Conspiracy Game (38 page)

“Back the hell off,” Jack snapped. “You don’t change procedure in the middle of a mission. We do what we’ve always done; it’s how we stay alive. You know that. Get your head out of your butt.”

“I’m not hiding behind you anymore, Jack. If anything had gone wrong… ”

“What kind of crap are you talking? You’ve been guarding my back my entire life, not hiding behind me. Is the entire world going to hell? And you!” Jack whirled around to face Briony, fury in every line of his body.

He advanced on her, his fingers settling around her upper arms like a vise. “You
never
forget you’re in a combat situation. Not for one minute. Do you understand me? You could have been killed, or you could have gotten someone else killed.” He punctuated each word with a hard shake. “This isn’t a game, Briony. Someone wants you in a lab where they can experiment, not only on you, but on our children.”

Waves of fear—not anger—rolled off of him. He didn’t even realize he was using his anger, whipping himself into a rage to keep from feeling the terror her disappearance had caused. She felt a shudder go through his body and saw that he was pale beneath his weathered tan; most of all she could see the terror for her behind the icy cold in his smoldering eyes.

“I know, I’m sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze steadily, wanting him to know she meant it. “And I’m sorry for scaring you. I’ll be more careful, Jack.”

He dropped his arms as if she’d burned him, stepped away from her, and shook his head. “Damn you, don’t you do that. Don’t you look at me like that.” He took two more steps away from her. She was looking at him with something far too close to love in her eyes—disarming him, making him feel naked and vulnerable and without an outlet for the terrible fear she’d put in him.

Fear
—it tasted like bile in his mouth, churned in his gut until his only recourse was action to remove it. He turned on his heel and left her, heading to the shop and his workout bag, something he could hit until his hands were bloody and he was too damned tired to think anymore.

“Why’d you hit him, Ken?” Briony asked.

“Because he values my life more than his.”

“And you don’t feel the same about him?”

“I don’t have you and the babies. He’s got to consider that now before he stands in the line of fire.”

“I don’t think that’s going to change. And I don’t understand. It was just an old man,” Briony said to Ken. “He shouldn’t be so upset.”

“Think, Briony, you always have to think. The old man comes here often for food or if he needs medical attention. We know him and we let him on the property. He’s not quite right anymore, been living alone too long, but he’s a decent man. If Whitney wants to find out where you are, what better way than to use Brady? He wouldn’t even know they were using him. Plant a vid camera on him and give him the idea he needs to see us, and they’ve got their spy in the enemy camp.”

Her hand went to her throat. “You don’t think they’d actually do that, do you?”

“Whitney’s seen our files, Briony. He isn’t stupid. Why risk sending his men in without insuring you’re here and getting the layout as well? You notice we didn’t bring him up to the house? We
never
bring him up to the house. We feed him meals and give him supplies, but not up at the house—but they wouldn’t know that.”

“How terrible to live that way. You don’t think it’s just a tiny bit paranoid?”

“We’ve taken out targets in nearly every country in the world, Briony, and no matter how top secret our status, our names have leaked out a couple of times in the past. Someone comes for us every now and then. It’s our way of life, and if you’re going to stay—it has to become your way of life as well.”

“And the baby?”

“Babies,” he corrected. “They’ll learn. We’ll teach them.”

“That’s what he meant when he said I’d be a liability.” She looked up at Ken. “He knew someone could use us to go after him, didn’t he? If they captured and tortured us, he’d do anything to get us back, wouldn’t he?”

“We’ll protect you and the children. You couldn’t be safer with anyone else. Jack and I both would stand between you and anyone who wanted to harm you.”

“But who’s watching out for the two of you? I’ve just brought more danger on both of you in even more ways than I imagined.”

“Jack and I are a family. We’ll always be family. We’ll always look out for each other. If you and the little ones live here, you’re part of that family, it’s that simple, Briony.”

“Are you all right with me being here, disrupting your life, Ken?”

“Hell yes. You make him happy, Briony. I can’t remember him happy.” A slow smile curved his mouth, but never quite lit up his eyes. “And you can cook. You did make dinner, didn’t you?” There was a hopeful note in his voice.

A ghost of a smile to match his slipped through the strain on her face. She couldn’t bear for Jack to be angry with her. She hadn’t thought about wandering through the woods alone—but she should have. And she certainly hadn’t considered that Whitney might use an old, half-mad mountain man for recon—but she’d remember, and it would never slip her mind again. She could learn their ways. She was smart, fast, and strong, and she wanted to belong to Jack.

“I’ll put biscuits in the oven, and by the time we clean up, it should be ready.” She hesitated. “Are you going to call Jack?”

“No. You are. When you have dinner ready, just call him in. Don’t let him brood about this. It happened. It’s over.”

“I really am sorry, Ken.”

“I know, honey. It isn’t an easy way to live, and Jack should cut you a little slack, but he’s doesn’t do scared well—and you scared him.”

“I know I did.”

Ken dropped his arm around her and walked with her to the house.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll get more upset?”

“Because I have my arm around you? He can learn to live with it. If I feel affection toward you, I’m going to show it. Jack’s a part of me. He loves you and you make him happy. Believe me, I feel affection for you for that alone, but it isn’t sexual and he might as well find out what he can live with and what he can’t.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “It’s good for him to see he isn’t as bad as he thinks he is.”

Briony washed her hands and put the biscuits in the oven. “You were worried about me coming to live with you at first. I could feel it.”

Ken shrugged. “Jack is—Jack. There’s no telling how he’s going to react to anything. This is a completely new situation for us, and honestly—I didn’t know how he was going to react. He feels things much deeper than most people, or he doesn’t feel at all. It’s a difficult trait for him to have to live with.”

