by Jill Jones
He could feel her body twitching with tension. “‘Twas na ye, Jack,” Keely said in a small voice. She crumpled into his embrace. “Oh, Jack. I am so frightened. ‘Tis childish, I know, but I have never been frightened like this.”
The fear in her voice pierced Jack’s heart all over again, and he held her tightly, rocking her back and forth and brushing kisses into her hair, murmuring soft reassurances. Jack wished like hell that he’d taken training in the techniques of exit counseling when it had been offered to him while on the force. Psychologists and social workers used exit counseling to help people who were leaving a cult environment adjust to the real world. And from what Keely had told him so far, Jack believed that the isolated society from which she had just escaped was undeniably a type of cult. It fit the mold…The lives of the Dragoners were driven by a strict set of rules, enforced by a leader with no tolerance for “betrayal.” Lawbreakers were punished…by death, it would seem in this case…and fear was the primary motivator. Often, people who were victimized by a cult continued to defend its practices even after escaping, as Keely had done just a short time ago.
“Shhh. Don’t be afraid,” he crooned, wishing he knew how to dissolve her fears. She was bright and beautiful, strong and self-determined enough to change her destiny, yet she was a woman-child, driven by senseless fears imbedded in her psyche since childhood. Jack damned the dragon cult all to hell and vowed he would do whatever it took to help her heal from her nightmares. “I told you I would help you, Keely,” he murmured, kissing her on the forehead. “I promise I will be here for you, for as long as you need me.”
Keely’s eyes met his, but she did not respond to his promise. “Let’s go inside.”
A few moments later, Jack took a seat next to Keely on the small sofa in his room, as she’d been too frightened to return to her own. “It was just a bird,” Jack tried to reason with her after she told him what had caused her to run away. He put his arm around her, and she did not resist.
“I…I know that,” she sniffed miserably. “But on Keinadraig, the raven is the herald of the Dragon…”
“That’s a crock, Keely,” Jack growled. “Besides, you are no longer on Keinadraig,” he reminded her, “and you no longer have to believe all that.”
She shook out her hair and raised her face to his. “I know that, too. In fact, tonight was so…magical, I thought I could put it all behind me. Then we started talking about Genny, and I told you things I should na have, and then the raven came, and then…” She broke off looking so distraught Jack thought she might be ill. “I don’t understand it, Jack. I’m not a stupid woman. I know this fear is all in my head, but I just can’t seem to make it go away.”
Jack thought his heart was going to break. Tenderly, he placed his hand on her upper arms and looked into her face. “Have you ever heard of brainwashing?”
Her bewildered look answered his question. He stroked the downy skin of her cheek.
“In my country, there are people who try to control the lives of other people,” he began, attempting to describe a cult but realizing with a grin that he’d just defined politicians. He ignored the irony and went on. “They live away from the rest of us, usually on a farm or ranch in the countryside. They form communities called ‘cults.’ Usually in a cult, there is a strong, charismatic leader who demands unquestioned loyalty from the rest, and uses fear of punishment to insure that loyalty. The fear is instilled in the people by a process called ‘brainwashing.’”
Jack did not see the need to go into the grim details of life inside a cult, for from Keely’s silent nod, she had obviously already caught on.
“Are you saying I come from a cult?”
Jack grimaced. “Not exactly, because your society lacks the kind of power-hungry leader usually found in a cult. But in a way, the legends of the Dragon have brainwashed the people into following certain laws that have long since been unnecessary, like enforced marriages, for example. They keep your people living in fear, when, to my mind, there is nothing to be fearful of.”
“Brainwashed.” Keely turned the word over in her mouth. “That sounds more like clearing away thoughts than putting them into your head.”
This was one intelligent woman, Jack thought, not for the first time. That sharp mind would help her adjust quickly to her new environment. But brainwashing often reached past the intellect and poisoned the heart, making it difficult if not impossible for some victims to ever completely shake the effects of the exploitative manipulation.
