Red Blooded (Red Hot & Blue)

by Cat Johnson

  It was because of Jared’s dedication that Jack didn’t feel guilty being away so much.

  Still, he should try to get home more often. It was obvious from the tightness in his chest he missed the place more than he realized.

  Jack pushed the serious thoughts aside and hooked a boot heel on the bottom rail of the white painted fence. “This new mare’s a beauty and the colt looks like a real winner.”

  Leaning on the fence, Jared mirrored Jack’s pose. “Yeah. Good stock, this one. Not that you know winners. If I remember right, you always bet the underdog.”

  Jack smiled. Always betting the underdog had won him a few sizeable payoffs. He didn’t tend to remember all the times he lost.

  “So what brings you home?” Jared turned and picked up Jack’s duffle for him. As Jack followed, Jared carried it toward the house.

  “The head shed got the bright idea that we all needed a few weeks off to recharge or something. But I’ve been wanting to check up on Jimmy anyway. How is he?”

  “Miserable. Old Doc Jackson won’t let him do much of anything, which is killing him. I keep finding him sneaking down here to the stables when Mama’s not looking.”

  Jack laughed. “That sounds like Jimmy.”

  Jared nodded. “Of course, his sudden interest in the horses might have something to do with the new hand I just hired. She’s a looker and man oh man she’s hot enough to heal what ails you. Quiet though and real secretive. Can’t get anything out of her, including where she’s from. But she’s real good with the horses. That’s all that matters to me.”

  His brother’s description of this new hire raised Jack’s suspicions immediately. He’d have to meet this elusive beauty and figure out what she was hiding and why.

  He nearly tripped over his own feet as that thought made him realize a few things. First off, he’d been in special operations too long if he was suspicious of everyone, even a woman he’d never met.

  Second, he obviously wasn’t over Carly yet if his only goal regarding this supposedly sizzling hot woman was to get information out of her instead of getting her out of her clothes.

  Jack followed Jared to the back door and sighed.

  Time. That’s all it would take to move on. Just time.

  Then he caught a whiff of something incredible baking. Maybe time and some of his mama’s pie.

  Speaking of Mama . . . She screamed when she saw him, rushing forward to fling her arms around his neck before she pulled back and slapped him hard on his arm.

  “Why didn’t you call and say you were fixin’ to come home?” She frowned even as she hugged him again. “Sit down. The pie is just out of the oven.”

  He laughed. That was Mama. Not that she was really angry with him for not calling before he came home. But even if she had been, she still would have fed him pie.

  “Thanks, Mama. I was dreaming about your pie the whole drive here.” He sat in the same chair he’d sat in to eat for as long as he could remember and glanced back to where she stood at the counter, knife poised to impale the golden brown piecrust. “So where you got Jimmy stashed? I’m sure he’s drooling by now. It would be just plain cruel not to share with him.”

  “Jimmy can fend for himself. Thank you.”

  Jack looked around to see his Jimmy standing in the doorway, smiling and speaking of himself in the third person. His face still showed the yellow tinge of healing bruises, but he looked good. Way better than he had the last time Jack had seen him, half-dead on a backboard being strapped into a military transport heading for the hospital in Germany.

  Standing, Jack hugged his older brother hard. Too hard, he realized when Jimmy’s breath whooshed out.

  Jimmy winced but tried to dismiss the obvious pain with a crooked grin. “Coupla’ broken ribs.”

  “Jeez, Jimmy. I’m sorry.”

  Slapping Jack hard on the back, Jimmy proved he was okay. “No problem. Bones heal, little brother. We both know that. Now where’s that pie I’ve been smelling for the last half hour?”

  Jimmy walked with a slight but noticeable limp to the table, pulling out his usual chair before easing himself into it. Maybe he was still hurting more than he let on. But he was home and safe and that was good enough for now.

  Jared had already grabbed forks and plates for them all and was sitting waiting for their mother to cut the pie.

  Jack sat between his two brothers at the same oak kitchen table he’d eaten at since he was born. While his mama slid a piece of her famous sweet-potato pie onto one of his grandma’s china plates, he decided the commander had been right. This visit home might be just what he needed.

  CHAPTER 4

  Nicki leaned against the fence, watching the newborn in the corral with his mother. She sighed and tried to pinpoint what she was feeling, finally deciding on a single word to describe it.

  Contentment.

  Finally, for the first time in a month of being on the run, she felt moderately safe, without the weight of heart pounding fear riding her twenty-four-seven.

  Although she feared she would never be truly safe again—not as long as the man she was hiding from still lived and breathed—at least she could allow herself to relax just a little bit here at the farm.

  She was about as far from New York as she could get. Who would think to look for her buried away here in the Deep South on a small horse-breeding farm? Certainly not the thick-necked imbecile she’d run from.

  As long as the Gordon family accepted her without question, and continued to pay her in cash and give her a place to live, she was set. She could drop off the radar indefinitely.

  The colt walked slowly up to the fence and nuzzled her hand. She ran her fingers over him. “You are such a sweetie.”

  “Why, thank you, darlin’.”

  The deep voice caused Nicki to startle. She let out a squeak of fear, spooking the colt. He took off running for his mother.

