by Jami Alden
A warmth that was quickly doused by Jack’s reply. “Of course not,” he said with a chuckle, and shook his head. “Sorry—I just wrapped up an assignment and have had about four hours of sleep in as many days.”
Now that she looked closely, Talia could see the dark, faintly puffy circles under Jack’s eyes, the weary lines around his mouth. It did nothing to take away from a face that was undeniably attractive in a chiseled, hard-jawed, sharp cheekboned kind of way.
“Danny just landed a new client and they needed me to come down to help out, so I’m relocating here for the next month or so.” Jack managed the Seattle operations of Gemini Securities, a firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area that specialized in corporate and personal security. The firm was owned and operated by Danny Taggart, one of Jack’s team members from his time as a Green Beret, along with Taggart’s younger twin brothers. “I figured I’d save myself a phone call and come see how you were doing myself.”
“As you can see, I’m doing just fine,” Talia said.
Rosario rolled her eyes. “Except for the part where she’s spending hours online reading everything she can about the old bitch’s release and reading all kinds of trash about herself in the process.”
Jack sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, his weariness almost palpable. “You shouldn’t read that stuff.”
“I’m a big girl, Jack. I can manage my own reading material. I don’t need you to save me from myself anymore.” Talia winced at her snotty tone. What was wrong with her? She hated herself when she got like this. But it was too much, Jack showing up unexpectedly after she’d spent the week rehashing the past. Suddenly she was back in that place where she was like a cornered cat, spitting and hissing in her desperation to get free.
Her rudeness seemed to bounce off his broad shoulders. “I know you can take care of yourself, and Rosie,” he said with a nod to her sister. “I just don’t like the idea of you reliving everything that happened. You barely made it through the first time, and I hate the idea of it still hurting you. You deserve to be happy, after everything that happened.”
There was something in his voice, a fierceness that made her chest feel tight, her stomach feel wobbly. And the look in his eyes—there was an intensity there, a heat like she’d never seen before.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a customer flag her down, and another server handed her a long list of orders. Talia filled the orders as her mind churned over Jack’s appearance tonight. He made it sound so casual, just checking up on her.
But there was something going on; she couldn’t put her finger on it. And in her experience, nothing was ever casual with Jack.
As she moved back to his end of the bar, she heard him chatting with Rosie about her first two quarters at school. He nodded sympathetically as Rosie complained about the physics class that was kicking her ass.
“You can call me or e-mail me anytime for help, you know,” Jack said.
“That’s right,” Rosie said. “You were a physics major at West Point, right?”
Talia frowned. She had no idea Jack had gone to West Point, much less been a physics major. But apparently Rosie and Jack had talked enough for her to know all sorts of details about his life.
Talia busied herself wiping down the already immaculate bar, telling herself there was no reason to feel this stab of hurt over the fact that Jack and Rosario were apparently BFFs when the only contact she’d had with him in the past two years was a terse, one-line e-mail refusing any payment for the security services he and Gemini Securities had provided while keeping her and Rosario safe from David’s reach.
Not that she wanted anything more, she reminded herself forcefully. Jack was a six-foot-four, two-hundred-plus-pound reminder of everything she wanted to leave buried.
And yet, seeing him here… it awakened something inside her, something struggling to dig its way through the rubble left over from the life she’d left behind.
“So are we ever going to eat, or what?” Kevin interrupted her thoughts in a tone she’d last heard used by a three-year-old. It was clear from his sidelong glare at Jack that Kevin was not happy with Rosie’s very obvious case of hero worship.
Jack turned his steely blue glare at the boy as though he’d just noticed him. He looked him up and down and turned back to Rosie. “This is the guy you told me about?” he said, not bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.
“Yes, this is Kevin, my boyfriend,” Rosie said with a tentative smile.
Talia winced at the uncertainty in her sister’s voice. She looked up and caught Jack’s gaze. As their eyes met, she knew his thoughts echoed her own.
