His thumb rubbed over the smooth blade release. Good thing he’d taken it away from her first.
“I’ve been tending drinks a long time, and drunks even longer. The most common reason to drown your sorrows is in the name of love.” He pressed the button, springing open the blade. “What happened between her and the major?”
Her slim shoulders heaved up and down. “There was a disagreement about his supposed duties on Tuesdays. Surprisingly, three bottles wasn’t enough to loosen her tongue on the specifics beyond her being far more interesting than bratwurst.” Reaching a hand behind her, she pulled forward the tail of her tied-back hair and wound the ends around her fingers. “Then there was the usual tirade against men and their lying tendencies.”
Barrett frowned. “Is this a common complaint when women get together?”
“Oh, I know by now that you don’t like fitting yourself into the same category as everyone else, but you can’t say you’ve never worked an angle to get what you want.”
A sliver of guilt shot through him. His whole life he’d manipulated others to get the result he wanted, whether it was a pretty girl’s affections or dragging his drunk father home from the pubs. Trying too hard to keep his head above water, he’d never had time for regrets. Only chumps wallowed in remorse, or so he’d always thought—until he found himself staring into the selfless blue-green eyes of Kat Whitford.
He shook it off. Selfless though she might be, she had no clue how to pull off this ridiculous mission of hers. But he did. “They still seeing each other?”
Her face scrunched in displeasure. “Yes.” She turned at his grunt of approval. “Don’t tell me that’s what you wanted to hear.”
“Actually, it is.”
She stared as if he’d suggested having Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin over for tea. Which was nearer to the ballpark than she could imagine. Rolling to his feet, he tucked the knife back in his pocket and held his hand out to Kat.
Suspicion drew her eyebrows together. “Why is it important to you whom my sister socializes with?”
Barrett glanced up to the balconies. The lack of action had driven their audiences indoors once more. “Because we may be spending a lot more time with them in the very near future.”
“We?”
“There’s been a change in plans.”
Her brow furrowed. At Barrett’s slow nod, objection flared over her face like a thunderstorm. She shot to her feet. “Absolutely not. I refuse.”
“We’re not allowed to leave until we get the required information.” He didn’t bother mentioning that the British government refused assistance to escape should they try to leave before the job was deemed over. “I don’t care for this couples arrangement any more than you do, but I can’t infiltrate the higher enemy circles without a little more genteel touch. You can. So to end this war quicker, you’ll deal with it the same way I will.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “You wouldn’t refuse your country’s request for assistance, would you?”
“Request? More like an order.”
“Before you get too ruffled, no one bothered asking me if I agreed to this either.”
“We’ll tell them no. We refuse.”
“I’m not exactly in a position to refuse them. They have no qualms about tossing me right back into that jail cell, which would leave you high and dry in Nazi-occupied territory.”
She pushed the hair from her forehead with an agitated flick. “Once again I have no option in the matter.”
“In that, we are together. A motto for our mission, if you will.”
She paced away, likely running through every mental objection he’d raged over ever since he received those new instructions. After a lengthy minute, she came to stand in front of him. The drawn lines of her face readied for argument. “It would be treason. The ramifications of my name, the Whitfords, circulating with the Nazis is a death sentence.”
“Your dear ol’ dad has enough clout to keep your names from ever reaching English soil to cause any kind of political or social harm.”
“You can’t be certain of that. Dark secrets have a way of making themselves known.”
Not if he had anything to say about it. “Then you’ll be lauded as a double agent. Look, if you’re going to worry over the particulars, then we won’t have much success with this charade. Focus on what matters right now, and we all might make it home alive.”
Her lips pressed tightly together as a war of arguments flashed across her face. Finally, her mouth eased in semiacceptance. “If we’re