Page 24 of Special Ops Seduction

“What? You do.”

She couldn’t let what sounded a lot like a compliment land. “Yes, but that was family code forThank you for not forcing me to remember that you’re a soldier.”

“I thought this was a military family.”

“Silly summer child.” Bethan found herself grinning at him without having to force it. “This is General Wilcox’s family. We exist to cast glory upon his name. Or not.”

Jonas muttered something beneath his breath that sounded like the filthy, fluent sort of cursing that was sometimes his only form of communication in the field. Oddly, it made her feel more at ease.

Bethan could see her own reflection in the greenhouse windows. The long black dress was tied at the back of her neck and came down in front, but showed nothing her mother might consider inappropriate. Meaning only her neck. The back was open and the dress even had deep pockets. Her hair was down around her shoulders, which she knew her mother also approved of, because it wasn’t one ofher on-duty slicked-back ponytails that caused Birdie despair.

“Today I look like the daughter my parents wish I was,” she said, and for some reason it was a battle to adopt the wry tone she preferred when Jonas’s too-dark gaze was on her. “That’s a huge win.”

Jonas shook his head. “I don’t understand white people.”

Bethan shrugged. “My mother and I are strangers. Sometimes more polite strangers, like today. Letting Mariah and the rest of them dress me for this mission was a good idea.”

“She’s your mother, not the mission.”

“Are we really going to talk about our personal family dynamics?”

Jonas didn’t answer that. But the deep flex of the muscle in his cheek did.

“We can’t stop here,” Bethan continued, trying to refocus. She started walking, heading down the path that led away from the main house. “You might as well get the full familial picture before you commit to a level of outrage about it. I wouldn’t want you to feel you were misled.”

She didn’t have to turn around to know that he was following her. Bethan always knew exactly where Jonas was. She could feel him like he was a part of her—a notion she knew better than to share with anyone, or even indulge too much herself. The rest of Alaska Force liked to go on about what a ghost Jonas was—but not for her.

Unless it was just that he haunted her, specifically.

At the end of the path she led him down the stone steps to the little guesthouse—meaning it slept only six—set there above the vineyards.

She glanced over her shoulder at Jonas and smiled, though she couldn’t have said if she was apologizing or enjoying herself. Both, maybe.

“Remember,” she told him. “You did volunteer for this.”

She knocked, braced herself, and moments later the door was swung wide open.

And there was Ellen, looking very much the way she always did, if ever more like a whippet with every passing year. Her strawberry blond hair was longer than the last time Bethan had seen her, but otherwise, she looked like what she was. Very well maintained, ruthlessly thin, and desperately in need of stress management.

A thought Bethan decided was uncharitable when her sister smiled hugely and enveloped her in a hug, even if she could feel every single frail bone in Ellen’s tiny body. As ever, it made her feel hulking and thick.

“I really didn’t think you were going to make it,” Ellen was saying. “There were too many references to potential missions. But here you are.”

“Here I am,” Bethan agreed.

“And you must be Jonas,” Ellen said, and she didn’t actually push Bethan out of the way to get a closer look at Jonas, but she didn’t... not do that, either. And her tone shifted straight into prosecutorial mode. “As far as I know, you’re Bethan’s one and only boyfriend ever. She’s told me absolutely nothing about you. Care to fill in the blanks?”

Seven

The Jonas that Bethan knew would have frozen solid in dark, brooding disapproval, then disappeared. If not in a puff of smoke, by simply turning and walking away. But this was slick Fake Jonas. He burst out with a big smile and an even bigger laugh.

Then pulled Ellen into a friendly handshake.

“Not much to tell,” he said in the sort of voice the man he was pretending to be would have. Confident and confiding at once. Everybody’s best friend. Potentially also evil. “Was in the navy once upon a time, now in Seattle. Don’t see enough of your sister, excited to meet her folks, and looking forward to celebrating your happiness this week.”

He was doing his job beautifully. He wassmooth. Ellen actually simpered a little as he grinned down at her.

There was no reason Bethan should want to punch him in the face.

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