To Catch A Cupid: Thomas (MacKenzie Family) (3 page)

Thomas knew he’d just made a terrible mistake. He’d seen the tears in Cat’s eyes
, and the thought that he was the reason made his heart ache. All he’d had to do was reassure her that he loved her. But he’d withheld it from her because of his own hurt. She’d lied to him. Maybe not directly, but she hadn’t been honest in telling him she’d resumed her old life as a thief.

He still had a waiting room full of people, and his personal life would have to wait a few hours. They both needed time to cool off. And he needed time to think. What had happened to their marriage? He loved Cat without a doubt. That wasn’t the question. But whoever said love conquered all sure didn’t know much.

His appetite had vanished, but he did drink some coffee while he called the pharmacy over in Myrna Springs. And while he was on hold with them an idea began to form.

If he looked at the problem logically
—and he was always logical, unless it involved his wife—it was obvious he and Cat hadn’t been communicating the way they should have these past two years. He wasn’t afraid to admit that his worry stemmed from the fact that he wondered if it was the thrill of being in danger and the leftover adrenaline that had made their marriage burn so hot over the last ten years. Maybe that was true to an extent. There was nothing wrong with adding a little spice to their sex life.

And it wasn’t like he’d continued to liven things up after sh
e’d retired from thieving. There had been plenty of times when he’d been the one to catch her off guard and instigate their lovemaking. Why had he stopped? He couldn’t answer the question.

It had obviously made her insecure
, because she’d asked if he loved the woman she’d been or the woman she was now. It should have been a question she could’ve answered with confidence. That was his fault, and to his way of thinking, he’d failed her.

“Dammit.” He rubbed his temple where the headache that had been brewing earlier had turned full-blown. He finally got through to the pharmacy and arranged for his brother Riley to pick up prescriptions, and then he immediately dialed another number before he could talk himself out of it. Drastic times called for drastic measures. He’d do whatever he could to make Cat happy.

“MacKenzie,” his cousin said when he answered the phone.

Declan had opened his own security firm several years before
, after spending a lot of years doing work for the government in a capacity he could never talk about. He had offices in Washington D.C. and in Dallas, and Thomas’s other cousins worked for him as well. They were all as close as brothers instead of just cousins, and Thomas knew Declan would come through for him, whatever he asked.

“I’ve got a problem.”

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds before Dec sighed and answered. “Is this about Cat?”

“Right the first time.”

“I told her you’d find out. I’ve got to tell you though, she’s the best person for the job. No one can get in and out like she can. I’d hate for you to make her quit.”

Thomas pretended he knew what the hell Declan was talking about and wondered how many of his relatives knew Cat had been doing jobs for Declan.
Probably all of them.

“I don’t want her to quit. That’s not why I called.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I swear to God if you tell anyone about this you’ll regret it.”

“Hey, man. Pretend I’m like your priest. Whatever you say will stay between you and me.”

“The thought of you as anyone’s priest is scary as hell,” Thomas said, smiling for the first time in a while. He couldn’t think of anyone less priest-like.

“There are scarier things. Believe me. What’s up?”

“I need you to send Cat on a job. Something that will give her a challenge
, but that’s not too dangerous.”

“Oh, sure. Let me whip something right up.”

“It’s a belated anniversary present. And whatever job it is, I need you to make it so I have to go with her. “

“Jesus, Thomas. You’re not asking for much.
Is this one of those kinky things where you just want to get laid?”

“
It’s an anniversary present. I’ll owe you one.”

“You sure as hell will.
You’ll know when I’ve got something.”

Declan hung up
without saying goodbye and Thomas stared at the door Cat had walked through, blowing out a breath. This was a hell of a way to spend an anniversary.

In ten years of marriage
, Thomas had never spent more than a night or two without Cat sleeping beside him in their bed. But two weeks after their argument, Cat was still sleeping in the guest room and the chasm between them was growing wider.

He’d received a special package by courier the day before that had arrived from the M
acKenzie Security offices in D.C. The note attached didn’t say anything except,
You owe me one
, and inside was a thick file folder and a wrapped box.

He had no idea what Declan had concocted for them, but he trusted that he’d come through.
You could always count on family. All Thomas had to do now was convince Cat to go along with the plan. But first he had to get her to speak to him. Hell, he’d be happy if she even looked at him while they were in the same room together.

The flu epidemic had finally started to subside, and for the first time in a while he had the morning free without having to be in the office early.
He and Cat acted like nothing was out of the ordinary for the sake of their kids, and they went about their normal morning routine where he took care of breakfast and Cat made lunches.

“
I don’t want the marshmallows. Take them all out,” Mitchell, their five-year-old, demanded.

