Abandon (2 page)

Not anymore. After Harris’s little bombshell, Rook had no choice. He couldn’t mix business with pleasure. He had to cancel dinner with Mackenzie. He had a job to do.

M
ackenzie Stewart shoved a flannel shirt into her backpack with more force than was necessary. She had the air-conditioning turned up, but she was hot—hot and agitated and in no mood to have Nate Winter, perhaps the most observant man on the planet, in her kitchen with her.

Although it wasn’t technically
her
kitchen.

She was a temporary resident in a corner of a historic 1850s house in Arlington. Nate’s archaeologist wife, Sarah, was in charge of getting it open to the public, a task apparently fraught with twists, turns and setbacks. Just when she thought everything was under control, the place sprang unexpected, unexplained massive leaks. Some people were convinced the leaks were the work of the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, long-rumored to haunt the house. Mackenzie didn’t believe in ghosts. She blamed worn-out plumbing.

Nate and Sarah, pregnant with their first child, had moved into a house of their own in the spring. Sarah had offered the caretaker’s quarters to Mackenzie when she arrived in Washington six weeks ago. While she looked for a place of her own, Mackenzie could be a presence at the historic house, discouraging ghosts and potential vandals, and staying alert for new leaks.

She zipped up her backpack. She was in shorts, but was still hot. “Nate, did you and Sarah ever encounter Abe and Bobby E. while you were living here?”

Sitting at the small kitchen table, Nate watched her with a level of scrutiny that got to most people. He was a feet-flat-on-the-floor senior deputy marshal, tall, lean and notoriously impatient. He, too, was from Cold Ridge, New Hampshire, and Mackenzie had known him all her life. He was like the big brother she’d never had, and he didn’t scare her.

“I never did,” he said.

“Meaning Sarah did?”

He shrugged. “You’d have to talk to her.”

Mackenzie suspected that if Nate had his way, her first assignment as a federal agent would have been in Alaska or Hawaii, not his backyard. He worked at the U.S. Marshals headquarters in Arlington, and she was assigned to the Washington district office—still too close for his comfort. If she flamed out on her first assignment, better she wasn’t right under his nose.

If he’d
really
had his way, she’d be writing her dissertation and teaching political science back in New Hampshire, uninterested in dipping a toe into his world.

Since he didn’t have his way, he was doing what he could to help her get acclimated to her new profession. Which, on most days, she appreciated.

“You’re taking a long weekend,” Nate said.

“That’s right. I worked it out with my chief.”

“You’ve only been in D.C. for six weeks.”

His tone was mild, without any detectable criticism, but Mackenzie knew he didn’t approve. She still had boxes stacked against a wall in the kitchen, and bags of paper cups and plates were on the counter, signs she hadn’t fully moved in yet—physically or emotionally. She could feel Nate wondering if she’d changed her mind about staying, about remaining in law enforcement at all.

He’d never believed she’d get through the weeks of rigorous training at the federal academy. He wasn’t alone. No one had believed it. Not one solitary person, including her own mother. They didn’t lack faith in her or want her to fail—they just didn’t believe she was meant to be a cop of any kind.

To be fair, Mackenzie wasn’t sure she’d believed it herself, but when she finally secured her spot at the academy, she went all-out. She didn’t let doubts—her own or anyone else’s—deter her. She refused to let anything derail her, not her size, her level of fitness, her temperament, her sense of humor. She figured she’d either discover she hated law enforcement and quit, or she’d shoot off her mouth and get the boot.

“Why take a personal day now?” Nate asked.

Because she needed to get her head screwed back on straight after making the classic new-in-town mistake of dating a guy she’d met in the rain. At first she thought Rook was a good-looking Washington bureaucrat. Instead, he turned out to be an FBI agent, violating one of the rules she’d established for herself at the academy—no getting involved with other law enforcement officers.

But she told Nate, “I’m still getting acclimated to the heat.”

