Nobody Does It Better

Nobody Does It Better

Jennifer LaBrecque

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNIFER LABRECQUE

After a varied career path that included waitress, corporate number cruncher and bug-business maven, Jennifer LaBrecque found her true calling writing contemporary romance. Named 2001 Notable New Author of the Year and 2002 winner of the prestigious Maggie Award for Excellence, she is also a two-time RITA® Award finalist. Jennifer lives in suburban Atlanta with her husband, an active daughter, one really bad cat, two precocious greyhounds and a chihuahua who runs the whole show.

Dear Reader,

I was thrilled to get a chance to set a love story in what I consider one of the most hauntingly romantic cities in the world, Venice. And, of course, a special city demanded a special hero. Enter Gage carswell, British agent – tall, dark, sexy and as elegantly sophisticated as Venice itself – who’s assigned to stop an international threat. What kind of heroine finds herself in Venice? Enter Holly Smith, a rather ordinary schoolteacher from Atlanta, Georgia, in search of her long-lost mother. Stir the pot with a case of mistaken identity and a generous splash of espionage and you’ve got Nobody Does It Better.

While writing this story I laughed, cried and fell in love with a beautiful city all over again, even as I watched Gage and Holly fall in love. I’ve taken licence to create fictional streets, restaurants and businesses just because it’s easier that way and as the writer, well, I can. I hope you enjoy the result.

I’d love to hear from you. Drop by my website at www.jenniferlabrecque.com to check out my daily blog and www.soapboxqueens.com where Rhonda Nelson, Vicki Lewis Thompson and I blog about this, that and the other.

Happy reading…

Jennifer LaBrecque

To the guys and gals who show up at the Soapbox Queens blog (www.soapboxqueens.com).

Y’all are the best.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Copyright

1

“IT LOOKS AS IF WE’LL BE flying with clear skies tonight out of Atlanta and across the pond. We expect to have you in London by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, their time.”

Holly Smith relaxed her grip on the armrest. She was flying. Yes, indeed. Maybe she shouldn’t have ordered that third glass of wine at the airport bar, but she had a pleasant buzz going and she wouldn’t be nearly as relaxed otherwise. So far, flying wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined it might be.

Despite what her ex-boyfriend Greg had said, she was not a neurotic mess. So she had some quirks. Who didn’t? Who cared if she checked her silverware for cleanliness in a restaurant before she used it, and had brought along her own blow-up travel pillow and blanket so she wouldn’t have to use the airline’s? And, she was careful with her money. But cheap? She thought not.

A neurotic mess? Hardly. A mess was just ugly. A person couldn’t be a mess, spilt milk was a mess. Screw him. She nearly laughed aloud. Nope, she wouldn’t be doing that anymore. And hadn’t he been surprised to hear it?

She’d known they were in a go-nowhere relationship. Ending that had been the first step in her new plan to make all aspects of her life proactive rather than reactive.

It was rather funny how such a life-changing event had started out so innocuously. Three months ago, she’d been waiting in the hair salon to be called back for a wash and trim. She’d been thumbing through a magazine when she’d stumbled across an article. Usually, she never read those pseudo-self-help pieces, but she’d found herself sucked into this one. The article focused on being the change you wanted in your life rather than waiting for someone to change it for you. It had been an aha, scales-falling-from-her-eyes moment.

She took charge in so many other aspects of her life. She’d deliberately pursued a high school teaching career that focused on working with gifted students. She’d set a goal and achieved it. Buying her condo? Same thing.

The “aha” had come in the relationship department. It was as if she’d discovered thousands of dollars of therapy between the covers of one glossy magazine.

She’d realized she was the queen of reactive relationships because…drumroll…she didn’t trust herself. She’d known she and Greg were going nowhere but she would’ve waited on him to end it. Her breaking up with him had been huge. It’d been like getting to base camp on a Mount Everest climb—an important first step.

