Everyday, Average Jones

by Suzanne Brockmann

  All he knew was that in his experience, when he carried a weapon, he was always prepared to use it. He had to assume the same was true for these clowns. So he'd attacked in that one split second when the revolver was pointing away from the clerk, catching the assailants off guard.

  The entire fight had lasted all of eighty-five seconds.

  But it had been eighty-five seconds of sheer hell.

  Melody had just stood there, staring at him. She hadn't even ducked for cover. She just stood there, a target, ready to be knocked over or shot full of lead if that bastard had gotten hold of his revolver.

  It had taken Cowboy twice as long as it should have to subdue the enemy and gain control of the weapon. His fear that Melody would be hurt or killed had gotten in the way. And he'd lashed out at her afterward because of it. He'd shouted at her when all he really wanted to do was drag her into his arms and hold her until the end of time.

  But she'd been less than thrilled with his performance—in more ways than one. And she'd run away again.

  Before they'd gone into that store, Melody had been ready to invite him up to her bedroom to spend the night—he'd been almost certain of that. He'd been so close to relief from this hellish frustration.

  Of course, now the frustration was ten times as bad. He hadn't even seen her in three days. The hell with the lack of sex. Just not seeing her was driving him damn near crazy.

  "You want me to ask Melody for you?" Andy asked. "I'm going inside—Britt said it was okay if I used her computer to do an Internet search."

  "What are you searching for?"

  Andy shrugged. "Just some stuff about the Army."

  "Oh yeah? What kind of stuff?"

  Another shrug. "I dunno."

  Cowboy gazed at the boy. "You thinking about enlisting?"

  "Maybe."

  "Only way to become a SEAL is to join the U.S. Navy, not the Army."

  "Yeah," Andy said, "I know. You running again tonight?"

  Cowboy had taken to working out both in the evening as well as the early morning in an attempt to run some of his frustration into the ground. "Why? You want to try again?" Andy had run along with him yesterday evening. The kid had only made it about two miles before he'd dropped out.

  "Yeah, I do."

  "You know, if you start getting in shape now, you'll be a monster by the time you graduate high school."

  Andy kicked at a clump of grass. "I wish I could be a monster now."

  Cowboy acknowledged the boy's scraped face. "Alex Parks again, huh?"

  "He's such a jerk."

  "If you want, I can help you out with your PT," Cowboy volunteered. "You know, physical training. And, if you want, I can also help you learn to fight."

  Andy nodded slowly. "Maybe," he said. "What's the catch?"

  Cowboy grinned. This boy was a fast learner. "You're right. There is a condition."

  The kid groaned. "I'm going to hate this, aren't I?"

  "You have to promise that after I teach you to beat the crap out of Alex Parks, you use what you've learned only to defend yourself. And after he figures out that you're ready and able to kick his butt, you turn and walk away."

  Andy looked incredulous. "What good is that?"

  "That's my deal. Take it or leave it."

  "How do you know I'll even keep my promise?"

  "Because if you don't, I'll break you in half," Cowboy said with a smile. "Oh, and there is one other catch. You need to learn a little self-discipline. You need to learn to follow orders. My orders. When I say jump, you jump. When I say chill, you cool it. You give me any attitude, any garbage, any whining, any moaning of any kind, and the deal's off."

  "Gee, you're making this sound too good to pass up," Andy said, rolling his eyes.

  "Oh yeah. One other thing. If I ask you a question, you answer me straight. You say, 'Yes, sir,' or 'No, sir.'"

  "You want me to call you sir?"

  "Yes, I do." God knows Andy could learn a thing or two about showing respect.

  Andy was silent.

  "So do we have a deal?" Cowboy asked.

  Andy swore. "Yeah, all right."

  "Yes, sir," Cowboy corrected him.

  "Yes, sir. Jeez." Andy turned toward the house. "I'll tell Melody you could use her help with the garden."

  "Thanks, kid, but that's not going to get her out here. She's been hiding from me for days."

  "I'll tell her you're sorry, too. Sir. God."

  "Sir is good enough, Marshall. You don't have to call me God, too," Cowboy teased.

