She froze. “Why not?”
He could play head games and spook her all day long. She deserved it. “That’s a fertility tiki.”
She turned to stare him in the eye. Then she very deliberately reached down and stroked the tiki’s tummy, baiting him. “Nice to meet you, little guy.”
Ty got a mental image of the previous night at the waterfall, wondering if Tref was still on her birth control. He’d been too caught up in the moment to even think about using a condom. If there was anything to that fertility tiki, he was going to be owing Tref child support.
He grabbed her arm and whispered very softly in her ear, “It’s probably bugged. Act normally. Don’t say anything we don’t want the enemy to hear.”
Behind him, Greg sniggered.
Ty turned on him.
Greg had a hand in his pocket.
“Call the exterminator,” Ty said.
“On it already.” Greg whipped out his cell phone.
Treflee shook Ty’s arm off and bounced into the plantation house.
Ty paused just outside the door, spy sense on high alert, filled with a sense of dread and foreboding.
Behind him, Greg slapped him on the back. “No use delaying the inevitable, dude.”
Greg was right. Ty reluctantly stepped inside. A vibrantly colored life-sized oil portrait of the beautiful, seductive Haumea hung over the entryway end table.
Tref was staring at her. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?”
“She’s the goddess of fertility. I’m sensing a theme here.” He couldn’t help sighing as he took in the painting and the present-packed table below her. Tita used it as a gift table for weddings. It was large enough to hold gifts from over a hundred wedding guests. The way it was loaded with goods, it looked as if a wedding were already in full swing. “Behold the fallout from a full-scale gift war.”
Greg whistled. “Quite a haul. Wonder how much reciprocating set Tita back?”
Three monkeypod bowls carved in different shapes filled with different tropical and Chinese candies lined the table, along with two baskets of fresh fruit, a huge spray of protea, four tiki masks, and a large assortment of goods he was cut short of cataloging as Tita lumbered in.
“Haole! Greg! You’re back safely.” Tita pulled Ty into a hug.
“Aloha, wahine.” He hugged her back. He released her so she could hug Greg and Tref.
“The girls told me what happened. Bad spirits in those men.” Tita clicked her tongue. “You saw the doctor? Let me see the leg.”
He modeled his bandage for her.
Tita studied it closely. “Not a bad job. I’ll make you some herbal tea and sweeten it with sugar cane. Nothing heals like a little sugar cane.” She nodded and studied him some more. “Do I need to perform hooponopono, the healing ritual, on you?”
“I thought that was the kahuna’s job, wahine,” Ty teased her.
She laughed. “I am the big kahuna, haole.”
“And I’m fine. Modern medicine should be good enough this time.” Ty spread his arm toward the table. “Is everything in balance now? Has harmony been restored? In other words, have you given up on this gift war?” He shook his head and gave her a quick one-armed hug and release.
Tita stiffened, looking suddenly apprehensive as her gaze bounced between Tref, Greg, and him.
“Almost. Just one more obligation and I call it quits.” Tita clasped her hands in front of her and looked at them optimistically.
“Uh-oh,” Greg said. “I know that look.”
“What have you done, Tita?” Ty said.
Tita giggled nervously. “Mrs. Ho has invited us all to the big Chinese multiwedding on Saturday. She says it’s a very big deal for her, a big promotional thing with much potential for new business from China. She insists we all come as her honored guests.”
Ty got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Beside him, Tref started to tremble. No doubt she’d just gotten the same feeling, and maybe her phobia of Chinese people was resurfacing.
Tita smiled at her and reached out to pat her arm. “You’ve been through so much, poor thing. Have a piece of candy. Sugar is good for the nerves.” She grabbed a monkeypod bowl from the table and held it out to Tref.
Tref grabbed a piece of wrapped corn hard candy.
“I wouldn’t eat that one if I were you,” Ty told her. He shouldn’t have used that ominous tone on her again, as if the candy were poison. Cry wolf one too many times. “You won’t like the taste.”
She relaxed and shrugged. “What do you mean? I love candy corn. One of my faves.”