“You are exactly right,” Jack answered her. “When a person is brainwashed by a cult, they are coerced into giving up old attitudes and behavior, to ‘wash’ them away, so to speak, so the leader can replace them with thoughts and actions he deems to be in his best interest.”
“But on Keinadraig, there is no brainwashing,” Keely insisted. “We grow up with our legends.”
Jack sighed and took one of her hands in both of his. “That’s true,” he said. “But the minds of children are clean slates, so there is no need to wash them before instilling the fear that will later control them. Don’t you see, you have been manipulated ever since you were a little girl into believing something that might not be real at all.”
Keely shifted in her chair and withdrew her hand. “I understand that. But the fear…” she uttered hesitantly, “the fear is very real, Jack.”
Jack could almost feel her distress. “Yes,” he replied, “fear that is planted so early and so deeply can become part of your psyche, your soul. It is not an easy thing to get rid of.”
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Jack,” she whispered after a long moment, “have ye ever been afraid?”
Chapter Fourteen
Had he ever been afraid? Jack drew in a deep breath. If she only knew. “Of course. I’ve been afraid, many times.”
“When was the first time you remember being afraid?”
It was Jack’s turn to be unsettled. That was a difficult question. There had been so many moments of fear during his career as a cop. But he had to go back many years before that to reach his first memory of having been afraid. “When I was five,” he said at last, struggling with the emotions that had launched a surprise attack on him. “When two men came to my house and told my mother that my father had been killed in Desert Storm.”
“Desert Storm?”
Jack forgot that Keely would never have heard of a country called Kuwait, much less that a nasty little war had been fought there. He explained it to her briefly.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
Jack shrugged. “It was a long time ago, and I barely remember him.”
“Did you grow up without a father?”
“Yes…” he started to reply, but was hit with another sudden realization. “…and no.”
Keely frowned. “I do na understand.”
For years, Jack had considered Garrison’s financial support to be an excessive gesture of battlefield loyalty. But Keely’s questions sparked a memory…
“The man who I told you hired me to find out who shot Brad, Garrison Holstedt, was in the war with my father. When Dad died, he promised to take care of us.” A painful knot constricted his throat as the memory grew clearer, and Jack was ashamed that he’d forgotten how much more Garrison had done for him than provide for him financially.
How he could have forgotten the day when Garrison had intervened on behalf of a reckless teenager about to take some wrong turns in life? The day he’d taken on the role of the father Jack had so desperately needed?
Jack took a deep breath and told Keely something he’d never shared with anyone in his life, not even his sister. “When I was a teenager, I got into a lot of trouble for fighting in school,” he said. “I was unhappy, angry all the time, and I didn’t know why. So I became sullen and rebellious.” It was odd to hear himself talk objectively about those days. He’d tried hard to forget them, for he was not proud of the way he’d been. He cleared his throat and went on.
“One
day I was catching hell in the principal’s office when Garrison unexpectedly showed up. I never knew it, but he had kept a close eye on Melinda and me as we grew up. My mother couldn’t handle me, and I was about to get kicked out of school, so the principal called him. I guess,” Jack said, the picture continuing to unfold, “he decided to step in where my own father could not.”
Jack could not continue until he could process that idea. When he spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. “Garrison changed my life that day. The principal left us alone, and Garrison began to talk about my father. He told me that John Knight had been an honorable man, and that I would have been proud of him. He said Dad would have wanted to be proud of me, too, but that he didn’t think my fighting and poor grades would make him very proud.”
Keely remained silent, listening intently. Jack bit his lip and fought to control his emotions. “It was the first time anyone had talked to me about my father like that, like he was somehow looking down from heaven and not liking what he was seeing in his son.
“My father had always been just a shadowy childhood memory to me until Garrison said that. At first, I resented the mention of the father who had never been there for me, but then I realized that was why I was so angry. I was angry because my father had left me.”
