Big Bad Wolf (30 page)

“I was on assignment, and I escaped.”
He kept it as simple as he could.
“They still think they got to me, and now they are after the others who were on the same assignment.
Because we’re evasive experts, Jed thinks their easiest targets are our families.
My friend’s wife was recently killed, and that’s why you see Jed training Grace, so she can take care of herself in case something happens to him.”

“Evasive expert,” Jaymee muttered.
“That’s really a job description, like construction worker?”

“Nothing I can state on a resume,” said Nick, a grin forming.
“We have lots of fancy names like that.”
Like trackers, he silently added.
Mind probes.
Assimilators.
All living in darkness and shadow.

“It isn’t so bad,” she consoled, a trace of mockery creeping into her voice.
“I’ve to explain what a leak expert is.”
She moved restlessly against him.
“All right, Nick, you don’t need to tell me any more.
Your truth is as close to my idea of it as it can ever be.
I just wanted you to tell me without fudging around.”

Nick realized that had always been all she’d ever asked of him—to tell her the truth, not of what he did, but of what he was.
And having gotten that from him, she was content not to need further details.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before,” he told her.

“I can only imagine the kind of life it must be, to always be afraid of people betraying you.”
Jaymee touched his face.
She wanted him to know she understood and accepted what he was.
“To have to be careful all the time.”

Visions of an exploding boat filled her mind, and she shivered.
That was a close call.
She might have never met him, if he hadn’t been able to….

Nick felt her shiver and understood her fear.
What was second nature to him was unfathomable to normal people, and he sought to comfort Jaymee.
“It isn’t so bad.
I get to play with lots of neat toys.”
He kept his voice light, soothing her with slow caresses.
After all, the Programmer did have fun dismantling some of the world’s most sophisticated satellite systems.
“Besides, it isn’t that different from your job.”

Jaymee laughed in astonishment.
“Right.
I have relatives zinging weapons at me while I nail shingles.”

“You have your back stabbers, Chuck and Rich,” he pointed out, “and you have to be careful all the time while you’re on the job.
One misstep, and you might fall and break your neck.
A careless backward step, and you might fall through a skylight hole.”

“Nicholas Killian Langley, you aren’t seriously trying to convince me what we both do is equal?”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry with him.
Here she was, worried about his safety, fearing for his life, and he mocked her with comparisons of the dangerous aspects of roofing.

Nick was only too happy to get her to laugh again.
“You even have a gun,” he pointed out, “and the bad guys all know you as Jay the Boss.
Pretty dandy nickname.”

They both laughed.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Jaymee chided in between chuckles.
“You’re never serious when you’re supposed to be.”

Nick shrugged, smiling.
Getting up from the couch, he pulled her up with him.
He slipped her hand into his unzipped jeans.
“I can show you what you can do with me in your bed,” he invited naughtily.

“I’m going to have to deduct room and board from your pay,” she teased.

“What?”

“Yup.
Also, the torn shirt and pants.
The hairpins you keep throwing away.
And…two dirty tee
-
shirts.
At least.
Let’s see, that leaves…why, you owe me money on your next paycheck!”

“Oh, yeah?”

She should have heeded the tone of his voice, but she was busy putting her pants back on.
As soon as she straightened up, she found herself lifted over his shoulder.
As he made his way out of the study and to her room with unerring ease, he told her softly, “I’m going to pay you back my way, sweetheart, with compound interest for any extra charges, of course.”

When Nick finally allowed her to curl up and fall asleep on top of him, she’d tallied up an exorbitant account of extra charges.

Saturday.
Jaymee mentally ticked off each day, hoping it wouldn’t be the last day Nick—it took too much effort to call him Killian in private and Nick when they were around the others—spent with her.
It wasn’t difficult to conclude, with the appearance of his cousin, part of
his
“unit,” Nick needn’t stay with her much longer.
They would be gone soon, off to straighten out whatever they were straightening out.
A heavy feeling settled in her stomach whenever she imagined Nick dying in that explosion about which he’d told her.
He led such a different life from hers.
He’d seen so much, done so much, and all she’d ever done was dreamed.
She wondered what he saw in her that made him want her so.

Not because of this mop, that was for certain, she grimaced wryly, as she pulled the wide-toothed pick through her hair.
Securing it into one thick braid, she considered whether to put any make-up on, then frowned.
Why bother?
She would sweat it all off in an hour, and Nick would still see her the way she always was—sweaty and untidy.
Not this evening, she vowed.
This evening, she would show him Jaymee
Barrows cleaned up good.

“Got a tee
-
shirt?”
His crooked smile was bland, his eyes innocent.

Jaymee met his gaze in the mirror.
She still couldn’t get over him walking around her half-naked, in her room.
She watched him sauntered toward her dressing table, still wet from the shower, a towel wrapped casually around his waist.
“I thought you brought a change of clothes in that little bag,” she said to the moving image.

“That’s for later.
I need something to work in.”

“I think you’re just sleeping with me for my tee
-
shirts,” she said, wrinkling her nose at his reflection.

Nick played with her thick braid of hair.
The urge to mess up her work and just watch the strands curl out rebelliously tempted him, as it always did.
He was fascinated by its softness and rebellious nature; in fact, he was fascinated with the whole package standing in front of him.

