“Well, we’re in luck. Buck’s S-10 is a gutless gas hog, but it does have an automatic transmission. The keys are by the back door. It’s all yours.”
She blew on the steaming, fragrant brew. “Great. Thanks. I told Remy I’d drive Shiloh tomorrow because Rem wants to get an early start. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Is that the only subject you’re here to talk to me about?”
Her heart did its little jumpy thing that made her throat tighten. “What else?”
He turned so his knees touched her stool.
“I thought you might be mad at me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Because I didn’t call you last night. I picked up the phone a couple of times, but I wasn’t sure what to say.”
Jessie knew the smart thing would be to talk this out. Define exactly what he expected to get from a short-term, here-today, gone-tomorrow relationship. But she was more of an action kind of girl. A bored action kind of girl.
She pushed her palms against the counter to make her stool swivel. His knees bracketed hers. “I could pretend to be mad, so we could kiss and make up. Or…” she said, trying to keep from grinning like a fool, “we could skip the mad part and try that kissing thing again. I really liked it.”
She also really liked him. How much or for how long was still under debate, but enough to risk getting shot down if he wasn’t in the market. Yesterday’s kiss had implied he might be, but she knew all about morning-after regrets—her mother had been famous for them.
He carefully set aside his cup then reached for the arms of her stool to haul himself closer. This gave him a slight height advantage, but she didn’t mind. She tilted her head up and waited.
She was expecting a polite, let’s-take-things-slow approach. Wrong. Cade made it abundantly clear that he knew what he wanted—and he wanted her.
Not surprising, he tasted like hot coffee. She knew because his tongue went straight for all of her trigger points that made other parts of her body stir to life. How long had it been since she’d been kissed like this?
Forever, a seldom heard from portion of her mind answered, urging her to gobble up as much of this wonderful sensation as she could get. No questions asked.
She reached under his arms to splay her hands across the broad width of his back. The texture of his heavy cotton work shirt felt real and substantial. She liked that, too. And his muscles were bunched and coiled from keeping his upper body poised above her.
She wasn’t ready for him to stop, but he did. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes. “I sat with a bunch of actors at Kat’s wedding. They were all talking about motivation. I spent a lot of last night wondering how far you plan to take this and why.”
“Why?” she repeated, genuinely baffled. “There has to be a reason.”
He returned to his chair. “There usually is.”
“You’re looking for something deeper than ‘it feels good,’ I take it.”
He threw out his hands and nodded. “You told me yesterday that you’re not easy. So, I have to assume you don’t sleep around or have brief, meaningless affairs with men you barely know. If you’re interested in taking what we both have to admit is some pretty strong sexual attraction any further, I need to know what’s in it for you.”
She sat back, drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair where Cade’s hands had been a moment earlier. “Well, if you must know,” she said, hoping she wasn’t going to regret being completely honest, “yesterday in the pool was a test. I’ve met men who thought they were attracted to me, but when they saw the whole me, the scarred me, they changed their minds.”
His look turned intense but he let her continue without interrupting.
“They didn’t always come right out and say they were repulsed, but they often didn’t stick around long after they found out, either. So, over the years, I’ve developed what you might call a litmus test for losers.”
He silently repeated the phrase. “Did I pass or fail?”
She took a big breath. “C-plus, maybe. We shared a nice kiss, there was a little circuitous groping, you didn’t gag or anything. But—” she paused for effect “—you took off in a hurry and you didn’t call last night.”
He made a snarling sound. “I knew you were mad.”
She reached out and brushed the backs of her fingers across his cheek. He hadn’t shaved that morning. She found the slightly unkempt look very sexy. “I’m not mad. I’m not even hurt. A kiss is a kiss. And you’re right about the mutual sizzle here. I feel it, too. But I understand completely if you’re not interested in taking things further. Really. I do.”
He gave her a look she’d never seen before. His brow crinkled in a serious scowl and his eyes narrowed to an intense squint. “That might well be the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me. And believe me, when you grow up with a drunk in the house, there’s no limit to the depth and breadth of the insults.”
She blinked. “What part of what I said was insulting?”
“That wasn’t just a kiss. It was a step. If the road feels right and you get a sense from the other person that you’re moving in the proper direction, you take another step. And another. But—” he raised his hand to keep her from interrupting “—one person or the other might need to pause a moment between steps to sort out all the other things in his life. Or her life,” he added pointedly.
She had been the one to bring up Remy and Shiloh.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t compare you to anyone.”
He relaxed visibly. “No more grading on the curve?”
She’d been disappointed by men a great many times in the past. Was he really that different from the men who’d tried to get past her scars and couldn’t? They might be able to block out the distraction long enough to have sex with her, but eventually they’d go searching for someone whole.
“I’ll try.”
“Good.”
They each reached for their mugs at the same time. Jessie was pretty sure that meant they were done kissing for the moment. Unfortunately.
“Any news from Hank?”
She swallowed fast. She’d forgotten that she planned to bring Cade up to date. “The lab thinks the slippery stuff on the rope was petroleum jelly. Not traceable, but also not the act of some vandal tossing a soft drink at the tower.”