  "Sheesh." Andy rolled his eyes again as he headed toward the kitchen door.

  In truth, Cowboy was sorry. He was sorry about a lot of things. He was sorry that he hadn't gone into the house and hammered on Melody's bedroom door after he'd gotten home that night. He was sorry he still hadn't found a way to force the issue, to make her sit down and talk to him.

  He wasn't quite sure what he would tell her, though. Cowboy wasn't sure he was ready to share the fact that after she'd left the Honey Farms, right as he was giving his statement to Tom Beatrice, the Appleton chief of police, he'd had to excuse himself. He'd gone into the men's room and gotten horribly, violently sick.

  At first, he'd thought it might've been the flu-people all over town were falling victim to a virulent strain of the bug. But as the night wore on and he didn't get sick again, he'd been forced to confront the truth.

  It was the residual of his fear that had made him bow to the porcelain god. His fear for Melody's safety had squeezed him tight and hadn't let go, making his gut churn and his blood pressure rise until he'd forcefully emptied his stomach.

  It was weird. His career as a SEAL involved a huge amount of risk taking. And he was fine about that. He knew he would survive damn near anything if surviving entailed fighting. But if his survival depended on something outside his control—like the intrinsic danger they all faced every time they jumped out of a plane, knowing that if their chute failed, if the lines got tangled or the cells didn't open right, they would end up as a mostly unrecognizable stain on the ground-if his survival depended on a twist of fate like that, Cowboy knew he would either live or die as the gods saw fit. No amount of fear or worry would change that, so he rarely bothered with either.

  But he found he couldn't be quite so blasé when it came to Melody's safety. Whenever he thought about that revolver aimed in her direction, even now, three days later, he still felt sick to his stomach.

  It was similar to the sensation he felt when he thought about her having to give birth to that baby she was carrying.

  As was his usual method of operation when forced to deal with something he knew nothing about, he'd taken a pile of books about pregnancy out of the library. He'd read nearly every one from cover to cover, and frankly, the list of possible life-threatening complications resulting from pregnancy or childbirth made his blood run cold.

  Women went into shock from pregnancy-related diabetes. Or they had strokes caused by the strain on their system. Some women simply bled to death. The mortality rates reported in the books shocked Cowboy. It seemed impossible that even in this day and age of enlightened, modern medicine, women died simply as a result of bearing children.

  He'd wanted to go into the hospital and donate blood to be set aside and used specifically for Melody in case she needed it. He was a universal donor, but he knew that all of the inoculations he'd had as he'd travelled around the world would make him ineligible.

  He'd just approached Brittany to find out if her blood type matched her sister's—to see if she might be willing to donate blood and help soothe some of his fear. She'd looked at him as if he was crazy, but she'd agreed to do it.

  Cowboy looked toward the house, up at the window he knew was Melody's room. He willed the curtain to shift. He hoped to see a shadowy form backing away or a hint of moving light, but he saw nothing.

  Melody was staying far from the window.

  And his patience was running out.

  Chapter 11

/>   Melody heard the doorbell ring from up in her bedroom.

  She focused all of her attention on her book, determined to keep reading. It was Jones. It had to be Jones.

  It had been five days since she'd driven away from him at the Honey Farms, and she'd been bracing herself, waiting for him to run out of patience and come confront her.

  Andy was downstairs, using Britt's computer. Melody had told him she was going to take a nap. She closed her eyes for a moment, praying that he would send Jones away.

  But then she heard voices—a deep voice that didn't sound very much like Jones, and then Andy's, higher-pitched and loud. She couldn't hear the words, but he sounded as if he was angry or upset.

  The lower voice rumbled again, and she heard what sounded like a chair being knocked over. No, that was definitely not Jones down there with Andy.

  Melody unlocked her bedroom door and hurried down the stairs to the kitchen.

  "It wasn't me," Andy was shouting. "I didn't do nothin'."

  Tom Beatrice, the police chief, stood between Andy and the door, ready to catch the boy if he ran. "It'll go easier on you, son, if you just tell the truth."

  Andy was shaking with anger. "I am telling the truth."

