Secrets (13 page)

Cassie smiled at him. She really hated it when he put on his avuncular attitude and set himself up as her guardian. “Of course. It is the twenty-first century, you know. Or did you think that women today need to have a yearlong courtship before—” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Before, you know.”

He glared at her. “I told you that Brent Goodwin is not who he seems to be and that you'd be better off staying away from him.”

She came away from the car and glared back at him. “At least Brent tells the
truth
. He told me about you, and he understands what you've been putting your whole family through, all because of your lust for some spiteful—”

“What has that kid told you about
me
?” Jeff asked, his eyes angry.

“That a lot of times when you say you're at work you aren't.”

Jeff looked as though she'd slapped him. “Where does he say I am?” he whispered.

She leaned toward him. “With women. Lots of women.”

To her consternation, Jeff laughed. All the anger left his body and he relaxed. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled. “That's right. When I say I'm working late I'm actually having candlelight dinners with gorgeous women. Did he tell you about the diamond bracelets I give them? Or about the nights in four-star hotel rooms with wanton sex? Hot, steamy sex that goes on until sunrise. Sometimes it's with two women. Even three. Sometimes—”

“I get the picture,” Cassie said, but she didn't. Jeff's sarcasm made her doubt what Brent had told her. But then, maybe Brent had assumed that that's where Jeff was when he stayed out late.

She and Jeff looked at each other for a while, neither saying anything, then the door to the store opened and Brent and Skylar came out carrying bags of groceries. They were smiling and laughing.

“We've decided that we'll all stay at the cabin for the weekend,” Brent said cheerfully. “There are two bedrooms, so there's plenty of room for all of us. In the morning we'll go fishing or something.”

When Cassie heard “two bedrooms” she nearly panicked. She had no intention of going to bed with Brent.

“Good try, Goodwin,” Jeff said, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. “But the girls go in one room and the boys in the other. I don't participate in orgies and I don't listen to them.”

Cassie felt such relief that she could have kissed Jeff. Instead, she avoided his eyes. After all, she'd just told him that she and Brent had come to the cabin to be together. “I hope you two got some decent groceries,” she said loudly, as though it didn't matter to her what the sleeping arrangements were.

“Pasta and jars of sauce,” Skylar said, her smile gone. “What else do you need?”

“Little green flakes would be nice,” Cassie said, looking at Brent, and he laughed as though she'd made the greatest joke in the world. As she got into the car, she glanced at Jeff and saw that he was frowning, and that made Cassie smile more.

 

When they got to the cabin, Jeff said he wanted to talk to Brent. Alone.

The second they were out of earshot of the women, Jeff turned to his student, his face showing his anger. “What the hell are you really doing here and why did you bring Cassie?”

Brent gave a smug little smile. “I have an assignment.”

“An assignment?” Jeff asked. His voice was cold. “And who gave you this assignment and what is it?”

“I—” Brent opened his mouth to say that he couldn't tell, but he knew that Jeff had the highest security clearance there was. “To find out what a Mr. Norton is doing.”

For a moment, Jeff just stared at him, but the anger in his eyes made Brent take a step back. “And who told you to spy on Norton?”

“Althea said…” Brent's face changed as he realized that he'd been duped—just as he had been when Althea sent him after medicine so she could shoot a pistol and get the attention of Cassie and Dana.

“Althea.” Jeff's voice was very calm. “Althea told you to come up here with Cassie and do a little spying and you believed her? You believed a woman who has spent over sixty years wheedling secrets out of the minds of the heads of foreign governments?”

“Yes, sir.” Brent was standing at attention, trying not to let his feelings show.

“Now what do I do?” Jeff said, turning away. “No matter what I say, I'm going to look like a jealous fool.” He looked back at Brent. “What did you tell Cassie to get her to come up here with you?”

Brent looked surprised. “I told her I had to come up here to check on the place for Althea and would she go with me?”

“So you
were
planning to return tonight.”

“No, sir. We brought bags and I thought we'd get food here. Althea said—I mean…”

“Are you trying to tell me that all you did was ask Cassie, young, sweet, Cassie, to spend an entire weekend alone in a remote cabin with you and she agreed?”

