***
The tension between them was palpable the next day. Jed and Grace had exchanged a telling look and had gone about as if nothing was wrong. The men worked on the siding around the house, cut a skylight hole on the roof, then turned to the countertops in the kitchen and bathroom. Grace helped Jaymee finish the trim work, then they opted to start caulking and cleaning some of the windows.
They went out on the back porch for a late lunch. Jaymee sat on the steps, picking at the weeds as she ate, her mind busy reshaping the back yard, figuring out how to clear the brush back so it looked more presentable. Nick sat nearby, on the railing surrounding the porch, one tanned long leg dangling by her arm. The urge to lean against it ate at her, and she determinedly concentrated on the food and the weeds. She could feel his eyes on her, burning a hole in the back of her head.
Trying to ignore her own growing frustration, Jaymee turned her attention to Jed, who was sitting on the sawhorse, facing her. He looked at her fidgeting hands with interest, and she stopped moving them.
“How long will you be gone?” she asked casually.
“A few days. Three at the most,” Nick answered from above her.
She refused to make any direct comment to him. “Is Grace going with the both of you?” At the men’s silence, she demanded, “You aren’t thinking of letting her stay at Nick’s place without a car or company, are you?”
“I’ll be OK,” Grace assured her in a lazy drawl. She was sprawled on a picnic blanket a few feet away, sunning herself.
A sudden suspicion formed in Jaymee’s mind, and she turned back to Jed, her voice fierce. “Please tell me you aren’t going to let her live in the woods by herself.”
Jed darted a narrow glance at Nick, who drawled back from the railing, “Told you she doesn’t miss a thing.”
“You are!” Jaymee was appalled. “No!”
“She needs to…”
“No!” Jaymee stood up, glaring down at Jed. “Uh-uh, not in my neighborhood. You can train her another time, Jed. She’ll stay with me while you’re both gone.”
Grace turned onto her front, propping herself on her folded arms. She didn’t say anything, but her brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight as she enjoyed the sight of someone actually daring to oppose her father.
“She’s with me because she’s in training,” Jed told her in a quiet voice, but his face was implacably cold. “If I wanted her happily domestic, she’d be in Ohio with her grandmother.”
“Nick….” Jaymee finally looked up at him, appealing him with her eyes. Surely he wouldn’t agree to let the young girl do this.
Nick studied her as he chewed on an apple, watching the myriad emotions flit over her face. “It’s between Jed and Grace,” he finally proffered an explanation, not taking any sides.
“You’re all insane!” exclaimed Jaymee, agitatedly pacing between the two watching men. She folded her arms and stood in front of Jed.
“Uh-oh…” drawled Nick. “I’ve seen that look before.”
Jed returned Jaymee’s glare expectantly.
“I’ll make you a bargain, Jed,” she said briskly. She paused as he cocked his head. “You let her stay with me, and I’ll give her some training.” At Nick’s soft laughter behind her, she went on earnestly. “I can’t bear the idea of her on her own out there. She can work with me, learn how to do some sweat work. I’ll run her exhausted with ten-hour days. I’ll build her muscles carrying bundles of shingles. I’ll even stop her orange juice intake.”
Nick fell off the railing laughing, whereas Grace groaned aloud in mock horror.
“No, no, don’t listen to her, Daddy!”
Jed’s light eyes glittered with amusement, although his expression was passive as ever. “I don’t know,” he said mildly. “You might kill her with all that training.”
“She’ll be building calf muscles, biceps, endurance. She’ll be...” She stopped, realizing he’d just given her tacit permission. “Yes?”
Jed nodded. When Jaymee gave a sigh of relief, he turned to Nick, and said without inflection, “She’ll be fine.”
A muscle worked in his jaw as Nick abruptly stood up. “Let’s look at your program before we go,” he said flatly, ignoring his cousin’s baiting.
“Have you modified it?”
“Yes.”
“I have a notepad and laptop in the bag in the kitchen. We can check it out in there.”
