Make Mine a Marine

by Julie Miller

  “I’ll become your shadow,” he explained. “Learn your habits, your friends, at home and at work. I’ll need to observe these episodes firsthand, plus see who has a motive and the opportunity to trigger them. You’ll feel like a lab rat with the scrutiny I’ll put you through.”

  He paused when he saw that his words made her look uncomfortable. “Lab rat? Just what does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means I’m going to move in with you. I’m going to drive you wherever you need to go. I’m going to be at every meeting you attend. I need to know everything in order to figure this out. I'll be closer to you than your own shadow.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  He could see some backbone returning, and he felt encouraged rather than put off by her accusing look. “It is if you want me to find out the truth,” he said.

  “Can't you just ask me some questions?”

  “Do you have the answers?”

  Defiance sparkled in her eyes. Then she looked over at Emma and sighed with quiet resignation. “Okay.”

  He wondered what concession she had just made. “Everywhere, BJ. I mean it.”

  After a tense moment, she smiled. It was like the sun breaking through the clouds. Bright and beautiful. The kind of smile you couldn't resist returning. Unless you never had any reason to smile. Like Brodie.

  “I'll get used to it. I'm warning you, though. Folks will talk. I don't usually keep company with tall, dark strangers.”

  She was teasing again. Where the hell did she get her misplaced faith in him? Slayer of monsters? Ha! Couldn't she see the truth right before her eyes?

  Still, her innocent trust touched something in him. His intrinsic code of honor, no doubt.

  “I'll help you,” he heard himself promise. “I'll find out who's playing with your head, and how it's being done. I'll put a stop to it.”

  Or else he’d always be haunted by BJ’s frank green eyes, wide open and trusting. Looking to the big, ugly monster of a man for answers. And asking for—of all things to expect from a man who held none for himself—hope.

  Chapter Two

  BJ pushed a series of buttons on a keypad to unlock the front door and push it open with her hip. Inside, she sidestepped stacks of reading material, gadgets, and toys littering the floor and furniture of her clean, but cluttered home. She dumped her backpack on a chair en route to the kitchen.

  BJ had enough money to build several mansions if she wanted, but she had insisted on a traditional ranch-style house. The landscaper had left most of the natural trees and ground-cover plants intact, giving her place the feel of the country. It was located on the outskirts of Lee's Summit, a suburb south of Kansas City, about a thirty-minute drive from LadyTech headquarters.

  It was a drive that, thanks to Brodie, had taken her over an hour this evening. As promised, he had been a menacing shadow following her through evening rush-hour traffic. Each time she stopped, once to buy gas and once to pick up a pizza for dinner, his Explorer pulled up right behind her. Then Brodie was at her side, almost before she could open her truck door.

  His proximity didn't faze her too much. After all, he had promised to shadow her. But his endless barrage of questions stretched her nerves to the limit: Why do you broadcast your truck with license plates that say WIZ-KID? Do you always travel the same route? Are these the same people who always wait on you?

  If she could just come up with the right answers, maybe he'd stop hounding her. He hadn't once offered any bit of information about himself, yet BJ began to feel as if he knew every detail about her. He was studying her, taking her apart, finding out what made her tick.

  The inquisition left her head throbbing, but she had to let him do it. He offered BJ her best shot at finding out the culprit sabotaging her mind. And LadyTech.

  But Brodie's scrutiny and analysis, done without revealing his opinions, what he thought of her, or even whether she was helping any, tugged at a memory she had purposefully buried. His use of the term “lab rat” had struck a little too close to home. Some demons from the past deserved to stay there. BJ knew she'd have to tell him everything, sooner or later.

  She preferred later.

  She swallowed her retort and answered another question about her home security system.

  Brodie seemed to think the place was a tactical nightmare. He wanted to know why there wasn't any human backup to her fully automated system at the gates. He advised her that the trees gave excellent cover to anyone who climbed over the perimeter wall.

