The Borrowed Ring. GINA WILKINS

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СКАЧАТЬ computer searches she had been doing for the past months. She had never imagined that this seemingly in nocuous assignment would go so wildly off course.

      Speaking of her uncles… “I need to call home.”

      Daniel returned from the bedroom, tucking his little spy gadget back into his pocket. Something about the way he walked told her all was clear even before he spoke. “We can talk freely now. At least, we can until we leave and return—at which point I'll sweep the rooms again, just to be on the safe side.”

      “I need to call home,” she repeated. “But first… maybe you can tell me what the hell is going on?”

      Grimacing in response to her renewed anger, he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of the prissy white brocade sofa that matched the rest of the delicately fancy furnishings in the overdone room. Overdone in B.J.'s opinion, anyway. She preferred simpler, less ornate surroundings. Her idea of resort decor would have involved wicker and cotton, thick cushions and inviting ottomans.

      Without directly responding to her, Daniel moved to the white-painted-and-gilded wet bar built into one corner of the room. He opened a small refrigerator and scanned the contents. “Would you like something to drink? We have sodas, juice and bottled water. Unless you need something harder—and I wouldn't blame you if you did, considering everything.”

      She started to curtly decline anything, but then she realized she really was thirsty. “I'll have a bottled water.”

      He carried one around to her, motioning for her to sit down. She chose a chair that sacrificed comfort for style, perching on the edge of the seat with her water bottle clutched tightly in her hand.

      She did not take her eyes away from Daniel's unrevealing face as he sat on the sofa opposite her, sipping soda and looking remarkably relaxed. How could he be so calm about this bizarre situation? And what exactly was the situation?

      “I'm waiting,” she reminded him. “I'd like to know what I'm doing here. Why you let them believe I'm your wife. I want to know what you're involved in—and why you seem so sure I'll be in danger if I tell the truth. Mostly I want to know when I can leave.”

      He took his time answering, and that only annoyed her more, as he seemed to be weighing his words. Deciding exactly what he could—or wanted—to tell her. “Two or three days,” he said finally. “That should be all it will take.”

      “All it will take to do what? Damn it, Daniel, talk to me!”

      He studied her face for a long moment, then absolutely floored her by chuckling. What on earth was there to laugh about?

      “You've changed. You were so sweet-natured and easy to please. The perfect daughter, straight-A student, never caused any trouble, never said a cross word to anyone—except maybe your older brother and sister.”

      He remembered all that about her? She had been exactly the way he described her, back when he knew her. It was only within the past three or four years that she had become aware of how tired she was of pleasing everyone but herself. Of living a sheltered, uneventful, unadventurous life that had become increasingly stifling and boring.

      She had wished for excitement. She should have remembered that old adage about being careful what one wished for.

      “You still haven't answered my questions,” she prodded gruffly.

      Another brief hesitation and then he said, “I can't tell you much. Only that you've stumbled into a very complicated situation—as I assume you've figured out for yourself.”

      “Go on.”

      “Judson Drake thinks I have a wealthy wife back in Texas. He invited me to bring her along on this trip, but I had a convenient excuse to explain her absence. When you showed up at the farm, asking for me by name when no one should have known I was there—and asking with a very obvious Texas twang, by the way—Bernard put two and two together. I admit he isn't the sharpest thorn on the rosebush, but even he can handle that level of mathematics.”

      “So why didn't you tell him that I'm not your wife? As clever as you are,” she said, adding an extra helping of sarcasm to her “Texas twang,” “you should have been able to come up with some sort of explanation for my arrival. Say, oh, the truth, for example.”

      “Wouldn't have worked. My background, according to what Drake has been told, is one of upper-middleclass comfort. Private schools, public college, fortuitous marriage to a woman with money. Nowhere in that story is a mention of foster care. The truth about how I know you could have blown everything.”

      “So the wife is as fictional as your upper-middle-class background?”

      His face expressionless again, he nodded.

      “Why have you told them these things?”

      “I can't go into that right now.”

      “You expect me to simply accept what you've told me and go along with this charade for the next two or three days?”

      “I wish I could say you have the option of saying no. Unfortunately you don't. These are dangerous people, Brittany—”

      “B.J.”

      “Sorry. B.J. These men will not accept a change in my story now. One hint that I've tried to deceive them, and you and I will both quietly disappear. That's how they operate.”

      “Then why are you here?”

      He took a sip of his soda before saying, “There's a great deal of money involved for anyone who is clever enough to get a piece of it.”

      “Money?” She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “You're doing this for money?”

      He shrugged and drained the remainder of his soda.

      B.J. set her water aside. She simply didn't know whether she could believe a word he said.

      She had thought he might try to tell her he was an undercover operative for some branch of law enforcement. Would that have been any easier for her to believe? And if so, would it have been because she wanted to think Daniel was on the right side of the law?

      “So what you're telling me,” she said slowly, “is that you're running some sort of scam on some very dangerous men. And I'm stuck helping you pull it off because I accidentally arrived at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

      “That pretty well sums it up.”

      “If I refuse, I might just 'quietly disappear.' And if I agree, I could end up making some big mistake, and then we'll still end up dead.”

      “You won't make a mistake. All you have to do is remember a few details I'll tell you before we go out again.”

      “And what do I tell my family when I call them?”

      “You can't call them. I don't trust either the land lines or the airwaves here. Either one could be monitored.”

      She shook her head. “You're going to have to figure out some way to let me call. Unless you want my uncles arriving in the middle of your big plan, of course.”

      Which didn't sound like such СКАЧАТЬ