She was angry at him. So she did what she always did when she wanted to get back at him. She ignored his warning with a defiant look. Her loss.
She unwrapped the candy and popped it in her mouth. Almost immediately, she spat it back out into the wrapper and made a face. “It tastes like buttered corn.”
He shook his head at her and shrugged, resisting the urge to say “I told you so.”
Treflee glanced at Tita and blushed, as if she just remembered Tita was standing there. “I’ll save this for later.” She shot Ty a look with almost enough spite to kill.
What have I done to deserve that?
Ty addressed Tita. “What do you mean by Mrs. Ho wants ‘us all’ at the wedding? That can’t include the hired hands.”
Tita grinned at him. “Sorry, haole. I’ve already RSVPed for you and Greg, and all of my guests, including Treflee.”
“Carrie agreed to go?” Treflee looked pained on her cousin’s behalf. “Saturday was supposed to be her wedding day. I thought the plan was to tour the pineapple plantation and get bombed on piña coladas afterward.”
“Change of plans.” Tita nonchalantly set the monkeypod bowl back on the table. “I gave Carrie a discount on her stay and told her about the open bar and the free jiu, Chinese cocktails. Mrs. Ho is never stingy with the jiu.”
“Oh, boy,” Treflee whispered with a degree of enthusiasm close to dread.
Ty exchanged a look with Greg. Why did Mrs. Ho want everyone at the wedding? To keep an eye on them? Or to take them out?
Stir a drunken, depressed should-have-been-a-bride lady cop and four of her friends into the mix and the odds of the operation going smoothly just dropped by half.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Treflee lay in her fluffy Big Auau bed with the covers pulled up to her nose, the windows and doors locked, and the fan on high, purely for its noise. If a Chinese assassin was hell-bent on breaking in and slitting her throat in the middle of the night, she didn’t want to hear it. Better for him not to interrupt her rest and simply kill her as she slept. After all, dying in your sleep was the way everyone wanted to go.
What a hellacious twenty-four hours she’d had. Too stoked, too scared, and too torn up about Ty to sleep, she lay there with thoughts of her upcoming mission dancing through her head.
This was the spying life Ty loved. Even with her lifelong love for the quiet life, she was forced to admit the adrenaline rush of spying had its appeal. So did being a part of something bigger than herself. And getting revenge on the bad guys. Definitely getting revenge on the bad guys.
So many brushes with death and seeing Ty shot and thinking he might die had irrevocably changed her, and reinforced her determination to win him back. At any cost.
She glanced toward the door. Speaking of Ty, he’d sworn to protect her. Why wasn’t he slipping through her locked door like the spook he was?
She tightened her grip on the sheet at her nose, feeling miserable and empty. She’d been trying to kick him to the curb for the better part of a year and now that she’d succeeded she was desolate.
It’s just that … she loved him, thrill-seeking adventurer and all. She simply had to win him back. Before he slipped back into the espionage ether again, lost forever. Even if she had to beg Emmett for help.
Emmett! Oh, boy. He really couldn’t afford to turn her loose into the civilian world now, not with all she knew.
Th
e head of National Clandestine Services could surely do something. Emmett didn’t want this divorce to happen any more than she did. He surely had tricks up his sleeve, mind-altering techniques, maybe, to reprogram Ty’s psyche to forget how she’d hurt him and learn to love her again.
The door rattled gently. She wouldn’t have even noticed if she hadn’t been staring at it. Ty slid in silently and closed and locked it behind him.
“You’re back,” she whispered.
“Yeah, honey, I’m home,” he whispered back as he shed his shirt and dropped it on the floor by his side of the bed.
She hadn’t even startled him.
“What? No divorce papers on my pillow? I’m disappointed.” He slid under the covers as close to the edge of the bed and as far away from her as possible.
Treflee rolled over on her elbow to face him. “I didn’t think you were going to show up.”
“I don’t break promises. I don’t abandon missions.” He punched his pillow and turned away from her.
He’s abandoning his mission to stay married to me. And suddenly wanting to break that little promise about “until death do us part.”