She reached overhead to direct the stream of cool air from the vent more directly in her face. That felt good. She just wouldn’t think about all the germs that were probably in all that recycled air. So far, so good on flying. Of course, they weren’t there yet. She exhaled, trying to release the anxiety that suddenly welled up within her. When she got really upset she threw up. And throwing up right now…not good.

“A little nervous about flying?” the woman in the window seat next to her asked, a note of sympathy in the question.

“Just a little,” Holly said. She dug into her backpack and pulled out the inflatable pillow and a small travel blanket. “I’ve never flown before.”

“You picked a long flight for a first timer.”

Holly grinned. “Only because the boat takes too long to get from Atlanta to Venice.” There was a kernel of truth in her humor. Three quick breaths and the neck pillow was done. She fumbled with the plug for a second, but then got it.

“If you don’t mind me asking, I have to know what or who is so important in Venice that you’re willing to take such a long first trip?” The woman chuckled. “Sorry. Don’t answer that if it’s too personal. I’m a writer and I always want to know stuff. My husband says I’m nosy. I consider it research.”

“A writer? No kidding?” Wow. “What do you write?”

“I’m Martina Larson. Call me Marty. I write romance novels.”

Holly read her fair share of romance novels. Who in the world didn’t love a happy ending? The woman’s name was vaguely familiar. “I think I’ve read a couple of your books before. They’re very…sensual.” If they were the ones she thought they were, they were quite spicy. Just the kind of sex she wished she was having. But not trusting herself in a relationship also translated to not trusting herself to indulge in some of her more explicit fantasies.

Marty laughed. “My books go way beyond sensual. I’m on my way to a writers’ retreat with a couple of friends. We’ll be staying in a sixteenth-century castle a few hours north of London.” She paused. “You never said why you’re going to Venice.”

“I’ve heard it’s beautiful.” And that was true.

“It is. And it shouldn’t be too crowded at this time of year, at least not as crowded as in the summer. Short of going to the Venetian in Vegas, there’s no mistaking Venice for anywhere else. My husband and I spent a couple of days there several years ago.”

Had Marty abandoned her family, left behind a husband and two children, and stayed in Venice? Had she gone on a business trip and then virtually dropped off the face of the earth? No birthday cards, no Christmas cards, no appearance at high school or college graduation, no contact for twenty-seven years. Holly’s wild guess was probably not.

“I want to see it for myself,” she said.

“Are you meeting a friend there?”

“No. I’m going solo. But I have arranged for a tour guide, since I have an abysmal sense of direction.” This was her mission, her quest, her confrontation. She wanted a firsthand reckoning with the woman who’d birthed her and then abandoned her.

She thought she’d put it behind her, the Mother’s Day Tea in kindergarten when the teaching assistant had sat with her because she’d been alone. Being thirteen and having to get up the nerve to approach her father and tell him she needed sanitary napkins. Unlike her friends, she didn’t have a mother to prepare her. She’d told herself she couldn’t miss what she’d never known. And since Julia, as Holly mentally referred to her, had skipped town when Holly was three, she had no recollection of a time when she’d had a mother.

But that wasn’t exactly true. Deep inside, for as long as she could remember, she’d been waiting—nurturing a secret hope that one day the phone would ring, a letter would arrive in the mail, that Julia would show up on her doorstep. Her father had finally started to date last year and remarried this year. And Holly had figured it out. Dumping Greg was base camp. Finding Julia was Everest.

“You’ll love it,” Marty said.

“I think it’ll change my life.”

Marty eyed her with a mix of speculation and curiosity, as if she knew there was more to the story than Holly was telling. But they were interrupted when the flight attendant announced the upcoming in-flight movie, a romantic comedy.

“Oh, I’ve been dying to see this. I missed it at the movies,” Marty said.

After all the anticipation and anxiety—and probably the wine—exhaustion overwhelmed Holly. She settled the pillow around her neck and unfolded the blanket, tucking it over her shoulders. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap. If it looks like we’re going to crash, please don’t wake me.”

She closed her eyes and tried to relax beneath the blanket. She was only partially kidding.

