by Nancy Gideon
"Dead," she finished for him. "That's not going to be me. I won't freeze up." Not again. She slapped in a fresh clip and fired off a rapid spat of bullets. By now, she was used to the kick and relished the buck against her palm. The recoil made her feel empowered, in control, both things having been absent from her life for quite some time.
And instead of being threatened by or uncomfortable with her newfound confidence, Jack demanded it from her. He equated strength and femininity in a way no man she'd known before ever had. Those she'd met and considered dating had shied away if she allowed her ambitions to flare. Power and self-assuredness was an unattractive trait in their eyes. But not in Jack's. When he looked at her, she saw his respect, saw his admiration for the work she was doing. When she failed and had the courage to come hack again, more determined, she earned his unspoken approval. And that encouragement was like an aphrodisiac to her long-starved sense of self.
She wanted no part of the kind of relationship her parents had shared, with her father in the limelight and her mother on a delicate pedestal. She'd always wanted a man who'd be her partner in all things—from the bedroom to the courtroom, supporting her emotional needs and her desire to achieve her own successes. But somehow, just like her mother, she'd let those dreams escape her to help the charismatic Robert D'Angelo attain his. It never occurred to her to resent him for it. They'd shared the same goals, the same quest for justice, and meeting them through him had been enough.
Then.
But how about now? Was she so insistent upon this hunt for his killer to forestall choosing the direction the rest of her life would take? Alone.
She wasn't afraid of the future, she told herself. But she had an unsettled score with the past to take care of first. She couldn't move ahead until she freed herself from the obligations she dragged behind her. Once that was done, once she'd seen her father's murderer in jail, she would be released to pursue whatever dreams might come her way. Her glance canted toward the devastatingly handsome Jack Chaney.
Even impossible dreams.
But she had no time for them now. Now she had to stay focused, to stay strong for her father's memory, even as the memory of Jack's kiss rattled through her like one of Rose's tornadic systems.
Jack was an enigma. He'd vowed to be indifferent to her cause yet had been pivotal in putting her unofficial investigation back on track. He'd saved her life with his expert handling of the truck on the freeway. Even now, he provided a safe haven in which she could hide to rebuild her battered confidence and strengthen mind and body. All he asked was that she stay out of his business, respect his privacy. Easy to agree to, hard to accomplish when everything about him sparked her professionally hewn curiosity.
What made a man like him, forged in combat and duty, step away from all the things that shaped him and gave him purpose? What brought him to this place to retreat from the world and the risks entailed by living in it? Was he hiding, too, or just healing?
Tessa glanced up toward the stone-and-cedar house, to where Rose had been watching them while she did her homework. She sensed the answer lay with the child and her aunt and with Jack's responsibility for them. He wanted her to believe all the unflattering preconceptions she'd brought with her. That he was a cold, detached killer intent on training other killers to do their job more efficiently. That he'd tolerate no intrusion of his work into his life. Yet he'd brought her up to live under his roof and to sit at his table. He'd said that he didn't care about her problems. Yet he'd put himself in harm's way to help in solving them. He'd said that he didn't care about her. Yet he'd given her a kiss that rocked her world.
Did he live by rules that only he was allowed to break?
She'd never been a rule breaker. She'd established her whole life, her career, her purpose around them. She played hard but she played fair. And so had her father. Now he was dead and she was being stalked by his killer. And the man to whom that mattered most didn't seem to care about anything.
She smiled tightly at the irony.
"I think we're done for the day, Annie O. Connie expects us to be at her table on time and to be smelling presentable."
"A shower sounds great. As soon as I clean Betsy."
"Betsy?"
She held up her pistol. "I feel like we're on a first-name basis now."
He chuckled and then his expression grew serious. "You did good today. Stan told me you could rise up to any challenge. He was right."
"And here you were hoping I'd be crying for my mamma after the first day." She smiled again, a bit ruefully. "You were almost right."