The finale of the long-buried memory finally surfaced, and he shared it with Keely. Alone with Garrison in the principal’s office, Jack had begun to shake. He didn’t want to admit how desperately he wanted a father. But Garrison knew. And he’d been there for him. “It’s okay to cry, son,” he’d said quietly. And Jack had cried. And Garrison had held him.
And neither had mentioned it since.
Keely sat in stunned silence and watched Jack work through pain and grief he must have carried with him for most of his life, and her heart opened to the stranger. No one, it seemed, escaped fear.
Jack’s fear had led him to destructive behavior, until Garrison had rescued him. “He was there for me,” Jack had just told her.
He’d promised her the same thing only a short while ago, that he would be there for her for as long as she needed him, but she had found it difficult to believe that a stranger could honestly make such a pledge. But now, knowing he had once been frightened and alone, knowing someone had been there for him, Keely could allow herself to trust that he meant what he had said. And trust that he would offer help, not harm.
She also understood clearly why he was so determined to prove his friend’s innocence. Garrison Holstedt was the only father Jack had ever known. She suspected Garrison’s son, Brad, had been more a brother than a friend.
Unsure exactly how to return his kindness and support, Keely offered the only thing she could, time for him to get on with his investigation.
“Jack.” She spoke softly, interrupting his thoughts that seemed to be miles away, “I do na need to stay on this vacation any longer. Could we go on to London tomorrow?” He looked at her, the worry on his face melting into relief. “I really do need to get back.”
“Let us leave early then.”
Jack’s stomach chose that moment to loudly protest the late hour and its empty state, and Keely laughed, glad to lighten the atmosphere. “You sound as if you have a dragon in your belly.”
His grin lit up his handsome face, and Keely felt her heart skip a beat or two. She’d never met a man like this. Somehow, the men on Keinadraig lacked the depth, the soul, that Jack Knight had revealed to her. He was, in fact, the most fascinating person, man or woman, she had ever encountered.
“Ever hear of take-out?” he asked, picking up a menu that lay by the telephone.
Half an hour later, with paper cartons strewn around them, Keely dug into the second delicious experience of the day. Chinese food. Strange vegetables. Succulent spicing that warmed her inside and out.
The panic engendered by her encounter with the raven had vanished in Jack’s presence and was replaced by a kind of calm inner glow. She relaxed as they shared the meal, and she listened to him describe life in the new world she was about to explore. In spite of some of the frightening things he told her about his life as a “cop,” and regardless of what had happened to Genny and Brad, Jack seemed to believe that his world was worth living in, and by the time they finished the last of the Chinese food, Keely was confident that she, too, would find it everything she hoped for and more.
“Fortune cookie?” he asked, offering her a strange-looking dainty.
“What’s this?”
Jack broke his open with a snap and pulled out a small piece of paper. “Good luck awaits you.” He laughed. “We could use some of that. Open yours.”
Keely opened her cookie, enjoying the playfulness of the game. But her heart lurched when she read her fortune: “The Dragon watches over you.”
“Good grief,” Jack exclaimed and held out his hand. “Give that to me.” He threw both fortunes away, cookies and all. “Don’t let it worry you. To the Chinese, the dragon is a symbol of great good fortune.”
Keely was amazed. It had never occurred to her that a dragon might exist anywhere other than on Keinadraig. “I did na know there were dragons elsewhere,” she told him, wishing she was not so unschooled and vowing to better her education as soon as she could.
“There are dragons the world over,” he told her, “but like yours, they are mythical. They don’t really exist except as symbols for other things, like power, or good fortune.”
The dragon watches over you. Keely shivered despite Jack’s cheery reassurances. Why would she get such a message, unless…
“It’s late,” Jack said. “If we want to be on the road early, we’d better get some sleep. Come on, I’ll walk you to your room.”
