We. Progress. The lady was admitting he was staying.
"And if we take off, what's to keep these guys from following? I've seen the movies, and thanks, but I don't want to get caught in an open cornfield in the middle of nowhere with a plane chasing me—"
"That's not going to happen."
"Or in the middle of a crowd where someone grabs me, anyway."
"Knowing who's a stranger and who's not, that makes sense," he said.
"You're agreeing with me?"
Her tone sounded so incredulous that he nearly laughed. "To a point. Whether we stay or whether we go, I can't keep you safe unless some things change."
"Like what?"
"Like you're not out of my sight."
She shook her head and stared at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. And maybe he had. He hadn't been able to get that kiss out of his mind. The way she stared at him, he knew damn well she hadn't forgotten about it, either. Get within twenty feet of her and the temperature rose. Add close and constant proximity to the mix, and he'd have more than enough to test his discipline and his resolve. All he had to do was keep the vow he'd made to himself—this job came first, and no matter how alluring, she was off-limits. He could do this. He hadn't earned the nickname Iron Man for nothing.
He continued as though he hadn't even noticed her dissent. "Like we make sure that no one gets into your house—not through a broken screen or a glass front door." He paused and met her gaze straight on. "Like you do what I say."
She managed a laugh that she hoped covered her dismay. "That will never work. I'm—"
"A control freak."
"I'm not."
He grinned and glanced around the room. It was so immaculate they could have eaten off the floor, but she seemed oblivious to the fact that she had meticulously cleaned the entire downstairs of the house during the last hour.
"Okay, maybe you have a point."
His grin faded. "These guys proved just how serious they are—not once but three times. If we're to have any chance—"
"I'm no good at blindly following directions."
"I'm not asking for blind. Are you familiar with the buddy system?" he asked.
"Sure. From my first year in Girl Scouts," she said.
"That's what we are. Buddies. Partners. You know the terrain and who's a stranger and who isn't. I know tactics and safety and weapons. Complementary strengths."
"But when you say 'jump' that's what you'll expect."
He nodded. "Probably, but if there's time to explain, I will." He glanced at his watch. "Morning is going to be here pretty damn early. We should go to bed."
Her eyes clouded and she shook her head. "I still keep seeing that guy—"
"Maybe a nightcap."
"No. Drinking to relax … I don't do that."
Jack figured there was more to the story than her simple statement. "Then let's go sit down in the living room." The couch in there looked comfortable enough to get her relaxed, maybe even to the point where she'd fall asleep.
"And watch TV?" She managed a laugh, though he could see a shimmer of tears in her eyes.
"Then play chess with me. I saw that you have a set."
"Only the most boring game in the world." Despite the declaration, she headed for the living room.
"Good. Nothing like boredom to make you sleepy."
Once there, she looked around, her mouth tightening when her gaze lit on the empty shelves of the entertainment unit.
She glanced around the room. "There's going to be a lot to do tomorrow. Call the insurance agent. Go talk to my supervisor."
"You sound like you're dreading that." Jack said.
"Like a toothache, but the sooner I get it over with, the better."
At the top of Jack's list was installing a security system. Dahlia handed him a wooden box that looked handmade. He opened the lid and found hand-carved pieces nestled against dark-blue velvet. The stylized figures were unusual, depicting Native Americans but no tribe he was familiar with.
"My dad and my uncle loved the game," she said. "I never got good enough to understand it." Her eyes clouded as she glanced at the blank shelves. "My favorite CDs were in the player. Geez."
"Then maybe this was a bad idea."
"Were you ever robbed?"
Jack met her eyes. "Yeah." She stared at him as though waiting for him to explain, so he added, "I grew up in a trailer park in Oklahoma City. Just my mom and me. It was almost like they knew when she had bought a new TV because we wouldn't have it more than a month and somebody would break-in and steal it. Sometimes they took other stuff, but it was usually just the television or my stereo."
"Does she still live there?" Dahlia asked.
"Not in the trailer park anymore, but still in Oklahoma City." He set the box of chess pieces back onto the shelf. Like everything else in the room, the set had been dusted. Next to the chess board were several photo albums. Curious, he pulled one off the shelf and opened it.
She took a step closer to him and tapped one of the faces, an old man who looked Native American.
"My uncle Ross," she said. "He made this set, gave it to my dad, and when I moved here, my dad gave it to me." Her eyes took on a shimmer. "He said it would remind me of home."
"And it does."
"Yeah." She moved away from him and sat down on the couch.
"What brought you to Colorado? It's a long way from Alaska."
"Lightning," she simply said. "I wanted to study lightning, and the two best places are Florida and Colorado. Florida was too far away from home."
Jack wasn't sure whether talking about her family would make her feel better or worse, but since she had averred that chess was a boring game, he asked her about the photographs, taking the album to the couch where he sat down. Sitting next to him, she relaxed little by little over the next hour. She told him about her Tlingit relatives, Alaskan natives who carved totems and were Russian Orthodox, converted by Russian missionaries before the area was purchased by the United States. There were pictures of her and her sisters on the fishing boat, at school activities and playing with one another on a tire swing that hung from a huge tree. Through all the stories came her genuine caring for her family, both immediate and extended.