"Glad you were able to prove me wrong. Believe it or not, I always admit it when I am. And you thought I had no character at all."
She studied him, taking in his half-smiling smirk, his cocky stance, his I-dare-you attitude. Character? He oozed with it. It was as much a part of him as the innate sensuality that had her long-dormant fantasies spinning. Why try so hard to hide it behind the brusque indifference? Was he ashamed of being one of the good guys or did he believe he was no longer qualified to be among that number?
"You are definitely a character, Mr. Chaney. If you'll excuse me, I've got a gun to clean."
"What a turn-on. I love it when you talk dirty."
Did he? Was he even halfway serious? She couldn't tell. His dark gaze gleamed with amusement and more. It was the more that made her think again of his kiss and how good passion tasted on him. She was hungry for more but realized she would have to settle, at least for now, with whatever Constanza had simmering on the stove.
Dammit, Jack Chaney. Wanting you wasn't supposed to be part of the bargain.
* * *
With Betsy oiled and carefully stowed away, Tessa indulged in a long, steamy shower. She hurt. A spectacular bruise had formed below her shoulder blade from where she'd been thrown against the Ram's seat belt. The other aches and pains left no outward marks but betrayed her every time she tried to move. She felt like a punching bag.
And then there were the other aches and pains. The ones chafing out of sight but never out of mind as her sexuality rumbled back to life at this most inopportune time.
Jack was beating her up from the inside out.
With her hair bound in a towel and a short terry robe covering her scented and moisturized skin, she left the bathroom and ran smack into the object of her frustrations. He started right out with a rapid-fire dialogue.
"Your building had the heating and cooling systems checked a month before your father died. My dad authenticated that request. But no one authorized a recheck two weeks later. Whoever was crawling around inside the guts of your building that second time wasn't supposed to be there."
Tessa forgot all about her raging hormones. "And you think that second man was the killer?"
"Perhaps. Or just someone checking out the lay of the land. But I'm betting it's our boy. Pros like to do their own on-site walk-throughs. And if it was him, we might get lucky enough to catch him on tape. Stan's picking up the surveillance videos from the police department and a copy of the building schematics. I want to see what our friend saw when he was planning his little ghost walk. If we know how, we're closer to who."
Light-headed with excitement, Tessa whispered, "And when we know who—"
"We nail his ass."
"Yes!"
Without thinking, she whipped her arms around his neck to hug him in jubilant celebration. They had clues. They were actually closer to pinning the crime upon the guilty party.
For a moment Tessa's elation surpassed every other emotion in Jack.
And then two realizations sank in.
Not only didn't Jack mind her impulsive embrace, parts of him were hugely in favor of it.
And he'd said we.
* * *
We.
What was he thinking?
He hadn't meant to jump on the D'Angelo bandwagon quite so completely but when he saw her coming out of the misty bathroom, her skin aglow with heat and nothing to separate it from his sta
re but a scrap of terry cloth, his mind went maddeningly blank.
When she'd humped into him and those soft contours yielded to his tougher terrain, he'd started babbling like a schoolboy trying to score points with a favorite teacher. Of course, that wasn't the kind of scoring he wanted to do in this case.
We.
He might well have signed on the dotted line to enlist in her perhaps-not-so-foolhardy campaign. Foolhardy or not, justified or not, that still didn't make it his fight. He hadn't taken on a reckless challenge to impress a girl since … ever. But something about the brave yet vulnerable, fierce yet fragile Tessa made him want to strut just a little. Hell, a lot.
And with her pressed up tight against him, her damp cheek to his neck, and his hands curved carefully around the lift of her rib cage, he wanted a lot more. He wanted her without the terry cloth. He wanted her hot and moist and naked and eager to share a lot more of those soul-stealing kisses. He wanted her without the politics, without the soapbox, without the memory of her father standing between them.
And he guessed she wanted pretty much the same thing or she wouldn't have nudged her hips into him where he was ready and raging for release.
