“None. I’ll take care of everything at this end.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Sure. What’s your ETA?”
“Twenty minutes,” Griff replied.
“Make it thirty. I’ll be waiting at number four.”
**
Doctor Francine Cabot watched as Mark disconnected the call on his cell. Her hands were full of clothes, and she set them down on her bed.
“What is it, Mark?” she asked, her French-Canadian accent rolling the ‘r’ gently in the way that made him crazy. “What’s the matter?”
“Not sure.” Mark looked around at the packing boxes with regret. “I’m sorry to leave you alone with all of this, sugar, but I gotta get to the safe house to meet Griff.”
She waved off his apology with her hand. “It’s fine. I can drive the boxes over to your place and unpack things at that end –”
With a scowl, he cut her off. “Nuh-uh, baby. No way you’re carrying all this stuff on your own.”
Francine gave a laugh. “It’s just clothes and shoes this round, Mark. Nothing heavy.”
“I don’t care. No carrying the boxes without me. You stay here tonight, take it easy. I’ll come back in the morning and we’ll keep moving you in then. We clear?”
“Oui, mon loup,” she said, grinning at the wolfish growl in his voice that made his nickname so appropriate. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Good.” Mark glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go, baby. The safe house is a ten-minute-drive away, and I have to make it look a bit lived-in for the woman that Griff’s bringing.”
“OK.” Francine was puzzled by all of this, but she’d learned early on to not question Mark’s job too closely. It had all kinds of secrets and security issues, and that included safe houses that were used for various reasons. If Mark had to make one of them look ‘lived-in’, then clearly, he was supposed to be living in it. At least as far as the woman in question was concerned. “Is this dangerous?”
“Nah,” he said gently. “Griff says that she’s a bit hurt, and he asked me to look her over. So I’m just acting in a medical capacity. No bodyguard or special-ops stuff tonight, sugar. It’s OK.”
Francine relaxed immediately. “Bon. Call me when you get back to your place?”
“Our place,” he corrected her. “Ours.”
“Not yet,” she teased him. “Not until tomorrow, when everything is moved in.”
“I can wait.” Mark pressed a kiss to the top of her shining blonde head. “One more night is nothing much. Right?”
“Right.” She looked up into his mint-green eyes, loving the love that she saw in them, so bright and hot. “Nothing much at all.”
“Is this too fast?” he asked her again, for about the twelfth time. “Moving in together like this?”
For about the thirteenth time, Francine rolled her blue eyes. “Non.”
“Just – non?” Mark said.
“Just non. I’m sure, handsome, as sure as I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. I want this, and I need this… I want and need to be with you.”
“Me too,” he said quietly. “You’re my breath, baby, my blood and bones, my heart and soul. You’re my everything.”
“Then don’t ask again,” she reproved him gently. “Because you’re my everything too.”
“Love you, sugar.” Mark kissed her again, on the lips this time. “Can’t wait to christen every room in the house with you.”
Her face lit up. “Where do we begin?”
“Tell you what… you think about that tonight, and then surprise me tomorrow. Sounds good?”
“Yes,” Francine said, already imagining Mark taking her against the shower wall, in the spray of a steaming shower. “Sounds great, mon loup.”
Chapter Five
Claire Worthington watched the man on his cell phone, listened to him talk to some guy named Mike. She rubbed her throat again, and tried to swallow. It was way more difficult than it should have been, and she felt panic start to build in her chest.
Right away, she shut it down, firmly and decisively. She’d had plenty if practice at handling panic and worry lately, and thank Christ for that, because it was proving to be a valuable skill at this exact moment.
He turned to her now, and she stared at him, really seeing him for the first time. Yes, the feeling that she’d seen him before was still niggling at her, but maybe what he’d said about wishful thinking had been right. Because this guy? Was amazing-looking. No, more than that. He was gorgeous to the point of hotness overload.
