The Agent Next Door (4 page)

Not that Erin could blame her. Barbara
Michalson might have been married for twenty-five years and have
two daughters in college and one about to go into her senior year
of high school, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t appreciate the
good things in life. And there was no doubt that John Ryman
certainly qualified as that.

Barbara stopped a few feet away, and
unapologetically looked John up and down. “You must be the new
neighbor Marianne was telling us about. I thought she had to be
exaggerating, but it looks like I was wrong.”

“John Ryman,” he said.

Barbara ignored his outstretched hand and
instead wrapped her arm around his. “Well, come on John. Let me
introduce you to everyone.”

And just like that, Erin was left alone.

She watched as Barbara led John away across
the perfectly manicured lawn toward the massive grill puffing smoke
at the far corner of the house. John craned his head back toward
Erin, and she gave him a smile and a finger wave. He’d be fine.
Barbara might be a little handsy, but she was harmless—well,
mostly. But more than that, she was good to her word. By the end of
the evening John would know everyone in the neighborhood.

Erin drew in a deep breath and looked over
the sea of faces. She’d be fine too. These were her friends. She’d
always come solo to this party. This year was nothing different. So
why was she feeling so deflated now that she was alone? She hadn’t
been expecting John to stay by her side all night. He wasn’t her
date. Not a real one.

Erin caught sight of Marianne sitting in a
chair talking with a group of neighborhood wives. She frowned as
Erin approached the porch.

“Where’s Muscles?”

“Muscles?” Erin leaned against a wooden
support beam at the edge of the porch. “
John
is with
Barbara. She’s introducing him to all the neighbors.”

Marianne shook her head. “Silly girl. Why on
Earth did you let him go?”

“Let him go? He’s not mine to keep.”

“And with that attitude, he never will
be.”

“It’s a party, Marianne. People mingle at
parties.”

Marianne waved away her argument. “Just don’t
say I didn’t warn you when he ends up going home with that yoga
instructor who rents the in-law unit from the Frasers.”

Erin shrugged her shoulders, pretending that
Marianne’s words didn’t trigger a slow sinking feeling deep in her
belly.

“Marianne has been telling us all about your
new neighbor,” Caroline Oates said. Erin looked over at her. They’d
only met a handful of times, but she seemed nice enough.

“Of course she has,” Erin said. She hadn’t
expected anything less.

“We saw you sneak in the side with him,”
Stephanie Duncan, whose house was three down from Erin’s, moved
over to Erin’s side. Stephanie, on the other hand, was far from her
favorite person.

“I wasn’t sneaking. We came in through the
gate, just like everybody else.”

Stephanie gave an exaggerated nod. “Not that
I blame you, clinging to his side. You’re lucky to have a neighbor
like that.”

“I wasn’t clinging to anybody,” Erin tried.
She shouldn’t have bothered. Stephanie went on talking as though
she wasn’t there.

“I’m stuck with Mr. Jensen next door. I swear
the man waits until he knows I’m at the sink looking out the
kitchen window before he goes out every morning to get the paper in
his robe. I’ll never understand how someone with that big of a
belly can have such scrawny legs. I mean, how does he stay
upright?”

“Mr. Jensen is a nice man,” Erin said.

“Well, sure, but he’s not a looker like your
Mr. Ryman.”

“He’s not
my
Mr. Ryman.”

All the brows in the circle of women arched
in near unison. What in the world had Marianne been telling them?
There was nothing going on between her and John. That should have
been obvious to anyone with eyes. Did she have to spell it out for
them?

“Besides, even if I was interested. Everyone
knows that men like him don’t go for big girls,” Erin said.

“Real men don’t give a damn about what
everyone knows,” a deep voice came from close behind her. “They
make up their minds for themselves.”

Erin froze.

Crap.

How long had he been back there? Erin glanced
over at Marianne, wordlessly asking the question with her wide
eyes. She should have known better. Marianne just smiled back,
offering no help whatsoever.

“We were just talking about…some people that
we know. People that aren’t here.”

Smooth. Real smooth.

