“That when I tell you everything you’ll want me to leave.”
“Funny,” he whispered into her hair, “because I’m scared you’ll decide it’s better for everyone if you vanish again.” He cupped her face, raised her tear-drowned gaze to his. “I don’t want you to leave me, Jay. And just so’s you know, if you do leave, I’ll spend the rest of my life tracking you down so I can kick your ass before I kiss you senseless. We’re in this together, okay?”
She managed a smile. “Okay.”
He kissed her hard and quick, and then left her clutching her towel and wrestling with her demons. It wasn’t the most difficult thing he’d ever had to do but it came damn high on the list. Ditto with steeling himself to keep walking rather than lurk by the bathroom door in case she tried to do a runner. He didn’t think she would—not after what he’d just told her—but she was a cyborg, and although he loved her, he didn’t always understand her thought processes. It boiled down to trust. He had to trust her. And so he collected the puppy-pee-doused clothes and headed downstairs to chuck them in the washer.
When he ventured into the yard, he found his mom and sister sitting on the park bench-style seating near the outdoor grill. His sister Caro had propped baby Danny over her shoulder, and was patting his diapered bottom and cooing nonsense at him. Jay’s puppy lay on its back in Tyler’s mom’s lap, all four paws in the air, while she absently stroked its belly. His dad was standing beneath the apple tree, hands shoved deep in his pants’ pockets, staring down at the patch of disturbed earth.
Tyler’s mom spotted him heading for the tree, and the gentle smile she’d sported while observing Caro with Danny melted into something thin and brittle. “What’s all this about, Tyler?” she asked. “Mike’s being mysterious.” Her gaze darted to her husband, and by the time she turned back to Tyler, her expression had morphed into a full-on frown.
Tyler wasn’t going to be drawn. Nor was he going to spout platitudes to keep his mother happy. “Jay needs to talk to us. There’s some stuff we need to know.”
His mother’s expression blanked. “Jay’s here.”
“She arrived—” Tyler glanced at his watch “—about an hour ago. We had some catching up to do.”
He rolled his shoulders, waiting for some smartass innuendo from his twin. But apparently Caro had decided to cut him a break. She’d pressed her lips tightly together, though, and her expression seemed a little… pained. He’d bet some substantial “alone time” with Jay that his sister was biting her tongue in an effort not to say whatever was currently skating through her brain. He appreciated her efforts. Last thing he needed was his mom going off about what he and Jay had gotten up to in his old room.
“You all knew she was here,” his mom said, glancing at her husband, the hurt etching her face so obvious Tyler would’ve had to be blind not to spot it. And then she ducked her head, belatedly hiding her expression as she petted the puppy lying in her lap.
Tyler inwardly cringed. This was gonna be a freaking nightmare. This was what happened when people kept secrets from family. “Caro only found out a short time ago,” he felt compelled to say—more so his mom had the comfort of knowing she wasn’t the only one kept out of the loop, than to keep Caro out of the firing line. His sister was way more than capable of standing up for herself.
His mother nodded, grasping at the pathetic excuse for an olive branch. “Where—?”
Jay had exited the back door on silent cat-feet. If not for the fragrance of the soap she’d used wafting to his nostrils, Tyler wouldn’t have known she was there until she slipped her hand in his and gave it a firm squeeze. “Hello, Marissa,” she said.
“Looking good, Jay!” Caro’s gaze raked the black yoga pants and royal blue tunic top Jay had borrowed from her suitcase, and gave an approving nod. She eased to her feet with one hand cupping the back of Danny’s head, careful not to disturb her baby brother, and made a beeline for Jay. When she’d gotten close enough, she halted and leaned in, obviously expecting Jay to hug her.
Tyler hoped Jay would understand the cue and respond appropriately. Now was not a good time for her “differences” to be on display. Now more than ever, if his mother was going to accept what had happened, and forgive Jay’s part in it, Jay needed to appear human.
His breath whooshed silently out as Jay took the cue and embraced his sister. “I miss you, Caro,” Jay said.
