Nate’s intolerance for any bullshit hadn’t hurt, either.
Sarah, a historical archaeologist, hadn’t come out to the dock. She was up in the main house, its squared-off logs sawed by her great-grandfather, who’d figured a house would help him get a wife.
The car Ethan had hired at the airport waited in the driveway. He didn’t have a lot of time before his flight north.
The landscape of old-fashioned flowers and shrubs and huge old shade trees was still lush and green in early October, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows.
Ethan walked out onto the dock, but Nate kept his back to him. Not long after he’d met and fallen in love with Sarah Dunnemore in Night’s Landing, Nate was assigned to USMS headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. He and Sarah were living, temporarily, in a historic northern Virginia house rumored to be haunted by both Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.
Ethan had stopped for a visit in September, a week after Sarah’s brother and his Diplomatic Security agent had captured Janssen’s assassin. Sarah had served him sweet-tea punch and fried-apricot pie on the porch and talked about Abe and Bobby Lee and how happy she was, a week before her wedding.
Then her husband had whisked him away to a private meeting with President Poe and Mia O’Farrell, and it was off to Colombia to rescue Ham Carhill.
But Nate Winter had been there for the meeting. He knew about the mission.
“Sorry I missed your wedding,” Ethan said. He didn’t exactly know why, but he’d been invited. “I hear it was perfect.”
A tall, dark-haired, rangy man, Nate was a no-nonsense law-enforcement officer. The fact that his wife was like a daughter to the president of the United States wasn’t something Winter would view as an advantage—it just came with falling in love with Sarah Dunnemore.
Even at dusk, Winter’s eyes were a piercing blue. “I take it you’re not here for a social visit, Major.”
“You remember you drove me to the White House the first week in September, before your wedding?” Ethan didn’t wait for Nate to respond. He laid out the facts. “We met with the president and Mia O’Farrell. You didn’t stay for the entire meeting, but I think you know the basics of what I was asked to do.”
Winter wasn’t the type to lay out what he knew. “Go on.”
“We got our guy. He’s safe. The rest of it’s a mess. I’ll assume you’ve talked to Mike Rivera or Joe Collins and know about Juliet Longstreet’s ex-con.”
Nate didn’t say a word.
Ethan looked out at the water, remembered his frustration in the weeks before Sarah Dunnemore, sipping sweet-tea punch on the porch of her Tennessee family home, had learned that her twin brother and another marshal—Nate—had been shot. By the time Juliet arrived on the Cumberland River, all hell had broken loose. But it seemed like five years ago, instead of just five months. “Tatro’s in jail, my guy’s free,” Ethan said. “But this thing isn’t over. There’s more to it—”
“And that’s your business?”
He looked at Winter, his unchanging expression, his steady self-control. “Was it your business to come down here in May? You weren’t supposed to investigate the shooting. You were one of the victims.”
Nate sighed, some of his rigidness easing. “Fair point. Go on. What do you want me to do?”
“Mia O’Farrell’s on her last nerve.”
“I don’t deal with her.”
“You were there with her and the president, Nate. You can see he trusts her.”
“Shouldn’t he?”
“You just might want to let him know that she’s hanging by a thread.”
Nate had no visible reaction. “Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
Ethan shrugged, smiled. “Poe doesn’t show up at my house for fried-apricot pie.”
Again, Nate didn’t indulge in so much as a twitch of a smile. No jokes about his wife’s friendship with John Wesley Poe. Or her fried pies.
“What does Juliet know about your meeting with O’Farrell?”
“Not as much as she wants to. She’s about as big a hard-ass as you are, Winter. The no-stone-left-unturned type.”
Nate didn’t disagree, but he said, “O’Farrell’s on her way to New York. She’s meeting with Rivera and Collins in the morning. There’s no need to keep them in the dark as much as she has been.”
“You set up the meeting?”
He shrugged, not answering. “Brooker—you might want to be careful.”
“With Tatro, Mia, Collins, Rivera or Juliet?”
A near smile. “All of the above. You must know by now you’re not the type to be satisfied sitting on the sidelines. You want to fill in the blanks, find the answers. It’s the way you’re wired, Major.” The hard blue gaze stayed on him. “It’s why you ended up digging in the dirt here in Night’s Landing.”
Literally and figuratively, Ethan thought. He gestured toward the beautiful Dunnemore lawn. “The stuff I planted looks pretty good, don’t you think?”
But Nate didn’t let up. “Why is Dr. O’Farrell on her last nerve?”