The Newlyweds

Then she dropped her hands back to her sides, squared her shoulders and lifted her head. And he remembered that she was a federal agent, just like him, and she knew she couldn’t afford delicacy any more than he could. She didn’t need him, he thought. She didn’t need anyone. Just like Sam didn’t need anyone, either.

“Keep it brief at your parents’ house,” he gently advised her. “Tell them you’ll see more of them tomorrow. Then come back here and get some sleep. You’ll need to be at your best tomorrow if we’re going to pull this thing off. We need to be convincing as newlyweds and prospective parents. We’ll have to go over this with your mother before our appointment, anyway. She’s going to go with us to Children’s Connection and introduce us to the woman who’ll be handling our case. Laurel Reiss is her name. She’s actually currently on leave because of a family situation, but she’s doing your mother a favor, being our case worker. Your mother thought she would be best for the job.”

“Does Laurel Reiss know about the investigation?” Bridget asked.

“I’d wager she knows there’s an investigation ongoing,” Sam said. “Considering how workplace grapevines operate, there probably isn’t anyone at Children’s Connection who doesn’t know about the investigation, and we’ve questioned quite a few people there. Laurel Reiss may very well be someone the agent assigned to the case has talked to, but she doesn’t know that you and I specifically are a part of it.

“As far as everyone at Children’s Connection is concerned, nobody, and I mean nobody, knows you or I work for the FBI, except for your mother and sister—everyone’s being given our history according to our cover story. And your mother, father and sister are under strict orders not to reveal our true identity to anyone, orders they’ll follow, because they know it could endanger you if the information got out. So when we go to Children’s Connection tomorrow, it’s as Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones, wealthy, upscale newlyweds who have recently relocated to Portland and who are anxious to start a family, but can’t, so they want to adopt.”

Bridget nodded. “Mrs. Samuel Jones,” she repeated. She lifted her left hand and surveyed the heavy golden ring on the third finger. It matched the larger one Sam wore, both of them, Pennington had joked, a wedding present from the Bureau. “I never, ever, thought I’d give up my name for anyone,” she said.

And Sam had never, ever, planned on asking anyone else to take his name again. But he had asked someone to do that once upon a time. And the woman he’d asked had agreed to do it. Then she’d made a mockery of his name. And him. He wasn’t likely to let something like that happen again.

“It’s only for show,” he reminded her. “I doubt it’s even real gold.” He lifted his own left hand and wiggled his fingers against the strange weight. It had been a while since he’d worn one of these. And the one he’d owned before had only been a cheap bit of gold-plated metal that had turned his finger green. Appropriate, really, all things considered.

“Oh, it’s real gold,” Bridget said, turning the ring first one way, then another. Even in the dim illumination from the lamp, it caught the light and threw it back in a bright twinkle.

And, of course, she’d know real gold, Sam thought. She was, after all, a Logan. Well, for now, she was a Jones. Somehow, the realization made a funny knot form in his belly.

“But I know the marriage is only for show,” she replied quite pointedly, dropping her hand back down to her side. “There’s no way I’ll ever get married for real,” she hastened to add.

Not that Sam disagreed—he didn’t plan on marrying again, either. But he knew his reasons for that, and he’d made his decision based on personal experience. Bridget Logan, he knew for a fact, had never been married. From what he’d heard, she’d never even been that seriously involved with anyone. And she was still young. For all her insistence that she was a seasoned agent and a mature adult, she was only twenty-five, an age when many people were still trying to figure out exactly who they were and what the hell they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. Not that Sam was an ancient sage, by any stretch of the imagination. But he wondered how she could make such a certain, sweeping statement at her age.

That was her business, he immediately answered himself. Not his. All he had to know about Special Agent Bridget Logan was that she was as dedicated to wrapping up this case as he was. He looked at her again, at the way the soft light filmed her hair in amber and made her skin glow and her eyes luminous. He noted the soft curves of her breasts and hips that even her baggy clothing couldn’t hide. In her sleep-deprived state—and hell, probably out of it, too, Sam thought—she looked soft and tempting and vulnerable.

Yeah, he thought. They both needed to dedicate themselves to wrapping up this case.

The sooner the better.

Three

T he meeting with Laurel Reiss, the social worker at Children’s Connection with whom Bridget’s mother had made their appointments, went as well as could be expected, all things considered. Those things being that Bridget and Sam barely knew each other, never mind even liked each other, so playing the part of loving newlyweds whose fondest wish was to start a family together hadn’t exactly been easy. All Bridget could hope at this point was that it had been convincing. Unfortunately, though, she couldn’t even be certain of that.