Next to his mom, his grandpa had been Jack's only family. While growing up, he hadn't realized just how lucky he was until after the old man died. His mom's care was unconventional. "Benevolent neglect," she had called it after reading an article somewhere. She'd never nagged him about school. But she'd never come to any of the football games that he had played, either, since she worked nights. Without his grandpa, he might never have developed any discipline.
"We never played the chess game," she said sleepily sometime later. She had propped herself against the corner of the sofa, and she looked on the verge of going to sleep. "What happened with your knee?" Before he could answer. "Not tonight. Before."
Since the injury represented everything painful about the decisions he needed to make soon, it was the last thing he wanted to talk about. Finally he grinned and gave her what he hoped would be an end to the questions. "Old Army injury."
She smiled. "Ah. The mysterious Army injury to make the girls swoon."
He smiled in return. "Damn straight. Is it working?"
"I don't swoon." Sleepiness softened her voice, slurred her words. "Seriously, what happened?"
"Shattered the joint," he said. "For most things it will do just fine for me." Most things didn't include jumping out of airplanes, fast drops from a Black Hawk or carrying a hundred pounds of equipment up a mountain. He hated knowing that his days as an active Ranger were numbered, hated even more that he physically couldn't do the job he loved. He didn't know how to tell her any of that, so he just watched her as her body subtly relaxed and she edged more fully toward sleep.
A few minutes later her gaze focused on him once again. "You're a nice man, Jack Trahern."
He'd been called a lot of things. Another woman's voice ech
oed through his head. You're so nice, Jack. I knew I could trust you. After he'd discovered how thoroughly she had betrayed him, he knew it was true—nice guys finish last. He'd made a point to never again be known as "nice," which showed how little Dahlia really knew.
Her eyes closed and he sat there for a long time watching her sleep. When this morning had begun, he never imagined that the day would be so eventful or the woman so alluring. He was responsible for keeping her safe, and he would. But how in the world was he going to keep himself safe from her?
* * *
"I'm paying you for results," came the whispery, now-familiar voice over the phone line, "not the failures you've given me so far."
"Somebody else is botching things up," Max Jamison returned. He didn't like these daily check-ins, and he still wasn't sure if it was Franklin Lawrence on the phone or one of his henchmen. Either way the man was as good as dead, because Max would be coming after him after this job was finished. "Ms. Jensen's house was burglarized tonight, which could make getting in a whole lot harder."
"I know about the burglary."
"You hired someone to break into her house," he stated.
"They came much closer to accomplishing the objectives of this project than you have, Mr. Jamison." There was a deliberate pause. "The rules have changed, Max. If they succeed at securing the prize before you do … they'll be coming after you when they're finished with Dr. Jensen." Another deliberate pause. "But not before I visit your sister. Do you understand the situation?"
"Completely," Max said, and broke the connection.
* * *
Chapter 6
« ^ »
Dahlia punched off the alarm, feeling as though she had just fallen asleep. By rote she forced herself to swing her feet over the edge of the bed and get up. She'd prefer to roll over and go back to sleep for another two or three hours, the reaction she had most mornings. During the past year she'd had an eight-o'clock class, so sleeping in was rarely a choice. No class this morning, she knew, but there was still the daily preparation for watching the storms—more than enough to keep her busy until the midday storms developed.
Pulling her hair away from her face, she opened the door and padded down the hallway to the bathroom.
She came to a complete halt. The clean aroma of shaving cream hit her the instant before she saw him. Jack stood in front of the sink clad only in a pair of faded Levi's. He had a tan line, she noticed, as yesterday's memories crashed around her. Most vivid, though, were those hours after the cops left. He had helped her clean up, then relaxed enough to fall asleep on the couch. She'd thought she was dreaming when he'd carried her to bed and tucked her in. And here he was … looking better than he had in her dreams.
Jack scraped the razorblade through the lather under his chin, a fact she noted in the mirror even as her attention shifted to the play of muscle in his back. He didn't look all that tired, even though she was pretty sure he'd had less sleep than she had.
"I'll be out of here in a second," he said.
She intended to reply, instead found herself caught in the intimate act of watching him shave. There wasn't anything particularly sexy about it, but each scrape of the blade across his skin made her remember how good it had smelled when he had kissed her. Her nipples tightened at that thought.
Then she realized he had noticed her reaction, his gaze in the reflection on her chest. Their eyes met, and she felt a jolt of connection so strong they might as well have touched.
Her mantra echoed through her head—You have rotten taste in men, remember?—and she looked away. If she had remembered he was here, she would have dressed or at least put on a robe. Annoyed with herself that she was sending out signals she could have prevented, she turned away.
Raking a hand through her hair, she said, "I'm, uh, going to let the dog out."
And she fled down the stairs. One of Jack's warnings echoed through her head, and she carefully studied the backyard and her patio before opening the door. Only when she was assured that no one was in the yard did she open the door so Boo could go outside.
