“Liking that cookie, are you?” she asked through gritted teeth.
He finished off the treat, and another one, trying her patience before he replied. “My favorites, but you probably remember that.”
She sat opposite him, putting the polished maple table between them. “I remember a lot of things.” Twisting her mug in her hand, she willed her voice steady. “I remember getting a phone call while making beds for some new guests. A highway patrol officer. Can you guess what he said?”
“Jenna.” His voice was low, urgent.
“No, I suppose you don’t know, unless maybe you were standing there? Listening?” She swallowed hard past the huge lump that appeared in her throat every time she thought of that day. “Were you right there when he called? Did you hear me crying?”
He shook his head.
“He said, in part, and I quote because I hear it every night in my sleep, ‘You won’t be able to identify the body.’ I thought it was because of the damage. There was a great deal on the body I saw, you know. I insisted on going down and giving it that old college try.” Tears blurred her vision, and she dashed them away. Despite her anger, rising toward rage, she couldn’t stop looking at him. If she didn’t exercise care, she’d throw herself across the table and into his arms. Forgive him everything, anything. Drag him off to their bedroom and kiss every inch of his body. His living, beautiful, more-muscular-than-last-time-she’d-seen-him body. He must be working out, wherever he was living.
“I’m sorry.” He flexed his hands, knuckles whitening with strain. “I never wanted to leave you.”
Jenna lifted her mug and drained it, grimacing at the residue of sugar in the bottom. “Okay, then.” She rose and walked to the sink, where she rinsed the cup and loaded it in the dishwasher. “Thanks for stopping by. It’s good to know I’m not a widow so I can file for divorce. Keep things legal when I remarry.”
“Jenna, no.” Raw pain laced his voice. “You can’t mean it.”
“Why can’t I?” As long as she kept her focus on the dark foothills outside the window, it was possible to stay on track. “You left me without a backward glance. Why did you say you did that again?”
“I didn’t.” His warm breath grazed her ear. How had she not heard him approach in those heavy-soled boots he’d always worn when riding his bike? “But, if you’ll sit down again, I’ll tell you what I can.”
She couldn’t imagine what explanation could suffice. What could he possibly say that might make everything hunky dory again? “Unless you were hit on the head and had amnesia...I am not sure I even want to hear it.”
His hand caressed her arm, and she shut her eyes, willing the gooseflesh rising under his touch to cease. He’d had that effect on her since the first time he took her in his arms and kissed her. Over a decade ago. The summer after her sophomore year of college when she’d insisted she wanted to be a pastry chef. Bethany at Desserts du Jour, an old friend of her mother’s, offered her the chance to work an internship between semesters and see if cookie dough and blackberry tarts really were her future.
She’d learned two things that June. First, that while she loved baking and welcomed the training, she preferred the hospitality industry. And, two, the blue-eyed, red-haired guy who came in at least three times a day couldn’t possibly be eating everything she sold him and keep that amazing body. By the time she returned to school in September, she did so wearing a tasteful solitaire on her left hand. The day after graduation, she’d added a wedding band and hadn’t taken them off since.
Chapter Three
Gordon MacKay took in the cozy kitchen around him while he gathered his thoughts. The open cabinets with their quaint gingerbread edging had been in place when they bought the building, a sprawling country home built by a wealthy widow after the quake of 1906 destroyed her Nob Hill Mansion and took her husband’s life. The many quirky details had enchanted Jenna the moment she saw it, abandoned and in danger of being torn down to make way for a tract of cookie-cutter homes.
The heirs, who hadn’t been there for decades, held the place in enough sentimental esteem to sell it to her for what she and Gordon could scrape together rather than allowing the deep-pocketed developer to tear it down. The gleaming original linoleum with its mottled greens and blues showed no signs of the scuffs and filth she’d removed with loving care. He’d been so busy with the job she knew about and the one she did not, he’d been little help.
And she’d never complained. Merely put her head down and worked every day and into the evening, only stopping to prepare his dinner, if he managed to get home for it. All the woodwork and built-in shelving, the intricate banister of the front stairs and the narrow, steep back one. Three years of backbreaking effort before they even opened the doors to their first guest. How could he have asked her to come away with him?
His doubts about returning grew stronger. But he owed her an explanation. Grey had given him permission to reveal a great deal more about the case than ordinary civilians would be granted. Especially the reason he and the other team members were there to start with. Just not quite yet.
Jenna had always known about The Omega Team but only in the vaguest terms. After his “death,” Grey had been his conduit to her, had offered support and help, had even attended his funeral. But Jenna had no idea her “late” husband had used his position at the aerospace company to foil a gang of Eastern European hackers.
Not every secret would be revealed. Not now, and not in a few days when he could say more. Hell, he didn’t have access to all the details, but he knew enough to let her decide for herself whether she wanted him back or not. Maybe he should have waited until after the mission to reveal himself.
“Gordon, talk. I’ve got to be up in about four hours to start breakfast for my guests.” My guests. Once it would have been our guests, even if she did all the work. She sat, rigid, straight-backed, in the chair opposite him again, the pain in her green-gold eyes belying her even tone.
