If the wait for breakfast had been strained, the meal itself was even more so. Kate made a handful of attempts at conversation, but by the time Jonas mopped up the liquid yolk from his plate with the last of his toast, she’d given up and was ignoring him as studiously as he tried—and failed—to ignore her. Jonas shoved the toast into his mouth, chewed without tasting, and swallowed.
A bloody fine partnership this was going to be.
Across the table, Kate’s slender hands spread strawberry jam over the last of her own toast. Even white teeth bit into the morsel. The tip of her tongue emerged to flick a crumb from her lip.
Jonas dropped his fork onto the empty plate with an unnecessarily loud clatter, and she looked up, one brow raised. Jonas shook his head in response, taking a swig of coffee that threatened to choke him. Beneath the table, his free hand clenched into a fist on an equally tense thigh.
Christ. If he intended to survive the next few days, he really, really needed to stop noticing Kate Dexter the way he did. Even if there was some kind of attraction going between them—which he wasn't admitting to—he had no room for someone like her in his life. And she had less room in hers for someone like him. The sooner they were done with this whole mess, the better.
Jonas pushed aside his plate and looked around for the waitress and her coffee pot. With breakfast out of the way, it was time to hear Kate's idea on how to—
He glanced across to find Kate watching him, her golden eyes narrowed. He bit back a groan. Hell, he was beginning to recognize that look of hers. She had more questions. He headed them off with one of his own. Or tried to.
"So about this plan of yours—"
"How did you get to where you are?" Kate interrupted.
"With the Bureau, you mean?" When she nodded, he shrugged. "I just sort of fell into it. They were looking for people at the same time I was looking for work."
"When did you join?"
"Fifteen years ago, right out of college."
Kate traced a fingertip around a spoon on the table, but her gaze didn't leave his. "The ATF doesn't just go looking for people. Someone must have pointed you their way. Your dad?"
Jonas snorted at the suggestion. "He would have been the last person to refer me to a life of law enforcement, believe me. Last I heard, he was doing time somewhere in California. I haven't seen him since I was three."
He watched her bite her lip. Knew she held back an I'm sorry. He opened his mouth to divert her from the topic, but she wasn't done yet.
"Who, then?" she asked.
Jonas sighed, knowing she wouldn't be sidetracked until she had the full story. "A Chicago cop who got tired of busting my butt when I was a kid," he replied. "I think he figured the best way to keep me out of trouble was to get me on his side."
"What about your mother?"
"Damned if I know." Jonas shrugged again. "She ditched me and my sister when I was six and Lizzie was four. We went into foster care, separate families."
Kate’s frown deepened, tugging at her brows. "Not together? No aunts or uncles?"
None that wanted us. “No."
"Did they at least keep the two of you connected?"
With the ease of long practice, Jonas detached himself from the memories. "Lizzie stayed with the same family until she graduated from high school. I was a pretty angry kid, and her family didn't consider me a good influence. I don't blame them. I got bounced around a lot, then spent a year on the streets before Mike Callahan straightened me out."
Distress clouded the golden eyes. "That must have been hard for you, losing your sister as well as your mother."
"It was a long time ago. I survived."
The gentle gaze didn't waver, however. If anything, it intensified. "I know," she replied. "And I know you're not looking for sympathy, Jonas, but that doesn't stop my heart from breaking for the little boy you used to be."
For a long moment, Jonas said nothing. Could think of nothing to say. Hell, couldn't think, period. He stared at the butter knife his fingers had curled around. Kate's words echoed in his skull, battering at the shell he'd so carefully constructed around himself over the years.
He knew his background had left its mark on him. He never denied that it had made him who he was and shaped how he'd chosen to live. He'd never kidded himself about any of that. He'd just always thought himself satisfied with it. Until now.
Until his own heart ached at the thought of the little boy he'd once been—and hollowed in the face of a life that suddenly stretched out so emptily before him. His gut twisted. Damn it. One way or another, this partnership with Kate was going to be the death of him.
He shoved his plate to one side and unfolded the map he'd purchased earlier, spreading it across the table between them.
"You said you knew how to get us out of here," he said. "Show me."
Chapter 26
Kate studied Jonas's dark head as he leaned over the map between them, grumbling about her proposed idea for getting them across the river to the States. A shock of black hair had fallen across his forehead, and her fingers itched to push it back. To smooth the furrow from his brow that remained in the wake of their exchange. She held back a sigh.
She might have a cop's instinct down pat, but would she ever learn to heed her feminine one? The one that had tried so hard to tell her to mind her own business? To warn her that she didn't want to know anything more about this brooding man? She was treading on increasingly thin ice where Jonas was concerned, and she needed to back away now, while she still could.
He jabbed his finger at a spot on the map and looked up.
"I still don’t like the idea, but—" he broke off, and his dark brows pulled together in an angry slash as she tried to rearrange her expression into something that didn’t reflect the mooning she knew she’d been doing. "Damn it, Kate—”
She cut him off with a wave of one hand, mustering a smile she hoped looked only half as forced as it felt. "It’ll work," she said. “The plan, I mean.”
