Warrior Without a Cause

by Nancy Gideon

  "All buttoned down tight." Jack walked in on their dialogue, then realizing he'd stepped into the middle of something serious, he searched for a way to retreat. "I've got to make a few calls. I'll leave you two ladies to catch up on … whatever."

  "Thank you for you hospitality, Jack."

  "No problem. You'll be safe here."

  "Stan said you were teaching Tess to defend herself. Is that true?"

  "More like defend myself from her. Your daughter is quite a scrapper. It's like going a couple of rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard."

  Barbara started to smile then her features stilled. "I'd almost forgotten."

  "What, Mom?" Tessa leaned forward, encouraged by the sudden heightened color in her mother's face.

  "The gym. In Roseville. He and Chet and Tag used to spar there when they were in high school. They used to burn cigarettes and beer from the regulars. When he came back from Nam and started working in the prosecutor's office, he used to go there sometimes to work out whatever he couldn't tell me. He had a locker there."

  Jack and Tessa exchanged optimistic stares.

  "I'll check it out first thing tomorrow." He didn't betray any outward excitement but Tessa could tell he was pumped. His eyes glittered. "Ladies, it's late and you need your beauty sleep."

  His tone brooked no argument so they gave none.

  Beneath her covers, her mind and body limp with exhaustion, Tessa couldn't sleep. She lay tossing and twisting as the minutes ticked by into an hour. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined her mother with those brutal thugs inside her house. One of them wore knife creased trousers and had a voice like sinister velvet.

  The mattress behind her dipped with a weight more significant than Tinker's. She smelled Jack's clean scent and sighed as his arms wrapped around her, tugging her back into the wall of comfort his body offered. He stayed on top of the covers, layering his own heat through them.

  "Thought the bedbugs might be biting," he whispered behind her ear where the caress of his breath quickened a shiver inside her.

  "Not now, they're not."

  "Then sleep tight, Tessa."

  And on one long exhalation, she did just that. When she woke in the morning, he was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

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  "I missed you this morning."

  At Tessa's soft-spoken words, Jack looked up from his coffee. He offered a one-sided smile. "If I'd stayed, my intentions would have gone from humanitarian to purely self-indulgent."

  "You say that like it's a bad thing."

  And perhaps it was, was what his tight expression told her. They'd laid bare a lot of very personal baggage in front of the fireplace. Now, in the light of day, perhaps he was regretting that.

  She had watched him for several minutes before deciding to make an overture. He had looked so isolated, so intense staring out over the creek but not really seeing it. The morning air was brisk with the harbinger of snow to come and full of the scent of musty downed leaves and pine. Dampness seeped in through the skin right to bone. Tessa had thought about the warmth she'd find tucked in against Jack's side but his mood seemed unpredictable and she wasn't sure the breach of his personal space would be welcome. So she'd lingered at a safe distance, wondering how to approach him until his body language advised that he was alerted to her presence.

  Even as she approached him, his reception had been guarded. His posture was braced and withdrawn but his dark gaze smoldered as it did a quick once-over assessment of her choice of clothing.

  "Thought I'd take in a quick five miles before breakfast," she said now as his silence continued. His fathomless gaze followed the movement of nylon over new muscle until she felt as though she was standing on display in her underwear. Or less. Jogging suddenly wasn't as appealing as the notion of dragging Jack back upstairs. But she stuck with the plan because he'd still made no attempt to act on what flared so hotly in his stare. She made her tone casual. "Funny how you start out hating every step then you find you can't start your day without that endorphin rush."

  "You shouldn't go alone."

  She refused to let his warning spoil the moment. Tessa patted the small of her back. "Betsy's keeping me company. I'll be careful. Yellow alert all the way." Then, she waited, hoping he'd volunteer to join her. She'd come to enjoy the way they tested their stamina in the woods. And in the bedroom. Her face heated, forcing her to look away, toward the barracks where not so long ago she'd been exiled. So why did the distance between them seem to yawn just as impossibly wide after the intimacies they'd shared?

  "I'd join you but I'm waiting for a couple of return calls."

  He didn't elaborate and the sense of secrecy left her feeling excluded and unfairly wounded. Back to the barracks on an emotional level. Used to coming up against that wall, she automatically backed down. "I'll hit the trail then and give you your privacy."

  "It's just from my dad and Russell," he offered. The explanation, though vague and reluctantly tendered, soothed her ruffled feathers. A week ago he wouldn't have felt obligated to give her even that little tease of information. Not a great stride, but she'd known it was a long race.

  "That's fine. Let me know what they had to say." No secrets, Jack, was what she didn't add, though it was subtly implied. He smiled thinly.

  "Yes, ma'am. A full report when you get back." He nodded toward the wall of glass. "How's she doing this morning?"

  Tessa followed his gaze through the window separating them from the living room. Barbara sat on the modern couch sharing juice with Rose. The two of them were huddled close over some glossy magazine that looked suspiciously like high fashion. Tessa experienced a sudden odd twinge. The intimate, companionable act was something a mother and daughter might share. Had she and her mother ever enjoyed such a relaxed and frivolous moment in the early morning hours? She couldn't remember one. She'd been in her father's study going over points of law and totally disinterested in discussing hem lengths or hair highlights with her glamorous mother.