“WE SPOTTED HER ENTERING London under the name Holly Smith.” Gage Carswell leaned forward for a better look at the blurry photo enlarged from the airport-security camera as Mason continued his briefing. “She’s catching a connector to Venice. We’ll delay the flight out of London, which should give you ample time to get in place. We ran her schedule. She’s booked a room off of San Marco for a week. You’re going to be in the room next door. She’s arranged for a private tour guide, requesting an off-the-beaten-path experience. Your cover will be as that guide. Monitor her twenty-four/seven. We want to know where she goes, whom she sees, what she does. We need contact information. Names. Numbers.” Mason shrugged. “Set a honey trap.”

Ten years in the spook business and Gage still found all of the spy lingo amusing. Why the hell didn’t his handler just say don’t kill her, seduce her. He was not, however, amused at being tagged for a honey-trap assignment. Bloody bother, that. He didn’t mask his annoyance.

Mason’s clipped chuckle lacked any warmth. Sadistic bastard. “I know the seduction routine isn’t your preferred MO, but Eros is currently undercover.”

The legendary agent Eros who had never met a woman he couldn’t seduce to get what—or whom—he wanted. Kazbekistan? Poor sot. At least the food would be better in Venice.

Gage settled back in his chair in the windowless office. Paranoia and caution went with the job of managing covert operations, but it would drive Gage nutters to spend every day in this box, even if it was in London. However, windows meant the other side could use a telephoto lens or other high-tech methods of gleaning information on a desk or computer screen that didn’t want gleaning. Give him his field-operative position any day.

He glanced again at the photo of the woman Mason had included in his briefing papers. The Gorgon, aka Holly Smith. Five foot six. Weight listed at one-forty, but Gage figured that contained a fifteen-pound lie. Women couldn’t resist shaving down the number. Chin-length brown hair, and startling aquamarine eyes in an otherwise average face. From what he ascertained from the photo, she wasn’t a beauty, but she wouldn’t set small children off screaming, either.

“Why would she book a tour?” Gage asked. It didn’t make sense.

“As a cover?” Mason shrugged. “To be unpredictable? Because she’s a bloody female?”

Not for the first time, Gage thought Mason was something of a misogynist, but that wasn’t his problem. “There’s a tour itinerary?”

Mason flicked his wrist toward the file. “It’s in there, as dictated by the client.”

“It’s a private tour group? Isn’t there an office?”

“No. Your Way Tours is an Internet operation touted as being more low-key and personalized than trolling along with the blue-hairs. Consider it your lucky day that you won’t have to wear a natty polyester suit coat, too.”

“You’re sure she’s the one?” Gage ran a finger along the edge of the photo. He’d heard of the woman code-named the Gorgon. Dealing in black-market uranium, she’d proven to be an elusive target for years. But they’d been getting closer and closer. It was only a matter of time. One slipup, and they’d have her.

Mason steepled his fingers and regarded Gage across the expanse of desktop separating them, his pale green eyes cold despite his smile. “Holly Smith is either an alias or a stolen identity.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s her.” Mason shook his head. “She might as well have a tattoo across her forehead with those aqua eyes. They’re unique—her one identifying mark. She could easily mask them with colored contacts but she won’t. Female vanity. True, she’s never operated in Venice before, but if it looks like a Gorgon, walks like a Gorgon, smells like a Gorgon…”

“It’s a Gorgon,” Gage finished for him.

“There’s been some chatter indicating a substantial deal impending. With the Gorgon’s arrival in Europe, it appears imminent. We could be looking at a drop.” Did Mason always have to sound as if he had a stick up his arse? “If so, it’s imperative we intercept the package. By the way, you’re going in as an illegal. The Italians don’t like us poaching on their territory.”

“Not a problem.” It seemed a bit of overkill for a simple watch-and-monitor situation, but he’d gone in without diplomatic immunity before. If he was caught out, he was on his own.

“Unbeknownst to the ubiquitous Ms. Smith, her travel case has been misplaced at Heathrow. Pity that. It didn’t manage to make the connecting flight to Venice.”

