He didn't watch her leave, but he heard the door shut, and on the heels of that sad, desolate sound came an emptiness unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. It made no sense to him that his reaction could be this profound, but he'd never felt so alone, not even after losing everything he loved. Then he'd had all those black emotions to sustain him, all that rage to fuel him. Now he had nothing. Now, in this one crazy, spinning moment, he was lost.
He swung off the bed, disgusted at himself and dragging the sheet along with him to cover himself. Lost? Christ! He barely knew the woman. What the hell was happening to him? It wasn't possible that he could feel anything real for a self-absorbed creature like Gus Featherstone. She was one of the enemy. Not only had she tried to kill him off to further her cause, but she was the exact opposite of the woman he'd been married to. Maggie was selfless and generous. It made no sense that he was obsessing over a homicidal fashion model, after someone like her. It made no sense that he was obsessing over any woman.
The satinwood carving of Gus that he'd started the night before was lying on the woven carpet where he'd left it. He gripped the sheet around him and picked up the figure gingerly, not wanting to have any contact with the parts that had felt so alive. But the breath curled tightly in his throat as he held her in his palm, and then his fingers did the same, curling over her curves as if he'd lost control of his reflexes. For several moments he couldn't do anything but watch himself touch her, and feel the desire rising in his groin like a flood.
Something hot cut into him. It stabbed low and deep, as violent as a bullet slicing through his flesh. He dropped the figure on the dresser, wondering if he was going crazy. He didn't even like the woman. The attraction was about sex— fucking—nothing more, and he'd long ago cut himself off from the dangers and pleasures of that distraction.
Never let personal feelings contaminate the work.
Jesus, he thought, wanting to laugh, wanting to shout. He'd gotten so caught up with Gus and the kid he'd almost forgotten what the work was. He was lying to himself. Sex was only part of the attraction. He was involved with her, with both of them. And now that he'd made that terrible mistake, now that he'd stolen fire, he would have to pay for it. There was no room for feelings in what he had to do. He couldn't afford to care about people who he might have to hurt, and in order not to care, he would have to hurt himself. He would have to cut the feelings out as if with a knife.
He lifted the pillow on his bed, exposing the gleaming lethal weapon he'd stashed there. He scooped it up, his hand closing over the ivory handle. The stainless steel blade glittered in the low light.
Cut clean, he thought. Cut strong.
The first sensation he felt upon awakening the next morning was paralysis. He couldn't move. Some weight was holding him down. He was still lying facedown and hungover from emotion, but as he tried to turn over, he realized the heaviness was down around his feet.
His normal reaction would have been laserlike. Had he been anywhere else he would have had a weapon at the intruder's throat by now. He wasn't sure why he was hesitating this time. Someone had had him under surveillance, and there'd been several attempts on his life, most, if not all, of them by his wife. His guard had been dangerously down ever since he'd met Gus Featherstone, yet some instinct other than self-preservation was telling him to cool it. Whatever was anchoring his ankles was too heavy for an animal and too light for a person, which made him more than a little curious.
He ducked his head around and got a glimpse of a feathery white tail. He'd been wrong. It was an animal... a swan.
"Did you sleep in that thing?" he asked, craning to look at the rest of her.
Bridget's slow headshake said, "Course not, silly you. "
He propped himself up on his elbows and gazed at her askance. She'd straddled his ankles as if she were riding a pony: her knees were tucked beneath her and her little jaws were working furiously on what must have been a very large piece of gum.
"That would wreck the tail, " she explained. "I mostly sleep in leotards. I have several pair. "
"I'm relieved to hear it. Now if you'll remove yourself from my feet, I'd like to turn over. "
"Oh, sorry. This bed is kind of small, and I got tired of waiting for you to wake up. " She scooted off him and tucked herself, tail and all, into the corner where the brass footrail abutted the wall.