“Also not the casual sort of thing you could have done without anyone noticing if you were trying to sabotage the thing yourself,” he said, proving how in tune he was to her thought process.
“Exactly.”
“Somebody needs to find that Zane guy.”
“I agree. It’s killing me not to be able to hop in Yota and start a grid search.” She made a face. “I still haven’t been able to come up with a single plausible reason why he’d do that to me, but he’s the only one who could have.”
“You’d know his bike if you saw it?”
She sat up a little straighter. “Of course. What are you thinking?”
He stood and held out his hand. “I was planning to take the afternoon off. How ’bout I give you a little tour of the Black Hills? Remy will pick up Shiloh, right?”
She stood, wincing slightly from the pins-and-needles sensation in her sore foot. Her circulation wasn’t back to normal yet. “Uh-huh. She wants to explain about her new job so Shiloh doesn’t get her feelings hurt.”
“That’s very nice of her. I appreciate that. But that means we have an entire afternoon. Are you game?”
Was she ever not game? “Let’s do it.”
CADE KNEW A GOOD EXCUSE when he saw one. Did either of them think they’d stumble across the elusive Zane, who may or may not be the saboteur? He didn’t think so, but Jessie had agreed to spend time with him. And that made this exercise more pleasure than work.
“So, here we are in downtown Sturgis,” he said, playing up the role of tour guide. “You’re lucky this is May, not August.”
“Why?” she asked, looking around at the few short bloc
ks of the main drag. “Oh, wait, I remember. There’s a big motorcycle rally here.”
He nodded. “Your friend would blend in a little too well, I think.”
He drove toward the most popular of the campgrounds that swelled to unbelievable numbers for a few short weeks each year. The place was mostly empty now. No gleaming chrome skull in sight. “Let’s check out Deadwood. Does this Zane character like to gamble?”
She didn’t answer right away.
He turned to look at her. “What?”
She startled slightly. “Our team performed an exhibit in Monaco last year and Zane missed it because he was in the middle of a hot run at one of the casinos.” She frowned. “You know, now that I think about it, he’s missed several events lately. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t surprised when he didn’t show up for the Sentinel Pass gig.”
“Why do you put up with that?”
She shrugged. “We’re a team. If one of us is off our game, the others take up the slack. Usually.”
A hint of sadness in the last word made him ask, “But not always?”
She looked out the window instead of answering. Just when he was certain she wasn’t going to say any more on the topic, she told him, “Last year in Japan, I didn’t do as well as I should have. I had a very ‘disappointing’ performance,” she said making halfhearted air quotes.
“What happened?”
“The night we arrived in Tokyo, I had a call from Remy telling me Mom’s kidneys were shutting down. When I left, Mom was on dialysis and doing pretty good, so this was a big change. Her doctors moved her up on the donor list. A list I’d failed to join before I left.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know why, but she told him. “If I’d had invasive tests and blood draws, I would have compromised my body. I knew going into this competition it was all or nothing. I gambled. Took a chance that Mom would remain stable until I got home—hopefully with my share of the million dollars in prize money in my pocket.”
A million dollars? No wonder her team was disappointed that she didn’t do better. “What happened in the games? Why did you…um…”
“Fail?” she supplied. She tapped the side of her head. “Ask any professional athlete, they’ll tell you that at least half of any sport is mental. My head wasn’t in it. My mother was dying. I felt guilty. The Bullies were calling constantly, leaving messages at the hotel, texting. Remy’s the only one who didn’t beg me to come home.”
“Why?”
“Twin sense. She guessed what I was going through. Plus, she trusted me to do the right thing.”
“You got tested?”
“It wasn’t easy. Or cheap. Even in as cosmopolitan a city as Tokyo, there were language issues. And insurance issues.” She shuddered. “I had a blood test. They took more vials than I imagined they’d take. Did that contribute to my not being able to climb the exact same wall I flew up the day before in practice? Don’t know. But I washed out, and my team finished in the bottom half of the field.”
She blinked and looked at her lap. “Mom died the next day. While I was on the plane. Somewhere over the Pacific.”
Her tone was flat, but he felt the emotion she was trying to hide. “I’m sorry.”
She flashed him an obviously fake smile. “The good news—if you want to call it that—is that I wasn’t a match. Turns out my blood is full of antibodies and creepy stuff from my many transfusions and skin grafts. If they’d tried to give her my kidney, she would have died anyway.”
He blew out a low breath. Damn. He didn’t know what to say, but he knew she wasn’t the type to share this sort of personal insight with just anyone. He felt privileged, touched. And moved. He wanted to stop the car and hold her in his arms until she cried every one of those tears he knew—he knew—she had never shed.
But he didn’t. They weren’t at that place in their relationship.
Hell, he couldn’t say for sure they even had a relationship, but he was beginning to think he wanted one. Maybe even a serious one. But he was pretty certain the same wasn’t true for Jessie.
CHAPTER TEN
JESSIE CLOSED HER EYES AND sank under the water. She held her breath as long as she could while reviewing what had happened between her and Cade today.