“We’ve examined it?”

“We will soon enough. If there’s a package, we’ll find it. Even so, we’ll still want contacts. Holly Smith is being monitored now, but once she steps off the plane in Italy, she’s yours. You’re to initiate contact at 9:00 a.m. at her hotel tomorrow morning. Her tour includes three meals. She specifically requested a Venetian native, a middle-aged female preferred. Her assigned guide, Signora Ciavelli, however, has developed a sudden and most unfortunate gastric problem and you’re to be her substitute. You’re not a native but you lived there immediately following university.”

It’d require finesse to tail the Gorgon from the airport to the hotel. Even a glimpse of him could give away the game. Familiar anticipation surged through him. He looked forward to outfoxing his new opponent.

“Are we tipping our hand with the missing luggage and the suddenly sick guide?”

“We’ve calculated the risk,” Mason assured him. “We couldn’t chance the luggage going through. The most obvious place to hide something is right in front of one’s nose. And we need you with her constantly. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced your charm is such that you could sweep her off her feet. And if you try and fail to sweep her off her feet, then you’ll simply appear to be a nutter. Inserting you as the guide was a safer bet. She’ll be stuck with you.”

Gage took the insult in stride. Surveillance, not charm, was his forte. “That works.”

A brusque nod and Mason continued, “You’re the mate of a mate who owns the guide service. Given your flexible schedule as a gallery owner, you help out in a pinch.”

One of the first lessons in spook training—stick as close to the truth as possible. One was less likely to trip oneself up when one put forth the least amount of lies. Actually, owning an art gallery was not only financially lucrative for Gage, it also offered him the flexibility to extend the range of his spy activities, chiefly because Agnes, his second in command, was a paragon of efficiency and organization.

It amused Gage that spy novels and films often showed an agent simply rushing about, being an agent, whereas in actuality, a legitimate career offered the perfect cover and a measure of interest between assignments.

“And when I get the information?” It was only a matter of when, not if. What he lacked in charm, he made up for in determination and skill. He wasn’t arrogant, just sure of his capabilities.

And he knew he’d never have to worry about getting personally involved. There was a void inside him, the detachment that was a curse for him as a man but a godsend as a spy. He’d never cultivated the detachment. It’d never been a conscious decision not to let another human being touch him emotionally. It’d simply transpired. He’d lost his parents to an auto accident and been sent to live with a grandfather who wanted nothing to do with a nine-year-old lad in mourning. Within weeks, he’d been shipped off to boarding school. From that time forward, there’d always been a distance inside him that buffered him from everyone else, that kept him slightly removed, apart. It served him well in this business.

“Once you’ve verified the information, let her go and we’ll continue to watch her. Just make sure you’re not compromised.”

He didn’t need the reminder of what being compromised entailed. All operative positions were not created equal. His position demanded anonymity. For him, compromise meant, at worst, termination by the enemy or, at best, “retirement” by his agency.

Gage glanced down at the photo of the woman and tamped back a faint tinge of relief that he didn’t have to terminate the Gorgon afterward.

Maybe he was getting soft, but he hated it when that happened.

2

HOLLY STOOD WITH HER FEET braced in the vaporetto, Venice’s water bus, and stared ahead at the city etched against a star-scattered backdrop, enchanted by the centuries-old spires and domes that punctuated the skyline. She resisted the urge to pinch herself. She’d finally arrived, albeit several hours late.

Cool air whipped her hair behind her and she tugged her jacket more firmly around her middle. Her entire body tingled, as if caught up in an awakening. It was the oddest thing, but the sensation had started when she’d exited the Venice airport.

“It’s almost surreal, isn’t it?”

She turned to the young couple at the rail beside her. She’d met them while waiting to clear Italian Customs, much the same as when you struck up a conversation with someone in the grocery line. She knew they were art-history grad students from Boston who’d just married and were honeymooning in Venice, but she didn’t know their names. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

“Was it worth it?” the young woman asked with a smile.

