by Low, Gennita
There was a cold, dangerous edge to it, and Jaymee shivered at the sound. She stared at his outstretched hand and looked up into calm and steady eyes the color of winter sky. She couldn’t read his thoughts as those unfathomable eyes demanded her to do as he said. She placed her hand in his and got up.
Bob continued eating, already forgetting the outburst of a few moments before. “Go for a walk,” he repeated. “I’ll clean up.”
Summer heat blasted them the moment they stepped off the porch into the bright sunlight. The air was thick with humidity and tension. In silence, Jaymee walked toward the lake, heading for the picnic table under the elm oak. The shade beckoned invitingly as the heat beat down on their unprotected heads.
“This used to be my favorite spot,” she said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I used to sit right here to do my homework. Only the lake kept tempting me, and I always ended up in that small canoe.” She sighed, wanting those easy days back.
“You have a nice piece of property here,” Nick agreed, as he looked toward the lake.
“It’s not mine. It’s Dad’s,” Jaymee corrected. Plucking a small branch of hibiscus off a bush, she pulled out the flowers, plucking the petals off one by one.
“It’ll be yours one day.”
Her eyes were the muddy color he knew echoed her mood. “I don’t want it. My goal is to move out in two years.”
“Why two years?”
“You aren’t the only person with stuff to straighten out, Nick.” She gazed at the lake with its bright gleaming ripples of gold. “I’m sure you noticed my father and I don’t get along too well.”
“He isn’t exactly there all the time,” he agreed. “Drinking will do that to you, though. The violent mood swings, I mean.”
Jaymee nodded. “Yes. He’s gotten worse the last year but he’s a tough old bastard, even after the stroke. He’ll be OK when I hand him back his business.”
“But why the time table? Why two years?” Nick stretched out his long length next to her body on the grass, leaning back on his hands.
He was so easy to talk to, but she wasn’t going to tell her story to this man beside her. She’d already let him in too much. Besides, why would a sad tale of a misguided, trusting young woman interest him? He was only interested in staying long enough to make some money so he could move on. She kept plucking at the spray of hibiscus in her hands.
Nick studied her bent head. She wasn’t going to tell. He could see it in the set of her lips, the determined hunch of her small shoulders. She just didn’t trust men, especially him, enough to open up and it had to do with whatever happened to the father’s business and a certain other man.
“Tell me about Danny.”
He spoke so softly, Jaymee was sure she’d imagined it, but those seductive eyes told her she hadn’t misheard. When he looked at her like that, with those long, dark lashes hiding his thoughts, he had a hypnotic effect on her. She couldn’t drag her gaze away, even blink. It was a strange sensation, as if he could probe into all her secrets just by staring into her eyes.
“How do you know about Danny?” she demanded, still imprisoned by the strange, searching look.
“I hear his name here and there,” Nick told her. She wasn’t aware of how much those eyes of hers betrayed. He saw hurt and a deep, dark scar. “Tell me, Jaymee.”
“It’s history,” she said, shrugging. “I’m reluctant to dig up old bones just to satisfy your curiosity. It isn’t like you answer my questions about you.”
She was a strong woman. Nick already knew it before. Very few people could resist a light probe, the subtle approach he’d been trained in to get information, without revealing a few details. But here was an untrained, unsuspecting woman, the simplest target for a quick exercise in subliminal pressing, retaliating with the ease of an evasive expert. She batted away every attack with a simple defense — change the subject and remove herself as the focus.
Nick had never wanted to dissect a non-target as much as he did this woman. He wanted to know why she was the way she was, what she was thinking, what made her tick; in short, everything. Most of all, he wanted her under him, naked and unafraid, as he explored every inch of her, physically and emotionally. And he was going to do it. He’d take and explore her until she yielded all her secrets to him. He’d give her what she feared most and make it what she wanted most—he’d like to restore in her the power to give herself without fear.
Subtle didn’t work. Push harder. “Is he really your fiancé?” he asked, catching her busy hands in one of his.
