by Rachel Lee
She didn’t know. Stifling a sigh, she rested in his embrace, an embrace she needed, and wondered what it all meant.
“Jerrod?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you have any sisters?”
“No. Why?”
“Because you understand women so well.”
At that, he barked a laugh. “I doubt it. I did have a mother who taught me to treat ladies with respect. I doubt she’d be awfully proud of some of the things I’ve done if she was still around.”
“So you lost your parents, too?”
“Yeah. Dad had a fatal heart attack, and Mom... Well, I think she died of grief. Six months later while I was away on a mission.”
“I’m so sorry.” She tried to hug him back. He was right; they were both the walking wounded. There was a lot of food for thought in that. “I think,” she said quietly, “that your mother would be extremely proud of you.”
Outside in shadows up the street, a man watched the house, growing both cold and impatient. He knew better than to allow impatience to rule him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.
Those two were getting awfully close, which created complications. Spending too much time together. He only wanted one of them, but it was beginning to look as if he might have to take both of them.
It wouldn’t be impossible. Far from it. But it would leave a bigger trail, even if he managed to get them in the woods. And while the guy could just disappear and everyone would probably think he had just moved on, the woman, not so much. Her roots burrowed throughout this community, which would give him at best twenty-four hours before she was missed. Maybe less.
But he planned to be long gone before anyone started looking, anyway. He hadn’t expected this to get so messy, but he had a lot of experience with that. Little threw him off his stride or he wouldn’t still be here.
He also knew who was responsible and who needed to pay, and while he didn’t want collateral damage, he wasn’t afraid of it. But damn, not even smashing the woman’s car window had persuaded her to stay home.
Finally he headed to the seedy motel on the edge of town, deciding to take a night in relative comfort compared to the cave he’d been using. With the truck stop right across the street, one night there wouldn’t draw any attention to him.
It was clear to him now that he no longer could get away with taking only his target. No, the situation had compounded. It was time to revise his plans.
Rather than feeling disappointed, though, he felt energized. On the hunt. All senses in high gear.
He could do this.
Chapter 7
Finally they had to move. Happy as Allison was to sit on Jerrod’s lap, she figured he must be getting stiff and she certainly needed to stretch.
At her first attempt to pull away, he released her immediately. She swung to the side, put her feet down and stood, stretching widely. “Thank you,” she said.
“I should thank you. I think I needed that hug at least as much as you did.”
She turned, eyeing him. Given her initial impressions of him, given what he had said about the kind of work he had done in the military, the softer side of him amazed her. She liked it. She only hoped he wasn’t play acting.
But then nothing about him suggested he was capable of that. Oh, maybe as part of his job, but she didn’t get the feeling he’d treat ordinary people that way.
In fact, thinking over what he had told her, she concluded he was brutally honest about himself and with himself. He offered no apologies. He was what he was.
She wondered at the adjustments he must have made to come to such a self-acceptance. Clearly, she hadn’t arrived there, as today proved.
After a moment, he, too, stood and rotated his torso a bit as if stretching his lower back.
“Pain?” she asked.
“It’s not usually painful, but it can sure stiffen up.”
“You should have said something.”
He flashed one of those surprising smiles. “When I was having such a good time?”
She couldn’t stop the blush that heated her cheeks and was quite sure he could see it. His smile changed to a grin, but he didn’t say anything except, “Can I make some coffee?”
“Sounds good to me.” She realized as he followed her back to the kitchen that something within her had settled. She no longer felt the fear and ache that had been plaguing her at dinner. She doubted the crater within her had healed that easily, but right then she felt relaxed, warm and very much okay.
Maybe that was the most dangerous thing of all, that his holding her could affect her so deeply. But she was damned if she cared right now. It was enough to feel better.
This time she sat while he made the coffee. “It’s time to get serious,” he said as soon as he’d finished measuring the coffee and water and had started the pot.
“About what?” She thought they’d been pretty serious for a while already.
“Someone is watching you.”
In an instant, all her relaxation vanished. “How can you know that?”
He faced her. “If humans have one preternatural and inexplicable instinct, it’s knowing when we’re being watched. It’s a feeling never to be ignored. I felt it when we were out last weekend, I felt it when we were in the woods today and I felt it again when I came back from my run.”
A trickle of ice ran down her spine. She didn’t doubt him because she had had the feeling, too, but had completely ignored it. Having it in town was meaningless. She had been too busy when they’d been out taking samples to notice anything but what she was focused on. But she didn’t doubt him.
“Anyone could be watching here in town,” she said. “People stand at their windows and look out.”
“Agreed. But this is different, and I felt it when we were out collecting samples. Someone is watching you.”
“Is that why you’ve been so certain I was wrong that nobody had anything to fear from me because I doubted I could trace the toxin?”
