He plucked at his lips as he manipulated the command strings that moved across the screen in rapid succession. He had no idea when the man for whom he left the code would come across the message, and he was going to need another excuse to play with the computer.
Swiftly, he removed all traces of his activities and returned the screen to MENU. Jaymee probably wouldn’t know he was breaking into the government’s most secured lines even if she was watching him, but Nick didn’t want to bet too heavily on that. His boss had a way of grasping a situation very quickly.
“Lunch is ready! Nick?”
“Yeah, I’m almost done,” he called back as he finished up.
***
Jaymee couldn’t figure him out. It was her source of pride since her unfortunate brush with the deceptive side of the male gender that she’d learned to read every one of them and put them in their rightful category. Through the years, she and Mindy had exchanged notes. There was the Bear, the one she could leave at a job site as long as there was honey, the promise of better pay if the job was done that day. There was the Rabbit, the worker who hurried, hurried, hurried to finish a job. From her list of restaurant adventures, Mindy, in her typical droll sense of humor, had added in the Drunken Monkey, the Snake, and the Peacock. But he wasn’t any of those.
There was one more in her list, the most dangerous animal of all because he was the most deceptive, knowing when to hide under sheep’s clothing and be nice, only to turn around and devour women like her. And nothing about Nick Langley had convinced her he was anything but a wolf, out on a hunt, only after a good time.
But sometimes she wondered whether she was wrong. She couldn’t figure out why he was in her world at all, and most important, why he wanted her. Unlike before, she didn’t have any money or assets now to interest a wolf. Eight years of eluding men had taken away any confidence of how she could affect any male interest.
She flashed him a smile. “How’s it going?”
Nick sat down at the kitchen table. “Almost done. I need a Philips screwdriver to open up the case. I might as well check everything while I’m at it.”
Jaymee put the plate of cold chicken salad and a glass of milk in front of him. “Go ahead. I’m just glad the the computer isn’t a lemon, even though it’s a refurbished one.”
Nick smiled at the food in front of him. How long had it been since a woman fed him cold chicken salad and milk for a meal? It was an uncomfortably homey gesture, and warm pleasure blunted the anger he’d been carrying.
“It’s not a Z-28,” he agreed, lifting a fork, “but it’ll take you where you want to go.”
He watched her take a sip of milk from his glass. Nice lipstick. Tempting lips.
“Let me get my dad to join us,” Jaymee said, heading for the screen door. “Dad! Dad! Come in and eat your lunch.”
She turned to Nick and warned, “Just ignore his bad manners, all right?”
Nick nodded. Bob shuffled in, giving a wide yawn. He cast a resentful look at Nick.
“Still here? I thought you said he was your laborer, Jaymee, not your bodyguard.”
Jaymee set a place for him, then took the middle seat. “He’s fixing the new computer.” She gestured. “Here, take your medication and get some food in you.”
“I don’t want milk,” the old man growled.
“Sorry, beer and medication don’t go together,” she calmly informed him. “If you end up in the hospital this time, I’ll have to mortgage the house to pay the bills, and then you won’t get your business back in the black for sure.”
Nick suddenly realized Jaymee dangled the roofing business in front of her father like bait. Every time he pushed her too far, she would bring up the subject of getting the business back in the black, and it always had the desired effect. The old man sat and washed down the pills with a glass of milk and obediently started on his meal. Nick wondered what it was all about. The father seemed to have a hold over his daughter, and in a strange way, vice-versa.
“So, will I be able to use the new computer soon?” Jaymee wanted to know.
“As soon as you get everything updated and reconfigured.”
She sighed. “That means another month or so.”
Nick frowned. “What do you mean?” Transferring programs and files was assembly work, like eating.
“My abilities with a computer don’t go beyond turning it on, pointing the mouse, and saving a file,” confessed Jaymee with a wry smile. “Anything more difficult usually means reading a manual, deciphering lots of error messages, redoing the same procedure a dozen times, and God knows what else. You’ll see. What with all the other chores I’ve to do, it’ll take a month before I get the new computer set up.”