She leaned her head against the screen. Her strongest urge was to go back upstairs and act on the heat she saw in the man's eyes. Satisfy the longing. Except she knew from experience that she wouldn't be able to keep her heart out of it.
Upstairs Jack reminded himself he was here for a job as he wiped the last of the lather off his face. Kissing her yesterday had been neon-sign stupid. Instead of satisfying his curiosity, it had ignited a hunger that threatened his self-control.
"Focus," he muttered. "Stop being a horny jerk, give the lady the space she needs, and keep your mind on the job."
Three attempts, three misses. These guys were smart enough to make him worry. No real supporting evidence with the first two, and the third looked like a simple burglary. The investigating officer had listened to Jack, made lots of notes and promised to pass on his concerns to a detective. Jack didn't like admitting it, but the police would need more to go on than what they had so far. Jack didn't doubt another attempt would be made, which meant that he needed more sophisticated help than the noise-making booby traps he'd laid before stretching out on the couch for an hour.
He came down the stairs after pulling on a T-shirt and was met by Boo in the hallway. She had a tennis ball in her mouth, which she dropped at his feet. He gave it a gentle toss toward the kitchen, and the dog scrambled after it.
He hated how much he anticipated being with Dahlia and the temptation of her siren's body. When he came into the kitchen, she was wearing a pair of long knit baggy pants and a loose T-shirt. He hadn't heard her come back upstairs, so she'd evidently visited the rack of clean clothes next to the washer in the basement again. The attire was more modest than the shorty pajamas, but he still imagined how she would look without her clothes. He had the feeling that she'd be alluring to him if she was completely hidden by an abayah like those covering the women in Islamic countries where he had been briefly stationed. His fixation annoyed him, and for the thousandth time since yesterday he reminded himself there was more to the woman than her body.
She was on the phone with her back to him, the receiver tucked under one ear as she polished the already spotless chrome on the sink faucet. A sign of nervousness, he thought. Or maybe an unconscious desire to assert control over some aspect of her life. He had turned to meticulous cabinet-making for that very reason—a hobby that he had too little time for.
"No, I'd rather not get into it over the phone," she said, then a moment later, "Okay, then. I'll see you at nine." She hung up the phone and glanced over her shoulder at him. "I need to go see my boss this morning." She didn't quite meet his eyes, and he wondered at the underlying tension in her voice.
"I'm going with you."
"I sort of figured." She reached for her cup of coffee.
"When you're finished there, we're going shopping, then you can help me install an alarm system."
"I—"
"This isn't open for discussion." He stared her down, half wanting to argue with her, a release for the tension and the frustration that swirled between them.
She met his gaze unflinchingly and he waited for the kind of retort that she had repeatedly given him the day before.
To his surprise she finally nodded and opted for a neutral "Thanks for making coffee."
An hour later he sat with her as they waited outside the office of D. H. Layard, Ph.D., Professor. To Jack's complete surprise, Dahlia fidgeted. Yesterday she had been so calm through everything that he hadn't imagined a simple meeting would make her so nervous. Her boss would have to be a complete ogre not to understand the loss of the computer wasn't her fault—assuming that was what Dahlia was afraid of.
The area in front of the office was a wide balcony that overlooked a bank of windows. To the west were snow-covered mountains—in stark contrast to the plains to the east. Mostly to get Dahlia's mind off the wait, he asked her how the terrain played into weather. The ploy worked, and she launched int
o an explanation of cold-air flows and low-pressure systems from Canada, the jet stream and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico that he understood despite his aversion to anything having to do with thunderstorms.
A well-dressed woman in full business regalia and carrying a slim briefcase appeared at the top of the stairs and came toward them. Her gaze sharpened when it lit on him, the way a woman's did when she liked looking at a man. He studied her in return, thinking her formal suit, carefully styled pale-blond hair and flawless makeup were far more pretentious than anything else he'd seen on campus. She was in her mid to late fifties and had the wide-eyed taut expression he recognized from his mother's face-lift. Her lips curved into a slight smile of invitation, the sway of her hips exaggerated just enough to convey all the right signals that she was interested. She might be, but he wasn't.
Dahlia stopped talking and turned around.
The other woman's expression tightened fractionally when her gaze lit on Dahlia, and the warmth slid off her face. Dahlia's boss? When she glanced back at Jack, it was no longer with interest but with a certain disapproval that made him wonder what she was thinking.
"Dr. Jensen," she said. "I see you're on time."
Dahlia was used to the censure so often present in Doreen's voice, but hearing the statement as Jack might, she inwardly cringed.
"That is why I'm here, Doreen." She rose to her feet and managed a smile. "I won't take much of your time."
Doreen unlocked the door and pushed it open, then turned to Jack. "You're not here to see me, too?"
Jack stood and offered his hand. "No. I'm with Dah … Dr. Jensen. Jack Trahern."
"Of course you are." She gave Jack's hand a perfunctory shake and nodded for Dahlia to follow her into the office.
Dahlia glanced at Jack. "I shouldn't be more than a few minutes."
"Take your time." He sat down on one of the chairs.
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