  She spun to look at the stranger, heart thundering until she saw his face. He was so much like the other two Gordon brothers, right down to the way he stood and talked, she knew who he was immediately.

  Relieved, and feeling a little silly for thinking her enemies could have found her, she smiled in greeting. “You must be Jack.”

  He raised a brow. “I must be. It seems you know me, but who might you be, darlin’?”

  Mmm, mmm. How she loved the way southern men talked. So much nicer than the horrid accents she’d grown up around in New York. The accents from the five boroughs of New York City and Long Island made her cringe. But a southern man could practically make a girl’s panties fall right off just by talking to her.

  She nearly shook herself to regain her senses. She was in hiding. This was no time to be thinking about romance, or sex, or whatever this feeling was that Jack caused deep inside her in places long dormant. Besides that, this particular Gordon man was only here temporarily from what she’d heard.

  Good thing too. He was much too yummy and tempting to have around for very long. She sure did like the way he called her darlin’ though.

  “I’m Nicki.” She offered him her hand.

  His handshake was warm and slow. But then, everything in the south seemed warm and slow. Nicki imagined what else might be warm and slow with Jack.

  “Nicki . . .” He apparently wanted her to elaborate.

  She scrambled to provide the false name she’d settled on when she’d first come to the farm. “Camp. Nicki Camp.”

  The guilt of the lie hit her hard.

  Did it show as obviously on her face as it felt on her tongue? If it did sound like a lie to him, the expression on Jack’s face didn’t show it.

  He was still holding her hand in his big, strong one when he crooned, “Nice to meet you, Nicki Camp.”

  Slightly shaky, she pulled her hand back and then glanced up at his face again. His hair was golden brown like his brothers, but Jack’s hazel eyes had more green in them and flecks of gold.

  Stop it, Niccolina.

  She had to remi
nd herself she was in no position to be checking this guy out. No matter how cute and charming he was.

  “So what brings you here to our little town of Pigeon Hollow, Miss Nicki Camp? Because you sure don’t sound like you’re a local girl.”

  Nicki considered her answer carefully. She didn’t think she had a typical New York accent. As a teenager, she’d worked damn hard to make sure of that. It had been important to her then because she’d wanted to sound more sophisticated.

  It was even more important now. It was a matter of life and death that no one knew where she was from. But Jack was right. She didn’t sound like someone born south of the Mason-Dixon line. She didn’t think she could pull off sounding like a native southerner no matter how long she worked down here.

  “Oh, you know. I’m just traveling around. Seeing the country.” Yeah, that didn’t sound too lame.

  He took one step closer, and she resisted the urge to take a step back as he towered over her.

  “Well, I sure am glad you decided to settle here for a bit during your travels.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling.

  Nicki felt her cheeks warm at the attention. Another few minutes of this onslaught of charm and Nicki didn’t know what she’d do.

  Thank goodness, Jared chose that moment to interrupt them. Otherwise, she might have swooned like in all those old movies where the southern gentleman made the belle of the ball faint from sheer charm alone.

  “Steer clear of my help before you scare her away.” Jared shot Jack a stern look, and then smiled and winked in her direction.

  She decided to make a joke of her own and get the hell out of there before Jack wedged her any more between him and the fence. “Not much scares me, except my boss finding me loafing around not doing my job. I better get back to it.”

  Jared laughed. “Yeah, I’m such a tough boss. But actually, I do have something I’d like you to take a look at. One of the boys just told me old Bucky is lying down in the pasture and won’t get up. He said he noticed Bucky limping for the last few days. I was just on my way out there if you want to come with me.”

  Old Bucky was an apt name for the animal. The horse had to be thirty-five if he was a day, but he was sweet. Nicki hated the thought that anything might be wrong with him.

  “I learned how to ride on Bucky.” Jack joined them as they started walking.

  She could see by the concern on Jack’s face that he loved the horse as much as his brother did.

  “We all did, even Jimmy. But he’s old now, Jack. We have to face the fact it might be time . . .” Jared let the sentence trail off. No one there needed him to spell out what it might be time for. “I haven’t called the vet yet. I want to check him out for myself first.”

  They reached the pasture and found Bucky lying right out in the middle under the hot sun. Nicki approached slowly, speaking softly to him. She saw him watching her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t make a move to get up.

  She leaned down and stroked his neck. “What’s wrong, old guy?”

  The whites of his eyes were showing. He wasn’t happy about the three of them hovering over him, but he wasn’t getting up either.

  Nicki dropped to her knees and noticed the two men hanging back, watching her.

  If they were testing her to see if she knew what she was doing when it came to horses, she had nothing to worry about.

  Her daddy raised racehorses on a farm on Long Island. She’d spent every weekend and every summer in his barns or at the stalls at the racetrack. She didn’t know much about a lot of things, but she knew horses.

  Nicki leaned low and pressed her ear against Bucky’s side. She listened and then straightened up. “I’m hearing plenty of belly noises. It’s not colic or an obstruction. Jared, you said the guys saw him limping?”

  “Yup.” Jared nodded.