“Partly. The point here is not whether you can trace it but whether someone thinks you can. We’ve been over this. I don’t think the damage to your car was just a prank.”
She compressed her lips. “I know. I’ve been having trouble with that, too. It’s a small campus. We’ve never had trouble with serious vandalism, and the whole idea of some kind of fraternity prank might be nice to believe, but I can’t quite swallow it.”
He nodded. “Regardless, get used to being joined to me at the hip. I’m sleeping on your couch until this is settled. And when we go out tomorrow, I’m going to sweep around you to see if I can find out who is so interested in what you’re doing.”
She stared at him. “You know, right at this instant I could almost hate you.”
He lifted his brows. “Why?”
“Because I was feeling so damn good just a minute ago and you smashed it. Shattered it. Maybe you’re used to this kind of thing, but I’m not.”
“And here I thought I was moving us to a safer place.”
“Safe? This?” She gaped at him.
“Safer than what’s going on inside me.” He closed the distance between them, bent over her until her head was fully tilted back then swooped in for a kiss that took her breath away. She was gasping when he released her mouth, and the desire she had tamped down had become a conflagration again.
“That,” he said shortly. “The thing that has you scared and eager and worried if you’ll be wounded again. Easier to talk about a criminal and his intentions, don’t you think?”
She should have said yes. She should have been grateful that he’d tried to evade this. But his kiss had put paid to that. “No,” she heard herself say as if from a distance. The thrumming in her body seemed to lift her to a new plane, instantly connecting her with her physical bei
ng so strongly that everything else vanished. Need swamped her.
He must have sensed it. Hell, he must have smelled desire all over her, but he backed up anyway and pulled mugs from the cupboard.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “For all you know, I could pack up and be gone on Monday.”
“Will you?” Her heart skipped beats as her stomach sank.
“I don’t know. Probably not, but that’s been my mode of operation since I got out of rehab. Stay for a short while and move on.”
“I thought you came here deliberately because of Seth Hardin.”
“I suppose he was at the back of my mind, but most of the time I was drifting.” He brought the coffee to the table, then started clearing the dinner dishes. For the first time she actually saw him wince, and felt instantly guilty for how long she had sat on his lap. “Anyway,” he continued, “Hardin made this sound like the best place on earth. After a few weeks, especially the past week, I’d be reluctant to swear to that myself.”
Maybe because the tension needed some sort of release, a laugh escaped Allison. The sound must have surprised him as much as it surprised her. “It is a fantastic place. It has its problems, but I came back here after grad school, which ought to tell you something. I could have taught anywhere, but I wanted to be here.”
“So maybe I should give Conard City a chance?”
“Certainly don’t judge it by this. You’d be surprised how many of our problems come from outside.”
He stilled then. She had never seen anything quite like the way he became so motionless he might have been stone. After a moment, he said, “That’s an interesting thought.”
“What? That this trouble started because of someone who doesn’t live here? I’ve been thinking that since all this started.”
“Really? Why?” Once again that inky gaze lasered in on her as he turned his back to the sink. He appeared to have incredible focus when he wanted it.
“Because I’m naive,” she said. She watched his brows lift, and she shrugged. “It’s true. I know almost everyone around here. I don’t think any of our ranchers would do this. Yes, they grumble about the wolf packs up in the mountains, but so far as I know not a single cow or sheep has been lost to them in this county. Coyotes are a bigger problem, especially around birthing season, and then they keep close watch. So this seems like an extreme reaction. I’d bet it came from elsewhere.”
“You could be right.”
“I hope I’m right. But like I said, we’ll never know. We’d have to catch this guy red-handed, either with the poison or with bait. Not gonna happen except by accident.”
“Not very likely.” Although he was thinking he might catch someone if he kept his eyes open tomorrow and swept the area while she hunted for more dead animals. While she was right about the fact that anyone might be watching here in town, when combined with being watched in the virtual middle of nowhere, his hackles raised. Someone was up to something, and it certainly seemed to involve Allison.
Although her remark about trouble coming from outside... That bothered him. She was thinking outside this county, but he thought farther than that. Could he have brought trouble on his own heels? He couldn’t imagine any for a fact, but there was no way to be certain.
Looking across the table at her, he knew he’d never wanted a woman more. But the most important thing to him was protecting her. Lots of people didn’t get that about men like him, because they often went on missions to kill. But the whole point of every single one of those missions was to make larger numbers of people safe. First and foremost, they were protectors.
He turned back to the dishes, ignoring the way his back muscles had begun to scream. The spasm would ease.
“Just sit down,” she said. “I can clean up.”
“You cooked. Only seems right that I wash.”
How did you argue with that? she wondered, although she didn’t really feel like disagreeing. Being around this guy was like taking an emotional roller-coaster ride, and she felt nearly worn out from the soul-searching she had done today.