It was strange, because she had never felt uncomfortable or unconvincing playing a role in the field before. She’d worked undercover as everything from a call girl to a drug dealer to a Mafia princess, and she had always been able to play the parts persuasively, often in situations where her very life depended on her performance. Yet today, she had been performing in an environment that was completely safe, and had been trying to pass herself off as something that required very little effort on her part. Yet she’d felt as nervous and jittery as a preteen at a dance.

It didn’t bode well for the rest of the assignment.

The social worker had been friendly and outgoing, and had walked Bridget and Sam through the adoption process. It sounded like a long and arduous procedure to Bridget, one for which there seemed a million opportunities for disappointment. But Children’s Connection, Laurel had assured them, was by far the best organization for them to use, something Bridget didn’t doubt for a moment, having witnessed for herself the success of her parents’ pet project. Still, she was glad she wasn’t going through this for real. Between the ninety-day waiting period, and the notices to—and appearances in—the court, and the home study, not to mention the sheer cost of adoption, a person would have to want a family awfully badly to be so patient, so understanding and so generous.

But then, Bridget thought, that was probably what parenting was all about anyway. Still, she was happy she’d made the decision long ago to remain single. She didn’t ever want to be responsible for anyone but herself.

In the end, Laurel had told them that their names would be added to a waiting list that included other couples waiting to adopt. That, alas, just because Bridget was a Logan, Children’s Connection couldn’t make any special allowances for her, but that she was hopeful it wouldn’t be more than a year or two before an infant became available for her and Sam to adopt. Bridget had assured the social worker that she didn’t expect any preferential treatment because of her family ties, and that that was one of the reasons she and Sam had sought to start the adoption procedure so soon after marrying, because they had realized it might be a while before they actually brought their new baby home.

And, indeed, being put on the waiting list was in keeping with what Bridget and Sam wanted for this investigation. It would give them both time and opportunity to snoop around and fish for information. Though Bridget would doubtless be doing most of that herself, using the excuse of her mother’s and sister’s presence at Children’s Connection to drop in for impromptu visits…and impromptu snooping.

Still, Bridget was beginning to understand that there was going to be a lot more to this case than she had originally anticipated. If she and Sam were going to play the part of wanna-be parents convincingly, they were going to have to go through all the proper steps, and that realistically the investigation could span months.

They might have to fool a lot more people than just the bad guy. And she might just be here in Portland for a lot longer than the few weeks she’d originally anticipated. After the nervousness and discomfort she had felt simply speaking with the social worker today—nervousness and discomfort she’d sensed from Sam, too—she just hoped they’d be able to pull it off.

And she hoped it wouldn’t take months to do it.

After the meeting concluded, Sam cited a need to go into the Portland field office to catch up on some work, so Bridget sought out her mother, whom she knew would be spending much of the day at Children’s Connection, and offered to treat her to a late lunch. Leslie suggested inviting Jillian along, too. So, feeling celebratory in the face of Bridget’s return home, the three Logan women bypassed the hospital cafeteria and headed off to a nearby bistro instead.

As always, Leslie Logan looked wonderful. Bridget was close to her mother and secretly delighted that she resembled her so much. She’d gotten her auburn hair from her mother, whose own reddish-gold tresses were swept back today with a gray velvet headband, in contrast to Bridget’s loosely plaited locks. She’d also inherited her mother’s mouth and the shape of her eyes, but Leslie Logan’s were brown instead of green, like Bridget’s. Their clothing preferences, too, were similar—both stuck to understated, classic styles and forsook fashion trends. Today, Leslie had opted for gray wool pants and a shell-pink sweater set, where Bridget had dressed in brown tweed trousers and a cream-colored turtleneck.

At sixty years of age, Leslie could easily have been mistaken for someone much younger. A native mid-westerner, she had always been plainspoken and down-to-earth. She’d met Terrence Logan in college, and, as family lore held, it had been love at first sight for both of them. Leslie had earned her degree in social work and had worked in the field for some time before giving birth to Robbie. His kidnapping had been understandably difficult on both elder Logans—it had even put their marriage in jeopardy for a while—but Leslie, Bridget knew, had been hit hardest. Although it had all happened before Bridget was born, she knew her mother still grieved for her stolen and murdered child and always would.

And although Leslie had ultimately found happiness in her other children, Bridget felt confident that much of her mother’s work at Children’s Connection stemmed from her still-unresolved feelings about Robbie’s death. Leslie herself had been aided by Children’s Connection in adopting Bridget’s brothers Peter and David and David’s twin sister, Jillian. And those successful adoptions, too, had contributed to Leslie’s desire to volunteer so much of her time for the organization. But it was Robbie’s death that had started it all, and that, Bridget felt certain, still colored much of what her mother felt and did today.

