Jasmine had never liked men. Baxter's father had worked hard to gain her trust. He'd conned her all the way into his bed, then vanished the day she told him she was pregnant. She'd been young and, she thought in love. He'd broken her heart. She hadn't trusted men since, and she hadn't ever thought that would change. These men, however, had given her no choice in the matter. In spite of herself, she felt safe with them. She felt cared for. As if she were something important to them, something worth protecting.
Sighing, leaning back in her bench seat crammed between two of the creatures she'd spent her life detesting, she said, "So where's my son, Luke? You promised me you'd take care of him, and yet here you are, and I don't see him anywhere."
Luke met her eyes across the table. "Baxter was fine once he got done crying himself into fits over waking up to find his mother gone."
She flinched. That blow hit home. "I left so I could make things right for him."
"He knows that. You think that made it any easier?"
She lowered her eyes. "I didn't want to hurt him. It was the only way I could see to—"
"It was the only way you could see because you have tunnel vision." She lifted her head, ready to snap back at him, but he shook his head and went on. "He's staying with Chelsea and Bubba until we get back."
"And you think Chelsea and Bubba will be able to protect him if Gianni Petronella finds out where he is?"
"No. I don't. That's why Lash and Jessi are there, too, along with Adam and Kirsten, and Taylor and Penny and Esmeralda...the whole family is closing ranks around Baxter," Luke said. "And not just the local ones, either."
Frowning, Jasmine averted her eyes. But he went right on. "By now I imagine Marcus and Casey have arrived, too—they only had a two-hour drive. Sara and Jake will make it in before the night's out. It's a longer haul from Gator's Bayou, Louisiana."
She lifted her head slowly. "I don't understand."
"That's because you've never had a family around you. That's the way family works, Jasmine. They pull together, they take care of each other."
She locked her gaze with his. "Baxter isn't part of your family. He's mine. I'm his family."
For a long, tense moment he stared back at her, and she knew her words had pissed him off on some level. Why, how, she wasn't sure. She didn't pretend to understand him, and she told herself she didn't want to try. But she knew that was a lie. Why, why, did she have to get so defensive where Bax was concerned? She knew Luke adored him.
"Shoot, don't try to tell Bubba that," Garrett said. His voice, lightened by his smile, broke the building tension. "He sure does think of Baxter as family."
"We all do," Wes said. "Family doesn't have to be bound by blood, Jasmine. Love is the real bond."
Ben nodded in agreement. "Rosebud was family to you, wasn't she?"
Jasmine closed her eyes slowly. "Rosebud was my best friend. She was like a sister to me, and she'd have given her right arm for Baxter."
"News flash, Jasmine," Elliot said from beside her. "So would any of us."
She shot Elliot a glance, but he was already looking away from her, focused now on the waitress who was bearing down on them with a laden tray. "Ahh, here comes sustenance. And not a moment too soon, either!" Elliot got up and took the tray from the woman's hands, then stood quietly while she lifted the plates of food from it and deposited them on the table. The whole time she worked, she wore this look of amazed gratitude. When the tray was empty and she took it from him again, Elliot said, "Thank you, ma'am," as he slid back into his seat.
She smiled. "Thank me? You keep this up, it'll be me leaving you a tip." Giving him a friendly wink, she strolled away.
Jasmine watched. Some guy at another table was glaring at the waitress and tapping his empty coffee cup, while another party waved impatiently to get her attention. The Brand men were different. No doubt about it. It got very quiet as they dug into their meals. Jasmine gnawed on her burger and fries without really tasting them, and wondered how in the hell she was going to find Gianni Petronella.
Luke didn't eat with as much gusto as the other men did, she noticed. He picked at his food, ate a little, but didn't seem to take much pleasure in it. Mostly he drank coffee. Lots of coffee. He met her eyes every now and then, looking as if he had something to say, but he never said it. Just looked away again until, finally, he excused himself.
Ten minutes later he was back, and he slapped two keys on the table, each with numbered plastic ovals attached. "I got us rooms for the night."