“Did I say I’m sorry?” he began, watching her carefully.
“I can’t remember.” She shifted, crossing her arms under her breasts, lifting the generous mounds higher with the motion. Even with the weight loss, she’d managed to keep the fullness. “And stop staring at my chest.”
No, he shouldn’t be doing that. Not after leaving her the way he did. “I…wasn’t. Okay, I was. But you can’t blame me. They were always a couple of my favorites of your attributes.”
Her lips parted, and her tongue darted out to moisten them before she tensed again. “Were. Now, unless you’ve been held captive by aliens in outer space for two years who replaced you with a dead alien who looked a lot like you, you do not have my permission to look anywhere but my face.”
Aliens. Ugh. “Jenna, you went to identify the body.”
“Yes,” she bit out. “I did.”
“How did you know— Why did you think it was me?”
Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Besides the fact that the CHP told me it was you, you mean.” She drew in a breath and seemed to steady. “The man who lay on the highway, under that tarp, wore the same clothes you left in. Jeans, boots, the white button down with no T-shirt underneath. He wore your watch. He seemed about your height and build He had hair like yours and…and…”
“His face?” He hated to even bring it up, but she had to realize the truth on her own.
“He had no face.” Her voice broke, but she cleared her throat and moved on. “You had no face. But it was your bike, at least it looked like yours. Was it?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Well it was a heap of twisted metal, anyway. I didn’t really pay attention because you were lying there, on the road, with smashed up tomatoes and blood all over you, and I screamed. I screamed a lot because I didn’t want it to be you. But it was you. It was…you.” She dropped her head into her arms on the table and broke down completely.
Along with his heart. Shoving his chair back so hard it fell to the linoleum with a crash, he
stood and skirted the table to get to her side. He gathered her in his arms and pressed her wet cheek to his chest. “Jenna, sshhh. Don’t cry, Jenna. I can’t stand it.” He stroked her hair, murmuring nonsense while she soaked his shirtfront with tears she should never have had to shed. “Baby, it wasn’t me. It was never me.”
“But he looked…he…he…”
“He was a donated cadaver they got from a medical school somewhere and dressed in my clothes. The whole thing was staged.”
Her cries rose until he feared the guests would soon come down to see what was going on, and, while he could explain a little to her, Grey had not authorized releasing the details of a high security case to a houseful of wedding guests with zero security clearance. Before giving him permission to even speak to her, despite knowing Jenna for years, Grey’d had her quietly cleared by a government contact.
Gordon waited her out—heaven knew she’d waited for him, even if she didn’t know it at the time. He continued to pet her and kiss her hair, rub her back in slow, soothing circles. He’d imagined a lot of reactions. Joy, his first choice. Anger, the most likely outcome. Rejection, even. But this outpouring of grief and pain rolled over him like a tidal wave, forcing him to brace his legs to stay upright and offer her support she might not even want.
However, if her arms tightening around his waist offered any indication, Jenna would accept any port in this storm. He didn’t kid himself that she welcomed his embrace, but at least she didn’t shove him away. Yet. And when she tilted her face toward him, her eyes swollen and red, her lips quivering, God help him, he had to kiss her.
Jenna started when Gordon bent and took possession of her mouth, but her body remembered and accepted his kiss as it had the last time, the morning he’d left for work and bent her back, devouring her with his passion. He tasted the same, damn him, like coffee and those cinnamon Altoids he’d always loved. When his tongue pressed for entrance, she welcomed him in because she couldn’t do anything else. Muscle memory, maybe. She kissed him back. She did. With no excuse whatsoever, no pride, no explanation at all. Suddenly, she didn’t care about anything but this one more time with him. The one she’d begged the universe for a million times. Jenna took his hand and led him toward the bedroom. Their bedroom.
She might throw him out afterward, but she needed to see his body, see that it was not the one she’d identified with its bloody scrapes and bruises, the legs twisted at odd angles, and stained with those horrible tomatoes. A desperate need to replace that with the reality fueled what might be the stupidest move of her life.
Gordon closed the door behind them, but he stayed near it, letting go of her hand and standing like a statue guarding a portal. She unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders then reached for the front clasp of her bra.
“Jenna, are you sure? Don’t you want to talk first?” He took a tentative step toward her in the gloom with only the bar of hallway light under the door and the nightlight in the corner providing any illumination.
She paused in the act of unbuttoning her jeans, the backs of her calves resting against the low mattress. “If we talk first, maybe I won’t let you in my bed. Want to take a chance?” Because I don’t.
“No.” Striding toward her, he shed his shirt and belt as he walked. “No. I have dreamed of you in my arms for entirely too long.” Kicking his boots off, he stepped out of his jeans—no underwear, some things never changed. “We can talk tomorrow.”
Although it would be a bit later than that before he could enlighten her to any degree.
He reached her and lifted her arms.
“If you’re still here tomorrow,” she murmured, falling backward with him onto the bed.
Gordon propped himself on his forearms. “What do you mean if I’m still here?” He traced her cheek with a fingertip.
