Austensibly Ordinary (29 page)

Ethan's gaze settled on the journal, sitting guilelessly on the coffee table.

“Whatever happened with the journal? Did you solve the mystery—find out how the words were disappearing?” With one hand resting on my knee, he put the other to use massaging my foot.

“No.” I shook my head dismissively—somehow, it was magic, simple as that. “But that's not important. What's important—thrilling, even—is that she knew about us before
we
knew about us.”

His hand stilled on my foot. I glanced at the pair and then shifted my gaze to Ethan's face. His eyebrow was raised in wry amusement.

“Jane Austen's been keeping an eye on you for two years?” he demanded, referring to the beginning of our friendship.

“It's not out of the realm of possibility,” I mumbled, pulling the book off the table and gripping it with both hands. “But fine, she knew about us before
I
knew about us—happy?”

“I would have been happier if you'd been a tad more perceptive at some point in the past two years,” he said seriously, starting in on the massage again.

I decided to let him have that one.

“Well, she held my hand the whole way—even when you didn't,” I told him, adding a little sass. “She even showed up . . . to clarify a few things.” It may as well have been an intervention.

“What do you mean she showed up?”

“I mean the
ghost of Jane Austen
made an appearance in the ladies' mezzanine bathroom at the Driskill—
twice.
Words disappeared off my clipboard—seriously, it was like a supernatural magic show, and Court and I were the audience volunteers. And you can just wipe that disbelieving smirk off your face, because I have proof
and
a witness. At least for the first time.”

“She did two shows?”

I glared at him. “Can you be adult about this?”

“I'll try to keep my eyebrow under control,” he promised.

I rolled my eyes. “
Thank
you,” I condescended. “She basically confirmed that you were my Knightley—if I wanted you.”

Ethan smiled to himself. “And you figured I was your best chance to get in on the action of life as a fictional character?”

“Something like that.” I nodded, unable to keep a smile from splitting my face. “And now that I've bagged you, I need to give someone else a shot at Gypsy Jane's matchmaking prowess. I wrote my last entry earlier this evening.”

“I wondered if that's where you went.” His hand slid up my calf, and even a buffer of denim couldn't keep the goose bumps from cropping up in tingly wonder. “And did she offer you one last piece of advice?”

“I haven't checked yet,” I said. He raised his brows, making a silent suggestion.

Resigned to the reality that this was my last hurrah with a magical journal—and with Jane herself—I edged my fingers over the little book's binding, the raw edges of its pages, and its pretty little curlicued hardware. Then I slowly turned back the cover and paged once more through my days as Cat Kennedy, my stint as a secret agent, my misguided attempts at matchmaking, and my uncertainties about Ethan. Till the very last page, which read:

My lower lip came out, and my eyes felt hot and itchy with tears. I looked up at Ethan, whose face had softened at the reaction. Without a word, I handed him the book and sat up, clinging to his arm and laying my head on his shoulder.

Ethan read the words on the page and then tilted his head so that his face was only inches from mine. “For a high school English teacher, you've had an interesting couple of weeks.” He tipped the journal closed and set it gently back on the table.

I straightened up a little without letting go of his arm. “How do you know that's not just a cover?” I asked him matter-of-factly.

“I don't,” he admitted. “But I can find out . . . and I plan to be very thorough in my investigation.”

“Knock yourself out,” I said smugly.

The smugness fell away when he shifted suddenly, pushing me back on the couch under the weight of his very solid body. His breath was hot on my neck, and his hands were already skimming up under my sweater. And I smiled to myself as I murmured, “
My
Mr. Knightley.”

Luckily, Ethan didn't call me on the quote, which had come directly from the movie.

