Fate Intended (The Coulter Men Series Book 3) (11 page)

“National security isn’t foolishness.”

“Leave it to the experts.”

“But I am an expert. I’m fully trained. I have skills few others have.”

She shook her head and said with more than a little disgust, “Save the recruitment poster lingo for some other schmuck. You’re my son.”

“So what? Leave the scary stuff to other people’s children?”

“Don’t lecture me on duty,” her voice rose a moment, then quickly returned to normal. “If this was simply a call to serve, I might understand. But this…this is nothing more than you grasping for some adventure.”

“Is looking for adventure a bad thing?”

“Go skydiving. Go mountain climbing. Joining those men? My God, did Tres and Craig knock you over the head during that fishing trip?”

“No, but they made me realize they’re happy and I wasn’t.”

Barbara massaged the bridge of her nose and asked, almost in a groan, “So, what is the lure of the girl? Is she dangerous also? Let me guess? Russian mafia?”

“Hardly. She, uh, manages an apartment building. I met her by chance.”

“Oh Trip! You’re telling me you’re trading in a well-respected lawyer for a college drop-out? That makes sense. Is it because she’s cute?” Trip started to answer, but Barbara interrupted, “Son, that only keeps a man’s interest for so long. Or is that part of the new ‘you’, too? A James Bond with a new flavor each week? Or…”

“Mother.” Trip’s tone was sharp. “Do I get to answer a single question?”

“Of course…why have you gone insane?”

“Come on, you know I don’t do anything on impulse. You know me better than that.”

“Do I? You are turning your life upside down with nary a word to me until it is all fate accompli.”

“I’ve only been dating Jane for a little while, so you’re in on the ground floor.”

Barbara thought a moment, then nodded. “I see.” She moved back to her desk and shuffled some papers. “You really hurt my feelings joining Shane and his cronies without even talking to me.”

“You would’ve blocked me.”

“I would never involve myself in the lives of my sons.”

Trip laughed. “Seriously? Should I call Tres and Craig in on this? I’m sure they’ll tell a different tale.”

Barbara shrugged and snorted. “Try to help your children, and they….”

“Just relax.” He rounded her desk and gave her a hug. “You have to trust me…. This life I’m building… it’s what I want. You owe me the benefit of the doubt.” He smiled down at her, not recalling her being so little before. “I was the one who supported your marriage to Max. If it weren’t for me, my two big brothers would still be sulking over the memory of dad.”

“Yes, darling. You were a champion getting your brothers to accept the change.”

He sat on the edge of her desk and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Because I realized that life is better if it’s lived happily than if it’s just lived by rules. And now? Look at how well all of this has turned out? You have a husband and a step-granddaughter who loves you.”

“Hmmph. Faith is a dear, but it was probably Shane who put these ideas into your head. He did, didn’t he?”

“I approached him. Shane told me no several times because he knew you would eventually blame him.”

“You just don’t know how much it scares me to think of anything….”

“Nothing will happen to me. I’m still just a geek. All I do is break encryptions and leap firewalls.”

“You could do that working in the State department!”

“Plus, I also get to play with guns.”

“Oh, lord. Men are such children.” She rolled her eyes and laughed a little before becoming serious again. “This girl? She seems rather wretched. No mother…no father. You’re not playing games, are you, darling? I would never expect that sort of thing out of you.”

“No. I like her. A lot. There’s something about her that just makes me… well, let’s just say, the idea of leaving her makes me wish I hadn’t joined up with Shane. If I had met her before I enlisted, well…who knows. ”

“Oh? Well, in that case, shall I book a church?” Barbara laughed, then sobered and said, “Seriously, though. I thought the situation with Olivia was beyond friendship, so you will forgive me when I tell you I invited her tonight.”

“Olivia?” Trip asked. Barbara nodded with a grimace.

“Oh shit.”

“It may do well to take Jane home before they come face to face.”

“But how do I explain that? She just got here.”

“Tell her the truth. Men are so dense. This whole party has been nothing but a disaster. Had I known your brothers would bow out, I’d have skipped the whole thing. Hope and Grace got colds and Craig acts like they need intensive care.”

“He gets nervous.”

“I know, I know. Max and I are going to head down there after I get all of this,” she threw her hands up in the air, “under control. Craig keeps calling, thinks the girls need to be in the hospital.”

“Do they?”

“No, I spoke with Jenna, she went up to help them out. Sniffles and coughs. First parent jitters, nothing more. As for, Jane…was that her name?”

Trip nodded.

“Bring her by in a few days so I can get to know her? Until then, as horrible as this sounds… you must get her out of here before there’s a scene.”

Trip sighed and ran a hand across his shorn hair “You’re right, and I don’t want Olivia hurt. I just can’t help how I feel about Jane.”