“Do you think this is the first time I’ve dreamed you came back to me?” Her soft voice shredded him further. “Then the sun rises, and I’m alone again. I’m not sure if the dreams kept me going or kept me from healing, but I welcomed every one.”
“This is no dream, Jenna, baby. I’m home, and I’m not leaving unless you make me.”
“That’s what you always say, in every dream, Gordon. But I know it’s different this time. I just don’t know where to go with it.”
“Jenna, I’m not a dream. Possibly a nightmare, after what I put you through.”
“No, never a nightmare.” She patted his cheek then slid her hand to his nape and tugged him down. “But, if you’re still here in the morning, we’ll have a lot of talking to do.”
“I won’t leave again.” He kissed his wife softly, tasting the sweetness of her warm mouth, inhaling the clean lavender of the fabric softener she used on all the sheets and towels at the inn. If this was all they’d have, and it very well might be, he was going to take full advantage of the opportunity to remind her how good they’d been in bed together, to make a memory to carry him through the rest of his life. Cupping her chin, he tilted her head a little and urged her lips open wider. Their tongues twined together, moving with the smooth sinuousness that he remembered. How could he have lived for two years without this woman?
How many nights had he awakened from a dream like the one she described? After two years of being dead, a lot of guys might have considered themselves single, but when he went out with some of the other Omega Team operatives and a woman approached them, he flashed his ring. Taken. Married. Sorry. As long as they both lived, he would consider himself married.
Of course he still wore the ring. Did she? Desperate to know, he reached for her left hand.
Chapter Four
Jenna couldn’t take her eyes off him, even if kissing while watching was an odd experience. She’d had the dream countless times, nearly every night since Gordon’s death, but each time he’d disappeared before they reached this point. He was anything but fake. She’d read somewhere that the sense of smell rarely occurred in dreams. From the moment she’d become aware of his coffee-and-cinnamon breath, she’d drawn in lungful of the familiar scents, reassuring herself of his presence. The lingering trace of motorcycle exhaust, his soap—Dial Mountain Fresh—and the masculine sweat riding the bike on the freeway always engendered. A conglomeration representing home, safety, happiness.
And now, what? Betrayal?
Gordon broke their kiss, released her hand from his nape, and rubbed his thumb over her ring finger.
“You’ve never taken them off?” he asked, continuing to caress her hand.
“I…um…haven’t gotten around to it.” She lied to hide the vulnerability her wearing the symbol of their love and commitment for so long showed.
He kissed her fingers before lifting her hand above her head and bending to press his lips to the upper curve of her breast. “You always hesitate when you lie.”
Words of protest flew to her lips, but she stilled them. She’d give herself this one interlude before she had to deal with whatever his explanation would present. “Yeah, I do. You were always better at it then me.” Well, so much for holding back.
Gordon rolled over, taking her to rest across his chest, ignoring her stiffness. “When did I lie?”
His genuine puzzlement made her want to slap him. She settled for freeing her hand from his. “I think we can count two years of pretending to be dead as at least one lie.”
“One. Okay. I’ll give you that.” He kissed her again, and her brain fogged, the memories blending with the present, longing so great she’d have sold her soul to have him back, warring with anger over she’d grieved a death that didn’t happen. Still, he knew just how to make a simple kiss into seduction, and her nipples peaked against his chest. Another giveaway.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue swiping against hers in a masterful demand for response, which she gave. From the depths of her broken heart, her loneliness and yearning of two long years. How many times had she told herself if she could only kiss him one more time, she’d ask for nothing else?
She’d begged the heavens for mercy, for relief. Slept on a soggy pillow for almost a full year before she ran out of tears. His kisses were even better than she remembered, and she could almost forget they hadn’t been together in so long. His hands were everywhere, stroking her breasts, her belly, dipping between her legs, moving quickly, and she didn’t ask him to slow. Back in college, when she came to Cedar Valley on school breaks or he snuck into her dorm, they’d always been fast the first time, unable to slow their driving passion. The second and third, and once the fourth time, were for more leisurely lovemaking.
Jenna arched her back, and, as he always had, Gordon read her signals. He trailed his lips down to her breasts and pressed kisses all over them, cupping one like an offering and closing his mouth over the furled tip. Hot, wet…and when he bit down, she shuddered from head to foot. Gordon knew how to rev her engine.
He lifted his head and smiled at her. “I missed you so much, baby,” he said. “But I don’t have any condoms.”
“Has there been anyone else since you left?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then it’s fine. I still have a year on the implant.” How many times had she regretted waiting to start a family with him? “I just want you inside me.”
He took her at her word, rolled her under him, and drove inside in a single stroke. Jenna wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on. Just like those times before they married, she welcomed the speed of his thrusts, the glide of his hardness over her G-spot on each retreat. She tried to hold back, to ride the first high before falling into orgasm, but she couldn’t. It had been too long; she’d been too desperate for the touch of this man, her first and only lover, the one who’d taught her to appreciate her body, to feel like a beautiful, sensual woman instead of a callow girl.
The Omega Team: Hidden Asset (Kindle Worlds Novella) (MacKay Destiny Book 8) Page 2
