He closed his eyes and tried to picture the warehouse. The trajectory of the shot would have been from an angle to the south. But the freaking surveillance team had been sitting right there. How the hell could there have been a shooter there and them not see him?
The kids were growing louder by the second. Giving up his mental picture, he opened his eyes. “Come on, guys, let’s go outside for a little while.”
“So what exactly makes a safe house so safe? Is it underground or hidden away somewhere?” She rose up on one elbow, her eyes still at half-mast and winced when James began arguing with Samuel.
“Nah, nothing that complicated, although it could be. Basically it’s like hiding you in plain sight. We put you in an average house in a quiet neighborhood, with heavily armed guards in all the rooms.” And constant surveillance. And no privacy. And absolute secrecy. Each DEA office had its own stash of safe houses. And their location was kept strictly confidential. Even the staff didn’t know where they were located.
Her eyes widened at that bit of information. “And you truly feel all of this is still necessary?”
“Hey, chill out, guys,” he interrupted. “We’ll take turns being the leader,” he announced in an attempt to break up the argument. Both boys turned to stare at him and promptly stopped fighting. He smiled as Jilly rolled her eyes in mock despair and casually shoved a clip into his 9 mm, slipping it into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. Then he carefully tugged Ian’s old shirt out of his pants so it concealed the gun. He finally acknowledged her shocked expression in the mirror. “Do I think it’s necessary? Yeah, I do.”
“So, Jimmy, I notice you take real good care of your brother and sister.” Samuel was thrashing along the trails ahead of him while James walked by his side.
“I take care of Sarah better’n Jilly does.” His slender chest puffed out with pride. “She’s not too good with babies and she talks kinda funny.”
“That’s because she’s from England. They all talk like that over there.” Luke stuck his hands in his back pockets as they strolled along the overgrown path. “She’ll learn how to handle Sarah. She wants to take good care of all of you.”
“Yeah, she says that now. She thinks she’s gonna be our mother,” he announced, as if it was some sort of joke. “But she’ll end up leavin’.”
Luke stopped in his tracks, rooted to the spot, his heart wrenching at James’s matter-of-fact tone. “What do you mean?”
“Grown-ups always leave. Especially when Sarah gets crying. She’s so loud.” James picked up a stick and started snapping off dry branches. “Even Mommy. She left us all the time. Then she’d come back and she’d start cryin’. She’d say she wasn’t ever gonna do it again…but she always did.”
“She, uh, left you alone?” He swallowed hard, stunned at the magnitude of what he was hearing. He didn’t know why the blatant disregard for children still had the power to shock him. In the real world it happened every day. Luke dealt with the adult by-products of neglect every freakin’ day. Drug addicts, alcoholics and criminals. It was what he knew best.
“Yeah, but she was always sorry she had to go. She knew I’d take care of Samuel and Sarah for her.”
“You—how long would she leave you?”
James pursed his lips in thought, his hazel eyes serious. “Oh, I don’t know. Usually it was just a day or so. But, you know what?” His voice rose an octave and Luke cringed at what he was about to learn.
“Once, she an’ Slow left us for four whole days. I had to change Sarah’s diapers, like a million times.” James scrunched up his nose. “Even the poopy ones. Man, did they smell bad. But I didn’t want her little bottom to get sore, so I used powder and everything.”
Samuel scampered back up the trail toward them, his eyes wide with panic. “Luke, I gots to pee.”
“Don’t worry, sport.” He motioned to the heavily wooded area they were standing in. “If you promise not to tell Jilly, I’ll show you where guys can pee in an emergency.”
James’s nose scrunched. “Is this an emergency?”
“Jimmy, when your brother can’t make it back to the motel, that qualifies as an emergency.” He carefully explained the circumstances under which a boy could use the outdoors as his very own bathroom—emphasizing the most important one—that Jillian never find out he’d been the one to teach them.
