You_Only_Love_Twice_ARE

by Lexi Blake

Her eyes came open as if of their own accord. Ten had said “him” and her body responded. “I’m not doing anything.”

  The words came out on a growl. She was resentful. He shouldn’t be here. He’d only been Jamie’s brother. He hadn’t been his wife, his lover. Ten hadn’t been trying to have Jamie’s baby.

  “You’re fucking giving up, Phoebe.” She could practically feel Ten’s will as he paced across the floor. Ten’s cowboy boots thudded along the hand-scraped hardwoods as he continued to move. Ten always had trouble staying still. He paced when he was anxious. He’d been really anxious since that moment that they’d heard Jamie had been captured by jihadists. Ten had spent months trying to find him, months in the deserts of Iraq. And then more time trying to find his body because the fuckers had moved them, likely hoping their bodies would never be found, that the families would never be able to give them a proper burial.

  The jihadists caught Jamie with an Army unit after their convoy had been hit by an IED. Jamie had been working on tracking a terrorist sect using a group of Army grunts as cover.

  It hadn’t been cover enough.

  Her precious husband had been brutally killed along with every single one of his teammates.

  All except for one. When Ten had finally found the place where Jamie had been held and murdered, there had only been one of the soldiers left. Jesse Murdoch. Why had he survived when her husband had been murdered?

  Did it even matter since he was gone? It was so much easier to lie here. She didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to drink. She’d even stopped hurting. Her body was utterly numb.

  She didn’t move, didn’t react because it didn’t matter.

  “Phoebe?”

  She wanted him to go away. If she ignored him, maybe he would leave. It hadn’t been real until she’d gotten Jamie’s body back. For a year, she’d been able to pretend that he was simply on another job. The whole time they’d been married, they had both worked for the Agency. They often spent more time apart than together, so it was easy to fool herself. It had only been very recently that they had talked about getting out, settling down and starting a family. Even after they had the intelligence that stated he’d been captured, she’d been able to pretend that Jamie would be home as soon as the Agency could arrange it.

  But the world was changing and the jihadists were more serious. It wasn’t about ransom money now. It was about ideals, and they recruited more and more soldiers when they killed Westerners.

  Ten had been the one to ID Jamie’s body.

  Why had Jesse Murdoch survived? Some people thought he sold the rest of them out. Had he sold Jamie out?

  She hoped Jesse Murdoch died a rough death.

  “Goddamn it, look at me. You are not this sad sack bitch who simply fades away because something bad happens.”

  That got her sitting up. “Something bad?”

  Ten was a son of bitch who always played things down. Always. He’d done it since they were kids. He’d done it when their father had a heart attack and died. She wasn’t about to let him do it now.

  He leaned in. “Yeah. Do you think this is what Jamie would want for you? Do you think he would want you to lay here and die because you wouldn’t get up and fucking fight?”

  “Fight? Who do you want me to fight, Ten? Are you ready to send me to Iraq? Because I’m ready to go.” It was everything she wanted. She could find the group that killed her husband and rain hellfire on all of them.

  But it was harder than that. She was a woman. She’d worked in intelligence for years but she’d been in Asia and Europe. Her father had kept her out of the real war zones. She’d lived on and off for years in China, working on the political situation there and in Japan and Korea.

  For the spy it had been a cushy assignment. Despite tensions with China, they always played the game. She’d been caught once and spent a few nights in a Shandong prison. Her interrogation had included a nasty bit of torture, but it hadn’t been long before they’d traded her for a Chinese spy. She’d been back at work two weeks later. The Middle East was different. There were no rules to the spy game there, and she’d always known that Jamie was in danger.

  Jamie had gone with Ten. Their father had sent the boys into danger time and time again even as they’d protected her. When Ten took over their father’s job, Jamie had insisted on keeping his assignment despite the fact Ten had given him an out. She’d married Jamie five years before and every moment they’d had together had been precious. Every private day had been a blessing.

