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EIGHT YEARS LATER
Jackson Lee Bridger settled into the chair in front of the desk where Homeland agent Ian Richards and his wife, Kira, waited silently. A tall, sandy-haired retired SEAL, Ian was a direct contrast to his delicate wife. His skin was darkly tanned from hot Texas summers, his brown gaze hard and assessing. Kira, her long black hair now showing the slightest silver through the strands, a peaches-and-cream complexion, and pretty, direct gray eyes, seemed softer somehow, though Jack doubted that was actually the case.
In front of him lay several pale cream files stamped “TOP SECRET,” the red print like a stain across pale flesh.
He stared at the closed files in front of him, knowing that at least some of the information contained within had the power to break more than twenty years of careful self-control and deliberate disregard. In all those years, Jack could count on the fingers of one hand the times actual emotion had filled him since he’d been fourteen. And each time, it had been for the same person.
The office he’d been shown to was windowless, the single lamp on the corner of the desk the only illumination. The perfect setting, he supposed, to begin the task of betraying the only person he had ever allowed himself to really care for.
“Sure you want to do this, Jack?” Ian asked, his piercing brown eyes intent.
Jack’s brow arched mockingly. “Oh, I don’t know, Richards… might be more interesting than that court-martial I been waiting on.” All shit aside, it was about the truth, but that wasn’t why he’d agreed to take the mission.
He had taken it not for his own freedom, but for Poppy.
He owed her this. She’d saved him once, but he’d been too late to save her from a nightmare later. He wouldn’t let himself fail her again.
“Just to be clear, we don’t believe Miss Porter is involved in anything criminal,” Kira told him, her gray eyes somber. “I’ve met her. She seems quite genuine and friendly, if a little reserved at times. But I could find no proof she was involved in what’s going on there. She’s our best way into position, though, to get the trust needed to ensure you’re offered a specific job.”
Yeah, Jack thought, she could be reserved, but only where people she didn’t know were concerned.
He stared at the name on the top file and couldn’t help but quirk his lips in faint remembrance.
Her parents, self-proclaimed bohemians, had given her one of those cutesy summer names that most kids grew up hating and only kept because to do otherwise would have hurt parents they loved.
Poppy Octavia Porter.
And everyone called her “Poppy.” There was no nickname, nothing to soften the fact that her parents were smoking some badass homegrown when they’d come up with that name. And they fully admitted to that fact. The first thing they’d done after Poppy was born, at home with the help of a midwife, had been to light up and come up with a name. Her mother, Melissa Ann, had abstained from the smoke during her pregnancy, but since she had no intention of breastfeeding, she’d seen no harm in it.
The family thought it was hilarious that Poppy had refused to take the infant formula they had on hand for her, though, and Melissa had been forced to breastfeed the furious child while under the influence.
He’d heard the story a thousand times, and he had to admit, he thought of it often.
With her red hair and green eyes, Poppy was charming as hell, mischievous, and filled with laughter. She lived up to her name rather than resenting it, and though there was no gossip or evidence that she partook of her parents’ favorite pastime, it was well known that despite the red hair, she was rarely temperamental.
She loved her parents and siblings, always arrived to help fix dinner for the entire family at her parents’ home on Sundays, and always joined at her parents’ for holiday gatherings.
Her favorite drink was the moonshine her cousins deeper in the mountain made, or straight Kentucky bourbon.
She dated often, but never seriously, met with a small group of friends most nights for dinner, and loved dogs, though she didn’t own one of her own.
She was always smiling, laughing, but Jack knew for a fact that the shadow in her green eyes came from a trauma few could understand. One he knew wouldn’t be listed in the file, because he’d made certain that that one event couldn’t return to haunt her.
Poppy was the only good memory he had of home, and she was one of his greatest regrets.
What he was about to do to her didn’t sit well with him. Hell, it downright left a bad taste in his mouth. He would have preferred to involve any other woman in it, because he knew he was only going to end up hurting her in the end.
He was going to betray a woman who prided herself on her loyalty to her friends and her family, as well as on her business integrity. Yet somehow, she was smack-dab in the middle of a den of vipers, with no clue of the danger that could strike at any time.
She was the only way into a very tight circle of Barboursville, West Virginia, residents that included the two men she worked for and involved their business dealings.
Poppy Octavia Porter was the manager of the commercial and residential properties two friends, Caine Crossfield and River Dawson, owned in the tristate area of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. They were friends of her older brothers; she and their sisters had been close since grade school, and she’d stepped into the job straight out of college when she was just twenty-two.
Now, at twenty-six, she was a trusted and valued friend and employee, and treated more like family. And she could get into every property they owned without suspicion or notice.
“You’re certain Crossfield and Dawson are involved in this?” he asked them, just to be certain.
“We know that one, if not both, are involved. We’re certain Crossfield is. Dawson… we still need proof,” Kira answered him.