She’d told him her big secret. Her most painful regret. Her failure as a daughter, and some might say a human being.
True, in the end, she couldn’t have saved her mother. But the fact she didn’t try harder, didn’t willingly shine on the whole Kamikaze thing and rush home, made it pretty clear to everyone that she was a terrible person.
And no amount of excuses. No rationalization. No quid pro quo in the world made her decision okay.
The fact that Cade hadn’t booted her out of the truck and made her walk home said a lot about him as a man. A kind, nurturing, forgiving man.
No wonder she liked him.
If she were more like him—more normal—she might even consider letting herself get involved with him. For the summer, of course. Not for…um…ever. That was so not her style.
With a huge exhale, she surfaced, swam to the side closest to her little house and levered herself out of the pool to sit with her feet in the water. The late-evening breeze had turned chilly, and when it blew across her wet hair and skin she started to shiver. She was about to reach for her towel when a small shadow separated itself from a bigger shadow and rushed toward her.
Her heart stopped for a fraction of a second until she realized the shadow was actually a small, furry body. Sugar. The infant raccoon had for some unknown reason seemed to have formed an attachment to Jessie. And her delicate little black-gloved fingers somehow had managed to reach inside Jessie’s heart and latch on.
Jessie picked her up and cuddled her close. “Hey, sweetie pie,” Jessie said, anticipating a cold, pokey nose in her ear.
True to form, Sugar rose up on her hind legs and quickly checked out Jessie’s head, face, hair and ears. Jessie’s wet hair obviously confused the little beast, but after a few seconds of sniffing, Sugar must have decided Jessie was still Jessie. She burrowed under Jessie’s chin, rolling to her back.
“Oh, you silly thing,” Jessie said, blowing softly on the raccoon’s fine fur. “How could anyone not fall in love with you?”
Her voice sounded louder than she’d intended. The words seemed to hold significant import that made her want to take them back. From everything she’d ever observed, falling in love made stunt work look like child’s play. She truly didn’t think she was that brave.
She turned her chin to look at the second floor of the big house where a yellow light glowed bright against the dark silhouette of the night sky. Cade. Working late, she guessed.
If she were brave, she knew exactly whose name would be at the top of her list of potential lovers: Cade.
CADE SQUINTED AGAINST THE brightness of his laptop’s screen. He wasn’t a neophyte when it came to computers, but he didn’t want to take the time to figure out how to adjust the screen brightness. He was on the hunt at the moment, and his gut told him he was getting closer to finding out more about the elusive egomaniac who called himself Zane.
The man’s website was filled with so much bull, Cade had given up hoping to find a concrete, truthful fact—he wasn’t completely convinced this was the jerk’s real name. One thing Cade had found interesting was a cache of videos. Most were of Team Shockwave and many featured Jessie.
Watching her perform was nothing at all like he’d expected. For one thing, she almost always seemed in complete control of the situation, no matter how dicey it looked on camera. The only time that assessment didn’t apply was when she filled in for Zane on a stunt that involved a car chase. He’d seen the YouTube version, but this clip included text that explained the stunt’s intent. The vehicle she was driving had been rigged for a front-tire blowout, which was supposed to cause the driver to overcorrect, slide and, eventually, turn over. What actually happened was a bizarre rollover flip that had Cade’s heart pumping and armpits ting
ling with fear.
He played it twice, each time wondering how anyone survived, but the video included footage of the rescue team extracting her from the crushed car body. In true Jessie form, she’d waved to the camera as they pushed her gurney toward a waiting ambulance.
She’d claimed the rollover wasn’t her fault. That meant it had happened despite her skill and planning. He sat unmoving for a good ten minutes, trying to decide how he felt about her career, which appeared to include an inherent danger that in many ways rivaled his late wife’s job.
Finally, he’d clicked off the page and resumed his hunt. Jessie wasn’t his wife, his girlfriend, his significant other. He had no right to criticize her. Period. If their fledgling relationship went any further, he’d give the question of her career choice more thought.
If. At the moment, he wouldn’t have put money on either outcome.
He returned to his home page and opened a new search. Jessie had mentioned that Zane was ex-military. Maybe he could find some sort of lead through that avenue.
A dead end, he decided a few minutes later. He was poised to click on another link when his phone rang. He quickly answered it so the sound didn’t wake Shiloh, who was asleep a couple of doors down the hall. “Hello?”
“Hi. You weren’t in bed, were you?”
Kat.
He closed the lid of the laptop and got up from his father’s big, comfortable leather armchair—Cade’s favorite piece of furniture in the house. “Nope. I was doing some work on the computer. What’s up?”
“Nothing, really. I thought I’d see if you have plans this weekend.”
He thought a moment. “No. Not really. Why?”
“I want to invite my family and me to a barbecue-slash-pool party at your house.”
Cade chuckled. “Oh, you do, do you? What am I barbecuing?”
“How ’bout bison burgers? My treat, of course, since you’re supplying the grill…and the pool.” Her laugh sounded a bit self-conscious. “Remy told us you’d opened the pool, and when the boys heard that, they were practically out of their minds with envy.”
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