Ready, Aim...I Do!

She nearly choked on her coffee. “I meant the last thing you remember before we, ah, hooked up.”

“You mean before we got married.”

“I do, yes.” She hadn’t heard the poor choice of words until one of his eyebrows lifted. She stifled a laugh, knowing he wouldn’t remember enough to understand the joke. “You know what I mean.”

“The bar. I was hanging out in the bar waiting for the contact. I didn’t expect you.”

“Same goes,” she muttered from behind her coffee cup. “How long had you been there?”

“A couple of hours. I was nursing a beer, keeping an eye on the odds for the hockey game.”

“Did you win? I’m up about five hundred dollars since I hit town.”

“I don’t gamble.”

“You’re kidding?” Her surprise brought forth another scowl. It amused her. “Well, maybe you don’t gamble with money, but clearly you enjoy some level of risk or you wouldn’t be the golden boy at Mission Recovery.”

“How do you know that?”

“Not because you broke protocol and shared anything. I have my own sources.” She rolled her hand, signaling him to continue. “You’re at the bar, watching the scores and odds and then what?”

She had to wait while he filled his plate with a slice of the omelet and two sausage links. Then he surprised her, bringing over the coffee carafe and refilling her cup.

“The tequila shot, like I said. The bartender brought it over and said it was from you.”

“He used my name?”

“No.” He returned to the table. “He pointed to you at the other end of the bar.”

“Describe the woman you saw. Please,” she added when he shook his head.

“Blonde. Emerald dress that matches a certain eye color.”

“You said she was at the other end of the bar. When did she get close enough that you could see her eyes?”

He frowned at his plate. “Your eyes are green. The dress matched your eyes.”

She shouldn’t be flattered that he knew that, but she was. “I was wearing contacts last night.”

“I noticed. And a blond wig.”

“Yes.” She was starting to really worry they’d both been set up by someone with too much information.

“The dress was just like the one you wore in Colorado last month.”

“You’re sure?” First of all, she would never wear the same outfit in an op she’d worn at a previous engagement. Men could get away with that kind of thing, but not a woman.

He looked up at her, his expression troubled. “That’s the last thing I remember clearly. I was wondering what you were doing here and wearing that dress. After that the images are like snippets from a dream. I can’t quite hang on to enough to put the pieces together. You walked up and gave me the code phrase for extraction and—”

“Oh, bloody hell.”

“What?”

“We’ve been compromised.” Alone but for her reluctant almost-husband, she gave in to the fidgets and started pacing the length of the room. “Something is dreadfully wrong. Yes, I joined you at the bar, but I didn’t send you the shot. Drugs and sedatives aren’t my style.”

“Then whose style is it?”

“I don’t know. No one I’ve been watching would have a reason to drug you.” She pushed her hands through her hair, tugged just a little. “I saw lots of people, including a blonde wearing an emerald dress, who I followed to the bar. But once I got there I was focused on you.” Because that’s all she’d needed to see. She’d let Isely’s unexpected appearance rattle her more than she’d thought. A rattled agent fails and she sure had done so here. She swore, turned on her heel and came up hard against Jason’s chest. He’d walked up right behind her.

He caught her elbows and held her in place when she might have bounced off of him. “You’ll wear a rut in the carpet.”

“I don’t care. And, for the record, that green dress wasn’t the one I was wearing the last time you saw me.” There were similarities she had to admit now that she really considered it. It was comparable enough to have a guy thinking it was the same.

“Who’s your contact? What’s the signal if you need to be pulled out of your mission?” he demanded, dragging her attention back to him.

“I don’t have a code phrase or a contact.” She pulled herself free of his touch. It was too distracting. “I’ve never needed help.”

“And yet they sent me to backup and offer an exit strategy for an agent in trouble.”

“Then they sent you for someone else.”

Jason frowned. “That’s what my boss said.” This he murmured more to himself than to her. “They sure didn’t send me to get married. Of all the options to get us out of trouble, why did you do this?” He pointed to the ring on his finger.

“What’s the big deal? Got a girl back home?” She wanted him to take the bait and bypass the bigger problem while she figured out a way to salvage her potentially compromised operation. Instead, she watched the storm brewing in his deep brown eyes.

“It doesn’t matter.” He turned away. “I wouldn’t believe you anyway. But don’t count on wearing the pants in this happy union, Mrs. Grant.”

“Call me Gin.”

He sank back into the chair where she’d draped his sport coat last night. “Now that you have a husband, Mrs. Grant, and I’m him, care to share your next move?”

Now he was just being stubborn. It seemed a shame to have so much handsome man at her fingertips and not be able to do anything fun with him.

“I’m here tracking a product and hopefully I’ll get to oversee the sale,” she admitted. “Sexy blondes in Las Vegas are everywhere. I thought it would be a foolproof disguise.”

