Kara Lennox - Under Deepest Cover

“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 escape.

She used her other hand to muffle a shriek. “Bryan. Don’t say things like that unless you mean it, it’s cruel.”

“You think I don’t mean it? I want you to be my wife, Lucy. And frankly, if I don’t marry you, my family is going to disown me. So, what do you say?”

“I think you’re crazy.” She tugged at her hand, but he refused to let her go.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”

“I’ll do the candlelight and violins as soon as they let me out of here. Put me out of my misery, Lucy.”

In answer she leaned over the bed and kissed him, until one of the machines monitoring his vital signs started beeping out an alarm.

A nurse rushed into the cubicle. “What are you doing?” She angled a severe look at Lucy. “You, out.”

Bryan kept hold of her hand. “Was that a yes?”

She nodded, her eyes filled with tears.

Two weeks later, on a hot day near the end of July, Lucy and Bryan were married at The Tides. Scarlet found her the perfect wedding dress, left over from a recent bridal spread Charisma had done. It was simple, with clean lines and unadorned silk. She paired it with an elegant pearl tiara.

Bryan sent Lucy’s parents two round-trip, first-class tickets to New York, and though they’d never been out of Kansas in their lives, they came. They’d never even realized their daughter had gone missing. They’d called once, got her answering machine, figured she was traveling on some lark and put it out of their minds. Since they didn’t know of her escapade, she didn’t fill them in.

She didn’t want them to spend the rest of their lives in church praying for her.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?” her mother had whispered almost the moment she got off the plane.

Lucy laughed, amazed that she could. “No, Mom. I’m just in love.”

“Well, I think you picked a good one this time. Have you ever traveled first class? Oh, my.”

All of the Elliotts came for the wedding, even a few more Lucy hadn’t met. She still hadn’t learned all their names.

Bryan closed down Une Nuit for the day and invited all the employees out to The Tides, except for the new busboys, who were now in jail.

Stash came, of course, driving his Peugeot, which now sported a few bullet holes. Bryan’s employer had offered to repair the damage, but Stash enjoyed showing off the holes and bragging, to anyone who would listen, about his small part in the takedown of international terrorists. Lucy tried to steer her parents clear of him.

Bryan looked dashing as ever. The bandages on his shoulder hardly showed through his tuxedo, and he dispensed with his sling for the ceremony and the photos, but put it back on shortly after. He wasn’t supposed to use his right arm while the tissues healed, but he claimed he wasn’t in any pain.