She took in his large body, his strong jaw, his dirty-blond hair that fell over his forehead in a seriously-distracting way, his green eyes. Oh Lord, his eyes… the most surprising shade of green that she’d ever seen. Not mint, not emerald, not forest-green, at least not consistently. His eyes were all those colors in turns, and they changed quickly and often, and she suspected that they changed with his moods or thoughts.
He was gazing at her now, and those eyes were warm and calm, like a fresh and bright spring morning. Claire held his look, trying hard to not look too freaked out by everything that was happening. It was one hell of a challenge, though.
“OK.” He spoke to her now, and that husky voice was soothing. “I’m taking you to Mike.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He slid the car into gear. “Just relax, alright? I got you, and I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll trust you, Jack.”
He shot her a look, one that she couldn’t quite read, before shifting his attention back to the road. He fell quiet, and since she didn’t want to make her burning throat hurt any worse than it already did, she didn’t try to fill the silence. Instead, she stared out the window at the darkness, just stared at the mountains and snow, and tried to get her thoughts together.
Her biggest worry, of course, was the loss of her backpack. Having said that, there was nothing much to be done about that until she talked to Cole, and anyway, she had a more immediate worry… specifically, what if Jack’s friend asked her for her name after all? Or for some kind of insurance information?
The truth wasn’t so much that Claire was afraid of giving her fake name to some random stranger, though she definitely wasn’t crazy about the idea. No, the truth – the big, scary one – was that Claire had no insurance. Things were so damn tight financially, and that was a luxury that she couldn’t even begin to pay for out-of-pocket.
Yeah, sure, there was Obamacare available… but that required registering online and producing identifying information. And although Claire doubted that some healthcare bureaucrat would care much about her location, she wasn’t totally certain about that. What is some underpaid, disgruntled government employee saw her real name, put two and two together, and outed her to the press for a nice payday?
No. No earthly way. She’d worked too hard and paid too high of a price for this new life. She’d paid for years, and she’d paid in ways that were nothing but humiliating and hurtful to revisit, and she was goddamned if she was going to lose it all now, all because of some two-bit, low-life criminal type who’d smacked her around a little and stolen from her. Cole would deal with that guy if he could, though she’d bet that the idiot thief was long gone now. After a quick stop at a local pawn shop, of course. Diamonds and gold and a Mac all fetched decent prices, even when sold on the run and in desperation.
She glanced over at Jack again, trying to get a feel for the guy. One thing that she’d always been bad at was seeing people for who they really were, and the most stunning example of her stupidity in this area was her ex-husband. She’d been raised in a sheltered little bubble, for the most part, and her street-smarts were exactly zero, and she knew it. Claire had always taken people at their word and at face value… and since coming to Denver and starting this new life, she’d had to start to learn the valuable skill of seeing past the bullshit words and slick exteriors that people trotted out. At the same time, she’d also had to l
earn to be shockingly duplicitous herself – though playing a false role well and convincingly wasn’t a new experience for her. Not at all.
OK, so… Jack. What could she say about the guy? Besides all the glaringly obvious things like that he had huge hands and broad shoulders and full lips and made stubble look amazing.
Argh. C’mon, Claire. Focus. Get a read on the man… one that goes past his numerous and very, very impressive charms.
Well. What to say about this drop-dead gorgeous hunk of man? About this scorching-hot white knight that had just ridden on in and rescued her?
Stop. It. Now.
Right. Back to basics. He was clearly in great shape, so he was a man who hit the gym, or the track, or the pool – or all three – on a regular basis. As a woman who hadn’t seen the inside of a gym since leaving her exclusive health club back in New York, Claire had nothing but admiration for people with that kind of iron discipline to their health.
What else? She shot him a look, turned back to the window, lost in thought. Well… he was a man who helped others, and no doubt about that. She’d like to think that most men would stop if they saw a woman in trouble – but her recent life had shown her just how many people wandering around the earth were looking out for number one and for themselves only. The truth was that not every man would stop… and some men were the type that would demand something in return for having stopped. Money, almost for sure; sex, possibly. So the fact that Jack had rushed to her aid, asked for nothing, and continued to help her, made him one of the good guys. That was for certain.