Douche bag. His mouth tightened in resignation, and in that moment she felt a little crack in the wall that had always existed between them, even after Jack had pulled her out of a basement and saved her from a psycho killer.
Kevin, so sullen his bottom lip was practically protruding, reluctantly reached out his hand to take the one Jack offered. His thin hand was swallowed up by Jack’s massive palm, and Kevin winced as Jack gave it a firm squeeze.
“Kevin,” Jack said, his voice scarier for its icy calm. “Let’s get something straight, okay?”
Kevin nodded.
“These two have run into enough creeps for three lifetimes. I’ve taken it upon myself to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t run into any more. Got it?”
He released Kevin’s hand, and the younger man glared sullenly as he absently rubbed his sore palm. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Jack said with a baring of white teeth that couldn’t quite be called a smile. “I’m going to be in town for a few weeks, and while I’m here, think of me as their very big, very protective older brother who will come after you if I find out you’re giving either of them any trouble.”
Kevin gave a grunt and heaved himself up from his seat. “Yeah, that’s cool and all, but I think I’m out of here. Rosario, I’ll catch you at school. It’s getting a little heavy in here.”
“No!” Rosario grabbed her coat and purse and started after him, shooting daggers at Jack.
Talia went after her and grabbed her arm. “Rosie, let him go. This is one of the only nights of the week I get to see you—”
Rosie jerked from her hold. “Dammit, Talia, let me go! Jack, you’re as bad as her, thinking everyone in the world is out to get us. Just let me live my life,” she said, whirling dramatically as she stomped after Kevin.
“Be back at my place by midnight,” Talia called to her sister’s disappearing back. She sighed and turned to Jack, whose usual poker face had cracked to reveal a faint sheepishness.
“I’m sorry if that was out of line…,” he began.
Talia waved him off as she went back behind the bar. The crowd was thinning out and it didn’t take her long to refresh a handful of drinks. “It’s okay. Kevin is a jerkoff but he’s mostly harmless. But I do wish she’d find someone more motivated, not to mention someone who’s actually nice to her,” she said as she rejoined Jack where he was leaning against one end of the bar.
His full lips quirked into a rueful smile, revealing the flash of a dimple in his lean cheek. “Why is it the good ones always go for the assholes who don’t deserve them?”
“I don’t know.” Talia sighed with a tired smile. “But with my track record, I’m hardly in a position to question her judgment.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “You can’t keep blaming your-self.”
Talia felt like a snake was curling around her insides as the guilt, the shame over her own bad decisions tried to claw free from the dark corner where she had shoved them. “I really don’t want to get into this right now,” she said, shooting a smile at a customer a few seats down. God, five minutes in Jack’s presence and she was already back there, scared, powerless.
Guilty.
“Shit, Talia.” Jack reached out a hand, stopping short of actually touching her. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t come here to upset you.”
There was something in
Jack’s face that made her swallow hard and made her feel… something… she couldn’t quite pinpoint. An ache, a curiosity—
“Hey, who’s your friend?”
Whatever it was got pushed away in a wave of perfume and blond hair striding across the room, a glint of interest in her blue eyes and a toothpaste-commercial-worthy smile on her face.
“This is my… uh… This is Jack Brooks,” Talia said. “And, Jack, this is Susie Morse, the owner of Suzette’s and my boss.”
Talia watched Jack’s huge hand swallow up Susie’s much smaller one. She grabbed a rag and gave the bar a vigorous wipedown so she wouldn’t see the inevitable flare of attraction on Jack’s face. Who could blame him? With her thick, honey-colored hair, blue eyes, and tall, athletic body, Susie was a dead ringer for Christie Brinkley in her Sports Illustrated days. Normally Talia didn’t pay enough attention to her own looks to let the contrast bother her, but suddenly she felt like a small dark mouse in the shadow of Susie’s blazing sun.