“It’s Lucky Charms, Mitch
,” Thomas said. “The marshmallows come with it.”

“They’ll make me throw up. You gotta take them out.”

“Better listen to him, Dad,” Griff, their oldest son at nine, said with a resigned look. “When he says he’s going to barf, he usually does.”

“Right.” Thomas sighed and started picking marshmallows out of the
cereal bowl. “Killian, don’t throw that tennis ball in the house. We’ve had enough broken windows this year.”

“Aunt Mary said you and Uncle Riley used to play ball in the house all the time,” Killian said, looking like he wanted to throw the ball just to see what would happen.

“Did she also tell you that Uncle Riley ended up with seventeen stitches in the side of his head when he knocked the table and lamp over, and that we both ended up with sore backsides from the whooping we got?”

“Nope, she left that part out,” he said, showing a gap-toothed grin when he smiled.  He dropped the ball to the floor and their golden retriever, Gus, snatched it in his
mouth and ran out of the room.

The morning was chaos and as close to normal as it got.
There was a quick knock at the back door and it opened with a gust of wind that sent napkins flying off the table. His nephew, Jayden, stepped inside with an apologetic smile and closed the door behind him.

“Sorry about that,” Jayden said. “The wind is fierce today.”

Jayden was twenty-one and had just finished his final semester of school. He’d been on a full scholarship to the best art school in New York, and he’d recently been invited to study in Paris for the next year. He was only visiting for another week before he flew overseas.

Jayden looked almost identical to his father, Dane, who was Thomas’s second oldest brother. He had dark blond hair that he wore a little too long and his eyes were hazel with flecks of green. He had the MacKenzie height, but he was still lean and had some filling out to do. But he certainly had the MacKenzie reputation with the ladies. Every time Thomas went into town or saw some of his younger
female patients, they were asking when Jayden was going to be home.

“Thanks for taking them to school,” Cat said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do when you leave for Paris.”

“Be heartbroken and desolate like all the other women in town, I’m sure,” Jayden said, winking and leaning down to kiss Cat on the cheek.

“Get your lips off my wife,” Thomas said.

Jayden ignored him and spun Cat around, dipping her low so she laughed. “You want to come to Paris with me? Leave this stuffed shirt for a younger man?”

Thomas scowled. “Or I could remove vital parts of your anatomy with my scalpel.”

“Or that.” Jayden released Cat and grinned. “Sorry, darling. I need those parts for the other special ladies in my life.”

“You MacKenzie men are all the same,” she said, chuckling.

“Let’s go, Jay,” Griff said, grabbing his backpack. “I’ve got to be at school early this morning to work on a project.”

“See you guys later,” Jayden said, holding the door open for his three cousins as they ran outside. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

As soon as the whirlwinds that were their children left the kitchen, Thomas felt the tension enter the room. He cleared the dishes from the table and wiped it down, while Cat tossed stuff in the crockpot for dinner. It was all very normal. Except not. It was awful.

“Cat, we need to talk,” he finally said.

“I think you pretty much said all you need to.”

“No, I didn’t. I was angry and I didn’t handle the situation as I should have.”

“Well, I’m still angry. And I’m not ready to talk about it.” She was chopping onions with the rage of a thousand men, and he hoped to god he didn’t have to reattach a finger by the time she was done.

“Fine, you don’t have to talk. But you can listen. I love you. I love the woman you were and the woman you are now. You’re the same to me. And that love will never change. I should have told you that sooner.”

She stopped chopping and he saw her take in a deep breath before she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. He hoped she was crying because of the onions and not because of him.

“I guess if I’m being completely honest with you, I felt used.” He leaned against the counter with a defeated sigh. “I know the adrenaline rush you get from your—other activities. And I used to feel like I gave you that same kind of rush. But when you stopped going on jobs, I kept waiting to see if that hunger we had for each other would stop too. And I think, because I expected it to, that it did stop.”

Cat shook her head. “Thomas—”

“
No, hear me out. Please.” She nodded and he felt like he’d been given a reprieve. “I knew as soon as I walked into my office that day that it wasn’t me that had put that look in your eye. I used it as an excuse to blame you for what’s been happening between us. When I really should have been blaming myself for not doing anything to keep what we had going. I’m sorry for that.”

The knife clattered to the counter and she dropped her head down. Silent sobs shook her shoulders and tears dripped from her cheeks onto the cutting block. He couldn’t help but go to her and put his arms around her. The touch was awkward at first, and he realized it was the first time they’d touched at all in two weeks.

The feel of her in his arms was like taking a long drink of water after a drought. She relaxed into him and put her arms around his waist. Her touch had him breathing out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t too late to fix this.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was working again.” Her voice was muffled against his chest. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore because I’d stopped being exciting, so I want
ed to test you. We both just stood back and watched instead of getting involved. There were plenty of times we had crazy sex without me going on a job first.”