“The red is memorable,” he agreed, eyeing her hair. “Too bad I forgot everything after that.”

His eyes raked her from head to toe and she felt as if he saw right through her pale blue cashmere sweater.

If he ignored her barbs, she could ignore his. “It would be nice to get a look at the security footage from the bar. Maybe we can identify the woman who drugged you.” Whether that would help with her mission or not was yet to be seen, but perhaps it would convince him that it hadn’t been her who’d drugged him.

“Why? You just said sexy blondes are everywhere.” He sipped his coffee and took another look at the marriage certificate. “Married by an Elvis impersonator. That is just not me.” He shook his head.

“It was your idea last night.”

“My brain on drugs.” He shrugged, sipped more coffee. “Great. When you’re finished with your mission are we going to do a drive-through divorce? I always thought those were an efficient concept.”

“Give divorce a lot of thought, do you?”

“Enough.”

She recognized a personal trigger point. She wanted to push for the real answers but, married or not, they weren’t actually on personal terms yet. “Does the drive-through thing even exist anymore?”

He glared at her. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“We should be done here in plenty of time to qualify for an annulment.

“Same result.”

“Does that mean you’ll cooperate?”

“Sure. Marriage is all about compromise. Or so I’ve heard.”

She didn’t like the way he said that, and for the first time since bolting into the wedding chapel with an oblivious fiancé on her arm she questioned the wisdom of her rash decision. Well, the second time. Sharing a room with him had pushed her resolve to the brink.

“Getting married was your idea.” Had she really needed a kiss from him that badly? She touched her lips again. If she were completely honest with herself she would admit that the kiss had been worth it. “I swear it was your idea.”

“You knew I was compromised.”

“True, and leaving you in a public place seemed like a really bad idea.” She folded her arms over her chest.

“Let me get this straight. You didn’t drug me, didn’t see who did, but you thought it was okay to haul me into an Elvis-themed chapel and marry me?”

“Not exactly. My first suggestion involved you giving me some cover at the craps tables.”

“I don’t gamble.”

“So you said.”

“What else?”

“We went for a walk and I asked you to kiss me.” She hurried on when he raised an eyebrow. “But you said we had to be married first. It was all rather gallant.” If she didn’t think about Isely and his thug flanking them. That was one part she could not afford to mention. Her mission was far too important to compromise for anyone, even the man she’d pretended to marry.

“Gallant?”

“I assumed it was a personality quirk. It fits your whole ex-military persona.” She went to the table and pulled out a chair, sitting on her hands so she wouldn’t fidget with the breakfast dishes. “But now that we’re stuck together it could be an advantage. Just give me forty-eight hours to track this product and sale and then I’ll pay the fees to grant you a speedy divorce.”

It wouldn’t be necessary because the receptionist knew he was intoxicated at the time of the marriage and because they hadn’t filed the marriage license, but Gin could tell him the whole story later. No sense burning bridges and tossing away an ally right now. This might be her only chance to experience a marriage. Not to mention she’d been having fantasies about this guy for weeks now.

As a CIA agent, she wasn’t the sort of woman a man brought home to his family. She didn’t even resemble the sort of woman a man wanted to build a family with. No, she’d learned that hard lesson early in her life.

She was the sort of woman men fantasized about, the woman men liked to show off, but never the woman they kept around. They gave different reasons and it took her longer than she cared to admit to learn those reasons were a reflection of the men who gave them, not the reality of who she was as a person.

When he still hadn’t given her an answer, she went for broke. “Please. I really need your help.” There, she’d said it. Gin Olin rarely asked for help, but she was no fool and it was clear she couldn’t finish this alone.

“Fine. I’ll help. Holt gave me an ultimatum. Either I fly back to the office or consider myself fired. The suite is booked through the weekend. If I’m fired I may as well have a little fun with the last perk my job bought me.”

“You’re willing to risk your job to help me?” Was he serious? Would Mission Recovery really fire him? Emotions she didn’t want to try and untangle were suddenly twisting inside her.

He startled her, tugging one of her hands free to hold it. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“Do we need ground rules?” He raised her hand to his lips and feathered small kisses over her fingers. “Or do you trust me to be the best doting husband ever?”

She yanked her hand away. “Doting?”

“We might even enjoy ourselves.”

That was her second biggest fear. Her first was losing the trail of that bio-weapon. “We need ground rules.” That was a given. There was just something about this guy that got to her. As badly as she needed him, she also needed to keep her head on straight.

He sat back. “I’m listening.”

“Whatever happens outside of this room stays outside of this room.”

“Isn’t that just the opposite of how it should be for wedded bliss?”

She ignored him. “I mean it. The ‘doting’ is for public consumption. Up here, we’re just you and me—two covert agents sacrificing for the mission.”

