Page 51

REN

Siren Song, Maine

S iren Song had a population of thirty-five hundred, and it seemed every single one had turned out for the fair.

The Hug was teeming with people from the Lobster Trap Restaurant to Lickity Split Ice Cream.

Shopkeepers set up tables along the street selling crafts and treats.

An antique fire truck was parked in front of Town Hall, and a volunteer firefighter and his pet Dalmatian were giving tours.

Ren guided Stella through the crowd. She’d found the yellow dress in a box at the back of the closet.

Franklin hadn’t parted with his late wife’s things.

There was nothing special about the garment; it had short sleeves and buttoned down the front.

Somehow, Ren found the woman next to him more alluring than the goddess in the red gown at the ball in England.

This was Stella Keen, real and true. She was licking an ice cream cone and laughing at a dancing toddler, and it was all he could do to keep from pulling her into an alley and fucking her against a wall.

Of course, he’d never do it, but the simple fact that Ren entertained the notion made him smile.

He wondered if he would have been an exhibitionist if his childhood had been different.

Stella tripped on a cobblestone, and Ren steadied her. When she looked up at him, her nose was tipped with butter pecan, and her goofy expression conveyed that she knew it.

Ren leaned down and kissed the ice cream off. He stayed close as he said, “Come on. I want another lobster roll.”

“Silly me. I thought four would be sufficient.”

Ren wrapped an arm around Stella’s shoulders and pulled her close.

“Look at you two love birds.”

Ren recognized the woman from their trip to the Outfitter. “Hello.”

She stumbled, sloshing red liquid onto her hand. “You have to try these cranberry fizzes.” She leaned forward with a conspiratorial whisper. “I think there’s booze in them.”

Stella unwrapped the paper napkin from her cone and wiped the woman’s hand. “We definitely will.”

“Here, take mine. I’ll get a fresh one.” Stella took the plastic cup and gave a mock toast.

Ren pulled Stella along. “We’re headed to Anchor Down. Sounds like the band has started.”

“We’re headed there too!” The woman did a little shimmy. “I’m in the mood to dance!”

Ren took the half-full cup from Stella’s hand and glanced around for a trash can. Spotting Ellie, the deputy, behind a craft table, he walked over. “Got a trash can back there?”

“Sure do.” She took the cup.

Ren checked out the assortment of leather belts, bookmarks, and horse tack. “Nice craftsmanship. You make all this?”

Ellie smiled. “It’s a hobby right now. I love police work, but one day, I want to open a shop.”

Ren nodded his approval. “Good for you.”

He returned to Stella, and they maneuvered through the crowd as Ren scanned the street. It all looked so wholesome. Kids with cotton candy raced around the grown-ups, and locals browsed artwork and crafts.

Stella sensed his tension and squeezed Ren’s hand. “Nothing’s pinging. You?”

“Yeah, all good. Everything looks normal.”

She nudged him. “Normal for nineteen fifty. Can you believe people still live like this? I feel like I’m on the set of an old movie.”

“It’s nice.”

“They have no robberies, almost no violent crime. I feel like those Amazonian explorers when they discover a lost tribe.”

“Come on. Let’s check out the band.” As they walked, Ren noted people by themselves. A clown was handing out candy. A short, bald man was browsing a selection of homemade soaps. An older woman was buying a doll.

There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe that’s what was so strange.

Stella

A nchor Down was a fisherman’s bar—a peanut-shells-on-the-floor place. Located on the ocean side of Main Street, a short walk from the wharf, the pub was a long, narrow space with a side-room pool table and a small stage at the back.

Ren and Stella snagged a high-top table opposite the bar and ordered two local IPAs. Stella tapped the neck of her bottle to Ren’s. “Thanks for today. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything—”

“Fun?” Ren offered.

“I was going to say wholesome, but that too.”

Ren reached across the table, and Stella instinctively opened her hand only to snatch it back when he grabbed a handful of peanuts. She shifted in her seat suddenly, at a loss for words.

“What’s wrong,” Ren asked as he crushed a peanut shell.

“I’m nervous,” she confessed. “I’ve never really been on a date.”

“Bullshit,” he replied. “ We’ve been on dates.”

“Sofria Kirk has been on dates. Sarah Klein and Sasha Keller have been on dates. Stella Keen hasn’t.”

Ren narrowed his gaze, staring at Stella like a puzzle he couldn’t quite piece together. “I keep forgetting I don’t know you.”

Stella sipped her beer. “You know more than most.” She felt her cheeks heat.

Ren smirked. “So, another first.”

“Yes.”

“So, Miss Keen, how is it, a beautiful woman like yourself chooses that career?”

Stella stiffened. She’d never shared how she joined Hyperion with anyone. It was only fair, though. She already knew more about Ren than most of his friends.

“My mother was an immigrant from Pakistan. She was married briefly before I was born but kept the name Keen because it sounded more American. She worked as a maid for a wealthy family in town. The husband was a successful businessman who dabbled in local politics—school board, city council, that type of thing. Mom liked him. I guess he liked her too because here I am.”

“I take it he was married.”

