Big Bad Wolf (27 page)

That did get her to look at him.
“You’re presumptuous.
Maybe I don’t want you to come back tonight,” she said.

“Where do you suppose I’m going to sleep, with Jed and Grace in my little efficiency?”
He caressed her back, felt the involuntary response.
“What, are you a use-em-leave-em kind of woman?”

“You aren’t getting off this time, Nick or Kill, or whoever you are,” Jaymee warned, glaring at him now.
“You’ve put me off with kisses long enough.
I want to know.”

His crooked smile only made her madder.
She balled her hand and jabbed it into his flat tummy.
She couldn’t really draw her elbow back enough to land the hard blow she had in mind, but the grunt it elicited gave her a certain amount of satisfaction.

“What was that for?” he asked, rubbing where she hit.

“I thought that was the standard greeting from your family and friends.
They attack you without warning,” Jaymee sweetly told him.
“I was assured by Grace you usually jump out of the way fast enough, that this time you weren’t paying attention.”

“I was distracted,” Nick agreed.
He continued his caress.
“Let me come back over tonight, Jaymee.”

“I need time alone.
I want to think things over.”
Not that it would help, since she couldn’t make heads or tails about this man, except she’d fallen in love with him.
“Besides, I need to do some paperwork tonight.”

Pride made her bite down on the questions churning inside her.
If he wouldn’t tell her, she wouldn’t ask.
She would never ask anything from a man again.

“I want to be with you, you know that,” Nick said, his eyes glittering with suppressed
emotion.
“Why do you think I’ve been spending virtually every moment with you?”

Jaymee let out a sigh.
“I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly tired.
“I do know, yet I don’t know.
I want to know, and I don’t want to know.”

She drew a tentative finger down the front of his tee
-
shirt.
He grabbed her finger and lifted it to his lips, feathering a kiss on the tip, then lightly biting it.
She closed her eyes at the feel of his tongue and his teeth.

“All right.”
She gave in.
“I’ll leave the back door unlocked.
I’ll probably be up in the study.”

“No, lock the door,” Nick ordered.
“Give me a spare key.”

It rankled he expected her to trust him so absolutely.
Such male arrogance.
“And if I don’t?”

But Nick had been on Programmer mode since Jed
had
pulled that stunt on them in the woods.
Even as he fumed over Jaymee’s sudden coolness, the trained part of him was calmly assessing his options.
He needed her to give in, and knew which switch to pull to get her to give in to him.
Although another part of him recoiled at the thought of taking advantage of her, he blocked it off.
He was the Programmer, and manipulation was what he did best.
Later, he would study this unnatural reluctance when it came to Jaymee, but right now, he acted by instinct.

He smiled, and watched the sudden wary look in her eyes.
Amazing how she was always aware something was wrong, even though she never knew what he was up to.
It was easy to reassume the role of lover, before Jed’s unexpected interruption.
All he had to do was think of her in his arms.
Naked.
And doing… He gave an inward sigh.
Bad idea.
He leaned closer, wishing he had more time.

“If you don’t give me a spare key,” he cajoled, “I’ll huff and puff till your house falls down, and then you’re going to be sorry, because I’d probably eat you.”
He caught the beginning of a hint of humor on her tempting lips, and felt relieved.
“Give me the key, sweetheart, and a nice kiss before I go.”

Jaymee could never resist him when he smiled like that.
The horrid thing was, she knew he did it on purpose too, that he was being exactly what she’d known him to be.
By acting like the bad boy she’d accused him of, he sweet-talked with words, seducing her to do exactly what he wanted.
She just couldn’t resist that smile.

She faked a glare as she allowed herself to be led from the sink area.
Pulling out a drawer, she found the spare key and dropped it into his open hand.
She continued glaring at him when he pointed at his lips with a long, index finger.
Putting both hands against his hard chest, she stood on tiptoes, and when his head came down, she gave him the merest wisp of a kiss, then gave him a slight push.

He grinned.
“It’s Killian Nicholas
Langley
, so I haven’t been lying.
Lock up behind me.”

He turned and disappeared out into the night.
Jaymee stared at the door for along moment, then turned the lock.
She felt as empty as the house.

Balance the checkbook.
Update the payroll.
Write down the week’s mileage.
Check the inventory.
Jaymee went through her routine, finding comfort in the familiar.
This was what she had deliberately made her life, and boring as it may be, it offered a sense of security, a sense of control.
When Danny had left them in chaos, she’d come up with a plan.
Simplify.
Cut out everything and just simplify.
It was an escape and a solution.
It helped her to stay sane when her mother’s health worsened and her father went to the hospital, fallen by a stroke.
It gave her a sense of direction when she was lost under a pile of credit lawyer mail, demanding payments.

Numbers and planning.
The step-by-step climb back to some semblance of control had counted on these details, and Jaymee found out the more she simplified things, the more she got things done.

However, somewhere along the line, she had also decided to ignore her emotional needs.
Emotions fed chaos, she reasoned, and thus, she’d simplified her life one step further—stay away from relationships.