Jonas’s scowl deepened, and she stood up from the table, trying to deflect the lecture she saw forming behind his eyes. She reached for the bill beside her plate and made her voice light. "Ready to go?"
Strong fingers closed over her wrist, warm and vise-like around the slender bones. Her pulse leapt, and she hoped against hope Jonas wouldn't feel it beneath his fingertips. He looked up at her.
"We need to talk," he said, his electric blue gaze threatening to hold her as captive as the hand around her wrist. She blinked and turned her head to watch the restaurant's front door swing closed behind a pair of men. Truckers, most likely.
"There’s nothing to talk about," she said. "We have a plan, and now we should get moving. We don't want to stay anywhere very long."
"We're not going anywhere," Jonas replied grimly, "until you come clean with me."
His hand slid from her wrist to her hand, and her heart skipped several beats. She wished to God he would let go before common sense caved to the desire to twine her fingers with his. "About what?"
"About all of this. Why you're here. Why you're doing this. Why you didn't hole up back in Ottawa when you could. You're a cop, Kate. A good one, from what I've seen."
A tiny thrill of pleasure ran through her at his words. She quashed it, making herself stay focused as he continued, "Why involve yourself? And don't tell me you had no choice, because we both know you did. You could have turned me in before things got this out of hand. Or you could have just turned me loose. So why? Why are you here?"
A wariness in Jonas's eyes, as much as the rigid set of his powerful shoulders, told Kate he needed a straight answer.
But he wasn't going to like it.
She took a deep breath. "Because you need the help. And because I couldn't live with myself if I turned away and something happened to you."
Blue eyes turned hard.
"I've managed on my own my entire life," he snarled. "I don't need help, and I won't let you be responsible for what happens to me. Are w
e clear?"
He glared up at her, a hardened, proud, and bitter man who truly believed what he said. He didn't need anyone. He didn't need her. When their job was done, he would walk out of her life, and she wouldn't be able to stop him.
Even if she wanted to.
And she did, she realized. Oh God, how she did.
So much for backing away.
Somewhere beyond their table someone dropped a dish, but the sound of shattering glass came from another world, an alternate reality. This world—her world—centered around Jonas, around the grip on her hand that tightened to painful, around the crystalline eyes that stared back at her, rejecting every revelation she'd just undergone.
"Don't," he said.
Don't what? she wanted to ask, but she already knew.
Don't care about me, that one word said, hanging heavy in the air between them. Don't ask me to care in return. Don't see a future in me.
Don't.
The angry word denied a connection between them. Denied a connection between Jonas and anyone at all. Whatever he had lived through had built impenetrable walls around him, setting him apart from the rest of the world.
When she'd told him earlier that her heart broke only for the little boy he had once been, that hadn't been entirely accurate. Her heart broke too for the man who'd had to bury that little boy so many years ago. But he wouldn't appreciate the sentiment, and so she kept silent, her hand still held captive in his, until he slowly released her and turned his head to stare out the window.
"Don't think I haven't considered the idea, Kate," he said, a rawness in his voice underlining his words. "You're what every man would give his right arm for. You're honest, warm, giving—not to mention sexy as hell. A long time ago, I dreamed of meeting someone like you, you know. Thought I could settle down like other people, normal people. I thought I could buy a house, have the requisite dog and kid, go camping on the weekends, coach Little League. But it's just not in me. I've been alone too long, had to fight for too much. I don't have anything to give someone like you. I'd suck you dry and destroy you without even meaning to."
Kate could think of nothing to say. She rubbed absently at the marks he'd left on her wrist.
"If you want to drop out of this mess, I'll understand, believe me," he added, turning to look at her with what she could only describe as challenge.
Because he expected her to do just that, she realized. He expected her to leave, because it was what everyone in his life had always done.
More than likely because he’d driven them to it.
Kate lifted her chin.
"No way, Burke,” she said. “I'm not letting you make me into another disappointment in your life, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, and let's go find out if my contact is still around. If we're lucky, we might make it out of here tonight."
Kate was at the cash register before her words registered in Jonas’s mind, and at the glass front door before he caught up with her, still trying to come up with a response.
He'd really hoped he’d given her reason to bail out of the whole damned mess this time, before she got any more involved. Before she got hurt, and not just physically. He flinched at the memory of that raw pain in her expression when he’d rejected her help. Rejected her. It had taken everything in him not to stand and reach for her, to—
He locked his hands behind his head, flexing his shoulders in a stretch as he trailed a ramrod-stiff Kate toward the motel office. Hell, who was he trying to kid? The idea of hurting Kate didn't bother him nearly as much as the fact that he was beginning to care whether she got hurt. Because he'd meant every word he'd said to her: He had no room in his life for a relationship. Any capacity for love had been snuffed out over a lot of ugly, painful years until all that remained was an instinct for survival that ensured he'd lead a very long life. Alone, the way he was meant to be.
And someone like Kate deserved one hell of a lot better than that. He just needed her to understand that.
Kate stopped in her tracks on the sidewalk running the length of the motel, and he veered sideways to avoid knocking her over. She rounded on him with a fierce glare.
