by Rebecca York
“I think of him that way—as a soldier. A lot of the men do, too.”
Maybe they’d served with him, she thought. Or maybe he wasn’t as retired as he’d claimed.
“Um. Well, he’s probably right about TV,” she said.
“Why?”
“Except for a few good shows, it’s superficial. Silly. It plays to people with low tastes.”
“Like the men on the training staff.”
She laughed. “You’re perceptive.”
He chewed on that for a while, then asked, “Where do you live?”
“An apartment. In a high-rise building. In Baltimore.”
He moved on to the kitchen, opening cabinets, taking out packages of food and examining them. After sticking his finger into a jar of mustard and stealing a taste, he gave her a guilty look.
“That is not polite, is it?” he asked.
“No.”
Opening a bottle of vanilla, he contented himself with a deep sniff.
After carefully putting the bottle away, he reminded her that he wasn’t simply on a sightseeing trip when he pulled the gun from the waistband of his jeans. Removing the silencer from the barrel, he tucked the weaponry into an upper cabinet, behind a bag of flour.
She wanted to ask why he didn’t turn it in. She supposed he thought it might come in handy. And who was going to say it was missing, she asked herself. Not the intruder, unless he’d been acting on official orders.
Careful to hide her state of mind in case somebody was listening, she cleared her throat. “What do you want to eat?”
He turned to look at her, pulled at his earlobe the way he did when he was at a loss for words. “Nobody ever asked that before. They just brought food.”
She gave him a quick little smile that was meant to mask the sudden tightness in her chest. “What do you like?”
He thought for a moment, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Then he answered in a flow of words. “Steak. Baked potato with sour cream. Peanut butter and grape jelly. Once Beckton let me have some potato chips. They were good. We have creamed chipped beef for breakfast sometimes. I like that better than eggs.” His eyes took on a dreamy look, the hard planes of his face softened. “Once I had vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. Another time I had cherry pie.” He stopped abruptly, then added wistfully, “You probably do not have any of those.”
The way he said the last part made her eyes sting. “Well, as a matter of fact, I do have some. Most men like steak. So I bought it.”
“Steak,” he repeated with enthusiasm.
Quickly she turned toward the refrigerator, “I have apple pie and vanilla ice cream. And popcorn. I should have gotten potato chips.”
“You tried to think of things I would like?” he asked, his voice full of awe.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Friends try to please each other,” she told him.
“Friends,” he echoed.
“Yes. And I brought some music,” she added brightly, crossing to the machine and putting in a disk. There hadn’t been much of a selection, but she’d found The 1812 Overture. With its stirring themes and pounding rhythms, it should get some kind of response—particularly the cannons firing at the end.
He stood and listened intently for a minute.
“Do you recognize that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No one here plays that kind of music.”
“Do you like it?”
“Yes,” he answered, his voice thick and deep.
“I’m glad.”
He continued to listen, his face blissful. She might have stood there watching him for a long time. Instead, she busied herself with the food preparations, working quickly to keep from weeping. He mustn’t see her weep. Mustn’t know that she was on the edge of breaking down as she discovered how deeply he responded to a little kindness, a little color in his bleak life.
After putting the pie in the oven to warm, she cooked a package of frozen mashed potatoes and stirred in extra butter and some grated cheddar cheese. Then she began to melt more butter in a pan and added the steak, along with some seasoning salt.
“How do you like it?” she asked.
He looked like a man roused from a dream as his attention snapped back to her. “How do you?”
“Medium.”
“I will try that, too.” Abruptly he turned and began to move around the house again, poking into the backs of shelves, looking at each object critically. On silent feet, he moved toward the other end of the room, switching lights on and off, opening drawers, examining the edge of the baseboard.
She lost track of him when he wandered into the hall. Several minutes later he came back to the living room and switched off the music with an expression on his face that conveyed a kind of grim triumph.
“Don’t you like it?”
“I will listen later,” he said as he motioned her to follow him. After moving the pan off the burner, she came into the hall where he had opened an access door that she had assumed held the circuit breakers. It did, but below the electrical panel was a niche hidden by a piece of plywood. Hunter removed the wood and gestured toward the interior. “I found another toy,” he said.
Inside she saw a small digital recorder.
“What do you think of it?” As he spoke, the red light went on.
“It’s not as much fun as the alligator.”
His lips quirked, but he didn’t speak, and red light went off. Then he clapped his hands several times, making it move again.
“Understand how it works?” he asked.
She nodded. Apparently, it was sound activated—so a listener wouldn’t have to move past a bunch of silence.
Hunter replaced the panel and they returned to the kitchen. Now she understood that he hadn’t simply been curious about the contents of the house. He’d been prospecting for microphones and recording devices. And he’d struck gold.
She hadn’t wanted to believe that someone was listening to their every word. Now she felt a kind of sick anger that Emerson had lied to her. Or maybe Hunter was right; maybe it was the work of somebody else.