“We so need to organize a girls’ day out,” Caro said. “So I can take you shopping and nag you into upgrading your wardrobe. And don’t give me that face. I know what you’re like. I bet your current stash of jeans, t-shirts and hoodies have been washed so often they’re almost threadbare.”
Tyler grinned at Jay’s borderline horrified expression. She was definitely more your buy the basics online and get them delivered kinda chick, than a shop ’til you drop and max out your credit cards mallrat. Not that Jay had to worry about mundane things like credit card limits, but the almost unlimited funds at her disposal didn’t stop her from wearing her clothes into the ground. In fact, other than the silky blue robe he’d saved up to buy her, the last time he remembered Jay wearing anything new was the dress Nessa had talked her into buying.
Tyler fought to contain what would doubtless have been a goofy grin. Man. He had fond memories of that dress. Short, and revealing in all the right places. Even Caro might approve—although his fashionista sister would have kittens at the street sneakers Jay had paired with it.
“Afterward, we can put our feet up at home and order takeout,” Caro was saying in a wheedling tone. And then she upped the wheedle-factor with what she probably imagined was the frosting on the cake by adding, “I’ll even paint your toenails.”
Jay crinkled her nose.
“It’ll be fun.” Caro adroitly changed the subject before Jay could mount a protest. “Can you believe how much weight Danny has put on already?”
Jay opened her mouth and Tyler’s hand inadvertently convulsed around hers as he visualized her spouting a bunch of dry data about average growth rates for infants and suchlike.
She squeezed back, and he felt instantly ashamed. And pissed off, too, that Jay should have to censor herself around his family. Bad enough she had to hide her true nature from everyone else she encountered, but the people here already knew what she was. She should feel comfortable enough to be herself around them.
Jay gave his fingers another squeeze. Realizing she’d sensed his anger, Tyler made an effort to relax and let it go. For now.
“He’s very sweet,” she said, reaching out to stroke Danny’s cheek with a forefinger.
“Except when he poops. Then he’s the total opposite of sweet.”
Tyler snorted, wholeheartedly endorsing that statement. The last diaper he’d changed had been vile. He would never understand how such a tiny baby could contain that much godawful stinky poop.
“I was looking through some old photos, and he’s the spitting image of Tyler as a baby.” Caro eased Danny from her shoulder and, without a by-your-leave, plunked him in the crook of Jay’s arm. “’Bout time you got some one-on-one time with your Auntie Jay, little man,” she cooed.
Jay freed her hand from Tyler’s to cradle Danny more securely. She seemed a little startled but aside from that, she was holding the baby like a pro—doing a far better job of it than the first time Tyler had held his baby brother. He’d been clumsy as, inwardly freaking out that he was doing it all wrong, and praying Danny wouldn’t start to cry. Or mess his diaper. Or upchuck all over Tyler’s favorite t-shirt.
From the corner of his eye, Tyler spotted his dad heading for the bench seat—probably to restrain his wife from leaping up to snatch poor baby Danny from the clutches of the inhuman cyborg girl and—
His brain mind chose that precise moment to replay a memory he’d done his utmost to suppress: Jay’s lifeless body sprawled on the concrete. The emotionless cyborg assassin Evan Caine had sent after Jay holding Danny in the crook of one arm. That cold, flat voice telling Tyler
to choose between his newborn brother and the girl he loved….
A chill clawed Tyler’s heart as he shook off the memory. His little brother and his family were safe. Jay was—
Fuck. He couldn’t deny the truth: Jay would never truly be safe because of what she was, and what she represented to men like Caine. That was the one thing Tyler could be grateful to Sixer for, because the cyborg’s first action after Jay had freed him from Caine’s control had been to take out his former master, and raze his lair to the ground so there could be no more cyborgs created and enslaved like Sixer had been.
Tyler carefully hid his turmoil before switching his attention to Jay, who was gazing at the baby in her arms. Her expression was blank—scarily blank—and if not for the tears streaking her smooth, flawless cheeks, he’d have thought she’d zoned out to perform a system recalibration or something.
