“I’m sorry, but I can’t let this opportunity pass me by,” he prefaced, before saying. “Badly done, Emma. Badly done.”
I was poised to start pummeling him with the empty water bottle when a black sedan appeared at the end of the street. If this was backup, I’d gladly put my revenge on hold.
The sedan rolled up to the mailbox at the target residence, and two guys got out wearing suit jackets and white button-up shirts with no ties. And aviator sunglasses. Their slicked-back hair glinted in the sunlight. As the driver walked around the hood of the car, he glanced casually in our direction, smirked, and then gave Ethan a thumbs-up.
“So much for keeping a low profile,” Ethan muttered, glancing at me with a similarly snarky expression. I was wearing my hair tucked up into a red beret and face-swallowing sunglasses. Not to mention a scarf wrapped high on my neck. But from the neck down I was totally generic.
“What?! I don’t want to be recognized!”
We both trained our eyes on the ivy-wrapped, redbrick house and its crisp black door as Ethan’s fellow agents, clearly thrilled at the opportunity for a little fieldwork, knocked and waited. Piper’s mom answered and then turned, calling back into the house. Shortly, Bad Manners was filling the doorway, his hand resting comfortingly on his wife’s shoulder. Ethan had brought me up to speed on the plan over lunch, but when the agents knocked, he handed me an earbud, tucking a second into his own ear.
“Sir, I’m Agent Prescott and this is Agent Aberly. We’re here because you are a person of interest in an ongoing investigation centering around the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.”
It was difficult to tell from a distance, but it seemed as if Bad Manners blanched and adjusted his attitude from dismissive to fidgety with a side of bluster.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, turning to his wife. “Mer, if you want to just let me handle this, it’s obviously some sort of misunderstanding.” Bad Manners looked past the agents, out over his yard and into the street, probably wondering if any of his neighbors were spying on him. As his gaze skimmed over Ethan’s car, I fumbled for the seat adjustment, pulling it hard and going down with a jolt. Ethan stared down at me. I smiled, showing teeth, pretending it had been intentional.
“No, James, I think I want to hear this,” I heard Mer say. Good for her!
Agent Prescott went on. “We’ve had the Driskill under surveillance for weeks, sir. We suspect a couple of major players are using it as a headquarters for a high-end drug ring supplying politicians and corporate executives. We have footage of you entering the hotel on several different occasions with a woman we’ve long suspected to be both a courier and a call girl.”
I heard a gasp through the earbud and inched myself carefully back up, peeking over the dash.
“What are you doing?” Ethan asked calmly.
“Trying to be inconspicuous.” I felt the beret slump slightly.
“I don’t think he’ll come after you again after this is all over,” Ethan surmised. “If he’s smart, he won’t want the trouble.”
“He’s not smart—he’s an idiot.”
“True, but I’d wager he’s an idiot with excellent self-preservation instincts.”
“Still, their daughter is a student of mine. I can’t help but worry about how all this is going to affect her.”
“Do you seriously think she and her mom would be better off not knowing the kind of man he is?”
“No,” I muttered. “But that doesn’t mean I want her hearing it from me.”
“She’s not hearing it from you,” he said, clearly striving for patience.
“No. I’m just a spectator, gawking over some invisible crime scene tape stretched around her lawn.”
“Right.” Satisfied, Ethan turned back to get a little perspective on the snatches of conversation we were getting. I rolled my eyes, but paid attention.
“I have nothing to do with any of that,” Bad Manners blustered. “This is all one huge misunderstanding.”
“Perhaps you could help us understand, sir.” From the sound of things, Agent Aberly had been cast in the role of Good Cop.
Silence. My lips curled up in vengeful anticipation. I wasn’t proud of that.
Bad Manners stared hard at the agents, probably wondering if he could threaten them with counter-investigation. He glanced at his wife, wiped a big hand down over his face, forehead to chin, and finally looked out over the lawn again, staring in our direction, with a clear view of Ethan in the driver’s seat and the top three inches of my head just cresting the passenger side dash.
“I was . . . having an affair. For Christ’s sake, I met her at a school board conference. I can’t believe she was moonlighting as a courier for drugs and sex for hire. I never paid her anything!” The bluster fell away as quickly as it came on. “Just the occasional dinner. . .” He turned to his wife with a hangdog expression. “I’m sorry, Mer. It didn’t mean anything. I’ve already broken it off.”
Mer did not respond. With two sidesteps to the left, Mer distanced herself from the whole proceedings.
