Lone wolf, p.2
Lone Wolf, page 2
“While you get her ready, I’ve been informed of a small problem in our plan,” Carter updates me.
Frowning, I keep my eyes on her. “What do you mean?”
“She has a pet,” Carter says at the same time K shifts in her seat, saying, “I have a cat.” My eyes move to the woman, but the moment they meet hers, she looks to the ground.
“So I’m going back to the house,” Carter continues, “make it look like I still have things to talk to Kellie about, and will inform Ani to bring the cat out with her.” Ani is our decoy person in the place of Kellie. She doesn’t work with Douglas Group, but for another group Tucker knows of. “You two will continue your night as planned and I’ll arrange transportation for the cat at a later time.”
I’m not much of a cat person, but I also realize this woman is having her entire world ripped apart.
Guess I’ll be living with a strange woman and her cat.
Carter and I finish discussing the plan and after she leaves to fulfill her end, I bring a three ring binder to where K continues to sit.
“Here, this is what you’ll have to work on memorizing.” I stand over her and hold the black binder down. She looks up at me and unclenches her hands to take it.
Her eyes are a green-brown hazel. Another piece of her that seems mostly ordinary.
Stepping back to give her space, I take the spot Carter was in earlier.
“We tried to give you a name that was close to Kellie, to make it easier to respond to. Kellie and Kaelyn do have different sounds, but they’re still both K names and two syllables. I’ll be calling you K until you’re more comfortable with the name.” K could be for Kellie, and once she’s used to it, it could be Kae for Kaelyn.
She nods and timidly opens the front, looking down at the three ringed bound papers.
“We try to stick as close to your existing story as we can, without you remaining the same person.” After agreeing to the job, Tucker and I spent hours going over things the girl would need to know. Tucker has numerous contacts across many lettered agencies, and knew the ins and outs of a protection-type program. After we had Kae’s basic profile down, we expanded—her family, her life, our life. “Your parents are still dead. You still don’t have siblings. We met in North Carolina during my short time at Lejeune.” I know the dates I was actually stationed there are in the papers. “We’ve been married for four years, with our anniversary coming up on September 15th. You wanted a fall wedding but not too late in the season that it would be cold. Everything about us and our timeline is in that binder. You’ll also find random facts and shit about me in there.”
My phone pings with an alarm and I look at the wall clock. “We have to dye your hair. My documents guy will be coming in two hours to get your license and passport finalized.”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t put up a fight, following me into the kitchen where she sits on the chair I pull out. “I can’t say I’ve done this before but...it can be fixed at our destination if I screw up.” Not that I think I’ll fuck up her hair, but might as well be honest.
“Where are we going?” I’ve been mostly avoiding her face but I look at her now. There’s still a healthy amount of shock there but I’ve got to give the girl credit for basically taking it all in stride.
“I can’t disclose that with you until we’re there. It’s for your safety.”
“Won’t I figure it out at the airport?” K asks as I turn away, gathering the hair color box and towel. Carter said it would be easiest to change her hair to a brown color, and that black could be too fast, too harsh, on her lighter hair and instead, give off green undertones.
The goal is to make her blend in and not stand out, so I grabbed a box that said “chocolate brown” and seemed to be a normal looking color.
What does one expect when telling a Marine he’s in charge of changing some woman’s hair color?
“We’re taking a chartered flight.” I had most of the supplies set and ready for her arrival, but I do the final prep now, shaking the bottle after putting the color in. “You going to change your mind?”
“I...” Her sigh is audible. “No.”
She sits quietly, not even questioning when I pull up multiple YouTube videos before applying the dye to her hair.
I’d question it, for sure.
Hell, I am questioning it. Every inch of this mission was planned, except having an actual professional change her hair color.
While following the steps from the pamphlet and videos—the gloves were not meant for a man’s hands—I ask her easy questions that won’t be in the binder. There are some things she gets to determine about who Kaelyn Johansen is.
Such as: “What’s your favorite color?”
“I don’t know...maybe coral?”
It’s like a woman to choose a fancy-named color.
“Food?”
“Like...food-food, or sweets-food?”
Didn’t realize a person would need that broken up.
“How about one of both?”
“French dip without au jus—”
I can’t help the chuckle. “So a beef sandwich?”
“Sure. And cupcakes. But only mine.”
“You’re a baker, right?” I ask, my hands brushing through her thick hair, doing my best to make sure the dye covers every single hair. Some of the lighter parts of her hair are looking a little...pinkish red...so I squeeze and rub more dye onto those sections.
“Well, I like to bake.”
That’s a damn good thing...
“When we get to town, one of our initial tasks is to go downtown and look at a storefront.”
“For...?”
“Tucker Douglas—the man guy behind this operation—thinks a good way for you to integrate into the town is to open a bakery.”
“I’m sorry, what?” She sputters and turns her head, thankfully when my dye-covered gloved hand is away from her head.
I thought I was pretty clear, but I repeat myself anyway. “You’re going to open a bakery.”