“You didn’t have trouble with the heat in Georgia.”

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center was located in Glynco, Georgia, a hot climate, but Mackenzie refused to let Nate throw her off. She wasn’t telling him about Rook. Period. “I didn’t say I was having trouble.”

“You were in town last night for a literacy fund-raiser.”

She glanced at him. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “Someone mentioned it.”

“Who? Beanie?”

“No. I don’t see a lot of her.”

“She invited me. She wanted to introduce me to people. I only stayed a half hour. I think she’s just trying to be a friend now that I’m in Washington, but she’s not quite sure what to do with me.”

Nate stretched out his long legs. “Next time, tell her to invite you for pie and coffee.” He paused, watching as Mackenzie used her foot to push her backpack against the wall next to the door. “Who did you see at the party?”

She hadn’t expected that question. “What do you mean? I saw Beanie. She introduced me to a few people, but that’s about it.”

“Did you see Cal?”

“For about ten seconds. He showed up late and left early.”

Nate got to his feet. He seemed more settled since his move to USMS Headquarters and his marriage to Sarah Dunnemore, but he was hard-bitten, impatient, unrelenting. When he was seven—before Mackenzie was born—his parents had been caught up in the mountains, on notorious Cold Ridge, in unexpected, frigid, difficult conditions. They’d died of hypothermia and exposure before help could reach them, leaving behind Nate and his two younger sisters, Antonia, five, and Carine, just three. Their father’s twenty-year-old brother, Gus, just back from Vietnam, had stepped in to raise his orphaned nephew and nieces.

“I think it’d be smart for you to make new friends,” Nate said now.

“Cal’s not a friend. I’ve never had much use for him.” Mackenzie let out a breath, aware that she’d let Nate throw her off balance. “I don’t know if I’d call Beanie a friend in the sense you mean. I’ve known her all my life. She’s a good neighbor.”

“A neighbor in New Hampshire. Not here. Here, Mackenzie, she’s a member of the federal judiciary. You’re a deputy U.S. marshal. There’s a difference.”

“Thanks, Nate, I couldn’t have figured that out myself—”

“I’m trying to look out for you.”

She knew it was true, but her usual good nature had taken a thrashing when she got back last night and listened to the voice mail from Rook. He hadn’t even had the decency to ax her in person.

“Sorry, Mac, can’t do dinner. I’ll see you around. Maybe we’ll run into each other on the job. Good luck.”

Low. Very low.

The “good luck” had really ticked her off.

“Mackenzie?”

She jerked herself back to the present. Thinking about Rook wasn’t smart. If she even pictured him in her mind, she swore Nate would know. Somehow, he’d figure it out. She made herself smile at him. “Sorry. I let the heat get to me.”

“It’s about forty-seven in here with the way you have the air-conditioning cranked up.”

“It’s seventy-two. You’re just used to the Washington weather. If you had to go back to New Hampshire—”

“I’d get good gloves for the winter.”

She grinned at him. “Are you saying I can’t take the heat?”

He didn’t smile back. “Mackenzie, I know you’re new in town, but you have to trust me.”

Obviously, he knew something was up with her. He started to go on, but she raised a hand. “I appreciate your help and support, Nate. Don’t think I don’t. I just…Give me this weekend, okay?”

Even that didn’t satisfy him. “Your parents are house swapping with an Irish couple. You’re staying at Beanie’s place on the lake?”

“Do you know
everything,
Deputy Winter? Beanie offered—”

“When?”

“I stopped by her office after work.”

Mackenzie didn’t explain further. She hadn’t mentioned Rook’s voice mail, but Bernadette had obviously sensed something was wrong and immediately invited Mackenzie to stay at her place at the lake.
“I’ll think of you while I’m sweating here in Washington and falling asleep at my desk.”

Sweating, Mackenzie believed. Washington was in the middle of a heat wave that was brutal even by its standards. But Bernadette Peacham’s work ethic—her ex-husband would say workaholism—would never permit her to fall asleep at her desk.