Brent glanced around at the other cabins. “It's hardly remote, sir.” After the bawling out that Jeff had given him, he wasn't about to tell him that he had sworn not to touch Cassie if she went with him.

Jeff looked at Brent.

“Yes, sir, I did. I asked and she accepted.”

Jeff stared at him, his mouth slightly open. “But you hardly know her,” he said at last.

Brent couldn't resist a grin. “We had a good time on our other date, so—” He broke off at Jeff's look, then took a step back.

“I want you to remember, Goodwin, that Cassandra works for
me
, in
my
house. She is to be treated with the utmost respect. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get out of here,” Jeff said.

Obediently, Brent walked away, but the moment his back was to his boss, he smiled big enough to crack his face.

I
T WAS DURING
the dinner of overcooked pasta and tasteless store-bought tomato sauce that Cassie began to feel like a third wheel. For all of Jeff's and Brent's hostility to each other, they seemed to know each other well. And Skylar seemed to know both of them. Jeff and Brent disappeared as soon as they got there, and Cassie was sure that something awful would result, but it hadn't. Brent returned first and he'd been laughing. When Jeff came back, he'd spent a few minutes saying nothing, then he seemed to have made up his mind to let go of whatever was bothering him. During dinner, both he and Brent joked with each other in a way that seemed to come from years of…Cassie wasn't sure what it was. It wasn't exactly friendship, but it was a camaraderie that she wasn't part of.

Three times Jeff stopped the other two from whatever it was they were hinting at, and Cassie knew that if she weren't there their talk would be a lot different. Would they reminisce about places they'd been together?

Once, she tried to enter into their laughter and asked a question about something Brent said about Gibraltar. “Have you been there?” she asked. “What's it like?”

Immediately, Brent and Skylar stopped talking and looked down at their plates.

Earlier, Cassie had gone to the kitchen with the intention of helping prepare dinner, but Jeff caught her arm. “You go in there now and you won't be allowed to leave all weekend. They'll make you into their private chef.”

She'd nodded in understanding and stayed out of the kitchen, letting Brent and Skylar prepare the meal.

The cabin was nice enough, but Cassie couldn't imagine Althea in it, as it wasn't elegant, or even very interesting. It had a living room in front, a kitchen in one end, then a hall leading to two bedrooms with a shared bathroom. Across the front was a deep porch that looked out onto the lake.

While Brent and Skylar overboiled the pasta, Cassie sat in the living room and looked at a three-year-old issue of
Field & Stream
. She'd been puzzled by the low voices of Brent and Skylar in the kitchen. They certainly seemed to have a lot to say to each other.

After a while, she went out to the porch, where Jeff was sitting in a big Adirondack chair, looking out at the lake, seeming to be content to do or say nothing. “Sorry about accusing you of lying,” she said.

“Think nothing of it. Goodwin must like you a lot if he's trying to discredit every man around you.” He turned to look at her. “I understand his actions. All's fair, that sort of thing, but what I don't understand is why you believe a man you've only recently met over me. What have I done to lose your trust?”

Nothing, Cassie wanted to shout. You've done
nothing
and that's the problem. But she didn't say that. “I apologize. It's just me. It's difficult leaving Elsbeth and Thomas.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “There's really no reason you have to leave, and I don't think you should.”

Cassie opened her mouth to ask him questions. She wanted to blurt out about his coming marriage to Skylar. Had something happened that was making him rethink marrying her?

But she didn't ask that. “I think it's better that I do leave,” she said softly. “I've become too attached and that's not good. I have other things I want to do in my life and I need to do them.”

She stopped talking and waited. What would he say? If he begged her to stay, if he told her that they needed her, if he promised to never marry anyone, could she hold out?

But Jeff said nothing. He just looked out at the lake in silence and listened to the night.

A few minutes later they were called to dinner and went inside.

An hour later, everyone except Cassie was yawning. It had been a long day and she was the only one who'd had a nap. But she faked exhaustion and said she was ready to go to sleep. Right, she thought. She was dying to climb into bed with Skylar. Ha-ha.

It took over an hour for everyone to get settled, mainly because Skylar hogged the bathroom. It seemed that she had a beauty routine that took forty-five minutes and involved using most of the hot water.

