"Three things, Troy." Jill ticked off her points on her fingers. "First, your stupid books aren't the Bible or anything. They're just some people with their own ideas on how to raise children. Second, I'm not suggesting that Annie never drink regular milk again. She's been through a lot lately, if you haven't noticed. I don't think a little treat is out of order. And third," she shook her head. "Never mind. You're so gosh darned stubborn, I could list fifty reasons and it wouldn't matter. Would it?"
"You'd better be wrong about those books." Hunter looked angry enough to chew up nails and spit out bullets.
"Why? You going to beat me up if I don't take it back?" Jill smoothed her hands over her arms trying to bury the goosebumps that involuntarily sprang up with the memory of the previous night when he had attached her and then wrapped his arms around her. She was used to handling herself around men. She was a construction boss, after all. But no man had ever made her so aware of herself as a woman. And no man she'd ever imagined could be so simultaneously dangerous and attractive.
Troy smiled, his teeth white against the dark tan of his skin. "Nah. I spent about three hundred dollars buying them. Until I hear from my bank, my child rearing books and my car are just about my only assets."
Troy's grin was infectious.
He'd told a joke. It wasn't much of a joke but she giggled anyway. Giggled, but wished she could be anywhere but here. As long as she had been able to think of Troy as humorless and scary, her heart was safe. A man who could smile, though, she could lose her heart too. She shook her head angrily. He'd as good as told her he wasn't interested. So why was she inventing these fantasies? Next thing she knew, she'd be writing her first name with his last name like most of her high school girlfriends had done with just about every male in school. She'd been immune to all of that. Even then, she'd been planning a career in construction and had been one of the guys. This shouldn't be different.
Jill faced Troy squarely, ready to tell him that he was right. Breakfast together, anything together, was a perfectly terrible idea.
Troy stared at her lips, his pupils dilated.
All of her resolve faded. She'd tell him later. Right now, she wanted, needed, ached for his kiss. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
"You aren't going to kiss him, are you?"
Annie's words jerked Jill back to her senses. She had been about to kiss Troy just because he looked at her. For no particularly good reason other than that he had let himself be the butt of a joke. It didn't hurt that his smile made him incredibly handsome.
Annie still clung to Jill's legs for protection. She turned her attention back to the child. "That's a funny question. Why would I kiss your father?"
Annie gave her father a stern look. "Mommy told me Troy kissed women all the time. She said that's why Troy left us."
Forewarned was definitely forearmed. Jill had no intention of being another notch on Troy's gunbelt.
"I'm certainly not going to kiss your dad. Come on, let's go."
She glared at Troy, trying to figure out what he'd done to drive her over the bend into complete insanity. As far as she could tell, he hadn't changed. He was still the same sexy, beautiful, impossible to keep her eyes off man. Damn.
After a brief argument about who would drive, Jill found herself sinking into the luxurious leather of Troy's SUV and inhaling its new car smell. One day she'd make enough to afford a new car. Until then, she needed to keep her truck going.
"Those trees are so funny." For the first time Jill could remember, Annie sounded like the young girl she really was. Did she feel obligated to imitate her mother, Jill wondered.
"They're called palm trees," Annie explained. They're all over Southern California.
"They look like something Dr. Seuse would have drawn. A bunch at the top and then a long stalk."
Jill had never considered having a child. For one thing, she'd been brought up with the idea that it takes two to make a baby, and she'd never found a man who made her want to get that serious. For another, she was involved in getting her business off the ground. Still, she began to see the appeal. Annie's excitement about the smallest things forced her to open her eyes to nature in a way she had lost.
"Do you think so? Then you should see the Joshua trees out in the high desert. They look like something Horton would sit on to hatch his egg."
Annie giggled. "I don't see how an elephant could climb a tree. That is just about the silliest thing."