Briony took a quick shower and dressed in the soft cotton pants and tank top she liked to sleep in, before hurrying back to the kitchen to pull out the biscuits before they burned. It took that long to work up her courage.
Dinner’s ready, Jack. Come in and eat.
She tried not to let her voice shake, tried to sound matter-of-fact, but she knew Jack would know she was upset. She couldn’t speak telepathically and not have him know.

Ken sniffed the air appreciatively. “I’m falling madly in love here, Briony.”

She forced a smile as she placed the pot of stew in the middle of the table. “I sure hope the woman you end up with knows how to cook.”

For a moment his smile slipped, but he recovered fast. “Since we’d all be living here together, you could teach her.”

“Lucky me.” She heard the door open behind her and knew immediately that Jack had stepped into the room. He’d been working on the heavy bag. She smelled sweat and blood and the tangy masculine scent that sent her hormones into overdrive. She swung around, her gaze jumping to his, her heart pounding in her throat.

“Smells good,” Jack commented, his gray eyes watching her closely. He crossed directly to her side, never once looking away.

Jack held her gaze captive. Briony felt mesmerized by him—was mesmerized. Her heart beat so hard she was afraid she might have a heart attack, but she didn’t dare lift her hand to press against her chest; she was trembling too hard to hide. He bent his head to hers and brushed her upturned lips. Once—twice. “I’m sorry, baby. I was angrier with myself than with you. I should have given you specific instructions on where you should or shouldn’t go. I’m sorry I frightened you.” He kissed her again, so gently her heart did a funny little somersault and soft wings brushed the inside of her stomach.

“What did you do to your hands?” She caught his wrists and turned his hands over to inspect his knuckles.

“I’m fine. Let me get cleaned up for dinner.”

“I’ll do it,” Briony said decisively, leading him back to his wing of the house. “Next time you decide to wig out on me, wrap your hands.”

“Wig out?” His eyebrow shot up. He wasn’t going to admit that there was a certain satisfaction in pounding flesh until it bled. She already had enough to condemn him.

He let her wash and apply antibiotic cream to his wounds, enjoying the way she touched him, her hands gentle and her eyes shy. In the close confines of the bathroom, with her clean scent enfolding him, his body zinged out of control, tightening and pulsing, blood engorging his groin. “I’m going to take a quick shower before dinner, and tonight, Ken does the dishes. You need to rest.” He’d opt for a cold shower, but he doubted it would do much good.

Briony noticed the baby book was on the bed and bookmarked as she went through the bedroom on her way to the kitchen. Sometime during the day he must have retrieved it from the dresser and had been avidly reading again. She smiled to herself, secretly pleased. She hoped he found all her additional comments enlightening.

The entire time she’d been attending Jack’s knuckles, all she could think about was running her hands over his chest, his belly, dipping lower to feel the hard strength of his very evident erection. She loved that she could do that to him, and most of the time she could block out the thought that Dr. Whitney had orchestrated the intensity of the chemistry between them.

She avoided Ken’s eyes as she sat down. “Quit smirking.”

“I’ve never heard him apologize. I wanted to record it, just to play back later so I’d know I hadn’t lost my mind. He just might really get on his knees and propose,” Ken said. “And the biscuits are great by the way. If Jack doesn’t get out here soon, I’m eating them all. Every last one.” To prove his point he dipped one in gravy.

Briony shook her head. “How did you survive before I was here?”

“I don’t know. You’re not just an angel, you’re a goddess. A woman ought to know how to cook just to qualify to be a woman.”

Briony choked on her milk. “And you think your brother is a chauvinist! Really, Ken, I ought to dump all the food in the garbage for that statement. Why haven’t you learned to cook?”

“I can cook. I get by; I just don’t cook like this,” Ken said. “And of course I’m a chauvinist, but it isn’t my fault.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, Jack was born first and I share his genes. I can’t help it if he infected me inside the womb.”

Briony burst out laughing. “I should have known that would be your excuse.”

Jack stood in the doorway, leaning one hip against the jamb, toweling his hair dry while he listened to Briony and Ken bantering back and forth. She sounded happy, easy in her relationship with Ken already. Ken could do that. He genuinely liked people and they liked him. Briony looked past his scars and seemed to see the man Jack saw, the one to be respected and loved. Jack could see that Ken was relaxed and even happy in Briony’s company.

Jack examined his feelings closely. Maybe there was a twinge of jealousy, but not because of the shared laughter and the way the two seemed to be growing closer, but because Ken was the better man and she deserved better.

Briony was reaching for the coffeepot when he stepped all the way into the room. “It clearly states no caffeine,” Jack said.

Her gaze jumped to his face. “No it doesn’t. I read the entire book and it’s not in there anywhere. You’ll have to read it again.”

“You will.” He pulled a red marker from his pocket and held it up. “The book is the latest edition, with new and important text.”

She flashed a small, shy smile at him at their shared intimacy.

Ken reached for another biscuit, and a knife sliced through the air to bury itself in the table half an inch from his hand.

“Back off, biscuit thief.”

Briony rolled her eyes. “Great, Jack. You’d better not be doing that in front of the baby.”

“Babies,” both men corrected simultaneously.

“Wonderful, surround sound,” Briony complained.

Jack pulled the blade from the table and slipped it back into the scabbard at his belt. “She said I wigged out, bro. You ever see me wig out?”

Ken coughed into his napkin, nearly choked, and had to have Jack slap his back. Jack’s hand went to his brother’s shoulder and squeezed briefly before he sat down.

C
HAPTER 
15