 

“I can't tell if the awesome outweighs the lame, or vice versa,” I said from the passenger seat of Ethan's parked car. A car that reeked of garlic and fried beef. En route to our “off-book” sting operation, we'd darted into the parking lot at the corner of Second Street and Congress when we'd seen the Chi'Lantro food cart flip open its serving window. We figured lunch would help us kill time during the surveillance lull. Rookie mistake. After eating two bulgogi tacos and dousing the fire with a medium-sized Coke and half of Ethan's medium tea, and then sitting, inactive but for the Words with Friends game raging between us on our iPhones, I was bored and desperate to pee.

Ethan had called in “backup” about fifteen minutes ago, reporting that the subjects were both on the premises. His actual words were “They're both here; whenever you're ready.”

When he hung up, I verbally flayed him. “Whenever you're ready?! Call them back and tell them we're ready now, and
we have to pee!
”

His head was already bent over the word game, but with a sidelong glance in my direction, he said, “They are so psyched for this that they've probably already peeled out of the parking lot. I'd go odds that one of them even tried sliding across the hood of the car, feeling a little Bo Duke. And I don't really have to pee.”

I gritted my teeth. “They” were fellow “Language Officers” Ethan had solicited to play along with this little Black Friday payback. I'd already spent a good five minutes teasing Ethan over his badass job title, but my mood had darkened slightly under the pressure, and I was willing to go for round two.

“So are you guys like real-life, legitimate grammar police?”

His gaze slid in my direction, but his expression didn't shift.

“We step in if the occasion warrants,” he deadpanned.

I couldn't help it; I started laughing, and immediately pinched my legs together to prevent an unfortunate accident.

“Real-life agents aren't nearly as cool as they're written for TV,” he said a little defensively, shooting me a sidelong glance. “We get the job done without resorting to MacGyver tactics.”

“Maybe it's the MacGyver tactics that keep the agents from dozing off. Come to think of it, the way Hollywood writes 'em, the agents don't bother to wait for backup. They just go in guns blazing, tie things up, and then go out for a drink. And maybe a bathroom break.”

“Jack Bauer never had to go to the bathroom,” Ethan said. “In twenty-four hours.”

“It was the adrenaline,” I snapped. “And I'm stuck on empty, sitting in a parked car playing virtual Scrabble. When is the damn backup going to get here?” I asked, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice, glancing in my side mirror, hoping I could make backup appear by sheer force of will. “How about we detour to the nearest convenience store while we're waiting? It'll take me two minutes, tops.”

Ethan reached behind him and produced an empty water bottle from the floor of the backseat. He offered it to me without even glancing in my direction.

I stared at it belligerently. “You planned this, didn't you? You ply me with spicy foods so that I gulp down a jumbo drink, then tell the backup to come whenever the hell they're ready, keep me sitting here for an hour, so I'm desperate to pee, and then hand me a freakin' water bottle?!”

Ethan chuckled. “If you recall, it was your idea to get tacos. And you ordered a
medium
drink and then decided to drink half of mine.”

“Dammit, Ethan!” I swung my gaze around to seethe out the window, wondering if I dared go squat behind one of the giant inflatable Santas already decorating a handful of lawns on this street. Clearly these people were proponents of the “decorate for Christmas to kill time before Thanksgiving dinner” way of thinking. My only defense for even considering such tacky behavior was that it was a freakin' emergency.

“I'm sorry, but I can't let this opportunity pass me by,” he prefaced, before saying. “Badly done, Emma. Badly done.”

I was poised to start pummeling him with the empty water bottle when a black sedan appeared at the end of the street. If this was backup, I'd gladly put my revenge on hold.

The sedan rolled up to the mailbox at the target residence, and two guys got out wearing suit jackets and white button-up shirts with no ties. And aviator sunglasses. Their slicked-back hair glinted in the sunlight. As the driver walked around the hood of the car, he glanced casually in our direction, smirked, and then gave Ethan a thumbs-up.

“So much for keeping a low profile,” Ethan muttered, glancing at me with a similarly snarky expression. I was wearing my hair tucked up into a red beret and face-swallowing sunglasses. Not to mention a scarf wrapped high on my neck. But from the neck down I was totally generic.