He smiled even though he felt like weeping. Life was so damn cruel. There was a time when he and Linda had wanted children desperately. And this woman, Jillian’s sister, had had three. Three beautiful children she’d proceeded to neglect…all for the chance to get high. They’d never known their fathers and now, thanks to Annie’s addiction, they’d never know her. If James were really lucky, he wouldn’t even remember Annie, wouldn’t remember what she’d done to him.
As for him, it was already too late. As a husband, he’d failed dismally, falling far short of Linda’s expectations. In college, she’d claimed his desire to work for the DEA—stemming the flow of drugs, putting dealers behind bars—was a noble cause. But after his third or fourth op had taken him away from D.C., her feelings changed. It wasn’t glamorous anymore, just inconvenient. He was off seeing the world as she put it, and Linda was left to lug groceries up four flights of stairs.
Luke really couldn’t blame her, actually. He’d been all over the globe fighting the drug war…gone for weeks, sometimes months at a time. And while the end of a mission was always a relief, it was difficult, too. He found it hard to turn the job on and off—to forget the things he’d seen, the experiences he’d lived—and simply pick up with the romantic-married-couple thing when he eventually returned home.
And it became tougher as Linda became increasingly unhappy. After a year or so, she’d started playing the guilt card. If he loved her, he should’ve wanted to give up the job. Linda required safety above all else. She’d wanted the comfort and reliability that came with nine to five. She wanted Luke by her side—all the time.
His wife had worked her way to scorn by their third year together. According to her, he’d screwed up their life in every way possible. The very least he could do was get her pregnant…so when he got killed in “some godforsaken jungle,” Linda wouldn’t be left alone.
Somehow he’d managed to fail at that, too.
“Why’d you call me Jimmy? My name isn’t Jimmy.”
“Huh?” Thoughts of his former marriage dissipated when Luke bent his head to duck the low-lying branch that was about to snap into his eyes.
“James. My name is James.”
“Yeah, I know. But Jimmy is a nickname for James.”
“What’s a nickname?”
He was startled by the earnest expression in the kid’s hazel eyes. Didn’t he play with other kids? Didn’t he go to school? “A nickname is a…I don’t know, it’s like a fun version of your real name. Like my name. My name is Lucas, but everyone calls me Luke.”
“So what names could I have?”
James’s expression was quizzical now, his interest sparked. Luke smiled and gave him the once-over, pretending to size him up. “Well, there’s Jimmy or Jim or Jimbo—”
“Jimbo?”
“Yeah.” He wrinkled up his nose. “Maybe you’d grow into it.” The little guy shook his head and the sun glinted off the red-gold cowlicks. “Maybe when you’re older they’ll call you Red. You know, because of your hair.”
James’s head shot up at that. “They? Who’s they?”
Luke felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What the hell kind of childhood had the poor kid had? He managed to keep his expression neutral. “Why, your friends, of course.”
James’s smile was slow, puzzled even. But when it finally came, it lit up his entire face, causing the stoic, serious little boy to vanish before his eyes and reveal the glimmer of a hellion in the making. Luke felt a wild rush of relief and just the smallest spark of happiness ignite inside his chest. For this one, it wasn’t too late.
James would grow
up. And Samuel and little Sarah. With Jilly. She was their future. And he’d be damned if he was gonna let anyone or anything get in the way of it.
“I think, for now, I’d like Jimmy, okay?”
“Sure, kid. Jimmy it is.”
Luke stepped out of the bathroom, still rubbing a towel through his hair. Jillian glanced up as she collected trash from their makeshift dining table. For lack of space, the empty pizza box was balanced on the television set.
“Kids asleep yet?” he whispered.
She nodded to the darkened bedroom as she crossed the room toward the shaft of light from the bathroom. “Are you finished in here?”
“Yup. It’s all yours.”
