Yet he knew that if she’d walked past him on the streets of Baldwin’s Bridge, he never would have given her a second glance. He never would have taken the time to look into her eyes and see who she really was.
She was everything he wasn’t. Everything Jenny wasn’t.
They’d sat on that bench for quite some time, heads close together, hands occasionally touching as she corrected him, as he tried to make his too-large fingers move like Cybele’s. It was hard as hell to do—women’s work, indeed.
But finally, he’d finished. One clumsily darned sock to six of Cybele’s. And yet she applauded him, her brown eyes sparkling with admiration and warmth.
He took another sock from the basket and doggedly set to work.
He could tell from the way she watched him that she’d expected him to stop after one.
But there were sixty more socks in that basket that needed mending. At his current pace, he’d be done by next Wednesday. But it wasn’t as if he had a whole hell of a lot else to do.
He could feel Cybele watching him, but he didn’t dare let himself look up again. He knew he’d see hero worship in her eyes. And, sure, while he wanted her to like him, he wanted her to like him for the man he really was, not because of some twisted misconception. Maybe he’d been a hero by accident, but those days were behind him now.
“First thing I’m going to do when I get back to Baldwin’s Bridge,” he told her, “is absolutely nothing. I’m going to sit on the front porch of my father’s summerhouse, and for about two months I’m going to do nothing but eat steak at every meal and watch the tides turn.” He glanced up. Big mistake. He tried to bluster on, tried to make a joke. “I’m going to talk Joe into coming with me, and I’m going to pay him thousands of dollars to plant a flower garden in my backyard. No turnips, no cabbage. Just flowers.”
He saw it coming, saw her lean toward him, saw her gaze drop briefly to his mouth, and his heart nearly stopped beating.
He didn’t close his eyes until her lips brushed his in the gentlest of kisses. It was achingly sweet, and over far too soon.
He didn’t reach for her, he didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was married. He had no business kissing anyone but Jenny.
But, God, he wanted Cybele.
He might’ve given in to the temptation to haul her into his arms and kiss her again, hard, until the room spun, had she not stood up and moved halfway across the kitchen. She turned to face him, but she couldn’t hold his gaze.
“Thank you,” she said.
Charles nodded. He even somehow managed to smile. He let them both pretend that that had been a kiss of gratitude, even though they both knew damned well it had been so much more.
Ten
“OKAY, THAT’S IT.” David straightened up from behind his camera, suddenly acutely aware that Bran was still kissing Mallory.
His friend lifted his head just long enough to say, “Aw, come on, take a few more,” before he kissed her again.
“I don’t need more.” David managed to say it evenly instead of shouting, God damn it, stop kissing her! “I only needed a few.”
Every time he’d drawn Marcus and Webster kissing in Wingmasters, Ren had claimed the picture was unidentifiable and had made him draw it over again. This time, for Nightshade, David was determined to work from a photo. But . . . “It’s not like there’s going to be a lot of kissing in this story.”
He turned around so he wouldn’t have to watch Mallory with her mouth locked on Brandon’s and her fingers in his wavy blond hair. Somehow it had looked a little less real through his camera’s lens.
“Besides, I’m out of film.” He may as well have spoken Swahili for all the attention either one of them paid him.
He crossed to the refrigerator, grabbed himself a can of soda, and opened it with a loud crack. He drank nearly the whole thing with his back still turned.
“Wow,” he heard Bran murmur to Mallory. “I kind of forgot where I was for a minute there.”
No shit, Sherlock. David drained the rest of the soda and crushed the aluminum can in his hands.
“Do you want to . . .” Bran laughed self-consciously. “This is going to sound crazy, but . . .” He laughed again.
But from the first moment I saw you, I felt a connection. David tossed the can into the bag he had for recyclables and sat down at his drawing table, suddenly exhausted. It was after eleven, and he had to be dressed and at the restaurant, ready to wait tables, in less than five hours.
“From the first moment I saw you, I felt this incredible connection between us,” Bran whispered.
Destiny. It was destiny. Yeah, right. David had heard Bran use these particular lines far too many times. At the beach, at a college party, on that camping trip they’d taken when they were both eighteen. The really stupid thing was, if David ever tried slinging that kind of crap around, he’d probably be tarred and feathered and run out of town. But Brandon got away with it. When Bran used it, he got laid. Talk about destiny.
“It’s like destiny,” Bran said now to Mallory.
Here it came: I’ve never felt anything like this before. David couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at them as he savagely sharpened his pencil. Bran still held her loosely in his arms. She could have pulled away—if she wanted to. Obviously, she didn’t want to.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” Bran said so sincerely.
Except for the four hundred and sixty-seven other times . . . Come on, Nightshade, use your super night vision to see clear through this son of a bitch.
It wasn’t that David didn’t like Brandon, because he truly did. They’d been best friends for as long as he could remember, but the thought of Bran taking Mallory home tonight, the thought of them together, making love in Bran’s apartment just downstairs from David, was too much to deal with.
He knew all it would take to stop it was four little words in Brandon’s ear—I like this girl. Bran would back off, but where would that leave David? With a girl who’d rather be with Brandon.