He cupped his hand around her shoulder, gave her a little squeeze.
She closed her eyes in frustration.
“Can I help you do anything?” he asked.
Her eyes blinked open. If he could function under battlefield conditions, so could she. Giving him a tiny smile, she stood up straighter and led the way back to the dining room. “Supper’s almost ready,” she said as she moved the laptop computer to the sideboard. “But you could set the table.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
God, she thought, what a mass of contradictions he was. One moment he was engaged in high tech sleuthing, the next he was totally clueless. “It means laying out the knives, forks, spoons and napkins.”
“Okay.”
She found the necessary items in two of the drawers and handed them to him.
He pivoted and stood beside the table, staring at the two blue woven place mats she’d put there earlier. For several moments he juggled the cutlery in his hands before starting to arrange the items—first in a line along one side of the table, then in various configurations, each of which he studied critically before beginning to move them around again.
“Is there a way it’s supposed to be?” he finally asked. “On the tray sometimes, the things are rolled up in the napkin. Sometimes they are scattered around.
“Usually the napkin is folded in half on the left and the fork rests on top of it. The knife and spoon are on the right, with the spoon on the outside. If you’re really a stickler for form, the blade of the knife is to the inside,” she answered in an even voice.
He nodded, following directions exactly, except that one spoon was face down. After a moment’s thought he turned it over.
“Perfect!” she approved. “Wash your hands, and we can eat.”
He complied, while she brought two plates with steak and mashed potat
oes. For salad, she’d cut carrot and celery sticks.
When he came back, he sat down at once, picked up the hunk of meat off the plate, and began to chew on it.
In the middle of an enormous bite, he stopped and looked at her, watching the way she placed her napkin on her lap and cut off a piece of meat before forking it to her mouth.
“I am doing it wrong,” he said in a tight voice.
She kept her face neutral, chewed and swallowed.
He picked up his knife and fork. “They like to make fun of the way I eat,” he said. “So I give them a show. I am sorry. I forgot.”
“That’s okay,” she managed, trying not to think about what mealtimes must be like for him.
He cut off a piece of steak, then dug into the mashed potatoes. “This is. . . wonderful,”
“Thank you.” She took another bite, struggling to swallow around the lump in her throat. Everything that she learned about this man set off an emotional reaction.
She could see he was trying to eat neatly. When she saw a bit of juice clinging to the side of his mouth, she picked up her napkin and wiped her own mouth. He did the same.
“Will you tell me about your family?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, glad of the distraction. “I have a younger sister. My mom still works part-time as a nurse. My dad retired after forty years as an auto worker. We lived in a suburb of Detroit, so I had a typical Middle American upbringing. We didn’t have a lot of money. But we weren’t poor, either. And my parents gave us a lot of time and attention. Mom taught us stuff like cooking and sewing. And Dad taught us swimming and bike riding.”
“Tell me the best parts,” he whispered.
Her vision turning inward, she tried to capture the flavor of her childhood. She told him about dressing as a princess for Halloween, camping with her family in Canada, winning ribbons in swim meets, and curling up in bed with a purring kitten snuggled beside her.
He sighed. “It sounds like Father Knows Best.”
“That’s one of the shows you’ve watched?”
“Yes. I like it. The people are happy. And the parents help the children solve their problems,” he said softly.
“Well, nobody’s life is quite that idyllic. But I guess I was pretty lucky.”
“Do you have a mate?” he asked suddenly.
She swallowed. “No, I’m not married.”
“Why not?” he probed, leaning forward across the table.
She thought about it for a minute, trying to give him an honest answer. “My parents had a great marriage, so I have high standards. I’ve dated my share of men. But I haven’t met anyone who would complete my life the way Mom and Dad did for each other.”
He nodded solemnly.
“Maybe I’m asking for too much.”
“No. You should have a man who cherishes you, a man who knows how lucky he is to have you for his life companion,” he said, his voice deep and rough.
“Maybe someday.” With a jerky motion, she picked up her plate and carried it back to the kitchen. After several moments, he came after her and set his plate on the counter next to hers.
Then it was time for apple pie à la mode. The look on his face when he took a bite of the warm pie with the ice cream melting onto the top was angelic. And his sigh of pleasure was almost gale force. “It is fantastic. Better than plain cherry pie.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“It is warm and cool in my mouth at the same time,” he enumerated. “And crunchy and gooey and creamy and sweet.”
She could only nod, thinking how easy it was to give him a great deal of pleasure.
“Thank you.” He concentrated on the pie for several more bites, then looked up. “You have taught me many things today. Can you teach me how to talk like everyone else?”
“What do you mean?”
“My speech is . . . wrong,”
“Not wrong. Sometimes a little stiff.”
“I know that. I hear it, but I do not know how to correct it.”
“It would help if you used contractions.”
“What are they?”
