by Janzen, Tara
Anger darkened the eyes he slowly lifted to meet hers. “Fair enough,” he said, not denying her accusation.
“You can ruin her financially, play any game you want with her assets, take her to the cleaners. I just don’t want you to kill her.” And that, she suddenly understood, was her bottom line. Her concern wasn’t so much for Baolian’s life as it was for Cooper’s soul. With that flash of insight, Jessica knew she’d gone past the edge of lust, loneliness, and caring into—God, help her—love. It was the worst news she’d had all day.
“You’re asking a hell of a lot,” he said. “Are you sure what you’ve got is worth it?” The subtle warning in his tone told her she could push him too far.
“No,” she said clearly, having no doubts that her answer was a shove in the wrong direction. But the stakes had gotten very high very quickly, and she couldn’t afford to be anything less than honest with him.
Cooper felt all the tension of the afternoon go out of him in one moment of pure incredulity. She was fearless. There was no other explanation for her rash treatment of him and her total disregard for his suggestion of caution. He wasn’t in the mood to be trifled with, yet she trifled with him at her leisure—and at her risk.
“I’m beginning to understand why I find you so damnably attractive,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a compliment, and he could tell by her reaction that she took the statement with the same ambivalence with which he’d given it.
“Tell me you won’t kill her,” she insisted once more.
“I won’t kill her.” The remark was deliberately offhand, deliberately devoid of sincerity. She was going to have to take a chance on him, because—so help him, God—he’d been taking an incredible chance with her. She’d gotten under his skin where he hadn’t wanted anyone to be. She shook his carefully controlled sense of balance. She made him want, and he’d figured out within a week of Jackson’s death that wanting was the precursor to pain. The more you wanted, the more pain you were setting yourself up to take.
“Okay,” she said, letting out a long breath, apparently satisfied with his nonchalant guarantee. “I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but something astounding just happened out in reception and I think it’s the bait we’ve been looking for.”
Cooper kept his silence and waited, still stewing over her high-handed approach.
“Did you feel anything happen when John and Bo walked in?” she asked.
Feel?
He thought for a moment, then said the only thing he could come up with. “No. I didn’t feel anything happen. I felt anger, both at myself and at John for not being more careful.”
“Well, I felt something happen.”
“You were behind a solid oak door,” he reminded her, letting his skepticism show. “You weren’t even in the room.”
“I still felt it.”
Okay, he thought, I’ll bite. “Felt what?”
“Chow Sheng shaking in his boots.”
“Slippers,” he corrected.
“Whatever. He was the one who got caught in your office, not Cao Bo, and it scared him. She scared him.”
“She scares me,” he admitted, not seeing the problem.
“No, she doesn’t, Cooper.” She started toward the table, taking a quick sidestep around one of the clawed feet of the dragon woven into the rug. The movement was so subtle, so unconscious, Cooper doubted if she was even aware she’d done it.
Stopping next to one of the chairs, she rested her hip on the arm. Her voice took on an earnestness as she leaned forward. “What or who she might represent scares you, but she doesn’t scare you. With Chow it’s personal. She actually frightens him.”
Cooper wasn’t buying it. There were too many facts lined up on the other side. “Chow Sheng had two bodyguards with him, and Cao Bo probably doesn’t weigh in at more than a hundred and five pounds soaking wet. I’m not convinced, Jessie.”
“I’m not talking about on-the-spot physical violence,” she said, sounding thoroughly exasperated.
“Blackmail?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure how being seen in his office would provide anyone with leverage against Chow Sheng. When Cooper was in residence, many people came through his office, most of them with no pretense of friendship as their motive. People did show up to shake his hand every now and then and conduct a little business, and some people showed up simply to shake him down.
“No,” she said, drawing the word out as she seemed to search for another. “Blackmail isn’t quite right. It was more as if Bo had given him something he didn’t want, something dangerous, like a scorpion nestled on a bowl of hibiscus.”