As she waited patiently for him to get his act together, she blew a huge pink bubble, then whipped it back into her mouth with a curl of her tongue. She was wearing the same white net tutu and satin slippers, but now there was an added flourish—a little headdress of white feathers to match her tail.
Sunlight poured through the window behind the bed, saturating the room with enough brightness to make him wince with pain. His neck felt as if it had been caught in a vise-grip, but he was more concerned that the sheet didn't drift off his butt and give his five-year-old niece-in-law a crash course in adult male anatomy. He made the transition gingerly—and only half successfully—but whatever she saw, it didn't seem to have done her any permanent damage.
Once he was on his back, he wrestled the rest of the sheet out from under him and propped the pillows behind his shoulders. "To what do I owe the honor?" he asked, wondering if she'd pick up on his sardonicism.
Her wrinkled nose told him she hadn't. Thank God there were still some things five-year-olds didn't "get."
"Why are you here?" he asked, rephrasing.
"Oh, I just wanted to interview you."
"For the LA Times?"
"No," she said, perfectly serious, "for my diary. I was wondering about the spelling of your name, and... some other stuff. "
Why wasn't he surprised? She had many things in common with her aunt, including a morbid curiosity about him. "What other stuff?"
Seeming pleased that he was going along with her plan, she snuggled into her corner and blew another bubble as if this were just what she had in mind—a long, cozy talk. "Well, I'm really curious about this one thing. It's personal but... ummm... how did you and Gus fall in love?"
The muscles in his jaw seemed to have become snarled. They ached fiercely when he spoke. "That's quite a story."
"Oh, good! My most favorite ballet in the world is Swan Lake, as you can probably see. " She fluffed the skirt of her tutu. "Sigfried, the prince, falls madly in love with Odette, the Swan Queen, when he goes to a lake to go duck hunting, and she's there, floating on the water. She's not exactly a duck—she's a swan, because she was enchanted by a magician—so Sigfried doesn't shoot her, but he does fall in love with her. Was it anything like that with you and Gus?"
Jack had one eye closed, and he was wishing his head didn't ache so badly, that he had a cup of coffee, and that she was a tad less talkative. "Yeah, " he said, wondering how anyone, even a five-year-old, could think the situation between him and Gus was remotely like some ballet about enchanted swans and duck hunting. "It was exactly like that. "
She clasped her hands together, clearly excited. "I was going to change and wear my Sleeping Beauty outfit tomorrow, but maybe I'll wear this one again. My most favorite scene in Swan Lake is the pas de deux between Sigfried and Odette. Do you know what that means? Pas de deux? That's where they dance together like they're married. Anyway, I like the one where she warns him there's danger, but he takes her in his arms anyway, and she looks at him with love in her eyes. Cool, huh? I saw Gus look at you that way once, with love in her eyes. "
Jack's head was throbbing by this time, but she had no mercy, this kid. Serious now, she uncurled and rearranged herself Indian powwow style. She bent forward, peering at him, hard at work on the bubble gum. "Do you and Gus do the wild thing?"
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His throat felt like something had rubbed it raw. The wild thing? Did they let a five-year-old watch MTV? Only belatedly did he register what she'd said in the midst of all the ballet babble. I saw Gus look at you that way once, with love in her eyes. Even more belatedly he realized why his th
roat felt like used sandpaper. He wanted that. He wanted Gus to look at him that way.
He dropped his head and a wretched groan welled in his throat. Sweet Jesus! He'd dealt with monsters in his life— thugs, thieves, assassins, and the government. He'd been intensively trained in the black arts of combat and intelligence, almost from the cradle. He'd lived by a rigorous code of discipline and detachment. He was a fucking killing machine by military standards, but he was helpless against this kid. He'd been brought down by one sentence from a five-year-old!
The groan in his throat became an obscenity, burning, fizzing, and finally escaping under his breath as he realized that nothing he'd done last night in the mortal battle against his own emotions had worked. Nothing. Even the ritual of the knife had failed. He wasn't just contaminated, he was useless.
