by Mary Wine
But she really wanted to know just what Rourke had said to him. Night had fallen hours ago but her temper was keeping her plenty warm. Chris appeared to have been given first watch and stood just off to the side of the landing pad with a semiautomatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
Loren wasn’t a fool. She’d kept careful track of her husband’s whereabouts. It was the only logical thing to do when the man had little compunction about trying to kill her with his fists. That was one of the main reasons she’d never divorced the man. The Army had very clear rules about spouses. Being Chris’ legal wife meant she was given information on just where her husband was.
“Mom, your hands are turning blue.”
“Toby, I am having a really bad day.”
“Yeah, I sort of noticed that.”
Her son’s offbeat humor was about the only thing that could slice through her anger. Loren tilted her head to the side and looked up at her son. She really was lucky to have such a great kid.
“There’s dinner inside. It’s worse than John’s cooking.”
Loren made a face in response. John Phelps was the engineer at one of her local stations. The man was determined to become a chef and he had a long way to go. But since she’d landed her job with Los Angeles County five years ago, Toby was eating at a lot of fire stations due to the twenty-four hour shifts she worked.
“All right, I will endeavor to get over myself.”
Her son flashed her grin before he turned and loped into the house. Loren took a last look at Chris before she forced her body to follow. There was no point in standing there nursing her pride. She’d made the stupid mistake of marrying the man and there was nothing she could do to fix that now. Too young to know better, she’d let her young heart lead her straight into the lion’s den.
“Lavender Rain?”
“Mom hates her name.”
Just her luck. Having left one problem male outside, Loren now had the privilege of facing down the second one. This quarantine was going to be very long.
“Mom says it’s a side effect of having grandparents who attended Woodstock.” Toby picked up a dinner plate and began piling food onto it.
“You were born to a pair of flower children?”
“No, only my mother suffers from that disease.”
“So just where was your father while she was signing the birth certificate?”
Loren considered ignoring Rourke’s question. Unless she missed her guess, the man knew the answer already. But you couldn’t prove it by the look on his face. His expression sat solid as granite and gave absolutely nothing away.
But she did have eyes in her head. Top-secret aircraft, Rangers patrolling the area—if Major Rourke Campbell didn’t have the means to pulling every last bit of personal information about her then she’d eat her shoes. The man was currently conducting an honesty test.
“My dad was chasing his stripes.”
“You mean he was serving his country.”
The hard expression that crossed his eyes was a familiar one. Loren had seen it on her father’s face too many times to count. It was a look that only men who’d shared the bitter experience of combat could wear. There was a brotherhood relayed in the emotion.
Seeing it cross Rourke’s face sent a slight tingle down her spine. This man was completely untamed. He pushed his body to the limits of endurance because he relied on his conditioning to stay alive.
“Before you say it, your information is correct. Toby does work for NASA.”
The woman wasn’t a liar, but she was sure provocative. Rourke considered her as she picked at a plate of food. She was also very perceptive—he was still waiting to hear back from the boy’s superior to confirm his employment. But Florida was on the opposite side of the continent and Rourke wouldn’t get that confirmation for another four hours when the sun came up at Cape Canaveral
Moving his eyes over the boy in question, Rourke assessed him. The kid was working on his third plate. God only knew where he was putting all that food. There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on the kid’s lanky frame. Toby sent him a grin as he stuffed another forkful of chicken into his mouth. The kid should be discussing the latest video game craze not the finer points of his Panther.
The problem was the kid knew more about the aircraft than Rourke did.
“My son is a genius.”
“A what?”
Loren didn’t take offense as Rourke almost snarled his question. She was really quite used to disbelief in connection to her son’s intelligence level. She was still trying to get used to the idea herself.
“As in, top one percent of the population on the planet.”
“Ah ha.”
Loren simply tossed her head. There was no reason for her to wear her tongue out trying to convince this guy of anything. Rourke Campbell would still wait until he’d gained that confirmation from NASA.
Laying her fork aside, she decided that it was a shame some poor chicken had died only to end up tasting so very similar to chalk.
Loren’s acceptance of his disbelief wasn’t what Rourke wanted. She was completely comfortable with letting the matter rest. No evidence laid out to sway his opinion, no heartfelt jumble aimed at polishing up her son’s image.
That left him with only one conclusion. The boy was some kind of genius.
“Why aren’t you at M.I.T. earning multiple doctorates?”
Toby ran an arm across his mouth before he answered the question.
“They’ve got a problem with a project that they think I can solve. When that’s done I get to go off to college.”
“Ah ha.”
“Mom, I’m gonna go check the onboard computer for discrepancies in programming translation to application.”
Her son was halfway out the door when Loren dragged him to a halt. Rourke didn’t even suspect the kid could move that fast, but his mother was used to his abrupt changes in focus.
“Toby, these people don’t quite buy the whole security clearance thing yet. Do me a favor and don’t get shot. I’m off duty for a change.”
“Ohh.” The kid’s disappointment didn’t last for long. His eyes shifted for a mere second before he chose another target to aim his attention on. Another long-legged launch and he hauled his backpack from the tabletop and loped off into the family room.
“What is he up to?”
