Reddish-gold hair fell past her shoulders. Had the FBI asked her to put it down for the shot? There was the tiniest hint of a cleft in her chin. Straight red eyebrows and long dark lashes dramatically framed her green eyes. Her nose was straight. Not too upturned or wide. And her lips. Heaven help him. Thick, full, and luscious.
“You there?”
He blinked at the sound of Caleb’s voice, nearly forgetting he’d answered the phone. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“The wedding is still a go, I’m afraid to say. Two weeks and counting,” Caleb announced apologetically. “Unless you happened to come across something that would convince Ella not to marry him.”
God, he didn’t want to be the one to break his sister’s heart. To crush her hopes and dreams. But he also didn’t want her making a mistake and marrying Perfect Brian, and he knew deep in his belly, the man was far from perfect for Ella.
“I should know soon about what really happened in Vegas,” he announced.
Wyatt’s daughter, Gwen, promised to look at the hotel surveillance to ensure Brian hadn’t cheated on Ella or done anything else disgraceful.
“Okay, let me know when you hear something.” Caleb paused. “Where are you at?”
“Working.” And that was all he could say. He wasn’t about to expose the fact he was sitting outside Ana’s apartment like some creepy stalker.
I’m getting paid to watch her. His skin heated at the thought. Yeah, he hated this, but he also hadn’t wanted anyone else to watch her.
This assignment also probably meant he’d never get a chance to ask her out. Once he cleared her name as a traitor, and that was the only acceptable outcome, how would he let her know about this? It wasn’t a secret he was comfortable keeping from her if, by chance, he manned up and ever officially asked her out.
Date? What am I thinking?
“Okay, well, stay safe,” Caleb said, taking on a bit of Beckett’s dad-tone. “Don’t die or anything.” He cleared his throat. His brother was about as good at dealing with his emotions as the rest of the Hawkins brothers—and that was to say he was shitty at it. They’d been raised by caring and loving parents, but each brother had gone through the wringer in one way or another that had shaped them into the men they were today. “By the way, how’s your head?”
A.J.’d had two hellish nightmares since bumping his noggin in the woods, and they all centered around painful memories. “I’m fine.” It wasn’t like he hadn’t hit his head a dozen times before. “Talk when I have news on Brian.” He ended the call before his brother had the chance to pry anymore, then almost dropped his phone at the sight of a man now standing on Ana’s front step, a brown bag cradled in his arm. Was that takeout?
The man shifted to the side as he waited for Ana to open the door as if he had the same feeling as Ana that someone was out there watching.
A.J. flipped through Ana’s file to another image, to the man standing outside her door.
Kyle Jeter. FBI for fifteen years. Thirty-nine years old. And Ana’s ex-husband.
A.J. swallowed hard when Ana opened the door, then stepped aside to allow her ex entry. She’d changed into jeans and a black, cotton V-neck tee.
“Well, shit,” A.J. muttered.
A tap at the passenger window had him losing sight of Ana’s door for a moment as he looked over to see Chris standing there. “I make a horrible stakeout guy. Didn’t see you there,” he said after letting Chris into the SUV.
A lopsided smile played at Chris’s lips. “I miss anything? Who’s the guy she just let in?”
“Her ex-husband.” Pings of jealousy, totally unwarranted, popped inside his chest like the Pop Rocks he ate as a kid. “What happened with the guy you were following? You got here fast.”
“I lost him.” Chris shook his head, disappointed. “Yeah, I know. I know. Not like me. I swear the guy basically vanished before my eyes.” He held his phone out between them. “Got a photo. Not the best. Sent it to Harper to see if she can work her magic and get us a name.” He tucked his phone back into his pocket and rifled through the bag on the floor. “I got an Uber here and didn’t expect to see some guy at her door when I arrived.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that, either.” Especially not her ex. Was he in town for work? Based on Ana’s file, he was an FBI agent stationed in Hungary for a special assignment cracking down on Russian mobsters. Annnnd shit. He was the special agent the unit was bringing onto the team, wasn’t he?
“Here. Check your fortune,” Chris said in an attempt to distract him. He tossed one of the two fortune cookies that’d been included with the dinner Chris had grabbed during their stakeout of the Hoover Building. “Maybe all the answers are inside that cookie.”
“Are you ever serious?” But A.J. removed the plastic wrapping from the cookie anyway, his nerves more shot than before he’d been assigned to stalk the woman he’d recently drunk dialed.
“Since when are you Mr. Doom and Gloom?” Chris popped the cookie in his mouth and squinted at the small white paper in his hand.
“Wouldn’t you be a bit sour if—”
“The woman you want to have babies with was currently inside her townhouse with her ex-husband and was also a potential traitor to the United States?”
A.J. slapped Chris’s bicep with the hand that clutched the cookie, and he nearly crumbled the thing in his palm.
“What?” Chris shrugged. “I’ve known you a long damn time, and I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Which is why you had me call her in my drunken state Saturday, huh?” A.J. pressed.
“Someone needed to give you a push. I just didn’t expect we’d be seeing her under these circumstances the next day.”
That was a big fat ditto.
“You will chase fortune but win a heart,” Chris read the note from his cookie. “Chasing fortune, huh?” He sat up and stuffed the note in his pocket as if he planned on keeping it. “Yours?”
A.J. cracked the cookie, and Chris swiped the broken parts and tossed the pieces into his mouth. “You’re like a growing boy who never stops eating.” He couldn’t help but laugh at Chris. The man was good at a lot of things—one of them, making him smile even during the shittiest times. Case in point now.
“So, what’s in your future?” Chris asked around a mouthful of cookie, crumbs dropping onto his plain black tee.
A.J. removed his sunglasses since it was after seven, and Ana wasn’t around to spot him in the vehicle. “Trusting a traitor is dangerous, but falling for one is the deadliest sin of all.”
“Noooo, really?” Chris’s eyes stretched in surprise. He snatched the paper and peered at it, then flipped it over. “You got a blank one. You pulled that shit out of your ass? How very Confucius of you.” He threw the paper back at him. “You know what a blank paper means, right?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
Chris pivoted his Red Sox ball cap backward and pressed his shoulder casually to the side door. “You get a fresh start. You get to determine your fate.”
“Oh, and you don’t?” A.J.’s brows rose as he waited for Chris to enlighten him.