“And when you’re fully recovered,” his mother said sweetly, “I’m going to kill you. Why didn’t you tell us you were a secret agent?”
Uh-oh. His secret was out. Bryan supposed he should be surprised his perceptive mother hadn’t put it together earlier. “‘Cause you’d have grounded me.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bryan. We didn’t go to all the trouble to get you heart surgery and save your life so you could throw it away chasing down terrorists and whatnot.”
“Lucy-I mean Lindsay-told you everything?”
“She hardly told us anything,” Amanda replied. “She said something about an intruder, that’s all. But I put it all together. Bryan, I’m so angry with you.”
She sniffed back tears, and Daniel put his arm around her. “But I’m so proud, too.”
It occurred to Bryan that this was the first time he’d seen his parents together like this since their divorce more than a dozen years ago.
“Where’s Lucy?” he asked. “Hell. Lindsay-”
“We get the picture,” Daniel said. “Lindsay is Lucy. She’s in the waiting room.
Two goons who looked like they could have been from the cast of Men in Black showed up wanting to take her away, but she got rid of them.”
Bryan summoned a smile. That sounded like his Lucy. “Could you bring her here? I need to see her. I have to tell her-” Hell. He didn’t know what he wanted to tell her. But if he could just see that she was okay, then he could handle the aftermath of this fiasco. And there was going to be a hell of an aftermath.
“I’ll go get her,” Amanda said. She patted Bryan’s leg, then slipped out the door, leaving the two men alone.
“She’s really special, this Lucy?” Daniel asked.
“More than you can know.” Bryan shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. The painkiller was wearing off, and the ache in his shoulder and chest were getting worse. “I don’t know that we can-I mean, the only reason we were together-”
“If she’s special, don’t let her go,” Daniel said solemnly. “No matter what anyone says. I’ll let you rest now.”
Bryan wanted to protest that he didn’t need rest. He wanted to see Lucy. But he did nod off.
The next time he opened his eyes, she was there, sitting in a chair next to his bed. Someone had given her an old college sweatshirt to put on over her tank top. She was scraped and bruised, no makeup, her hair looking as if it hadn’t seen a comb in some time. And she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Lucy?”
“I’m here.”
“Sorry I’m not at my best.”
“You’re alive, which makes you exactly perfect in my book. And now you’ll have a new scar to go with the others.” She blinked back tears, proving she wasn’t as cavalier as she was trying to be.
“You saved my life,” he said. “There’s no way to thank you.”
She shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do? Anyway, there wasn’t that much risk. Mr. Vargov is dead- that’s why he stopped shooting at us. He apparently had a massive heart attack in the middle of trying to kill us.”
“That was decent of him.” At her stricken look, he immediately said, “Sorry. In my business, sometimes black humor gets us through tough times.”
“I know he was a criminal and a traitor and a terrorist sympathizer, but I have a hard time equating that with the man I knew who was so kind to me. I shouldn’t be sorry he’s dead.”
“You’re allowed. Not everything is black-and-white, good and bad. Most criminals have some good in them. Who told you he was dead?”
“Orchid got in touch with me-she seems to be running things for the moment-but she didn’t tell me much else. She said I should go home. Since Vargov’s dead, she says I’m out of danger.”
That was something Bryan would want to verify himself. “So you want to go home, then?”
She shrugged again. “Maybe I’ll still have a job. The bank will need someone to help them restore those pension funds. I could get my umbrella back. I liked that umbrella.”
Bryan thought for a long time before he responded to that. He thought about his longstanding rule to avoid commitments. He thought about how close he’d come to dying and how much he wanted to live to a ripe old age.
And he remembered what his father had said to him so recently, about not letting Lucy slip away. That was just what was going to happen if he didn’t take a stand.
“What if I offered you another type of job?”
“What?”
“You have an uncanny talent for solving puzzles and finding patterns. Such skills are invaluable in intelligence work.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “You think I should become a spy?” she whispered.
“I was thinking more of a freelance consultant. Working behind the scenes. I’ll bet our government would even send you to code-breaking school.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? I’d love that.”
“And when you aren’t working a case, you could help me with the restaurant. The place needs a female presence. People respond to you-you’re a terrific hostess, you have good instincts when it comes to food…” He trailed off when he saw that he was not getting the response he’d hoped for. He’d been so sure she would love the idea. “You don’t seem too enthusiastic.”
“Oh, I would love the work, I’m sure. It’s just-”
“You don’t love me.”
“Of course I love you. Oh, shoot, I wasn’t going to say that. How pathetic is it, an accountant from Kansas falling for a millionaire superspy?”
Bryan couldn’t breathe for a moment. This was better than he’d dared hope for.
He thought maybe, if given more time, Lucy might be persuaded to fall in love with him. He’d never dreamed…
“If you’re in love, why do you look so miserable? Haven’t you figured it out yet? I want you to stay in New York because I’m head-over-heels crazy for you.”
She brightened, but only for a moment. Then her eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t stand it, Bryan. I couldn’t stand having you disappear with no explanation, not having any idea when you’d be back-or even if you’d be back.
When I realized you’d been shot, I thought I was going to die myself. I’m not cut out to be a spy’s girlfriend.”
Bryan’s heart swelled. He held out his hand. “Lucy, come here, please.”
She did, though reluctantly, and he took her hand and squeezed it.
“If I was a little bit stronger, I’d pull you right into this bed with me, put my arms around you and never let you go.”
“But-”
“No, no, hear me out. As of right now, I’m retiring. No more fieldwork. No more danger, no more unexplained trips abroad. No more lying to my family.”
“But you…you love your work. You told me that yourself.”
“It’s exciting, yes. But staying alive is even more exciting. Particularly now that I have you to stay alive for. There are lots of other jobs I can do for the agency, or some other branch of the government. Intelligence gathering, sifting through data, coordinating efforts, debriefing agents, interviewing suspects-I’m trained to do all of that stuff. But I also want to spend more time at the restaurant. So we have lots of choices. If you stay in New York.”
“Can I keep the clothes?” she asked, and he suspected she was trying to distract herself from actually having to answer him.
“I’ll buy you all the clothes you want. Whoever that designer is who makes all those slinky dresses and whatnot, we’ll go talk to him. Maybe he makes wedding dresses.” He held tightly to her hand so she couldn’t