“Okay then,” Agent Aberly said jauntily. “I think that about covers things. You’re not a drug lord or a courier, but you are a cheating bastard. Definitely not a person of interest. Good to know.”
Ethan grinned. “I told them to tack that onto the end.”
“We’ll let you know if we need any further assistance with this investigation,” Prescott said warningly. “But I’ll have to insist that you not discuss this with anyone. Otherwise you could be charged with interfering with a federal investigation. And if that happens . . .” Agent Prescott let the warning hang in the chilly air between them. “The U.S. government will be all up in your ass. We’ll know if you cheat on your taxes, if you accept illegal kickbacks, and if you don’t pay your parking tickets. In short, you’ll be our bitch.”
A laugh escaped before Mer could stop it. With her fingers covering her mouth, she settled her chin in her palm and shook her head slightly, no doubt in disbelief. Bad Manners had chosen not to respond and instead seemed to be grinding his teeth down to the nerves. He glanced again at the car, squinting in the winter sun. He’d obviously made us, and I was tempted to toss him a cheerful wave, but I didn’t. For Piper, I didn’t.
Then the agents nodded briskly to Piper’s parents, turned, and started down the driveway, Aberly stripping off his jacket before he’d even reached the car.
The house door slammed, bringing an end to the sting operation. The status of the marriage remained to be seen. I would have to keep an eye on Piper and make sure she knew my door was always open. As long as her father didn’t wander in. The black sedan pulled away from the curb and sailed down the street past us.
I flipped my seat back up as Ethan started the engine. He glanced at me assessingly. “Sorry you came?”
“Yes and no,” I admitted. “Take Piper out of the equation . . . and maybe the wife, and I would have been all over this. But with them involved, it just seems cruel. Although he totally had it coming,” I said quickly, hoping to derail Ethan’s exasperated defense.
“Well, with any luck, he’s done with us.”
I looked over at him. “You’re a pretty handy guy to have around. Is that the sort of thing you do for the CIA?”
“What? Knock on doors, concocting stories about imaginary drug lords while confronting real-life adulterers? No. I’m just a computer geek, intercepting messages, then decoding and translating them.”
“But you’re still considered a spy,” I pressed, turning to look at him.
Even in profile I could tell his grin was huge. “Technically, yes.”
“I don’t suppose your fluency in French and German is why they hired you.”
“No. The German is sometimes useful, but I only learned the French to get girls.”
“Naturally. Well, it’s clear you have all sorts of secrets up your sleeve. We’ll see how long you can hold on to them,” I said, smiling. “At least we didn’t have to resort to bri
nging Gemma in. I shudder to think how that would have gone down.”
Ethan laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to remember her unique qualifications in the event I’m asked to assist in any future takedown operations.” I’d filled him in on Gemma’s quirky little side job, which until now I’d figured was better kept in the family, during our night in The Castle. He’d said only that he’d had “suspicions.” Don’t we all. . . .
“I have unique qualifications too,” I reminded him. “I could be involved.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, no doubt remembering my little bladder issue.
Clenching my legs together, I leaned down, reached into my bag, and pulled out the journal.
“Want to go with me to drop this off?” I suggested, my heart tensing just slightly at the finality of it all.
Ethan pulled up to a stoplight and turned to look at me, and my hands clutching the journal. “Do you have somewhere in mind?”
“Yes, I do. And it just happens to have a nice bathroom,” I said. “Corner of Sixth and Lamar.”
After a couple beats of silence, the corner of Ethan’s mouth quirked with amusement. “Needle in a haystack strategy, huh?”
“No,” I corrected him, fingering the binding, the pages, and the hardware one final time, saying good-bye, “This is me making one final match.”
Indulging myself in one last look, I paged to Gypsy Jane’s latest little bit of wisdom:
every love story is different. yours happened to have a ghost. au revoir.
So much had happened. The biggest and best development was the shift in my relationship with Ethan, but not to be dismissed was the fact that I was no longer jealous of literary characters. I had my own story, with the stellar potential for a perfectly lovely happily-ever-after. And like it or not, it would very likely be read by the journal’s next owner . . . and the next. I tipped the book up and peeked down into the narrow darkness along the spine, checking to make sure the journal’s key was wedged inside. It was. All that was left was to leave it for someone else to find.