  Now she knew that Jamie had the easier road. He didn’t have to live knowing he wouldn’t see her again. He didn’t have to move forward knowing he wouldn’t love again. God, he’d likely died thinking that he was leaving a son behind. The last time she’d talked to him she’d thought she was pregnant. By the time she realized her mistake, he’d been taken.

  Stupid girl. She was still the same stupid girl who screwed up everything good in her life.

  Ten got to one knee, his deep green eyes seeking out hers. Her young adulthood rushed back in and she couldn’t help but remember all the days she and Jamie and Ten had spent together. Every good day of her life had been spent with them. Ten was her family.

  “I can’t possibly feel what you feel, sister.” He put a hand on her knee. “I know you miss him. I do, too. God, I miss him. My whole damn life I’ve had you and Jamie. I can’t lose you, too.”

  His words started to play at her conscience. Jamie had adored Ten. It had been the three of them for so long.

  What would Ten do if they were both gone? He’d been alone for years—just like she had, and then he’d had a family. She still had a brother. She still had Ten.

  “I don’t want to go on.” It felt good to admit it.

  Ten lost his perpetual cool. His handsome face screwed up and tears flushed from those gorgeous eyes. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t be alone again, Phoebe. I love you. I know I’m not Jamie and it’s not the same, but I do love you. You’re the only person I love in the whole damn world now that Jamie and Dad are gone.”

  It had been the three of them burying their adopted father when his fierce heart had betrayed them all. God, she missed Franklin Grant.

  Did she owe it to them all to go on? Because it would be so much easier to take a few too many sleeping pills and float away. It was so easy to get them. Everyone wanted her to sleep and rest and not feel. Everyone except Ten.

  Days she’d spent in this purgatory, but Ten was getting to her.

  “What would I do?” She didn’t know a life outside of the Agency.

  “Work for me. I have a place for you to go. It’s a long-term undercover op. It’s cushy, sweetie, but it’s so necessary. It could be years you spend there.”

  She didn’t want to do it.

  “Please, Phoebe. I don’t trust anyone else to take on Taggart.”

  She couldn’t help but sit up a little straighter at the very name. “Ian Taggart?”

  He was a legend. He was a problem. He was a fine balance that she would have to walk. Intriguing. Even in her grief, she found the idea of playing the game with Taggart deeply intriguing.

  “Yes. He’s got connections that go around the world and while I like the man, I have to keep an eye on him. There’s something else. There’s a situation that’s starting up in Florida.”

  She felt her jaw firm, her blood chilling. There was only one situation either of them cared about right now. “Murdoch?”

  Ten nodded. “I’ve been tracking him and he’s working with some FBI agent out of DC, though he recently took a job in St. Augustine at one of those fet clubs.”

  “You think he has something to do with Taggart?” Taggart was knee-deep in the BDSM lifestyle. She’d read all about it in his files. It didn’t appeal to her at all. Jamie had been tender, so tender with her. He would never have hit her, never have tied her up so she couldn’t fight back. Ten always said Taggart was a good man, but he liked to hit the women he had sex with so that made Phoebe doubt it
. Some people in the Agency still believed that Taggart had murdered his wife.

  It shouldn’t surprise her Murdoch was into the same shit.

  Ten ran a hand over his hair, a sure sign that he was frustrated. “It’s a complex situation and I still don’t understand the whole of it. You’re better at patterns than I am.”

  “I can look at the file for you.”

  “It’s still early, but someone is playing a game and I think I might have figured out who it is. I think Taggart’s wife is still alive and somehow she’s gotten tangled up with my investigation into Murdoch.”

  So maybe Taggart wasn’t a killer. He also wasn’t Agency. “You put too much faith in him. He left you a long time ago, Ten. He’s on his own and he couldn’t care less about you or the job we do.”

  She’d never been in a room with the man, but she’d always resented him because no matter what Ten said, she knew Taggart’s leaving the Agency had hurt Ten. Ten had recruited the man, trained him and he’d walked away.