"Elephants can't climb trees. It's a fantasy. Just like a baby bird couldn't develop a trunk because an elephant incubated it." Troy's attempt to join the conversation flattened it like one of the pancakes Jill planned on eating.
"Turn right at the next light," she offered.
"I know how to get there."
He drove with the confidence she'd thought only a lifetime in L.A. could give. But his eyes continually moved. His gaze flittered between the mirrors, the road, and the faces of the drivers who surrounded them. It was more than driving defensively. Troy drove as if waiting for someone to pop up with a bazooka or something.
"I thought you just moved here," Jill puzzled. "So how do you know your way around so well?"
"I looked at a map."
"You couldn't have. We got in the car as soon as we decided to come."
"Troy knows everything," Annie offered from the back seat. She sounded like she begrudged it but was forced to concede Troy's omniscience by some inner streak of honesty.
"That isn't exactly true," Troy said. "Before we moved here, I spent some time studying a map." He hesitated for a moment. "I like to be able to find my way around. In my line of work, you can't always just ask for directions.
"Um, what, exactly, is your line of work?"
"I'm a full time dad."
She'd expected a better evasion. "First, nobody I know says a dad can't ask directions. Second, from what Annie tells me, you've only had the full time dad role for a couple of weeks. What did you do before that?"
He paused a beat. "I was a mercenary."
Jill reeled away from him like a priest from a hooker.
***
Troy couldn't blame Jill for her reaction. Most of the mercs he knew were the dregs of society. Frankly, he wasn't sure he was any better.
"What do you mean?"
"When Troy isn't kissing girls,” Annie gloated from her throne in the back, “he kills people."
Troy's stomach tightened. These were supposed to be the good years. If Annie was like this now, her adolescence would be a real battle. He didn't like to think ill of the dead but he wished Liz had been a little more restrained with her daughter.
"That's about the sum of it," Troy agreed.
"I didn't realize there were any mercenaries left," Jill said. "I thought they pretty much went away with the Congo and the Dogs of War."
Troy heard the bitterness in his laugh but couldn't hold it back. "Believe me, it was never as romantic as that movie. Unfortunately, as long as there are wars, there'll be mercenaries. Maybe they call them contract employees. Maybe they call them civilian trainers. It doesn’t matter, they’re mercs."
"Troy is very good at killing people." The oracle in the back seat pronounced another sentence of doom. At least he wouldn't have to worry about fighting his attraction for Jill. Annie would scare her away in no time flat.
"Really?" Jill asked. "Why do you think that?"
She spoke to Annie. Apparently he'd been dismissed.
"Because my mommy told me."
He wondered if Jill heard the tiny tremor in Annie's voice. The poor kid was hurting. She was striking out at whoever she could in a vain attempt to protect herself from what had already happened.
"She isn't always like this," he broke in.
"Don't interrupt," Annie ordered.
Troy turned his full attention back to driving. He was being ridiculous, of course. Still, it was impossible to be too careful. Even in Santa Monica, California.
"That isn't a very nic
e way to talk to your father," Jill said.
He expected a full-fledged outburst. The few times he'd mentioned basic manners, Annie had hit the roof.
"Well. Troy interrupted first," Annie whined.
"Yes, he did. But right now we're talking about you." Jill spoke to his daughter with all the skill of a sapper. She seemed aware of every booby-trap and was able to go comfortably where Troy struck nothing but landmines.
"He never lets me say anything. He always interrupts. He never listens to anything I have to say."
Now that came from left field. He might try to follow his books. Still, he always listened. How could Annie think anything else?
"I can see how you'd think that way," Jill said. "He does have his rules, doesn't he?"
Annie giggled. Something he hadn't heard much of from her. "Tell me about it."
"Don't you think he could be trying to do what's good for you but he just doesn't know how?"
"Oh, sure."
One of his books had explained that children don't understand sarcasm until they are seven. Scratch another theory.
Troy navigated into the parking structure and pressed down the emergency brake. "Ladies, shall we go."