“Good. I’m dying for a shower.” She rolled her neck in anticipation, not sure which she looked forward to more, washing away the stickiness of the day or bawling her eyes out under the comforting white noise of the shower. She’d never been much for tears before, but since she’d arrived in the States, crying had become a nightly ritual. Between grieving for Annie and the emotional strain of caring for three children, she’d found it a necessary release each night. She’d learned how to hold it together each day, handling Sarah’s constant demands and Samuel’s clinginess and even James’s obvious disdain, so long as she could have ten minutes a night to herself.
“I won’t be long,” she promised.
“Good. Then we’ll hit the sack. I wanna get an early start tomorrow.” Luke crossed the room, heading for the door. “I’ll make a run to the Dumpster with the trash. It smells like a pizzeria in here.”
She inhaled deeply and smiled. “I could think of lots of worse things.”
He grinned as he picked up the overflowing trash can and grabbed the pizza box from its perch on the TV. “Yeah, I’ll take this smell over one of Sarah’s diapers. Be back in two shakes.”
“Should I wait, or can I take my shower?”
“Go ahead. I’ll take the key. Just make sure the door’s locked,” he reminded her.
She checked and rechecked the door after he left before heading into the bathroom and stripping out of her clothes. She sighed with pleasure as the warm water pounded into her aching neck and shoulders. Probably a result of her stupid fall from the swing—her “swan dive,” as Luke had called it.
Despite her exhaustion, she didn’t feel quite as stressed as she had the previous night. Perhaps she was growing accustomed to this motherhood thing. Of course, it helped immensely that she hadn’t been required to surgically remove any bullets this evening.
The memory of bullets turned her thoughts to her sister and she said a quick prayer in the fervent hope that Annie had found the peace that had so eluded her on earth. She tried not to think about how she’d died. How awful it must have been. She wondered if Annie had known her killer. Wondered if the shots had taken her instantly.
She shuddered as the tears sprang to her eyes. Her sister’s death hadn’t been completely in vain. She’d protected her children, God love her. Annie’s mind hadn’t been so clouded with drugs and fear that she’d forgotten her babies. At least she’d called Jilly.
And Jillian had responded—or tried to, anyway. The blinking message on the answering machine had sent her into a frenzy of overseas calls. But she hadn’t been able to locate Annie anywhere. The call with the news of her sister’s death had come two days later. She’d hopped on the first flight she could get across the Atlantic.
She’d missed her sister by only thirty days. If it had been one month later, Jillian would’ve been in the States anyway. She’d received the offer from Dartmouth and had decided to accept it. She’d had high hopes of dragging Annie to New Hampshire where she would’ve tried to find a treatment center for her sister.
Instead, the day after her arrival, she’d buried her only sister. A day after that, she’d become a mother to three children, one of whom made no secret of the fact that he couldn’t stand her. Then there had been the custody hearing in an unfamiliar American court. She hadn’t understood most of the words passing over her head. Thankfully, the American solicitor she’d been forced to hire had. Whoever was trying to take Annie’s baby away from her hadn’t succeeded.
Two days after that drama, she’d become a fugitive, on the run from a powerful enemy, from a gang of faceless drug dealers like the ones who’d killed her sister. Jillian shuddered and dragged in a breath of air. The sobs came in earnest now, and she leaned against the shower wall, her arms wrapped tight around her middle, her eyes screwed shut against the memory of her sister’s lifeless face.
Something had gone bloody wrong tonight, she realized as she tried to catch her breath. The ten minutes were supposed to make her feel better, not worse. Tonight, her shower trick wasn’t work—
She nearly jumped out of her skin as the bathroom door crashed back against the wall. Her eyes jerked open and widened at the large shadow looming closer to the shower curtain. She opened her mouth to scream as Luke ripped back the curtain and forcefully pulled her into his arms.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“You! W-what d-do you think you’re d-doing?” Luke was prepared for battle. The icy intensity in his eyes made him a frightening stranger, one who was clearly prepared to kill if necessary.
His fingers were still biting into her shoulders when he froze. He reeled back and averted his eyes, but not before he’d had the chance to thoroughly inspect everything God had given her, she noticed. He dropped the curtain back as though it were on fire.