“What?! I don't want to be recognized!”

We both trained our eyes on the ivy-wrapped, redbrick house and its crisp black door as Ethan's fellow agents, clearly thrilled at the opportunity for a little fieldwork, knocked and waited. Piper's mom answered and then turned, calling back into the house. Shortly, Bad Manners was filling the doorway, his hand resting comfortingly on his wife's shoulder. Ethan had brought me up to speed on the plan over lunch, but when the agents knocked, he handed me an earbud, tucking a second into his own ear.

“Sir, I'm Agent Prescott and this is Agent Aberly. We're here because you are a person of interest in an ongoing investigation centering around the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin.”

It was difficult to tell from a distance, but it seemed as if Bad Manners blanched and adjusted his attitude from dismissive to fidgety with a side of bluster.

“That's ridiculous,” he said, turning to his wife. “Mer, if you want to just let me handle this, it's obviously some sort of misunderstanding.” Bad Manners looked past the agents, out over his yard and into the street, probably wondering if any of his neighbors were spying on him. As his gaze skimmed over Ethan's car, I fumbled for the seat adjustment, pulling it hard and going down with a jolt. Ethan stared down at me. I smiled, showing teeth, pretending it had been intentional.

“No, James, I think I want to hear this,” I heard Mer say. Good for her!

Agent Prescott went on. “We've had the Driskill under surveillance for weeks, sir. We suspect a couple of major players are using it as a headquarters for a high-end drug ring supplying politicians and corporate executives. We have footage of you entering the hotel on several different occasions with a woman we've long suspected to be both a courier and a call girl.”

I heard a gasp through the earbud and inched myself carefully back up, peeking over the dash.

“What are you doing?” Ethan asked calmly.

“Trying to be inconspicuous.” I felt the beret slump slightly.

“I don't think he'll come after you again after this is all over,” Ethan surmised. “If he's smart, he won't want the trouble.”

“He's not smart—he's an idiot.”

“True, but I'd wager he's an idiot with excellent self-preservation instincts.”

“Still, their daughter is a student of mine. I can't help but worry about how all this is going to affect her.”

“Do you seriously think she and her mom would be better off not knowing the kind of man he is?”

“No,” I muttered. “But that doesn't mean I want her hearing it from me.”

“She's not hearing it from you,” he said, clearly striving for patience.

“No. I'm just a spectator, gawking over some invisible crime scene tape stretched around her lawn.”

“Right.” Satisfied, Ethan turned back to get a little perspective on the snatches of conversation we were getting. I rolled my eyes, but paid attention.

“I have nothing to do with any of that,” Bad Manners blustered. “This is all one huge misunderstanding.”

“Perhaps you could help us understand, sir.” From the sound of things, Agent Aberly had been cast in the role of Good Cop.

Silence. My lips curled up in vengeful anticipation. I wasn't proud of that.

Bad Manners stared hard at the agents, probably wondering if he could threaten them with counter-investigation. He glanced at his wife, wiped a big hand down over his face, forehead to chin, and finally looked out over the lawn again, staring in our direction, with a clear view of Ethan in the driver's seat and the top three inches of my head just cresting the passenger side dash.

“I was . . . having an affair. For Christ's sake, I met her at a school board conference. I can't believe she was moonlighting as a courier for drugs and sex for hire. I never paid her anything!” The bluster fell away as quickly as it came on. “Just the occasional dinner. . .” He turned to his wife with a hangdog expression. “I'm sorry, Mer. It didn't mean anything. I've already broken it off.”

Mer did not respond. With two sidesteps to the left, Mer distanced herself from the whole proceedings.

“Okay then,” Agent Aberly said jauntily. “I think that about covers things. You're
not
a drug lord or a courier, but you
are
a cheating bastard. Definitely not a person of interest. Good to know.”