Although he stood at least seven inches taller than Jill, her long legs seemed able to match him stride for stride. Annie ran ahead and, when he saw that the street was closed to traffic, he restrained his order that she return and stay with him.
"Do you want to tell me what you meant about being a mercenary? Or were you just pulling one of those guy things to prove how tough you are?"
He laughed. A million years before he might have imagined circumstances when he'd want to prove he could be a tough guy. In his line of work, it was assumed. "Mercenaries come in two flavors. Tough and dead."
"Ooh. I'm so impressed."
"Damn it, I'm not trying to impress you. You asked what I did and I told you. At least you should be able to understand why I gave it up to raise my daughter. It isn't exactly the ‘take-your-daughter-to-work-day’ kind of profession."
"If that's the way you felt about it, why did you do it?"
It was a fair question. A question he'd wrestled with a thousand times in the deserts of the Middle East, the mountains of Afghanistan, and the jungles of the Congo. "I was good at it."
"I'd think you'd be good at a lot of things. Are you avoiding the question?"
"It's a question I can't avoid. I always believed I was doing something important. Something that someone had to do. I won't pretend that I didn't wish that someone else could have done it instead of me."
"So have you ever killed anyone?"
How many women had asked him that question? Generally he just laughed and shrugged. Jill didn't look like she'd let him take the easy way out. She looked sick.
He tried anyway. "I don't know. Probably. Probably a lot."
"You don't know? What kind of a man could forget whether he's killed somebody. Maybe your daughter is right about you."
He nodded slowly. "I never claimed to be perfect. I never thought I'd be a full time father either. I figured Liz would give her the love and I'd provide the money. I actually thought I was doing Annie a favor by staying out of her life. Maybe I was right back then." He turned toward the restaurant.
Jill grasped his arm and pulled him around until he faced her. "What a bunch of crap. I asked you a perfectly simple question and you're evading it."
"What question?"
"What do you mean you ‘probably’ killed people?"
"They don't waste expensive mercenaries as grunts and believe me, I was expensive. Just about any government or halfway decent guerilla movement can mobilize any number of foot soldiers and plenty of people who think they're officers. Unfortunately for them, NCOs don't grow on trees. I train them. Trained them."
"I suppose I'm supposed to believe you may or may not have killed people because you trained some Nocos?" She pronounced it to rhyme with nachos.
"It's N-C-Os as in non-commissioned officers. And of course I'm not saying training people makes me responsible for killing. Men have to take responsibility for their own actions. What I'm saying I haven't been on the front lines for a long time. Early on, though, I worked in artillery. We earned our pay. Unless all the shells were duds, we killed people." Not that the front lines meant a lot in the wars he'd fought. Even supposedly protected training camps could come under attack. Could and did.
"See what I mean. Troy isn't a nice man." Annie slid off a bronze giraffe and gloated. Trust Annie to have the last word.
Chapter 4
That topic of conversation had gone over like a lead balloon. Jill considered her menu with totally feigned attention. It figured that the first man she ended up being attracted to was an embittered member of the world's second oldest profession.
"Do you see anything you like, Annie?" At least she felt safe talking to Annie. Which was more than Troy seemed to be.
"I can't read, you know. I'm just a kid. Since Troy wasn't around, he couldn't' teach me. I'm going to have to go to school next year. I'll learn then."
Jill flushed. Just when she'd been sure she was on safe ground she went and put her foot in it. "Didn't you go to school last year?"
"I'm only four. Besides, my mother was going to have me home schooled. She said a model can't keep regular hours."
"She was going to teach you herself?"
Annie looked indignant. "Of course not. She was going to hire a tutor for me."
"I see." Recovery time. "In that case, maybe you'd like one of us to read you the menu. They have a big selection of children's specials."
"You do it. Troy would probably make me eat something like bugs. That's what he eats, you know."
Troy could break in here any time now. Only he didn't seem anxious to help her escape from this confusing conversation.
