Still, his imagination soared. In the living room he imagined being sprawled across the couch with her. In the kitchen he fantasized about pinning her against the counter and her long legs wrapped around him. Even the hardwood floor in her office seemed appealing. And that huge bed in her bedroom—that most of all.
If she had shown the slightest indication she was interested, he would have been all over her. God knew what had prompted him to tell her that his mother was a stripper. After that true confession, she probably wanted nothing to do with him, especially since he had confessed that he mistrusted her on something as stupid as her body. Like she could change it.
There were only two interruptions. The first was from the insurance company when the agent came by to get the inventory list and case number that the police had assigned. The second was from Doreen, a call that Jack took since Dahlia was still with the insurance agent.
"I don't really want to trouble Dahlia," Doreen said in a tone that made him think trouble was exactly what she intended. "You'll give her my message, won't you?"
"Of course," Jack said.
"It's such a terrible thing that's happened to her. It really is. But my hands are tied."
"How so?" Jack asked after her dramatic pause.
"I've spoken with Dr. Worth, the head of the department, and he was very concerned about Dahlia's actions. After being on probation—"
"What kind of probation?" He had visions of criminal court.
"With her job. Oh, I thought she would have told you about that horrible episode with the thefts two years ago."
Her job—that kind of probation. Bad, but minor compared to what had zipped through his brain. Doreen certainly had a knack for the dramatic. Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and sat down. "Doreen. May I call you Doreen?"
"Certainly."
"Just spell out what you're tying to tell me."
"About the thefts?"
"The reason for this call."
"Oh, yes. That. Where was I? Oh, yes. I spoke with Dr. Worth, and he's of the opinion that now is a very bad time for Dahlia to take any time off."
"Even if it puts her safety, perhaps even her life, in jeopardy?"
"There's nothing but Dahlia's word about that."
"I was with her when all this happened yesterday," Jack said. "You have a bit more than her word."
"Do I?" Doreen paused. "I've known her a long time, and I hate to tell you this, but she has a way of deflecting responsibility from herself. It's so much easier to blame others, don't you think?"
"So I've been told."
"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, Jack, especially since I don't know you, but I believe that you've probably been misled."
"I doubt it." He shifted the receiver to his other ear. "Let me make sure that I've got this straight, plain and simple. If Dahlia takes time off for the next couple of weeks, she loses her job. Is that right?"
"In all likelihood…"
"Yes or no, Doreen." Getting a straight answer out of a politician would be easier.
"If you must put it that way," she said, "then, yes."
"Okay. I'll tell Dahlia." And he hung up the phone without waiting to hear if the woman had anything else to say. He intensely disliked the unspoken accusations that ran through the conversation. Dahlia had been involved with a theft. Dahlia had done something that resulted in being placed on probation with her job. Dahlia blamed others for her actions. Granted, he'd only known her a day, but none of it rang true.
And yet you're willing to believe she had lovers. Lots of them. Jack scowled, knowing how stupid he was to put any stock in some of the accusations but not the others.
He passed on to Dahlia a short version of Doreen's message—she would lose her job if she took time off. She took the news better than he expected, simply saying that she wasn't surprised.
By late afternoon they had the alarm system installed and tested. It did the job for now, he informed her, adding that she needed to get it hooked up with a monitoring company so the fire department or police would be notified if there were any problems.
Emmet knocked on the back door just as they were finishing up, asking how he could be of assistance.
"You can have a glass of ice tea with me," Dahlia told him, pointing him toward a chair next to the kitchen table. "Jack is a slave driver, and we've got it all finished."
"Then I'm just in time to see the video of your niece," Emmet said.
Her smile faltered. "Unfortunately not. The television and VCR were two of the things stolen last night."
"Well, why didn't you say so, gal? You can come watch it at my house."
"That's a good idea," Jack said. He put away the last of his tools in the toolbox. "And, it will give us a chance to test the system."
"You already—"
"Why don't you get the tape?" Jack interrupted. She hadn't said much the past couple of hours. As they worked, she had become more quiet as if installing the system increased her fear rather than alleviated it. If the way she jumped at strange sounds and checked windows at the front of the house several times per hour were any indication, she was wound up tighter than a brand-new spring. Something ordinary to take her mind off things would be a good change of pace.
She retrieved the cassette from the living room, then followed him, Emmet and Boo out of the house after he set the alarm.
As they came around to the front of the house, Jack felt as much as heard the loud reverberation of car speakers at the end of the block. Next to him Dahlia tensed. He glanced toward the end of the block where several teenagers were gathered around a blue convertible.
He wrapped his hand around one of hers, which felt cold, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She glanced up at him, and he half expected her to have some smart retort and pull away. She didn't. So he laced his fingers through hers and strolled across the lawn with her as though they were a couple. It was an idea that he liked.
"I've never seen so many rosebushes in a private yard," he said to Emmet. "What got you started?"
"My wife liked them," he said. "She's been gone for fifteen years now, but I grow them for her."
"They're really something," Jack said, wishing he had a better response to the wistful tone in the old man's voice.