“How do you guys know these things? Certainly not from social media. I barely ever posted about baking.”
“Douglas knows things and he knows people. I’m almost done here,” I get her back on task. “After it sits or sets or whatever the hell the term is, you’ll wash and dry, and then I’ll get your picture taken for docs. Before the plane, we’ll have one stop to make, and then it’s on to your future.”
“Am I allowed to ask questions about you?”
“Anything you need to know is in the binder.”
“Even, like...your favorite color?”
“Yes. Even my favorite color.” The color bottle is now empty and I’m pretty sure I’ve covered every inch of her hair, so I guess...that’s it? Grabbing my things, I head to the garbage and toss everything inside.
But her quiet, “Oh,” has me stopping. This whole situation is fucked up. No, I’m not going into this unscathed either—I’m walking out of the door later with a wife—but at least I don’t have to completely change every minute detail about my past.
If we’re going to make this work, I have to reciprocate.
The guys at Douglas know the truth but if there’s any way in hell she and I are going to sell to the world that we’re married, and had a whirlwind romance at that, there has to be two-way communication.
And if I expect her to be open and play the part, I have to do the same.
With a sigh, I move back to the table and take out another chair, turning it around and straddling it to face her.
“I don’t know that I have a favorite color, but in the binder, it says green.”
She nods once, avoiding my eyes.
I tap my thumb against the back of the chair, and think about the questions I asked her. “If I had to choose a food, I’d probably say barbeque ribs, but really, any meat on the grill is a plus in my book. Not really much of a sweets guy.”
Her eyes leave the floor and her brows rush up as she meets my gaze. “And I’m supposed to be married to you...?”
I catch the smallest hint of a curve on her lips.
As if she’s teasing.
A baker married to a man who doesn’t like baked goods.
Giving her my own small grin, I lift a shoulder and let it drop. “Look, I know this is hard. It is for me too. I like my space and quiet. Tucker assured me that this marriage is only as long as it’s needed. If in a year everything seems safe for you, we’ll divorce. You’ll remain Kaelyn...and the maiden name you were given was Zimmanck. We just ask that during the time where your protection need is at its highest, we tell the world that we’re in a happy marriage. I won’t step out on you, and I expect the same of you. The threat to you will always be watched, even ten, twenty years down the road, and any decisions that are made about you, for your safety, will be made appropriately.”
She throws me for a loop with a subject change. “Is your name really Hemming?”
“It is. But when I was a kid, I demanded my family and friends call me Jack. In fact, at our destination, I will be introducing myself to people as Jack. But when I was in the military, the guys learned my real first name and started using it as a joke, calling me Hemingway and Drunk Poet, even though Hemingway was more a novelist and I’m not a big drinker.” The last thing the woman needs is to fear she’s being saddled with a man who can’t handle his booze.
But it’s not that she takes focus on. “Have you read Hemingway?” There’s a confused look on her face, as if men can’t read classics.
“In high school. Anyway, Hemingway was too long to call out so it was shortened...to my given name.”
“Do I call you Hemming or Jack?”
“Whatever you feel like calling me. It would make sense either way—”
She cuts me off, “And why Jack? They’re not similar at all.”
Chuckling, I push off from the chair and put it back under the table. “When I was seven, I was watching those clay animation Christmas movies, and determined Jack was my name after watching Jack Frost. It helped that when I was a kid, I had stark white blond hair like the character.”
Her eyes lift to my military-cut hair. I no longer have white-blond hair. Cut short, it looks pretty dark but if it were to grow out, it’s probably similar in color to her natural color.
“How...I mean, I’m sure it’s in the binder,” she says, again looking down. I hope she gets over this shy, unsureness stage she’s in right now, because it’s going to be hard to convince people I didn’t kidnap her. “How old are you?”
“Thirty two.”
“And we allegedly got married five years ago next month, and met...?”
“Five and a half years ago.”
“Where would we have met when I was twenty? And we had a short engagement? Six months to meet, fall in love, get engaged, and married?”
It isn’t that out of the ordinary for people in the military to have whirlwind relationships. “It’s—”
She sighs again. “In the binder, I know. I just...it’s hard to wrap my head around all of this... I need to hear it, I guess. Not read it.”
I can understand that. I don’t have a problem with processing things I read but I know some things are easier to hear. “We met due to a car accident. We were both parties to it—”
“Was I at fault? I’m a good driver. My current record is clean—”
“No, it wasn’t your fault. You were pickle-in-the-middled. You rear ended me when another driver failed to stop behind you. No injuries. All three parties exchanged numbers, but I reached out to you a week or so later, and asked you to dinner.”
“That’s... Okay, that’s not a bad meet cute, I guess.”
“Meet cute?”
“How the hero and heroine...male and female main characters in a book, meet.”
“So you’re a reader?”
“Did you guys not get that in your research? Y’all got that I bake, but not that I read? I definitely read more than I bake.”
“I probably skipped over it,” I tell her honestly.