Startled that he knew so much already, she dropped the wretched bloom. “You’re a busybody and persistent as hell.” She tried unsuccessfully to wriggle her captive hands free. “He was my fiancé, OK?”
“Was?”
“Yes! Well, he hadn’t really broken off our engagement when he disappeared, but eight years ought to qualify it in the past tense, don’t you agree?” She wriggled her hands harder.
“Do you miss him? Do you still want him?”
“No!” She glared at him, disgust in her eyes, as if he’d conjured up something distasteful in her mind.
Nick released her and picked up the mangled spray of hibiscus on her lap. Plucking out a still untouched blossom, he tucked it behind Jaymee’s ear.
“Good,” he said. And kissed her.
*
Three days and Jaymee still could remember the feel of his lips. She understood she’d been given an ultimatum that afternoon. He hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t need words. The kiss said it all.
She forced it out of her mind, as she’d been doing for several days now, as she watched Nick at work. He seemed to be getting the hang of roofing, moving around as if he’d been doing it for years. She now let him shingle the back side of the roofs, where it was usually the easiest, without the complicated roof designs. At the rate he was going, she ruefully noted, she’d have to raise his pay soon, but she had to be careful, or the other two roofers would be grumbling.
She liked watching him at work. The way those smooth muscles rippled as he carried the boxes of nails on his shoulder. The way his lanky frame looked impossibly graceful in that awkward position for a tall man. And even that beautiful, exposed throat moving as he thirstily gulped down cold water from a bottle made her catch her breath. And, he had developed a marvelous golden tan that made those blue-gray eyes glitter even more potently.
Her fingers lifted to her lips. Since he had kissed her, he hadn’t attempted to touch her again. When he showed up for a few hours on Sunday, he was reserved and distant, his mind seemingly focused on her computer. She was almost jealous of the damn thing, although she had to admit that watching him at it was a fascinating exercise indeed. His mind seemed to be laid bare in front of her when he was immersed in whatever it was he was doing to her computer, and after sitting by him quietly for a while, she had added one more clue to this mysterious man. Nicholas Langley, despite his easygoing demeanor, had a brilliant mind. She could see it in the intense light burning in his eyes as he “talked” to her computer, in the way he solved one problem after another. What was he doing as a laborer? The question gnawed at her even more since the incident by the lake.
The kiss. God, if that could be called one. She had very little with which to compare the experience, but she felt branded, like he’d marked her somehow. She could still taste him, a hot salty mixture of lust and possessiveness. His lips had been firm, unyielding, and his teeth had deliberately drawn blood where he bit her on her lower lip. Ignoring her startled gasp and struggle, he had sucked on the little wound and licked the blood off with a slow and tantalizing tongue. He’d left her with the strange feeling she’d signed some sort of blood pact with the devil.
The last few days hadn’t lessened the feeling. The silent ultimatum stretched like a live wire between them. She strove to look normal underneath his unruffled watchfulness, but she wasn’t fooled. The wolf, she realized, was showing itself. It was there in the glitter in his
eyes, whenever she caught him looking at her as she washed the dirt off her body at lunchtime. She felt it every time she stood too close by him. Nick was, and she didn’t need him to tell her, as he put it, letting — no, making — her get used to him. Meanwhile, lest she forgot, he deliberately stalked her like a predator about to decide on the moment of attack.
Jaymee shivered in the asphalt-melting heat. Fear and excitement jostled for position. For the first time in eight years, she was unsure of herself. Catching his knowing eyes on her, she decided to do what she did best — change the subject.
“Lunch,” she said, unnecessarily, since Dicker and Lucky were already off the roof. She decided a crowd would lessen the danger of a wolf on the move, and went to eat at Hungry Boys. She should have known that escape was not in her future.
“What’s the special today?” she asked Mindy, after gratefully gulping down a glass of ice tea.
Mindy tucked a stray lock of blond hair back in place as she ignored Jaymee, her eyes hungrily moving up and down her companion instead. Nick was the picture of healthy manhood, tall and glowing with his new tan.