“Have you g-gone m-mad?” She cringed at the pathetic screech that had become her voice. She sounded like one of those women who’d gone completely ’round the bend. But, Mother of God, she was still trembling. “You’ve nearly scared the life out of me.”
“Damn, Jilly. I—I’m sorry. It was reflex. I came through the door and I heard you howling in here.”
“I was not h-howling.” She heard the familiar click of his weapon. “Good God, you b-brought your g-gun in here?”
“I thought for a minute that someone… I thought you were hurt.”
“I do not howl.” She wiped blindly at her eyes and succeeded in getting soap in them. Bloody hell, did that sting. “I can’t get a moment’s peace around here,” she wailed.
“Well, if nothing’s wrong, what the hell are you crying about? You were bawling last night, too.”
“Last night you had me performing surgery on you, for pity’s sake. I’m not allowed a moment to feel frazzled after something like that?”
“Oh, yeah. That reminds me. Thanks for…you know, that. You did a great job.”
“Thank you.” She stood there behind the curtain, her body trembling, her eyes still screwed shut and bit down hard on her lip. Lord, she was very close to completely melting down. “Now, if you’ll…”
“So what are you crying about now?”
“None of your business,” she informed him haltingly as she sniffled back more tears. She watched as his shadow retreated a few steps and sucked in a gusty breath in an effort to slow her heart rate from its current gallop.
“Look, a lot’s happened to you in the past few days. There’s no shame in crying.” He’d obviously succeeded in calming himself down, as his voice no longer sounded urgent. In fact, from behind the safety of her curtain, Luke’s voice was low and husky. She closed her eyes on the sudden wave of longing that swept through her. Dear Lord, what was she thinking? Clearly she must be losing her mind.
“I don’t see you crying.”
He hesitated then. “That’s different. I’m used to danger. I’m trained for chaos. You’re not.”
“Well, I’ve got three children now. I’d better get used to it, shan’t I?” Why was she so bloody attracted to him? Why this man? Why now? Didn’t she have enough to handle? The very last thing she needed was another complication.
“Jill. All I’m saying is that if you’d like to talk about it…”
She was in real danger of doing something terribly stupid. There was nothing she wanted m
ore at that moment than to throw herself at him, to lose herself in a mindless, shattering release. She could spend the rest of the night in his arms. Feel those tough, work-hardened hands along the length of her body. Feel the steel of his corded muscles wrapped around her. She could experience one night of pure unadulterated lust and at the very same time know a sense of comfort and security that being with Luke would bring. Oh, yes. Agent Luke Gianetti would be incredible.
“You’ll be the last person I call, thank you very much.” There was no doubt in her mind that what they shared would be unlike anything she’d ever experienced. And there was absolutely no doubt that when tomorrow arrived, it would end.
Luke knew it, also. She’d seen the knowledge in his eyes all day and again as he’d held her a moment ago. And she knew he fought it, too. This was the right thing to do. The logical thing. “Now, get out of here so I can dress. I’m pruning up in here and the water’s gone cold.”
Jillian sensed his hesitation, even across the bathroom. She peeked around the curtain and found him standing by the door, his hand on the knob, his eyes uncertain as he debated whether or not to believe her.
“Seriously, Jill. You’re okay?”
It was the compassion that nearly did her in. He looked so damn approachable. Those beautiful, expressive eyes. It was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and cry until she’d exhausted all the tears. But in the end, her problems would still be here. And worse, Luke would know how weak she was, how afraid she was that she would foul up everything. And where would that leave her?
“I need help, all right. I’m going to need to have my head examined after this ordeal.” She snapped the curtain back in place. “Now, get out.”
She cautiously stuck her head around the door a few minutes later, grateful for the darkened room. At least Luke wouldn’t be able to witness her embarrassment, wouldn’t be able to see her swollen pink eyes and blotchy face. And he wouldn’t see her regret.
For Her Protection Page 9