Erin turned around. John stood just behind
her, watching her with the same steady gaze as before. Had he
bought it? Did he know she was a filthy liar? His expression gave
nothing away.

Whatever thoughts were going through his
head, they couldn’t have been too bad. He stepped to her side,
close enough that their arms brushed against each other. She wasn’t
the only one who noticed. Every eye was on them.

“I thought you were getting the Grand Tour,”
Erin said.

“I did. The yard’s not that big.”

“I’m just surprised Barbara let you go so
easily.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” he said looking
down at her. “I wanted to get back to you before I had to
leave.”

What?

“You have to go?” she asked.

John glanced down at the phone palmed in his
right hand. “Work. I’m afraid it’s urgent.”

“Of course.” Erin nodded, trying to fight off
the wave of disappointment that was crashing over her. It wasn’t
like he was her date, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time.
“I understand. I, uh, guess I’ll see you around.”

John looked her straight in the eye. He held
the gaze for a few seconds, long enough for the heat in her cheeks
to spread through the rest of her body.

“I’ll see you very soon,” he said, and
without another word, he turned and strode away.

Erin watched him go, waiting until he’d slid
out the garden gate before turning back to find a circle of amazed
faces staring at her.

“Told you,” Erin said, suddenly wishing that
she had gone to get a beer before coming to socialize. “He’s not
interested.”

“Sugar,” Stephanie chimed in. “If that’s the
way John Ryman looks at a woman he’s not interested in, then he can
ignore the hell out of me anytime he wants.”

Chapter 3

It had been a long night. John glanced down
at the clock on the dashboard of his Range Rover as he finally
pulled into his driveway.

6:47 A.M.

A damned long, miserable night. Maybe the
most miserable of his career.

Then again, maybe not.

After all, he hadn’t spent the midnight hours
hunkered down in a rocky hill cave, taking heavy artillery fire
like he had in Kandahar, or wondering if every step he took brought
him into the crosshairs of a sniper’s scope like in Mosul. Instead,
he’d worked through the night in the relative safety of a modern
skyscraper, trapped in a room filled with computers and audio
equipment and real-time digital displays.

Still, it hadn’t been a great night.

When the mission he was in command of had
crashed and burned, he’d been no damned use to anyone. He was
nothing but another suit behind a desk listening as his people put
their lives on the line. It had torn him apart inside, not being
able to fight alongside of his agents, to take his fair share of
the risk.

Heading the mission to bring down the
Mustaar, an Estonian-based gun trafficking organization, had been
John’s first real assignment in his new position. He’d infiltrated
the Mustaar with a couple of hand-picked agents, an elite team
trained for this kind of intense deep-cover mission. For weeks all
had been going well.

Until last night. One of his men had his
cover blown, and, Hendrik Kallus, the head of the Mustaar had taken
it upon himself to torture the agent—his agent—until the man broke
and gave up the identity of his partner.

John scrambled a tactical team and sent them
to storm Kallus’s compound. Meanwhile, forty miles away, he paced
the carpet and agonized over every shot and breath that came over
the wire.

In the end, every one of his agents made it
out of the Mustaar compound. But it wasn’t a total victory. Despite
eliminating four Mustaar guards, and capturing half a dozen more,
Kallus had escaped.

That wasn’t the worst of it. Kallus’s wife
had perished in the firefight. No one had meant for it to happen.
When the fighting started, Alina Kallus had come down the stairs,
gun in hand, and opened fire on his agents. She’d left them with no
choice. Her death had been unavoidable. But, if John understood the
man at all, he knew that Kallus would never let his wife’s death
go. He could never slink back to Tallinn without avenging his
own.

John turned off the ignition and looked at
his reflection in the rearview mirror. Dark circles shadowed his
eyes. Deep lines creased the skin of his forehead. He needed sleep.
Even a few hours would help clear his head and let him plan their
next move.

He was reaching for the door handle when a
flutter of movement in the mirror caught his attention. Someone was
across the street. He turned in his seat and looked out the back
window, straight across to Erin’s house.