"I guess that means you have done it?" She inquired more tentatively now, apparently aware she'd struck a nerve. "Was it that bad?"
He was saved from trying to explain by a deafening racket outside the door in the hallway. Much unintelligible shouting and footsteps preceded someone's calling out Bridget's name. It didn't sound like Frances.
"Shhhhh, " Jack said, putting a finger to his lips.
"I'm in here!" Bridget yelled back. "That's Gus, " she informed Jack, beaming. "I figured you'd want to see her since you guys don't share a room—How come you don't?"
The bedroom door creaked open tentatively, and Gus's head poked through. "Bridget...? Are you in here?"
"Hi, Gus-buster! Jack was just telling me how you guys fell in love and why you don't sleep together. "
"He was what? The door rolled open and Mother Gus stood on the threshold, her eyes rotating like Robocop's. Jack was waiting for her arms to rise and guns to start blazing.
"Bridget, " Gus said, clearly struggling to control herself as she entered the room. "Frances has breakfast ready, dear. Go on down and save me a bagel, okay? Make it blueberry. "
"But I'm not hungry—"
"Bridget, go down to breakfast, dear. It's the most important meal of the day. "
"Not yet! Jack was just going to tell me how you and he—"
"March, Odette!" Gus boomed, cutting her off. "I need to talk to Prince Sigfried, here. "
Tears welled in the little girl's eyes. She swiped at them furiously as she knee-walked her way across the foot of the bed. She snuck a quick look at Jack and grumbled, "She ruins everything, doesn't she?"
He shrugged, coward that he was, but his sympathies were entirely with the kid. Once Bridget had trounced out the door, her tail tilting precariously, Gus turned her guns on him again.
"What were you telling her?"
Normally he would have taken his time answering for no better reason than having the pleasure of driving her nuts, but this morning he was totally legit in wanting to delay this little confrontation. He had reasons out the door, the first one being the way his pulse was pounding. The second being that his professional code of conduct had been seriously compromised and he no longer trusted himself. The third being that he couldn't take his eyes off of her stubbornly crossed arms, her ruby-tipped breasts, her flushed throat, her face.
Why the hell did she have to run around in her underwear? First chance he got he was going to steal that skimpy little outfit and burn it! But more than her outfit or her firecracker-hot body, he was looking for that one thing Bridget had led him to believe would be brimming in her eyes. All he could see was fury.
"I didn't tell her anything, " he said, shifting around to sit up. "She wants to believe we fell in love like Sigfried and Odette, so I let her think it happened that way. You didn't want me to tell her the truth, did you?"
"Well, no, but I don't want her to think we're madly in love, either. That will only confuse her." She hesitated a moment, seemingly oblivious to the sensuality of what she was doing. She'd captured a tendril of the dark hair that had escaped from her ponytail and was absently rubbing it against her cheek. "I can't imagine where she got that idea."
The room got very quiet as Jack contemplated the wisdom of telling her. Several seconds thundered by before he spoke. "I think she got the idea from you."
"From me?"
"From the way you look at me."
She tilted her head, a startled question on her lips.
Jack tried for insouciance, but couldn't manage it. Instead his throat thickened and the words came out grainy. "With love in your eyes."
He feared for the roof. The way she gasped, he thought she was going to blow it off. Her spine stiffened and her eyes widened in horror. "That's disgusting!" she cried. "I've never looked at you that way. Never! If I were s-starving and you were my favorite food, I wouldn't look at you that w-way!"
It was all he could do not to laugh. She was so flustered she couldn't gel the words out straight. Of course, she often didn't get words out straight. But she was actually blushing, a sight he never thought he'd see. Her cheeks were as hot pink as her nails, and her upper lip was damp with sweat. She'd embarrassed the hell out of him a few times, and he'd always wondered what it would take to make this woman blush. He'd never figured it would be the L word.
"What is your favorite food?" he asked.
