Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

  But she wasn’t her parents. In no way was she her parents.

  Shaking her head, she put the groceries on the kitchen counter, intending to cook and eat because she knew she’d be awake until morning doing research and would need her strength.

  She moved into the living room to switch on a few lights and froze.

  A man. A very big man was standing there, unmoving.

  Oh God! A nightmare! Somehow someone had gotten past her layers of security. That took knowledge and focus and that meant nothing good.

  She kept a loaded gun in a small safe on the opposite wall. The man was standing between her and the safe, so the gun could have been on the dark side of the moon for all the good it did her.

  He was huge, shoulders a yard wide in outline, head shaved, enormous hands loose at his sides. With the bookcase lights at his back, his face was in shadow. All she could see were hard planes. She felt, more than saw, the intensity of his gaze. It was like being in a dark beam of light.

  She’d taken self-defense courses and could hold her own against a normal-sized man but this guy was not only huge but built. Those enormous shoulders tapered down to a lean waist, the neck muscles strong even in shadow.

  Summer’s heart hammered as she ran through the options open to her. It went fast because she had none.

  The gun was behind him. She had plenty of sharp knives but they were in a butcher block at least ten steps behind her. He could cut her off in a second if she made a dash for the kitchen door. And foolishly, foolishly, her cell wasn’t in her pocket as it usually was. It was in her purse, on the kitchen counter, out of reach.

  About the only thing she could do was scream, even knowing that one of the selling points of the condo was noise insulation. Her throat was closed up and she could barely breathe, like those nightmares where you couldn’t scream, couldn’t run.

  She took in a deep breath and it froze in her throat.

  “Summer,” the man said in an unusually deep voice.

  Her hand went to her throat where it felt as if someone had grabbed her, was throttling her. She couldn’t breathe.

  He knew her?

  This was personal then. Not some random stranger who’d broken into her home.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said and stepped forward.

  Something about that voice...

  Another step and the light from the kitchen illuminated his face.

  Summer gasped.

  Jack.

  Summer stared, rooted to the spot, heart hammering

  Jack. And yet...not Jack. The man standing in front of her had nothing in common with the golden boy she’d known. The man-boy who’d bedded her and then disappeared, a creature too fine to settle to earth.

  This man was bigger, bulkier. The Jack she’d known had had a refined, swimmer’s physique. Muscular and lean. This Jack was huge, defined muscles that had been hidden by the homeless man’s baggy uniform now clear under his black sweater. He didn’t have straggling filthy dreadlocks. His head was crudely shorn, like a prisoner’s, uneven and brutal-looking. His long, dirty-blond biker’s beard was gone, too, leaving a bare chiseled chin with the jaw muscles working.

  He was staring at her, narrow-eyed.

  Summer was really glad he didn’t look anything like the Jack she knew, that he looked so dangerous. If he’d been an older version of the friendly, charming boy, she’d have rushed to embrace him, hugging him tightly, happy he wasn’t dead.

  The Jack she knew would have hugged her back, maybe made a crack, pulling away from the hug because you didn’t cling to Jack Delvaux. But he’d have been friendly and utterly harmless. The old Jack wouldn’t have hurt a fly.

  But this Jack?

  She didn’t know about this one. He could swat her away with one swipe of that huge, powerful hand. This Jack had been on the run, staying under the radar, for six months—which in this age of surveillance she’d have said was impossible. She had no idea why he’d stayed hidden, letting everyone think he was dead, but he had to have powerful reasons. So. Now she’d discovered his secret. How was he going to react?

  “Hello, Jack,” she said. “I thought I saw you at Blake’s funeral.” Summer kept her voice steady. Inside she was trembling, but long years of experience as a political journalist, showing absolutely nothing, served her well.

  He frightened her, instinctively, but he couldn’t be allowed to know that.

  “Hello, Summer,” he said, stepping toward her.

  Summer forced herself not to step back. That would show she was intimidated. She was, but damned if she’d show it. He was very close to her, so close she had to tilt her head back slightly to keep her eyes on his face. He’d somehow grown in the past fifteen years. She didn’t remember him being this tall.

  Pointless pretending she didn’t know why he was here.

  “So I guess the reports of your death were exaggerated?” she said, trying to keep her voice light.

  His huge fists closed, then opened. Summer’s mouth went completely dry. Was he going to attack her? No. Besides the closing of his fists, he remained completely and utterly still.

  “Yeah. So now you know.” He stared at her unblinkingly.

  She swallowed and nodded.

  “So, I guess the question is—what are you going to do about it?” Jack’s voice was low and deep and emotionless. But he was watching her keenly, gaze as intent as a blue-eyed hawk’s.

  Summer tried to keep it light. “I’m not too sure anyone would believe me if I wrote about it. I imagine the security cameras never caught you? I’m sure you’re in a lot of facial recognition databases, even if you are certified dead.”

  “No. Never been caught.”

  Washington DC had thousands of security cams. If he’d been here all this time, he’d been extremely clever in avoiding identification.

