by Cassie Miles
“I like having a giraffe namesake. Thanks, Dylan.” She went up on her toes and gave him a peck on the cheek—a completely unsexy kiss.
After petting Shack and Bibi, they left the barn and hiked up the rise to his hideaway cabin. He kept the door locked, and the furry reasons for barricading the door were sitting on the porch, positioning their long, feline bodies to get maximum sun exposure. As soon as he opened the door, the cats shoved their way inside, followed by three ferrets with perky eyes.
As soon as Jayne sat in a rocking chair near the fireplace, a white cat with black spots, named Checkers, was on her lap. Jayne glided her hand over the pristine fur. “How does she keep herself so clean?”
“Constant tongue bath.” In another time and in a different circumstance, that phrase might have had a more satisfying implication. He stretched out on the heavy leather sofa. “I’ve been meaning to ask. You say that you don’t care for animals, but when I was in your house in Denver, I saw stuffed animals. Three cats with white fur.”
“Maybe I wanted a cat when I was a little girl. I don’t remember.” While she talked, she continued to stroke Checkers. “I don’t dislike animals. I just don’t have time for pets.”
He sensed a cover-up; there was more to that story than she was letting on, but he couldn’t force her to trust him. And he had a bigger problem related to keeping her safe.
She was safe at RSQ Ranch. And she hadn’t been grumbling about needing to rush back to town. He wanted to maintain the status quo, but Detective Cisneros had another idea.
Their best lead was the Tank Sherman. It was confirmed that Koslov had used Tank to bypass the alarm system at Jayne’s house. Because Tank had dropped out of sight, it was likely that Koslov was after the hacker. These flimsy threads of logic were enough to make Cisneros believe that Tank had information that might lead to Koslov.
The problem was, Tank refused to meet with anyone but Dylan. An inconvenient demand but Dylan understood. Turning himself over to the authorities would probably land Tank in jail for a variety of cybercrimes and hacking. That was why he insisted on a face-to-face with Dylan.
But he couldn’t leave Jayne here without a bodyguard while he had espressos with Tank. Would she be satisfied with his brother as a stand-in? Sean was better qualified to protect her. He had FBI training.
But would she agree to a change in plans? She liked to think she was running the show.
Dylan had considered giving Tank the directions to RSQ Ranch and having him come here. But he didn’t want the hacker to know the location of his secret hideout. If Tank settled in, he’d never leave.
Somehow, Dylan had to make contact.
Chapter Fourteen
She and Dylan shared an early dinner with the Burtons, who were a charming couple, well-traveled, interesting and smart. As they talked and laughed, Jayne found herself unwinding. Her joints loosened, and her tension eased. Instead of zapping signals from one nerve synapse to another, her body electricity went on low current.
It had been a long time since she’d talked to anyone who wasn’t a professional contact, either a doctor or a patient. High stress was part of her life, and escape was nearly impossible when she didn’t have many friends outside work and no regular boyfriend.
Her gaze lingered on Dylan. What would it be like to come home from work and find him waiting? As soon as that question popped into her head, she realized how different she was from the little girl her dad had raised. Peter the Great would tell her that it wasn’t a man’s job to sit home waiting for her. It was supposed to be the other way around.
She doubted that Dylan worried about any of those old-fashioned gender stereotypes. He leaned forward, elbows on the dinner table, as he excitedly described a new fly reel he might buy for his next fishing trip. She didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but his enthusiasm made her grin.
Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he turned to her and said, “You’d like fly fishing. It requires skill and finesse.”
“Don’t you just bait the hook and drop it in the water?”
“Bite your tongue, woman.”
This led to an involved discussion of casting, complete with physical acting out. Then he went into the philosophical, psychological battle between man and trout. This version of Dylan was nerd-like in his blind excitement and professorial in his explanation. And where was the seductive cowboy? Fishing wasn’t something she generally associated with sex, but she liked the way Dylan moved his hips when he pretended to be casting onto still waters.
Later, they hiked back to the cabin, followed by the three female goats and a border collie that seemed to think he was herding their little group. “It’s still early,” he said.
The sun had gone behind the mountains, but it wasn’t yet dark. “It’s the changing time of day, when the tools are put away and goblins come out to play.”
“Poetry?”
“My nanny used to tell me that every night.”
“That’s a little creepy,” he said. “Were you brought up in an abandoned insane asylum?”
“It gets worse. Nanny would make a scary face when she said ‘goblins.’ Not that I was scared. I tried to stay awake and catch the monsters lurking in the shadows. I never did.”
“Until the night before last,” he said.
“When Koslov broke into my house.”
The goats had slowed their pace, and the black-and-white dog nudged their backsides and gave a low bark. Jayne shook her head, and the evening breeze combed through her long hair.
“Maybe your nanny was right,” Dylan said. “There really are goblins.”
“Only in your fantasy games. Real life is harder to score. In our first encounter, I would be counted as the winner. On the second attempt, Koslov came close to successfully abducting me.”
“And I wish we had learned more from that.”