  “You’re wrong, Phoebe, but I’ll let you form your own opinions of the man. I feel like shit not telling him about Charlotte, though. As far as I can tell, she’s working on something to do with McKay and his ex-wife. It’s a big old clusterfuck and Taggart won’t see it coming. They’re on a collision course.”

  “You can’t tell Taggart a damn thing.” He owed his loyalty to Jamie not Ian Taggart. For the first time in hours, she stood and felt her blood starting to thrum through her system. Jamie might still need her. “If this gets us close to Jesse Murdoch, then you keep Taggart in the dark. No one outside the Agency knows Jamie died in Iraq.”

  “I’ve kept his cover. As far as Tag knows, Jamie was just a friend of mine and he died in a Humvee accident while training rebels along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. No one wants it to get out that some of our operatives are posing as soldiers.”

  Her mind started working again, a tiny bit of the fog of grief clearing out. “You work it from Murdoch’s end and I’ll keep an eye on Taggart and his group.”

  McKay-Taggart Security was rapidly becoming one of the country’s premiere security providers. They were made up of ex-Special Forces and ex-FBI.

  For the first time in days, Ten smiled. “I am so glad to hear you say that.”

  She had to make one thing clear. “You won’t tell Taggart.”

  His smile died, but he nodded. “No. I’ll keep quiet. He’s my friend, but Jamie was my brother. We have to figure out if Murdoch turned on him.”

  “If he did, he’s mine, Ten.” She would seek retribution on the man who betrayed her husband. It didn’t matter why he’d done it—whether out of greed or cowardice. Somehow Murdoch had been left untouched while everyone else died. It wasn’t fair.

  Sometimes life wasn’t fair. Sometimes karma didn’t work.

  But Phoebe did.

  She sat back down and Ten’s hand found hers. They stayed that way for the longest time, until the light died and night fell.

  When she stood back up, she knew it was time to go to work.

  CHAPTER ONE

  One Year Later

  Dallas, TX

  Jesse Murdoch sat back in his chair and thought about looking around for the cameras because sometimes the boys liked to play pranks on each other. Like the time Big Tag had filled Adam’s office with balloons. It had seemed like such a lighthearted little trick until Adam had popped the first sucker and discovered they had all been painstakingly filled with lemon pudding. It had been retribution for Adam eating the last of Ian’s beloved lemon-filled donuts, and it was a video they still played at office parties from time to time, along with the video of Eve finding the psychotic clown Halloween decoration in her closet and losing her shit and Grace trying to track down a mouse only to discover it was being radio controlled by her husband who—according to that tape—was never sleeping in their bed again.

  So when Simon sat him down in the conference room and started his speech about Phoebe Graham being a spy, he’d looked for the candid camera.

  He knew he had a reputation for not being the brightest bulb in the bunch, but damn, did they really think he was that stupid?

  “Sure, Phoebe’s a spy. I always knew it.” Sometimes it was best to go along with these things. It helped him to fit in. Of course once the gig was up, he was going to find a way to get Si back. His brain was already working on how he could replace every single one of Simon’s slick suits with unitards. Bright-pink ones.

  Ian leaned forward. “Jesse, I need you to take this seriously.”

  Big Tag was good at never cracking up during a prank. “Absolutely.”

  Alex McKay sighed. “He’s going to need proof. God knows I did.”

  “Yes, I need proof.” He couldn’t wait to see what they’d done. Phoebe would think it was a hoot.

  And maybe it would make her laugh. Maybe if he could find a way to make her laugh, she might want to move past the “friends” stage they’d been stuck in forever. If he could find a way to get through the veil of sorrow he so often felt from her, maybe she would see how much he cared, how much he wanted to make her happy.

  Simon took off his suit coat and hung it over his chair as he started to pace. They were really playing this for all it was worth. He looked every bit the concerned friend. “I didn’t want to do this today, not with the baby shower and all.”

  Alex held up a hand. “It’s fine, Simon. Chelsea thinks something’s going down today and we’re going to trust your wife. Besides, other than Chelsea, we’re trying to keep the women out of this. If we can handle it quietly, it’s all for the better. The baby shower is keeping them occupied. Phoebe, too.”