Jasmine wiped her mouth with a napkin and glanced at her watch.
"That bar will be closed for the night within an hour, Jasmine. Besides, Petronella won't go back there. You've been up for..." Luke looked at his watch. "Hell, I've been up for over forty hours. You, for longer. We need to get some rest figure out our next step. Just stay here. You're safe with us, you know you are."
She lifted her brows, about to make some comment about how full of himself he was. But instead she recalled the punk on the street with the blade and the way Luke had reacted. She'd never seen anything like it. He was no more distracted by the kid than he would have been by a mosquito. Not even a little bit afraid. She did feel safe with him. And it was an odd sort of feeling. One she couldn't remember ever having before. It confused her on such a deep level that she couldn't even snap out a sarcastic reply. She just sat there, until finally she said, "So you're cramming us all into two rooms?"
He shook his head and dangled a third key from his hands. "Garrett and Ben get a room. Wes and Elliot get a room. You and I get a room."
Her brows came down hard, and her reaction was automatic. "If you think for one minute that just because—"
"You've been under the same roof with me for long enough to know you can trust me, Jasmine. Twin beds, no ulterior motives except for the obvious one—I don't trust you not to run off the minute my back is turned. So I'm rooming with you. Period."
Jasmine got to her feet and poked him in the chest with a long, shiny fingernail. "No man tells me what to do. You room with your brothers. I'll room by myself." She snatched the key from his hand so fast he didn't have time to prevent it.
"Dammit, Jasmine—"
She strode out the diner's front door, underneath the jangling bells, and headed around to the rear, following the neon motel sign with the flickering arrow. She fully expected Luke would be right on her heels, and so she strode as purposefully as she could manage with her nose in the air and her heels clicking a no-nonsense cadence on the blacktop.
Three guys stood in a huddle, talking in the diesel-scented night air. Truckers, probably. Harmless, probably. But they looked at her as she passed, and she wondered what they thought they saw. Looking around, she saw where big rigs were parked in formation, an endless row of them. Here and there scantily clad women hopped up on the sides of them to rap on the doors and make their offers. "Need your truck cleaned, baby? Twenty bucks."
Jasmine's gaze slid back to the huddle of men. They were still eyeing her. Her short skirt and big hair and high heels probably made her look to them like one of the hookers who hung around places like this one. Then again, most of the patrons at The Catwalk made similar assumptions about her when she danced on that stage. They looked at her as if assessing a cut of meat, weighing its value against its price.
No one had looked at her that way in Quinn, Texas. Not even when she'd first arrived, in her short skirt and her high heels. Luke had never looked at her that way. Not even when she'd danced for him.
The men were coming closer now, smiling and speaking low to each other as they crossed the lot toward her. Where the hell was that pesky pain-in-the-ass cowboy, anyway? God, he followed her like a devoted hound when she didn't want him around, then vanished when she could actually use the help. He was supposed to follow her out of the diner. Damn him.
"Hey, honey," one said, but then he stopped walking, stopped talking, blinked twice and changed his attitude. "Um...I was just wondering which way to the rest ro
oms."
She frowned, wondering what the hell had changed his attitude. She glanced behind her but saw no one. Then she faced the men again, still some ten feet away from her. She lifted a hand, pointed the way, then continued her trek to the motel room. The men must have had a desperate need for that rest room because, when she glanced behind her to see where they were, they'd vanished. Long gone. Odd. Sighing, she searched for the door with the number that matched the one on the key she'd swiped from Luke, found it and let herself in.
Simple room. Twin beds, TV, bathroom, tacky framed prints on the walls with odd geometric patterns in primary colors. Jasmine closed the door behind her, turned the lock and sank onto the bed. It was late, after one in the morning, and she was tired. She'd driven a long way without sleep, and she'd come so close! Now she was just frustrated and cranky and exhausted. But she couldn't go to sleep. Not yet. She figured she would give the Brands an hour and then slip away. She would go to Leo's place and wake him, force him to tell her where this Gianni character lived, and then she would go to his house.
