The Newlyweds (4 page)

“But I was managing an art gallery at the time,” she recalled correctly, “which is going to be a little tough to fake, because, quite frankly, I couldn't tell you the difference between Jackson Pollack and Jackson, Mississippi.”

“Hey, at least you know Jackson Pollack's name and that he was an artist,” Sam said helpfully.

“Only because I saw the movie,” she said by way of an explanation. “And that's about the full extent of my art history education.”

“Ah.”

She shook her head ruefully and crossed her arms over her chest, and Sam tried not to be too heartbroken about that. He also tried to tell himself it wasn't a defensive gesture. But it did seem defensive. What she said next, though, told him the gesture wasn't meant for him.

“Boy, my parents would be so thrilled if this were all really true,” she said, her voice tinged not with teasing now but with a hint of melancholy.

“They didn't want you to go into law enforcement?” he asked.

“Well, they always
told
me they wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be, and to pursue a career that would make me happy, because that was all that was important,” she hedged.

“But?” Sam asked, because he heard the word coming.

She expelled a soft sound of resignation. “But I think they always hoped that what would make me happy would be to marry a wealthy local businessman, preferably the son of one of my father's colleagues, then buy a house up the street from them like this one and be a full-time mom to a houseful of kids, preferably with names like Ashley and Emily and Brandon and Biff.”

Sam couldn't quite help but smile himself at that.
“And instead, you go for names like Destiny and Zenith and Aurora, is that it?”

Now Logan smiled, too, and where she had been merely dazzling before, suddenly she was downright beatific. And those, too, were words Sam knew he shouldn't be using in relation to her. So what if they were totally appropriate?

“Actually, it's not so much the names I object to as the actual children. Don't get me wrong,” she hurried on to say before he could comment one way or another, “I think raising kids is probably the most important job out there, for a woman
or
a man. But it's not for me. I wouldn't be good at it. Which is another reason why this assignment is going to be so difficult.”

It was going to be difficult for Sam, too, but for different reasons. Because there had been a time when he
did
want a houseful of kids, and they could have been named John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt and Pippi Longstocking for all he cared. But just when he'd thought that family would become a reality, it had been stripped away from him, brutally and treacherously, and it had left him wary of ever wanting one again.

“It's funny, actually,” Logan went on, bringing Sam's thoughts back to the present, “because I always told my family I wanted to be a cop or investigator of some kind. My Christmas list was always filled with things like chemistry sets and Trixie Belden books and weapons of destruction and handcuffs. But what I always found under the tree was Barbies and stuffed cats and Little House books and an Easy-Bake Oven. All the stuff I wanted ended up on David's side of the living room instead.” She smiled. “So I just ignored my stuff and played with his.”

Sam found himself wishing she would talk more about herself, about her past, about her dreams and hopes, about her… Well, just about
her,
but he stopped himself. None of that was any of his business, he told himself again. None of it was germane to the case at all. Besides, once you got a woman like Logan talking about herself, she probably wouldn't shut up. He had other things to think about right now. And any minute, he'd remember what they were, too, by God.

Thankfully, Logan also seemed to remember the case, because she suddenly stopped smiling and looking all dreamy-eyed, and clipped herself into a sturdier posture. “Anyway, getting back to the matter at hand, our first order of business as newlyweds moving closer to my family is to consult my family's pet project, Children's Connection. Because we're anxious to start a family right away and can't. Is that correct?”

“That's correct,” Sam said.

“And the reason we already know we can't have kids the old-fashioned way is because…?”

She didn't know the answer to that question, Sam knew, because they hadn't gone over it at the field office. And the reason they hadn't gone over it at the field office was because Sam had hustled Logan out of there before Pennington had had a chance to give her the rest of the particulars. Sam didn't much care for the rest of the particulars, even if they were part of a bogus history designed to snare a crook. Still, he knew she was going to have to be filled in on them. They did have to keep their stories straight if they were going to pull this thing off. Nevertheless, he wished someone had consulted
him
before working up their phony backgrounds.