  “Adam and Jake are keeping an eye on her. They’ve been tailing her for days,” Ian said, his voice grim. He turned to Jesse. “I hate to do this to you, and you have to know if I thought I could get rid of her without you knowing about it, I would do it. I know what it feels like, man.”

  Jesse sat up because not even for a prank would Ian Taggart talk about his feelings. “You’re joking, right?”

  His gut was suddenly in a knot.

  “I wish I was,” Big Tag replied. “I have to apologize because I’m the one who approved her hire.”

  “Could we save the recriminations until after Jesse knows the truth?” Simon asked.

  It was stupid. This whole thing was some sort of misunderstanding because there was zero chance that Phoebe Graham was anything but a sweet, sexy, caring woman with an unfortunate addiction to Harry Potter.

  Except the one time he’d offered to take her to Harry Potter World, she’d cried and hadn’t talked to him for a day. He’d thought it would be a way to please her, but she’d shut him out and wouldn’t tell him why.

  He’d actually started to wonder if she went out with him because she was a woman who struggled to say no. She wasn’t ever going to return his affection, but she certainly wasn’t some spy.

  “It was the way she moved,” Simon said. “I never paid much attention to her. I think she was too relaxed that night when we had to flee from The Collective.”

  It had been months before. Simon had called and given him the code words that basically told Jesse to get his ass in gear because shit was going down. He’d been on a date with Phoebe. Well, he called them dates. Once, he’d heard her tell Charlotte Taggart that they weren’t dating. It felt like dating to him. He’d bundled her up and picked up Simon and Chelsea in time to avoid what would have been Simon’s arrest on trumped up murder charges. He’d dropped Phoebe off at her place and then they’d been on the run.

  “What are you talking about? How does she move? Half the time I’m trying to make sure she doesn’t break her leg or something.” She was charmingly klutzy. He hated to admit it, but he kind of liked it when she stumbled because he always managed to catch her. She was smarter than him, but he could protect her. It was probably the only thing in the world he had to give her.

  He’d been a grunt during his service days, and even here at McKay-
Taggart he knew his real value was the fact that he was willing to step in front of a bullet for his brothers or their wives. He didn’t mind being the one to protect Phoebe.

  “It’s all an act. Jake took some video of her when she didn’t think anyone was watching. She’s well trained. I would suspect she’s taken more than one form of martial arts. Did you know she takes a Krav Maga class on Saturdays?” Simon asked.

  “So she wants to be able to defend herself.” He thought that was a good idea.

  “Jake couldn’t roll tape there, but he caught a glimpse and said she could practically teach the class herself,” Simon replied.

  “In long-term cover these are the things that ruin an operative,” Ian mused. “She’s trying to hold on to one thing that makes her who she was before she took the assignment. She’s trying desperately to stay strong while she looks weak. She should never have taken that class. She only signed up for it three months ago. I would be very interested to know what pushed her to do it. It’s reckless for a woman who’s made all the right moves so far.”

  “Or she’s a woman who wants to defend herself. That’s not a crime. It’s smart.” They were being paranoid.

  “Chelsea hasn’t been able to break her cover yet. Adam gave it a shot, too. Do you know what kind of backing it takes to imbed a false identity so well those two can’t break it?” Simon asked.

  “So we have to assume she’s an operative either for a foreign entity or something more nefarious,” McKay added. “Did you run her past Damon?”

  Tag nodded. “None of his MI6 contacts were willing to say they know her, but that doesn’t mean shit. None of Damon’s new guys could ID her. I think we have to look at worst-case scenarios here.”

  “Since when do you not go there?” McKay asked with a shake of his head. “You always go to the worst-case scenario first. So she’s either a foreign operative or a Collective plant.”

  They were leaving out a scenario. “Or you’re wrong about her.”

  McKay looked at him with sympathy. Fuck, but he hated being pitied. “We’re not wrong.”