“He’s looking for a power outlet to set up his system.”
“And then what is he going to do?”
Loren slowly smiled. Her son was a handful. She was going to enjoy watching the major here try and keep up with him. Her smile faded as she considered just why they were both here.
“Why don’t you enlighten me about this whole thing? I’d rather not have Toby overhear the details.”
“You’re a paramedic, what more do you need to know?”
“Let’s start with how certain you are of contamination.” His lips pulled back into a wide smile. “I was referring to your contamination, I remember mine.”
“Good.”
Dropping her plate, Loren glared at her tormentor. Propped against the kitchen counter, his lazy stance didn’t fool her one bit.
“I’m a married woman, so forget it.”
That got his attention. Half a second and he was standing at his full height. One step and he’d closed the distance between their bodies to mere inches. Her breath caught in her throat as she tipped her head back to get caught in his emerald stare. All playfulness was gone like it had never been. His face was etched in solid granite as he pegged her with a penetrating stare.
“I have a man down. Preliminary blood work shows exposure to the virus. Seven days will show if he’s going to develop the disease.” He finished closing the gap ‘til his face was a split second from touching her own. His breath hit her lips as he stopped before completing the kiss. “And you need a divorce.”
The screen door slapped shut behind Rourke as he left, letting Loren collapse in relief into a chair. Her entire body was shakin
g. It had to be impossible to be so very aware of a man. Her nerve endings were screaming and he hadn’t laid a finger on her.
Seven days might as well be seven years.
Chapter Three
“Paul’s been trying to reach you but your phone’s not getting a clear signal. These mountains have a large iron core and it’s producing a lot of static. But I’ve changed the setting on your dish network so you should get that signal now.”
Loren’s son loped back into his living room a half second after he finished talking. Rourke’s phone buzzed for attention almost on cue. Staring at the empty doorway, Rourke grabbed the cellular device from his pocket.
“Campbell.”
“Your tone implies that I’ve caught you at a bad time, Major.”
“Dr. Jasper?”
“Yes, your message did say it was urgent.”
“It is… Stand by.” Ripping a towel off its drying rack, Rourke pulled it across his face and neck. Three hours of hard running and that woman was still stuck inside his skull! “All right, Doctor, I apologize. I need some information on a Tobias Loren.”
“Toby. Yes, quite a unique young man.”
“How unique?”
“You would have to meet the young man to know, Major. I became acquainted with him when he broke into my encrypted files.”
“The boy’s a hacker?” Tossing the towel aside, Rourke cast a narrow look at the living room doorway.
“Toby is a genius. We don’t conduct interviews here. If you can’t get our attention, you don’t have the brains.”
That was clear enough. Disconnecting his phone, Rourke considered his kitchen. A walk on the beach was rapidly becoming more interesting by the second.
The slight grating sound of a computerized printer drifted through the doorway. He really needed a shower but…had that kid said he’d adjusted the satellite dish?
Approaching the doorway felt remarkably like a covert operation. His body tensed just the right amount to heighten his senses. His feet didn’t make a sound as he stopped behind the wall before easing his head around for a look.
“Holy Christ!” The living room was Rourke’s office. At the moment it had been transformed into some kind of electronic nucleus. Right in the middle of it, Toby sat conducting a symphony of movement. Rourke’s own computer had its plastic housing pulled free. There were cables and wires connecting it to the small laptop system that Toby sat punching information into. The printer was still grinding along on some project.
The kid might have been messing with his dish but he also had his own along. Perched atop a bookshelf, a small collapsible dish was aimed out the open window it faced. It was a state of the art piece. Rourke’s unit carried a similar one for combat. They weren’t even available to the civilian market yet.
“That’s for you. Dr. Jasper is sending you a novel on me. He said I could look the Panther over ‘cause there’s an information lag in the targeting system.”
The kid’s hands didn’t stop while he spoke. Instead they continued punching in numbers and letters alike into the keyboard. He’d switch off to the mouse but return rapidly to the keyboard. It was a frantic pace that made your eyes ache if you watched it too long. But the kid appeared completely in control.
An open box of cereal was shoved off to the corner of his makeshift desk while the trash can was piled high with empty soda cans and crumpled up printouts. The kid’s shoes were kicked off in the corner and his backpack was lying open on the floor.
“Have you been up all night?”
“Yeah.” The punching and printing continued.
“Geniuses don’t sleep?”
That got his attention. He turned a huge grin toward Rourke before he sent his chair across the space between their joined computers. The wheels on the bottom of the chair skidded as Toby ripped the completed pages from the printer’s output tray. Another shove and the chair sprang back to his original spot. Toby bounded from it before it came to a full stop.
“Here. Now I’m gonna go tap into the onboard computer system.”
Toby shoved the stack of papers at Rourke and lunched himself past him at near light speed. Dropping the mess, Rourke made a grab for the kid but his hand fell short.
“Toby.”
“Tobias Kenneth Loren! Halt!” The kid froze in his tracks. Loren stood in the opposite doorway leading to the kitchen with her hands propped on her hips. Rourke’s mouth dropped open. She’d obviously jumped right out of her bed. She was wearing nothing more than a tank top and underwear. Little blue lace panties, bikini cut.