“You say ‘I do not’.” Most people would say ‘I don’t’.”
“Tell me more of them so I can hear the difference.”
She gave him other examples, and he listened intently. After sitting for a while with his brow wrinkled, he asked,
“Do you know the rhyme about Peter Piper?”
“Um hum.”
“Well, I’m sure Peter Piper didn’t pick a peck of pickled peppers because he hasn’t found the pepper picking pot that’s lost. It’s in the toolshed.”
She laughed. “That’s good!”
He looked pleased.
“I think you’ve got it. By George, I think you’ve got it!” Impulsively, she reached across the table and pressed her hand over his. He went very still, his eyes lifting to hers. For several heartbeats, he didn’t move, then he shifted slightly so that his fingers were pressed to hers along their length.
She felt a strong current flowing between them, a current that increased in intensity as he experimentally stroked her with his fingertips. He wedged his fingers between hers, then inched them up, and she knew from her own reaction he was testing the heated sensations generated by the simple touch.
“Can friends do this?” he said in a thick voice.
She knew she should say no. She couldn’t force the syllable out of her mouth as he reversed the position of their hands, flattening her palm against the table and stroking delicately against it.
Such light contact, really. His hand on hers. Nothing more.
His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted as if to shut out everything else but the slender link of flesh to flesh. Her own lids fluttered closed as she sat across from him, feeling heat pooling in her body—heat generated simply by the sensual stroking of his fingers against hers. When he arched his hand, testing the movement of his blunt-cut nails against her palm, she felt her heartbeat leap.
Then a noise from the front of the house made them both jump. The front door, she realized with a start as he snatched his hand back and prepared to push himself away from the table. He was looking over her shoulder toward the cabinet where he’d hidden the gun, she realized.
“No,” she ordered. “Stay here.”
Sam Winslow strode into the room. “What are you doing? Where the hell is the security team that’s supposed to be outside?”
Hunter’s face went blank as he sat back down in his seat.
Kathryn lifted her face toward the man who had rudely interrupted their supper. “To answer your first question, we’re having dessert. Would you like a piece of apple pie?”
Winslow ignored the offer. “Where are the men who are supposed to be stationed here?” he clipped out.
“Perhaps they went to their quarters for dry clothes. But as you can see, we’re doing perfectly fine by ourselves.”
His gaze shot to Hunter. “He isn’t accustomed to these conditions. He could leave.”
“I would not . . . wouldn’t do that,” Hunter answered.
“This is ludicrous,” Winslow muttered. “Are you playing house?”
“We’re not playing anything. I’ve already taught him how to set the table.” She swallowed, hating to demean Hunter. “And we’ve been working on his table manners and his speech patterns. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.”
“I’m moving a security detail to the porch,” Winslow answered.
“Before you do, perhaps you can satisfy my curiosity about a matter of procedure.”
He raised questioning eyebrows.
“When I arrived back home from buying groceries, I found Hunter already here. But no one had informed him that I’d be sharing the cottage with him. That led to a little misunderstanding between the two of us. Were you responsible for bringing him over without adequate preparation?”
“Certainly not,” Winslow growled. “Informing him was supposed to be taken care of.”
“But it slipped between the cracks?”
He gave a curt nod.
“Well, I appreciate your help,” she said pleasantly.
“And I appreciate yours,” he replied tightly. “Make sure he’s ready for a field exercise at 0800 hours.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and strode from the room. Moments later, she heard the clump of heavy feet on the porch.
Hunter sat quietly for several moments. “You should not have asked him about that.”
“I know. But I wanted to see his face when he answered.”
“They do not . . . don’t like to be caught making mistakes.”
“I know,” she said again.
He took a deep breath, then let it out before pushing back his chair and standing. “I would like to be alone,” he said.
When she raised her eyes toward him, he avoided her gaze.
“Why don’t you finish your dessert?” she asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You liked the apple pie,” she said softly.
“The pleasure of it is gone.”
“Don’t let him spoil tonight for you.”
Her words fell into an empty silence as he turned away and walked down the hall. She heard water running. Doors opened and closed. Then nothing more.
###
The two men met in the shadows behind the gym. One was young and in his prime. A real hothead who chafed at the bit when the rules kept him out of the action.
The other was older, wearier, more cautions. Yet desperation made him willing to take risks. They had disliked each other on sight and been unspoken enemies since coming to work on Project Sandstorm. Now they found themselves united in pursuit of a common goal—eliminating Kathryn Kelley. One was convinced she spelled the kiss of death to his plans. The other bitterly resented her interference.
“What happened?” the older one asked.
“He damn near broke my arm,” his junior partner answered. “I was lucky to get away.” He prudently didn’t mention the missing gun. Thank God it wasn’t his service revolver, but he’d have to retrieve it.
“I mean—did he kill her, like we thought he would?”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Maybe he hid her body,” the older man said hopefully.