"You should see them in midsummer," Dahlia said. "As soon as you turn the corner, you can smell their fragrance."
Emmet climbed the steps to his front door. "Mrs. Chikov says they give her hay fever." He held the door open and motioned for them to come in.
"That gives her a reason to talk to you and make you those pies you're so fond of," Dahlia said.
"It would be downright rude to turn her down," Emmet said.
Jack chuckled. "Did you say pie? I want to meet this woman."
"A man's favorite thing," Dahlia said.
Jack glanced at her, urging her through the door ahead of him. "Not mine," he said softly. She blushed as though she understood perfectly what his favorite thing was. After he came through the door, he latched the hook.
It took a few minutes to get settled, Emmet insisting on making them iced tea and feeding dog biscuits to Boo. The dog pranced around him, then obediently sat when he fed her.
The living room was as old-fashioned as the rest of the house, and pictures of a pair of boys covered every available surface.
"Your grandsons?" Jack asked.
"Who are all grown up," Emmet said. "One's in the Navy and one's studying law." He pointed toward the VCR on a shelf behind the television. "Just what we need. Another lawyer."
"Don't let him fool you," Dahlia said. "He's proud of both of those boys."
Dahlia handed over the package to Jack. He inserted the tape into the player and sat down beside her. Emmet settled into a recliner, and Boo jumped onto his lap as though she had done so many times.
"Hi, Auntie Dahlia. It's me, Annmarie," a little girl said from the screen of the television. She waved at the surf behind her. "Mom and me, we're at the beach today." The vide
o was evidently shot over several weeks, some scenes from various locations—from a park to the playground at Annmarie's school and inside a house that subtly reminded Jack of Dahlia's.
The child was blond, and she had a lot of family resemblance to Dahlia, which suggested to Jack that Dahlia probably looked a lot like her sister, Annmarie's mother.
Dahlia watched avidly, laughing softly at the child's antics and listening intently as she talked about going to story hour and learning to play hopscotch. Jack liked watching Dahlia, and he especially liked hearing her laugh. Some forty-five minutes later the tape ended.
"She looks real chipper." Emmet scratched Boo's ears. "It's always good to see a happy child."
"Can't argue with that." Jack went to the VCR to take the tape out. He was putting the cassette back into its sleeve when he noticed a piece of paper folded inside, which he handed to Dahlia. "Looks like you got a letter, too."
She took it. "Now that is a surprise. Lily is great with phone calls, but she's even less of a letter writer than I am." She opened up the sheet and began reading. Her eyes darkened, became concerned, then she backed to the couch where she sat down. A few moments later she silently handed over the letter to him.
"Bad news?" Emmet asked, standing up.
"Not bad," Dahlia said. "Just a little … strange." Jack scanned the letter:
Hey, sweet sister,
By the time you receive this package my little Annmarie will be in Alaska paying Rosie a visit. My neighbor, Ian Stearne, is taking her for me. You remember him, don't you? I know you're probably wondering why I'm staying here. Wish I could tell you, and I promise that I will, but right now I can't. I know it all sounds very mysterious, but it's not. Well, not really. If you need to reach me for some reason, Ian will know how to get hold of me. I'll be in touch soonest, Dahlia. In the meantime take good care of yourself and stay away from the lightning.
Love, Lily.
"Do you know Dahlia's sister?" Emmet asked.
"No," Jack said, "but her neighbor is my best friend. The letter says that they've gone to Alaska to visit Dahlia's other sister."
"Now there's a place I'd like to visit sometime."
Dahlia stood. "And who'd take care of your roses?" She kissed the old man on the cheek. "Thanks for letting us use your VCR. It's getting late, and we really do have to go."
He kissed her back. "Don't be a stranger. Either of you."
From Emmet's front stoop, Jack surveyed the street in front of them. The parked cars were all those he had seen the evening before. It had gotten dark enough while they were in Emmet's house that the motion-sensitive lights that he had installed on the front of Dahlia's house came on as soon as Boo ran across the lawn.
She smiled at him. "Things are working."
"So far, so good."
"I am glad to have the alarm system in," she said as they came up the side of the house and through the carport. "Maybe we'll both get some sleep tonight."
"Maybe," Jack agreed.
"I'll make up the bed in the guest room," she said.
"Thanks."
"You can do something in return," she said, casually bumping his arm with her elbow. She waited for him to look at her. "You can cook. I'm starved."
"You don't cook?"
"Not unless you consider nuked food-in-a-box cooking."
He laughed. "Okay. I'll cook."
They turned the corner to the back of the house. Boo already stood in front of the back door waiting to be let in. Dahlia got out her key to open the door. Jack's gaze went to one of the motion detectors that he had installed near the top of the door. He had added an electronic switch to this one that turned on a small blinking light if motion was detected on the porch and below the range of the security light. He and Dahlia hadn't come into its range yet … and the light was blinking.
"Stop," Jack softly said to her. He pointed to the light. He had explained what each component did as they installed them, so he knew she remembered, especially after she frowned. So much for getting her relaxed.