“Good boy.” Barbara kissed her son’s cheek.

Trip left his mother’s office, closing the door quietly behind him. Jane was leaning against the wall waiting for him. He took her hand and pulled her in for a hug. He kissed her temple and sighed. “Now you’ve met my mom. Still interested?”

Jane laughed. “Of course.” Jane felt shy, but had to ask, “Does she hate me?”

“Of course not. Why would you say that?”

Jane shrugged and chewed on her lip. Trip hugged her tighter.

“I have to be honest with you though. There is a…situation I need to deal with. And as much as I hate to say it…I need to send you home because….”

Before he could finish, a door opened. The sounds of small talk and Vivaldi filled the hallway, and then quieted as the door settled back into place. Replacing it was the sound of high heels on marble floors moving at an unimaginable speed. Both Jane and Trip turned toward the sound. Sasha barreled down the hallway, her shawl picking up wind and blowing off her shoulder. She grabbed Jane by the arm and hissed, “We have to leave. Now.”

Chapter 15

Trip escorted them to the car, apologizing to Jane the whole way for the turn of events. Sasha cursed and grumbled in her native tongue. Jane cringed as she made out “dirty bastard” from the mumblings. Jane turned to Trip and said, a bit too loudly, “I will see you later. It’s best that we go home anyhow. Sasha appears to be in a foul mood.”

Trip sighed and pulled Jane’s wrap closer to her body. “I’ll be over as soon as I can get things worked out.”

Jane nodded and shivered against her will. She tried her best to ignore the chill, but the temperature was dropping and the air was growing heavy with mist. Trip kissed her forehead. “Now, you get out of the cold before you get sick. We have a holiday to prepare for, right?”

Jane smiled. For the first time in a long time, she felt a thrill. She was celebrating an American holiday properly. And getting a Christmas tree? Why she felt as flighty as the twelve-year-old Jane who last celebrated the occasion with her Aunt Tilley. Her father, a child of Stalin’s Soviet Union, never celebrated the holiday. Jane had tried to introduce it to him, but she could always tell, that he, like Sasha, just never got it.

She stood on tip-toe and kissed his cold cheek. Her smile was bright, but her teeth chattered. She gave him a quick hug and reminded, “Until later.”

“Later. As soon as I, uh, deal with…things.”

“Secret job with secret emergencies,” Jane whispered in his ear as he leaned forward to open the door for her.

Trip’s laugh held a nervous edge. Glancing across the car at Sasha, he said slowly, “I’ll explain it all later.”

He guided her toward her seat. She said good-bye as he stepped up onto the curb and waved. Sasha gunned the gas and pulled out in front of a passing car. Tires squealed and a horn blew, which prompted Sasha to roll down her window and flip the perturbed driver the bird.

Sasha sped past stop signs and ran more than one red light. She flew onto the interstate on- ramp with barely a glance over her shoulder. She drove at break-neck speeds, shifting the gears of the compact car in jerking, engine grinding haste. “You trying to kill us or just get a ticket and get us locked in the gulag?”

Sasha glared at Jane, but slowed down. Sasha chewed at her cheek, her shoulders were tense, and her hands gripped the steering wheel.

“Did something happen?” Jane asked.

Sasha said nothing. She reached onto the floorboards and flipped open her handbag fumbling through the contents until she found her pack of cigarettes. She lit one and took a long drag. She trapped the smoke in her lungs until she had to exhale for a breath of air.

“What is it?” Jane asked cracking her window.

“Roll up the window. It’s cold.”

“Those stink.”

“This whole mess you’ve gotten us into stinks,” Sasha hissed.

“What did I do? What’s going on? Your driving is insane. And why were you calling Trip names? He understands Russian, probably even Chechen.”

“And you’ve never wondered why that is? How many freakin’ Americans speak Russian?”

Jane shrugged. “He’s smart.”

“And you’re an idiot.”

“
Sukin syn!
What is your problem? Good God, you act like I kicked your dog.”

“I only wished you had
just
kicked my dog. For God’s sakes, Jane, you’ve kicked open a whole bag of
der’mo
.”

“Me? How did I?” Jane didn’t get to finish before Sasha interrupted.

“That room was so thick with CIA, I’m surprised we made it out alive. If any of them recognize us…” She looked across at Jane, Sasha’s face was paler than milk. “We’ll be screwed.”

“I think you’re just…”

“I’m not ‘just’ anything. I know. I can spot them. I can tell by the way they scan a room constantly. They come out of the field, but the skills are always working. A ‘hello how are you’ is analyzed with those eyes that look through you, never just at you. And the tattoos, Jane. Didn’t you recognize the tattoos?”