“Probably. When I’ve had a little distance from this day.”

“You’ve had the trip from hell, haven’t you?” the new husband said with an earnest grimace. “Sitting three hours on the tarmac at Heathrow and then learning that your luggage didn’t make it to Venice.”

“The trip from hell about sums it up.” When Holly had finally figured out her suitcase was a no-show at Venice’s Marco Polo Airport, the woman behind the counter assured her it would be delivered to her hotel by early morning. It was frustrating, but if they’d deliver her bag bright and early tomorrow morning, it wouldn’t be too bad.

In the interim, Holly had no clean underwear, no clean clothes and no makeup. At least she had her travel toothbrush with her. No toothpaste, mind you, but a toothbrush. Cup half-full, cup half-full, she reminded herself.

She shrugged. “I’m looking on the bright side. The plane didn’t crash.”

“There’s always the trip back,” the young man quipped with a laugh.

His new wife elbowed him. “Mark! That’s a terrible thing to say.” Nonetheless, she giggled and wrapped an adoring arm around his waist.

God, they were so young and so in love. They barely looked older than the sixteen-year-olds that came through Holly’s classroom. Or maybe she was just getting old. Mark murmured something low and intimate into his wife’s ear and Holly looked away from what had become a private moment between the two.

Had she ever felt that way about anyone? Had she ever gazed at anyone with stars in her eyes? Uh, no. Did she want to? Despite Greg’s accusations to the contrary, of course she did, didn’t she? Well, not necessarily with stars in her eyes. It felt too much like being blinded, and that certainly wasn’t good. Her parents had been blinded and she knew how well that had worked out.

The vaporetto, much larger than many of the smaller craft they’d passed, slowed and navigated toward the landing. Her heart thumped harder in her chest as the boat docked with a slight jar.

Holly was literally awestruck. No travel guide, no video could have prepared her for this. The city was an entity unto itself. Elegant and beautiful with an air of mystery and sadness. Was this how her mother had felt all those years ago? Enchanted? Seduced by a place to the point that a husband and children back home became meaningless? Holly shook her head. That’s why she was here. She wanted answers. No more wondering. No more supposition.

She wrapped her fingers around the leather straps of her backpack-like purse. This was her stop. She’d memorized it, worried she’d miss it and wind up taking the scenic tour of Venice via vaporetto because she didn’t get off when she should. She considered herself very capable, but she had to admit, her sense of direction left a lot to be desired. It was the running family joke that Holly could get lost going from one room to the other in a two-room house. It wasn’t that far off the mark.

In a flurry of activity, several passengers exited the boat to the stone quay and Holly found herself in a momentary crush. Her breath caught in her throat as she gained her footing on the worn, slightly uneven stone. She could be standing in the same spot Marco Polo had once stood, perhaps one of the powerful doges, a beautiful courtesan, or one of the countless servants to the wealthy families that had ruled this city of power and intrigue. Lyrical Italian floated around her and she thought the young family to her left was speaking German, but it was English she heard spoken at her elbow.

“Where’s your hotel again?” Mark, the Bostonian newlywed, asked as he retrieved a folded map of Venice from his backpack.

Holly rattled off the address of the modestly priced Pensione Armand. She’d forsaken amenities for price while maintaining a location central to the Grand Canal and San Marco square.

“Our hotel isn’t far from yours. Want to walk together?” he said.

Holly knew from their earlier conversation that the couple was scrimping on day-to-day expenses so they could splurge on a gondola ride. Holly had silently suppressed a shudder and kept her opinion to herself. True, the gondola was the quintessential symbol of Venice and purportedly the ultimate romantic experience, but they were welcome to it.

Yuck. God only knew what kind of germs thrived in the Venetian canals. The vaporetto was one thing—there was plenty of boat between her and the water. However, she had no interest in getting in a gondola, which would put her in alarmingly close contact with the water. Thanks, but no thanks. She’d admire the graceful black boats with their attendant striped-shirt gondoliers from a distance.