She was inscrutable, Cooper thought impatiently, totally inscrutable—like Fang Baolian. The subtleness of Jessica’s reasoning finally hit home, and his senses did an immediate shift from uninterested confusion to full alert.
“Who do you think she is?” he asked.
Jessica recognized the change in his attitude. He was taking her seriously. “I don’t know, but my guess is that she’s very important to Baolian, and part of what frightened Chow was knowing she was in the enemy’s hands. He’s going to try to take her.”
She was right, and Cooper knew it down to his bones.
“Then the quicker we get her out of here, the better. Gather up any data you’re going to need for the next couple of days.” He strode toward the dragon doors. “We won’t be coming back.”
* * *
An hour later Jessica stood on a balcony overlooking the rugged coastline and stretch of beach between Cooper’s house and the Pacific Ocean. The house itself was not what she had expected as they’d driven north out of San Francisco. She’d expected redwood and glass, something with two or three stories, craggy and masculine. She’d gotten an oasis of white pine, wood floors, and stark simplicity all on one level and no larger than two thousand square feet.
An apartment over the detached garage belonged to John, while the house was built closer to the sea, with steps leading down to the beach. The cries of gulls filled the air, a strident avian backdrop to the more primal sound made by the ocean and the melody of the chimes hanging from the porch roof.
A gust of wind swept in from the sea and ruffled her hair. She absently pushed the strands back off her face and turned to go inside. Cooper hadn’t brought her to his home to admire the view. They had work to do.
She headed toward the north wing of the house, where she could hear John and Cooper setting up the equipment they’d brought. On her way, she passed an open door and her steps slowed, her curiosity aroused.
Unlike the quiet sophistication of the rest of the house, the room looked like it belonged to someone who didn’t know how to stop moving. Every sport she could imagine was represented by the appropriate equipment, from skiing—cross-country and downhill—to snorkeling and scuba diving. There were surfboards, tennis rackets, racquetball rackets, a hockey stick, old baseball mitts, a basketball, a mountaineering pack, and lengths of neatly coiled climbing rope next to a chalk bag. Underneath all the clutter was a futon, a television with a VCR, and a large wicker dresser. The stereo system was everywhere, with speakers placed in all four corners.
Jessica knew it was Jackson’s room. The rest of the house was elegant, like the office where she worked. This room was exuberance and energy running amok, but it looked untouched, painfully quiet. The evidence of a life lived hard and to the fullest, but finished, made her all the more sad for Cooper. The place was a testament to what he’d lost, to the vitality that was no more.
Her gaze traveled the length of the room once again, taking in all the recreational equipment, a couple of guitars and assorted electronic gizmos stacked here and there, and another realization struck her, startling her. Her brow furrowed as she stepped inside. Looking again with a more discerning eye, she walked around the room, carefully touching the things she discovered.
Her fingertips grazed a poster of a heavy-metal band. A matching T-shirt proclaiming their world tour lay on the wicker dresser. From the cha
racters on the shirt, she surmised the concert had been heard in Japan.
An odd clay sculpture stood in one corner of the room and was being used as a hat rack. It was half tree, half man and poorly done. She knelt by the base and ran her fingers over the name etched into the glazed surface—Jackson. The accompanying date was less than a year earlier. A few feet away was another sculpture of exquisite quality and the same half-tree design, but with a woman’s face and body. The name on it was Olivia.
On a wrought-iron bench pushed against the far wall were a number of photographs. One was of Cooper as she had never seen him, laughing wildly, with a glint of pure mischief in his eyes as he held a large half-eaten fish from a gaff. Next to him was a boy holding a somewhat smaller fish. But the smaller fish had the other half of Cooper’s hanging out of its mouth. The boy’s smile was pure innocence, all cocky pride and artless guile set off by a sly wink and a dark, silky ponytail.