“Such as?”
“More.” Whatever information he’d gleaned in his conversations with Cisneros and Agent Woody, Dylan wasn’t sharing with her. He looked down at her. “Are you tired?”
“Not at all.”
“I could teach you how to play one of my cyber-fantasy games. The scoring is real clear. You might even like it.”
“Not tonight.” She was feeling relaxed and wanted to enhance that mood. “I think I’ll pamper myself. I never have time to follow a grooming schedule while I’m working. And your brother was thorough in packing things from my house.”
“That’s a surprise. Sean’s kind of a slob.”
“Well, he brought my organic shampoo and conditioner, a skin-rejuvenating formula for the bath and several other lotions and potions. He even picked up my aromatherapy candle.”
Opening the cabin door proved difficult. The goats tromped up onto the porch as if expecting to be offered a nightcap. The Border collie knew this wasn’t the right place for goats and started barking loudly to get them to move.
The cats weren’t happy. Fangs bared. Backs went up. Claws came out.
When Dylan finally got the door open, he reached inside and turned on the porch light. The animal action froze. Then the very clever collie shoved one of the goats toward the stair. In a few seconds, all was back to normal.
Dylan held the door for her. “If you change your mind or want some company, I’ll be in the computer room.”
“Thanks.”
She watched him saunter across the front room and disappear into his secret hideout. Computer games—no matter how brilliant and creative—weren’t much of an enticement for her. If he’d suggested a different activity, something more sensual in nature, or if he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her mouth, she would have been happy to stay up with him.
It was only half-past seven o’clock when she sank into the steaming hot bathtub. Her aromatherapy candle smelle
d like lavender, which was recommended for stress relief.
While she was soaking, she applied a facial masque to tighten her pores and tidied up her fingernails and cuticles. She never did manicures, didn’t like the flash of an unusual color in the operating room. But she went wild with her feet and toenails. At the moment, her polish was intense purple.
Indulging herself was fun, but she’d get bored if she went through these rituals more frequently. Jayne enjoyed bright, pretty, feminine things—like her wild underwear and bras. But getting dressed from head to toe in fashion seemed like a lot of work when all she really needed was to toss on a pair of scrubs.
After drying and brushing her hair, she dressed in a soft, comfortable nightie. It was white cotton with delicate embroidered pink roses at the ballerina neckline, and her robe matched. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the dresser in her room. With her hair washed and brushed shiny and smooth and her virtuous white gown, she looked as innocent as a virgin. Underneath, she was wearing fire-engine-red panties with black lace. Not that anybody would know.
Jayne wished she could enjoy the best indulgence, which was having someone else appreciate her tight pores and tell her she was beautiful as he caressed her shaved legs. She imagined the appreciative expression on Dylan’s face when he looked at her sexy panties. Her tongue ran across her lips, remembering how he tasted. Her nose wiggled, recalling his musky, masculine scent.
If she gave him the slightest hint, he’d be all over her. And she had the feeling that another of Dylan’s mysterious talents would emerge when his clothes came off. Would he be a good lover? Did she dare to find out?
Seducing him wouldn’t be fair. But it wasn’t as though she was making any sort of promise about a relationship. Dylan was a big boy. He could make his own decision.
Stretched out under the blankets, she wiggled to find a comfortable spot. The RSQ Ranch bedsheets weren’t as luxurious as the linens at her house, but the fabric was crisp and clean. The top blanket was a quilt with mostly blues and greens that looked homemade and had an interlinking ring design.
She felt a thud near the foot of the bed. Though her bedroom door was mostly closed, she’d had to leave a space so Dylan would hear if she called out in the night. For the cats, the open door was an invitation to party time. There was another thud...and another...and the big gray cat with the loud purr marched up to the pillow and lay down facing her.
She watched him for a moment. As soon as she closed her eyes, the cat batted a wisp of hair off her cheek.
“Hey.” She raised a finger to warn him. “It’s after nine o’clock. Not too early to be in bed.”
The cat doesn’t care, she told herself, because he’s a cat and doesn’t live by clocks. And doesn’t know what I’m saying, anyway.
Determined to sleep, she rolled onto her side and attempted to sink more deeply into her relaxation. Meditation might work. As she tried to clear her mind, she was distracted by the sound of a creaking floorboard. Just across the hall, Dylan must be moving around, maybe peering through his periscope. Instead of releasing tension, her muscles clenched.
Maybe a glass of merlot would help.
She swung her legs out of the bed and slipped her feet into her scuffed moccasins. Then she threw on her robe and went across the hall.
As soon as she entered, Dylan looked up from his computer screen. “I thought I heard you moving around.”
“Same here.”
Simultaneously, they knew what they’d heard. “Cats!”
He stepped out from behind his computer, picked up the orange cat with one hand and his beer with the other. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Merlot?” she asked.
“You’re in luck. I’ve got some in the fridge.”
When he left the room, she closed the door behind herself and followed him to the kitchen, where she perched on a chair by the table. Outside, she could hear the wind whipping the branches of pine trees, but this little cabin was warm and cozy and beginning to feel like home.
