Undercover Holiday Fiancée. Maggie K. Black
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overall effect was kind of adorable.
“You infuriate me, Henry,” Chloe said. “You really do. You’ve been calling me for days and you didn’t once think to mention what you were calling me about? Why were you even calling me if you didn’t want me involved with this investigation?”
He was beginning to think it might actually have been because he’d missed her.
“I told you,” he said. “I’m undercover at your old college. Bobcaygeon is your hometown. You worked with Butler and you live half an hour from here.”
“Trillium is not my college.” She frowned. “It’s just a community college I happened to go to, before getting into the police academy. Bobcaygeon is not my hometown and owning a house somewhere I crash at between cases isn’t the same as living there.”
Well, obviously that bothered her. But he had no idea why. “So, you’re not from here, then?”
“I thought you knew me better than that, Cop Boy. I’m not from anywhere.”
“Cop Boy? I can’t call you Lady Cop, but you can call me Cop Boy?” Despite himself, she’d just made him laugh. Yeah, he had missed her. He’d missed this. The light teasing. The verbal sparring. The sense that he always had to be on his toes around her. “How can you possibly be from nowhere? Everyone’s from somewhere.”
“Not me. My little sister, Olivia, and I grew up in the back of a station wagon, squished between suitcases. I don’t know if our dad’s intentionally a con artist, or just the kind of man who’s really good at temporarily hiding the fact that he’s a jerk and convincing people he’s good at things he’s not. But he has the kind of attitude problem that makes him think that nobody is ever treating him well enough. His charm makes him great at landing jobs. But his sense of entitlement makes him terrible at keeping them.
“So we’d land somewhere new, get settled in, live there for a few months, and then he’d get into an argument with someone and back into the station wagon we’d go. Bobcaygeon happened to be where I was for the last three months of high school and I entered Trillium because moving twice in grade twelve had killed my ability to get a student loan for university. That doesn’t mean I belonged here.”
That had been a defensive monologue he hadn’t expected. What had gotten under her skin? “Then why do you own a house half an hour from here?”
“When my mother finally decided she’d had enough of my father, she had no bank account of her own and a divorce lawyer wasn’t much help in taking half of my father’s nothing. She begged me to cosign on a mortgage for her. So I did. I was twenty-two.” She crossed her arms. “A few years ago, she decided she wanted to move into a retirement building in Southern Ontario, so I took over the mortgage. I tend to rent a place wherever I’m working, so I just use it as a place to crash and leave my stuff. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about and expect you’re in the same boat.”
The huge warm Henry family farmhouse where he’d be celebrating Christmas dinner swept into his mind unbidden. He could almost feel the warmth of the fire in the living room, smell the hay in the barn and hear the rattle of cutlery and the babble of voices in the dining room as his parents and three brothers passed dishes around. No, he knew exactly what it was like to be from somewhere. He also knew what it was like to feel like he didn’t really belong there. He blinked and the thought was gone, replaced with the pale light, snow and Chloe’s eyes on his face.
“I hear you,” he said, waiting for his mind to catch up with his words. “But, like I told you, I’m on borrowed time. My cover was never supposed to drag out this long and is now nearing its expiration date. I have to figure out who’s making the stuff. That means finding who’s selling it, and I’ve spent three months completely failing to make the kind of inroads I need to with these students.”
“Hey, Officer Brant!” a female voice shouted. They turned. It was Poppy, an outspoken and dark-haired student he vaguely knew from one of his classes. She was running across the parking lot, dragging Hodge, one of his third-line players, after her.
“Poppy!” A smile filled Chloe’s face. “Glad to see you got out okay.”
“Yeah. Johnny and I piled some weights up against the door, and we stayed low until the police came for us.” She propelled Hodge forward.
Trent couldn’t help but notice that the young man wasn’t exactly smiling. Jeremy Hodgekins, better known as “Hodge,” was a giant, with a sturdy six-foot-three frame and a bright future, if he could figure out how to stay out of trouble long enough to make it through college. As far as Trent knew, he was the only member of Third Line to ever find himself in the back of a police cruiser, but only for throwing punches and nothing that had earned him more than a warning. “This is Hodge.”
“Hey,” the young man said. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” Chloe said. “It was a team effort. Your coach really saved our lives and had our backs.”
Hodge didn’t look convinced.
See, this was Trent’s problem. He could walk into any dangerous and dingy bar in the country and demand immediate respect because people knew in a glance what he was capable of. But these students? He’d never give them a reason to fear him and they’d never have a reason to trust him. Poppy whispered something in Hodge’s ear. He ran his eyes over Chloe.
“Yeah, maybe,” Hodge said. He nodded to Trent. “That’s your fiancée, right? The one whose picture you showed us. Aidan thinks so, anyway. Why didn’t you tell us you were marrying a cop?”
Heat rose to the back of Trent’s neck. He forced a grin on his face and didn’t meet Chloe’s eye.
“Well, like I told you guys, she works in northern Ontario,” Trent said. “But she came through when I needed her.”
Hodge nodded like that was enough of an explanation. The students wandered back into the crowd. Trent turned to Chloe. “I can explain—”
“You don’t need to,” Chloe said quickly. “You’re undercover. You used an old picture of me as a prop for your cover identity. It makes perfect sense.”
Did it? There was something he couldn’t quite place in her tone. Then again, something about being this close to Chloe threw his radar off.
“I just hope the fact that they now know I’m a cop won’t hurt your cover,” she added.
So did he. He took a deep breath and prayed. Lord, You’ve been the one consistent presence through everyone I’ve ever been or pretended to be. I asked You for help. Is Chloe showing up Your answer?
“We can work with it,” he said. “I need that cell phone, and I could honestly use a second brain on this case. I used that old fake-engagement picture of us taken on the gondola at Blue Mountain to bolster my cover. It was an impulse more than a grand plan, but now that you’re here, we can use it to our advantage.
“You’ll go undercover for one day as my fiancée. Tomorrow’s the twenty-third and the last day of school before the holidays. It’s the last hockey game before Christmas, too. I’ll take you to the college with me, then we can do the team dinner and you can come to the game. Maybe you’ll spot something I’ve missed. Coach Henri is a big softy, so you’ll probably want to play your cover as sweet, cute and kind of gushing. It’s not ideal, but it’s the only option I can think of and I’m not up for complications right now. So, how about it, Detective? You willing to pretend to be crazily into me in exchange for an official assist on this case?”
Her lips parted. A look floated in her eyes that was so raw the only word he could think to describe it was personal. She looked at him like they weren’t just two cops—one provincial and one federal—who sometimes worked together on joint assignments. No, she was looking at him like they were close friends or even former sweethearts, and like he’d once done something to hurt her. Then she blinked. The look was gone. “Thanks, but no. I appreciate why you used my picture for your cover.