“Nice to put a face with the name,” Susie said, though the way her eyes were raking up and down Jack’s body, Susie was appreciating a lot more than just his face.
Something was odd, though. “Why would you know Jack’s name?”
Something flickered across Susie’s face that looked suspiciously like guilt, but then her smile was back in full force. “Oh, Alyssa told me all about you.”
Alyssa Taggart was married to Derek Taggart, who worked with Jack at Gemini Securities. Alyssa and Susie were childhood friends, and when Talia had moved to Palo Alto, Alyssa had hooked her up with Susie, who happened to be in the market for a new beverage manager at her popular restaurant. While Talia hated feeling like a charity case, she’d been happy for the introduction and had worked her ass off to make sure Susie never regretted the decision to hire her.
“Last time she and Derek were in, she said I had to meet you the next time you came to town, and I can see exactly why she was so insistent.”
In her time at Suzette’s, Talia had come to like and respect Susie a great deal and counted her as one of the few people she trusted enough to call a friend. But right now, watching as Susie looked at Jack like he was a juicy piece of meat, Talia had to squash the urge to smack her friend’s hand away from where it lingered in Jack’s.
Talia wasn’t sure in the dim lighting of the bar, but she was pretty sure Jack was blushing. “Uh, thanks, it’s, uh, nice to meet you too,” he said, and gently disengaged his hand.
“Dinner service is wrapping up,” Susie said, “but I’m more than happy to set up a table for you and have the chef put something together—”
Jack silenced her with a raised hand. “Thanks, but I’m fine. I’ll just sit here at the bar, if that’s okay?” He quirked a thick brow at Talia as if asking for permission.
Which struck her as odd. In her short but intense interactions with Jack, he never asked her approval for anything. “Fine with me. What can I get you?”
“Beer is good,” Jack said as he settled onto a stool. Talia slid the drink in front of him and saw another customer signaling her from the corner of her eye. “I need to—”
“Go right ahead,” Jack said. “I’m good.”
Talia got the customer his check, and as the crowd thinned, that sensation of being watched came back, ten times stronger now. But it didn’t creep her out, having Jack’s intense gaze track her. Instead of prickles on the back of her neck and between her shoulders, she felt a strange ache.
Oh, God, was she actually attracted to Jack?
No, it was ridiculous. Impossible. Still, as she gathered up glasses from an empty table, she heard Susie’s tinkling laugh from the main dining room and felt a sudden burst of envy. For the easy way her friend was able to smile at Jack, toss her hair, laugh, and make her interest clear.
Talia had been like that once. Friendly, flirty, ready and willing to use what she had to attract the attention of any man she set her sights on. She’d been normal once. She knew she had. Able to talk and banter and be attracted to a man as gorgeous and compelling as Jack.
But when she tried to remember what that was like, it was like parting the curtains on some distant, foggy past that belonged to another person. She’d tried to reclaim that part of herself in the past two years. She’d dated a few nice, normal men who took her out to dinner and didn’t expect her to sleep with them. But none of them had been able to wake her body from its apparent coma. No one made anything that felt remotely like attraction spark in her belly.
Until now.
Of course. Because no matter how much she longed for a normal life, of course her fucked-up past and twisted psychology would make her yearn for the one man who knew exactly who she was, what she’d done, what had been done to her.
The one man who’d made it all too clear he didn’t want a damn thing from her.
Coming here was a mistake.
Jack hadn’t known what he’d expected to feel, seeing Talia in person for the first time in nearly two years. But he hadn’t expected to feel like he’d been punched in the gut, dangerously close to being overcome with a whole mess of emotions that ranged everywhere from lust to need to admiration and went way beyond the realm of mere protectiveness. He knew he was making her uncomfortable, the way he tracked her every move as she worked, but he couldn’t help it.