"Did your mother tell you that Troy ate bugs?"
"You think I'm lying. Ask him." Annie gave Jill an unconvincing smile.
It didn't take a genius to realize that Annie was doing her best to drive a wedge between Jill and Troy. Why she was doing it made less sense. From everything Jill could see, Annie actually liked her. Which was more than she could say for Annie's feelings toward Troy. For whatever reason, Annie had a real problem with her father. Even if knowing that Troy ate bugs wasn't enough to keep Jill away from him, his daughter's antipathy would make getting close to him impossible. Like it or not, Troy had his priorities firmly lined up. His daughter came first. From what Jill had seen, there wasn't any second.
She decided to play along with Annie and see where this was going. "Eating bugs is a little unusual for a full-grown man," she told Troy. "Do you do it often?"
"I've been in a few situations when I took what I could get." Troy gave her one of those dazzling smiles that made him look like some sort of demigod. This morning, though, I'm leaning toward the Belgian Waffles."
"He fought a war there once," Annie said.
"A war on a Belgian Waffle?"
"The Belgian Congo," Troy corrected. "Only it was Zaire, and then Republic of Congo again, when I fought there. I'm not old enough to have fought in the first one."
Annie didn't seem particularly interested in the correction. "Did you mean it when you said that I could have everything I want, Jill."
"You mean the buffet? Sure." She'd worry about this month's budget later. If her insurance didn't pay for Troy's house, she wouldn't be eating out again any time in the next century.
A perky waitress sauntered over giving Jill that you don't have anything I don't have so why do you have the hunk? looks. "I'm Carmen. You guys ready to order."
Looking at Carmen's slender legs cost Jill most of her appetite. "Toast, dry. And a coffee."
Troy gave Jill a look but went ahead and ordered his waffles.
"I don't want to eat here," Annie shouted. She took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks as if to say she was holding her breath until she got her way.
"What do your books sa
y to do now?" Jill was nearing the end of her rope.
Troy frowned. "I'm sorry Annie isn't behaving. The books say that the best thing is to quietly take her home. That's supposed to let her know she's behaving inappropriately and make her think twice before she acts up again."
Jill thought about that for all of two seconds. "Well tough. I'm hungry. I'll take the buffet. And she will too."
"You don't want your toast?" Carmen looked like she was having trouble with the idea of changing an order.
"I just said I want the buffet." This shouldn't be too hard.
"Oh. The buffet and not the toast?" If Carmen had any sense at all, she would realize she had answered her own question on why she didn't rate a hunk. The waitress's IQ probably didn't exceed her bust measurement.
"But I want to leave." Annie had started to turn red in her face.
"We will. As soon as your father and I have eaten. I'm going to have pancakes, and bacon, and biscuits, and corn beef hash, and cantaloupe, and cake."
"Cake. You can't eat cake with your breakfast." Annie seemed intrigued despite herself.
"If your dad can eat bugs, I can eat cake."
Annie puffed out her cheeks again but Jill could tell Annie was fighting a lost battle. Buried beneath that angry exterior was a child who needed love.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jill studied Troy.
He seemed to target all of his attention on Annie but Jill sensed that his awareness included her as well. That intensity of focus must have been important for his survival as a mercenary. Impossibly, her body responded to it.
Could Troy, Jill wondered, be something like Annie? Could he too be looking for acceptance, crying out for love?
She shook her head rejecting the crazy parallel. Annie was a kid. Troy was all man. All man unless he'd lost some of his humanity during a lifetime of killing.
***
"Can we go see the beach now?" Annie looked up from a sea of blueberry syrup dotted with islands of scrambled eggs. Her once-clean blouse was an archeological treasure-trove of that morning's breakfast. Blueberry and strawberry syrup, chocolate milk, orange juice, and powdered sugar created a battleground of color.
Dynamiting Daddy's Dream House Page 4