She reached into her handbag and touched the gun that was there. She'd taken the bullets out of hiding before she'd left the Brand place. The gun was loaded, and it was deadly. Gianni would either wait with her for the police to arrive and arrest him, or she would kill him. That simple. A shiver of unease worked up her spine when she thought of killing a man in cold blood. But then she thought about Rosebud, being shot down in her own apartment. She thought of that man turning and firing bullets at her own little boy. Shooting at a child with every intention of killing him. And when she thought about that, she really didn't think she would have any trouble at all pulling the trigger when the time came.
Besides, it was the only way. She needed him in prison or dead.
She took a cool shower to help wake herself up, and then she tugged more functional clothes out of the bottom of her deep bag. Jeans, fiat shoes, a sleeveless denim button-down blouse. She scooped her heavy curls up into a ponytail, just to keep them out of the way. She didn't want her hair falling over her face or blocking her vision. She didn't want it providing a handhold for her enemy to latch on to, either. She'd thought about soaking off the long acrylic nails and decided against it. Pulling the trigger with them on would not be a problem. She'd tried it out on the way here. And the nails had the added benefit of being weapons in and of themselves. Every finger was as good as a small blade, with them in place.
Finally she was ready. She tucked the gun into the bag, stuffed the clothes she no longer wanted or needed into the trash—even the shoes. And went to the door of her room. Flicking the lock, she pulled the door open, looked both ways and stepped outside, only to trip over the big lump lying in front of the doorway. She nearly went headfirst onto the sidewalk, but the lump sat up and snagged her around the waist, pulling her down so she landed in his arms instead.
"Hey, Jasmine. Going out for a midnight stroll?" Luke asked, smiling innocently into her eyes.
She couldn't believe the nerve of the man! "What the hell are you doing camped outside my door?"
He shrugged. "You wouldn't let me share the room. It was the only way I could make sure you were safe."
"Safe from what!"
"From Leo, and this Gianni guy. I mean, suppose they followed us? Or got to Misti somehow and made her tell them where we were going? I don't plan to let them just walk in and shoot you the way they did your friend Rosebud, you know."
She started to speak, then stopped herself. There was a pillow behind him, and a blanket half over him. And she was on his lap, and his hands were anchored at her waist, and the way he looked at her was a way no one else had ever looked at her before. He looked at her eyes, then her lips, then her eyes again, over and over as he spoke. As if having trouble keeping focused. And her stomach did something funny, and instead of swearing at him, she heard herself say, "You've been sleeping out here on the sidewalk waiting for killers to show up?"
He said. "I wouldn't exactly call it sleeping."
She lowered her eyes.
"So where were you going, Jasmine?"
Inhaling deeply, she said, "To find Gianni."
"Yeah? And then what?"
Jasmine lifted her gaze to his. "Take him in or kill him, I guess."
"You do that, and even Garrett won't be able to keep you out of jail."
"Maybe not. But at least my son wouldn't have to be afraid anymore."
He stared into her eyes for a long time. "He'd be heartbroken instead. For the rest of his life, he'd hurt for the mother he lost."
She couldn't argue with that, so she didn't try. "At least he'd have a life."
"He has a life now, Jasmine. A good life. You made a fresh start in Texas. You have a good job waiting for you there, one you and Bax can both be proud of. You have friends there, people who care about you, and..." He let his voice trail off.
"And what?" she asked him. "And you? Are you going to say I have you? When we both know I'm the furthest thing from what you want. You told me yourself that you weren't ready for—"
"Dammit, Jasmine, will you just put the you and me part of this equation aside for a minute? I'm talking about you and Baxter and Quinn, Texas. I'm talking about you teaching dance at Ben's dojo. I'm talking about a place with enough fresh air and sun- shine for Baxter to thrive on for years. Why do you want to turn the topic to you and me?"