He pulled his weapon from under his shirt and took Dahlia's hand, tucking her behind him. Standing next to the wall, he peered inside. Everything looked just as they had left it.
Jack took the key from Dahlia's hand and unlocked the door. They slipped inside and closed the door. The light on the newly installed control panel showed that the system was still armed. Jack punched in the code to turn it off, then reset the code so the exterior of the house was still protected.
Boo went immediately to her water dish, lapped some up, then sat down and looked expectantly at them. Seeing how nervous and upset the dog had been last night, Jack was pretty sure that no one was in the house. Still, he was taking no chances.
"I'm going to check upstairs," he said against her ear. "You stay put. Got it?"
She nodded.
He moved swiftly through the house, checking the living room and her office. They were empty. Upstairs everything was as they had left it. He went to the basement.
Since it was one large open room, there was no place for anyone to hide. Jack checked each of the windows. They looked fine. Something didn't seem right, though, so he checked again, this time inspecting each of the contacts that he had installed in the windows.
One of them had been shorted out. Jack double-checked the lock to make sure it was still in place, then looked again at the contact. He supposed the problem could be a manufacturer's defect, but he wasn't buying it.
He backed away from the window, then noticed a hairline crack that came across the glass at a diagonal. He stared at it trying to remember, sure that he would have noticed if it had been there this afternoon. He pressed his thumb against the glass, half expecting it to break away from the rest of the window. It didn't.
That didn't keep him from thinking that someone had scored the window with a glass cutter, then had broke through the window, shorted the contact and somehow put the broken glass back in place. Dahlia might want more tangible evidence, but Jack trusted his gut that he was right.
Someone had been in the yard while they were at Emmet's, someone who thought they had found a way to enter the house without setting off the alarm system.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
"We're going to be in for a long, boring day," Dahlia said the next morning. Ahead, the sun had just crested the horizon and was blinding bright through the windshield. The light against her eyes felt gritty, no doubt because she hadn't slept worth a darn for the second night in a row. Though she wasn't a morning person, she normally loved the first spears of the sun as it came over the horizon, its buttery brilliance so different from the misty night - gradually - becoming - day sunrises that she had grown up with in Alaska's rainforest.
"If we're lucky," Jack agreed from the passenger seat of her van. His gaze, hidden behind the reflective sunglasses, roved all around them.
She suspected that he referred to the WBKs—as she had begun thinking of her would-be kidnappers—but said, "You make it sound like you hope I'm not right about the track the storms will take today."
Better to think about the storms than about the rifle and the shotgun that Jack had put on the floor between the bucket seats before they set off this morning. She knew little about weapons, and she was sure these were not the average hunting guns. Instead of the usual oak or walnut stocks and engraved metal around the trigger she was used to seeing, these weapons were black and lethal looking, and the rifle had a scope attached. There was nothing ornamental about either one.
Jack's mood this morning was a continuation of the one he'd had since returning from Emmet Masters's house last night—watchful, alert, focused … deadly somehow, though she couldn't have explained why she thought so. Even while he had cooked dinner—a delicious concoction of his leftover chicken, vegetables he'd found in her freezer, thrown together with pasta, Parmesan cheese and olive oil—he had seemed every inch the warrior. She was reminded of a movie she had seen once where the co
ok on a battleship turned out to be a lethal soldier who had saved the day. Never had she imagined she would find that man in her life.
How did Jack calmly pick up a weapon and show the kind of deadly intent he had yesterday, as if he would use it if required? She didn't know if it was a testosterone thing or something else, but she didn't understand it. She didn't want to understand it.
Jack hadn't gone to bed last night until hours after she had closed her bedroom door, and—drat the man—he didn't look tired at all. She'd heard him wander around the house, and she had been tempted to go see what he was doing. Instead, she had stayed in her room behind a closed door, positive that either the attraction or an argument would flare between them. Of the two, an argument was far safer. Of the two, she couldn't stop imagining what making love with him would be like.
Even when they managed to work together toward a common end as they had yesterday afternoon, she was still intensely aware of him. It took every ounce of discipline to keep from staring at him. From the shape of his hands to his tight butt to his killer dimple, he was everything attractive to her … and everything dangerous to her peace of mind.
With effort she reminded herself that he was here for a job. A favor for a friend—that was all. As soon as Lily testified, Jack would be back to his life, so acting on the attraction would be stupid when it couldn't possibly go anywhere.
Or it could be perfect. No future, no past, no strings, just now. Who cares if he's bad for you if today is all there is? She had drawn every reserve of discipline to keep from acting on the attraction. Every time the man looked at her, she felt her temperature rise, bringing with it the memory of his kiss. She had been so tempted to tell him that he didn't have to sleep on the twin bed in the guest room, a bed that was too small for her tall frame, much less his.
His wandering gaze settled on her, though she couldn't see his eyes behind the reflective lenses of his sunglasses. "So, why lightning? Why not tornadoes?"
She waved at the clear sky above them. "Lightning is more common, and it kills more people every year than tornadoes."
FRIEND, LOVER, PROTECTOR Page 10