Over the Line (5 page)

As the shopping assistant was scanning the labels on the clothes, they argued over who was paying. “I’m not letting you buy clothes for me—it’s weird.”

“Look. You’re doing me this favor, so I’m paying. Also, I don’t just have a Senior’s salary. I have a trust fund, too.”

She eyed him accusingly. “Wait a minute. You’ll avoid your family, but still take money from your trust fund? That’s kind of low.”

“The trust fund is from my grandmother, who spent way more time with me than my parents did when I was a kid. And for your information, I absolutely only touch it when I’m trying to buy a lady’s affection. Or buy an Audi.” He shrugged fake-casually. “Mostly, those are the only times I use it anyway.”

She didn’t bat an eye. “Still, there’s no way you’re buying shit for me. Let it go.”

“That comes to twelve thousand, three hundred and twenty-six dollars, fifteen cents. Will that be on your Nordstrom card?” the disapproving assistant said.

Beth froze.

“Still want to pay?” he asked fake-innocently.

“Not even slightly. You go ahead.” Damn. Could she feel any more like Julia freaking Roberts right now?

He laughed at her. “As I thought.”

She punched him on his arm as he turned to pass his black metal card across the counter. Holy hell. All those clothes. All those Jimmy Choos. She was going to hell.

At least she’d be well-dressed for the devil.

Her brand new ring flashed on her hand. She’d never thought she was the type to wear diamonds. Or maybe she never expected to inspire a man to want to give her diamonds. But this ring was the most incredible one she’d ever seen. Instead of a traditional diamond on a band, the ring was silver, or probably platinum, made into a spiral that wound around her finger three times, diamonds glittering all the way along it. The whole of her finger from the very base to the first knuckle sparkled like a strand of lights. It was delicate but made a bold statement. She’d never seen anything like it, but damn him, it was perfect. He’d ruined her for all other rings.

She gave herself a silent talking to.
It wasn’t real
. Her main concern should be that it would dazzle someone and cause them to crash a car, or walk into a lamppost. Or that she’d lose it.

She shook herself. On their way back to North Carolina, they would stop at Tiffany’s and take it back. It was a loaner. Not hers.

“Jamie!” A woman’s voice came from very close behind them. Beth spun, dismayed at her lack of situational awareness. A tiny blonde held her arms out to James. She was utterly beautiful. Beth couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone who looked so alive, and vibrant, and that petite. She made Beth feel like a giant.

“Henrietta!” James said, accepting her hug. “How are you?”

The woman pulled away from him a little, but still held him in her arms. “Just fine now I know you’re back. I’ve missed you. I hoped you’d be here for the wedding, but Sadie assured me she’d given you a pass for it. It’s so good to see you again.”

So which way was this going to go? Beth held her breath, wondering if Henrietta was going to be in on the game, or if it would stay between James and her.

James gently disengaged from her and snaked his arm around Beth’s waist. She let out a quiet breath of relief.

“This is my fiancée, Beth. Beth, this is my good friend Henrietta.”

Henrietta’s smile brightened just a little as she slid a glance over Beth’s frame, lingering for an instant at the ring. Beth couldn’t resist placing her hand on James’s chest and watching the diamonds dazzle his ex. That probably made her an awful person.

What was wrong with her? She’d gone from friend to lover, to jealous fake lover in the time it takes to reload an M-4. That is to say, no time at all. She dropped her hand. What kind of person was she?

“It’s truly good to meet you,” Beth said, trying internally to make amends. “James speaks very highly of you.” She stuck out her hand and Henrietta gave it a firm shake.

“I had heard that you weren’t coming at all. And now you show up with a glorious fiancée. I’m thrilled to be able to catch up with you both this weekend. This is going to be so much fun!”

Beth stepped away from James’s embrace and touched her arm. “I’d love to have a drink with you to discuss his… foibles.” She winked at Henrietta to underline some kind of unspoken girl code, and James laughed.

Henrietta’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I have a lot to tell you, honey. I’ll look forward to seeing you later.” She left them, swinging her own Nordstrom shopping bags.

They waved her off and took their excessively expensive bags to the car. “She seemed really nice,” Beth said.