“A model citizen. He wanted my mother to get an abortion, but she refused. So, he bought her a condo in the next town, gave her some money, and told my mom if he ever saw her again, he’d have her work visa revoked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it gets worse. I went to see him when I was fourteen. I don’t know why, really.”

“Sure you do.”

“Yeah. I wanted to meet my dad. I had this fantasy going that he’d take me to see Rango.”

“Rango?”

She shook her head with a sad laugh. “It’s an animated movie about a chameleon.”

He did take her hand then. “A chameleon, huh? A sign of things to come.”

“He knew who I was as soon as he opened the door. I look exactly like my mother. I started to say what I’d practiced when he held up his hand and told me never to come there again. Then he pushed me down the front steps.”

The sound of breaking glass had her looking up. Ren had snapped the neck of his beer.

“Who is this guy? I want a name.”

“I call him Mr. Indiana.”

“His real name, Stella.”

“You don’t need to defend me, Ren. I got him back.”

“How?”

Stella shrugged. “I lit his garage on fire.”

“Good.”

“I guess having me locked up in juvie wasn’t enough distance.

My sperm donor knew my handler from their National Guard days.

Theo came to the facility. A bunch of us had taken this test, and I guess my performance stood out.

He spent a week giving me puzzles and codes.

I took a psych eval. Then he offered me a way out. ”

A waitress interrupted. “Oh, goodness. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Stella paused the story as the top-heavy waitress pressed her breasts against Ren’s shoulder and wiped up the beer and broken glass. “I’ll get you a fresh one.”

Ren never took his eyes off Stella.

“I lived in Northern Virginia with Theo and his wife, Sandra. Sandra handled my education, and in the afternoons, I trained. It was spy school.”

“You were so young,” Ren said.

“It was kind of awesome. At that age, I was fearless. I went on my first op at fifteen. My first undercover identity was Sally Krantz. I did a live drop in Laos.”

“That’s unreal.”

“If there’s one demographic that can easily fly under the radar, it’s teenage girls. I went on twenty-three missions before I turned twenty, and I never once got detained.”

“Sounds like Theo struck gold with you.”

Stella felt the irrational need to defend her handler. “He saved me. I was a fourteen-year-old arsonist, and he gave me a life.”

“You weren’t a criminal, Stella. You acted out in a terrible situation. Please tell me you know that.”

The band started up a Black Eyed Peas classic, and Stella bounced on her stool. “I love this song. Dance with me?”

Ren grabbed another handful of peanuts. “I’m all for showing you a good time on your first date, but I don’t dance.”

“Suit yourself.”

REN

R en stood at the bar and watched Stella move around the dance floor like a ribbon of smoke. His mood soured as he watched men sidle up behind her and grind their hips or take her in their arms and spin her.

“You know, you could just stake your claim instead of standing here growling.”

Ren turned to find his neighbor, Ginny, sitting on a stool, nursing a whiskey.

“She’s fine.”

“I don’t know, Slick. She doesn’t look too happy.”

He glanced over his shoulder to see Stella pushing a man to arm’s length only to have him continue to invade her space. “Trust me. Stella could kick the ass of any guy in this bar—probably all of them at the same time.”

Ginny sipped her drink. “I’m sure she can. But sometimes a girl likes to know that she doesn’t have to.”

Ren observed Stella as she again shoved the guy back. He turned to Ginny. “Hold my beer.”

Stella

S tella was getting fed up with this idiot. His breath reeked, and if he tried to squeeze her ass one more time, she was going to break his wrist. She didn’t want to draw attention, so she moved away, only to have him press against her again. Stella was just about to choke him out when he vanished.

Ren stepped over the guy’s unconscious body and took her in his arms. Stella fit perfectly tucked into his broad torso. He smelled like the ocean, and his smug smile told her everything she needed to know about the guy on the floor.

“Neat trick,” she said.

“Cut off the blood supply to the brain. He’ll wake up in a minute.”

Ren slipped his arm around Stella’s back and began to move as the band played. The familiar motion of his hips had Stella softening against his big body. “I thought you couldn’t dance.”

“I said I didn’t dance. I never said I couldn’t dance. These assholes need to know you’re taken.”

As the band broke into Harry Styles’s, Adore You and the dance floor filled, Ren held her face in his big hands and kissed her.

Stella wrapped her arms around his neck and met his searching tongue with her own.

Ren’s fingers tangled in her hair as he deepened the kiss.

Stella’s foot circled Ren’s calf as he hooked her waist and pulled her closer.

She was floating, adrift in this otherworldly connection, and never wanted to return.

A wolf whistle had them both pulling back. Stella met his hungry gaze. “A whole lot of people just watched you do that.”

Ren pulled her hips flush with his as he moved on the dance floor. “Good.”

Stella matched his movements, loving the way his body cocooned her.

Ren dipped his head and whispered, “Stella Keen, you vex me.”

She tipped her head back and found his warm gaze. “So, you find me vexy?”

“Impossibly vexy.” He smiled, laced his fingers with hers, and pulled her off the dance floor. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Stella asked as she hurried to keep up.

Ren held open the door and ushered her outside. “Home. I’m going to vex you back.”