The boy appeared again, a few years older, hair a little longer, in a number of the other photographs. One was a high-school graduation picture taken with Cooper by his side. Another, in which he had even longer hair, was with a young woman. She was tall and blond and willowy, dressed in a sequin-spangled minidress. He was in a tuxedo. The picture was signed: To Jackson with love. Don’t forget. Martha.
Jessica picked up the photograph and brought it closer. This, then, was Jackson, she thought, not quite believing what she saw. He had been beautiful. No one could deny the appeal of the clean, sculpted lines of his face, or of his rakish smile, or the sensuality of the ebony hair falling nearly to his waist.
The pictures proved what she had suspected. Jackson had been much younger than Cooper, young enough for Jessica finally to realize just how far Cooper would go to destroy the woman who had killed him.
Jackson had been more of a son to Cooper than a brother, or rather a half brother. The dark hair, a higher angle on his cheekbones, the deep rich green of his eyes, and the warm color of his skin bespoke a mixed heritage.
Jackson could actually have been Cooper’s son, for all she knew. Cooper certainly had a penchant for beautiful Oriental women, and one way or another, he seemed to come in contact with quite a few.
She set the photograph down and let out a heavy sigh. If Jackson had been his son, she knew nothing would stop Cooper from exacting revenge, nothing short of his own death. For his sake, she hoped it wasn’t so.
A change in the air, rather than any sound, warned her she was no longer alone. Her intuition told her who was watching. She’d been caught again.
Resigned to his anger, she turned around and was surprised and concerned to find his expression much more difficult to read. His face was a mask of stone, utterly blank.
“We’re all set up and ready to go,” he said. “I want you to research the name Pablo Lopez gave me, the man on Grand Cayman. Start with the banks. If you get a trace to anything in the U.S.A. that he’s siphoning money back into, then we’re in business. If Baolian has put a sizable portion of her assets in the States, it’s because she’s looking for a stable government and a capitalistic economy. If we find it, we’ve found her nest egg, her crown jewel.”
He turned to leave, but her voice stopped him.
“Was he your son, Cooper?”
“No,” he said gruffly, without moving to face her. “He was the son of Sun Yi and my mother.”
“Who was Sun Yi?”
Even from across the room, she saw the telltale twitch of a muscle in his jaw, the cracking of his facade of indifference.
“Sun Yi was the man who loved my mother, but couldn’t save her. He was also a pirate, running the biggest syndicate out of Hong Kong until he died and left it all to Fang Baolian.”
Twelve
Dusk was edging across the eastern horizon and falling into the ocean before Jessica pushed away from her computer. She stretched her arms above her head and rolled her shoulders, easing the strain of too many hours without moving. The room she was working in encompassed the whole north end of the house, giving her both the landward view and the beauty of the sunset in the west.
She’d been alone for at least an hour, maybe longer. Cooper had left so quietly, she hadn’t known for sure when he’d gone. She hadn’t seen John, Bo, or Yuxi since shortly after they’d all arrived. Cooper had given the men instructions concerning the security of the house and they’d gone, taking the woman with them.
Checking her watch, she decided it was time for her to go too. She made a quick phone call home and talked to the children and Tony. Paul was out for the evening, but her youngest brother had everything in hand. Jessica knew she had a lot to be grateful for when it came to the men she lived with. They felt their family responsibilities keenly and had welcomed her and the children with open arms. Arguments were inevitable, and more than once schedules had clashed and promises had been forgotten. After a tough first year, though, they had managed to find ways to air resentments and stay out of one another’s space when privacy was more important than teamwork. The five of them now functioned more as a family than many regular families. Genuine love had grown between her children and their uncles, the kind of love that only came from sacrificing and putting work into a relationship.
Jessica was ever aware of what she owed her brothers, including—but not limited to—a lot of back rent and baby-sitting overtime. Her school loans were just coming due, and she still owed money on her divorce. In an amazing feat of legal sleight of hand, her adulterous ex-husband had fixed it so she actually owed him money on the property settlement. Debt wasn’t crushing her, but only because Paul and Tony were holding the roof up over her and her children’s heads.