"Not you! I'm going to straighten that child out immediately." She swung around to leave, and he bounded out of the bed after her, trailing sheets and blankets behind him as he overtook her.
"Let go of me!" she said, batting his hand away as he tried to grab her arm.
"What are you going to do?" He whipped around in front of her to shield the door. He was holding the sheet in front of his genitals and feeling like a bad imitation of a Greek statue. The hardwood floor was so slippery he'd had trouble getting traction, even with bare feet, and the cold doorknob was getting fresh with his bare backside.
Wisps of dark hair flew about her face. The tendril she'd been playing with was caught in her eyelashes. She swatted it away and glared at him. "I'm going to talk to Bridget. She has the wrong idea about us."
"She's just a kid, Gus, a romantic little kid."
"But I can't have her thinking—"
"Thinking what, that you're in love with me?"
She looked away, and he became aware of her breathing, the lift of her shoulders, the movement of her breasts beneath her clothing. She was angry and hurt, especially after the things he'd said last night, but something hidden in her eyes had struck him to the core. It had only flared for a moment, that naked and sweet emotion. Words defied him, but if he had to give it a name, he would have called it yearning... the yearning of an exotic creature with huge violet eyes, peeking out at the world from behind a veil... harem eyes.
"Why not?" he asked. "What would it hurt if she thought we were like the lovers in the ballet?"
"Because it's not true. " She was denying that there was anything between them, and he should have agreed with her, let it go. He had as much reason as she did to want to establish distance. More. But he couldn't. His pulse rate was telling him different. "It's not untrue, either, is it? Bridget told me about a dance they did. She called it a pas de deux, but it sounded a whole lot like foreplay to me. Isn't that what we've been doing, Gus, a mating dance?"
She still refused to look at him. "Let me out of here," she insisted, her voice weak.
He pressed the door shut with his shoulders. The click of the latch bolt sent a shudder through her. "We need to talk," he said.
"About what?"
"About last night... the things I said."
That brought her head up. Now her huge violet eyes were searching his, and they were still full of hurt. She couldn't hide it. She was susceptible to him. He had hurt her. Why did that fill him with such bittersweet pleasure? Why would knowing that he could affect her that way, that he could bring pain to her eyes, make him suddenly want her so badly?
He swallowed back the fire that was burning his throat. This wasn't going to be an apology, he told himself, just a statement of fact. "My head was all screwed up, " he admitted. "I'd had a bad dr
eam about something that happened in the past, something I've never come to terms with, and I was pretty wasted when you came in the door. "
She turned away from him and went to the small alcove where the window seat looked out on the landscaped lawn below and the hills in the distance. The streaming sunshine danced golden light over her pensive profile. "I could hear you out in the hallway," she said. "You were calling out a woman's name, Maggie. "
He was glad she wasn't looking at him, glad she couldn't see the grief that raged through him. "Maggie was my wife. She's dead."
The silence seemed to stretch forever, as if both of them were coming to grips with his statement. "Is that why you're here?" she asked after a moment. "Does it have something to do with what happened to her?"
It surprised him that he almost wanted to tell her. The impulse was strong. He had shared this story with no one, and the longer he carried it alone, the heavier a burden it became. But his investigation had led him to her family, and he was reasonably sure that one or more of them was involved, possibly even her. Until he knew who it was, he couldn't trust anyone.
"Maybe I'm here because of you, " he said, changing the subject. He wanted to go back to that other topic, the one where they were discussing the love in her eyes, but any mention of his past brought with it certain grim realities. "You brought me into your life when you decided to fake your own kidnapping. I'd like to know why you did that, if it's not too much trouble. And why you picked me."
"I didn't pick you."
"Someone did. Someone chose me to kidnap you. I assume it was your boyfriend, Rob. "
"I have no idea how Rob chose you, " she said, but the way she glanced at him and then looked away, he wondered. "He told me he'd take care of it. I assume he had some contacts who recommended you. He didn't put an ad in the paper, I can tell you that much. "
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