When Grace was done, Jaymee offered her another glass of water. She went to sit at the kitchen table, meeting her scrutiny with knowing eyes, as if she had been aware of being watched. Her brown eyes sparkled with a boldness beyond her years, which from a quick guess, was either fifteen or sixteen. She took several greedy swallows of water, reminding Jaymee of the earlier conversation in the woods.
“Tell me about your training,” she said, wetting a washcloth for herself. “Are you sure you can’t take anything but water?”
“Don’t even show me any OJ,” Grace said, then rolled her eyes before smiling cheekily. “Jed is drying me out. I’m doing survivalist training, a more sophisticated way of calling dieting to near-death.”
“Sounds horrible,” Jaymee remarked casually.
“It is horrible. You should hear my tummy after two days without food.”
“What?” Jaymee put down her cloth, shocked. There was simply no reason to put a young girl through that. Maybe they were just too poor? “You’re going to eat right now.”
However, Grace just shook her head emphatically. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Jaymee was outraged. That cousin of Nick’s must be insane. “You don’t have any extra pounds to lose, Grace.” She walked to the refrigerator. “Come on, don’t be proud. What would you like to eat? Chicken? A hamburger? Salad?”
Grace leaned back in her chair, her eyes clear and solemn. “Thank you for caring,” she said, suddenly very polite, “but my dad and I have a program to follow. We’ll eat tomorrow, don’t worry. Maybe he’ll even let me have some juice.” She tempered her refusal with a smile.
Jaymee shook her head in exasperation. “This is getting more confusing by the minute,” she said to no one in particular. “Tell me something, Grace, why did your father hurt Nick?”
The girl shrugged, playing with the rim of her glass. “He was too slow.”
“What?”
“Jed would never hurt Killi…Nick intentionally, Miss Barrows. Nick was...ah...not paying attention.”
“That doesn’t explain anything!” Jaymee exclaimed. “People don’t go around hurling missiles at their cousins to see whether they’re paying attention!”
People didn’t go around with green hair either, but here was one person doing that. In fact, people didn’t go around pretending to be construction workers when they were electronic experts either, and she knew of someone like that too. All in all, she decided she was seeing too many people who weren’t what they seemed and she was getting heartily tired of it.
Grace just gave her a wink, then examined her fingernails, which were also bright green. “I’ll leave Nick to explain that one,” she told her, humor in her dark eyes.
Jaymee looked at Grace across the room, not at all sure how to handle a fifteen year-old going on twenty. “OK, tell me this. What were you two doing on my property?”
“We traced Nick’s instructions to here, but couldn’t get him alone,” Grace explained. “I guess Jed decided he didn’t want to wait another night outside the other house. Too many mosquitoes in your woods, Miss Barrows.”
“Jaymee,” Jaymee said absently, still trying to untangle the knot of information in her brain. “What do you mean, traced Nick to here? Didn’t you know where he was all along?”
Grace stretched her back sinuously, reminding Jaymee of a lazy kitten. Twirling the end of one of her pigtails with a finger, she sat considering an answer for a few moments. Finally, she replied carefully, “Nick hasn’t told you anything at all, has he?”
It was humiliating to admit such a thing, especially to a cocky teenager. She refused to feel angry or hurt, emotions she associated with the opposite sex, emotions she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for a long time now. She had no one but herself to blame, since she had known all along Nick was hiding something from her.
Stiffly, she acknowledged, “He told me he wasn’t running away from the law.”
“Oh, he certainly isn’t a criminal.” Grace looked in the direction of the door. “In fact, I hear them coming right now. I’m sure he’ll answer everything you want to know.”
“Right,” muttered Jaymee under her breath, walking over to refill the girl’s empty glass. “Like his real name, for starters. Didn’t you call him some other name?”
The younger girl grinned. “It’s easy, Jaymee. With men like my cousin, you just got to ask the right questions.” She leaned confidentially over the table, a very female smile on her lips, and added, “I’ll teach you how to handle an evasive expert, if you like.”