“You strike me as a beer drinker,” she said. “But there’s a bottle of red wine in the kitchen.”
“It’s there for you. I noticed what you drank and asked Betty to pick up a bottle when she stocked the cabin.”
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He opened the dark wine bottle with a corkscrew and poured a healthy dose into a stemmed wineglass. “Do you have a favorite brand?”
“I’m not a connoisseur,” she readily admitted as she took a sip. “This tastes fine to me. A glass of wine at bedtime is a bit of a bad habit. Not that I do it every night.”
He sat next to her and clinked his beer bottle with her wineglass. “Do you have insomnia?”
“Not really.” Her occasional sleeplessness didn’t rise to the level of a disorder. “When I’m especially worried, I have trouble falling to sleep. I first noticed it during my residency, when I’d been working double shifts on a rotation that included emergency medicine. I could never work in an ER.”
“I understand.”
“I was terrified about making a mistake and causing harm to a patient. I’d stagger home exhausted, fall into bed and be unable to sleep. Then I did something really stupid.”
Her voice caught in her throat. She’d never confided this story to another person. She was too ashamed. Would he judge her?
She watched his reaction as she said, “I took drugs.”
His gaze stayed level and calm. “Did it help?”
“At first, it did. I hooked up with another resident who had the same problem. We wrote prescriptions for each other for sleeping pills, and they were wonderful...a little too wonderful.”
She remembered those first few nights of perfect sleep. In the morning, she’d leap from the bed, alert and ready to take on the challenges of the day. “At first, I woke up refreshed. Since I was getting such great sleep, I figured that I didn’t need more than five hours. My friend, the other resident, found another drug that would wake us up.”
Though she and her friend denied their addiction, the roller coaster ups and downs got out of hand. “It didn’t take long for us to get into trouble. We were haggard, unable to concentrate, abusing the dosage on the pills. But we told ourselves that we needed to do this. One of the senior nurses figured out what we were doing and threatened to report us.”
“You could have lost your career,” he said.
“I was terrified. I quit cold turkey. A month later, I found a middle-ground solution with the occasional merlot before bed. Only one glass. It seems civilized.”
“And you’re a very civilized lady.”
She took a sip of her merlot, enjoying the tangy flavor on her tongue and feeling just the tiniest bit intoxicated. “How did we get started on this topic? I’m sure you don’t care to know about all my bad habits, not that an addiction to prescription pills can be brushed off as a habit.”
“Could have been a serious issue,” he said. “You were wise enough to know when to stop.”
“I’m lucky. My brain chemistry isn’t set for addiction.”
A lazy smile touched his lips. As he slouched in the chair, his posture was the epitome of casual. He reached up and tucked a piece of his long hair behind his ear. “Do you believe that all our behavior is programmed into our brains?”
“A big question.” People had started religions and ended cultures trying to find answers to questions like this. “I don’t think we’re programmed, but I know that certain behaviors are genetic, similar to physical illnesses.”
“I lean the other way,” he said. “I think behavior comes from balancing the extremes. It’s a matter of personal choice, like Aristotle’s golden mean.”
She winced. “I wish you hadn’t said that. Because now I’ll have to prove you wrong, and I’ll feel bad.”
&
nbsp; “You think you know all the answers?”
“Well, I know more than an ancient Greek who’d never seen a laser scalpel, much less an MRI.”
He took a swig of beer and gestured for her to get started. “Bring it on, Jayne.”
She launched into a long explanation of neurochemical reactions and how dopamine affected behavior. “In experiments, I’ve stimulated a certain part of the brain and watched the subject break into tears, literally.”
“But we’re people,” he said, “not computers. There’s a whole lot about us that can’t be explained. Your taste of addictive behavior wasn’t about neurochemistry.”
“It doesn’t exactly fit with your golden mean, either. Would you say that my merlot is a balance between being a pill popper and a teetotaler?”
“I’m guessing that most of your behavior is finding a balance between your work and the rest of your life. You started taking sleeping pills so you could function on the job, and you quit for the same reason. I don’t think there’s a single spot on the brain that pinpoints your ambition, devotion and love for your work.”
She was floored. People very seldom bested her in a rational discussion. “Good guess, cowboy.”
“Thanks.”
She watched him over the rim of her wineglass and gave him a few seconds to revel in his victory. “Now it’s my turn to do a minianalysis on you.”
“Take your best shot.”
“In the few days I’ve known you,” she said, “you’ve switched identities several times. You’ve been a computer nerd, a macho bodyguard, a philanthropist and a cowboy.”
“Don’t forget giraffe midwife,” he said.
“You, my friend, are easily distracted. The opposite extreme is intense concentration that borders on obsession. When a subject finally grabs your interest, you study it until you’re an expert.”
He nodded, conceding the point. With his thumb and forefinger, he rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning, and stubble covered his chin. “Right now,” he said, “right this very minute, I have another problem of extremes. You could help me solve it.”
