Unexpected Protector

by Justine Davis

  What? A nuisance? An annoyance?

  She shook her head sharply. She was nothing so mild, and she’d better remember that. She was a witness, an unwanted witness to a kidnapping. And then a victim of abduction herself. And none of that added up to her simply walking away and going home unscathed when this was over.

  Yet her mind kept trying to convince itself that was possible. Teague seemed like a nice guy, with a bright sense of humor that surprised her. Liam seemed so young and innocent she couldn’t figure out why he was doing this. Rafer was quiet, almost withdrawn, with shadows in his eyes that she didn’t think were totally due to what must have been a serious injury to his left leg; she’d been right about the limp, but it didn’t seem to slow him down much.

  As for her neighbor, he might as well be a ghost for all she’d seen of him. He had apparently taken Quinn’s order to heart, since he’d made no effort to speak to her. And when they had happened to meet in the hallway near the bathroom last night, he had scuttled away as if she were somehow scarier than the men holding them.

  Or as if he knew better than she the price for disobeying one of Quinn’s orders.

  Yeah, there was always that to be considered.

  Not that the man had given her any orders beyond staying put. Good thing she wasn’t prone to cabin fever, although she was starting to chafe at never being allowed outside. He didn’t seem to be in the house much at all. He was always outside. Overseeing. Ordering.

  And overachieving, no doubt. He seemed the type.

  That was the downside to the relief of thinking they weren’t going to kill her after all, at least not right away. Of course, they might just fly off and leave her here, out in the middle of a nowhere that for her truly was nowhere, since she had no idea where that nowhere was.

  She groaned at her own tangled thoughts. That’s all she seemed capable of lately, a confused bunch of ideas that seemed to chase each other’s tails faster than Cutter could chase an unwary squirrel.

  Light was growing in the loft. She had no clock, but obviously it was after dawn. That surprised her; she’d slept better than she expected, under the circumstances.

  She heard the familiar sound of canine nails on the stairs. Cutter had been there last night when she went to bed, but had been gone once when she’d awoken in the night. She’d assumed, since it had become as much of a pattern as anything could in thirty-six hours, that he was with Quinn. The dog would accompany the other men if asked, but with Quinn, it was always so obviously the dog’s decision that the other men laughed aloud. And he let them get away with it, giving only a wry quirk of his mouth in response.

  The dog hopped up on the bed and presented her with a good-morning kiss.

  “I wish you could talk,” she said, hardly for the first time since the clever animal had dropped into her life. “I’d love to hear your explanation for this. Was he your person in another life? When he was maybe just a regular guy, an engineer or a software geek?”

  “I prefer to think I was Sun Tzu.”

  She smothered a gasp; how did a man of his size manage to come up those stairs so quietly? And now that he was there, at the top of the stairs, looking at her, the last words she’d said echoed in her mind with a resounding silliness. This man, a software geek? Never happen. Too indoor. An engineer? Only if he was designing lethal weapons, she thought.

  Sun Tzu, ancient warrior and author of The Art of War? Oh, yeah, she could see that.

  For a long moment he just stood there, watching her. In fact, the few times he was inside when she was awake, he seemed to be doing just that, watching her.

  Only to be expected, she told herself. After all, she watched him every second she could, and she knew he knew it. The man missed nothing. But she continued. The more she knew, the more chance she had of surviving this, right?

  At least, that’s how it had started out.

  She remembered too clearly the moment yesterday when she’d realized something had changed. When she’d risked that Liam was engrossed enough in whatever information he was gleaning from that industrial-strength laptop not to notice her going over to peer out the one unboarded window at the front of the cabin, next to the intimidatingly large gun locker.

  The scene that had met her eyes outside was as disconcerting as it was unexpected. Cutter, gleefully engaged in one of his favorite things in life, a serious game of fetch. Chasing a stick thrown again and again and again by an apparently equally tireless Quinn.

  For an instant she had just stood there, staring, not at the dog but at the man. The man who moved so easily, so powerfully, with such tightly wound grace and strength. He threw that stick farther than she could ever have managed, and Cutter was loving it. It was a tableau that had made her chest tighten in a new, strange way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the simple fact that Quinn was a very attractive man.

  Now she began to move, intending to get to her feet, not liking the disadvantage of being in bed while he towered over her. But just in time she remembered she was clad only in the oversize T-shirt he’d found for her. It was all she could do not to grab the blanket and pull it up in front of her like the heroine of some old melodrama.

  He’d still tower over you anyway, she muttered to herself, staying put.

  “What do you want?” she snapped, her tone an effort to hide her agitation.

  For an instant, the barest flash of a moment, Hayley thought she saw something flare in his eyes, something hot and tempting. But it was gone so instantly she would have thought she’d imagined it, if not for the sheer force of her own physical reaction; she nearly shivered.

  “Supply run,” he said simply. He shifted his gaze to the dog. “What does he need?”

  “Going to helicopter to the nearest Walmart?”

  “You might want to rethink the smart mouth when I’m asking what you might need.”