Jaymee stared at her. Evasive expert. He’d used just that term the other day, damn his soul. Was there anything he said to her which wasn’t part of a game?
“Oh joy,” she enthused in a flat voice.
***
Nick didn’t like Jaymee in her present mood at all. He sensed the change in her the moment he stepped into the kitchen with Jed. She was standing at the sink, washing the last of the dirt off her hands and arms, her hair tied back in a ponytail. She glanced up, caught his stare, then looked away. He especially didn’t like the look in her eyes. They were that murky color again as she gazed at him like he was some strange insect. He had expected anger, anticipated a heated argument, not this cool and withdrawn woman. He didn’t like it. It infuriated him she closed him off so easily.
After laying down the backpack, he walked in measured steps towards her, as she continued cleaning her hands with calm absorption. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, make her pay attention to him.
“Sorry to crowd up your kitchen,” he said instead, although he knew he needed to apologize for more than that.
Strange how very familiar he had become to her, standing there by her sink. In her house. Yet, she really didn’t know him at all. “No big deal,” she told him, dropping a clean, wet cloth into his hand. Averting her eyes, she turned to the other man. “Want a drink, Jed?”
“Please, thanks,” Jed answered, putting down his backpack. He looked at his daughter. “How many glasses?”
Grace showed him two fingers. Nick, unable to catch Jaymee’s gaze, joined his niece at the table. He gave her an affectionate smile as he wiped away the blood and dirt.
“Why the green hair, trouble?”
Grace shrugged. “It seemed a good idea at the time.”
“You should have seen her date,” Jed said. He accepted the glass of water and washcloth from Jaymee. “Thanks, Miss Barrows. He had purple hair.”
Laughing, Grace defended her date. “I thought he looked cute.”
“So your dad punished you by making you train with him, huh?” Nick teased, ruffling her green hair.
Grace wrinkled her nose. “Nah, I was going to drop him, anyhow.”
“Why, didn’t you like the poor boy?” mocked Nick. “Or, did daddy scare him?”
“I don’t scare her dates. I reason with them,” Jed said, leaning against the counter.
Grace looked at Jaymee and rolled her eyes. “He reasoned by standing threateningly outside on the porch and not saying a word to poor Tommy. Pfffft!” She stretched, again reminding Jaymee of a sleepy kitten. “Oh well, it saved me from hurting his feelings that night.”
“Why?” Jaymee asked, intrigued. Her own dating experience had been sadly lacking, and certainly never would have encompassed a purple-haired date.
“His hair color clashed with mine,” Grace explained with such dead seriousness the adults in the room burst out in laughter.
Well, two of them, anyway, Jaymee corrected. Jed merely smiled, if that slight tug of those lips could be called a smile. “We can’t have that,” she agreed.
“I’m staying at the beachside. You can bunk there, if you like,” Nick told Jed.
“A bed? A shower?” Grace chipped in, grinning. “Wow, what’s that?”
Jaymee frowned. This was going too far. She usually disliked prying into other people’s business because she resented it when others did it to her, but the
idea of a young girl being forced to live without food, bed and shower was too difficult to accept. Didn’t she need to go to school, or something? She must help this child. She looked at Jed.
“Where were you two staying when you were waiting to get Nick alone?”
“I’m sure you know that we were trespassing on your property, Miss Barrows.” Jed’s light eyes met hers squarely.
“Please call me Jaymee,” she said. “I don’t understand this training business Grace has been telling me about. You can’t do that to a growing girl, not allowing her to eat for two days! It’s unhealthy, to say the least. And what’s this about no shower or bed?”
Jed shot Nick a glance, which the latter answered with a crooked grin. “It’s called survival training for a reason,” he told her, in his soft-spoken manner.
“Training for what?” retorted Jaymee. The man had to see he couldn’t starve his daughter. “Armageddon? I’m taking her to an outdoor birthday party tomorrow, and she’ll be eating and drinking.”