“I’m looking at it,” Mindy drawled.
Nick gave her a crooked sexy grin as he winked back at the bold waitress. “You’re looking good, Min.”
Jaymee had known Mindy forever, and her friend didn’t know what blushing was. Until now. She stared at the flush of pleasure on her friend’s face as she preened, then coyly teased, “Well, you’re looking at dessert, my hungry boy.”
Jaymee wanted to empty her glass of tea over Nick’s head. He was seducing all the female population in the restaurant with that smile, she thought, as she surveyed the avid attention of the three waitresses, the owner’s wife, and the three old ladies sitting by their table. It was too bad, she dolefully mourned, that her glass was empty.
Coughing superciliously, she politely chipped in, “I hate to interrupt such a delicious exchange, but there’s an extremely hungry woman here.”
For a moment, she was tempted to add, “and that man is my dessert,” but curbed such catty behavior. Jay Barrows didn’t fight over any man.
Mindy sniffed and pulled out a pencil from her apron. “Roast turkey, stuffing, vegetable soup,” she recited, glaring at Jaymee. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” Jaymee answered, glaring back at her friend.
“Nut,” muttered the waitress, as she wrote the order down. “You, too, hon?”
“Sounds good,” agreed Nick, obviously very amused at something.
“Nut!” Mindy repeated for Jaymee’s benefit as she walked off.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jaymee called after her, exasperated.
“You could have gourmet, and you opt for meat and potatoes. Nut!” she called back over her shoulder as her generous hips swayed their way back to the kitchen.
“She must be a good friend of yours,” Nick commented, breaking open a packet of sugar.
“What, do you want me to give you her phone number?” Jaymee asked, irritated and a little jealous.
“If I wanted it, don’t you think I could just ask her?”
That shut her up. She pursed her lips mutinously and snatched up the newspaper left on an empty table nearby and opened it in front of her face.
“It reads better the right side up,” her tormentor wryly told her.
Sure enough, just like her world had been lately, the newspaper was upside down. Jaymee obstinately kept the paper that way, glaring fiercely at the reverse picture of a banana. After a few minutes, Mindy came back with soup. She surveyed the scene and arched a penciled brow at Nick, who calmly began on his soup. After putting down the other bowl, she snatched Jaymee’s paper from her fingers.
“What now?” Jaymee growled at her unrepentant friend. She was used to Mindy’s brand of brash friendship, but today she seemed to be even more intent on getting her cornered.
“Next Saturday,” Mindy said, hand on hip.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Jaymee informed her, “but after today, you can expect cellophane tape for your present.”
“Cellophane tape?” Mindy repeated, puzzled.
“Yeah, rolls and rolls of it. Enough to tape your mouth shut until your next birthday,” said Jaymee, and stuck her tongue out.
Her friend laughed, a loud husky chuckle. She looked at the quietly eating Nick. “This is what I get from my best friend for inviting her to my birthday bash.” A wicked light entered her blue eyes, and she turned to Jaymee, darting a glance at Nick, and added, “On the other hand, cellophane tape could contribute to a nice, sticky situation.”
Jaymee rolled her eyes, then mockingly lifted her hands heavenward. Nick laughed at the two of them, enjoying the sight of her at a loss for words. She was smiling fondly at the waitress, even while appearing exasperated with her.
“Happy birthday on Saturday,” he said, trying to play peacemaker.
Mindy slapped a palm on her forehead as if it just occurred to her. “You’re invited, big guy. My special guest. Let Jaymee bring you along.”
Jaymee almost groaned aloud. The last thing she wanted was to go with Nick to a party as a couple. She wouldn’t look at him, picking at imaginary lint on her pants instead.
“Love to,” Nick said, looking across the table.
“Excellent!” exclaimed Mindy. “Jaymee?”
“What now?” she muttered, picking up a fork.
“Bring more cellophane tape.” The sassy waitress didn’t wait for a reply as she tucked the empty tray under one arm and trotted off.