  Did Barbara regret that loss of simple girlfriend closeness from a daughter who thought her lifestyle trivial? Perhaps there were things her mother could have offered that weren't found between the leather-bound covers in her father's library but Tessa had never given her the chance to impart them.

  Watching her with Rose, the way the young girl snuggled up under the inclusive drape of her arm and eagerly returned her smiles, Tessa mourned the loss of those moments.

  "She's all right," she told Jack at last. "I don't think she got much sleep. She wasn't prepared to have all this dropped at her doorstep."

  "Who is?"

  She glanced up at him. You are, she wanted to reply but she held the words because she got the impression that he was talking about something else all together. Something more personal that had blindsided him when he wasn't looking. Something like a cause he couldn't ignore and a woman he couldn't resist. Or at least, that's what she was hoping.

  She started her run, chasing the Zenlike calm she often found in the woods, but her mind refused to stop its own wild race.

  Because of Jack and what remained unspoken between them.

  She had his promise to help her but he'd given her no other assurances. Whatever flared and smoldered between them still burned like an uncontrolled fire. They had yet to establish perimeters that would reign it in and bank it more strongly for a longer lasting heat. Perhaps the brief yet all-consuming flare of the moment was all Jack was willing to offer a woman, especially one so obsessed with her own agenda.

  While her feet hit the path in solid repetitions, echoing her heartbeat, her emotions rebelled against a similar flow of regulated logic. A mind trained to regimented facts was useless when it came to categorizing feelings. But still, she tried. It was the only way she knew how to approach the problem. Look at it from all angles.

  Had she given him any indication that she was interested in more than just a physical romp and some professional support? Had she hinted that he
r emotions were engaged and that there was a whole area of her heart that lay unexplored and ripe for conquest? No. She was playing it as close to the cuff as he was. Because they were both afraid of what they were feeling. She was no more ready than he was and that truth surprised and saddened her.

  How was she just going to let him go when this was over? What if he was willing to just walk away?

  She pushed herself on the trail, racing after the exhaustion that would give her peace of mind. She couldn't find it. It was one step ahead, taunting, teasing, like the fluttering hem of Jack's jogging shorts.

  What was she going to do about Jack Chaney?

  He wasn't going to make the first move. If she wanted to know where he stood in regard to a potential relationship, she was going to have to back him into a corner. Not flattering but understandable now that she knew his story. It wasn't the commitment he feared, it was the risk of anticipated failure. How could she tell him his emotions would be safe with her when she wasn't sure how to handle her own?

  She wasn't prepared to deal with a man like Jack. He defied definition with all his edgy contrasts. Moody and remote, dangerous yet curiously vulnerable, multifaceted and still direct. A constant puzzle she'd yet to solve even with the new pieces he'd revealed to her.

  And then there was the way they were together. A spontaneous combustion of tempers, passions and ideals. She of the cool control, cut-and-dry, straight-and-narrow, and he of the brooding shadows, detached bemusement and bad-boy, curfew-breaking grin. But with all the clashing of strong wills, the underlying respect anchored them in what, frighteningly, could be something so good it scared her to consider it.

  She paused to take a sip from her water bottle, continuing to move so her muscles wouldn't tighten up, the way her thoughts were bunching into hard, anxious knots.

  Where would Jack fit into her future? Her apartment didn't allow domestic pets over twenty pounds. Where could she keep a wild and wary timber wolf that refused to be contained within the perimeters of her world?

  She started off again, determined to reach her goal. To find an answer to the question Jack presented.

  Breathing deep into the pain building in her calves and chest, she took a moment to appreciate the setting. Here, Jack had found a slice of heaven few in her office building would ever understand. They would be as fearful of the silence and the isolation as she'd been when she arrived. All those stars in the endless sky. All those hours with only one's thoughts to fill them.

  Jack had invited her, albeit reluctantly, into his personal sanctuary and, over the past weeks, she'd made herself at home here. Could it be home? Her working in the city, the long commute … with Jack waiting as her reward.

  She slowed as the house came into view. His fortress to protect him and his from her and those like her. Yet he'd opened the door to let her in. But that wasn't exactly like inviting her to stay.

  And then there were the secrets. What he did, where he'd been, what he felt. He made no bones about what he thought, but that was just the surface of the intensely private man she found so compelling and yet, at the same time, frustrating. How could she blend the black and white of her existence with his murky half tones without compromising her beliefs? Could either of them bend without breaking? Would they want to try if it meant finding a way to meet in the middle?

  She moved up the gravel drive, her steps weighted with more than just weariness. Two more stubborn, emotionally skittish and independent people she couldn't conceive of. There would never be harmony. Or boredom. Yet didn't they both thrive on high-stakes situations?

  Jack was waiting for her on the porch. He came forward to meet her at the steps, his expression open and unguarded for once.

  "My dad called. Stan is awake and real cranky. He wants you to stop by later to bring him his dirty magazine collection."

  She took two steps up, locked her fingers behind the back of his head and pulled him down into a kiss so hard and hungry, it took him several startled heartbeats to respond.