She stared back challengingly at the dark and brooding man, very aware of Nick’s watchful gaze on her. She was still afraid of this cousin of his. There was something very elemental about him that made her extremely uncomfortable when he stood too near. But Grace brought out inexplicably motherly instincts in her, and she felt the girl needed a woman’s hand. There was something wild about her.
Grace laid her head against Nick’s shoulder and purred out, “I like her. She’s yelling at Dad.”
“Better him than me,” murmured back Nick amiably. He hid his frustration as he willed Jaymee to meet his eyes, something she had steadfastly avoided since he and Jed came in. “She does have a temper, Jed.”
“We’ve witnessed it first hand, when she yelled on the roof,” Jed told him. He placed the empty glass on the counter and straightened up. “Grace is supposed to eat tomorrow, anyway, so I won’t argue. She can go with you.”
“You can come along too,” Jaymee invited.
“No, thank you. I don’t attend parties.”
“Free food, Dad. Come on,” coaxed Grace. “You can torture me later.”
“You go ahead.”
Nick stood up. “Come on then. I’ll take you to my place.” Tossing Jed the keys to his Jeep, he added, “I assume you know which vehicle outside is mine. I’ll join you in a few.”
Jed nodded. “Grab the backpack, Grace.”
His daughter obediently did as she was told, and the two of them went outside after greeting Jaymee goodnight.
Nick studied Jaymee as she gathered up the empty glasses and dirty washcloths. She was banging the glasses a lot louder than needed, although the blank expression on her face betrayed nothing. He felt his own anger surging as she gave him the silent treatment. Oh no, she wasn’t going to withdraw the same way she did every time her father bothered her. He wouldn’t allow it. A few swift strides and he was behind her at the sink and without warning, he turned the water off.
Jaymee calmly wrung the washcloths dry. She fought the urge to lean back against his hard body, to feel his arms around her again. “So, where did you learn how to move like that?” she casually asked, flapping the wet cloths.
Nick reached over and pulled the cloths out of her hand before turning her around. “It won’t work, you know.”
“What won’t work?”
“I won’t let you withdraw from me, Jaymee. You can try your polite sarcasm on someone else, like your father. Look at me, damn it!” He forced her chin up. “I know I owe you some answers, but I’ve to go with Jed right now. Will you be up late tonight?”
That did get her to look at him. “You’re presumptuous. Maybe I don’t want you to come back tonight,” she said.
“Where do you suppose I’m going to sleep, with Jed and Grace in my little efficiency?” He caressed her back, felt the involuntary response. “What, are you a use-em-leave-em kind of woman?”
“You aren’t getting off this time, Nick or Kill, or whoever you are,” Jaymee warned, glaring at him now. “You’ve put me off with kisses long enough. I want to know.”
His crooked smile only made her madder. She balled her hand and jabbed it into his flat tummy. She couldn’t really draw her elbow back enough to land the hard blow she had in mind, but the grunt it elicited gave her a certain amount of satisfaction.
“What was that for?” he asked, rubbing where she hit.
“I thought that was the standard greeting from your family and friends. They attack you without warning,” Jaymee sweetly told him. “I was assured by Grace you usually jump out of the way fast enough, that this time you weren’t paying attention.”
“I was distracted,” Nick agreed. He continued his caress. “Let me come back over tonight, Jaymee.”
“I need time alone. I want to think things over.” Not that it would help, since she couldn’t make heads or tails about this man, except she’d fallen in love with him. “Besides, I need to do some paperwork tonight.”
Pride made her bite down on the questions churning inside her. If he wouldn’t tell her, she wouldn’t ask. She would never ask anything from a man again.
“I want to be with you, you know that,” Nick said, his eyes glittering with suppressed emotion. “Why do you think I’ve been spending virtually every moment with you?”
Jaymee let out a sigh. “I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly tired. “I do know, yet I don’t know. I want to know, and I don’t want to know.”
She drew a tentative finger down the front of his tee-shirt. He grabbed her finger and lifted it to his lips, feathering a kiss on the tip, then lightly biting it. She closed her eyes at the feel of his tongue and his teeth.