  “You asked what he needed.”

  “I like him.”

  “Because he doesn’t ask questions?”

  “Nor is he sarcastic.”

  She couldn’t stop a rueful chuckle. “Oh, he can be, if he feels the need.”

  “Sarcastic? A dog?”

  He was looking at her as she imagined he would one of those people who anthropomorphized their pets to extremes, attributing to them human thoughts and motivations as if the canine brain and the human brain were the same. She’d never been one of them, but Cutter...well, he was different. She supposed those other pet owners felt the same way, but Cutter really was.

  “What would you call it when he howls whenever our frustrated-opera-singer mail carrier arrives?”

  Quinn blinked. “What?”

  “She’s always singing, not very well. Flat at the top of her lungs, as it were. So Cutter took to announcing the mail delivery with a howl that sounds frighteningly like her. Complete with vibrato.”

  She was babbling about inanities now, but she supposed it was better than that sarcasm and making him angry at her. And he looked more bemused than angry as he looked at the dog sitting beside her on the bed. But then, he seemed bemused most of the time around the dog. And now, as Cutter looked back at him with that tongue-lolling, doggy grin, Hayley could swear she saw the corners of Quinn’s mouth twitch as if he were fighting a return grin.

  She wondered what he would look like if he ever cut loose that grin. He was devastating enough already, if he really opened up he’d be—

  He’d still be the guy who kidnapped you.

  She interrupted her own thoughts rather sternly. You’re supposed to be watching him to learn how to deal with him, to keep yourself alive, not noticing that he was annoyingly long, lean, dark and sexy.

  Although how she was supposed to overlook that she wasn’t quite sure.

  So don’t overlook it, she ordered herself. Just don’t turn into a cliché here, the victim who falls for
her kidnapper. Especially since you’re just a sidelight here.

  “Why didn’t you send Liam to ask, as usual?”

  “He’s sleeping. He had the late shift.”

  He said it negligibly, as if they were working in a factory or something, just ordinary men going about ordinary jobs. But there was nothing ordinary about what they were doing. And nothing ordinary about these men.

  Especially the one standing in front of her, arms folded across his broad chest as he leaned against the loft railing.

  She’d wondered who his boss was. Not just because he was so clearly the boss here, but also because she had a hard time picturing him taking orders from anybody. He took suggestions from his men, she’d seen that, and sometimes even acted on them, but orders from a superior? Even in her imagination, she just couldn’t make it happen.

  Her too-vivid imagination. The imagination that had her half convinced that every time he looked at her something turned over inside her. The imagination that fancied that something was growing larger, more consuming, with each passing hour.

  Worst of all, the imagination that insisted there was some sort of answering heat in those intense eyes when he looked at her.

  Oh, yeah, a walking cliché, that was her. And a fool.

  And if she wasn’t careful, she’d be a dead fool.

  Chapter 14

  “She’s just scared,” Teague said.

  Quinn stopped in the act of pouring coffee into a heavy mug and turned his head to look at the former marine. “Scared?”

  Teague shrugged. “My sister was like that. When she got scared, she turned into a smart-ass. Lots of wisecracks, in your face, that kind of thing. I think it was her way to keep from getting hysterical.”

  His eyes went suddenly distant, as if looking at a scene far away. Quinn knew, too well, what vision had formed in the young man’s mind. But he didn’t comment; they’d had that discussion once before, and Quinn knew if Teague had his way, they never would again.

  “She’s asking a lot of questions,” Teague said now. “Maybe we should tell her.”

  Quinn lifted a brow.

  “I mean, she seems...pretty sane, and smart, maybe she’d understand,” he said.

  “Smart enough to pick you as the one to question,” Quinn said, making Teague grimace. “Don’t,” Quinn said at the expression.

  “That’s me, the nice guy on the team,” Teague said wryly.

  “One of the reasons you’re here,” Quinn pointed out. “And you know smart doesn’t equal common sense.”

  Teague shrugged. “I know. Most of my college profs proved that. It’s why I joined the marines.”

  Quinn’s mouth quirked. Teague definitely had a good helping of both smart and common sense, not always the best recipe for academic survival these days.

  “We can’t take the chance, Teague. Too much depends on keeping this operation secret.”

  The man didn’t argue, just nodded. That common sense kicking in, Quinn thought. He just wished their extra guest had enough to keep her mouth shut.

  “Uh...boss?”

  Something had shifted in Teague’s tone, and an extra wariness changed his posture.

  “Yeah, I know,” Quinn said. “She’s eavesdropping.”

  He heard the tiny gasp from behind him, just outside the kitchen entryway. Teague glanced that way, then back at Quinn’s face.

  “I’m going to go see what Vicente needs before I head out,” he said quickly, and vanished.

  Quinn was a little surprised when, instead of retreating after being caught out, their eavesdropper pressed forward. Whether Teague’s assessment was right or not, she certainly wasn’t lacking in nerve.