He laughed and squeezed her tighter. “
Yeah. Plenty of times. I do love you. I hope you know that. And I honestly don’t mind if you want to start doing work for the FBI again. I just want you to be honest with me. I’m actually surprised you lasted as long as you did going without. It’s part of who you are, love. I’d never ask you to change that for me.”

She pulled out of his arms and scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’ve only done a couple
of jobs for MacKenzie Security. Declan needed me for some easy security tests, so there wasn’t even a real risk.”

His eyebrows rose at that admission and his conversation with Declan became a little clearer.

“We never did get to celebrate our anniversary,” he said. “But I’ve got a surprise for you I think you’re going to like. Wait right here.”

He left her in the kitchen and went to retrieve the package from his office that Declan had sent.
When he came back she was back at the chopping block, only this time she wasn’t using quite as much force with the potatoes.

“Here you go.” He didn
’t know why he was so nervous. It was a gift. An unusual gift, yes, but still just a gift. It was also a peace offering. A way to reunite them and close the distance that had been growing between them.

He sat the package on the counter and watched as her eyebrows rose when she saw the insignia on the front. Obviously, she knew where and who it was from.

“Where’d you get this?” She wiped her hands off on the towel tucked into her waistband and pulled the package closer.

“Declan sent it to me yesterday.”

“To you?” She looked surprised and a little disbelieving. “Why to you?”

“Just open it.
Geez, woman.”

She carefully removed
the file and the box wrapped in a soft cloth. She sat the box aside and went straight to the file. It was interesting. He would’ve opened the box first out of curiosity.

“What is it?”

“It looks like Dec has a job for me.”

“For us,” Thomas corrected.

“No, I’m pretty sure I’m the thief in this relationship.”

“Except for this once. We’re doing this one together.
Declan said he’d find something we could do together, though I’m amazed he didn’t strangle himself trying to hold back his laughter. Happy anniversary, love.”

He grinned at the
mutinous look on her face. This was going to be fun.

“You can’t be serious. You don’t know the first thing about breaking and entering.”

“I know you have to be quiet. And I know Declan would never send us on a job with real danger. I also know enough to follow directions from someone with more experience.”

“If you followed directions you’d listen to me when I told you this will go much smoother if I go in myself.
Even if you did hatch this plan with Dec. For all I know, he’s booby-trapped the whole thing and we’ll end up spending the night in jail.”

He kept smiling and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, rubbing it off on the sleeve of his shirt before he took a bite.

“Nope. Still going with you. It’s an anniversary present. Which means we have to do it together.”

Her eyes narrowed and he looked nervously at the knife in her hand. He was probably safe.
Probably
.

“
So where are we going?” he asked.

“You haven’t looked yet?”

“This is your anniversary gift. I thought you should do the honors.”

“I think you’ve lost your mind in your old age.”

“Bite your tongue, woman. I’m in the prime of my life.”

Her dimples fluttered as she gave hi
m a coy look. “Yes, I remember.”

The fit of his jeans was becoming decidedly uncomfortable, and he occupied himself by heading to the coffee pot to refill his cup while she looked through the file.

“It looks like the job is in New York. He’s sent the flash drive with the blueprints and information on the security. It looks fairly straightforward.”

“New York on Valentine’s Day. That could be romantic.”

“If we’re not spending it in jail.”

“I’ve always had a fantasy about borrowing some of Cooper’s handcuffs—”

She interrupted him with a look that made his balls shrivel. “In my line of work, you never joke about handcuffs.”

He cleared his throat and took a drink. “Right. Sorry. So what are we
stealing?”

“This isn’t a retrieval,” she said, moving her attention to the wrapped box. “It’s a replacement.”

“I don’t understand.”

“According to Declan’s notes,
this item was stolen from the original owners more than a year ago. A Jack and Judy Drake of London, though the theft occurred from their New York residence.”

She unwrapped the cloth and then cut through a layer of bubble wrap, revealing a wooden box. When she opened the box she let out a low whistle.

“What is it?”

“A Faber
gé
Egg. I remember when this was taken. It went for almost ten million pounds at auction and they barely had it a month before it was stolen.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“Certainly enough to steal for. Dec discovered it while doing another job and retrieved it, but that wasn’t the goal of

the job he was on, so it’s not like he can advertise that he randomly came across a stolen Faber
gé
Egg. So our job will be to break in and put the piece back where it belongs.”

“Lovely. So this is like a good deed.”

“Yes. A very good deed.”

“Well, then. I guess we need to make plans to head to New York.”