Austensibly Ordinary (16 page)

As the song slid to a close, I was jolted back into the awareness that I was here with Ethan tonight, not Jake. And as agreed, I'd be going home with Ethan too. Which meant something entirely different than going home with Jake. Ethan dropped his arms and checked his watch, a very expensive-looking number that somehow seemed incongruous against Ethan's sensible, frugal persona.

“Give me fifteen minutes, and we'll go. Unless you want to wait to see if you can catch the bouquet,” he teased, smiling in that boyish way he had that always had me forgiving him much too quickly. I set my mouth in a tight line and tried for unforgiving. Never one to give up, Ethan leaned in, his lips just skimming my ear and his breath hot on my neck. A spike of electricity shot up my spine with enough juice to shake my lips loose and offer up a breathy sigh.

“Go find Mr. Tielman and treat him to fifteen minutes with Cate Kendall. See if he can keep up.” And then he walked away from me.

It took me five full minutes to recover from those ten seconds, and by then Jake Tielman was nowhere to be found. Coincidence or fate. . . it could have been either. But my money was on magic.

E
than's house was one of those sleek new “green” houses—the sort made from reclaimed materials with a teensy carbon footprint. (Me? I was still living in Mom's chunky footprint.) It was all straight lines and right angles, and only five minutes from Mom's. Curious that I never knew that. And even more curious that this house seemed way out of a teacher's pay grade. Even a teacher as multilingual and multifaceted as Ethan. This was rapidly turning into quite the little mystery.

Knowing I wouldn't get any clues out of Ethan, I kept my comments confined to the sort offered up by the casual visitor. (It should be noted that I no longer considered myself anything of the sort.) I insisted on the deluxe tour—and even had a couple of minutes to myself when Ethan changed out of his best-man garb—but the only thing that popped out at me was Ethan's collection of vintage globes and maps—his entire home office was papered in them. Interesting.

Clearly I was going to have to come up with some sort of strategy to discover precisely what Ethan was hiding. And I was going to have to go about it with a certain amount of flair.

What I needed was a distraction. . . .

“So. . .? Does it live up to all the hype?” Ethan asked, striding back into the room in a T-shirt and pajama pants.

“If the hype you're referring to is me insisting I get to come over, then yeah,” I told him, nodding, “it does.”

“Okay, well then good. And I assume you didn't see any evidence that I've been killing people in my spare time? No grudge-bearing bulletin boards, surgical tools, random tarps . . .”

“That's true. Although all that computer equipment in your home office could probably contact your home planet . . .
if
you were an alien,” I countered.

“Would you like to see if you can pull off my human head to find the reptile alien beast beneath?”

“Maybe later.”

“So what's it gonna take, Cate?” he asked, seemingly resigned as he headed to the kitchen. I followed, glancing around me, full of curiosity. I wanted to skim my fingers over the volumes in his bookshelves, get the story on the trio of miniature elephants that traipsed across his mantel, and get culinary with his countertop herb garden. I wanted to know the him I was missing. But short of asking questions and watching him artfully dodge them, I hadn't a clue how to proceed.

I wondered, fleetingly, if I could get him to let me crash on his couch, giving me an after-hours, unsupervised window of opportunity. But I had serious doubts as to Ethan's agreeableness to the idea.
Think, Cate!

He set a glass of orange juice on the counter for me, and I climbed onto the closest bar stool to pick his brain, even though my own felt like an old sweater, recently de-pilled. I gulped down half of the juice, hoping the vitamin C would give me a little problem-solving boost.

I laid my hands flat on the counter and tapped out a quick little beat. “So.” I looked up at Ethan—sipping his own juice, barefoot in his eco-modern kitchen, a dark shadow of stubble shifting on his jaw—and had to regroup with another fortifying sip of juice.

“I would actually like to take a look at that journal again. Full-sized.”

“I think it'd be good for you. It's mostly about girls outsmarting boys.”

Ethan smirked, likely at all those poor, delusional girls, me included. “And which boy are you outsmarting?”

