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Missy’s father, Arthur Camden, had been a United States senator, ultraconservative and extremely powerful, for as long as anyone could remember. Although he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had FBI oversight, he had a reputation for putting his fingers in any governmental pie that struck his fancy. He’d been as controlling and manipulative at home with his family as he was on Capitol Hill.
“No,” Jonas answered. “The Judiciary Committee wasn’t getting briefed on the status of our mission.”
“Are you sure? The war against drugs was one of his pet projects for years.”
“This was a covert op,” Jonas said. “These days Congress is concerning itself more with national security. You know damned well your father is at the front of that line.”
He was probably right, but Missy had a bad feeling about this whole deal. “You have to leave.”
“Why?” He studied her with a gaze that left no stone unturned, promised to ferret out every secret.
Damned FBI agents. “Because I said so.”
He shook his head. “It’s good to know some things never change. You’re still as irrational as ever.”
She spun toward him. “I’m irrational? Just because I follow my instincts rather than analyze every decision?”
“Call it whatever you want. Impulsive. Hasty. Spontaneous. All the same to me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being spontaneous, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” The man wouldn’t know how to relax and have fun if he was sitting on a sandy beach and someone shoved an umbrella drink in his hand.
“And some people use spontaneity as an excuse.” He narrowed his eyes. “Covers up a helluva lot of irresponsibility.”
“I am not now, never have been, irresponsible. No matter what you think.” Immature once upon a time, yes. Never, ever irresponsible.
“Well it certainly helps having some money in a trust fund backing your play, doesn’t it?”
She straightened her shoulders. “For your information, I support myself from the proceeds from my own gift shop. For years, the only substantial money going out of my trust fund has been for donations.”
Oddly enough the biggest drain on her resources had been Mirabelle itself. The island had been sucking air a couple years back and a lot of businesses had been about to go under. Marty Rousseau had proposed building a golf course and pool and had promised to pay for part of it himself. When no other investors could be found, Missy had stepped in and directed her trust fund advisors to secretly buy the rest of the municipal bonds necessary to fund the projects. But she sure wasn’t going to explain that to Jonas.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You support yourself entirely off income from your gift store?”
“Not entirely.” She backtracked. “I could if I focused purely on sales, but my gift shop is about something other than profit.”
“So you do tap the trust fund for yourself?”
“Only small amounts for monthly living expenses.”
“Figures.”
As if they hadn’t spent more than a few days separated, the old arguments that had torn them apart resurfaced. They stood, glaring at each other. Neither of them admitting any wrongdoing. Both of them stubborn in their righteousness. How could she have ever believed this man was the one true love of her life?
But she had. Jonas had steadied her world after she’d dropped out of college and spent years running from the only life she’d known as the privileged daughter of wealthy, connected, and ultraconservative parents. He’d treated her like a normal, everyday person.
He’d helped her grow, mature, and reaffirmed for her what she’d always known in her heart. That there was so much more to life than the one her father had wanted her to live. She’d been happy for the first time. She’d been ashamed to tell him her background, afraid it would change things between them. Maybe it had. It wasn’t long after he’d found out the truth about her family that his work had taken hold of him and she couldn’t seem to shake him loose.
“Still sending thousands of dollars off to rescue turtles or baby seals or dalmatians?” he asked with disdain.
She straightened her shoulders, preparing to argue, but he was right. While they’d been married, she’d liberally tapped into her account for any and every cause. If someone asked, she cut a check. “I’m more careful with donations these days.”
“Buy any houses lately?”
That was a low blow. “Maybe if you’d been around more,” she ground out, “I wouldn’t have had to buy a house on my own.” She’d thought making a cozier home for them would make him want to be there more often. Instead, she’d been left behind getting bored in their house rather than in their apartment.
No, not bored. Lonely. She’d missed him terribly. Missed his energy, his dark sense of humor, his deep, hearty laugh. She’d missed the way her body felt when he was near, the way he’d listened to her as if she was the only person that mattered in his world. Before Jonas, she’d lived such a sheltered life in so many ways. He’d always encouraged her to find herself, to find things she enjoyed doing and creating. He’d helped her begin to see that Melissa Camden had a Missy Charms locked inside.
Then he died. That’s when the real loneliness set in. Her family, the people she should’ve been able to lean on, had only made things worse.
She glanced away from Jonas, the memories almost overwhelming. Her anger lost its fire. “My family came to your funeral. Even Charlie.”
Charlie Steele was the man Missy’s parents had tried to steer her toward most of her life. He was sweet and pleasant enough, but cut from the same cloth as his parents, her parents and her siblings. “The dirt had barely settled on your grave before my father turned to me and said…” She paused, unable to force out the words.
Jonas’s glare softened ever so slightly.
She’d never forget the superior look in her father’s eyes that day, or the way the words had felt branded into her brain. “‘You’ve had your fun, Melissa,’ he said. ‘Now come home. Consider yourself fortunate you’re through with the man without losing a penny. Charles has already agreed to take you back. All will be as it should be.’”