She was so fucking beautiful. Not that he hadn’t known that before tonight—the first time he’d seen her, he’d experienced the same dizziness every straight male experienced on his first encounter with Talia Vega. Made-up, dressed to kill in a dress that hugged a body that had more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway, the Talia he’d met that long-ago night when he’d signed on as the head of security at the nightclub she helped manage was something to behold.
But this woman, with her dark, wavy hair brushing her jaw, skin so smooth and clear it didn’t need makeup to mess with its perfection, and a tight, toned body that moved with a fluid grace as she made the rounds… she was infinitely more appealing than the man-eater she’d once presented to the world.
He was shocked by his immediate, visceral response, the sudden need to claim her when his plan in coming here was to finally let her go for good. Even though she didn’t have the slightest clue he’d been hanging on.
He struggled to keep his turmoil from showing on his face and reminded himself of his purpose here tonight.
Closure. All he wanted was to confirm, in person, everything he’d known for the past two years. Everything Danny, Derek, and Ethan Taggart had reported back to him for the past eight months. That Talia and Rosario were settled into their life here, were healthy and safe and doing just fine and had no need for Jack to come riding on his goddamn white horse to save them from an evil troll.
That last bit had been from Danny, but Jack got the point. With Nate Brewster and David Maxwell both dead, Talia’s dragons had been effectively slain, leaving her free to get on with her life, free of the violence and abuse she’d suffered in the past.
And leaving Jack free to abandon his two years of under-the-radar surveillance, keeping tabs on her through his own recon missions, the Taggarts’ reports, and the occasional communications with Rosario.
No more need for the behind-the-scenes help he’d provided over the past two years. Help he knew Talia would have refused if she had any idea it was coming from him.
She didn’t like owing him, he knew. Though he’d been careful to conceal how he really felt about her, he knew somewhere inside her she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. She was waiting for him to call in her debt. And in her experience, men, even the ones she thought loved her, would expect payment in only one form, whether she wanted to or not.
Logically, he got it. But it still stuck in his craw, knowing on some level that she lumped him in with the other assholes who had used and hurt her. He wished he could get her to see him differently, that after everything he’d done—and hell, hadn’t done—surely he’d proven beyond a reasonable doubt that of all p
eople she could trust him not to hurt her.
But it would never happen, and any foolish hope he might have had that maybe enough time had passed to open up a little crack in her armor died a swift death at the look on her face at first sight of him.
Shock, followed immediately by wariness. A look that said, Why is he here, and what does he want from me?
So closure it was. Tonight he would say good-bye to her for good. Because Talia didn’t need Jack to keep her safe anymore.
Chapter 2
They never saw him coming. No, scratch that. They never saw him, period. Growing up, Eugene Kuusik resented how unremarkable he was. How easily his average frame and face faded into the background. How easy it was for the girls he liked to ignore him in favor of the jocks or the tough guys or the artsy emo kids who dressed in black and pierced their faces full of holes. No one wanted to go out with the nerdy nobody whose only distinguishing characteristics were a foreign-sounding last name and a slight accent most people couldn’t place.
Now his ability to go unnoticed was one of his greatest advantages. He imagined it had worked equally well for the other greats, like Dahmer, Gacy, and BTK.
As he’d studied them, learned their techniques, he’d been struck by a feeling of kinship. He, too, knew what it meant to walk through the world looking so very ordinary on the outside, knowing he was anything but.
Yet when he’d learned about Nate Brewster, dubbed the Seattle Slasher by the press, it was as though he’d been hit with a bolt of lightning. Even though Brewster was a pretty boy like Bundy, able to use his good looks to seduce his victims, as Gene read about the man shot down in his prime, he’d felt an electric shock.
When he’d learned that Brewster had filmed his kills and had watched the footage that had leaked onto the Internet, he’d realized the world had been robbed of a master. He watched the footage over and over, especially of Talia Vega, the victim who got away. And with every viewing, his certainty grew that it was his destiny to continue Brewster’s work.