Once they were in the room alone, Cassie made no comment to Skylar's orders of which side of the bed would be hers, and how Cassie wasn't to spend the night reading and keep the light on. With a fake smile, Cassie turned out the light and got under the covers. Skylar kept to her side of the bed, and within minutes she was asleep. Obviously, there was nothing troubling Skylar to keep her awake.

But Cassie was awake—awake and jittery. There was too much in her head, too many questions rambling about inside it. With every passing hour, she was beginning to think that there was something going on that she knew nothing about. Since the day she and Dana heard the shots at Althea's house, nothing had been the same. Her quiet, orderly life had been turned upside down, but she wasn't sure how it had been changed—and certainly not why.

She looked at the clock at midnight, then again at one. Beside her, Skylar was sleeping deeply, her left arm flung out over the floor, her mouth open a bit. At least she didn't snore.

At one thirty, Cassie came alert. She'd just heard the front door open. Quietly, she got out of bed and looked out the window. It wasn't a full moon but close enough for her to catch a glimpse of a body she knew well hurrying through the trees. For some reason, Jeff was dressed all in black and was running through the woods as though he needed to put out a fire.

Cassie didn't hesitate. After a quick glance at Skylar, she went to her duffel bag and withdrew a black turtleneck shirt and black trousers. She pulled them on, then hurriedly put on dark socks and slipped her feet into black running shoes. She made no noise as she left the bedroom, tiptoed down the hall, through the living room, and out the front door.

There were cabins all around the lake, each one hidden from the other by tall trees, but the one next to their cabin had a porch light. Between the lights on some of the cabins and the moonlight, Cassie could see fairly well. Twice, she saw Jeff ahead of her, and she practically ran to catch up with him.

When she got six cabins down from Althea's, she lost him. She stopped and looked about her. There was only the sound of the water and a few animals scurrying about in the underbrush. She turned around slowly, looking and listening, but she neither saw nor heard Jeff. What was he doing out in the middle of the night?

With a grimace she thought that maybe he hadn't been able to sleep without Skylar beside him so he'd taken a nighttime jog to tire himself out. Maybe he—

She sat down on the ground under a tree, hidden in deep shadow. There was no way that Jeff could get back to the cabin without her seeing him. Unless he entered from the other side, she thought, but she didn't think that was likely. She leaned back against the tree and waited.

 

“What is this?” Leo Norton said in a low voice. “A convention? Bloody hell! I thought it was going to be just you and Sky, but you show up with half the agency.”

“Calm down,” Jeff said, looking about them in the dark. “I saw you by the boat. That's why I took Goodwin out there to let him have it.”

“Goodwin?”

“One of my students. Althea picked him out of a bunch of photos to be her bodyguard. He's an idiot.”

Leo smiled. “Althea. How is she?”

“As wily and conniving as ever. I don't know what she's up to now, but she sent young Goodwin up here to…she said to ‘check on' you.”

“How'd she know I was going to be here?”

“That's the first question I wanted to know the answer to, but I wasn't about to ask Goodwin that.”

“So what do we do now that the entire world knows about this drop?”

“If you find out how that woman finds out things, please let me know. For all I know, she called the president and asked him. She can wheedle anything out of anybody. The question is
why
she wanted Goodwin to come up here. I've already called Dad, and he's got two men with her this weekend, so she's as safe as we can make her.”

“Who's the doll with Goodwin?”

“Cassie. She's nobody. Just a cover.”

“Some cover! She's a beauty. She's—”

“Cut it out! She's a kid!”

“Kid? She looks old enough to me.” Leo looked at Jeff in speculation. “What's she to you?”

“She's my daughter's nanny.”

“Your what?” Leo smiled. “She didn't come up here as a date with young Goodwin, did she?”

Jeff clenched his teeth. “Yes, she did.”

Leo laughed at Jeff's expression. “Okay, send those two home, leave Sky in the cabin, then you and I can meet this guy tomorrow by ourselves.”

“No,” Jeff said. “I don't want Cassie alone with Goodwin.”

Leo frowned. “If she stays, then Goodwin will stay. Do you think we should give out name tags and convention binders?”

“Can it, will you?” Jeff said. “The four of us will go out on a boat tomorrow and we'll meet the man near the house where we're supposed to. Nothing will change.”