  He listened to her explanation about the workings of the motion-detector system she had installed, but he kept coming back to the concern that automated systems could fail. She needed physical and mechanical backup as well.

  “You don't have a lot of faith in modern technology, do you?” she said without looking back.

  He followed her into the kitchen. “If someone wants to get to you, they'll find a way.”

  She put two fingers to her mouth and whistled through her teeth. A high-pitched bark answered her immediately. “If it makes you feel any better, I do have a guard dog. Duke! It's me, sweetie. Here, boy!”

  A heartbeat later, a miniature black missile shot through a flap in the back door and hurtled itself at BJ. With familiar devotion, she dropped to her knees to scratch in the pits of Duke's bouncing legs and lowered her face to accept his wet, welcoming kisses.

  “Your guard dog is a poodle?”

  The voice rumbled from above like thunder, shifting the dog's attention to Brodie. The lionhearted fluff ball growled in his throat, planting himself squarely between Brodie and his mistress, barking and growling, lunging toward Brodie's boot, then pulling back. The tiny thing bared his teeth and stood ready to defend BJ against the strange giant.

  “Duke! Bad dog.” She scooped the dog up in her arms and stood, surprised by his reaction to Brodie. Duke stretched his neck and nearly jumped out of her hands. Brodie retreated a step and Duke quieted his yapping to a low vibration BJ could feel shaking his ribs. She shook her head, perplexed. “I'm sorry. I've never seen him act this way before. He's usually putting on a show to get attention or a treat, not attacking my guests.”

  Brodie looked first at the growling dog and then at her. “You rely on that for protection? Damn it, BJ, it's hardly as big as my foot.”

  BJ's chin jutted out defiantly at the insult. “ 'It' is a he, and he sounds an alarm better than anything I could invent. Duke's big where it counts the most, in his loyalty and in his heart.”

  Brodie pointed a finger at the dog. “He's just a little noisemaker.”

  On cue to illustrate the point, Duke's growl increased its intensity. He shocked BJ by snapping at Brodie's outstretched hand. Brodie dodged the sharp little teeth.

  “You need more backup than that. He could be taken out just as easily as your computer systems. Technology and puppy dogs can be dismantled.”

  His callous observations spurred her to escape. Snitching a bite of hamburger from the pizza, she fed it to Duke and carried him to the back-porch door where she set him down. “Duke, room.”

  She watched proudly as the well-trained dog reluctantly obeyed his mistress by crawling through the door flap onto the porch. Then she turned on Brodie. “Do you have something against pets? Or is Duke just one more thing about me that you want to pick apart and criticize?”

  Brodie didn't apologize. “The dog's heart is in the right place. But he's hardly a deterrent to the mastermind we're up against.”

  “We don't know what we're up against.”

  “Precisely.” He leaned forward slightly, casting an ominous shadow over her. “Don't be lured into a false sense of security, BJ. You have to question everything. Everybody. I'd bet good money that your mind-stalker has already compromised your security systems. Anyone smart enough to do that would hardly be intimidated by a little dog.”

  Brodie's icy eyes melted a little, as though he regretted driving home his point so succinctly. But the apology she wanted to hear wasn't forth
coming. “Can you think of anybody with your same technical know-how? I’m not asking if you suspect anyone, just who would be capable of dismantling your security designs?”

  More questions. BJ released a vexed sigh. Brodie seemed determined that she know nothing of peace until the security leak was resolved. She wanted to pig out on junk food and play with her dog.

  He wanted to expose every painful detail of her life.

  “I guess it’s pretty arrogant to think I’m the only hacker on the planet. I can think of one or two people who might be able to break into my security program.”

  “Who?”

  She spoke without really thinking about her answer. That was one of the downsides to higher brain-function activity. You could give an intelligent answer while thinking about something totally different, like the formidable man who was at once protector and inquisitor to her.

  “There’s a guy that works for us, Rick Chambers. I’m not his favorite person, but he’s an ace at debugging programs, so we keep him around. Also, I did a couple of internships at the Morrisey Research Institute. The director, Damon Morrisey, is brilliant. He could probably decipher how my mind works.”