  He watched as she took a mug from the rack, poured her own cup of coffee. Then she turned to face him, only the slightest ripple in the surface of the dark liquid hinting that she wasn’t quite as cool as she seemed on the outside.

  “What did you expect?” she asked.

  She had, he conceded, a point. He just hadn’t expected her to confront him with it, or so openly admit what she’d been doing.

  “Knowledge is power,” he said in acknowledgment.

  “You’d do the same, if you were in my position. Not,” she added, a note more wry than bitter coming into her voice, “that you would have allowed yourself to be kidnapped in the first place.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Although I dispute the word ‘kidnap,’ you didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

  “What,” she said, her tone turning sour, “would you call it?”

  “A strategic decision.”

  She studied him in turn. And again, if he was judging strictly from the steady way she held his gaze, he would have said she wasn’t scared at all. Only her protective body language, with the mug of hot coffee held as if it were a weapon, and the slight tremors that sent ripples through the dark liquid, gave her away.

  “Well, your strategic decision sure looked and felt like a kidnapping from here.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  Her brows lowered. “Don’t patronize me, on top of everything else.”

  “Patronize?”

  “Don’t agree with me just to shut me up.”

  “I was agreeing with you because what you said was true. I’m sure it did seem like that to you.”

  She was looking at him as if she didn’t trust a word he was saying. And he couldn’t really blame her for that, either.

  He began to gather things; skillet, eggs, bacon.

  “Who are you guys?”

  He hadn’t expected that, either, a blunt, straightforward question. Maybe she wasn’t as scared as Teague thought. Or maybe she just had enough grit and nerve to get past it.

  “Right now,” he said, “we’re the guys who control things.”

  “You mean your guns control things.”

  “Just balance them.”

  “Balance?” Her voice went up a little, the first vocal betrayal of her nerves.

  “‘God made man, Sam Colt made them equal,’ is how the saying goes, I believe.”

  She grimaced. “That was a different time,” she said, and with a glance at his holstered sidearm added, “and that is not a Colt.”

  He didn’t react to her unexpected knowledge, but he filed away the fact that she recognized the weapon; his handgun of choice was generally an H&K unless the job called for something else.

  “A different time, yes,” he agreed as he got out a bowl. “But people, they haven’t changed much, not under the surface veneer of civilization.”

  “If that’s supposed to be reassuring, it’s not.”

  “It should be,” he said. “We need tough people for tough times.”

  “If we need thugs and kidnappers, we’re in more trouble than we can get out of,” she retorted.

  Quinn couldn’t help it, he chuckled. He caught himself and kept it inward, but he realized with a little jolt that he liked the way she got in his face, came back at him despite her fear.

  He started breaking eggs into the bowl. When he passed six, her brow furrowed. “Good thing they found out eggs aren’t as bad for you as they thought.”

  He glanced at her. “Worried about my health?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No, since this isn’t just for me.”

  She blinked. “You’re cooking breakfast for everybody?”

  “Everybody takes their turn.”

  “Even you?”

  He lifted a brow. “You’d rather I assigned it to you?”

  “Depends. Any rat poison around?”

  This time he didn’t manage to keep the chuckle suppressed. “Sorry. Wanna come after me with this?” He lifted the large, heavy cast-iron skillet.

  “Please, not another cliché,” she muttered.

  A third chuckle thr
eatened. Which in itself amazed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this close to laughing, even once, let alone three times. But between her and her dog, he was grinning—albeit inwardly—a lot. That was disconcerting. He put the large skillet on a burner, and while it was heating he turned his focus to scrambling the eggs in the bowl and adding some seasonings.

  “People will be looking for me by now. Probably him, too,” she said as she gestured toward the bedroom where their prize prisoner seemed content to hide for the duration, coming out only for meals and the bathroom.

  “Oh, people are looking for him, all right. You? Maybe. But you haven’t exactly been a social butterfly since your mother passed away.”

  He flicked a glance at her in time to see her jaw drop. She stared at him, clearly stunned by his knowledge.

  “How did you know about my mother?”

  “We do our homework.”

  “And who the hell is ‘we’?” she demanded. “Who are you people?”

  He ignored that. Not that it stopped her.

  “I’ve been thinking. You’re either some huge criminal operation, or you must be the government in some way.”

  “Some,” he said as he added some salt and pepper to the eggs, “would say there’s not much difference.”

  “Government, I think,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “They’re the only ones who’d think you can swoop in and snatch people off their own property.”

  “Technically,” he said mildly, “you were on somebody else’s property.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Should have taken the skillet,” she muttered.

  And again he had to smother a chuckle. And she wasn’t done yet.

  “So what alphabet soup agency is it? CIA? DEA? DHS? Who spent my tax dollars for you to show up and treat me like a common criminal?”

  “Rather better than, I think,” he said, another little jolt hitting him as he realized he was actually enjoying this. He quashed the feeling as he laid the bacon into the now-hot skillet.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “So we’re at Camp Cupcake. That’s still not an answer.”

  “We’re not government.”