At thirty, Jillian was five years older than Bridget. And although she and David had been adopted after Bridget was born, it had been when Bridget was only a year old, so she couldn’t remember a time when Jillian hadn’t been her sister. Still, Bridget knew, as everyone else in the family did, that Jillian and David had come from a situation that was as far removed from the Logans’ lifestyle as it could possibly be. The children of a drug-addicted mother, they’d spent the first six years of their lives with an infirm grandmother who’d had difficulty caring for them. As a result, they’d required a lot of tender loving care during those early years following the old woman’s death, when the Logans had taken them in. Eventually, though, through love and attention and therapy, they’d blossomed. To this day, the twins enjoyed a unique closeness and intimacy precisely because of those early experiences. And Bridget had often wondered if it was Jillian’s loving treatment during that time that had led her to become a therapist herself. She did wonderful work at Children’s Connection.

But where the rest of the Logans were outgoing, Jillian was something of an introvert. She was shy and quiet, and embraced only a small circle of friends. Girlfriends, anyway, since Jillian dated only very sporadically, and never one man for very long. Her clothing today was in keeping with her quiet nature, a full skirt patterned in pale blue flowers and an even paler blue sweater that hung loose on her curvy frame.

They had no trouble getting a table at the bistro, since it was well past the lunch hour by the time they arrived. Although a few brave souls had thumbed their noses at the chilly afternoon by opting to dine alfresco, the Logan women compromised by taking a booth inside near a window. That way, they could watch the bustling activity of downtown Portland but still stay warm and dry. After giving the waiter their orders and getting drinks, Leslie looked at Bridget and smiled.

“So, how’s married life treating you?” she asked, her eyes fairly twinkling with mischief.

Bridget smiled back. “I’m afraid the honeymoon’s over,” she said with a sigh of feigned melancholy.

“So soon?” Jillian asked, playing along. “Gee, and here I’ve been working under the impression that marriage was supposed to be bliss. You and Sam just seem so perfect for each other.”

Oh, sure, Bridget thought. Sam Jones was everything she was looking for in a life mate: arrogant, surly, uncommunicative and coarse. What wasn’t there to love?

She sipped her coffee and tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “Yeah, well, marriage probably is bliss under other circumstances. Circumstances like…oh, I don’t know. Like, say, when you’re in love with your husband. Or when you even know him, for that matter.”

Leslie’s smile grew broader as she said, “Well, I certainly wouldn’t kick Agent Jones out of bed for eating crackers.”

Bridget and Jillian both gaped at the comment. But it was Bridget who offered the exclamation, “Mother!”

“Well, he’s very good-looking,” Leslie said.

Oh, sure, Bridget thought, recalling Sam’s thick brown hair that just begged a woman to run her fingers through it, and those blue, blue eyes that made a woman want to wade so deeply into them that she never found her way out again, and that sexy mouth that she was sure could wreak havoc on a woman’s body, and those sturdy, broad shoulders that seemed capable of holding the entire world at bay, and those strong arms that promised limitless shelter and infinite embraces, and—

Well, she just agreed with her mother, that was all. But just because Sam was easy on the eye didn’t make him husband material, phony or real.

“Oh, I’m teasing you, sweetie,” Leslie said as she lifted her own cup to her mouth for an idle sip, scattering Bridget’s errant thoughts. “Honestly, are you so wrapped up in your work these days that you don’t even recognize a joke when you hear one?”

“Not when it’s a sexual innuendo coming from my mother, no,” Bridget said.

Leslie laughed. “Then you’ve been away from home for too long.”

Bridget opened her mouth to deny it, then remembered that since leaving Portland to go to college, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been home to visit for any length of time. How could it be that she spent so little time here? she wondered. She was just too busy to manage any more visits home than the occasional Christmas trip. Her life was so full. Full of work, she thought. Full of work and…and more work. And also…work. But she took time off from work, she reminded herself. And when she did, it was always to…work. Because even when she managed to get away for a weekend here or there, she always took her laptop with her and checked into HQ regularly.

But that was because she was so dedicated, she reminded herself. She liked her work. And she was good at it. She didn’t work so hard because she didn’t have anything else to occupy her life. Work was her life. And she liked it that way.

“I’m sorry,” she told her mother in spite of her little pep talk with herself. “You’re right—I should come home more often. But you guys all get to D.C. fairly regularly, especially David and Dad.”

“Mm,” her mother replied noncommittally.