The rest of her family had been able to offer moral support, but not much else. Her parents were retired and living on their pensions, and her other brothers had families of their own to raise.
Yawning, she pushed out of her chair and walked over to the oceanside windows. After a minute of watching the waves come in, she opened the glass doors leading to the balcony and stepped outside. The wind had dropped. The chimes were quiet.
She scanned the beach, looking for what she knew not until she saw him rising out of the darkening sea in a black wet suit. Water sloughed off his shoulders and streamed down his body, glistening and catching the colors of the sun. His face shone with the differing shades of the sky—gold where the light rimmed his profile, a darker bronze smudged to copper in the shadows.
Waves broke against his legs, foaming up his strong thighs and pushing him forward. The wet suit necessary to swim the north coast clung to him, accentuating the hard lines of his body. For all Jackson’s exotic mystery, the younger brother had been no more beautiful than the man she watched. She reached for the balcony railing and closed her fingers around the weathered wood. Her breathing grew quiet and soft, and her pulse slowed, as if she’d come upon a wild creature easily frightened back into the liquid wilderness.
He slicked his hands back through his hair, pushing it off his face as he limped across the cooling sand. The tension that was so much a part of him seemed momentarily subdued, washed away by an elemental sea. Light and shadow played across the muscles in his arms, outlining the hard, rounded curves of his biceps and the corded strength flowing from shoulder to wrist.
Halfway to the stairs, he looked up and unerringly met her eyes. No smile graced his mouth. No acknowledgment was made other than the eternity that he held her gaze. Then he broke their silent contact and continued his walk to the house.
A shiver coursed down her spine, as if the wind had suddenly come back up. But there was no wind. There was only Cooper, mounting the stairs and coming for her. The truth hit her as strongly as it was unexpected and undeniable.
For a while she’d lost herself in her work. For a while she’d forgotten all the different ways he’d told her he wanted her.
He, she knew, had forgotten nothing. Every moment of his kisses flooded back through her senses and she felt an overwhelming urge to run. Yet she held her g
round, allowing herself to remember, even though she knew her downfall would be in recalling how he made her feel.
Their lunch conversation returned to her mind verbatim, and heat burned through her. No man had ever taken so much as a bra strap off her with his teeth. It was definitely time to run, before he made it all the way to the balcony.
Still she didn’t move, and she wasn’t sure if it was politeness, fear, or anticipation that held her captive at the rail. If her decision had been based purely on desire, she probably would have slept with him on the massage table in his office approximately five minutes after she’d seen him, just long enough not to bother to say hello. The force of her attraction had been that strong.
Desire, however, wasn’t enough to overcome her trepidation. She didn’t want to get hurt, and she sure as hell didn’t want to get used.
“Hi,” he said when he reached the top stair, and Jessica realized she hadn’t moved so much as an inch in any direction.
“Hi. How was the water?” Her voice sounded stilted. Her body was frozen in place.
“Cold, but nice.” A slow smile curved his mouth as he unzipped his wet suit. “Welcoming. Safe.” He lifted a towel off the rail and used it to dry his arms and face. “Salty but sweet.” A lambent light warmed his eyes when he looked up. “Cradling. Heavy with love for me . . . the way you could be.”
The breath she’d been holding went out of her and her heart melted. He offered nothing more than the truth that he wanted her with a need he wasn’t going to hide.
Moving closer, he lifted her hand in his and brought it to his mouth. He stroked his tongue across her palm before kissing her there, then placed her hand over his heart. His eyes came back to hers, and he waited.
His skin was cool where she touched him, his heartbeat a strong and steady rhythm echoing her pulse. A thousand reasons to say no fell over each other in her mind, and her body had a response for every one of them. She wanted to make love. But God, it was hard to let go.