  Brodie paced the length of the kitchen while he jotted something on the notepad he pulled from his jacket pocket. “This Chambers guy, why aren't you his favorite person?”

  BJ wasn't fooled by Brodie's apparent nonchalance. His icy, nearly colorless, gray eyes scanned the room, memorizing each knickknack, each piece of furniture, each nuance of her reactions to his probing questions.

  “Rick thrives on creative competition. He keeps a mental tally sheet where he tracks every patent and profit we bring to LadyTech. I have a few more victories than he does. I don't think my success sits too well with his ego.”

  “Do you have any enemies at the Morrisey Institute?”

  Brodie worked like a machine. Emotionless and tireless. BJ didn't know how much longer she could last with that intense scrutiny directed solely at her. Every question Brodie asked, every notation he made, drove her deeper into a pit of uncertainty and self-doubt. Could she have betrayed LadyTech? Would she do it again? Was she losing her mind?

  “I left Morrisey on good terms. I go back as a consultant sometimes. Damon has given me rock-solid support through all this. I still visit him a couple times a week, just to shoot the bull and get my mind off things.”

  “And you're positive no one else knows your security codes?”

  “Not even Jas and Emma know the sequences for my home office. We set it up that way for safekeeping.”

  “The missing designs were transmitted from here as well?”

  BJ nodded. She weathered the subsequent onslaught of questions by distancing herself from the situation. Her keen imagination turned the tables and studied Brodie Maxwell instead.

  Unusual didn't begin to describe this man of paradoxical contrasts. Despite his imposing size, he moved with a natural grace that she would attribute to someone who practiced the martial arts. Poised and precise on his feet, he looked solid enough to either deliver or survive a deadly punch.

  His dark hair was short and studded with just enough gray to hint that he had endured some real stress in his forty or so years. But he was obviously physically fit. His jeans hugged narrow hips and a firm set of buns. BJ definitely counted herself a tush fan, and if she concentrated on Brodie's body instead of his face, she saw some good material for her errant fantasies.

  But she couldn't ignore his face. He bore so many scars, his skin looked like a crazy quilt that had been pieced together. His left cheek and jaw were a distorted washboard of hardened tissue, pulling his mouth into a taut, straight line. Imagining a couple of bolts sticking out of his neck completed the picture forming in her mind.

  “BJ.” The brittle ice in his voice snapped her back to the present. She had been staring at him. No matter that some of her impressions had been flattering, she had been rudely gawking. Obviously, Brodie didn't appreciate the scrutiny.

  “Sorry.” She smiled contritely. “I didn't hear your question.”

  “It can wait.” He closed his notebook and put it away. “You don't like to answer questions, do you?”

  He leaned his hip against the counter and hunched his shoulders down a bit. BJ thought he did that to appear smaller, less threatening. Although he still towered over her, BJ found his effort oddly touching. She suspected Brodie Maxwell rarely made such a concession to anyone.

  That concession gave her the courage to delve into the past.

  “You want to know why I freaked out when you called me a lab rat this morning?”

  BJ kicked off her shoes and padded past him into the living room, needing some time to choose her words. She sat on the sofa and pulled her legs up beneath her, pretzel style.

  Brodie moved the beginnings of a space shuttle model out of the chair across from her and sat. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, again making his bulk appear smaller. “I'm listening.”

  BJ breathed deeply and expelled the air slowly. “I'll give you a brief history of my childhood.”

  She found the steadiness of Brodie's gaze reassuring, and she concentrated on his steely eyes as she launched into her story. “My mother died when I was born, leaving Jake—my dad— to take care of me. He was a good man, and I loved him dearly. He was a digger for Jasmine's father, Austin Sinclair.”

  “A digger?”

  “Austin's hobby is archaeology. After an accident on one of his early expeditions, Austin promoted Jake to foreman. Gave him steady work. So he travelled a lot, all over the world. Jake used to take me sometimes. Those were the best adventures. I have memories from a very early age.” Her heart warmed as she recalled those brief, special times with her father.

