The Spy Who Left Me (2 page)

“That Carrie and her warped sense of humor. I’m going to strangle her.” Only the family and Ty ever called her Betty, and only when they wanted to pull her chain.

Treflee had another beef with him. “Speaking of my cousin Carrie, you were flirting with her!”

“Flirting with the ladies is part of my cover—” He stopped short as if registering what she’d just said. “Your cousin?”

“Yeah, duh. You’d know that if you were ever around long enough to attend a family function or two.” Spite was not an easy thing to keep out of her voice.

He cocked a brow. “She wasn’t at our wedding.”

The man had a photographic memory. “She was serving in Iraq.”

“You never showed her a wedding picture? She didn’t seem to recognize me.”

Treflee shrugged. “I’m sure she saw one a long time ago. I haven’t been in the mood to flash one around lately.” Did she sound put out? She didn’t think she sounded sweet. “You’re obviously incognito now. I doubt she’ll make the connection. The bleached-blond look is good on you.”

He ignored her jibe. “I don’t recognize the others.”

“I just met the others. They’re all Carrie’s friends, fellow cops and former military. Except for Carla. She’s a nurse. You’d better watch yourself.” Treflee couldn’t help smiling. “Cops have a habit of sniffing out the truth.”

Carrie and Treflee lived states apart. They weren’t actually that close. Mostly it was blood and the devoted relationship between their mothers that bound them. Carrie had been under duress to make her part of the bridal party. When the whole thing fell through, she couldn’t very well exclude her from the vacation, even though Treflee had tried to wiggle out of it.

She put her hands on her hips as they stared each other down. “I checked the weather every day for the past six months.”

When he was away on a mission, they communicated by posting seemingly innocuous comments on their hometown’s local weather blog. Their comments were actually coded messages to each other.

“You always check the weather,” he said.

He was probably being deliberately obtuse just to frustrate her. “You know what I mean.”

“What would I have said, Tref? Graupel?”

Graupel?
That one wasn’t in their lexicon. Graupel was hail snow.
Hail snow?
Then it hit her—
hell no!

“Very funny, Ty. Hail hath no fury.”

“That’s obvious.”

She crossed her arms. “You could have been dead for all I knew.”

“And lying in a ditch,” he added. “If I was dead, Emmett would have shown up at your door with a folded American flag and your widow’s benefits.”

Okay, he has me there.
As chief spy, Emmett Nelson was the Agency’s harbinger of death.

Ty ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “How can I get you to go home?”

“Sign the divorce papers.”

“You don’t have them on you.”

“I can get them. If you insist on the no e-mailing, no faxing rule, I’ll call my lawyer and have him overnight them.”

He snorted in disbelief. “E-mailing, faxing, overnighting, texting, posting them to a Web site, skywriting, or carrier pigeoning, I can’t take the chance. I’m on an important mission. I can’t have anything around anywhere with my real identity, anything that will blow my cover.”

She lifted her chin. “You have me.”

He shook his head and crossed his arms. “Do you have a picture of me in your wallet?”

“Egocentric bastard,” she said. “I shredded every last picture I had of you months ago.”

“On your cell phone?” He grabbed her purse from the bed where she’d dropped it. Before she could stop him, he had the phone and her camera out. He dropped them in his pocket.

Shoot! There might be a picture or two of him still on the phone.
Call her a sentimental fool.

“I’ll return these when I’ve checked them out.” He pulled her wallet out and leafed through as she stood watching him, fury making her almost speechless. Only a few sputters managed to escape her lips.

Finally, he dropped the wallet back into the purse and the purse back on the bed. “Clear. Now, go home before anyone gets hurt.” His eyes twinkled wickedly. He was deadly serious.

“I can’t. Ex-bridezilla out there will hunt me down and kill me.” She explained about Carrie. Besides, she wasn’t leaving without her divorce. When she finished her story, she shrugged. “So, sorry, but I’m staying. Want to fill me in on the mission?”

“If I told you that—”

She waved her hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’d have to kill me. That’s what all the spies say. You really should come up with something more original. You know it’s all this secrecy that killed our relationship?”

He smiled. Her heart thawed just a tiny bit. She’d always loved his smile and the way he got her sense of humor.

“You won’t tell me?”

“What do you think?”

What she really thought was that it was a crying shame they hadn’t worked out. She always liked sparring with him. Instead, she said, “As long as I’m here, I may as well enjoy myself. I’ve never seen you at work before. This could be fun. Take-your-nearly-ex-wife-to-work day. I like it.”

He gave her a warning look. “Don’t say a word. Nothing slips, got it?”

She held up her hands to show him she was no threat, no threat at all. “Hey, silence is my middle name.”

He arched a brow and patted his pocket. “I’ll return these later.” He turned and walked to the door, pausing before he left to speak over his shoulder. “I’ll be watching you.”

“Just like old times,” she said and winked, trying to get his goat.

He shook his head and left.

Treflee plunked down on the bed and put her head in her hands, taking a deep breath. She’d never imagined seeing Ty in his element would shake her up so much or that witnessing him flirt with other women could still make her jealous. But he’d definitely thrown her equilibrium off. Hadn’t he always? Hadn’t that been part of the excitement
and
the problem?

When she finally calmed down, she got up, opened her suitcase, and pulled her travel jewelry pouch out. She reached into it and pulled out the dangly charm bracelet Ty had given her when they were dating. He brought her back a charm from every mission. When he originally gave the bracelet to her, it had a single charm on it—a tiny silver heart locket. Now it was loaded with charms.

As she opened the locket and stared at the miniscule picture of Ty, her eyes watered and she couldn’t help sniffing. What type of a charm would Ty have brought her back from this Hawaiian mission? A silver palm tree? A gold Maui sandal? A hibiscus flower? Or a white pearl?