The two men took what remained of their lunch with them. As he passed Jaymee, Nick stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She wanted him to kiss her, but he was still in his strange mood. So she stared back challengingly at him.
“Nicely done,” he whispered, and his fingers lingered for a moment before he went in.
Grace sleepily slapped at a fly as she turned on her back again. “That was great, Jay. Jed seldom backs down for anybody.”
“That’s because he knows I’ll keep my word,” Jaymee threatened lightly.
“My last day of freedom, then,” sighed Grace, closing her eyes.
“Do you know where Nick and your father are going?” Jaymee didn’t want to pry, but couldn’t help it.
“Back to where Nick’s boat was. Sorry, can’t tell you the location.”
Jaymee joined Grace on the blanket, putting on her sunglasses. “It’s OK, I just need to sort of know.”
“I know,” Grace softly responded, her eyes still closed. “I go through it too, you see.”
For the first time, Jaymee understood the burden of loving someone like Nick. From what she could gather, Grace lived with her grandmother and seldom saw her father. She was a little girl who was forced to grow up fast. She wondered whether she was lonely without her parents, whether she liked what her father did for a living. Which brought her to wonder whether she herself could live like that, knowing Nick was always in some form of danger somewhere, whether she would be lonely.
But loneliness was nothing new to her. She had been alone and lonely before Nick came into her life. As for his lifestyle, she’d love him no matter what he did. She’d love him whether he was Killian or Nick, or whatever he chose to call himself. It was what made him the way he was, and she wouldn’t want to change him. She sighed with resignation. It all came to a very dismal conclusion. She wouldn’t try to change his mind to leave her. She wouldn’t want to change him.
The two men were sitting on the kitchen stools, staring at Jed’s laptop when Jaymee and Grace came back in forty-five minutes later. Jaymee trashed all the paper plates and refilled her glass with iced-tea. Grace hopped onto the kitchen counter and watched her father and uncle at work, her quick eyes reading the screen. She cocked her head and immediately the family resemblance with the two men became apparent.
Jaymee hesitated, unsure whether she was in the way. As if he sensed her indecision, Nick whipped out a hand while still talking to Jed, silently asking her to go to him. She placed her hand in his and he drew her close, until she stood in front of him. Taking the glass from her hand, he stole a sip of the ice tea, then set it down on the counter.
“...without the grid. The decoding should work but didn’t. Even when I reversed the code, the damned sequences gave errors,” Nick was telling Jed, as he crossed his long arms around Jaymee and laid his chin on her head.
“You’re missing something,” Jed stated.
Nick reached out and hit a few of the keys. “It’s there, right in front of me. I just don’t see it. Look at this sequence. And this one.”
Jaymee looked at the screen. Numbers. Patterns. Color dots. Map-like diagrams.
Jed pointed to one of the diagrams. “This is location.” He typed something. Apparently, Jaymee noted, all these Virus-men could type fast. “This is position.”
“That information is apparently unimportant enough for them not to hide. They didn’t care if we know we’re spying on them, Jed. They just don’t want us to find out which satellite and how. This computer program they’re using is dangerously versatile.”
�
�Of course. Their encryption board is our technology in the first place. It should have been child’s play for you to decode them.”
“I’m missing something,” Nick agreed.
“Unless they have developed a new encryption technology.”
“Possibly.”
“How long before you can break through?”
“Not long.”
“That’s too long.”
“You have so much confidence in my abilities,” Nick came back, wry amusement in his voice.
“The longer they can detect our information and break into our systems, the more our national security is under siege, and the more others in our unit are in danger.”
Jaymee felt Nick’s coiled tension, although his voice remained remote. “I know.”
“It’s definitely something we can use later down the line. If we can figure this out and stop it in time, we can play with the combined tech at COMCEN and create a super program.” Jed finally looked at Jaymee. “What do you think, Jay? Can you break the code?”
Her eyes widened and she studiously gave the symbols on the screen a careful lookover. “Looks like shingle codes to me,” she jibed. “Manufacturing dates and invoice numbers. And warehouse locations.”