“Come out with me tonight,” Brandon murmured. “Are you hungry? We could go get something to eat.”
David started to draw rough sketches of Nightshade after Nightshade, running, jumping, flying, fighting evil, at her most invincible. He tried not to listen, tried not to care when Mallory finally spoke.
“I’m kind of gross with all this baby oil on me.”
“Sully already said he didn’t mind if you used his shower.” Brandon pushed her toward David’s bathroom as if it were a given she’d agree to go with him. “I’ll run and use my own—I live right downstairs.”
She hesitated, glancing over at David. “I’m not sure—”
“Hey, we can go over to that carnival, grab a burger, and take a ride on the Ferris wheel.”
She lit up, and David knew it was over. But then again, who was he kidding? He knew it was a given she’d spend tonight with Brandon before he’d even asked her to pose for him.
“It’s still in town, isn’t it?” Brandon asked. “You know, that carnival in the church parking lot?”
“It’s here until Sunday,” Mallory told him.
“Great. Come on, what do you say?”
David kept his eyes glued to his sketch of Nightshade. “All right” was what she said.
“Well, all right,” Bran headed for the door. “I’ll be back in ten—de-slimed. Later, dude,” he called to David, slamming the door behind him.
David heard her hesitate, but he didn’t look up. He just kept drawing. Finally, the bathroom door closed and locked, and he heard the shower go on. He put his pencil down.
There was a small mirror over by the door. He slipped down off his stool and crossed toward it, looking at his reflection.
After over an hour of shooting, his hair was standing up straight in places. He looked as if he’d put his finger in a light socket. He tried to push it down, but that only made it worse. And his glasses . . . The tape and the safety pin didn’t add to the fact that his gl
asses were about fifteen years out of fashion. The lenses were huge and thick and heavy as hell, a far cry from the little oval-shaped frames he now saw people wearing all over the place. He hadn’t noticed the new style until yesterday when Bran had pointed it out. David’d drawn a few sketches of his Julian character in civilian mode, with glasses on, and Bran had told him no one who looked like Julian would be caught dead in nerd glasses like the ones he’d drawn.
Nerd glasses.
They’d been just like David’s.
It seemed ridiculous. Glasses were merely a valuable instrument he used to enable himself to see. Why should it matter what they looked like?
Why should it matter what he looked like?
He took his glasses off and leaned closer to the mirror, squinting at himself in the glass. It wasn’t as if he were some kind of a horrible, deformed monster. His eyes, nose, and mouth were all in relatively normal places on his face.
Still, he was no Brandon, that was for sure.
But the flip side was that Brandon was no David, either.
And David wouldn’t trade his intelligence and his innate drawing talent for Brandon’s looks. Not in a million years. That was a no-brainer.
He had a hell of a lot going for him, and if Mallory was too shallow to see that, if she cared more about the kind of beauty that was only skin deep, if she was completely swept away by Brandon’s body and face, well . . .
Hypocrite. He was a complete hypocrite.
The reason he’d followed Mallory around town for days had nothing to do with her sharp sense of humor and her refreshingly acerbic personality. He’d followed her because she had a great ass, world-class breasts, and a face that was the perfect mix of exotic woman and sweet child. He’d followed her because he’d been completely swept away by her body and face.
The shower went off, and he put his glasses back on, quickly crossing back to his drawing table. He sat there, pretending to be engrossed by his sketch when the bathroom door opened several minutes later.
Mallory had put her clothes back on, but her hair was wet. She ran her fingers through it as she stood just outside the bathroom, clearly ill at ease. Brandon wasn’t back yet. It was just Mallory and David. Alone.
Again, David didn’t say a word. He just kept drawing.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her square her shoulders. She came toward him. It was the dead last thing he’d expected her to do.
“Lookit,” she said, “I know you probably think I’m an asshole, because I said one thing and now I’m doing another—”
“He only does short term.” David looked up at her. “Sometimes not more than one-night stands. Don’t expect more than that from him.”
She laughed. “God, I’m not gonna—” She broke off. “I guess you have no reason to believe anything I say, but I swear, I’m just going to ride on the Ferris wheel with him.”
“You don’t need to give me any explanations. I’m not going to judge you for doing what you want to do.” David just kept on drawing. “So you miscalculated your reaction to Bran. Big deal. If I were a girl, I would’ve slept with him a long time ago.”
She pulled his other stool up to the table. “I’m not going to sleep with him.”
“That’s not what he thinks.”
“My God.” She leaned closer to look at the sketches he’d done. “You are so good.”
“Hold it right there, don’t move,” he ordered her, pulling a fresh sheet of paper in front of him. She was looking at him with such wonder, such admiration, he wanted to capture it. With her hair wet, she looked both tougher and more vulnerable, her eyes enormous in her face. He drew her swiftly, and with just a few quick lines he managed to catch her energy, her soul—or whatever that life force was that burned so fiercely inside of her.
It was a selfish thing to do—drawing her that way, telling her not to move, forcing her to give him her full attention, to look at him while he took in every millimeter of her face.