She shrugged. "You're the one camping on my doorstep and scooping me off stages and acting like you own me or something."
He looked away. "I didn't scoop you off any stage."
"You thought it was me."
"Hell, Jasmine, what do you want from me?"
She lifted her brows. "I want you to walk away. Leave me alone. Just go back to Texas and forget all about me." She said it, but she knew that she was lying through her teeth.
He looked up at her slowly, held her gaze, and she was terrified for one brief moment that he would say "All right" and turn around and walk out of her life. She actually held her breath, and with every second that ticked by she expected him to say so long. But he didn't. Instead he said, "I'm sorry, Jasmine, but I just can't do that."
She almost sighed in relief. Did it show on her face? God, she hoped not. She hated feeling this way. No man had ever had her at this much of a disadvantage. If he knew, he would have the upper hand. She couldn't let on—dammit, she just couldn't.
She got herself upright, and she stepped back inside and held the door open, and said, "I guess if you insist on being my shadow, you may as well come inside."
He did, looking around, his eyes taking in every detail of the room, pausing on the wastebasket where the clothes she'd been wearing before draped over the edge and a single spiked heel stuck up like a potted plant. His lips pulled slightly at the corners, but other than that, there was no reaction, no comment.
He went casually to the bed on the left, flung back the covers and peeled off his jacket.
Jasmine managed to break the grip his eyes had on hers and turned away. "Don't you want to take a shower before you turn in?"
"And give you time to take off on me? No way. I'll wait till morning, thanks."
She shot him a glare. "And what's to stop me from taking off in the..."
He was peeling off his shirt now. Draping it over the back of a chair, then pausing, turning to catch her staring at him. She couldn't help it, though. He looked better undressed than she'd ever imagined a man could look. Firm and smooth and dark. Her palms heated and dampened as she remembered the way his skin felt beneath them—and then against hers. It had never been that way for her with any other man—so intense, so deep. Like it wasn't just her body performing the sex act. It was as if her whole being had been making love to him. And the memory of it just wouldn't stop haunting her. Teasing her. Even now.
She looked away quickly. "Never mind."
"What's to stop you from taking off in the morning?" he said, finishing her question for her. "My cousins, of course."
; Fabric brushed skin, and a quick darting peek from the corner of her eye told her he was sliding those jeans off. She jerked her gaze away fast, tried to focus on the room straight ahead of her instead. But there was a damned mirror on the dresser, projecting his boxer shorts-clad body sliding into the bed, pulling up the covers, settling his head on the pillow. Then he lifted his head briefly, met her eyes in the mirror and sent her a wink. "Night, Jasmine."
She released a burst of noisy air, clenched her fists and stomped to her own bed. Damn him. Damn him! He knew how she was feeling, and he just wanted to torture her. To make her squirm. He didn't have to strip down to almost nothing. "This isn't fair," she snapped, yanking back the covers.
"What isn't?"
"You...showing up here and bossing me around. Keeping me from doing what I came here to do."
"Jasmine, for crying out loud, I came here to keep you from getting yourself killed. And to fix this thing once and for all."
"Oh, well, that's much better than my plan, which was to get killed and not fix this thing. Thank goodness you arrived!" She stood on the far side of the bed with her back to him, undid her jeans and slid them off, leaving the shirt in place. And she couldn't help a quick glance at the mirror to see where his eyes were. They were glued to her legs, her thighs, and he looked like someone had hit him in the belly with a mallet. Good.
She got into her bed, pulled her covers up over her head, took off her shirt and bra, and then emerged again, keeping the blankets chin high. She flung the clothes toward the foot of the bed, where they hung haphazardly.
He was staring at her with pained eyes. She said, "What? I can't very well sleep in it! It's all I brought to wear tomorrow."
He nodded in short jerky motions. "So just what was your plan, anyway? I mean, besides the brilliant part about finding Gianni and killing him in cold blood. What were you planning on doing after that?"
She shrugged. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."
Texas Homecoming Page 16