Debra & Regan Webb & Black - Would-Be Christmas Wedding

“Who?” Stunned, she took a moment to wrap her head around such a ridiculous idea. No one betrayed Thomas Casey. “Who on your team would dare to cross you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m setting up an op to take him down.”

Cecelia relaxed a fraction. “Then there’s no reason for me to run and hide.”

Thomas glared at her. Having grown up with him, she didn’t find the expression so intimidating.

“Lia, this mole is devious. He’s been operating right under my nose for months now. When we make the arrest, it’s going to stick, but he’s going to fight back. Locking down the evidence for this kind of thing takes time. I’m not going to allow you to get caught in the middle.”

“Allow?” She laughed. “I’m a grown woman.”

“I know that.” He clasped her hands in his. “You’re one of the strongest people I know.”

“So we agree.” She met the determination in his blue gaze with an equal measure of her own. “I’ll be careful, keep your number on speed dial, but I’m not going into hiding, Thomas. Not under any circumstances. It’s my turn to challenge myself.”

Besides, even if she wasn’t making this career change, she just didn’t think she could manage that kind of drastic shift in her plans. Not in the middle of this holiday season.

Last year’s holidays had been marred by her husband’s death. She’d still been receiving sympathy cards amid the annual Christmas letters and greetings. The abundance of charitable donations made in his name had been kind and wonderful expressions from caring friends.

And nearly unbearable as she wrote out each and every thank-you note. She felt awful and it was as if every bright moment last year was eclipsed by the darkness of her loss. It had been sheer determination and more than a little detachment that had got her through.

Promise me you’ll live your life. It was the last coherent conversation she’d had with her husband before the aggressive brain tumor had made her a widow.

She’d been trying to honor that request, and she had no intention of letting a rogue agent and a vague threat get in the way. She was living her life.

“You can’t be that selfish,” Thomas barked. “Or that foolish.”

She reeled back as if he’d struck her.

“I’m sorry. Sorry,” he repeated, holding his hands up. “But don’t you see if you’re out there—” he flung a hand wide “—you become leverage they can use against me to get what they want?”

“For how long?”

“Pardon?”

“How long would you keep me in protective custody? Where would I be? What excuse would I give to the people who are counting on me this weekend?”

Thomas blinked rapidly and frowned as if he were trying to catch up. “I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe longer.”

That would never work. Cecelia shook her head adamantly. “This is the wrong time, Thomas. I realize you didn’t plan this, but you know I have commitments.”

“The charities and parties can manage without you.”

“But I don’t want them to. And I won’t let a vague ‘maybe longer’ interfere with my plans.” That was exactly what she was trying to change in her life. The idea everyone else seemed to have that nothing she did mattered enough that it couldn’t be cast aside at the drop of a hat.

“Cecelia, please cooperate. The man pulling the strings on this won’t hesitate to hurt you. He turned one of my own people against me. He nearly killed me a few times over between the airport and Casey’s wedding.”

“And yet you made it.” She patted his cheek. He really didn’t need to go so far in his effort to talk her out of this move. “I’ll make it, too—if this threat to me even proves more than a rumor.”

“I had years of field experience and another trained agent at my side,” Thomas protested.

“I’m not hiding.”

“Mom,” Casey hesitated in the kitchen doorway, a big suitcase behind her. “You might put your friends in danger.”

“That’s hitting below the belt and it won’t work.” Cecelia set her hands on her hips. “Your father didn’t marry a bubble brain, no matter how the two of you believe otherwise.”

“You’re twisting things up,” Casey said. “This has nothing to do with your career change.”

“Maybe it should.” The words were out before she’d really thought it through, but she warmed to the idea immediately. “I’m taking leave through the holiday until I report for ops training. Why not use me to trap the traitor on your team?”

“How can you help if you’re a victim?” her brother demanded.

“If they make the attempt, you can close in and you’ll have your rogue agent. If—big if—I get kidnapped, you’ll have someone on the inside.”

Thomas shook his head. “No way. I won’t risk your life that way. Even if we wired you, this guy would either find it or jam the signal, rendering the exercise pointless.”

Cecelia held her ground, undeterred. “You can get creative and use me as an asset, or stop wasting your breath. Even if you put me in a safe house, I wouldn’t stay there.” Not this year. She had plans, a ticket to the Caymans and maybe even a new friend who might be encouraged to join her on a holiday getaway. But she wasn’t sharing that. As unsettled as these two were about her career change, she didn’t want to see how they would come unglued over her personal secret.

“If you were asset material, I’d have recruited you already.”

Casey gasped, but Cecelia gave her brother her most serene smile. “When is this kidnapping supposed to happen?”

“I don’t have a hard date. The analysts are working on it.”

“I see.”

“Who is the mole?” Casey wanted to know.

“I’ve narrowed it down to two people.”

Cecelia arched an eyebrow. He’d already avoided this question once.

“Has to be either my deputy director or his assistant. They’re the only ones who have the access to the information we’ve discovered that has been leaked to my enemy.”

“And your gut says who?” Cecelia pressed.

Thomas sighed, rubbed his temples. “My money’s on Deputy Director Holt. He’s the only one who would know where to start looking. I just don’t think his assistant could manage this alone. As much as I hate to admit it, it has to be Holt.”

Cecelia rode out the jolt of surprise, hoping the two people staring at her didn’t notice. She thought about it for a minute or two as Thomas went on about how he was still having trouble accepting the man would turn like this. Cecelia sipped her coffee, found it had gone cold. She dumped it out and poured a fresh cup.

Okay, reality check. What were the odds that two men named Holt would come to her attention within weeks of each other, one working for her brother and another through the online dating site?

Didn’t take a master spy to figure that out. Slim to none, she figured.

Might as well put it on the table. “Emmett Holt?” she asked.

“Yes.” Thomas scowled. “How do you know his name?”

“A man by that name was a last-minute donor to tomorrow’s gala fundraiser,” she hedged. And he’d been flirting with her online for the past few weeks. Those emails and text messages had been fun and full of life, but those feelings were fading quickly with Thomas’s bleak news.

She’d learned long ago that coincidences usually weren’t a matter of chance. She wouldn’t put it past her brother to encourage a member of his team to make a dating connection and set her up like this, just to keep an eye on her. And he’d be feeling pretty guilty if the man he assigned to such a task was working against him.

But Thomas didn’t look the least bit guilty, only stunned.

She moistened her lips and asked the question. “You didn’t know he contacted me?” If this wasn’t Thomas’s idea, she wasn’t about to clarify the precise manner of contact had been a dating service. They’d balked enough at her career plans.