Jonas clenched his jaw.
“I’m not ready for him to find me, Jonas. Not now. Probably not ever.”
Knowing she could never go back with her family, she’d packed her bags and floundered on her own for months, desperately trying to break free from her family, her name. Her father had hired detectives who always seemed to find her. The media would track down his men tracking her down. Very quickly, she’d gotten good at hiding her trail.
She’d transferred her trust fund to a management firm that had no dealings with the rest of the Camden clan. The company was given strict instructions to never disclose any information on her whereabouts to anyone. When the decision to start her own family and adopt had settled in her heart, she’d gotten serious about getting lost and finding a place to raise children. She’d found exactly what she was looking for on Mirabelle—a home, people she cared about and who cared about her.
Another blink of an eye and all that could change, too.
“I understand, Missy. I do.” Jonas ran a hand through his long hair. “Dammit, all I’m asking for is a few days. At most a couple weeks.”
“Weeks? Living here? Are you out of your mind?”
“Missy—”
“I’ll give you one day and one day only to rest up from that gunshot wound.”
“Mighty gracious of you.”
“The first ferry leaves Mirabelle at seven in the morning.” She wrapped her arms around herself, hoping to contain her emotions. “Tomorrow. I want you on that boat.”
“Sorry to disappoint, Miss, but I’m not going anywhere.” He sat at the counter with a carton of soymilk and a box of cereal. “Not yet, anyway.”
“You can’t stay here. I mean it, Jonas.”
“I can. I will.”
“This is a small island. I know everyone and everyone knows me—”
“Lot of friends here, then?”
“Yes—”
“They’d do anything to protect you? Like your doctor?”
“One call and our police chief, Garrett—”
“What, Missy? He’ll arrest me? Throw me in jail? Kick me off the island? For what? I show him my badge and explain that I’m your husband. It’s only a matter of time before the fact that you’re a Camden comes out, and everyone on this island knows you for the liar you are.”
She stepped back, feeling as shocked as if he’d slapped her face. It wasn’t just that her father was a well-known senator. The name Camden fell right in line with several other historically famous, not to mention extremely wealthy, American last names. Missy’s great-great-grandfather had not only been an inventor and engineer, he’d also been one of America’s early entrepreneurs, making millions while this country’s economy boomed.
“I’ve never lied to anyone on Mirabelle,” she said. “Or to you. Never.”
“A lie of omission is still a lie. I’ll bet my last dollar you’ve omitted telling everyone on this island who you are and where you come from. Right, Missy Charms? What will all the simple folk of Mirabelle think of you after they find out your real last name is Camden?”
In truth, she hadn’t purposefully lied to anyone. She’d stopped using her father’s name back in college. Sick of year after year of having people act differently around her as soon as they found out who she was, she’d decided to be someone else.
She never told anyone her real last name. Not anymore. These days people saw Missy the way she wanted to be seen. She hadn’t even told Jonas until a few days before their wedding. He’d told her it didn’t matter, but a part of her had always wondered if he’d ever truly forgiven her. He didn’t understand. Not really.
“When all your friends here find out you grew up in a mansion out east,” he went on. “Spent your summers flitting between your family compounds on Long Island and Los Angeles and the villa in the south of France. How many folks here on Mirabelle do you think have skied the Swiss Alps? Gone to an Ivy League university? Got driven around by chauffeurs most of their childhood?”
Embarrassed, Missy looked away. She’d never felt a part of the Camden clan. It wasn’t just about her father, either. As a vegetarian, tree-hugging hippie she’d never fit with any of them. While her sister and two brothers had excelled in competitive sports, Missy had preferred yoga. They consumed, she recycled. They voted right-wing, she left. They spent on designers, she donated to nonprofits.
“What would Mirabelle folks think, Missy, of your hundred million dollar trust fund?”
There was no telling for sure. A few would think nothing of it. Others would want—expect—things from her. Still others would act strangely, awkwardly around her. All she wanted was anonymity. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“Just for some time to figure out what went wrong with your stupid assignment?”
“You got it.”
“There it is. Still alive and kicking,” she said bitterly. “That blind and unwavering commitment to the job.” In the end, she’d been bested by the Bureau.
“You’ve never been more right.” He cocked his head at her. “Nothing’s changed. I was the job. I still am the job. So until I figure out what went wrong on my job, I’m not leaving here.”
As they faced each other off, his gaze momentarily landed on her necklace. Last night, after he’d first fallen asleep in her bed, she’d flashed on the image of him naked and her skin had flushed with heat. Feeling the need for a shield, she’d snatched up the crystals along with a change of clothing.
“Those look suspiciously like Arabic letters.” He reached out and examined the pendant. “The Ayat al-Kursi,” he whispered. “Verse of the throne.” Jonas could not only read Arabic, he could speak a couple different dialects, along with German and Spanish. “What do you need protection from?” he murmured.
“Not what,” she said softly. “Who.”
Looking surprisingly offended, he dropped the crystals as if they’d singed his skin. “Still have those divorce papers?”