She cast a triumphant glance back at the hard man beside her. She could toss strange terms at him like the best of them.
“A password would override all the walls,” Jed said, his eyes faintly challenging her to have a comeback for that line.
“With the new ASTM code, the shingles are supposed to withstand category two hurricane winds. Of course,” she said with her most serious face on, “I can’t guarantee about the walls.” She felt the rumble of amusement in Nick’s chest as his hands lightly stroked her bare arms.
“All codes are decodable,” Nick interrupted the little game, laughter in his voice. “I have the right sequences in one of those strings.” He kissed the top of Jaymee’s head. “Right, Jaymee?”
“Of course,” she gravely nodded. “Don’t mix the color codes. The shingles won’t match.”
The two men finally laughed, even Jed. Jaymee grinned back, rather shocked to see Jed showing his teeth. He had a deep-throated laugh. How sad he didn’t do it often. She turned her head to look up at Nick.
“What, did I say something funny? Mixed codes can cause a major problem, you know.”
“Minx.” His smile was sexily lopsided, and her heart flipped. God, she was going to miss him. “Think you know everything about codes, hmm?”
Jed turned off the program and snapped the laptop shut. “Good mind reflex, Jay,” he complimented. “You could have been an asset in COMCEN.”
Jaymee shrugged, picking up the glass of ice tea. She was getting the hang of talking at Jed’s level. She gave him her best Nick-stare, measured and bold. “All a mind game, I’ve learned. No sweat involved. Nothing to show off when completed. Just a lot of manipulation.”
Nick chuckled again, obviously enjoying her sudden scornful mood. Jed nodded appreciatively.
“Touché,” he acknowledged, a corner of his mouth lifted in mockery. He arched a brow at Nick. “I think we’d better leave to accomplish something, so we can show some sweat when all’s said and done.”
Nick gently released Jaymee and got off the stool. “You can’t beat Jaymee when it comes to making you sweat,” he agreed, giving her a suggestive leer.
Jed moved to the backpack, putting away his things. “I have the scuba gear in the Jeep. All I need are your things.”
“They’re on the front porch.”
“I’ll get them. Come on, Grace. Help me load the Jeep.”
The moment father and daughter were out of the kitchen, Nick kissed Jaymee hard on the lips. She opened to him without protest, desperately needing a final connection with him before he left. She told herself she wouldn’t show her anxiety. She wouldn’t distract him, so he would come back safely.
Nick looked into her expressive eyes, the muddied brown and green betraying her feelings more than she knew. He felt the now familiar tightness in his chest, trying to come to terms with his reluctance to leave her. She was doing her best not to interfere with his work, and he was a selfish bastard not to stop giving her hope. Yet, he needed to kiss her, to taste her, before he left.
“Three days,” he husked out.
“Promise you’ll be careful?”
“Promise.”
“One more thing, Killian?”
He stiffened at her using his name. “Yes?”
“Give me one more night when you come back? Just you and me, nothing else?” Her eyes were luminous with unshed tears, but she was determined to let him know she was prepared for his choice. She forced a light note into her voice. “Then I’ll consider your debt over my torn clothes and dirty tee-shirts paid in full.”
Nick gave her a long, passionate kiss, his tongue possessing her mouth with such evocative tenderness, she wanted to beg him to stay. He laid his forehead on hers.
“I always pay my debts,” he told her. “It’s a deal.”
Jed was already in the Jeep waiting when they went outside. Grace was perched on the hood, and she jumped off when Nick climbed in. He tweaked her cheek and returned his attention to Jaymee.
“Good luck,” Grace told Jed, as he started the vehicle. “I’m sure you’ll get the sequences decoded, Cousin Kill. Their computer language wasn’t that difficult, even with it in Chinese.”
“You’ve been practicing, I see,” her father observed, shifting into gear. “Nick?”
“One minute,” Nick said, and turned back to Jaymee, taking the basket she handed to him.
“Hey, Dad,” Grace said softly over the idling engine, deliberately waiting till he gave her his full attention. “Tell Killian thanks for the Chinese books he gave me. They have an interesting way of writing.”