  “But he was never in one place for very long, so he let Austin enroll me in a boarding school when I was four. Almost from the start, I was in trouble all the time. Missing curfews and meals because my nose was stuck in a book. Asking the wrong questions in class. Challenging teachers. At first they diagnosed me as ADHD and put me on medication.”

  A sour taste coated her mouth as she recalled the school nurse prying open her mouth and jamming the pills she didn't want to take down her throat.

  “It didn't seem to have much effect other than to make me depressed and combative. The administrators sent me to several doctors who tried different medicines and treatments. I was dismissed from two schools before I was six. Jake pulled me out of a third school when they labeled me mentally retarded—”

  Brodie's crude expletive interrupted her. “That's about what Jake said.”

  “I think I would have liked your father.”

  BJ saw understanding shining in Brodie's eyes. The kindness and compassion there softened his harsh looks. BJ rubbed her hands together, feeling an eerie chill of remembrance. For an instant, she was a terrified five-year-old, praying that some kindhearted hero would rescue her from her captors.

  “Can you go on?”

  Brodie's gentle prodding and secure presence made the painful memories recede a little. “Jake never believed there was anything wrong with me, but he didn't know what to do with me, either. We lived in California at the time, so he checked me into a research school in Berkeley. The professors and grad students ran all kinds of tests on me. They poked and prodded and quizzed me eight hours a day for several months.”

  “You were so young. You must have been terrified.”

  She had been. Through a child's viewpoint, the machines were alien creatures that gave her nightmares. The adults in white lab coats were witches and warlocks who trapped her in sterile-walled torture chambers from which she couldn't escape. Needles pricked her. Electrodes stung her. Questions hounded her.

  “One doctor finally thought to give me an IQ test. I was off the scale for a six-year-old. Then the testing really began. They wanted to find out just how smart I really was.” BJ slipped back to those terrifying months, reliving the fear and loneliness. “Once, they locked me in a roo
m and gave me math problems to solve. They tied my hands together so I couldn't use them to count. They wanted to get an accurate measure of how complex a problem I could do in my head.”

  She shuddered as the memory became real to her. No longer a twenty-seven year old woman, she regressed into a confused child who felt imprisoned and abandoned and frightened for her life. “I got every answer right. But they said I cheated. They strapped me down every morning until I finally figured out that if I gave a couple of wrong answers, they'd let me go.”

  The brush of something soft and solid against her cheek pulled BJ back to the present. The smell of worn leather tickled her nose. Warmth surrounded her. She didn't know how much she had actually said out loud, but she shook with tears that burned her eyes and paralyzed her throat.

  She hadn't cried like this since she was a girl. Not since she buried Jake. She'd shared her sorrows with Jas and Emma, and confessed troubling problems to her mentor, Damon Morrisey. But she'd never wept like this. She'd never bared her soul. She never thought anyone could understand.

  No one had until Brodie cradled her in his lap, and wound his sheltering, titanic arms around her. His long fingers smoothed the fringe of curls at her nape while he murmured deep voiced nothings against her hair.

  BJ burrowed into his ample chest, finding solace and security in his immeasurable strength. Finding comfort and peace in his gruff, rumbling voice. She discovered a kinship in his strong arms. He was an ally who truly understood her darkest fears.

  She didn't want to leave the haven she found unexpectedly in Brodie's arms. He made her feel safe. His size and warmth and awkward gentleness formed a barrier against both the dangers of the present and the demons of the past.

  “I suppose they could have put me into a public school program for the gifted,” she finally continued. “But the doctors recommended to Jake that I stay with them. I started with tutors for a couple of years, but when they found out how quickly I assimilated information, they enrolled me in college courses. Talk about a freak. My classmates thought I was some kind of joke, an eight-year-old in a freshman algebra class. They stopped laughing when they found out how high I raised the grading curve.”