Secrets Read online

  “The one with the rum in it?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  Jeff laughed. “This is a different kind of love.” He was quiet for a moment. “Did you know that Lillian really liked you?”

  “Did she?” Cassie asked. “I was insanely jealous of her.”

  “She knew. I told her how you’d been following me all week and—”

  “Please don’t remind me that you knew that.” Cassie’s voice showed her embarrassment.

  “It was my business to know who was where and doing what.”

  “You sound like you worked for the CIA even then.”

  “Not on that job, but Dad got me into a training program when I was a teenager.”

  “And your father couldn’t be there that weekend because he’d been shot,” Cassie said softly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That was the third time he’d been shot. You can’t imagine what it’s like growing up and seeing your dad get shot on a regular basis.”

  “James Bond’s son,” Cassie said. “Yet you went into the same business.”

  Jeff shrugged. “I wanted to protect him.”

  “And you have,” she said, smiling. “You gave him Elsbeth and a home and love. And he’s still alive, so you did what you wanted to.”

  “I never looked at it like that, but maybe you’re right.” He moved to walk beside her, taking her arm in his. “You’re good for me, Cassie. You’re good for all of us. I didn’t realize how important you were until after you were gone.” For a moment he closed his eyes. “Dad and Elsbeth have bawled me out every day since you left.”

  “Good!” Cassie said. “You deserved it. I thought I’d die when you told us you’d ‘met someone.’ It was horrible.”

  “Skylar,” Jeff said. “Who knew she’d take everything so seriously? Sometimes I think she really wanted me to marry her. And she drove Roger nearly crazy too.”

  “Roger? Oh, yeah, he and Skylar were friends.”

  “He had to work with her dad, yes.”

  Cassie stopped walking. “Are you telling me that Roger is also a CIA agent?” When Jeff said nothing, she nodded. “Of course you can’t tell me that.”

  “Cassie, I’ve told you much, much more than you should know, but I need to stop you from trying to figure out so much.” He smiled. “I can hardly wait to tell Leo that you saw through his cover. And that you figured out about Roger.” His eyes were begging her to understand.

  “I don’t think Dana knows what Roger does,” she said quietly.

  “No, Dana knows nothing.”

  “But she feels it,” Cassie said. “When I first met her, I couldn’t stand her. She seemed brittle and angry. And now I know she’s angry. She may not know what secrets her husband has, but she knows he has them.” She looked at Jeff. “And you! You, your dad, and even Elsbeth are covered in secrets.”

  “You make it sound like smallpox.”

  “I think it might be worse.”

  He squeezed her arm. “Okay, so no more secrets. From now on, I’ll tell you everything that I can.”

  For a few minutes they walked together in silence. “So what do you teach?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  She looked at him.

  “No, really, I can’t tell you. In fact, the United States government doesn’t have a CIA school near Williamsburg, Virginia.”

  Cassie couldn’t help laughing. Everyone in Williamsburg knew of the nearby training school. “Okay, so you’re back to being a structural engineer.”

  “Guess so,” he said, laughing with her.

  “All right, enough of your problems, let me tell you the mess I’m in with my mother,” she said, then told him about her impromptu mention of opening a small nursery, then told him how her mother wanted to take it over. Since she hadn’t had a lot of time to really think about the idea of opening a business, she was tentative about it, but not so Jeff. Immediately, he loved the idea.

  “Dad is bored to death,” Jeff said. “Until you came into our lives, I think he was thinking about going on another mission into danger. You settled him. But since you’ve been gone, everything has fallen apart. Starting a business might resettle him. And it would certainly get him off my back. He’s always telling me what a loser he thinks I am when it comes to women.”

  “Really?” Cassie asked, laughing. “Tell me every word he’s said.”

  “That I’m stupid and a fool and not worthy of you.”

  “I like it. Tell me more.”

  “Not until you say you’ll marry me,” Jeff said.

  Cassie stopped laughing and stood still as she looked at him.

  “Okay, this is as good a place as any,” he said, looking around them. They were in a beautiful area, with the shallow river meandering in its bed, tall willows hovering over them, and giant rocks beside the water.

  Jeff reached into his trouser’s pocket and pulled out a little blue velvet box and opened it to reveal a diamond solitaire. “I bought this right after you left and I’ve carried it with me every day since. Just having it gave me hope.” While Cassie was staring at the ring, he went onto one knee. “Will you marry me, Cassie?”

  She stood there, blinking at him, unable to react.

  “Will you?” Jeff urged.

  She smiled at him. “Yes,” was all she could say.

  He took her left hand and slid the ring onto it, then he stood up and kissed her. “I’m sorry I put you through so much pain,” he said softly, his hand caressing her cheek as he smoothed her hair back. “If I treated you as though you were a child, I’m sorry for it. I had to think of you as a kid and therefore untouchable or I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands off of you.”

  “I didn’t want you to keep your hands off of me.”

  “I was afraid—I’m still afraid—because of what happened to Lillian. But these last months have shown me that I need you. My whole family needs you. And loves you. I love you, Cassie. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “And what about secrets?” she asked, her arms around him.

  “I’ll keep as few of them as possible,” he said, making her laugh, then he moved away from her, took her hand, and they began walking again. They were tightly holding hands, Cassie feeling the ring on her finger. She hadn’t assimilated it all yet. She’d had six months of missing what she’d come to think of as her family, and now they were going to be given back to her. Soon, she’d have Elsbeth back. If Dana hasn’t stolen her, she thought.

  There was so much in Cassie’s mind that she wanted to quieten it, wanted to think of something else. “Tell me about Althea,” Cassie said. “I want to know what she did.”

  Jeff squeezed her hand. “You want to know your enemy,” he said, smiling.

  Cassie smiled back. “She is going to be my neighbor.”

  “You should ask Dad about her, as he knows much more than I do, but I can give you a brief Althea history. Let’s see, I think she started in the 1930s. She tried to help calm Spain down, but it didn’t work. World War Two still broke out.

  “In the early 1940s, she was in Germany with Hitler and Unity Mitford, and reporting back to us. Later, she was able to get information to the French Resistance. She told the U.S. government what she heard about the concentration camps, but no one believed her.

  “In the late 1940s, she was a friend to Eva Perón, Churchill, and Gandhi, and, oh, yes, in 1946, she wore the first bikini at a private party of socialites and some top government people.”

  Cassie laughed. “I can imagine that well. I think I’ll look in her attic to see if I can find a photo of her in that suit.”

  “You have realized, haven’t you, that she wants you to write her autobiography.”

  “You mean her biography?”

  “I didn’t make a grammatical error. You know Althea, she’ll take full credit for it. No cowriter will be given credit for her book.”

  “She had this in mind from the first?”

  “I think so,” Jeff