He took longer than he needed, doing some shading, adding more detail than he normally would’ve. But finally, he was done, and still holding her gaze, he pushed it toward her.
Mallory stared at him just a moment longer before she looked down. She turned the sketch to face her, gazing at it for a long time before she looked back at him. “Is this her?” she finally asked. “Nightshade?”
He shook his head. “No, that one’s all you.”
She looked at the sketch again. “This is really how you see me?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, but that’s not what I see when I look into the mirror.”
He could hear Brandon’s footsteps coming up the outside stairs, and he stood, turning away from her. “Have fun tonight.”
“I just want to go to the carnival with him. Everyone from school hangs out there,” she said. “I just want to show up there with him. I want those bitches to see me out with this guy.”
David turned back. She was leaning toward him, intensity in her eyes.
“It’s a shitty reason for going with him,” she admitted. “I know that. I’m a jerk. But just once, I want—”
The door opened, and Hurricane Brandon swept in. “Ready, babe?”
“I want to be the one who’s envied for a change,” Mallory whispered, her eyes begging David to understand, “instead of the one doing the envying. It’s stupid, I know. You probably don’t understand—”
Brandon caught sight of himself in the mirror and made a slight adjustment to his still wet hair. “Come on, I’m starving; let’s blow this joint.”
Mallory stood up, folding the drawing carefully and putting it into her pocket as Brandon came toward her. He put his arm around her waist as if he had every right to touch her, his hand sliding possessively beneath the bottom edge of her shirt, his fingers touching what David knew had to be the warm softness of her skin.
As he watched, Bran pulled her toward the door, and then they were gone.
What Mallory had said wasn’t stupid. And David did understand. Being best friends with Bran, he knew a thing or two about envy.
Tom was in the convenience store when he saw him.
The man at the counter buying a pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket wasn’t the Merchant. He was about the same height as the Merchant, but he was much younger. In his early twenties, with dark curly hair and average brown eyes.
Tom had made note of him—mostly that he wasn’t the Merchant—when he’d come into the store to get a cola and some pain reliever. The brisk walk into town hadn’t made him feel better. In fact, it had made his head pound even harder.
He grabbed a soda from the wall of refrigerators in the back of the store, wishing he’d taken something for his headache before he’d left the house, wishing he hadn’t come quite this far, because now he had to walk all the way back.
All the way.
It was a mile at the most. What was wrong with him that he should be daunted at the idea of having to walk a mere mile?
He headed toward the checkout counter, and that’s when he saw it.
The dark-haired young man left the store, pushing open the door with his right hand. And on the back of that hand he had a small, round, dark mark. A tattoo.
Tom wasn’t close enough to see the details, see if it was, indeed, the Merchant’s mark—the stylized open eye. But it was round and it was the right size.
He might’ve been mistaken. It might’ve been a coincidence. Except for the fact that he didn’t believe in coincidences. In the very same small town where he’d spotted the Merchant, he also coincidentally sees a man with a round tattoo on the back of his hand?
Not a chance.
His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach, but he’d been a SEAL long enough to know exactly what he had to do.
He had to follow the dark-haired man covertly, without him knowing he was being followed. He had to see where this guy was going, possibly find out where he was staying. And he had to try to get close enough to get another look at that mark on his
hand.
“Sorry, changed my mind.” Tom set the bottle of soda down on the counter as he swiftly moved past it toward the door.
His headache and nausea faded to a dull background hum as he stepped out of the store and into the humid summer heat. The night was sharper now, clearer. He had a renewed sense of purpose and the entire world had an edge.
He saw the dark-haired man walking across the convenience store parking lot to . . .
Shit.
As Tom watched, the man pulled an old touring bicycle from the bike rack, climbed on, and began to pedal away.
Tom jogged to the rack, but the only other bike there was securely locked.
Double shit.
He could follow on foot, but running after a bike didn’t exactly qualify as covert.
Unless . . .
He was wearing shorts and sneakers, a T-shirt. As long as the dark-haired man didn’t go too fast . . .
Tom took off down the street at the fastest pace he could get away with and still look as if he were out for a leisurely recreational run.
For a small town, Baldwin’s Bridge was hopping. It was 2330, and the downtown area from the Honey Farms all the way past the hotel and marina, all the way to the beach, was still brightly lit and crowded with people. Tourists and vacationers and high school students were out in droves, wandering the quaint brick-paved streets. The music from the distant church carnival down by the beach gave the town an even more festive air.
The dark-haired man on the bike was moving faster than most of the strollers, but not by much. Brick roads, even ones as carefully kept as those in Baldwin’s Bridge, could be hell on a bike rider. Tom knew that from experience. Riding too fast could make a man feel as if he’d spent an hour with his balls being shaken by a hardware store’s paint mixer.
But Tom had to push himself faster as the dark-haired man turned the corner onto Webster Street, heading toward the beach and the church carnival.
Webster Street had regular pavement and a slight downward slope to it. By the time Tom reached the bottom, he was running as fast as he could, and the dark-haired man was still pulling away from him.
The Unsung Hero Page 17