“We can't have kids because…” He sighed, resigned
himself to it, and just plunged in. “Our cover story goes that you're actually my second wife, and I tried to have kids with my first, but couldn't. When wife number one and I looked into the matter, it was discovered that I'm…infertile,” he said, trying not to stumble over that last word. Then, when he realized what he had said, he hurried on to clarify, “Because
the guy I'm pretending to be
is infertile. Me, personally, I have absolutely no problem in that regard. None whatsoever. That's a negatory on that. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Zero. No worries at all on that score.”

He wasn't sure, but he thought Logan smiled at that. And okay, maybe, just maybe, he'd gone a little overboard on the reassurances. But a guy really couldn't be too adamant about making something like that totally, completely, profoundly clear.

“Really,” she said. “You've fathered a number of little Joneses, have you?”

He hooked his hands into the pockets of his trousers and rocked back on his heels. “Well, none that I'm aware of,” he said, hoping he didn't sound too smug.

“Ah…yeah,” she replied, not sounding too impressed.

He dropped his hands back to his sides. “It was just a joke, Logan,” he told her.

“A small one, huh?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to tell her that no, as a matter of fact, it wasn't a small one at all, and that he had absolutely no problem in that regard, either—none whatsoever, that's a negatory on that, nada, nil, zilch, zero, no worries at all on that score—then realized she was talking about the joke, and not his— Well, that she was talking about the joke. In fact, she was the one joking now. At least, Sam thought she was joking. He hoped so.
Because he really didn't have any problem in that regard. None whatsoever. That was a negatory on that. Honest.

“According to our cover story,” he said, returning to the case and wondering why they kept veering off it, “the fact that I—the guy I'm pretending to be, I mean—was diagnosed as infertile was part of what led to the dissolution of my first marriage. My first wife decided to find a guy who could provide her with the children she so badly wanted,” he added, trying not to choke on the words because they were so laughable when compared to the developments in his own marriage. His own
former
marriage, he hastily corrected himself. And the words were only laughable to a casual observer, he further amended. Unfortunately, he hadn't been casually observing when his then-wife told him she was pregnant by another man. No, laughter had been about the last reaction Sam had had to that particular news.

“So I have no trouble getting pregnant,” Logan deduced from his explanation. “Or, at least, the woman I'm pretending to be has no trouble getting pregnant,” she clarified. And then her smile returned. “Not that I, myself, have any problem in that regard, mind you,” she said. “None whatsoever. That's a negatory on that. Nada. Nil. Zilch. Zero. No worries at all on that score.”

“Mothered a number of little Logans, have you?” Sam quipped, smiling in spite of himself.

This time Logan was the one to tuck her hands into her pockets and rock back on her heels smugly. “Well, none that I'm aware of,” she said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Look, Logan,” Sam began.

“You're going to have to stop calling me that,” she interjected before he could go any further.

“What?” he asked, not sure what she meant.

“You can't keep calling me Logan,” she told him. “You're supposed to be my husband.”

Oh, yeah, he thought. “So then…I should call you, what? Babe?”

She cringed noticeably. “Okay, granted, that's what a lot of older husbands might call their trophy wives—”

“I'm not
that
much older than you, Logan,” Sam interjected this time. Because he wasn't that much older than she was. Dammit.

Her response was another one of those teasing little smiles that he was beginning to kind of like. Until he remembered that he shouldn't like them, because he was Special Agent Samuel Jones working a case. Period.

Then she ignored his interjection by finishing, “I just don't think I could respond to being called Babe in any way other than by throwing my drink into your face. So we'll just have to settle for Bridget.”

Fine, Sam thought. He could call Logan that.

“And I'll call you…?” she asked.

Hmm, he thought. Lord and Master had a certain ring to it. Or maybe Master and Commander. Or The Good Master. Or—

“Sam,” he finally said. “Sam is fine.”

“Sam it is, then.”