I ignored that question. I didn't have an answer for either of us. “You'll have to tolerate quite a lot of romance,” I warned, glancing up at him. I didn't predict such a casual statement might be awkward, but it was, and I looked away first to stare into my quickly dwindling OJ. “That's Gypsy Jane's specialty.”

“Gypsy Jane?”

“The last entry I read today likened the journal's omniscient and prophetic advice to the fortunes told by traveling gypsies. When I remembered how we found the book smack in the middle of the Trailer Park, I considered it a fitting nickname for the reincarnation of Ms. Austen here in Austin.” I smiled, raising my eyebrows in challenge.

Time for a little change of subject. I decided to let Cat do the honors.

“Now, how about I slip into something more comfortable,” I purred.

Turns out it felt as awkward as hell, sitting in the cozy glow of Ethan's spotless kitchen and facing his intent stare. So I shifted gears. “Seriously, Chavez. Cut a girl a break. Do you have a pair of sweats, or maybe some satin pajamas I could borrow? I'm wearing vanilla body lotion, so I guarantee they'll smell yummy when I give them back to you.” I took another quick shot of OJ, tamping down on the urge to giggle. I'd been weirdly flirtatious all evening, pushing the limits of his comfort zone, but now the teasing felt almost beyond my control.

Ethan put his juice down on the counter. “Just how long did you plan on staying?” he inquired with a sardonic lift of his brows.

It was obvious I was on his last nerve, but having finally stepped into the man's secret lair, I planned to hunker down for a little stay—who knew when I'd be invited back.

“Just long enough for me to pick your brain a little.”

“Uh-huh.” He seemed skeptical. “Let me see what I can find. It won't be satin pajamas,” he warned.

The second he was out of sight, I did a little victory dance, but I was back under control, finishing up my juice, when he returned with a pair of plaid pajama pants and a sweatshirt with “Virginia” emblazoned across the chest.

“What happened in Virginia?” I asked.

“Plenty,” he said wryly.

“Why do you have a Virginia sweatshirt?” I clarified flatly, wondering if the man could answer a single question without suspicion or misdirection. It felt like I was forever firing missiles and he was forever launching countermeasures.

“I lived there for a little while after college,” he said.

This was news to me. “Were you teaching?”

“No.” No doubt in reaction to my steely-eyed stare, he clarified, ever so slightly. “I worked as a translator.”

“Really?!” Here was an interesting little tidbit. “What language?”

“Several.”

“Look at you, Chavez! You just got interesting. A translator for whom?”

“Lots of companies need translators for their overseas operations.”

“Uh-huh. And who needed you?”

“Evidently you did,” he said, gesturing to the sweatshirt in my hands. “You going to change into that?”

I leveled him with a determined stare.
I'm going to break you, Chavez, just wait.

“Fine,” I said, swiveling on my bar stool. He was throwing me scraps, and we both knew it, but I'd take them. And bide my time.

I slid the clothes off the counter with an irritated swipe and strolled down the hall to the guest bathroom. It took me all of ten seconds to slip out of my frothy dress and into the warm comfort of Ethan's clothes. The sweatshirt smelled like him, spice and soap, and I breathed deep before padding back down the hall, dropping onto the sofa, and curling my feet up underneath me. I pulled a pillow onto my lap and waited for Ethan to mosey in from the kitchen.

“I bet we could use your expertise as a linguistics major and recently discovered translator in deconstructing the journal.”

“That expertise hasn't been particularly useful in helping me deconstruct this conversation,” he pointed out wryly. Leaning toward me from his seat on a leather club chair, planting his forearms on his thighs, Ethan pitched his voice low, to a shiver-inducing pitch. “You're bullshitting, Cate. You don't want to talk about the journal. You know that, and I know that.” His eyebrow rose ever so slightly, and I gritted my teeth. “The truth is, you're here hoping to ferret out a couple of irrelevant little details about my life because you're on some Girl Friday kick. Admit it.”