“She really is,” he said, steering her toward the store’s entrance to the parking garage.

“What happened between you?”

“Nothing really happened. She’s a widow. She married as a teenager, became a widow in her early twenties and completely changed. Or maybe didn’t change at all. I don’t know. She’s awesome—we just couldn’t make it work between us. You’ll like her.” He grinned. “Just don’t believe any of the shit she’ll tell you about me.”

“Ohh, now I’m dying to sit down with her!” she said. “And wow, a widow at such a young age.” Beth couldn’t fathom how someone could seem so light and vivacious after going through something like that.

“It was a long time ago,” James said, as they reached the car. “Anyway, hopefully you’ll be able to spend some time with her this weekend. She’s definitely fun, and very interesting to talk to. Might give you some light relief from my family.”

“Light relief? I’m going to get that from the open bar,” she said with another wink.

He groaned, and she decided to make a peace offering. “I’m not going to take the tags off these things. We can take them back to the store on our way back to base.”

“You do that? I mean, borrow clothes from a store?”

“I never have, but I suddenly understand why people do.” Beth laughed. “I won’t lie. Those are probably the most expensive anything I’ve ever worn. Outside of my uniform, I seem to only wear yoga pants and workout gear.”

“On that note, I should warn you about my family,” he said as he shifted into gear and headed out of the garage.

Uh-oh.
“Warn me?”

“If you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to
really
do this. My parents are… set in their ways. They have spent the past ten years or so trying to set me up with very particular girls. From the right families, looking the right way. Pedigreed, they call it. And those women couldn’t interest me less. The ones I’ve met, anyway. So don’t be over-awed by anything. They have a big house, but it’s only because they can’t bear to spend too much time together. A big house gives them a big buffer zone. And my father’s work is… well, let’s just say that he works all hours, and he has a protection detail.”

“He has a what?” Goosebumps erupted on Beth’s arms. It was one thing to pull the wool over his parents’ eyes for a weekend of fun, but to do so to a guy with a protection detail suddenly sounded like they were going to be lying to someone who had the resources to find them out.

“Don’t worry, they only accompany him when he leaves the residence. They have a house in the grounds but they don’t hang around the property much unless someone important is due to arrive.”

“What exactly does he do?”

“He’s the Director of the CIA.” He rattled the title out as if he was saying “the manager of Wal-Mart.”

“What?” But her subconscious mind was already processing the information. Her next job. He could prevent her from getting her dream job. Any wrong step and… oh my God… her very presence there was a wrong step. She gaped at him. But she couldn’t tell him. The number one rule of applying for the job she had applied for was “do not tell anyone you are applying for this job.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting on his turn signal and pulling off into a side street. When they came to a halt, he turned to look at her. “Are you really freaked out that my dad’s CIA? I promise it’s all fairly low-key.”

“What? How could it possibly be low-key? As soon as I set foot in your house, I’ll probably be security checked. Won’t they know instantly that we’re not really together? And how does he not know about your job at the air force?” Beth was amazed at his lack of foresight. This wasn’t the on-the-ball, ready-for-anything hero she had been thinking about for a year.

“Look, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but he’ll be far more interested in foreign terrorists and overseas missions than he will be about you. He’s been director for a long time and as far as I know he hasn’t ever checked up on his family. I mean, why would he? It’d not only be an abuse of power, but also… well, he’d never waste time on anything that wasn’t important to the security of the country. Sure, he could look at my service record, but why would he? I promise you Al Qaeda is a lot more important to him than I am.”

She needed time to think. She wanted to believe him, but she was so, so scared that this “fun” weekend in a telenovela would blow her chance for leaving the army and serving her country in the capacity she’d longed for. “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me about your family?”

“Okay. Sadie is my older sister; she’s the one who’s getting married. She’s five years older than me, and she’s marrying Simon Phelps. He’s in the military. CAG, I assume.”

Beth was startled. In all the time she had been in the army, she didn’t think she’d ever met a CAG guy. Not that she’d necessarily know. They were the elite, secret Delta Force.