His gut twisted into a knot. Something was up. Something big. And as much as he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he was über-conscious of his mother’s eagle-eyed, judgmental gaze. Now would be a real good time to enlist Jay’s help to make coffee.
“Jay—”
Damn. Too late. Caro had moved closer and slung an arm about Jay’s shoulders. “Jay? Are you all right, sweetie?”
“I’ll be fine, Caro.” Jay’s voice sounded normal but the lie was obvious from the tears she couldn’t seem to control. “Let me return Daniel to Marissa so we can get this over with.” And before Tyler could react, she had ducked beneath Caro’s arm and was striding toward the bench.
He made a move to follow her and do… something, he didn’t know what, except that every instinct screamed he needed to act as a buffer between Jay and his mom.
Caro’s hand snagged his upper arm, hauling him to a halt as she hissed, “Don’t. I have a good feeling about this.”
He glanced over his shoulder at his sister, incredulous. “A good feeling?” he whispered for her ears alone. “Are you nuts?”
His sister threw him a sympathetic smile. “It’ll be okay, I promise. Just let this play out, Tyler. Trust me, okay?”
He shook his head. “You’d better be right, sis.”
“Aren’t I always?”
Despite his concerns, a laugh escaped. “Hardly.” But he was grateful as all heck when she grabbed his hand and, with no attempt whatsoever at subterfuge, dragged him closer to eavesdrop on the little drama. Well, here’s hoping it would only be a little drama this time, because honestly? Tyler didn’t know how much more drama he could take.
Tyler’s dad glanced up as Jay approached. He’d obviously noticed the tears for his face creased in concern, but thankfully he didn’t say anything to draw attention to them. Tyler’s mom was making a point of fussing over the puppy, and Tyler figured she was delaying the moment when she’d be forced to interact with the “robot” girlfriend.
Jay halted in front of bench and stood there, silently waiting to be acknowledged.
But when Tyler’s mom finally got the balls to glance up and meet Jay’s gaze, Jay didn’t say a word. She pressed a kiss to Danny’s forehead and held him out to his mother… who made no move whatsoever to take him.
“What’s wrong, Jay?” Tyler’s mother demanded.
“Everything. Will you take him, Marissa? Please.”
Tyler’s mom narrowed her eyes but continued petting Jay’s puppy. “Why?” Short and sharp and accusatory, a verbal slap in the face. “Does he make you uncomfortable? He’s only a baby.”
Tyler bristled, wanting to jump to Jay’s defense, but Caro’s whispered, “Here it comes,” held him back.
“It hurts,” Jay said, the tears still trickling down her face as she cuddled Danny to her again.
Tyler’s mom blinked at this unexpected response and her hands stilled. “What do you mean?”
“I will never have a baby of my own, Marissa. And I believed I had accepted that as a consequence of existing in the form that I do. But I was wrong. I love Daniel the same way I love all of you—like you’re my family. But right now, holding Daniel hurts so much it’s hard to bear. I feel… broken.”
Christ. Tyler squeezed his eyes shut. His head hurt, and his heart, too. Not for himself, but for Jay. If it hadn’t been for those telltale tears, no one would have known about the anguish she was suffering deep inside.
He opened his eyes in time to see his mother scoop Jay’s puppy from her lap and hand him off to Tyler’s dad. Then she stood, smoothing the skirt of her dress, and all Tyler could think was, Well, that was a bust…. Except, abruptly it was the complete opposite because his mom threw her arms around Jay and hugged her… and rubbed her back while Jay cried awful, noiseless tears that were somehow worse than normal tears, because even though Jay was hurting, she obviously felt she couldn’t let go completely for fear of disturbing the sleeping baby in her arms.
“Whoa.” Tyler heaved a shuddering breath. “I so didn’t see that coming.”
Caro sniffed and blotted moisture from her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Told ya.”
“Think everything’s gonna be all right with Mom now?” he asked.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whatever you’n Dad haven’t told us.”