Leo stared thoughtfully at Jeff. “I'm curious. Is that cute little nanny of yours live-in or live-out?”

“In.” Jeff's voice was terse. “Would you get your mind off Cassie? This is between you and me.”

“You and me? You and young Goodwin have made this into date night. How the hell are we to escape your entourage long enough to pick up a package?”

Jeff put his hand on Leo's shoulder and smiled. “I trust you, old friend, to make yourself so repulsive that Cassie won't want to be near you. Think you can do that?”

“Make myself unlikeable to the ladies? How can I do that?” Leo said, but his eyes were sparkling at the challenge. “That's an impossible disguise.”

“I believe in you,” Jeff said as he started to walk away.

“You just want to get rid of the competition with your buxom little nanny, don't you? You better watch Goodwin. He's not a bad-looking chap.”

Smiling, Jeff walked away.

As Jeff left Leo, he was feeling pretty good. When he'd first seen Goodwin with Cassie, he'd thought there was no way he could pick up the package that Leo's man was to give him. Leo had e-mailed Jeff a map of where they were to go, to a house Jeff's father knew that was so far up the coast that it was in Maryland. Jeff got further directions from his father so he knew exactly where to go.

When Goodwin told his story about Althea sending him to the cabin “to find out what a Mr. Norton is doing” it had run through Jeff's mind that his father had been the one to tell Althea that Norton was to be at the cabin this weekend. But Jeff had quickly dismissed the idea. That would mean that his father had betrayed a secret. Couldn't happen.

Jeff knew that when he got back to Williamsburg, he'd find out the truth, but now he just had to deal with it. Tomorrow he'd take the lot of them up the coast, pick up the package, then they'd have the rest of the weekend to…He wasn't sure what they'd do, but it could be nice. Maybe he could tell Cassie some of the truth about Skylar, enough to make her give up her idea of leaving them. Maybe he could appeal to her—

He broke off because he heard something. Silently, he circled around the back of the trees, out of the lights from the cabins. There, leaning against a tree, was Cassie. He had no doubt that she was waiting for him and he was sure that what she planned to do was ask him what the heck he was doing there.

Damn, damn, damn! he thought. Now what should he do? One minute he was thinking about telling her that he was going to break up with Skylar, and the next he had to explain why he was at a lakeside cabin with her. Damn Leo! he thought. He's the one who wanted to see Skylar. Jeff certainly didn't want to be alone with her.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He had to give Cassie a reason for why he was here. Quick, think! Suddenly, he remembered a story his father told him years ago when he was a kid. It was about robbers and a woman who had spent many years tracking them down. Thomas had said that with a bit of embellishment, the story could be made into a screenplay and sold to Hollywood. Jeff always thought that if he ever retired, he might write the story. Could he use it now? Maybe he could make Althea the protagonist. But the important question was, would Cassie believe him?

He glanced at her, sitting so still. Whatever he said, he rather liked the idea of spending a little time in the moonlight with her. She stood up and looked around. If she'd heard him, he was losing his edge.

 

Cassie was standing upright and in the next second, she was flat on her back, a heavy body straddling her. A hand was over her mouth.

“What do you want?” Jeff said in a growl such as she'd never heard him use before.

At first she couldn't say anything because she hadn't recovered her breath from being knocked down. She managed to make a sound against the man's hand.

“Oh, good Lord,” Jeff said. “Cassie! What the hell are you doing out here?”

Removing his hand, he got off of her, and she struggled to sit upright. “Saw you,” she managed to say after a few moments of trying to get her breath. “Followed you.”

Jeff looked down at her. “Come on, get up, and I'll take you back.”

Cassie didn't move. She drew her legs up and put her arms around her knees. “What were you doing out here?”

“I couldn't sleep,” he said as he offered her his hand.

But she still didn't move. She looked past his legs to the lake with the moonlight shining on it. “Would you mind telling me what's going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe I'm just the nanny but I have ears and eyes. First of all, I don't think Althea Fairmont has ever been near that cabin. There isn't a single closet outfitted to hold her Manolos.” She didn't look up at Jeff hovering over her, but she could almost feel his smile.