system run through satellite feeds and a computer genius for a daughter, so far nothing had worked.
If Carter really was using this job as his last hurrah before retirement, they had to nail him before it was too late. Discretion be damned. So, they were going old sc
hool. A boat parked outside and a handful of specialized microphones—parabolic mics that could pick up sounds at a distance of one thousand meters and laser mics that could detect sound vibrations off a window. “Agent Alvarez ate a bad batch of jerk chicken before we left the dock this morning, and I didn’t get the laser mic set up in time. All we got through the parabolic was static. Too much wind.”
Leo’s eyes bulged accusingly.
Nate took his thumb off the transmitter. “Do you really want him to think we were distracted by Jolene Carter instead?”
Leo hesitated for a second before relenting.
“Get the mics set up, Parker. All the mics.”
The boss is not amused… “Will do, sir. Immediately.”
“There’s still too much we don’t know. See what you can get. I’m keeping you stationed there until the target leaves for New York. I’ll send a crew out tonight with supplies that should last for a few days. We can send some more if you need it.”
Leo groaned audibly behind him.
The sea hadn’t been kind to him so far.
But Nate thought he had it worse—they were sharing the bathroom. And the only other room downstairs was hot, windowless, and full of all the advanced tech they’d wanted to keep out of plain view.
Guess I’ll be sleeping under the stars. Please, for the love of God, don’t let it rain. Just for a few days. That’s all I ask.
He closed his fingers into a fist, holding back everything except for a quick, “Yes, sir.”
The line went dead.
Nate looked at Leo.
Leo looked at him.
Without speaking, they launched into work, setting the mics up, getting the recording devices together downstairs. The two of them had been partners long enough to do so silently, tossing things back and forth with little more than a sparse word here and there, grunting complete sentences. The afternoon heat gave way to cool twilight before they were done putting the system together.