Pulling into the BookPeople parking lot on the busiest shopping day of the year, we were lucky to get a parking space. But otherwise, it may as well have been any other day, a melting pot of students and hippies, yuppies and musicians—typical Austin. I felt like the world was streaming past me while I held tight to the journal. Like a fast-forward sequence in a movie, time was spinning out, and I was only catching snatches. I imagined this was how it was for Gypsy Jane too. . . . When Ethan’s hand touched my shoulder, everything righted itself and time slid back to normal.
“I thought it was an emergency,” he said.
“It is,” I admitted, “it is! Hold this for me?”
I was back in two minutes, tugging the journal from Ethan’s hands, selfishly wanting this last minute. I led the way up to the second floor and wove through shoppers in the literature section until we reached the selection of Jane Austen’s novels. Thankfully we had this section of shelves to ourselves for the moment. I brushed my fingers over all the pretty versions of her six wondrous novels until Ethan’s hand brushed my waist and I was forced to get on with things. With one last look at the journal, I slid it discreetly into the narrow space between the tops of the books and the shelf above, wondering how long it would take to be found, and whether the person who was lucky enough to find it would rise to the challenge.
Ethan grabbed my hand, and after allowing myself a single look back, we walked down the stairs and out into the late November afternoon. Now it was just he and I, going it alone, no Gypsy Jane to intercede. I took a deep breath of crisp, chilly air and let it out. Then I glanced up at him.
“You in the mood for a movie? A little Jane Austen gone Bollywood. . . ?” I waggled my brows suggestively.
“How can I resist?”
“Why would you even want to?” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. “We can stop at Sonic on the way and get one of those giant Route 44 drinks to share.”
“I think I might like to get my own.”
“Okay. But we can still share, right?” I said, only half-teasing, linking my arm through his.
“I guess I had two years to have my own drink,” he conceded. “While I was waiting for you to make your move.”
I looked up at him. “While you were crushin’ on me and keeping your hands to yourself?”
“Hey, I’m a gentleman,” Ethan said, blushing adorably.
He was. And for two years he’d hung on, and waited, and we’d become inseparable. There had been secrets, yes, but they’d been kept in the interest of national security. Whether or not that was technically true was irrelevant—that was what I was telling myself. He’d been steady, faithful, and utterly unshakeable, and I didn’t doubt that he was a keeper.
“The perfect gentleman,” I concurred. “And I am going to take full advantage of that fact,” I said grinning, already making plans.
Did You Miss Austentatious?
In this quirky, sexy novel set against the lively, music-filled backdrop of Austin, Texas, a young woman learns that romance can wreak havoc with even the best-laid plans. . . .
It started innocently enough. While browsing in one of Austin’s funky little shops, Nicola James is intrigued by a blank vintage journal she finds hidden among a set of Jane Austen novels. Even though Nic is a straitlaced engineer, she’s still a sucker for anything Austenesque. But her enthusiasm quickly turns to disbelief once she starts writing in the journal—because somehow, it’s writing her back . . .
Miss Nicola James will be sensible and indulge in a little romance. Those twelve tiny words hit Nic like a thunderbolt, as if her diary was channeling Austen herself! Itching for a bit of excitement, Nic decides to follow her “Fairy Jane’s” advice. The result: a red-hot romance with a sexy Scottish musician who charms his way into Nic’s heart in about five seconds flat.
Sean MacInnes is warm, funny, and happens to think Nic is the most desirable woman he’s ever met. But a guy like Sean doesn’t exactly fit into her Life Plan. With no one but Fairy Jane to guide her, Nic must choose between the life she thought she wanted—and the kind of happy ending she never saw coming. . . .
“Goodnight’s breezy style with a believable heroine, lively conflicts and lots of best-friend confidences elevates this above the usual chick lit fare.”—Publishers Weekly
“Austentatious is a fresh romantic adventure with a cast of characters who kept me turning pages way past my bedtime.”
—Cindy Jones, My Jane Austen Summer
“This humorous romance will appeal to all Austen fans while bringing a fresh twist with its magic journal.”—Booklist
“Janeites and chick lit fans alike will enjoy this wonderful romp into modern day romance with the ideal Miss Matchmaker from the past leading the way.”
—Courtney Webb, New York Journal of Books
“Magnetic, compelling, and comedic—Austentatious is a novel you should not miss! This romantic and magical adventure is sure to entertain and delight fans of Jane Austen and the Austenesque genre!”—Austenesque Reviews
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 by Alyssa Goodnight
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-8614-7
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Austensibly Ordinary Page 26