“No, sweetheart, I prefer you without them on,” he teased.

Color warmed her cheeks as she recalled the night before.
She flicked at his outreaching fingers.
“Don’t mess up my braid up,” she warned lightly.

“I don’t know why you always tie it up.
I’m just going to loosen it later.”
He bent down to kiss her exposed neck, nibbling lightly.
“Well, there’s at least something I like when you do it.”

Jaymee shrugged her shoulder to nudge him off.
“Nick, didn’t you tell me you were a good carpenter?”

“Besides being so good in bed, you mean?”
He was in a great mood today, having gotten his planned night after all.

“Big head,” she said good-naturedly.

“Big appetite,” he came back, a sexy smile on his lips.
“You were insatiable.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.
“You’re a big liar too,” she accused.

“Oh, are you telling me you we didn’t finish up a whole box of…”

Jaymee felt the heat on her cheeks again.
“About the carpenter skills…” she hastily cut in. “Are you really going to help me out?”

Nick pulled her up and turned her to face him.
“Still shy?”
She looked adorable when she blushed and he enjoyed teasing her so.
He could always tell when she was thinking about their intimate moments.
The green flecks in her eyes heated up to an intense glow that made him hot all over.
Like now.
He sighed.
“OK, I’ll earn my keep.
Give me a shirt, some breakfast, and I’ll get to work…boss.”

He was really as good a carpenter as he’d boasted to be, Jaymee thought later, as she admired the muscles playing on Nick’s bare back.
He was leaning over the saw while cutting the two-by-fours to be used to repair the rotten back porch.
She had been working inside the house, and decided to take a break at half-past ten, to see what he was up to.

Jed and Grace showed up at that moment, coming up the overgrown unpaved driveway.
Jaymee wondered how they managed to get there.
Jed had taken time to shave and Grace looked less like a wild child, even with that green hair.

She studied Nick’s cousin.
The
man’s likeness to Nick was even more pronounced without the heavy stubble he had.
He had a leaner face, with a stubborn looking cleft under his generous lower lip.
His hair had the same unruly lock, like Nick, except it was a dark polished bronze color.
His mouth was harder-looking too, unlike Nick’s lazy quirk, some might even described it cruel-looking, with lines bracketing both sides, emphasizing the deep indentation below.
Same thickly lashed eyes, except that they were so cold.
He was a good-looking man in a rugged sort of way, if he would just smile more.
And if his strange, light eyes wouldn’t stare with such deadly intensity at their target.
There was something very ruthless about Nick’s cousin, and she still
wasn't certain how to talk to him whenever they were together.
She had a feeling those odd little pauses between them were somehow deliberate.
They sure made her feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Grace’s personality, on the other hand, was like Nick’s.
She was warm and funny, and obviously adored her father and older cousin, paying rapt attention to everything they said.
Jaymee pursed her lips, her usual cynicism questioning the wisdom of that.
The teenager definitely needed some female advice regarding men.
She wondered how a little girl grew up without a mother,
to
whom Grace turned when she needed guidance.
Perhaps that was why she had this strange adult attitude, even calling her own father by his name.
Jaymee couldn’t imagine calling her father “Bob.”
She gazed at Jed again, watching him with a touch of disapproval.
He didn’t treat his daughter like one at all, asking her opinions about things her own father would never dream of discussing with her at that age.
She shook her head—what a strange twosome.

The two men talked quietly in between measuring and sawing and hammering.
Jaymee couldn’t quite make out their conversation over the din, as she showed Grace how to pry the trim boards from the walls.
“You don’t need to be too careful,” she said, as she gathered the pieces into a pile.
“I’m replacing them with new trim.”

Grace proved surprisingly proficient with a hammer.
“This is cool, Jay,” she said, as she used the catspaw to pull the nails out.
“Are you going to put some fancy moldings?
Perhaps up around the ceiling too?
That would look
like those antique mansions
I see on TV.”

Jaymee smiled.
“G
ood suggestion.
Maybe you ought to study architecture or designing when you go to college.”

“I’m going to do something that lets me travel all over the world,” the teenager declared, as she pounded down the protruding nails.
“There’s so much out there to see, you know?”

Jaymee’s smile turned wistful.
The excitement of youth.
She’d forgotten how grand the feeling was.
“Yes, so much to see and do,” she murmured in agreement.
Just don’t get eaten up by bad wolves, little girl.
“So, architecture is an option, then?
You get to travel and study all the wonderful ancient buildings.”

“I don’t know anything about building.
Actually, I like what you do better.”

Jaymee laughed, startled.
“You like roofing better? And how’s that going to be part of your world travels plan?”

Grace wiped her face with a dirty hand, smudging her nose and cheek with dust and dirt.
Jaymee grinned.
She was looking scruffy again.
“What use is staring at those structures if I don’t understand the work and sweat put into its making?
I don’t want to admire just the building.
That’s boring.
I want to look at it and see in my mind how they did it, what the builder did to create it, what the laborers worked with.
You know how to appreciate that—you know what it takes to build a house.
Foundation and structure.
Way cool.”