  It was more than happiness, more than simple desire and he knew it.

  "What?"

  She answered with another seeking lip-lock. Searching for what? She could feel the question and his uneasiness in the cautious placement of his hands upon her shoulders. Resting lightly, ready to crush her close or to lever her away. Which would it be? she wondered as she tasted him more deeply, more desperately, right out on his front porch for God and everyone to see. His reaction was carefully measured and oh, so wary. He didn't retreat but neither did he advance. He met her overtures with an appreciative murmur and the light stroke of his palms down her back. Neutral but not disinterested.

  Finally he leaned back, his dark eyes probing for a reason. "What's going on, Tess? Did I miss something?" She looked up at him, seeing his heartbreakingly handsome face, his wry, clueless smile and the innate apprehension in his intent stare.

  "I don't know, Chaney. You tell me."

  And she slipped around him to go into the house, to an icy shower designed to drive silly daydreams from her head.

  Water didn't come that cold.

  * * *

  Jack and her mother were waiting in the living room, Jack with a puzzled wariness and Barbara with hesitation.

  "I'm going to check the key against the two possible locks," Jack began. "Your mom wants to stop at her house and pick up a few things first."

  "I'll stay with her while you follow up on the locked box."

  Jack quickly covered his surprise. He hadn't expected her to choose Door Number One. "I don't like leaving the two of you there alone."

  "Come on, Chaney, what trouble can we get into?"

  He scowled. "Do you expect an answer?"

  She waved off his reluctance. "I'll make sure all the alarms are activated. It's broad daylight. We'll be careful. And we have to deal with the house sometime."

  Still, he wasn't totally convinced that they could be trusted. "You'll wait there for me."

  Both nodded.

  "Let's go."

  Rose met them at the door. She had an unabashed hug for Barbara and Tessa while Jack observed impassively. He rumpled the girl's hair. "You behave. Get your studies done. And stay in the house today."

  Her brow puckered in curiosity but she didn't question him. "Sí, Mr. Jack. Will the misses be coming back with you?"

  "Yes."

  "Bueno."

  Rose was that quick to accept the situation. Jack wasn't sure to be grateful or alarmed by her easy embrace of the two women who changed the atmosphere of his house into a home with their mere presence. He didn't like change. But he didn't object to this one as strenuously as he once would have.

  And that bothered him no little bit.

  * * *

  Barbara's reaction to the inside of her home was more restrained than her daughter's had been. She went methodically from room to room righting and straightening and tossing the irreparable. Tessa didn't know what to say so she stayed judiciously out of the way.

  In the bedroom, Barbara pulled out a suitcase and began to fill it with her belongings. She handled each item gingerly as if it had been contaminated by those who had violated her private spaces. Her features were pale, her expression composed. Only her eyes held a haunted shadowing.

  How well Tessa understood.

  "I'm selling the house."

  Tessa jolted in shock as her mother continued to neatly fold her blouses into the designer bag.

  "It's too big for me now and quite frankly, I'll never feel comfortable here again. Before I do, I'll give you kids a chance to take whatever you want and I'll get rid of the rest of it. A charity auction or something." She paused and took a breath. Her gaze moistened but she blinked away the sentiment and continued her task. "My needs will be simpler from now on."

  "Mom, you don't have to rush into anything."

  "I'm not rushing, Tess. I don't want to be here without Robert. This was his showplace. I always felt a bit lost in it."

  Again her quiet word
s surprised her daughter. "I thought you wanted this house."

  "Your father thought I wanted it. I'd never stepped foot inside it until he told me it was ours. I would have preferred something … homier. I feel more comfortable in your friend Jack's house than I've felt here in all the years we've been here. He's an interesting man, your Jack. Are you interested?"

  Her mother was changing the subject and Tessa wasn't sure she should let it go. But she found herself answering, "He's a difficult man. A little too complex."

  Barbara smiled wistfully. "There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it's the things you have to work at that you really appreciate."

  What was she talking about? Tessa and Jack? Or herself and her husband?

  "So what will you do?" Tessa never considered her mother's financial situation, assuming her father had had that taken care of. Her indifference to the situation now left a residue of guilt she wasn't sure how to handle.

  "Get someplace small, maybe a loft condo in one of those reclaimed inner-city areas so I won't feel so alone."

  Tessa could have told her that surrounding herself with noise and activity didn't equate to companionship. And maybe she would now that the tenuous barriers between them were beginning to come down.

  "And I'm thinking of getting a job. Oh, don't look so startled. It's not like I've never done anything manual before. I worked in a restaurant while your father was going to night school. I clerked in a department store and did the books after hours for several businesses so we could make ends meet. This was before your father got his law degree. We didn't live out of your grandparents' checkbook. Those were tough times." But she smiled as she thought of them. "We were partners back then."

  But Robert's success had changed that. Tessa could see it in her eyes.

  Her mother working, living in an apartment, leaving the television on to provide a substitute for company. Tessa struggled with the image. Because she was looking at herself.

  The phone rang and Barbara picked it up. She listened for a moment, her expression growing pinched and ever paler, then she thanked the caller and hung up. She didn't speak, so Tessa prompted her.