Beyond that, what did she really need to know, really? He was hot and heroic. That was good to go on, right?
And since he was a decent guy, she was sure that if he’d promised her no paperwork and no names, then she could trust him. It was a big risk and she knew it – but Jack Gordon seemed to be a man of his word: he’d even told Mike that, hadn’t he? Told him that he’d given Caitlin his word? All of this made Jack a man that she could trust, she thought.
She hoped so, anyway. She hoped hard. Because she could use a bit of faith in men right about now.
“Caitlin?”
Hearing her name – well, my fake name; my name now – uttered in that rough voice startled her and she swung her head back to face him. The sudden movement jarred her neck, and she gasped. Right away, those green eyes flashed. Turned dark and stormy. Dangerous.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, you OK?”
“Yeah,” she whispered through the shrieking pain. “Yeah.”
“Hey, no you’re not.” He threw a look at the road, then focused back on her. “Where are you in pain? Your cheek?”
“My – my neck.” She was horrified that her voice had broken, but come on. It hurt. It really hurt. “I think… I think it may be strained or pulled.”
“Shit,” he mumbled. “We’ll be at Mike’s soon and he’ll help you. Just hang on, alright, honey? ”
Feeling impossibly weak and weepy, Claire just blinked and gave a tiny nod. Silence descended once again, but it had an odd edge now.
For Claire, being called ‘honey’ by a man – especially a man as good-looking as Jack – was a massive shock. Like, gargantuan-sized. The last man who’d called a sweet, pet name and meant it was a rough biker. Not a boyfriend or lover, and certainly not her ex-husband.
Oh, sure. Wilbur had called her ‘honey’. And ‘dear’. And ‘sweetheart’. He’d done so in front of other people (or ‘the audience’, as she’d come to think of these witnesses to his performance of The Perfect Husband) and he’d made sure to touch her back, kiss her forehead, stare at her attentively. For years, she’d believed that the performance was real, that Wilbur’s love for her had gone beyond the surface.
And if he was cold and distant at home, well… he was exhausted all the time from working so hard, wasn’t he? And if he ignored her when she spoke, well… she was a silly, uneducated woman who knew nothing about finance, wasn’t she? Surely her idle chit-chat about the New York social circles, and the wive’s clubs, and the charity events, wouldn’t interest a man as brilliant as her husband. And if he refused to have children, well… it was her fault, really, wasn’t it? (“Maybe next year, Claire,” he’d said, over and over again. “Or the year after. Maybe then, and only if you prove to me that you can hang onto your figure after the pregnancy, and if you convince me that you’d be a good mother to my offspring”). She’d just have to work harder at convincing him, she’d thought.
As it turned out, though, there had been nothing wrong with her. Nothing. It had taken her far, far too long to figure that out, but once she’d come to understand that, no amount of striving to re-establish her self-delusion worked. It was one of those things that once it was seen, it couldn’t be unseen… and that clarity of vision had almost killed her in its merciless knowledge.
It had been another four long years after being sliced by that knife of truth before she’d finally been able to get out of her marriage. Four long years of hating herself for her every perceived failure, both real and imaginary… and most of them had been imaginary, and they’d existed solely in the mind of her ex-husband.
She shook off the dark musings about Wilbur, wiped her eyes a bit. No sense sniffling in the presence of Jack, even if she had no chance whatsoever of seeing him again after the rescue mission ended. Which was a shame, because he was the first man that she could recall wanting to see again since her world had been turned upside-down and inside-out. Maybe even let into her confidence just a little a bit. Maybe start to trust?