“No,” Jane answered, her voice rising, “I didn’t notice any tattoos.”

“All different, but the same. Each and every tattoo was for special forces—but each from a different branch,” Sasha explained, lighting another cigarette.

“So, that’s not so uncommon. Old military stick together.”

“Army befriends Army, Navy with Navy, Marine with Marine. What the hell brings together a grunt, a jar head, and a sailor?”

Jane shrugged. Sasha whipped the car onto the off ramp so quickly, Jane had to grip the door handle to stay upright. Sash slowed as the car skidded around a sharp turn. “The CIA. The NSA. Or whatever in hell black ops are being called at the moment. That’s what brings together different branches to become one tight little group of blood sucking friends. Oh, and the Brit. Where the hell did they pick up Captain Bruce of the Royal Air Force? I’m telling you, Jane, we’re in trouble.”

Jane took a deep breath. “Okay, so let’s say they are who you say they are. Why would they be suspicious of us?”

Sasha bit her lip. It was several long seconds before she shrugged.

“You’ve been to state dinners
with congressmen
and no one has ever gotten suspicious.”

“Politicians are blinded by ego. Soldiers are…just different. This will be bad.” Sasha sucked so hard on her cigarette that it crackled and flared.

“But still,” Jane theorized, “why would they suspect us? Because we’re Russian? There’s thousands of us in America after the fall. And besides…you are the coolest of the cool. And I wasn’t even in the room but a moment before Trip whisked me away.”

“That is true,” Sasha grudgingly agreed, but then added, worry still evident on her face. “But that one guy, the one in the corner, with the deep pockmarks. I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”

“The really big guy? That’s Trip’s aunt’s husband or something....”

“No. Not him. The guy who didn’t say hello.”

“Who didn’t say hello?”

“The guy in the corner,” Sasha said gripping the wheel and rubbing it nervously against her palms. “He just stared.”

“Oh…the smoker?” Jane asked with a snap of her fingers.

“Yes, the smoker in the corner.”

“I remember him now. Well, he just didn’t look happy to be there at all. I don’t think we had anything to do with it.”

Sasha looked at Jane with narrowed eyes as she considered Jane’s explanation. Her head nodded slowly as if logic told her it was a possible explanation, but instinct might not concur.

“And the Brit?” Jane reasoned, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet under her. “The tall one, not the blond, but the dark-haired one? The tall, dark-haired woman, with the freckles? That’s her brother, and she’s married to the guy they called Jimme something. That’s how he got in the mix.”

“I wish I could believe these guys were together by coincidence.”

“Oh, seriously, Sash. Trip doesn’t exactly fit the description of a secret agent.”

Sasha’s head moved side to side. Jane could hear it crack as she rolled it from shoulder to shoulder. “Another thing that bugs me….” She glanced at Jane. “Trip made a complete change in six short months. What exactly is this new job? I mean, he went from computer geek to Adonis. Sure did wake up that bitch he was dating.”

“Olivia?”

“Yeah.” Sasha shook out another cigarette from the pack and pushed in the console lighter; then she pulled it out before it popped and impatiently puffed hard against the incomplete glow. It slowly ignited, and she returned it to its place and turned her attention back to Jane. “She was working the room like she was the Mrs.”

“Olivia was there?” Jane’s heart slid toward her toes, leaving her chest hollow and achy.

“I knew you didn’t know!” Sasha sighed. “She came in shortly after Trip dragged you off. I managed best I could to avoid her. I don’t think she saw me. And as soon as she wasn’t between me and the door, I scooted. Last thing we need is her scratching your eyes out and the police being called. Damn it.” Sasha banged the wheel with the heel of her hand. “That bitch could be a problem. We can’t survive exposure, do you understand that? I just thank…well, I am happy you didn’t argue with me about leaving.”

Jane nodded, but it was a slow, mechanical motion. She averted her gaze to the window. The tears she didn’t want Sasha to see burned her eyes. Olivia was the reason Trip shuffled her out the back door. Tears silently dropped from her eyes. Jane wiped them away and blotted at her nose so she didn’t make a sniffle.

“Oh hell,” Sasha spat. “You didn’t leave because I asked you to, did you?” Sasha asked sounding almost empathetic.

Jane shook her head no. She couldn’t speak right now. If she did, she’d turn into a blubbering mess.

Sasha offered her a cigarette. Jane shook her head again then leaned her forehead against the window on the door. Clouds blocked the moon and an icy mist speckled the glass. She heard Sasha click on the wipers, toss another cigarette out the window, and then immediately dig out another. Sasha spoke around the cigarette clenched in her teeth, “
Durachit
.”

Jane wasn’t sure if it was her or Trip Sasha was calling a fool. She supposed it applied equally to them both.