He didn't think anything could deflate that enthusiasm.
"Mr. Jack?"
Passion liquefied and swirled right down the drain. Just as quickly, Tessa hopped a neutral distance away, her flushed cheeks conveying an equal guilt.
Jack turned to face the perplexed girl. He could see her confusion, her need to hear him explain away what she'd seen but he couldn't find the words.
"What is it, Rose?"
"A phone call for you."
"I'll take it in my study." And he hurried away from both females who asked so much without saying a word.
Rose confronted the blushing and next-to-undressed Tessa with a blunt question.
"Are you Mr. Jack's girlfriend now?" The slightest hint of adolescent jealousy growled beneath those words.
"Goodness no." Her surprise was genuine enough to have the girl relaxing. "He just gave me some very exciting news and I guess I got a little carried away and hugged him. I'm here for the same reason as the others, to have Jack train me. I'm not a guest."
"No. But you're not like them, either. He would never have let any of them in the house. He never let them cross the stream."
Tessa almost said it was because she was a woman and therefore less of a threat. But would that make her twice the problem in the eyes of a young lady unwilling to share his reluctantly given affection? She considered her own desire to claim her father's notice. How well she could understand Rose's dilemma. On one hand, Tessa was the closest thing to a friend and confidante Rose had had in a long time. And on the other, Jack was definitely not indifferent to her presence.
"I'm not interested in Jack," she told the girl to ease the fears of abandonment crowding in her eyes. "I'll only be here for a few weeks. You'll be here for a lifetime."
That summation satisfied the girl just as it disheartened Tessa. She was just passing through Jack Chaney's life. And there was no reason to think that her passing would leave so much as a ripple.
* * *
"Mr. Chaney?"
"Mrs. D'Angelo? Where are you calling from?" A riotous mix of music and voices made him strain to hear her hushed tone.
"I'm on my cell phone."
"Are you at a party?" After he'd told Stan to keep her in the house and safe?
"It's a fund-raiser for a new youth center. I've been on the board for years. I couldn't not go. I didn't want to not go," she admitted in a stronger, almost defiant confession.
"Is Stan with you?"
She laughed. "Could you imagine Stan in black tie and tails?"
"Not even at his own funeral."
"I'm taking every precaution, Mr. Chaney. I'm not a careless woman."
No, he didn't think she was. He thought there were a lot of people who didn't give Barbara D'Angelo nearly enough credit.
"So why are you calling, if not to flaunt your rebellion against my authority?"
She didn't laugh again. She became suddenly alarmingly serious. "Rachel Martinez is here. She's one of the biggest contributors. She was very kind in coming over to give her condolences."
There was a razor edge to that comment. Obviously, Mrs. D'Angelo had her own suspicions regarding the death of her husband.
"I'm sure she's grateful that your husband is no longer a threat at the polls."
"That's not where my husband was the real threat. I guess I didn't realize that until tonight. I should have seen it but I didn't want to. There are some things you just don't want to know."
"What kind of things, Mrs. D'Angelo?"
"Things my husband was exposed to during his time in Vietnam. The killing, the corruption, the … temptations."
"Was he susceptible to those things?"
"I didn't want to think so. Now I don't know what to think. Rachel Martinez was over there, too. She was with the Catholic Relief Services as a civilian volunteer. Robert never mentioned that they'd met. It was a big war. But for as long as I can remember he never liked her, didn't trust her. I thought it was because of her political agenda or that he didn't think she was good for Paul—her late husband. But now I have to wonder if there's more he didn't tell me."
"What changed your mind?"
"Remember the friends my husband enlisted with? Taggert McGee and Chet Allen?"
"You mentioned them earlier."
"They were close as brothers but war can do strange things to men, even men who share almost every secret, every dream."
"I know that, ma'am. I've been there."
"Then perhaps you can explain how Chet Allen, who supposedly died in Cambodia, is in the other room, standing next to Rachel Martinez."