She stared at his back, wondering how to engage him. He never slept next to her without wanting her. She couldn’t stand the heartbreak of his apathy. Before they married, they vowed never to go to bed angry at each other. She’d broken that vow a hundred times this past year. It stopped here.
She touched his shoulder. “Does the device still work?”
He stiffened beneath her touch. “Yeah.”
“Good. So we’re still on with the swap.” Refusing to back off, she reached out and cupped Ty’s cheek, wishing she could take away his hurt, itching to caress him.
He froze.
“I think I understand now about your job, the pressures, the reasons you can’t always be with me.”
He didn’t reply, but she sensed he was listening.
She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “I didn’t betray you.” Loyalty was king with Ty. There were so few people a spy could trust. “I didn’t steal the device. You have to believe me. Okay, I borrowed it.
“But I was going to put it back. I swear. I hate Zulu! I hate him because he grabbed me before I could put the data card back. Because that made you doubt me.” She sighed. “I wish you’d never known.”
Ty moved her hand off his cheek. “Give it a rest, Tref.”
She swallowed hard. “I should have told you about the baby.” Though she’d intended to sound calm, her voice broke. “You don’t know how sorry I am. The pregnancy was an accident. The miscarriage was an accident. This whole thing seems like a horrible nightmare. Can’t we just start over?”
“Go to sleep.” He sounded tired and hurt. “We have a couple of big days ahead of us.”
She wasn’t giving up. Tomorrow was another day. And she didn’t plan on either dying or giving up on her marriage.
* * *
Friday passed in a blur of briefing, planning, quick lessons in firearms and self-defense, and being styled and beautified by the talented Kiki. Ty took Treflee to town for the training, telling Carrie and the others Treflee and he had follow-up doctor’s visits. No one questioned them even though they were gone from sunup to sundown.
Friday night, Ty sneaked into Treflee’s room and bed well past midnight, waiting, she was sure, until he thought she was asleep. He should know her better than that. How could she sleep the night before her first big mission? And a wedding mission at that.
Heck, maybe she’d even catch the bouquet. She was eligible. Sort of. And as there were twelve bouquets to be caught, the odds were definitely in her favor. Unless Laci knocked her out of the way and claimed more than her share. Or she was discovered and dead, or being tortured by then.
Ty slipped into bed so smoothly, he barely bounced the mattress. He hovered so far from her at the edge of the bed, she was convinced Kiki must have outfitted him with Velcro briefs. How else was he staying on the edge?
For her part, she was barely hanging on to her nerves.
But being a spy had taught her one thing—if you want to succeed, you need to take risks. Put yourself out there. She rolled next to him, pressed up against his bare back with her breasts, and ran her hand over his shoulder, down his side to his waist—
He shoved her hand away before she got far enough south to find a hard package. “No sex before a mission.”
“Sex?” Even though she knew he was still hurt and angry at her, his rejection stung. She had to channel her inner spy girl to keep her hurt from showing and lashing back. “Just cuddling up for sleep.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, no sex is not how James Bond plays it,” she whispered in his ear. “A little tumble puts James on his game, eases the stress.”
Ty stiffened, but not in the right and enticing places.
“Bond’s a fictional spy.” He punched his pillow and stared at the wall.
Treflee fell onto her back and stared at the ceiling. That went well. What is it going to take to win him back? Whatever it is, flirting with Hal tomorrow is not going to help my case.
* * *
The plan was simple—Treflee would stick to Hal like day-old poi. She would transmit and record every move he made with her trusty hot red organza hibiscus-flower hair-clip video camera studded with sequins and Swarovski crystals. Kiki had picked it out, probably from the most recent issue of Vogue for Spies. Though she might have bedazzled it herself. The hibiscus cam perfectly matched Treflee’s plunging red halter dress and coordinated with the color of her fingernails and toenails. And it was equipped with a tracking device, too. Yeah, a deluxe model.