  "You're going to have to come with me, son."

  "Stop calling me that! I'm not your son!"

  Neither of them had noticed that Melody stood in the doorway. She raised her voice to be heard. "What's going on here?"

  "That's what I was wondering, too." Jones opened the screen door and stepped into the kitchen.

  The police chief glanced at them both apologetically. "Vince Romanella said I'd find the boy over here. I'm afraid I need to bring him down to the station for questioning."

  "What?" Melody looked at Andy, but he was silent and stony-faced. She tried not to look at Jones at all, but she could feel his eyes on her from across the room. "Why?"

  "House up on Looking Glass Road was broken into and vandalized several nights ago," Tom explained. "Andy here was seen up in that area at about 9:00—about the time the break-in occurred."

  "That's pretty circumstantial, don't you think, Chief?" Jones voiced Melody's own disbelief.

  "Oh, there's other evidence, too, that points in his direction." Tom shook his head. "The place is trashed. It's a real mess. Windows and mirrors broken. Spray paint everywhere."

  Jones briefly met Melody's gaze, then he turned to the boy. "Marshall, did you do it?" His voice was soft, almost matter-of-fact.

  Andy straightened his shoulders. "No, sir."

  Jones turned back to Tom. "Chief, he didn't do it."

  Tom scratched the back of his head. "Well, Lieutenant, I appreciate your faith in the boy, but his fingerprints are all over the place. He's going to have to come down to the station with me."

  "Fingerprints?" Jones echoed.

  "Inside and out."

  Jones's eyes pinned the boy in place. This time when he spoke, his voice was harder, more demanding. "Marshall, I'm going to ask you that question again. Did you have anything to do with vandalizing that house?''

  Andy's eyes had filled with tears. "I should've known you wouldn't believe me," he whispered. "You're really no different from the rest of them."

  "Answer my question."

  Andy answered with a blisteringly foul suggestion. Like an afterthought, he added, "sir." He turned to Tom Beatrice. "Let's get this over with."

  "Andy, I'm on your side..." Jones started to say, but Andy just pushed past him, Tom's hand on his arm.

  Melody stepped forward. "Go with him," she urged Jones. "He's going to need you."

  Jones nodded, taking in her tentlike dress, her unbrushed hair, the blue nail polish on her toes, before looking in her eyes. "I was scared I'd lose you, Mel," he said. "That night—I shouted at you because I was more scared than I've ever been in my life. It was wrong, but so's not letting me apologize."

  He turned and went out the door.

  "Jones."

  Cowboy sat up in his tent, suddenly wide-awake, wondering if his mind was finally starting to snap. He could've sworn he'd heard Melody's voice calling his name. Of course, he had been dreaming a particularly satisfying and sinfully erotic dream about her....

  "Jones?"

  It was her. He could see her unmistakable silhouette outside of the tent. He reached up to unzip the flap. "Mel, are you all right?"

  "I'm fine." She was wearing only a nightgown and a robe and she shivered slightly in the chill night air. "But we just got a phone call from Vince Romanella." She peered into the darkness of his tent. He was glad for the darkness, and glad for the sleeping bag that still covered most of him-including an extremely healthy arousal, the direct by-product of that dream. "Jones, Andy's not in here with you, is he?"

  "No." He opened the flap a little wider. "Honey, it's freezing outside. Come on in."

  "It feels like it's freezing in there, too," she pointed out, not moving any closer. He couldn't quite see her eyes in the darkness. "I don't know how you stand it."

  "It's not that bad." His sleeping bag was nice and warm. And the dream he'd been having about Melody had been hot enough to heat the entire state of Massachusetts.

  "Jones, Andy's missing. Vince said he heard a noise, and when he got up to check it out, he looked in on Andy, and his bed was empty."

  Cowboy reached for his jeans, swiftly slipping them on, wrestling with the zipper, willing his arousal away. "What time is it?"

  "Nearly 4:00. Vince thinks Andy's been gone since around midnight, when he and Kirsty went to bed. Tom Beatrice is organizing a search party."

  He pulled on his boots and grabbed a T-shirt and a jacket. ''Can I use your phone?"