  Nicki ran her hands down each of Bucky’s four legs, all the while under the watchful eyes of the three males—those being the two Gordon men and Bucky. She got to the last foot and stopped.

  She drew in a breath of relief. “His hoof has a hot spot. I’m betting it’s an abscess. It hurts him to stand. That’s why he’s down and it would explain why he’s lame.”

  Standing, she brushed the dirt from the knees of her jeans. Jared walked over, bent and felt the hoof for himself.

  He shook his head as he squatted down to pat Bucky’s neck. “I thought it looked like that new blacksmith cut his hooves too short.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t like the way he handled the horses either. The infection will have to work its way out, but at least you won’t have to call the vet to put Bucky down.”

  Jared stood. “You’re right about that. That makes you employee of the day.” He grinned. “You just earned yourself the rest of the day off.”

  “Thanks, Jared. That’s really not necessary.” What would she do with a day off? It’s not like she had friends to visit. Or even a car to go anywhere. “I would like to see if we could get him up and in a stall though. He’ll be more comfortable out of the hot sun.”

  Nicki was trying to ignore the fact that Jack was standing just off to the side, watching her much too closely. Cute or not, this Gordon was a bit too observant for her liking.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, he wandered closer. “You know your stuff. Where’d a northerner like you learn so much about horses?”

  Shit.

  Deciding offense was the best defense she cocked up one brow. “First of all, who said I was a northerner? Second, there are horses in other parts of the country besides the south, you know.”

  With that, she escaped any further discussion into her background.

  Coaxing Bucky into getting up worked well to distract them all. It took all three of them, along with lots of shouting and butt slapping—Bucky’s butt, not hers—to get him up and moving, though slowly, toward the barn.

  Once they settled him in the stall, he lay down on the fresh wood shavings Nicki had put in that morning after cleaning the stalls.

  Jared made one more offer for her to take the remainder of the day off and this time she agreed. She needed to get away from Jack and his probing stare.

  She asked to borrow a truck and headed into town with the excuse that she had errands to run. But her main errand was to avoid Jack.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jack watched as Nicki sped out of the drive in one of the Gordon Equine pick-up trucks. She was a cute one, just like Jared had said, and she was also lying.

  Oh, yeah, she knew horses all right. Her performance with Bucky had proven that. But it had been pretty obvious that was exactly what she’d been trying to do—prove herself by performing for them both.

  She’d also successfully avoided answering any of Jack’s questions about why she was there and where she’d come from. Her accent screamed northerner to him, most likely New York, although she tried to hide it.

  He would bet the farm that Nicki Camp was not her real name. She was not only a liar. She was a darn poor one at that. The way she hesitated before answering his questions. Her avoidance of direct eye contact. Her evasiveness. It all screamed deception.

  At least it did to Jack, who’d been trained to not only lie, but to spot lies in others.

  The worst part was Jared didn’t seem to notice or care.

  A horrible thought struck Jack. “Jared, what do you think about this Nicki?”

  Jared turned from where he’d been setting up a fan to blow into Bucky’s stall so the flies wouldn’t bother him. “I think she knows her stuff and I’m damn lucky to have her. Why?”

  “You, ah, into her? On a personal level, I mean.” It was bad enough to have someone who was so obviously hiding something working for his family and living on their property to boot. But if his little brother had a thing for her, it would be even worse when they found out what she was hiding.

  Jared’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

  Jack breathed out in exasperation. “Can’t you just answer a question?”

  “Can’
t you?” Jared glared back.

  Jack bit the side of his mouth to stop from laying into his annoying little brother. He regrouped. No use getting Jared upset now. Jack could investigate this girl on his own, then tell Jared about it later when he found out what was what.

  “A man doesn’t steal his brother’s girl.” Jack smiled at his brother and lied through his teeth. “I just need to know where you stand when it comes to Nicki. I’m going to be here for a few weeks. A man can make a lot of progress in that time.”

  Jared broke into a wide grin. “Well, it’s about time you showed some interest in a nice girl for a change after some of those cheerleaders you dated back in high school. Thank God you didn’t marry any of them. No, I’m not interested in Nicki that way. I decided the day I hired her that it would be wrong to date an employee. Besides, there’s a little filly in town I’ve been um . . . seeing lately.”

  Jack smiled, happy for his brother and his filly, but even more relieved that Jared hadn’t fallen for Nicki. “What about Jimmy? You said he’s sneaking down here a lot.”

  Jared shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him about that. Could be he just has cabin fever from being cooped up for so long. Go for it with Nicki if you want. You’ve got my blessing. Just don’t do anything that’ll make her quit on me. She’s too good to lose.” He turned back to Bucky and shook his head. “To think I was ready to put him down and it’s only an abscess.”

  Jack was grateful about that too, but even more resolved to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.

  He stepped out of the barn while Jared stayed inside talking to one of the men.

  Outside and out of earshot, Jack pulled out his cell phone. Scrolling through his contact list, he found the name of the one man most likely to deliver the answers he needed and fast. He hit the button and listened to the ringing and the eventual, “Hello.”

  “Hey, Matt. How you doing?”

  Matt replied with a groan. “I’m bored as hell on this damn furlough, that’s how I’m doing. What about you?”