Deep down Ty was a romantic and had a wicked sense of humor. The pearl was her birthstone, and a white one represents honesty and faith. Yeah, he would have gotten a big kick out of the dual meaning. As if
he
were ever honest.

She told herself
she
only brought the bracelet with her so she could see how well the big, honking
black
pearl she planned to buy for herself would look on it. But in all honesty, sentimental fool that she was, she never left home without it.

You aren’t as smart as you think, spy boy,
she thought. She had a bit of leverage after all.

*   *   *

Ty strolled back to his room, feeling almost schizophrenic as he forced himself to stay in character—calm, lazy, nonchalant, not a care in the world besides catching the next wave or downing a mai tai. On Hawaiian time. Inside, he seethed. He rarely felt this convoluted, even when facing the wrong side of a gun barrel unarmed. Which had happened a time or two.

Damn Treflee for showing up like this.

He hadn’t even checked the guest list properly before she’d arrived. He’d stupidly assumed NCS had cleared everyone on it.

Tref’s presence posed a bigger danger to his safety and mission than a long-range ballistic missile. If he’d been less distracted by his thoughts of Tref, he might have avoided having to fraternize with a drooling guest just then. Laci lay in wait for him outside his bedroom door. He walked headlong into her long, perfectly manicured tentacles almost before he registered her standing there.

How had Treflee thrown him off kilter and out of his game so easily? What if Laci had been an enemy agent rather than a sex-starved redhead? It was as if his wife were the enemy’s secret weapon, an agent annihilator who operated by turning his brain to mush.
Women.

“Ty!” Laci’s face lit up with a predatory smile as she took his arm. “Going somewhere?”

He forced himself to smile lazily down at her. Ty, the tour guide, would play up to the female guests, hoping to earn a big tip, or a repeat customer. Ty, the real him, liked to be the pursuer, not the pursued, in both business and pleasure. And he was strictly a one-woman man. Though his wife frequently told him to tell that to
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
and see if
they
believed him. She sure as hell didn’t.

“Gotta hit the shower and pretty up before the big cruise tonight.” He forced himself to keep a low, slow, sexy tone.

“You look pretty damn good to me already.” Laci squeezed his arm as if testing to see if he were a piece of ripe fruit.

Well, he wasn’t. Not for her.

He shook his head. “Tita wouldn’t agree.”

Laci arched a brow. “Really?” Her tone teased.

“Tita has high standards for going out in public. And a dress code.” He gestured to indicate his outfit. “A T-shirt and cargo shorts don’t cut it. She’d tell you a well-dressed guide is good for business.” He winked at her.

In return, Laci smiled as if she wanted to eat him up. She ran her hands over his chest. “I could help you slip into something …
fun
.”

Which he took to mean her.

As a spy, he had all kinds of moves. None of which he was interested in using on her. He casually reached into his front pocket for his key. Treflee’s camera and phone slowed down his smooth escape. He had to rummage around in his pocket until he found what he was looking for.

“Maybe some other time. When we have
more
time.” Did he sound suggestive enough? As if he were a man who liked things slow and hard? “Right now, Tita will have my ass if I’m late.”

He pried Laci off him. With a quick, fluid move, he slid the key in the door and escaped into his room, flipping the dead bolt behind him. So this is how women feel when they elude the arms of an octopus.

He paused and listened until he heard Laci’s disappointed footsteps padding down the hall. Yeah, he knew how to read the sound of footfalls. Anger was easy. Disappointment and what-the-hell-just-happened-here confusion had a stop-and-start pattern. His self-satisfied grin was short-lived, as common spy sense overcame him.

Ty didn’t believe in coincidence. He had learned that lesson on the job. Of all the honeymoon spots in the world Treflee’s cousin could have chosen, she showed up at Big Auau with Treflee in tow? At his little corner of the tropical world? Nope, too much to swallow.

Treflee was many things, including an energetic, playful blond nymph in bed, but she wasn’t actress enough to fool him. Her surprise was genuine. Although he was sure she’d been trying, she hadn’t succeeded in intentionally tracking him down. All the evidence pointed to her being an innocent pawn.

If she’d found him on her own, she’d have the divorce papers on her and a pen ready to thrust into his hand the second she spotted him. Good to know the Agency hadn’t screwed up there and left a trail for just anyone to follow to him.

That left only one viable option—the Agency, and his boss, National Clandestine Service Chief Emmett Nelson. Listing Treflee as Betty on the guest list was exactly Emmett’s style.

Ty cursed beneath his breath. Emmett liked his spies to remain single. As often as possible, he recruited them when they were young and unattached. He expected them to remain that way. Emmett violated his own policy when he recruited Ty.

Ty was already engaged to Tref and refused to give her up. Emmett conceded. He needed a young man with Ty’s intelligence, lack of fear, and acting abilities.

Ty breached Agency policy when he told Tref he was being recruited and asked her advice on whether he should take the job or not. He figured if he was going to drag her into a life of secrecy and danger, she had the right to know what she was getting into. She took it well. In fact, she took it with a surprising amount of enthusiasm.

“Take the job? Why would you turn it down!” she said, reminding him they were young and ready for life to show them some fun. Life practically owed it to them. “Besides, think how sexy it will be to have a spy in my bed!”

Tref herself was not adventure material. She was steady, calm, responsible, too cautious to be a daredevil, and solidly independent. She liked everything quiet but lovemaking—soft music, solitary strolls, and thoughtful time to herself. But she loved a good vicarious thrill; someone else’s scary story. The perfect balance to him. He could hardly sit still. He lived on action and adrenaline.