Ty had a hand in picking the dress from three options Kiki presented during cover fashion selection. The dress was just a dress, no extra features, but Ty called it killer. Treflee called it a bra fitter’s nightmare—no back to the waist, very little front. Kiki shrugged as if it were no problem and gave Treflee plastic cups to tape to her breasts.
The cups worried Treflee. They weren’t the kind of lingerie that turned Ty on. And yes, she planned to ditch the dress later and entice Ty into some hot after-mission makeup sex. She just hoped she didn’t have to take him prisoner to do it.
When Treflee modeled the dress for Ty, he eyed her like a designer looking for flaws, not a possessive husband. “Lots of cleavage. Plenty of skin. Good. Epic. Hal’s eyes should be on you, not us. Should keep him distracted.”
Treflee should have been flattered. She would have been if Ty had been his usual self and had had that sexy leer in his eyes, that “I’ll grab you later and we’ll make passionate love” vibe about him rather than the cold calculation of a mission planner. She felt like a whore, probably because he’d dressed her like one. Revenge would only be sweet when she won Ty back and let the dress work its magic on him.
She wore a pair of black Havaianas, also studded with Swarovski crystals between her toes. Later Treflee could kick them off if she liked or dance until dawn. She just hoped Kiki had incorporated a handcuff key in them or an inflate-a-coat. Never knew when you’d need either of those.
Treflee would dance all right—once Hal and Mrs. Ho were behind bars and Ty was hers again.
And against Kiki’s fashion advice, she wore the pearls Ty had given her. Kiki had wanted her to wear a drop necklace instead.
While Treflee distracted Hal, Ty and Greg would be stealthily following up with everyone Hal came in contact with, looking to see if he’d made a drop. Using their magical spy skills and light pickpocketing fingers to swap the real SDXC card for the counterfeit one.
Easy, Ty had said.
Oh, sure. Easy if nothing went wrong. Easy if the evil Mrs. Ho didn’t get wind of the plan and off them at the buffet table or while they were enjoying a jiu at the open bar. Easy if Treflee’s video equipment worked like it was supposed to. But since when did video equipment ever do what it was supposed to? Some piece of equipment always screwed up. And hair clips? Don’t get her started. Sh
e hadn’t had a hair clip stay properly in place since first grade.
But her objections fell on deaf ears. Clips falling out of hair weren’t things spies worried about. She’d just have to cope. In the meantime, she obsessed about little things as she played with the charm bracelet Ty had given her, liking its jingle, jingle, jingle. About stupid things like why the bracelet hadn’t been in exactly the same spot under the mattress where she’d hidden it.
Ty came up to her as she stood on the Big Auau veranda waiting for her date for the wedding. She preferred her husband and wanted him again as petulantly as Scarlett wanted Rhett back.
Treflee fiddled with a gift she held for Abi and Feng, hoping they didn’t already have a monkeypod butter dish and koa wood butter knife. Then again, why would they? The guy in Lahaina had assured her they were unique.
Next to her, she felt Ty’s heat. She either won him back now, or he’d find some way to sign those papers before disappearing into spookdom for good.
The thought of reading about his happy nuptials to a femme fatale colleague in the latest NCS family newsletter totally depressed her. She wanted him, pure and simple. She just wasn’t sure how to get him back. He’d never been cold to her like this before.
If she could prove she was up to the spying life, that she understood now that sometimes he couldn’t help being absent, then maybe.
Ty pointed at the bracelet. “Where’d that come from?”
“You, baby. I take it everywhere with me.” She smiled sweetly.
He cursed beneath his breath, mumbling something about wives on missions.
“You shouldn’t be wearing it.” He didn’t sound particularly touched that she kept it with her at all times.
She jangled the bracelet for his benefit. “With all these charms for luck, why not?”
“Didn’t know you were superstitious.”
“Maybe I’m not. Maybe I just like having you near.”
He sighed and shook his head as if to say, oh what the hell. “Just don’t go waving my picture around.”
“On a date with another guy? Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with complete honesty. “It’s not good form.”
The Spy Who Left Me: An Agent Ex Novel Page 27
