The Call of Bravery. Janice Johnson Kay
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have a home. He’d never made one.
Didn’t want one.
“I’d like to see her.” Strangely, he realized he really did. See what MacLachlan blood wrought in the next generation.
“How long are you going to be around?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what we find. Or don’t find.”
Duncan inclined his head. He brought two mugs of coffee to the bar and sat, too, a couple of stools away from Conall. “So tell me about it.”
They talked then, both professionals, Conall expressing some of his irritation with the vagueness of the information he’d been given. “You know anything about the people in that house?” he asked.
His brother shook his head. “No. The owner does something in the oil business. He worked up at the refinery in Anacortes, but I hear he got transferred to Texas, and couldn’t sell the house as quick as he needed to. Real estate is slow right now.”
Real estate was slow right now everywhere.
“So he and his wife are renting the place out for now. It can’t be cheap, that’s a big house.”
“You actually know it,” Conall said slowly.
Duncan’s eyes, razor sharp, met his. “I’ve driven or walked every street in my city.”
“You didn’t herniate a disk driving that one?”
Duncan grinned. “A few potholes? Are you such a city boy now you can’t deal with ’em?”
“These damn things have to be a foot deep. I’d kick in some bucks to the cause of filling them, except I don’t want Lia to have to go knocking on her neighbors’ doors right now.”
“Lia?” His brother frowned. “Lia Woods? That’s who you’re staying with?”
“That’s her.”
“Foster kids?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Huh.” Duncan became pensive.
“What? You know her?” He set down his cup hard enough to splash. “You had a thing with her?”
That earned him a startled look. “God, no. I’ve never met the woman. At least, I don’t think I have. No, I heard something.” He hesitated. “Probably nothing I should repeat.”
Conall snorted. “Hell, no, you’re not doing that. You think I can’t be close-mouthed?”
“I don’t want you, as a federal agent, to feel like you have to do something about it.”
About…what? He sifted through the possibilities. Lia wouldn’t still be licensed if this had anything to do with the children in her care. Say, an accident, or alleged abuse, or…
“She’s got more kids than we were told she had.”
Duncan’s gaze, steady, met his. “Hispanic?”
“Yeah.” Conall laughed. “Oh, man. They’re illegals.”
“I, uh, heard a rumor and made the decision not to check it out. Most of the time we don’t get involved in immigration issues. I don’t want anyone to be afraid to talk to us because they think we’ll get them deported.”
Conall nodded. Maybe that was why Arturo hadn’t spoken at all at the dinner table. If he was Spanish-speaking, he probably hadn’t understood a word anyone said.
“I assume the county or whoever licenses her doesn’t know this.”
“I assume not. And that’s if it’s true. It may not be.”
“Oh, I’d bet it is. Phillips didn’t know anything about the two littlest kids she has, except that she told him they were real temporary. He figured it was a receiving home thing.” Conall laughed again. “No wonder she hasn’t been as warm and welcoming as she could be.”
“She can’t be thrilled with the arrangement anyway. She’s got two men moving in with her. Must be awkward as hell. You’re extra work, could be a bad influence on the kids. Worse yet, what if the bad guys next door learn you’re there? Your presence could put those kids in danger.”
Conall couldn’t argue. In fact, offhand he couldn’t think of an upside for Lia. When he thought about it, he guessed maybe she’d been decent to the two strange men she’d been saddled with.
Should he try to reassure her that they weren’t interested in immigration issues, either? Was there any way to do that without letting her know that she was on the local law enforcement radar? Without scaring the crap out of her?
No. There wasn’t.
He’d keep his mouth shut, he decided.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Duncan said. “We could maybe find a reason to knock on their door without making them suspicious.”
“Not yet. Sooner or later they’ll show themselves. If we can get some photos, identify faces, then we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”
“Okay,” Duncan said.
Conall recognized a signal and slid off the stool. “I’d better get back.”
“Jane will want to have you to dinner.”
Conall depended on his instincts, developed over years of perilous undercover work. What he didn’t often do was pause to think, How do I feel about that? His stride checked briefly when he discovered he didn’t recognize what he was feeling. Something was going on inside him, but he didn’t know what. It seemed that he was okay with the idea of socializing with his brother and sister-in-law. And that was worrisome. This whole experience was like being flipped upside down and given a good hard shake. Things weren’t settling back into the right places.
Remembering the look of warning his sister-in-law had given him, he said, “I’d actually like that. I told Niall I want to meet his wife, too. And their kids.”
“We’ll do a family get-together.” Did Duncan sound as bemused as Conall felt?
Maybe.
Needing to get out of there, Conall departed after only a few more words, all polite and shallow as a coat of paint.
Where was the bone-deep anger? The resentment? The intense gratitude he’d hated most of all?
Nowhere to be found.
There was a whole mess of stuff going on inside him, but none of it was familiar. That left him unsteady, a stranger to himself. Not a sensation he liked.
* * *
LIA DIDN’T MAKE IT OUT to feed the horses until dark. The younger kids were all in bed. Having Sorrel was something of a blessing right now, as Lia trusted her enough to believe she’d respond to sounds of distress. Otherwise Lia wouldn’t be able to linger outside, as she was doing tonight.
She’d quartered an apple and brought that out, too. She loved the feel of the soft lips on her palm, the whiskers tickling her. Noses butted her chest and she laughed aloud.
Eventually she returned to the porch, where she’d probably hear any cries as she’d left the living room window open to the night air. She chose to sit on the porch with her feet on the top step, her arms wrapping her knees. She didn’t even kid herself that she was here to enjoy the solitude.
She was waiting for Special Agent Conall MacLachlan.
He wasn’t quite what she’d first thought. Although she wasn’t sure what that was. He’d both stirred something in her and scared her from first sight. She told herself she didn’t like him.
The other agent—Jeff Henderson—seemed like an okay guy. Almost too normal to be a federal agent. When she’d asked at breakfast this morning about his family, he had whipped