Nate ran the toe of his running shoe along the bottom edge of Mackenzie’s backpack, as if it might yield some of her secrets. “I’m not going to lecture you,” he said.

“I appreciate that.”

“You’ve been here only six weeks. Any sense that you’re distracted—”

“I’m not. I’ll be back at my desk first thing Monday morning, hunting fugitives.”

Her stab at humor didn’t seem to register with him. “Sarah wants to have you over to dinner.” He gave a half smile. “She has a new casserole recipe she wants to try.”

His wife, a native Tennessean, was famous for her southern casseroles. Mackenzie smiled in turn. “So long as she makes fried apricot pies for dessert, I’m game.”

Nate started to say something else, but broke off. “All right. I’ll keep my powder dry for now and see you back here next week.”

Mackenzie took a breath, debating whether to press him on what he wasn’t saying. Did he know about her involvement with Rook? Possible, but unlikely. She hadn’t told Nate she was seeing someone. Not that she was hiding it—the subject just hadn’t come up.

Still, Rook was a hotshot FBI agent, and Nate had been around a long time and knew everyone.

“Nate—” She stopped herself, deciding there was no point in dredging up a few dates with a guy who’d just dumped her. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Anytime, Deputy.”

After he’d left, Mackenzie checked the air-conditioning. It
was
cool in the house. She turned the temperature up slightly, then listened for ghosts. “Abe? Bobby E.?” She whistled as if calling them. “I sure could use your advice right now.”

Yeah,
she thought.
About why I’m talking to ghosts.

Because it kept her from thinking about Rook.

At least she didn’t have to worry about him blabbing to a senior federal agent who treated her like a third sister. Rook was ambitious, as well as humorless, and a snake, and he’d keep mum about having given her the boot.

She’d be more careful next time some good-looking man got out of the rain with her, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret the movies and dinners with him—and the kisses, she thought. The brush of his fingertips on her breasts, her back…

What had prompted him to cancel—correction—to dump her altogether? Had he learned something about her that he thought would hurt his career? She hadn’t been on the job that long. She was closely supervised. She hadn’t had a chance to screw up or develop a bad reputation.

Bernadette? Did Rook not approve of her friendship with a federal judge? But that made no sense. Bernadette was a solid, fair judge with an excellent reputation.

A knock on the back porch door startled Mackenzie out of her obsessing.

Cal Benton, looking awkward, gave a curt wave through the glass panel.

She opened the door. “Hey, Cal. I’m glad you’re not a ghost. You had me worried there for a second.”

“A ghost?” He seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. “Mackenzie, are you all right?”

“Never mind. Please, come in.”

She stepped aside, and he strode past her into the small kitchen. He was in his late fifties, tanned, healthy, aging well—and not a man anyone who knew Bernadette would ever have expected her to marry. Before their relationship had soured, they’d said they admired each other’s intellect and experience. They could laugh together, and they enjoyed each other’s company. Apparently, something was missing, or something had gone wrong.

“I won’t keep you.” Cal was dressed in a pale gray suit, crisp-looking in spite of the heat. “Bernadette said you were going home for the weekend.”

“I’m flying into Manchester at the crack of dawn.”

“She said—” His cheeks reddened, and he sniffed awkwardly, then continued, “I understand you’re staying at her house on the lake.”

Mackenzie yanked a chair from the table and sat down, stretching out her legs and suddenly feeling tired, even more out of sorts. “I haven’t told her, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

He glared at her as if she hadn’t done him any favors. “Bernadette and I are divorced. Who I see is no longer any concern of hers.” He paused, obviously for effect. “Or yours.”

In the three years since Bernadette had met and married Calvin Benton, Mackenzie had tried to like him. Now, she didn’t bother. “Unless you and one of your ladies of the hour sneak onto Beanie’s property for a little skinny-dipping on the sly—”