  “Just like my security system didn’t stop you.” Somehow evading the two security guards and the security cams around the perimeter of her complex plus cameras on every floor seemed even more difficult than evading security around the city.

  “Your security system is crap,” he said dismissively.

  Summer drew in an outraged breath—her security system was not crap!—then clamped her jaw shut.

  And then it occurred to her...if he thought her security system—which was top of the line, thank you very much—was crap, he was used to breaking into places. Into places with a better security system than hers.

  “Listen, Summer,” Jack growled, stepping forward.

  Startled, she stumbled, trying to scramble away from him, then at the last minute turned it into a smooth pivot and said the first thing that came to her mind.

  “So,” she said crisply. “It’s been a long, lousy day and I haven’t eaten. I’m hungry. Do you want to talk about this over food?”

  The surprise in his eyes was genuine. He nodded and followed her into the kitchen. In the bright light of the kitchen Summer got her first good look at him and oh, God.

  He was gorgeous. In a totally Prison Break kind of way. How could he possibly be more attractive than he’d been as a boy and a young man? This man didn’t have anything classically handsome. His blond hair was shorn to stubble, the only hint of the color a glints of gold under the overhead lights. His face was filled out, all hard angles and planes, weather-beaten skin showing lines around the mouth and eyes. Cheekbones hard and chiseled, the skin hollowed out under them. He looked older than his thirty-four years, like he’d been a prisoner of war in a far off land.

  In all these years, she’d dreamed of encountering Jack again. She’d be polished and successful, courted by many men. He’d look dissipated and puffy, all those years of partying finally catching up. Unrecognizable, paying the price for years of debauchery. She’d squint, saying Hey Jack? Is that you? Nice to see
you. And feel absolutely nothing at all.

  Not like now, where she felt strong fear and an equally strong attraction to this man she barely recognized.

  Summer began preparations for the meal, movements brisk to keep her hands from trembling. She caught glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled ingredients from the fridge and the cupboards, the way you catch glimpses of a solar eclipse. Because it hurt to look at it directly.

  Disturbingly, Jack came closer to her, leaning his back against her counter, watching her. She could feel his body heat, smell him. He smelled of soap and nothing else. He’d washed the homeless vet off him.

  She chopped zucchini and onions fast, put them in a pan to sauté, took out fresh farm eggs from her shopping bag, whisked them with some grated parmesan. Not speaking, aware every single second of Jack watching her.

  She pulled out romaine lettuce, shredded it and washed it under the faucet. There were a thousand things she wanted to ask but held off. How would he react to questions? Would he think she was interviewing him for an article?

  An article. What a kick ass article it would be, too, headliner stuff. She could almost see it, could write the article in her head.

  Jack Delvaux Found Alive Six Months After the Massacre. She’d have a million clicks, be on every talking head show, maybe be nominated for the Pulitzer.

  Then again, maybe Jack would kill her before that happened.

  “Nice,” Jack said finally.

  “What?” Startled, Summer looked him full in the face for the first time since he’d scared the hell out of her. She saw him through the scrim of time, the beautiful boy superimposed over the potent, frightening man, then she blinked and the scrim disappeared and all she saw was this Jack, in the here and the now, powerful and intimidating.

  As she stared at him, the corner of his mouth turned up. He wasn’t smiling but the expression lightened up a fraction.

  “I said it’s nice, someone cooking for me. That hasn’t happened in six months. Since even before the Massacre, as a matter of fact.”

  For a second, the veil ripped away and she saw yet another Jack—weary beyond belief, a man who had lived on the streets for six months. Or at least in hiding. And of course the huge question was—why? Did she dare ask him? This Jack was so formidable she was almost scared of him. But her curiosity was greater than her fear.

  How had he remained hidden for six whole months? He belonged to one of the most famous families in America. Had he been in Washington all this time? Had he actually been living on the streets or was that a disguise? And above all—why? Why let everyone think he was dead?

  Was it possible that he was in some way responsible for the Massacre? The instant she thought that, she jerked it right out of her head.

  No. The one thing she knew about Jack, over and above anything else, absolutely integral to his personality, was that he loved his family. The idea that he could hurt a family member, cause the death of a family member—no. Simply wasn’t possible.

  But killing someone else? This Jack Delvaux looked perfectly capable of that.

  Summer had never liked beating about the bush. She put down her knife—she didn’t know whether to be happy or angry that Jack didn’t seem to even notice she had a very sharp knife in her hand—and turned to face him.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why did you let everyone think you were dead? Why have you been living on the streets these past six months?” And then a horrible thought occurred to her. “Did Isabel think you were dead? Did you let your sister mourn all these months?”

  Isabel and Jack shared a special bond. Had he let Isabel grieve the loss of her entire family when her beloved brother was still alive, but in hiding?

  Nothing moved on Jack’s face. Nothing. He’d had such a mobile face as a young man, flickering through ten different emotions in so many minutes. That had gone. His face right now could have been carved out of stone.