He waited another second and saw the flash of
dark fabric again. Someone was over on Erin’s porch. At the crack
of dawn.

John pushed open the car door and jumped down
onto the pavement. He raced across the cul-de-sac and up Erin’s
soft, green lawn. He took the wooden steps to her door in one
stride, ready to take out a night of pent up aggression on whoever
he found peering in her windows…and stopped short.

A tiny feminine yelp sounded from the corner
of the patio. John looked down to find a pair of bright blue eyes
staring up at him, wide as the moon.

“Erin,” he said, looking down at where she
sat cross-legged in a charcoal grey sweatsuit. A tan flower pot was
nestled between her legs. “What are you doing out here?”

“Me?” she said, her voice shaky with shock.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“I’m sorry. I saw someone moving around on
your porch and I thought…”

Her expression softened. “You thought someone
was sneaking around my house.”

He nodded. “I didn’t expect you to be up this
early.”

“I’m not usually, but I wanted to finish up
all this planting before I left for the day.” She cocked her head
to the side. “Why are
you
up at the crack of dawn playing
hero?”

“I just got home.”

“From work?”

He nodded.

“Wow. That must have been some
emergency.”

“It was.”

“Did somebody file the blue copy instead of
the yellow one?”

John’s brows pulled together. “Excuse
me?”

“Never mind,” she said smiling up at him. A
dimple appeared in her right cheek, deep and adorable. “It was a
joke. A bad one. I just don’t know what constitutes a bureaucratic
emergency.”

Despite his weariness, John found a grin
starting to spread across his face. “Did you just call me a
bureaucrat?”

“You work in the Federal Building, right?
That makes you a bureaucrat.”

“Solid reasoning.”

“Don’t sound so hurt. I work with computers,
so I guess that makes me a nerd. But, I’m a nerd with a full pot of
coffee. Can I offer you a cup?”

Coffee was probably the last thing that John
needed, but he found that he wasn’t quite ready to leave Erin’s
side yet. After a long, tense night, she was a beautiful sight, all
softness and smiles. He felt the tension in his shoulders ease just
a touch.

“I’d love one,” he said.

“Great.” She put the pot down, and unfolded
her legs. John held out his hand to help her up. She slipped her
hand into his as he lifted her up.

He knew from her words last night that she
was self-conscious about her size, but there was nothing heavy
about her.

John followed her through the front door. She
pointed him toward the overstuffed living room sofa.

“How do you take your coffee?” she asked.

“Black.”

“Of course you do.” She laughed as she
disappeared into the kitchen.

John sat down on the couch and sank into the
plush pillows. He rested his head back against the velvety
covering. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep. A light scent of
flowers filled his senses. Everything inside him relaxed.

What felt like a moment later, a floorboard
creaked and John’s eyes snapped open. Erin wasn’t in the kitchen
any longer. She was standing on the other side of the coffee table,
a pale blue mug in her hand. There was a white porcelain one on the
table in front of him. A slight smile lifted the corner of Erin’s
lips as she gazed down at him.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

John straightened his back. “Sorry. I dozed
off.”

“No apology needed. You’ve had a long night,
and I know just how comfy that couch is.”

John rubbed his eyes as he leaned forward. He
picked up the mug. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“No problem. Feel free to hang out and enjoy
it,” she said. “I have to go get ready.”

“Where are you going?”

She drew in a long breath, and looked down.
“To see my mom. I go visit her every Sunday.”

Her mom. Frank Holliday’s wife was still
alive? Obviously she was, but, with the long list of crimes that
the pair of them had racked up, she had to be locked away.

Which explained the touch of shame tinting
Erin’s cheeks.

“I should go home,” John said, and stood.

Erin raised her chin. Her soft blue gaze
warmed something deep in John’s chest. “You don’t have to. You’re
welcome to stay and have your coffee. Or nap. Either way is fine
with me.”

“I don’t want to be in the way.”

“You’re not.”

If it was any other place, any other person,
he would have left already. Hell, he would have never even gone
inside. But Erin wasn’t like anyone else. Just being near her
seemed to soothe the troubled knot inside him.