I tipped my head slightly, keeping my eyes on him, and finally decided to come clean.

“Fine. You've outwitted me, Chavez. Happy?” I sighed deeply. “How about you cut me a break and throw me an irrelevant little detail?”

Ethan held my gaze, his eyes unblinking behind his lenses for an uncomfortably intense moment, before leaning back in his chair and indulging himself in a good, long eye roll. He was clearly exasperated, but he wasn't asking me to leave, so I decided to press my luck even further. I'd exasperated him plenty of times before, often with good results.

“Twenty questions.” I probably didn't have a shot in hell at getting him to agree to that, but it had worked pretty well with Jake, even though we hadn't gotten around to all twenty. “Yes-or-no only,” I offered. “But you've only got one pass.”

“Isn't that what we've been doing for the last five minutes?”

“Similar, but without the evasion tactics.”

“Fine,” he finally agreed. “But you only have two minutes.”

“Done,” I said, willing myself not to get overly excited. Otherwise the adrenaline was going to trip me up.

“Okay. Starting now?” My hands were fluttery.

Ethan glanced down at his expensive watch, pushed a couple of little buttons, and said, “Go.” And oh, he looked smug.

“Did your teacher's salary pay for that watch?” I asked, winging one eyebrow up.

If he was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. He was enviably calm. “No.”

“Are you a trust-fund baby?”

“No.”

“Did your last job set you up for life?” I remembered the conversation I'd had with my class suggesting I could be a millionaire, teaching for the fun of it. It was going to be ironic as hell if that description fit Ethan.

“No.”

“Did you steal that watch?”

“No.”

“Get it as a gift?”

“No.”

“Is it
MIB
issue. . . or the like?”

“Or the like?? Seriously? Is your question, did the watch come from some sort of interplanetary protection force?”

I nodded and tapped the spot on my wrist where my expensive watch should be.

He pursed his lips, completely baffled, irritated, and exasperated. If I learned nothing at all from this inquisition, I'd always have this moment.

“No.”

“Did you buy it?” Just to confirm.

“Yes.”

“So you have another job, besides teaching and IT work at the school?”

I almost didn't catch it, but he blinked an extra time before answering.

“Yes.”

Now we were getting somewhere. I sat up straighter, pushing the pillow away from me.

“Is it computer related?”

“Yes.” Now I heard a slight edge in his voice.

“Are you a translator?”

“Yes.”

“Do you work during the week?”

He waited a beat before answering.

“Yes.”

“On weekends?”

“Yes.”

“Is that where you were this week—at this other job?”

“Yes.”

I was on fire! Now if I could just pin down who he was working for. . . .

And then I had an epiphany.

“Other than your desire to cultivate an air of mystery, are you keeping this job secret for a reason?”

I didn't actually see any beads on Ethan's brow, but I had a feeling I was making him sweat, and that felt
awesome.

“Yes.”

“Will you get in trouble if I pin you down in this game of twenty questions?”

He briefly considered his answer. “No.” He checked his watch, and I swooped in for the kill.

“Do you work for the government?” My head was suddenly swimming with thoughts of
Burn Notice.

“Yes.”

My heart rate, which had been steadily increasing right along with the titillation involved in juicy secrets finally revealed, was beating out a rapid, encouraging tattoo.

“FBI?”

“No.” This was literally gritted out. I was closing in, and I knew it. And so did he.

“CIA?”

After our impromptu rapid-fire Q&A, the next few seconds felt like they played out in slow motion. Ethan's cell phone buzzed from the kitchen counter, and we simultaneously looked over at it. Then, with a quick, unreadable glance at me, he was up out of his chair to retrieve it.

“Answer the question,” I called after him.

With a glance at the caller ID, he checked his watch and announced, “Time's up. And I've gotta take this. Give me five minutes.”

Before the ringing stopped, he was down the hall, closing the door to his office with a quiet tap. And I was all alone on the couch, staring after him, wondering if I'd just imagined that whole back-and-forth.