The first few years after Danny went by in a blur.
She buried her pain under a mountain of responsibilities, and by the time she surfaced, she’d retreated inside, hiding behind work.
There were times when she was lonely, but it was used to forge another brick into her wall of resistance.

Jaymee liked living inside her little self-contained area.
Life was simple.
And safe.

So, why did she venture out of her nice, safe haven?
Neither nice nor safe.
She managed a small smile as she plugged numbers and signed checks.
Nick—Killian—had warned her he was neither, and she’d still plunged unheedingly into a relationship with him.
She took a long swallow from her drink, staring at the columns on the screen.

The problem was, the parts she knew of the man on her mind wouldn’t add up like her balance sheets.
He could charm and seduce like the best of them, all right, but she had also seen the side of him that was edgy and powerful.
Tonight, there had been something dark and frightening in his eyes when he thought they were being ambushed.

And what ordinary person got ambushed, for God’s sake?
She speared her hair in disbelief as the possibilities of what that incident meant played havoc with her imagination.

The sound of the back door caught her attention, and she heard her father’s familiar walk.
“Jaymee girl?” he called out.

“I’m in here.”

Bob opened the study door and looked into the room before walking in.
“Alone?” he asked.

Jaymee waited a beat for the usual deprecatory remarks that followed, but none came.
Looking at her father, she was surprised to find him clear-eyed.

“Yes,” she answered, studying him.

Bob glanced at the computer and the papers on the desk.
“Have you found more work to replace the Hidden Hills subdivision?”

Jaymee shook her head.
“I haven’t been looking around.
Several builders have some work for me, so I’m not too worried.”

“Yes, but a subdivision is steady work.
It’s a shame we lost the account.”

We?
Did she hear right?
It had been forever since her father included himself in the business.
“That’s true,” she agreed.
“Is there anything you needed, Dad?”

Bob picked up a bill from the pile, looked at it, then put it back.
“I just wondered how the inspection had affected our business, that’s all.
Builders don’t take kindly to undernailing.
I’m worried that word might get around.”

Her father was behaving very strangely.
Something was different, the way he spoke, the way he looked at her.
Pushing her chair away from the table, she stood up.

“Nothing to worry about,” she said.
“I had the inspector give me copies of his findings.
Whoever sent in the complaint didn’t know
I’
d gone back to check the roofs.”

She left out Chuck’s and Rich’s names.
Bob surprised her by bringing them up himself.

“You went back because you knew about Chuck and Rich all along.”

Jaymee shrugged, wondering where her father was trying to trip her up.
“I had my suspicions.”

“And you made sure those roofs were done right after firing them, didn’t you?
You’ve always taken care of everything, haven’t you?”

“Why the sudden interest, Dad?”

He fidgeted with the papers again, drawing a slight frown from Jaymee.
“Everything’s in order, right?” he continued in that half-stating, half-questioning tone of voice.
“All caught up.”

“Dad?”
She wondered whether he was really as sober as he appeared.

“That computer makes all the paperwork so much easier, doesn’t it?” he went on, still fidgeting with the bills.

Jaymee studied her father a few seconds.
“Paperwork is still paperwork,” she said slowly.
“I’m really behind filing these bills away.”

Bob cleared his throat.
“Is it still the same system?”

She nodded, too stunned for a moment to say anything. Finally, she said, “There’s a pile of bills in the shoebox that needs sorting.”

Her father avoided meeting her eyes.
“Good.
Well, good night.
I suppose you’ll be at Mindy’s party tomorrow.”

“Yes.
Good night.”

She remained where she was as her father closed the door behind him.
She couldn’t recall the last time her father hadn’t been caustic or drunk while talking to him.
Tonight, he was neither.

She was tired.
It had been a very long day and a nap sounded a lot more tempting than house chores.
She dimmed the lights and lay down on the sofa.
If Nick didn’t show up by midnight, she would go to bed.
Closing her eyes, she let out a long sigh.
She didn’t even know where he stayed.
Details, she needed details.

*

Nick checked the time as he made his way to the back of Jaymee’s house.
She had left the porch light on for him.
He paused for a second before inserting the key into the lock and turned.
Such a familiar act, turning a key and walking into a house in the dark.
Familiar and intimate.
He smiled humorlessly.

Things hadn’t quite gone the way he’d wanted this evening.
Jed’s sudden appearance not only changed his plans, but also sped up his intention to slowly reveal himself to Jaymee.
There was no hope for that now, knowing how her mind worked.
Not after she
’d
witnessed that little display in the woods.
Jed had done it deliberately, of course.
Jed, who never stopped pushing anyone to his limit, who constantly tested everyone around him.
Nick’s lips curled up resolutely.
He’d be damned if he allowed his cousin to test Jaymee or toy with her in one of his usual mind games.
Not this time, cuz.

Light shone from beneath the study door and he quietly opened it.
The computer was still on, but Jaymee was curled up on the couch, her face hidden against the back pillows.
Closing the door, he lay down the book bag he’d brought along, and went to sit on the floor by the sofa.
He heard her soft, even breathing, and didn’t have the heart to wake her.
She didn’t sleep enough as it was.