She made it so easy, the operative in him mocked him for taking advantage of her. “I can do it for you,” Nick offered, calmly reaching for a roll. “I can help you out in the evenings, do anything you want.”
Bob grunted at the other end of the table and his watery eyes told him exactly what he thought of the offer. “I’ll bet you would do anything she wants,” he said. Turning to Jaymee, he added, “You ain’t learned a lesson yet, I guess you just ain’t as bright as I thought. Help you out in the evenings, do anything you want. You just stick him back to real work and watch that pretty face wilt in the sun.”
“He does work in the sun,” Jaymee quietly said, but her face was slightly flushed at her father’s none-too-subtle accusations. “You don’t have to like everyone I hire, Dad, and if you’ve nothing good to say, why don’t you just keep it to yourself?”
“He ain’t got much to say to defend himself, does he?” Bob sneered at Nick.
Nick looked across the table, calmly chewing, then swallowing. “What your daughter and I do isn’t your business, Mr. Barrows.”
“Nick...” Jaymee began.
“Ain’t my business?” Bob barked out in sudden wrath. “If I don’t keep an eye on her, she won’t have any business left at all. The last time she mixed business with pleasure, she near bankrupted me! And sent her ma to an early grave, she did!”
“That’s enough,” Jaymee cut in, her voice low. Why, why, why did he have to keep bringing it up?
As if her father heard her, he continued, “I’ve to remind her so she won’t forget. She wants to play, let her do what she promised me, let her pay for her mistake first. My daddy taught us to always pay for our mistakes, and she…”
Nick stood up. He’d had enough. “As far as I can tell, you’ve got the most hard-working daughter around.” His voice was no longer that lazy, gravelly drawl. “Let’s go for a walk, Jay. I need to work off a sudden indigestion.”
There was a cold, dangerous edge to it, and Jaymee shivered at the sound. She stared at his outstretched hand and looked up into calm and steady eyes the color of winter sky. She couldn’t read his thoughts as those unfathomable eyes demanded her to do as he said. She placed her hand in his and got up.
Bob continued eating, already forgetting the outburst of a few moments before. “Go for a walk,” he repeated. “I’ll clean up.”
Summer heat blasted them the moment they stepped off the porch into the bright sunlight. The air was thick with humidity and tension. In silence, Jaymee walked toward the lake, heading for the picnic table under the elm oak. The shade beckoned invitingly as the heat beat down on their unprotected heads.
“This used to be my favorite spot,” she said, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I used to sit right here to do my homework. Only the lake kept tempting me, and I always ended up in that small canoe.” She sighed, wanting those easy days back.
“You have a nice piece of property here,” Nick agreed, as he looked toward the lake.
“It’s not mine. It’s Dad’s,” Jaymee corrected. Plucking a small branch of hibiscus off a bush, she pulled out the flowers, plucking the petals off one by one.
“It’ll be yours one day.”
Her eyes were the muddy color he knew echoed her mood. “I don’t want it. My goal is
to move out in two years.”
“Why two years?”
“You aren’t the only person with stuff to straighten out, Nick.” She gazed at the lake with its bright gleaming ripples of gold. “I’m sure you noticed my father and I don’t get along too well.”
“He isn’t exactly there all the time,” he agreed. “Drinking will do that to you, though. The violent mood swings, I mean.”
Jaymee nodded. “Yes. He’s gotten worse the last year but he’s a tough old bastard, even after the stroke. He’ll be OK when I hand him back his business.”
“But why the time table? Why two years?” Nick stretched out his long length next to her body on the grass, leaning back on his hands.
He was so easy to talk to, but she wasn’t going to tell her story to this man beside her. She’d already let him in too much. Besides, why would a sad tale of a misguided, trusting young woman interest him? He was only interested in staying long enough to make some money so he could move on. She kept plucking at the spray of hibiscus in her hands.