“Oddly enough,” she said, “I kept them.” She’d needed a reminder that a divorce is what she’d intended even before he died.
“Give me two, three weeks tops to heal and figure out who tried to kill me and why.” Looking entirely spent, he started back toward her bedroom. “Then I’ll sign your damned divorce papers and get the hell out of your life. This time for good.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“ARE THE T-SHIRTS ON THIS RACK discounted, too?”
A couple of hours after Missy’s confrontation with Jonas, she stood in the middle of her gift shop, looking steadily into a tourist’s sunburned face. For the life of her, she couldn’t seem to focus on the words coming out of that lipsticked mouth. All she’d been able to think about was the fact that her husband was alive.
Four years, five months, one week and three days.
That’s how long it had been since Jonas had—supposedly—died. If necessary, she could calculate the passage of time down to the minute. The FBI had come to her house to tell her the helicopter had crashed at exactly 1:58 in the afternoon. He’d died on impact, they’d said. There was nothing anyone could’ve done. Still, she’d insisted on seeing his body and had fallen apart at the sight of what she’d believed were his charred remains.
Now where was that son of a bitch of a dead husband? Hanging out in her home, doing God only knows what. Simply imagining him in her private space, in the house she’d worked so hard to turn into a relaxed and comfortable haven, threw off her balance. She glanced around at the other tourist or two moseying around her shop and took a deep breath, hoping to clear her head.
“T-shirts?” the woman in front of her said, not a little irritated. “On sale?”
“I’m sorry. Just the rack in the corner is thirty percent off.”
The woman shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Then you should be more specific with your signage.”
Normally, Missy would’ve ignored the comment, but this morning was nowhere near normal. “Don’t like it?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You can leave.”
The unrepentant comment had no sooner left her mouth, than she recognized it as having come from the old Missy. The spoiled, immature, reckless and rash Melissa Camden. The young woman who had unapologetically married Jonas less than three months after meeting him. The woman who had pouted—she had to be honest, at least with herself—when Jonas had had to work late or leave town for an assignment.
“Well, I never!” The woman roughly hung the shirt back on the rack and huffed out of the shop.
Missy glanced around. One down. Two more to go.
Apparently, Jonas barging back into her life had somehow thrown Missy back in time, as if she’d lost the past four plus years of growing and maturing. She’d been only twenty-three when she’d met him and an immature twenty-three at that. But she’d known what she’d wanted back then. Him.
She’d been doing tarot readings, for fun, at the bar she was working at in Quantico, Virginia. To this day, she had no clue what had drawn her to that town, but back then she wasn’t questioning much. She’d broken free of her father and the last thing she’d wanted was structure or rules. She’d been letting her instincts and intuition drive her on the way to discovering this world.
What had driven her on the night she’d met Jonas had been her body. She’d wanted him, and she was going to have him. They’d made love in the back of his SUV, and from that moment on she’d believed she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with him.
How could Fate have been so wrong?
Missy pressed the inside of her left arm against her side, putting close to heart the chakra symbols she’d had tattooed there not long after Jonas had supposedly died. Steady, Missy. Remember who you are. Remember who you’ve become.
Maybe Jonas dying had been the best thing that had ever happened to her. She’d been forced to find herself apart from who she was with him. Being on Mirabelle had helped her become Missy Charms, the responsible, respectful, albeit a bit flighty, woman who ran her own small business.
She paid her bills, mostly by the due dates, and she’d employed the same student for several summers in a row, helping the young woman, Gaia, make her way debt-free through college. Whimsy might not yet be breaking even, but she had the luxury of not having to worry about making a buck.
Not the typical, north woods, painted-fish-mailbox kind of gift shop, Missy inventoried, among other things, candles and incense burners, tarot cards and wind chimes, Buddha statues and water fountains, unique books and greeting cards made from recycled materials, clothing made from organic fabric and handmade jewelry, some of which Missy made herself.
In a place like Los Angeles, her wares would’ve likely flown off the shelves, but the Mirabelle residents had all thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. Maybe her gift shop never would break even. The important part was that all of her inventory came from either small U.S. businesses, more often than not owned by women trying to eke out a living, or foreign fair trade markets. There were more important things on her agenda than turning a profit.
Missy glanced around her shop and tried to shake off all her misgivings. Stretching out her neck to relax, she walked to the main desk, lit a stick of pine-scented incense and stuck it in a holder on the counter. The clean scent might go a long way in clearing her head and helping her dispel the negative energy she seemed to be carrying around with her since confronting Jonas that morning.
Slim sauntered into the store from the back room and Missy picked him up. “You’re even better than incense,” she whispered.
Since rescuing him as a tiny mewling kitten, the silky softness of Slim’s thick coat never ceased to take her to a calm, comfortable place. Of course, Missy spoiled him, but how could she not? He followed her everywhere, often walking with her down to the shop to hang for a few hours. Whenever he got bored, he’d simply climb out into the alley through his little door and find his own way home.
“Psst, Missy.” The quiet voice came from behind her.
