Undercover Marriage by Terri Reed

don’t.”
    But she had. And she didn’t know how to stop. For the past year and a half she’d harbored so much animosity toward Josh that letting it go was hard. Especially when his touches sparked such delicious shivers and tingles.
    Josh snorted.
    Hoping to steer the conversation back to the situation, she said, “I snapped photos of a couple pages in the ledger. Though the woman’s handwriting is nearly impossible to read. I also got some shots of the baby collage on the wall.”
    “She was a bit of an odd duck,” Josh commented.
    “I’m not sure what to think of her,” Serena said. “She seemed a little confused. Yet I saw glimpses of a sharp intellect.”
    “An act? Or old age?”
    “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
    “We’ll find out.” Josh’s gaze traveled over her face and softened before meeting her eye. He turned back to the road. “She picked up on how uncomfortable you were.”
    Serena blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m sure she attributes my nervousness to wanting to adopt.”
    “Maybe.” He changed lanes in the heavy St. Louis traffic. “One way or another she and her husband are going down, and I don’t care if she is certifiable.”
    “You don’t mean that, do you?”
    Josh pulled up to a red light. “The illegal adoptions have been going on for a long time. We’ve barely scratched the surface. And there’s no way I’d believe the woman doesn’t know what’s happening within her own company.”
    He had a point. The agency belonged to her, while her husband brokered the deals on the back end by securing babies for adoption. She had to know what her husband was up to. Didn’t she?
    Didn’t husbands and wives share everything?
    She mentally scoffed. She had no idea what a successful marriage entailed. All she’d ever seen of her parents’ marriage was the bickering and fighting, which had escalated to all-out war by the time she was ten. Then a messy divorce that left her feeling adrift.
    If she hadn’t had Daniel as her anchor... Her heart compressed with grief. Her fists curled as her sorrow morphed into simmering anger. Daniel shouldn’t be dead. If only Josh had answered his phone!
    When Josh pulled up to the cover house, she jumped out and hurried inside as fast as her wedge sandals would allow. A stab of guilt for leaving Josh in the dust impaled her. She mentally took a step back. She needed to get a grip on her emotions around him.
    “Hmm, something smells good,” he said as he stepped into the entryway behind her, filling the room with a low-level buzz that set Serena’s blood to humming.
    The house smelled of savory spices and grilling meat. Suddenly, her mouth watered. She could get used to having someone preparing meals for her. Her culinary skills barely included scrambled eggs and toast. Learning to cook had always been a low priority on her list of things to accomplish. Good thing they had Linda around to cook or they might starve.
    “How did it go?” Linda came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a bright blue apron with yellow ducks all over it.
    “It could have been better.” Serena dug out the smartphone. “I took some pictures of a ledger that was on Mrs. Munders’s desk. Do you think you could try to decipher it?”
    “Of course.” Linda made no move to take the phone. “My hands are greasy. Set the phone on the desk in the office.”
    She pivoted, nearly toppling over Josh, and headed for the office with her phone, eager to get away from him. She heard Linda say, “So I hear it could have gone better.”
    “You could say that.”
    Serena made a face and dropped the phone onto the desk. She didn’t like the idea of their discussing her behind her back, but she had no intention of joining them so they could analyze her behavior. Especially when she herself didn’t understand why she reacted the way she did around Josh and was struggling to control her reactions.
    She headed upstairs to her room at the end of the