Nick studied her bent head. She wasn’t going to tell. He could see it in the set of her lips, the determined hunch of her small shoulders. She just didn’t trust men, especially him, enough to open up and it had to do with whatever happened to the father’s business and a certain other man.
“Tell me about Danny.”
He spoke so softly, Jaymee was sure she’d imagined it, but those seductive eyes told her she hadn’t misheard. When he looked at her like that, with those long, dark lashes hiding his thoughts, he had a hypnotic effect on her. She couldn’t drag her gaze away, even blink. It was a strange sensation, as if he could probe into all her secrets just by staring into her eyes.
“How do you know about Danny?” she demanded, still imprisoned by the strange, searching look.
“I hear his name here and there,” Nick told her. She wasn’t aware of how much those eyes of hers betrayed. He saw hurt and a deep, dark scar. “Tell me, Jaymee.”
“It’s history,” she said, shrugging. “I’m reluctant to dig up old bones just to satisfy your curiosity. It isn’t like you answer my questions about you.”
She was a strong woman. Nick already knew it before. Very few people could resist a light probe, the subtle approach he’d been trained in to get information, without revealing a few details. But here was an untrained, unsuspecting woman, the simplest target for a quick exercise in subliminal pressing, retaliating with the ease of an evasive expert. She batted away every attack with a simple defense — change the subject and remove herself as the focus.
Nick had never wanted to dissect a non-target as much as he did this woman. He wanted to know why she was the way she was, what she was thinking, what made her tick; in short, everything. Most of all, he wanted her under him, naked and unafraid, as he explored every inch of her, physically and emotionally. And he was going to do it. He’d take and explore her until she yielded all her secrets to him. He’d give her what she feared most and make it what she wanted most—he’d like to restore in her the power to give herself without fear.
Subtle didn’t work. Push harder. “Is he really your fiancé?” he asked, catching her busy hands in one of his.
Startled that he knew so much already, she dropped the wretched bloom. “You’re a busybody and persistent as hell.” She tried unsuccessfully to wriggle her captive hands free. “He was my fiancé, OK?”
“Was?”
“Yes! Well, he hadn’t really broken off our engagement when he disappeared, but eight years ought to qualify it in the past tense, don’t you agree?” She wriggled her hands harder.
“Do you miss him? Do you still want him?”
“No!” She glared at him, disgust in her eyes, as if he’d conjured up something distasteful in her mind.
Nick released her and picked up the mangled spray of hibiscus on her lap. Plucking out a still untouched blossom, he tucked it behind Jaymee’s ear.
“Good,” he said. And kissed her.
***
Three days and Jaymee still could remember the feel of his lips. She understood she’d been given an ultimatum that afternoon. He hadn’t said anything, but he didn’t need words. The kiss said it all.
She forced it out of her mind, as she’d been doing for several days now, as she watched Nick at work. He seemed to be getting the hang of roofing, moving around as if he’d been doing it for years. She now let him shingle the back side of the roofs, where it was usually the easiest, without the complicated roof designs. At the rate he was going, she ruefully noted, she’d have to raise his pay soon, but she had to be careful, or the other two roofers would be grumbling.
She liked watching him at work. The way those smooth muscles rippled as he carried the boxes of nails on his shoulder. The way his lanky frame looked impossibly graceful in that awkward position for a tall man. And even that beautiful, exposed throat moving as he thirstily gulped down cold water from a bottle made her catch her breath. And, he had developed a marvelous golden tan that made those blue-gray eyes glitter even more potently.
Her fingers lifted to her lips. Since he had kissed her, he hadn’t attempted to touch her again. When he showed up for a few hours on Sunday, he was reserved and distant, his mind seemingly focused on her computer. She was almost jealous of the damn thing, although she had to admit that watching him at it was a fascinating exercise indeed. His mind seemed to be laid bare in front of her when he was immersed in whatever it was he was doing to her computer, and after sitting by him quietly for a while, she had added one more clue to this mysterious man. Nicholas Langley, despite his easygoing demeanor, had a brilliant mind. She could see it in the intense light burning in his eyes as he “talked” to her computer, in the way he solved one problem after another. What was he doing as a laborer? The question gnawed at her even more since the incident by the lake.
