Jack just stared at him.“A week ago you could barely admit that you might be more than friends.Now she’s yourgirlfriend?”
“I think we made it clear that was a cover story.”
“No.You don’t lie that well.”Jack glanced at Conrad as if for confirmation, and the traitor nodded.
“Youarea terrible liar,” Conrad said.“Which is why I totally bought the girlfriend act.”
“Because it’s not an act,” Jack said quietly.“Not to our boy Stein.”
Stein stared at him.“Jack?—”
“Like I said before you took off for Portugal, you care about this woman.Although I don’t know why, or how she fits into your life.”
“She doesn’t.I told you.I met her on an op a few years ago, the one that ended my career.I blamed her for a long time for what went south, but we ran into each other again in Barcelona and then on Mariposa and I got her side of the story.”
“And that changed things?”
He shrugged.“Maybe.And then we got trapped on Declan’s boat together, and she helped me rescue Austen and Dec from the Cuban police and...well, maybe I misjudged her.”
Silence as his brothers considered him.Asheconsidered his own words.“Then I found her in Portugal, captive, on her way to Russia and...I don’t know.She seemed grateful.”
Jack’s eyebrow went up.
Conrad’s mouth lifted on one side.“Grateful?”
He nodded.“Grateful.”
“As in full-kiss-on-the-mouth, Steinbeck-I-love-you grateful?”
“Less PG-13, but something like that.”
“And there went Steinbeck, stepping off the sidelines into whatever game she was playing,” Jack said.
“It’s not a game.There is a real threat to our national security, and she’s a part of neutralizing it.”
“And now so are you.”
Steinbeck shoved his hands into his pockets.“So I am.So shoot me.”
Jack nodded, sighed.
Conrad leaned back, bracing his hands on the bed.“And what part of that brought you guys back to the King’s Inn for a family dinner?”
“The part that included him thinking that maybe there’s a happily ever after waiting at the end of this gig.”Jack’s blue eyes turned hard on him.
“For the love, Jack, let’s not get carried?—”
“Stop.You’re always the levelheaded, sensible one in the crowd,” Jack said.“You don’t do anything without thinking it through, so...you think you have a future with this woman?”
The question hit him, a blow across his chest.“No.I—I don’t know.”
“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said,” Jack said quietly.
Stein narrowed his eyes, then leaned forward, his face in his hands.“This woman makes me crazy.The first time I met her, she derailed my entire life.And yet I’m like a moth to a flame.She’s funny and brave, and?—”
“She stands up to you.”
Stein looked at Conrad.