Until she said it aloud like that. Then he remembered he'd needed to be Special Agent Samuel Jones for this job. He should have asked her to call him Samuel. Because when she called him Sam, it made him feel like Sam. In fact, it made him feel better than Sam. It made him feel…

No, he probably shouldn't think about how it made him feel. So instead, he thought about the case. The case where he had to be an indulgent, infertile millionaire
who wanted to impregnate his beautiful, bodacious wife but couldn't, so they'd be trying to adopt through her family's pet project, the Children's Connection.

Oh, man, he really wished they'd assigned someone else to this case.

“I need to call my parents,” Logan—or rather, Bridget—said, interrupting his thoughts, for which he was extremely grateful. “I'm going to get an earful from my mom for not calling or stopping by the house before now.”

“Tell her we'll see her tomorrow,” Sam said.

“We?”
Logan—he meant, Bridget—echoed.

“Yeah,
we,
” he said emphatically. “You and me both. Your mother is the one who set up our meeting with the adoption counselor at Children's Connection. Pennington thought it would give us that much more credibility. I thought you knew.”

Logan—or, rather Bridget—sighed heavily and lifted a hand to her forehead, pushing her hair back from her face in what was clearly a gesture of exasperation. “I don't know anything,” she said, sounding more tired than ever. “I haven't spoken to my mom for a week. This whole thing just came about so quickly and out of nowhere. A few days ago, I thought I was going to be working in Vienna on a matter of national security. Now, suddenly, I'm back in Portland pretending to be a stay-at-home wife whose greatest desire is to become a mother. And my mom and dad are going to want to see me tonight. And, really, I want to see them, too.” She lifted her other hand, too, cupped it over her forehead and sighed again. “Even if I do feel like my brain is about to explode.”

For one brief, fleeting moment, Sam actually felt sorry for her. She looked so exhausted, so confused,
so…human. Delicate, even. Like someone who had been carrying around a heavy load for way too long and was desperate to put it down someplace safe for a while so she could rest. And he found himself wanting to offer to take it off her hands for a while, so that she could get the rest she needed, preferably by lying down next to him. What was really odd was that, in that moment, that was all Sam wanted to do. Just lie beside her. Just be close to her. For as long as she needed him to be there.

Then she dropped her hands back to her sides, squared her shoulders and lifted her head. And he remembered that she was a federal agent, just like him, and she knew she couldn't afford delicacy any more than he could. She didn't need him, he thought. She didn't need anyone. Just like Sam didn't need anyone, either.

“Keep it brief at your parents' house,” he gently advised her. “Tell them you'll see more of them tomorrow. Then come back here and get some sleep. You'll need to be at your best tomorrow if we're going to pull this thing off. We need to be convincing as newlyweds and prospective parents. We'll have to go over this with your mother before our appointment, anyway. She's going to go with us to Children's Connection and introduce us to the woman who'll be handling our case. Laurel Reiss is her name. She's actually currently on leave because of a family situation, but she's doing your mother a favor, being our case worker. Your mother thought she would be best for the job.”

“Does Laurel Reiss know about the investigation?” Bridget asked.

“I'd wager she knows there's an investigation ongoing,” Sam said. “Considering how workplace grapevines operate, there probably isn't anyone at
Children's Connection who doesn't know about the investigation, and we've questioned quite a few people there. Laurel Reiss may very well be someone the agent assigned to the case has talked to, but she doesn't know that you and I specifically are a part of it.

“As far as everyone at Children's Connection is concerned, nobody, and I mean
nobody,
knows you or I work for the FBI, except for your mother and sister—everyone's being given our history according to our cover story. And your mother, father and sister are under strict orders not to reveal our true identity to anyone, orders they'll follow, because they know it could endanger you if the information got out. So when we go to Children's Connection tomorrow, it's as Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Jones, wealthy, upscale newlyweds who have recently relocated to Portland and who are anxious to start a family, but can't, so they want to adopt.”