Jed nodded, and the Jeep pulled away. Jaymee waved, and Nick saluted back. Grace just stood and watched.
“What lovey-dovey things did Nick say to you?” she teased. “You guys were just so sweet.”
Jaymee flushed. She wouldn’t let a teenager make her uncomfortable. “He was telling me how to access the new program for my invoices in the new computer, that’s all.”
Grace laughed merrily. “Ah, how romantic.”
“I don’t know how to do anything with the new stuff and Nick was supposed to teach me,” Jaymee retorted defensively. “He knew I’d be trying to use it when he’s gone.”
Grace linked her hand with Jaymee’s in affection. “Well, let’s bargain. Orange juice for help with the computer.”
Jaymee’s eyes narrowed. “How many glasses?” She should have known the darn kid was also computer literate.
Grace grinned. “Negotiable,” she offered generously, as they walked back to the house. “This is going to be fun...boss.”
Her imitation of Nick’s drawl was so on the money Jaymee laughed, despite missing him already. She would have to carry on, and not think of the lonely nights. Determined, she donned her tool belt.
“Fun...” she drawled back in a similar vein, “is for sissies.”
Big Bad Wolf: Chapter Fourteen
Jaymee kicked a stone in moody contemplation as she walked through the woods toward the house. She was sweaty and tired. And she missed Nick. The last two days, without him, had been long and tedious. It was difficult to continue, when everywhere she went made her think of him—sitting in her truck, working on a roof, sitting in her study, even in what used to be her sanctuary, her project-house. It frightened her, this feeling of desolation. How was she going to cope when he finally left her?
Work herself to death, she supposed. That used to be her antidote to pain. Smiling wryly, she kicked at another stone. Poor Grace. She’d worked the teenager hard the last couple of days but she was a tough young thing and absolutely fearless where height was concerned. After going out to buy the right kind of shoes, she’d taken delight in running around on the roof, working without complaint in the heat.
Without the Hidden Hills subdivision, Jaymee didn’t have to meet many deadlines. Her workload, with smaller independent builders, was lighter, and she spent more time at remodeling, leaving Dicker and Lucky on the job. She’d sent Grace ahead of her today, to start cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms while she answered some messages on the business line.
It was a mistake walking alone in the woods. It made her think of Nick. She sighed. What didn’t make her think of Nick? The sound of broken twigs behind her halted her thoughts. Turning around, she saw two figures coming toward her. Very quickly. Two very well-dressed men, looking absolutely out of place. They didn’t seem lost. Or friendly. Her eyes widened at the sight of the gun in one of the strangers’ hands. It was pointed at her.
***
Nick stared out at the ocean, wondering what Jaymee was doing at the moment. Working, of course. He smiled wryly. The woman was an incurable workaholic.
Jed looked up from the maps he was studying, his gaze hard on Nick’s contemplative stance. “You have to decide sooner or later, you know,” he said softly.
Nick didn’t deny Jed’s unspoken admonishment for letting his mind wander off. He knew Jed already guessed of whom he was thinking. His rejoinder was short.
“There’s nothing to decide.” His slate eyes followed the flight of a seagull as it swooped into the ocean. Stealing a page from Jaymee’s book, he changed the subject. “Two things bother me about the whole mission. First, how did they find me? I was in the middle of nowhere out there, yet they homed in on me as if I personally gave them a call. I know my boat was clean; I double-checked before starting sail. Second, how did they find the others, one after another? I can’t accept we were tracked down so easily.”
“It’s on my mind too. Emma’s boat was checked by Diamond himself.”
A muscle worked in Jed’s jaw. “He must blame himself.”
“He’s disappeared,” Jed told him, his voice expressionless. “The unit is in disarray.”
“And you also opted to disappear in the middle of this mayhem?” Nick turned around, walking back to where Jed was seated. “I’m dead. So is Winters. Diamond’s disappeared. You’re here. Who’s at the helm?”
Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers Page 39