His brow furrowed. “Ah, sharing a bed, giving completely of ourselves.” He made a tsking sound. “The sacrifices we make.”

She rolled her eyes. Snagging another piece of bacon, she nibbled it while she resumed her pacing. What she was about to do was risky, but having a second set of eyes and a capable agent at her back in the casino was her best chance of spotting the buyer.

“Let me fill you in on why I’m here.”

He leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head. “I’m all ears.” He sniffed. “Wait. What is that smell?”

“Bacon?” She held it up.

“Not unless it’s extra crispy.” He looked at the dishes and then swiveled around in the chair. “Something smells scorched.”

She sighed. “Probably your coat.”

“Huh?” He pulled it off the chair and turned it until he found the hole. “Why is there a bullet hole in my sport coat?” He stuck his finger through it, but his eyes were on her. “An explanation, Mrs. Grant?”

“Technically that happened before we exchanged vows.”

“Were they shooting at you or me?”

“Me. But I fired first.” She paused, thinking it through again. “I was followed into the bar. I thought the disguise and chatting you up would be enough to dissuade him, but you were going loopy on me. So we left, but I was followed again.” As much as she’d reviewed it, she couldn’t come up with any reason Isely would be onto Jason. Isely shouldn’t know her either, but she’d been following the virus for several weeks, and someone might have run a facial recognition that tipped him off. “They were definitely shooting at me,” she said confidently.

“All right. Is there a police report?”

“Not that connects us because we ducked into the wedding chapel when people panicked. I fired the gun through your coat. Sorry, that’s obvious, I guess.” Why did this man make her so nervous? Maybe it was all those waking fantasies about him she’d relished.

He stared at her for a moment. “Did it work? Our marriage ploy?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“Could you please stop saying that?”

“Sure. It worked well enough.” She came closer and took the coat out of his hands, folding it so the bullet hole was hidden, then she draped it across the top of a different chair. “It made a great diversion.”

“Good?”

“Sort of.” She hesitated, balanced on the precipice of evading the truth or spilling it all in a messy rush of too much information. Unfortunately she was running out of time before the virus landed in the wrong hands. “Five years ago a European crime family named Isely acquired a lethal strain of influenza. A major sale was interrupted and the virus was confiscated by none other than Thomas Casey. Or so we thought. Testing proved the vials he brought back were fakes. The general consensus, if you assume Thomas Casey isn’t a traitor—”

“Which he isn’t,” he cut in.

“Agreed and proven. But that means someone in the Isely food chain still has the virus. It’s come back on the market recently and I’ve been following the tracking tags on the vials. One is here. I know the seller, but it would be great bonus points if I can identify the buyer.”

“That was your assignment in Colorado.”

“Among other things. Focus, Grant.”

“Oh, I’m dialed in.”

She met his intense gaze and nearly shivered in response. The man had an effect on her she could not deny. “Good.” She cleared her throat. “I need you to help me identify who’s who in this little drama. Two sets of eyes and gadding about in wedded bliss should be enough to get this done. I can watch the tracker tag and you can keep an eye on Isely.”

“He’s here? Isely?”

She nodded. “He surprised me. I guess he wants to oversee the transaction.”

“Are these people I’m supposed to spot wearing name tags or carrying around steel cases with ‘live virus’ stamped on the side?”

She glared at him. “Lucas Camp gave me the impression you were a competent agent.”

“I am.”

“He also implied there was more to you than the few lines on your public résumé.” She wanted to do a victory dance when she saw how that little barb dug into his ample pride.

“I think we both know résumés are always adjusted to suit the purpose.”

Her confidence almost faltered, but she knew she wasn’t looking at a hack or wannabe. Jason Grant was a Specialist, and how he got there didn’t matter. He was plenty qualified to help her on this. He’d agreed and she should let it go, but she had the sinking feeling there was more to it than a fear of reprimand back at the office.

“Well then.” He rolled to his feet and gathered the breakfast dishes, putting them back on the cart. “Let’s go downstairs, play the happy couple and see what we see.”

“Hang on.”

One dark eyebrow lifted in response.

“You haven’t explained why you’re here.”

“Right.” He dragged out the word while he bobbed his head. “I don’t know. What I gave you is all I have.”

“You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s true. My orders were vague. I wasn’t told anything other than the code phrase.”

“What good is that?”

“Not much.” He pushed the cart closer to the door then turned to face her again. “I’d think that would make you happy. I don’t have anything to distract me from what you need to accomplish. Now, shall we?”

“Just let me check the status on the package I’m tracking.” She pulled out her phone and entered the information. What should have been a simple, quick process felt like an eternity with Jason staring at her. Finally, the feedback came through, confirming the virus vial hadn’t moved from the hotel room where the seller was keeping it.

She smiled at him as she tucked her phone away. “It’s all good.”

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