  “She knows now,” he said finally. And said nothing else. If Isabel had recently discovered he was alive after all, surely...surely that must have been an incredibly emotional moment. And yet you wouldn’t know anything of that from Jack’s expression.

  “Why?” Summer asked again, everything she was feeling in her voice. “Why disappear?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He simply stood there and looked at her. So intensely his eyes were tracing her face as if they were fingers, touching every tiny muscle to trace out her intentions. She stared right back, memorizing this new Jack, with lines in his face and hard blue eyes and a grim mouth.

  The entire summer she’d spent with Hector and during the brief whirlwind affair she and Jack had had at Harvard, she had never seen Jack not smiling. Right now, it felt like the face she was looking at had never smiled and never would.

  “Are you going to write about this?” he finally said.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to write about this in Area 8? That you saw me, that I’m alive?”

  Well of course, she wanted to say, but held her tongue. It was the biggest story imaginable. Jack Delvaux alive.

  He tilted his head, studying her. “You’d be crazy not to. Be a big story.”

  She said nothing. There was a but coming.

  He stared at her, intense blue eyes unblinking. “But I’m going to ask you to wait. An article now would ruin everything, but I can’t say more than that. Don’t run it.”

  Summer blinked. This sounded very much like a command. From a very big, rough guy who was undercover. A man she realized now she didn’t know at all.

  She swallowed. “Don’t run it or...what?”

  An impatient gesture of one of those huge hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you mean. Jesus, Summer. You know me better than that.”

  She slowly let out the breath she’d been holding. “I’m not a fool, Jack. Something big is at stake and it concerns a terrorist attack that claimed over seven hundred lives, including the man—your father—who was supposed to be our next president. Whatever is going on must be very serious if it forced you undercover for six months, and forced you to let your sister think you were dead.”

  Those sky blue eyes were intent. “It is. Very serious.”

  “And you don’t think people have a right to know?” It was the bedrock philosophy of Area 8. Area 8 didn’t have a political viewpoint. She was no ideologue. The only philosophy Area 8 followed was that citizens had a right to know what was going on with the people in power. They had a right to know what was being done in their name. And she also believed with all her heart that sunlight disinfected. Shine a light in the darkest corners and it got cleaned up. “This is big stuff. There are a lot of questions surrounding the Massacre. None of what happened made sense to me and I’ve been doing some digging of my own.”

  “You have?” Jack passed a big hand over the stubble on his head. “Tell you what, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  Oh God.

  He’d meant it in a completely different way but the image that blossomed in Summer’s head was sexual. Him showing her his. That big, tough body, naked. From the powerful shoulders, the broad chest, the long, long legs down to the beautiful feet. She knew what he’d looked like naked fifteen years ago and he’d been dazzling, in a lean male model kind of way. Now, a naked Jack would be pure male power, unadorned and raw. Scarred and tough and mouthwatering.

  Heat streaked through her—fast, explosive, unstoppable. The reaction only Jack had ever coaxed from her body. A conflagration from the top of her head to her toes because the truth was—she’d seen his. She remembered it clearly and it had been the source of blinding pleasure. She’d never known anything like that pleasure after him.

  God forbid he realize that.

  And what business did she have, getting all hot and bothered when he was standing there li
ke a glowering lump of stone, surly and unshaven and he was supposed to be dead for heaven’s sake!

  Get yourself under control, Summer.

  The thought was unusual, because as a rule, she was nothing but control. She was a highly disciplined investigative journalist who took her work extremely seriously because it had consequences. She was not supposed to be hot-flashing on the man who had turned her on to sex, then disappeared from her life without a word, but not before seducing every female in her immediate vicinity.

  He’d broken into her home for a reason. To stop her from writing about him surviving the Massacre, which was major news. He was here to persuade her and it was to his credit he wasn’t using his sex appeal, which had always been off the charts.

  Though, to some, maybe now his sex appeal would be a little...faded. Switched off. If you liked youthful good looks and playful male charm, this Jack was not for you.

  It was an enormous pity that the mature Summer found the mature, beaten down but clearly powerful Jack even more attractive than the golden boy of fifteen years ago.

  She turned off the flame and put dinner on the table. The omelet, naan bread, a salad and four French soft cheeses on a wooden board.

  “Sit down,” she ordered. “Eat.”

  A corner of his hard mouth lifted as he sat. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He waited until she had her fork in hand. “Eat,” Summer said again.

  Maybe he actually had been homeless because he ate like it was going to disappear from his plate at any moment. Mary Delvaux had hammered manners into her kids and he didn’t spray food and didn’t use his fingers. But he inhaled the food, staring down at his plate and not making eye contact with her.

  When he’d used the last bite of naan bread to pick up the last molecule of omelet, she said, “I have some homemade ice cream, if—”

  “Yes,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers. “Please.”

  Suppressing a sigh, Summer went to the freezer and took down a big container of homemade peach ice cream. Jack demolished it.