“All right.” She gave in. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked. I’ll probably be up in the study.”
“No, lock the door,” Nick ordered. “Give me a spare key.”
It rankled he expected her to trust him so absolutely. Such male arrogance. “And if I don’t?”
But Nick had been on Programmer mode since Jed had pulled that stunt on them in the woods. Even as he fumed over Jaymee’s sudden coolness, the trained part of him was calmly assessing his options. He needed her to give in, and knew which switch to pull to get her to give in to him. Although another part of him recoiled at the thought of taking advantage of her, he blocked it off. He was the Programmer, and manipulation was what he did best. Later, he would study this unnatural reluctance when it came to Jaymee, but right now, he acted by instinct.
He smiled, and watched the sudden wary look in her eyes. Amazing how she was always aware something was wrong, even though she never knew what he was up to. It was easy to reassume the role of lover, before Jed’s unexpected interruption. All he had to do was think of her in his arms. Naked. And doing… He gave an inward sigh. Bad idea. He leaned closer, wishing he had more time.
“If you don’t give me a spare key,” he cajoled, “I’ll huff and puff till your house falls down, and then you’re going to be sorry, because I’d probably eat you.” He caught the beginning of a hint of humor on her tempting lips, and felt relieved. “Give me the key, sweetheart, and a nice kiss before I go.”
Jaymee could never resist him when he smiled like that. The horrid thing was, she knew he did it on purpose too, that he was being exactly what she’d known him to be. By acting like the bad boy she’d accused him of, he sweet-talked with words, seducing her to do exactly what he wanted. She just couldn’t resist that smile.
She faked a glare as she allowed herself to be led from the sink area. Pulling out a drawer, she found the spare key and dropped it into his open hand. She continued glaring at him when he pointed at his lips with a long, index finger. Putting both hands against his hard chest, she stood on tiptoes, and when his head came down, she gave him the merest wisp of a kiss, then gave him a slight push.
He grinned. “It’s Killian Nicholas Langley, so I haven’t been lying. Lock up behind me.”
He turned and disappeared out into the night. Jaymee stared at the
door for along moment, then turned the lock. She felt as empty as the house.
Big Bad Wolf: Chapter Ten
Balance the checkbook. Update the payroll. Write down the week’s mileage. Check the inventory. Jaymee went through her routine, finding comfort in the familiar. This was what she had deliberately made her life, and boring as it may be, it offered a sense of security, a sense of control. When Danny had left them in chaos, she’d come up with a plan. Simplify. Cut out everything and just simplify. It was an escape and a solution. It helped her to stay sane when her mother’s health worsened and her father went to the hospital, fallen by a stroke. It gave her a sense of direction when she was lost under a pile of credit lawyer mail, demanding payments.
Numbers and planning. The step-by-step climb back to some semblance of control had counted on these details, and Jaymee found out the more she simplified things, the more she got things done.
However, somewhere along the line, she had also decided to ignore her emotional needs. Emotions fed chaos, she reasoned, and thus, she’d simplified her life one step further—stay away from relationships.
The first few years after Danny went by in a blur. She buried her pain under a mountain of responsibilities, and by the time she surfaced, she’d retreated inside, hiding behind work. There were times when she was lonely, but it was used to forge another brick into her wall of resistance.
Jaymee liked living inside her little self-contained area. Life was simple. And safe.
So, why did she venture out of her nice, safe haven? Neither nice nor safe. She managed a small smile as she plugged numbers and signed checks. Nick—Killian—had warned her he was neither, and she’d still plunged unheedingly into a relationship with him. She took a long swallow from her drink, staring at the columns on the screen.
The problem was, the parts she knew of the man on her mind wouldn’t add up like her balance sheets. He could charm and seduce like the best of them, all right, but she had also seen the side of him that was edgy and powerful. Tonight, there had been something dark and frightening in his eyes when he thought they were being ambushed.
Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers Page 33