Tyler’s sigh gusted out, ripe with defeat and a big heaping of guilt. “Um, yeah. About that—”
“Save it. You’ll only have to repeat yourself when we do the family conference thing.” Caro threw him a mock-glare. Tyler knew it was a mock-glare because his twin’s real glares were scary-ass things that made a guy’s balls shrivel and his hair stand on end.
“We need coffee,” she said. “And chocolate cake. Lots of chocolate cake.”
Tyler left his dad to supervise, trusting he would intervene if anything went pear-shaped, and followed his sister into the kitchen. Because if Caro believed that coffee and chocolate would help them all get through the shit-storm that was about to be unleashed, then Tyler was totally on board with that.
~*~
He should have brought the whole damn cake out first time around and saved himself another trip to the kitchen. Caro had been right: Copious coffee and large wedges of the chocolate cake she’d baked that morning had helped. In fact, all the pieces had vanished in mere minutes, save for a few chocolaty smears and crumbs.
Tyler divvied up the last of the cake, transferred the wedges to a serving platter, and carried it back into the yard in time to hear his dad ask, “So, what’s the verdict?”
Tyler dumped the plate on the outside table as Jay straightened from her crouch and brushed the dirt from her hands. She strode over to the outdoor faucet to wash up, and then shook her hands dry while Tyler waited, pulse ratcheting into overdrive, for her to share her findings.
“There’s nothing to report.”
“Huh?” Tyler stared at her, wondering if he’d heard right. Jay had walked the entire backyard, and thoroughly investigated the surrounding area where they’d buried the decoy hand. She had to have discovered something. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
“I should rephrase: There’s nothing to report that will assist us in identifying and locating the person who dug up and removed the decoy hand, and did such a shoddy job of replacing the soil it was glaringly obvious the earth had been disturbed. I can only assume this was deliberate—to alert us that the decoy had been removed. A generic tool, such as a trowel, was used for the purposes of digging. I discovered some partial boot imprints that suggest the person was likely male, average build, average weight, and wears the same sized boot as a large percentage of males in this town—including your father. And I found some dark-washed denim fibers that suggest the man caught his pants on a protruding nail when he brushed up against the fence.”
“Or his jacket,” Caro said. “He might have been wearing a denim jacket and caught his sleeve. You know, when he bent down or something.”
“That, too, is a possibility. I would need a lab to confirm absolutely. However, knowing absolutely is not going to assist us at this time
.”
“So we’ve got diddly.” Tyler’s dad grabbed a generous slice of cake and devoured half of it in one bite.
“When I get home, I’ll do some further investigations—identify any newcomers to the area and decide who to begin questioning and how best to go about it.”
Tyler’s dad paused, the remaining portion of his piece of cake halfway to his mouth. With undue care, he replaced it on his plate. “I could do that,” he offered.
Tyler released his sharply indrawn breath and exchanged a troubled glance with his sister. Sure, their dad was good with computers—better than good. But his unique skill set was what had brought him to Caine’s notice in the first place, and started the mess that had set off this whole chain of events. It was so not a good idea for him to start snooping around electronically and risk getting flagged.
Tyler caught the panicked expression on his mother’s face, and was racking his brains for the best way to shut down his dad’s offer when Jay did it for him. “We both know you have unique skills, Michael,” she said. “And we both know I can perform this task with less effort and far less personal risk.”
Tyler held his breath until his father nodded. And when he did, the relief on his mother’s face was painful to witness.
Thank God Jay had no qualms about asserting her own superiority when it came to covert computer stuff. And thank God she’d called this family meeting, because even though the future was up in the air, Tyler figured he wasn’t the only one feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Keeping secrets from your family sucked, but now, thanks to Jay, they were secrets no longer.
Jay had asked permission to start from the very beginning, insisting it was the most efficient way to insure everyone had all the facts. Tyler’s dad had backed her up, and she’d made it clear she expected him to jump in whenever his role in past events melded with her own timeline. It’d been a smart move on Jay’s part because, sure enough, Tyler’s mom had proven deeply curious about a bunch of stuff that her husband had kept from her, which had taken the focus off Jay. So, happily, confession time had turned out to be not half as bad as Tyler had imagined.
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