God, she was lonely. She’d been lonely for a long while, she knew, but she’d had enough distractions in her former life to keep it at bay. Hell, she’d deliberately introduced distraction after distraction into her existence for the express purpose of fighting the loneliness. Yoga. Long, dull lunches with the other ladies-who-lunched. Charity work. Balls with five-hundred-dollar plates. Zumba. Jewelry-design classes. Spanish lessons. Anything and everything to keep her mind and body occupied and in full-blown denial.
Now, though… now denial was over.
Long over.
So, yeah. She was lonely.
Tears reappeared and she resolutely faced the window, stared at the brightly-lit store windows full of designer things that she couldn’t even begin to afford, and which she had no reason at all to buy anymore, anyway. And with the loss of her backpack and her only source of income – just taken away from her and into the raging storm – they had just moved even farther away from her. Her tears doubled, tripled, and then she slammed down on the self-pity. Hard.
No more tears.
“We’re almost there,” Jack said now, his voice still impossibly gentle. “Doin’ OK, Caitlin?”
“Yes,” she said, and she was only lying a little bit this time. “Better.”
“Alright. We’re almost there. Thirty seconds, I swear.”
He turned left, headed into a high-end residential area. She looked at the massive houses, the huge yards, the arched windows, and felt a pang for her old life. Just a small one, and just for a second. Then Jack pulled up in front of one of the smaller places, and shut off the engine.
“C’mon, Caitlin,” he said opening his door. “Let’s get Mike to check you over.”
She nodded and wearily stretched out her arm to open her own door, but it opened all by itself. Startled, she gazed up at Jack.
“How’d you get around this side so fast?” she asked. “Did you levitate over the damn car?”
He laughed, and good sweet Lord, did it ever look and sound good on him. It was practically a crime for a man to be this sexy, and boy, how she wanted to be the one to handcuff him for the transgression against all of womankind.
“Ready?” he asked, and she used every ounce of her willpower to force her mind out of the gutter.
“Ready,” she said.
Jack extended that ridiculously-large hand and she took it, felt it close around her own. Feeling impossibly feminine and breakable, she let him tug
her up and on to her feet. She sighed a bit, liking how it felt to be close to him, knowing that it was just for a few minutes longer. This man was a small gift, a little miracle, a tiny bit of a daydream in her life, and she was going to miss his steady calm and strength.
Reminding herself that all this mooning over a total stranger was utterly ludicrous, Claire let him lead her up to the house. Before they’d reached the door, it had swung open, and a hulking man with dark hair and gorgeous café-au-lait skin stood there. Claire paused, suddenly very aware that she was going to enter a private home with not one, but two huge men that she didn’t know.
Maybe not the smartest move, actually?
“Caitlin?” the man taking up the entire damn doorframe said. “You alright?”
“Ummmmm….” she muttered, taking a step back. “I – actually, I don’t – I’m not sure if –”
“Hey,” Jack said in that voice that made her knees go to putty. “It’s OK. Nobody’s interested in hurting you, Caitlin. Mike’s a real doctor, and all’s he’s gonna do is take a look. That’s it. If you want, I’ll wait in the car.”
She looked up at him, saw the genuine kindness and concern in those deep pools of green.
“No,” she said, touched at his thoughtfulness. “No, it’s OK.”
“Come on in then,” Mike said, standing aside. “It’s freezing out there.”
She stepped into the house, and right away, she felt safe. It may not have been one of the most super-luxurious, most sprawling mansions on the block, but it was beautifully decorated. It smelled like vanilla, and the art on the walls was tasteful and abstract and vibrant. Claire relaxed, took a breath, winced a bit as her throat tightened again.
She saw the two men exchange glances, then Mike slowly held out his hand.
“Mike Hanson,” he said. “Caitlin?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Thank you for your help. I know it’s an imposition.”
He waved his hand, and a smile broke out across his handsome face. “None at all. Give me your coat, and go sit down. Something hot? Tea?”
Solid Gold (Unseen Enemy Book 8) Page 6