The glow of the evening dissolved into gray uncertainty once again. Keely opened the door to her room and was greeted by darkness. Jack flipped on the switch, flooding the room with light, but Keely faltered. She did not want to be alone. She turned to Jack.
“Stay with me.”
He touched her cheek and gave her a wry grin. “You don’t know what you are asking, lady. Whatever happened to ‘a man and a woman should na be together alone?’” he teased.
She did not laugh. “I am trying to learn not to be afraid. When I am with you, I am not.” She turned to the empty room. “But when I am alone…”
She felt Jack’s hands on her shoulders, and she leaned against him, her back to his chest, glad of his protection.
He whispered a kiss into her hair. “Oh, God, Keely, you have so much to learn.”
His arms slipped around her, crossing in front. She was completely enclosed in his embrace, and she had never felt so good or so safe. “Aye,” she whispered. “That I do. Will ye teach me, Jack?”
He turned her to face him, and she saw a curious expression in his eyes, as if he were fighting with himself. “Aye,” he answered. “But you don’t need to learn it all in one day.”
Jack held her gaze for a long moment, then lowered his head. Before she knew what was happening, his lips touched hers, and suddenly the unfamiliar territory of her new world shifted once again.
Keely feared her knees would give way. She had never been kissed by a man before, not like this. Her father, her uncle, well-wishers on birthdays had brushed kisses on her cheeks. But Jack’s kiss jolted her to the core, sending strange but delicious sensations shooting through every nerve in her body. His touch aroused all those disturbing feelings she had struggled with earlier and tried to bury deep inside.
Yet she chose not to fight them now.
Jack’s kiss felt right and good, and Keely melted against him as naturally as if she’d done it all her life. Encircling him with her arms, she relished the feel of the muscles of his back against the palms of her hands. Unexpectedly, he parted her lips with his tongue, heightening the already almost unbearable sensations of desire that now raged through her. Her heart pounded so heavily she could hear it in her ears, but she was not afraid. She opened her mouth to his tender explorations, thinking she might
die at any moment from the sweet pleasure of it.
Abruptly, he drew away. “Keely,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “We can’t do this.”
His words hit her like ice water, and she drew away, trying to recover her breath. He was right. They should not be doing this. He was a stranger. Forbidden. Not of her world. She did not know him, or of his ways. He might even be dangerous.
But she did not care. Her body, trembling from the effect of his embrace, wanted more of him in ways she did not understand but was willing, no, eager to learn.
Her heart sank when she saw the dark and troubled look on his face. She wanted more of him, but obviously, he did not want more of her. Why, then, had he kissed her like that?
Confused, hurt and more than a little angry, Keely moved out of his arms and crossed the room. “I was wrong,” she stammered, working hard to regain control. “I do na need ye to stay with me. I must wash my brain and learn not to be afraid when I am alone.”
Much later, Jack tossed on his bed, wishing to God he had not succumbed to the temptation of Keely’s lips. He was supposed to be her guardian. Her protector. Not her lover. Yet that’s what it had felt like to be in her arms. Who knows where it would have led if he hadn’t managed to stop?
It was obvious that, as in other aspects of her life, Keely Cochrane was incredibly sexually naive. From her response, Jack knew she had not objected to his kiss. She had, in fact, opened to him with an innocent sensuality that stirred him just to recall. But she seemed to have no idea what it did to him, or where that kiss, those caresses, might lead. God in heaven, what would happen to her if…when…she met another man who found her lips as irresistible as he had? What if that man was unable to control his urges and took advantage of her? The very thought made Jack ill.
When he’d offered Keely a way out of her predicament, Jack had obviously not considered some of the possible consequences. He’d thought merely to rescue her from an unwanted fate, deliver her to some social service agency in London that could help her get back on her feet, and be on his way. He hadn’t counted on becoming involved with her, not like this. He stared into the darkness, seeing Keely’s beautiful face, her alluring eyes. And he knew he was involved whether he meant to be or not.