Walker continued. “They haven’t been together all that long. They met somewhere out of the country.” He laughed humorlessly. “You see how messed up my family is? I don’t even know what they were doing when they met, or where they were.” He slipped a look at her as he took to the road again. “Basically, inside the walls of my family house, it’s always been better not to ask ‘what do you do,’ or ‘what did you do today.’ I learned that pretty early. You only get well-meaning lies in return, and that isn’t a good way to have a familial relationship.”

“So weather, vacations, and food. That’s basically all I can talk about?” She pulled at a stray cuticle with her teeth.

He smiled. “That’d be a good start, anyway. You’re not nervous, are you? I won’t leave you to fend for yourself, I promise. Besides, I haven’t gotten to Maisie yet.”

“Oh yes, Maisie. Are you worried about what she said?”

“I am. Not as much as I would if we were a normal family, but yes. Of course neither of them have a protection detail and I honestly don’t know what Sadie was thinking by not reporting it. We were drilled at a young age to flag anything strange that happens to us.” He frowned at the thought. “But at least there is security at the house. The actual wedding is at the Washington Cathedral, but aside from that, all the rest of the activities should be done at home. I’ll feel better when I talk to Sadie and see the e-mails.”

Beth nodded. She wanted to see the e-mails, too. It wasn’t really any of her business, but she’d received training on threat assessment, so maybe she could see something that he wouldn’t. Maybe. “Tell me about Maisie.”

“Younger sister, thirteen, rebel, goth, sharp as a tack. There is nothing you can do today that will overshadow whatever awful thing she has concocted to get attention. I promise. Short of a striptease as the vows are being taken, all attention will be on her. Although, you know, if you have the irrepressible urge to actually do a striptease, just tip me a wink and I’ll find somewhere private.”

She punched him lightly in the arm. “Ha! A weekend of fake fiancée does not automatically give you the rights to a striptease, Senior.”

“Damn it.” He put a pissed expression on his face and she laughed.

“I have everyone you might expect to find in a family with a home in McLean, Virginia. Drunk uncle, terrorist younger sister, uptight mom, absent father…”

“I have no idea what to expect. Really. I just have my sister, and before that, it was just my mom and sister. So I guess this will be fun. Once we’ve ruled out the e-mail problem, at least.” She smiled hopefully at him.

* * *

“Here we are,” he said as he downshifted and turned a slow right-hand corner. He tried to see her expression as the huge black iron gates swung open. He’d never, ever brought someone here as a girlfriend, let alone a fiancée.
Fake fiancée
.
Must remember
. Henrietta had been Sadie’s college friend, so she’d never come to the house as his guest, only Sadie’s.

He hid a smile as Beth’s eyes widened as big as a Manga princess’s.

May as well give her time to absorb the clusterfuck she was getting into. He remained silent as he drifted in neutral to a security hut. He leaned out the window and addressed the older uniformed man, who had a clipboard and a gun on his arthritic hip. One thing James could say about his father, he never abandoned staff who had been with him for years. But then he knew that Chip would lay down his life for any one of the Walker family, CIA director or not. And that the house was protected by technology now, more than anything else.

“Hey, Chip. How’s everything going?”

A huge crash echoed through the trees from the direction of the house, followed by angry shouts. “Oh, about as well as you can imagine,” Chip replied, looking briefly toward the noise and infinitesimally raising his eyebrows.

James laughed and pulled a face back at him. “Loud and clear. I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

“I won’t be here later. I’ve been relieved of my duties until Monday, sir.”

James slid the car out of gear again. “What?”

“They have some different security people coming in, I think. I wasn’t told. I was just told to take the time off and return on Monday.” He placed his pen under the clasp of his clipboard and shrugged. “The wife’s happy at least.”

“That’s so… strange,” James said.

Chip nodded. “I thought so, too. But it’s not my place to question.”

James paused and stared out of the windshield for a second. “Okay. Well enjoy your time off. Your cell phone number still the same?”

Chip nodded once. “Yes.” He returned to the hut and pressed the button that allowed the bollards halfway up the driveway to sink into the ground, allowing them to pass. “Have a good day, sir. Miss,” he said.