“I told you not to get shot while I’m off duty, young man.”
“Jasper said I could, Mom!”
“Fine, but you might want to wait ‘til Major Campbell tells the armed guard out there that you’re clear with him. I’m talking about the guy holding the rifle.”
“Ah, sure.” The kid swung his eyes back to him making Rourke jerk his own away from Loren’s tempting flat stomach. Getting caught looking his mother over made a thin tide of red creep up his neck.
“Why don’t you give me a moment to go over this?”
“Okay.” Toby reversed course and dove back into the office. The chair sent out a small squeal as the sound of the kid’s punching began again.
“Is that normal?”
“For Toby? Yes.” Loren had learned to sleep light the day her son learned to roll over. He was a bundle of nonstop action. From toddlerhood to teenager. A second of inattention was an invitation for disaster. Raising her hand up, she rubbed her eyes and forced the last bits of sleep away. Coffee. It was coffee time!
Loren rubbed her burning eyes as she took a deep breath to clear the cobwebs from her sleepy brain. She lifted her eyelids to see Rourke staring at the bare skin her lifted arm gave him a glimpse of across her belly. Male satisfaction was written across his eyes as he caught her watching him and grinned at her temper.
“Pig.” The bark of laughter her comment gained almost moved Loren to violence. Glaring at Rourke Campbell and his obvious superior physical size, she flipped around and settled for slamming the door of her bedroom in his face.
Arrogant, lust-driven, crimsoned…pig!
Which could conveniently be rolled up into a single word—man. Maybe male. At the moment, pig just sounded just about perfect.
Loren was going to have bacon with that coffee.
* * * * *
“Mom, is that guy my dad?”
Loren felt her blood freeze in her veins. She’d always known her son would ask about his father some day. In fact, she was amazed Toby had waited this long to ask for some information on his absent father.
“Yes.” Turning her face toward her son, Loren picked out the details of Chris that were in Toby’s face. It just wasn’t fair that biology was dictating that her son look like the man who had abandoned him before he was even born. Chris hadn’t wanted his child so it just wasn’t fair that Toby was becoming the image of his father.
“Okay.” Toby stuck his hands into his pockets and turned back toward the living room. Loren watched him go and felt her mouth drop open. It wasn’t supposed to be that simple. She’d expected demands for details and maybe accusations. Instead her ears picked up the sounds of her son resuming his programming frenzy.
“I should break your neck for stealing my son.” Chris came around the corner and planted his body in front of her. It was strange the way her eyes moved over him with such calm. The last time she’d seen her husband he’d been in a rage and it had reduced her into a cringing animal that was controlled by fear.
Loren looked at the black spot marking his jaw and felt her confidence grow. She would never give her husband the power of fear over her again. Sticking her chin out she let her eyes dismiss him. Chris’ face flushed in anger and he shifted his weight from side to side as he struggled with his temper.
But it was clear that her husband wasn’t about to cross his commanding officer by getting into another fight with her. At least not a physical fi
ght.
“I’ll get you, Loren, the second you think you’re safe.” His boots shuffled and he turned away but stopped and sent her a sickening grin. “Then I’m going to watch you bleed.”
Loren wasn’t afraid of her husband. Not even as he threatened her. But she was afraid of herself. Inside her there was the growing need to avenge herself. She was sort of hoping Chris would make good on his threats, just so she’d have the chance to vent out all of her inner rage.
That was a rather stupid idea. Maybe she had gotten the jump on him last night but Chris was an Army Ranger, for Christ’s sake. The fact was, he knew how to kill in more ways than Loren could imagine. Add to that, the fact that the man had a grudge to settle, and Loren really should adjust her thinking.
Dropping her body into a nearby chair, Loren pulled a deep breath into her lungs. Chris should never have discovered Toby. Oh, she knew he’d wanted a son. There had been times she’d stared at her telephone and pictured herself dialing the number that would bring her husband back into her life. It hadn’t been easy to be a seventeen-year-old single parent.
But she’d survived. And now Chris knew that the daughter he’d thrown out was in fact the son he’d longed for. Oh yeah, Chris would enjoy watching her bleed. That was for sure.
“What did your husband say to you?”
The fear Loren couldn’t find for her husband suddenly twisted her stomach, as his commanding officer demanded his question. Rourke Campbell’s green eyes weren’t moving over her in desire tonight. Instead, they cut across her face like emeralds. There was absolute purpose carved into the solid stone of his face as he stood over her.
“Answer the question, Loren.” She pushed out of his porch chair and moved away from him. Rourke watched her retreat and slowly followed her.
“Nothing important.” Loren didn’t exactly lie. Chris wasn’t important, neither was anything he said.
“Fine, then it won’t matter if you repeat it.”
“It was personal, Major.” The edge of the porch bought Loren to a stop. There was a waist-high railing that she tried to slip past but Rourke was too close for her to do it. He stepped closer and aimed his eyes straight into hers. There was the intense feeling of scrutiny that came with his stare. In fact, it was more like a probe, the way his eyes cut into her face. He reached for the railing and curled his fists around it, forming a cage with his body.