“Definitely a man,” she answers, shaking her head but again...that incredibly slight, barely-there, crooked smile is on her lips. “Not paying attention to a woman’s hobbies.”
These small glimpses of personality have me realizing this may not be as hard as I feared. I think I might be able to get along with this woman.
In another world, maybe I’d have picked her, anyway.
The dread of the next year dissipates, but rationally, I know this isn’t the time to flirt.
Instead of carrying on, I check the clock as a way to break the conversation. “You should probably go wash out your hair now. There’s shampoo and conditioner in the shower, and a hair dryer under the sink. I also placed a change of clothes for you in the bathroom.”
She frowns briefly at the change in dynamic, but nods all the same. “All right. Thank you.”
I force myself to turn back to the sink to clean up, refusing to give in and watch her walk away.
Chapter
Three
K
* * *
As I shower, I continue to repeat in my head, “K, K, K, K... Kaelyn. Kae. Lyn. Kaelyn Johansen...” Maybe the more I say my new name, the easier it will be to respond to.
I have to admit, as far as being thrown into a marriage goes, I could have done worse in the husband department.
He’s unlike any man I’ve ever been with.
I wouldn’t necessarily say I tend to gravitate more toward the hipster kind of guy but...
Broad, muscular men have never been the ones who asked me out.
I’m also accustomed to men being mostly eye to eye with my five-ten height—if not shorter—but Hemming still stands above me.
Needless to say, I’ve never felt small next to a man.
But I feel small next to him.
Attraction aside, this is all very overwhelming.
I’m sure The Binder—and I’m absolutely thinking of it as capital T, capital B—will be a great tool but I’m afraid I’m going to screw up.
I have a good memory. I can easily memorize what’s in the binder.
My fear isn’t “knowing” who I’m supposed to be.
It’s “forgetting” who I was.
What happens if I slip? What if I say the wrong thing, or inadvertently do something that says Kellie is alive and well?
Shit, thinking about myself as a was is so freaking strange.
Stranger is the fact I’m expected to immediately integrate with society in the new place, essentially as a person I don’t even know?! Being a baker, in public?
I’ve only ever baked for myself.
Yes, I’ve absolutely made tiered cakes with fancy decorations for myself. I like pretty things, and I like cake. Baking started as a way to channel my creativity. It’s one of the few things I do that keeps me focused and on task.
I’m not sure how this baking business is going to work for me. I sure hope Hemming or his people have a sense of business because that is not my forte.
Once again, my mind goes to the man and what he said about our story.
Married for basically five years...
Even with a short courting, we’d know one another well by this point. No amount of studying The Binder on an overnight flight is going to make tomorrow be all, Poof! Kaelyn and Hemming, sitting in a tree.
I’ve never been in a long-term relationship. Nothing’s ever lasted more than a few months.
I’m totally going to screw something up.
As the brown dye rinses down my back and swirls around my feet, I can’t help but try and put myself in the heroine spot in a marriage-of-convenience romance novel. The man and woman always fall in love.
Will our proximity have me falling in love with Hemming?
The thought barely takes time to register before I scoff at it.
Fiction and reality are not one and the same.
He said that if after a year things looked good, we could divorce. A year’s a long time to play pretend, but I honestly believe that’s all it will take before I can be “single Kaelyn.” I’m sure by that time I’ll be well adjusted to my new life, too.
There’s no way anyone’s going to come looking for me, regardless of what Clay was mixed up in.
“Clay meeting you at O’Ryans wasn’t a coincidence, Kellie.”
I’m smart enough to know what Carter meant with that statement. In a world where trafficking runs rampant, targeting lonely women is easiest. No one will miss them if they go missing.
Sighing, I try telling myself that as weird as this all feels, I’m lucky.
I’m going from having literally no one, to apparently having many people. I have a husband. I have his friends. I have his community.
It could be worse, I suppose.
And maybe after the time I spend with him and his people, maybe I’ll still walk away from all of this with friends of my own.
Turning toward the spray, I startle at the brown water droplets that are all over the side of the shower. “Oops.” I cup handfuls of water to get the colored water off the wall.
Once I’m sure it’s all gone, I wash my face using my hands, sudsy from the bar of soap. I end up scrubbing a little too aggressively by my eyes, and furiously blink against the water as eyelashes seem to pierce my eyeball.
“Shit,” I murmur, trying to rub the pain away.
But in doing so, something feels off with my colored contact.
With that eye squeezed shut, I quickly finish my shower and dry off in haste, then make my way to the sink, the towel wrapped around me.
Maybe there are dixie cups and saline solution. Something that I can drop the contact in to.
I pull open drawers only to find them empty.
The medicine cabinet is as well.
Resigned, I pull off a square of toilet paper before cautiously removing the now painful contact.
It somehow folded in on itself.
Carefully, I unfold it...and notice the smallest tear.
“Well, fuck,” I whisper. There’s no saving this one, and I doubt Hemming has extras lying around. I’d be quite surprised if his—their...whoever’s—intel dug as deep as my eye color.