The kiss. God, if that could be called one. She had very little with which to compare the experience, but she felt branded, like he’d marked her somehow. She could still taste him, a hot salty mixture of lust and possessiveness. His lips had been firm, unyielding, and his teeth had deliberately drawn blood where he bit her on her lower lip. Ignoring her startled gasp and struggle, he had sucked on the little wound and licked the blood off with a slow and tantalizing tongue. He’d left her with the strange feeling she’d signed some sort of blood pact with the devil.
The last few days hadn’t lessened the feeling. The silent ultimatum stretched like a live wire between them. She strove to look normal underneath his unruffled watchfulness, but she wasn’t fooled. The wolf, she realized, was showing itself. It was there in the glitter in his eyes, whenever she caught him looking at her as she washed the dirt off her body at lunchtime. She felt it every time she stood too close by him. Nick was, and she didn’t need him to tell her, as he put it, letting — no, making — her get used to him. Meanwhile, lest she forgot, he deliberately stalked her like a predator about to decide on the moment of attack.
Jaymee shivered in the asphalt-melting heat. Fear and excitement jostled for position. For the first time in eight years, she was unsure of herself. Catching his knowing eyes on her, she decided to do what she did best — change the subject.
“Lunch,” she said, unnecessarily, since Dicker and Lucky were already off the roof. She decided a crowd would lessen the danger of a wolf on the move, and went to eat at Hungry Boys. She should have known that escape was not in her future.
“What’s the special today?” she asked Mindy, after gratefully gulping down a glass of ice tea.
Mindy tucked a stray lock of blond hair back in place as she ignored Jaymee, her eyes hungrily moving up and down her companion instead. Nick was the picture of healthy manhood, tall and glowing with his new tan.
“I’m looking at it,” Mindy drawled.
Nick gave her a crooked sexy grin as he winked back at the bold waitress. “You’re looking good, Min.”
Jaymee had known Mindy forever, and her friend didn’t know what blushi
ng was. Until now. She stared at the flush of pleasure on her friend’s face as she preened, then coyly teased, “Well, you’re looking at dessert, my hungry boy.”
Jaymee wanted to empty her glass of tea over Nick’s head. He was seducing all the female population in the restaurant with that smile, she thought, as she surveyed the avid attention of the three waitresses, the owner’s wife, and the three old ladies sitting by their table. It was too bad, she dolefully mourned, that her glass was empty.
Coughing superciliously, she politely chipped in, “I hate to interrupt such a delicious exchange, but there’s an extremely hungry woman here.”
For a moment, she was tempted to add, “and that man is my dessert,” but curbed such catty behavior. Jay Barrows didn’t fight over any man.
Mindy sniffed and pulled out a pencil from her apron. “Roast turkey, stuffing, vegetable soup,” she recited, glaring at Jaymee. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” Jaymee answered, glaring back at her friend.
“Nut,” muttered the waitress, as she wrote the order down. “You, too, hon?”
“Sounds good,” agreed Nick, obviously very amused at something.
“Nut!” Mindy repeated for Jaymee’s benefit as she walked off.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jaymee called after her, exasperated.
“You could have gourmet, and you opt for meat and potatoes. Nut!” she called back over her shoulder as her generous hips swayed their way back to the kitchen.
“She must be a good friend of yours,” Nick commented, breaking open a packet of sugar.
“What, do you want me to give you her phone number?” Jaymee asked, irritated and a little jealous.
“If I wanted it, don’t you think I could just ask her?”
That shut her up. She pursed her lips mutinously and snatched up the newspaper left on an empty table nearby and opened it in front of her face.
Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers Page 23