“She’s something else,” Nick commented, still amused.
“A regular stand-up comedienne,” agreed Jaymee, still unable to believe her supposedly best friend had steamrollered her.
“If you don’t want me to go, I won’t,” Nick softly told her.
“If I dare show up without you on her birthday, I might not live to see mine,” she informed him, shuddering at all the possible paybacks of which Mindy was capable. From experience, her friend was more than original in the art of revenge.
Nick grinned. “In that case, then it’s my duty to take care of my boss. I promise to behave at this…bash, as she called it.”
“No one behaves at Mindy’s birthday bashes,” Jaymee warned. “You’re expected to eat her barbecue, drink her beer, dance with the birthday girl, and there’s even karaoke, if you’re drunk enough.” She sighed, gave in, and smiled. “You’ll enjoy it. Mindy is a great person.”
Buttering his roll, Nick casually said, “Since I won’t be able to transfer your files on Saturday, let’s do it tonight then. I’ve a few free hours after work.”
“If you want to. I don’t want you to feel you have to.”
“No problem. Why let you muddle through when I can do it for you painlessly?”
“Thanks, Nick.” She was relieved he offered to do it. She really wasn’t looking forward to reading Windows for Dummies. “You’ve been a great help.”
Nick ignored the twinge of guilt and smiled back winningly. “You’ve been more help to me than you realize, too.” He gave her the buttered roll.
As someone who had been in tighter spots, Nick had learned not to question providence when opportunity arose. He told himself he wasn’t taking advantage of Jaymee, knowing his feelings for her were complicating the very simple issue of survival. What he was doing had to be done. It was that simple. In return, he helped her out with her computer problems.
Fair enough. So why the unexpected guilt? Because he wanted to be honest with this woman, that’s why. When he’d kissed her last Saturday, his savage need had shocked him enough to make him step back to evaluate the whole situation. He accepted the desire for Jaymee, that the attraction he felt was more than any feeling he’d ever experienced for another woman. He could even deal with the strange possessiveness he had for her. Something about her pulled new emotions from inside him. Maybe it was her innocence. Or, her tightly-reined control. Whatever it was, he realized her response to him was instinct
ive, despite of her fears, and that in turn transformed him to some chest-beating primitive. He laughed under his breath at the notion. The woman was driving him crazy, that was what was the matter.
That kiss, he admitted now, made him realize for the first time since he joined his covert agency, he wanted to step out of the shadows and share his own true self with somebody. He wanted Jaymee Barrows to know who he was and to accept him for what he was. He also realized, knowing her abhorrence of deception in his sex, that the longer he deceived her, the more hurt she would be.
Hopefully, some communications would be waiting for him when he checked tonight. The quicker he ended this situation regarding his mission, the better. Then, he glanced at Jaymee, who was obviously enjoying her turkey special now that Mindy had quit baiting her, then, he could fully concentrate on more pressing matters.
Chapter Five
When Nick showed up at her house later that evening, Jaymee was again not at home, even though the blue truck was parked in the driveway. He sat on the railing of the back porch and watched the sun disappear behind the tall pines across the lake. Where did she go that didn’t need her vehicle? Was she with Mindy? He knew now it wasn’t the missing Danny, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t seeing another man. His frown deepened as he realized he’d taken for granted she was unattached; she’d never said she didn’t have a special someone. After all, it was inconceivable to expect her, or anyone, to be without a partner for eight years.
She appeared suddenly, panting hard, as if she’d been running at full speed. She bent over, hands on knees, breathing hard.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “I forgot the time. Got back as fast as I could.”
“It’s OK,” Nick said.
He wanted to ask her where she’d been, but that would only make her wary of him all over again. Right now, mentally, she was where he wanted her to be. She was opening doors that were locked before, and he wanted her to open them herself, for herself. Even if his own personal program was in jeopardy of crashing every time she was within his sexual radar. Even if he had a perpetual discomfort in his pants at night when he thought about her. He smiled, amused at his own thoughts.