* * *
Chapter 10
« ^ »
"It was like seeing a ghost. I thought I was imagining it at first."
Tessa watched her mother pace the plush white rug. She'd never seen Barbara smoke before but she did it with a familiar ease. Nor had she ever seen her mother entertain even the UPS man without having her makeup flawless. This morning, her skin was unusually translucent, her eyes shadowed darkly by fatigue. And she looked her age.
"You're sure it was him?"
Barbara glanced at Jack long enough to smile thinly. "Oh, yes. I never liked Chet. There was something too high-strung, too intense about him. He took important things lightly and the trivial too seriously. He had a way of looking right through you that … well, it was unnerving. But he was Robert's friend, one of the Three Musketeers, so I tolerated him even though he made my skin crawl. When Robert told me he'd died, I remember thinking, horribly I know, that he was the sort of soldier that should never come home. He liked war. After basic, he told me he couldn't wait to get shipped out to start collecting trophies. I didn't know what he meant at the time." Her arms wrapped around herself to suppress a hard shiver. "I do now. He was a scary, dangerous man."
"I know the type."
Tessa glanced at Jack. Seeing him sitting comfortably in her mother's elegant living room dressed in dark slacks and shirt under a well-made tan sport coat, he seemed surprisingly domesticated. But paint his face in camo colors, put him in fatigues and send him into the jungle with an automatic weapon, what would he become then? Something very scary and dangerous. He knew the type because he was the type. The type the average citizen wanted to have in a foreign country to fight for their safety but not on their streets living among them. No wonder Jack preferred his wooded retreat. He'd never left the jungle behind, either.
"What did Robby tell you about how Allen died?" Stan asked from where he sat looking uncomfortable on one of the brocaded chairs. He'd picked Jack and Tessa up at daybreak to smuggle them into the D'Angelo home. At Jack's insistence, he'd made a spot for himself in one of the first-floor spare rooms where he could keep an eye on the surveillance equipment already in place and on the extra gadgets he'd added as per Jack's instructions.
"He didn't like talking about things that happened over there," Barbara answered. "Once he got home, he just wanted to put it all behind him. I didn't push. I didn't want to know what he'd gone through. I was just glad to have him back. He had the rest of our lives planned out and if he wanted to pretend nothing happened while he was away, I was willing to go along with it. But he did send me a peculiar letter, the last one I got before he was shipped Stateside. He sent some pictures, some clippings, but I didn't pay much attention to them. He told me in the letter he was coming home and that was the only thing that mattered to me. He also told me that Chet had died." She snubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another one. Her hands were shaking. She inhaled deeply and expelled an impressive smoke ring.
"They'd been out on some hush-hush mission and Chet had been killed by enemy fire. Robert was wounded in the same firefight and couldn't bring Chet's body back with him. Robert was awfully upset about it. He'd never given up on Chet. He'd hoped that Chet would change once he came home again, you know, become the friend he'd gone drinking and fishing and cruising for girls with. But I know that wouldn't have happened. Whatever Chet became over there was the real Chet. What he'd been before was just a cover-up.
"Robert mentioned a drug problem. I guess it was pretty common over there. I thought he meant Chet was taking drugs, but now I think he was trafficking them. Robert was supposed to testify at some sort of inquiry that involved running opium from the jungles over there to the inner-city jungles over here. But after Chet died, I never heard any more about it. I think he was supposed to give evidence against Chet and was relieved that he died, honorably, before charges could be brought."
"And would that have pissed Allen off enough to have him come back from the grave to kill your husband more than thirty years later?"
Barbara gave Jack a long, cool stare. "Chet liked to plan his every move carefully. He never did anything on impulse. Tag and Robert used to tease him about being so methodical he'd draw up blueprints before using the toilet. Chet was patient. It didn't matter to him how much time it took to get something done, but he always finished what he started. It's what made him so good in the field."