have done to find them. You can’t control from a distance what those guys do once they’re on an op. That buck doesn’t stop at your door.” His hands tightened around the steering wheel and he sighed. “It stops with Cole. And he’s been dealing with that reality since before you were a sparkle in your daddy’s eye. McGregor is good in the field. If he’s able to lift his head, we’ll find him. Bring him back safely. But in the meantime, you’ve got to let go of the things you can’t change or you’re going to end up useless. Not just to the agency but to everyone who cares about you outside of the agency, as well.”
It was probably the longest speech he’d ever heard from his uncle. “Easier said than done.”
“I know.” Tristan waited a few beats. “Your bartender—”
“She’s not—”
“The bartender, then,” Tristan fired back. “What’s the problem there?”
Casey hadn’t discussed this particular situation with anyone. Not Erik. Not even his own father. But Tris wasn’t his father. He was his boss. His mentor. “She wants to get married.”
“Then put a ring on her finger already,” his uncle said as if the answer were obvious. “You’ve been sleeping with her for more than a year, for God’s sake.”
Casey felt his neck get hot like some kid called on the carpet. He stared out at the Connecticut countryside. HW’s compound—hidden in plain sight—was located inside a toilet-paper factory. “She doesn’t want to marry me. She was plenty clear about it.”
His uncle waited a beat. “And you believed her?” He sounded as if he wanted to laugh and Casey looked over at him. “Son, you have a lot to learn about women.”
Casey grimaced. “It doesn’t matter anyway. She only wants a husband so she can have a baby.”
Tristan’s eyebrow lifted. “So?”
“I’m not interested,” he said flatly, and looked out the side window again, ending the conversation.
But it seemed that there were some things the omniscient Hollins-Winword didn’t know after all.
Because even if Casey was interested in making a baby with Janie Cohen, he was incapable of it.
Thanks to a case of the mumps while he’d been doing a semester of college in Europe, he was sterile.
And there wasn’t one damn thing he could do to change it.
* * *
“So, Jane.” Arlo smiled down at her as they stood on her front porch. “I hope you enjoyed yourself this evening as much as I did.”
Jane squelched the pang inside her. Arlo was a perfectly attractive guy. He was intelligent. Well-read. Humorous. He hadn’t talked about an ex-girlfriend all night. He had no ex-wives. No baggage at all from previous relationships. He had insisted on paying for their dinner—Chinese—at the restaurant they’d gone to in Braden. His car had been spotless inside, he wore a suit and tie with comfort, and he even had a full head of brown hair.
And most of all, he’d talked about how—now that he was well established in his career—he’d realized there were things missing in his life that he wanted.
Like a wife.
A family.
He couldn’t have more perfectly matched her requirements if he’d tried.
“I had a very nice time, Arlo.”
He smiled and kissed her cheek. “So when I call you tomorrow, you’ll answer?”
She couldn’t help smiling. He didn’t make her bells and whistles ring—yet, she made herself add—but he was exactly what Hayley had said. A nice man. “Yes, I’ll answer.”
His eyes crinkled a little as his smile widened. His teeth were white and perfectly straight. Then he pushed open the door that she’d unlocked. “Until tomorrow, then.”
“Until tomorrow.” She waited in the doorway, watching him until he reached his sedate Volvo. In a community dominated by pickup trucks and SUVs, his choice of a sedan certainly set him apart. He sketched a wave before climbing in and driving off.
She let out a sigh and slowly stepped into her house and closed the door.
“Thought good ol’ Arlo was never gonna leave.”
She screeched and threw her keys at where the voice was coming from before it penetrated that Casey was the one speaking. She pressed her hand to her racing heart and leaned forward slightly, feeling a little dizzy from the fright.
But then she snapped up, straight as a board, and glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He was sprawled on her couch, looking way too much at home in his worn jeans, ugly red shirt with cartoonish fish swimming across it and cowboy boots. “Waiting for you, obviously.”
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them again, he was still there. Messy butterscotch hair, gray eyes and all. She tried again. “How did you get in?” she asked with what she considered to be extraordinary patience.
“You left your back door open.” He pulled his boots off the arm of her couch and sat up. “You ought to be more careful, sport. No point in locking the front door if you ignore the back one. You never know what sort of trouble you might be inviting.”
“Weaver’s as safe as a church,” she muttered crossly. She dropped her purse on the glass coffee table in front of the couch and tossed her lightweight wool coat on the armchair. “Turns out you’re the only trouble I needed to worry about. Do I need to count the silver?”
His lips curved but the amusement didn’t seem to quite make it to his eyes. “What sort of grade did Arlo earn?”
“An A,” she said crisply. “Plus.”
“Liar. I saw that tepid cheek kiss he gave you.”
“So not only do you break and enter, but you spy, as well.”
“Door totally unlocked,” he repeated. “A regular invitation, I figure. If you were really interested in Arlo, you’d have invited him in.”
“And we’d have found you squatting in my living room. How were you planning to explain that?”
He shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t invite him in.”
She snorted. “You knew nothing of the sort.” She strode into the kitchen and pulled a half-empty bottle of chardonnay out of the refrigerator. Arlo, it turned out, was a teetotaler. Which she completely respected. Even though she owned a bar and grill, she wasn’t much of a drinker. But finding Casey in her house was more than she could take.
She grabbed a glass from her cupboard, wiped the dust out of it and poured the wine. She took a fortifying gulp, then carried it with her back to the living room. She pointed her finger at him. “Do I need to call the sheriff on you?”
He pulled