  "Of course." She moved aside to let him come out of the tent. "Do you know where he might've gone?"

  He sealed the flap to keep any stray animals out, then straightened up, pulling on his T-shirt as they walked toward the house. "No. He wouldn't talk to me down at the police station. And all he said to the chief was that he'd been set up and framed." With impatient fingers, he tried to untangle a knot that was in his hair. "I might've believed it if his fingerprints had only been found on, you know, something like a single can of soda, or a few things here and there." He gave up on his hair as he opened the door for Melody, then followed her into the brightly lit warmth of the kitchen. Brittany was awake, too, and talking on the phone. "But according to the police report, his prints were on the furniture, on the walls, in every single room. He was in that house, there's no denying it."

  "But he is denying it," Melody said, her blue eyes wide. "And rather vehemently, I've heard." She lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs, shifting uncomfortably, as if her back was hurting again. What else was new? Never mind the fact that he knew how to give a killer back rub—she wouldn't let him near enough to give her one.

  But despite her obvious discomfort, she looked particularly lovely tonight. She'd put her hair in a single braid down her back, but while she'd slept, several tendrils had escaped. They floated gracefully, delicately, around her face. Without any makeup on at all, she looked fresh and sweet-barely old enough to babysit, let alone have a baby of her own.

  As he watched, she chewed on her lower lip. She had gorgeous lips—so full and red even without the help of cosmetics. In his dream, she'd smiled at him almost wickedly before she'd lowered her head and...

  Don't go there, Cowboy admonished himself. As much as he would've liked to, he couldn't let his thoughts continue in that direction right now. He had to think about Andy Marshall instead Damn fool kid. What the hell was he trying to prove?

  "Running away like this is a pretty strong admission of guilt," Cowboy pointed out.

  "Sometimes people run because they're afraid." Melody was talking about more than Andy—he knew because she suddenly wouldn't meet his gaze.

  "Sometimes people don't realize that everyone in the world is afraid of something," he countered. "Best thing to do is face your fear. Learn all you can about it. Then lear
n to live with it Knowledge goes a long way when it comes to declawing even the scariest monsters."

  "Is that what you've been doing here with me?" she asked, no longer even pretending to talk about Andy. "Learning to live with your fear? Facing the terrors of a lifetime commitment? And don't try to pretend that the thought of marrying me doesn't scare you to death—I know it does."

  He went for the truth. Why not? He had nothing to lose. "You're right," he said. "It does frighten me. But I've done frightening things before and come out a better man because of them."

  Before Melody could respond, Brittany grimly hung up the phone. "They're starting the search up by the quarry," she announced. "Alex Parks just told his father that Andy had called him and told him to meet him in the woods up there just after midnight. Alex is claiming he never went, but my gut feeling is that we haven't gotten the full story from this kid yet. Anyone who's willing and able is supposed to meet out at the end of Quarry Road."

  Melody stood up. "I'm going to go change."

  "Willing and able, sweetie," Brittany said. "Not willing and seven and a half months pregnant."

  "But I want to help!"

  "Help by giving the lieutenant your car keys and waving goodbye," Brittany told her sister. "You don't really think Cowboy'll be able to give the search for Andy his full attention if you're there for him to worry about, do you?"

  Melody looked directly at him. "So...just don't worry about me."

  Cowboy smiled ruefully. "Honey, that's kind of like telling me don't breathe."

  She looked as if she was going to cry. "My keys are by the door," she told him. "Take my car. But call as soon as you hear anything."

  By 7:45, Melody had gotten tired of waiting. Jones hadn't called. He still hadn't called. Fortunately, Brittany had gotten tired of waiting, too.

  By 8:00, Britt was driving her down to the end of Quarry Road. The narrow road was lined on both sides with parked cars for about a good half mile.

  "You get out here," Britt told her. "I'll park and walk back."

  "Are you sure?" Melody asked.

  Brittany raised her eyebrows. "Do you honestly believe that I would bring you up here in the cold, and then make you walk an extra half mile? I should have my head examined for driving you over here in the first place—and all for the sake of some stupid kid."