"Will you please give it a rest?" she demanded.
Impatient. She had the nerve to be impatient with him, when she was the one creating complications. He opened his mouth to object, but she overrode him.
"I refuse to pretend I don't like you, Jonas, because I do. I may not like how you do things, but that's my problem, not yours. You, I like. I like your sense of humor, I like how easy you are to talk to—when you're not sulking, that is—and I like your honesty. So yes, I care about what happens to you. Last time I checked, that wasn't a crime."
Amber eyes flashing with annoyance dared him to disagree. He did so, but with great caution. "I’m just afraid it's gone beyond friendly caring."
"My problem. Not yours," she said again.
No. No, it's definitely my problem, too.
"It's not that simple—"
She cut him off. "It's exactly that simple. I don't want to see you get killed, and I don't want to see me get killed. We have a better chance of coming out of this alive if we work together."
"And afterward? What do we do when all this"—he waved an encompassing hand—"is over? What then, Kate Dexter?"
The question hung between them for a long moment. Kate looked away, too late to hide the return of the raw pain he’d seen before. Something twisted deep inside Jonas's gut.
"Then,” she said, her voice flat, “you pay up your tab and I go home."
"Home to what? If you keep this up, you're not even going to have a job when you get back."
"I'm pretty sure I already don't have a job. Not after last night. At least let me have a good reason for losing it."
He stared down at her for a long moment, wanting to believe she could pull this off. That he could. Sunlight broke through the clouds, sparking off her hair.
"Do you really think they'll fire you?" he asked at last. "Even if we prove I'm right, and I vouch for you?"
"I don't know. Maybe. Given the number of laws I’ve broken, probably." Kate shrugged. "On the other hand, Dave's father-in-law is an assistant commissioner. If I'm lucky—and if Dave can manage to pull a few strings with him—they'll just ship me off to Tuktoyaktuk or some such for a few years."
She offered him a lopsided grin along with the attempt at reassurance, the pain he'd glimpsed in her eyes hidden behind that unsinkable humor she seemed to possess. A little of the tension uncoiled from Jonas's shoulders. Maybe she could do this after all. Maybe they could part as friends when this was over. He cleared his throat and, even as he hated himself for his cowardice, joined her in the spirit of denial.
"Is that bad?" he asked.
"No idea. Mostly cold, I think," Kate replied.
As Jonas followed her into the motel office, he was almost convinced that her cheerfulness was real.
Almost.
Chapter 27
Kate paused inside the door of the bar, her nose wrinkling at the sour odor permeating the air—a mix of stale beer, sweat, and old vomit, if she judged correctly. A steady thud of music vibrated through the floorboards as she scanned the gloomy interior. The place was already half full, even though it was only eleven-thirty in the morning. Her gaze passed over the scattered tables, most occupied by single males, and settled on the stage at their center. A blond, skinny woman gyrated there, clad only in a G-string and a feather boa—neither of which provided enough coverage to count as clothing.
Kate held back a shudder of distaste. The place hadn't changed one iota in the three years since she'd last set foot in it. She just hoped that held true where James Lazarus was concerned.
She looked around as Jonas's shoulder brushed against hers. He stared over her head, brows drawn together, jawline flexing.
"Nice company your informant keeps," he muttered.
She raised an eyebrow at the thread of a snarl running through his voice. "Yours hang out in better places, do th
ey?"
His gaze flicked to hers and away again, and his glower deepened. Kate held back a sigh. His mood had steadily worsened since breakfast, and she suspected he'd been going over their conversation in his mind again. And again and again and again, making more out of it each time he did so. She'd done her best to ignore his ill humor, hoping that if she behaved normally, he would follow suit, but he hadn't, and her patience was beginning to wear thin.
"Why don't you wait—" she began.
"No." His flat gaze returned to her. "No way am I leaving you on your own in here."
She didn't even try to hold back the eye roll. "Oh, for—" she broke off, biting back an epithet that wanted to follow. She debated having—again—the conversation about how she was a cop, but decided it would do no good. Not with Jonas in his current frame of mind.
Gritting her teeth, she turned her back on him and threaded her way through the tables toward a darkened corner, ignoring the assessing male gazes that followed her. She paused to let a waitress pass by to set a drink on a nearby table. The leering man seated there ran his hand suggestively over the woman's mini-skirt-clad backside, and Kate's skin crawled in silent empathy. God, how she remembered those looks and touches. Hell, even some of the clientele themselves looked familiar from her days of working undercover here. One hundred and sixty-seven days, to be exact. She'd counted them.
"How long did you say you worked here?" Jonas growled in her ear.
"Six months, give or take," she replied. She saw him level a glare at the man trying to feel up the waitress, and a spark of mischief made her add, "but only as a waitress, not a dancer."
Jonas's expression darkened even further, but she felt no remorse. Served him right for being so crotchety.
The man she'd hoped to find was there, in the back corner, exactly where she'd seen him during their last exchange. She dropped into an empty chair at the table occupied by James Lazarus, proprietor of the bar and the RCMP's one-time key to breaking open a deeply rooted smuggling ring in the area. Jimmy and his two companions stared at her.
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