But she noticed that his ordinarily fluid movements seemed stiffer, maybe a bit more cautious, as he scraped plates then rinsed them before loading them into the dishwasher.
“Jerrod? How bad is your back?”
“I told you. Some shrapnel. Usually not a problem.”
“But it’s a problem right now, isn’t it?”
“On and off. I just have to deal with it.”
“Then let me do the dishes.”
He shook his head. “I need to loosen the muscles. It’ll pass. Moving is good.”
So she let him be and wondered what kind of mire she was sliding into here. He frightened her, but he made something inside her feel satisfied. He might leave at any moment, which would probably be safer, but she also knew she was getting to the point where she’d miss him like hell if he went.
Where did that leave her? Half in and half out of some kind of undefined relationship? Because she sure as hell didn’t know him well enough to love him. But she also knew she wanted him. Maybe she could go for the sex and escape the rest?
How would she know? At her age, she ought to be familiar with her own emotional makeup, but if there was one thing she was learning it was that she didn’t know herself at all. She’d had one big relationship in her life. How could she judge if she was capable of spending a couple of nights with a guy without getting more involved?
She tore her gaze from him and stared into her mug of coffee. This was all getting too complicated. A little over a week ago, she hadn’t known this man at all. She’d settled into a nice life of teaching, having a good time with friends and had even been excited about playing a small role in trying to find out how much land had been contaminated.
She supposed it was a mark of how dully content her life had become that she could get excited about going out to take samples of soil. But she had believed that was the way she wanted it.
Now she wondered, and it was all the fault of a stranger she had invited into her life. And if she was to be honest about it, she was attracted to the aura of danger around him. Not that he had done anything to make her fear for her safety. Far from it. But she sensed he was a man capable of things beyond her imagining, and that he had been as dangerous as the danger he had lived with so long.
That struck her as an immature thing to be drawn to, but there it was. Jerrod Marquette was the most attractive man to have crossed her path in years, and she couldn’t exactly explain why he drew her. She ought to be attracted to ordinary, stable guys, not some rolling stone from parts unknown who was probably headed back to parts unknown soon.
Except that she remembered her thoughts earlier in the day, about how this might be her mind’s way of trying to get her to deal with her fears since Lance. The brain could apparently be a tricky thing.
Jerrod finished the dishes without saying any more, but as he dried his hands he asked her if she had any ibuprofen.
“That bad?” she asked as she jumped up to get the bottle from the back of the kitchen cabinet.
“Bad would be hunting for a doc to give me something stronger. It’s not like that. Moving helped some.”
“You shouldn’t have held me for so long.”
“Like I wanted to stop?”
And there it was again. The air seemed to thicken instantly and her insides grew molten. “Sheesh, Jerrod!”
A laugh escaped him, one of the few she had heard from him.
“I’m a pain, I know.”
“You were the one who said you wanted to discuss safer things and then you come out with that?”
His grin remained. “It was just a hug.”
She put her head in her hands, as if abandoning hope, but secret delight filled her. She ought to be concerned that he could flip her switch so easi
ly, but in truth she was enjoying it. She guessed she had been starved for excitement all the while seeking the calmest, most uncomplicated life possible.
This was turning into a day of amazing revelations.
“I’ll behave,” he promised, but there was a tremor of humor in his voice.
“Oh, don’t,” she replied, raising her head. “Please. You’re keeping me on my toes.”
“Or on the brink of despair.”
Finally she had to laugh, even as she smoldered inside. It struck her that he had been tiptoeing around her in a lot of ways, and that maybe she’d only gotten to see a small part of him. She welcomed this lighter side of him.
“On the brink of something, for sure,” she answered.
“Well, pick your brink and decide if we’re going to avoid it or not.”
A giggle escaped her. “Right.”
“I’m not kidding,” he retorted, but it was clear he struggled to wipe the smile from his face. He sat across from her, wincing a bit, then lifted his own mug of coffee. “You have a wonderful laugh and a truly great smile. I like them.”
He might as well have lit the fuse on a string of firecrackers. She felt each little popping explosion deep inside, pushing her hunger for him up another notch. Just as she figured she was going to tip over the brink and right into his arms, he sighed and started twisting his torso.
Pain, she reminded herself. He might make light of it, but he was still in pain. Now would not be a good time for either of them. “Does it go away quickly?”
“Usually. It’s being a little stubborn tonight. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that run earlier. It was cold, and I stayed on pavement. I prefer to run on softer ground.”
“Have you been doing a lot of that?”
“There’s a lot of wide-open space out there. I’ve been enjoying it. Running, walking, taking it all in. In a way it’s a new experience for me.”
“What is?”
“Being able to go out like that without wondering what was behind every rock and tree. No threat. I enjoyed the freedom.”
