Deadly Games (13 page)

Near Glen Affric, Scotland; November 7

Rori looked out at the pine covered slope. Loch Affric, dull and grey, in the late afternoon light, shone through the trees.

They had been here for a week

The lake--loch would be beautiful in the summer months. She was in bloody Scotland. How in the hell did she end up here? She was still trying to figure that one out and she’d been here for almost a week.

They’d landed in London and spent two days in different hotels, while Ian had changed his identity yet again.

No more Evan and Lori Hightower. Now they were Ian and Rori Kinncaid. Ian Kinncaid. Kinncaid. She’d run a search on the name after they arrived here, and found several lists. Granted this was Scotland, Kinncaids everywhere. But with that spelling, there was a branch in America and a family in particular who owned hotels. Was he part of them? Not that she’d been able to find thus far. So was Ian Kinncaid simply another alias or not?

Their current residence was an old Georgian manor house, built after the uprising of ’45, or so she was told. History had never really been her thing. She saw no reason why people felt they had to know every little date that ever happened in past lives. She didn’t care. Now was all that was important, and how one went about spending it, dealing with it and living it. Tomorrow would come and depending on whether or not you buggered the day would affect the next day.

She looked out the window, the pines and bare trees obscured a clear view of Loch Affric The day was cold, the clouds low, hiding the mountains that surrounded them.

Place made her twitchy, out in the middle of bloody nowhere. Only sound, the birds. Not that it was a bad place, she rather liked the quiet, but even her place in County Waterford wasn’t this remote. She thought she’d lived in the country, but this … this was almost desolate, lonely.

So why hadn’t she left. She could have at anytime, she knew. But there was Darya…

And she wanted the time away. No one demanded anything of her here. She didn’t worry about the next job. There wasn’t a next job. And that made her smile.

So here she was in Scotland, dressed in jeans and a thick cable knit sweater, trying to keep warm while a light snow dusted the ground.

A sound drew her attention and she turned, looking at the man who was talking on his mobile as he shuffled through some papers.

Heading to the study near the back of the house.

She looked around at the dark wooded antiques, crystal vases, and priceless works of art. There were no photos here. Not that she’d seen.

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He’d hardly spoken to her all week. Men came and went. John Brasher, Tanner, Snake, who kept checking on the little girl, and Gar. She remembered Gar herself. A complete computer geek. Pushing away from the wall, she turned and followed Ian.

“I don’t care. I want the tickets. This week. The sooner the better,” he said into the phone.

Rori noticed his shadow trailed after him as she always did. The little girl was never far from him. And he seemed to be the only one that could calm her after her nightmares, of which there were plenty. Nightly, the girl visited demons and woke up screaming. Every night it broke Rori’s heart and every night she couldn’t make herself go the girl, to see, to recognize and remember that pain.

The thick rugs hushed their footfalls in the hallway. Darya looked at Rori over her little shoulder. Dressed in an ivory sweater and jeans, her teddy bear clasped her chest, she stopped, darted around Rori and ran down the hall towards the kitchen.

Gar the nerd was also an excellent cook, as was--surprisingly--Ian. There was a never ending supply of biscuits. She didn’t ask who made them, in fact it would ruin her image of Ian if she found out he’d baked the chocolate chip ass-widening delicacies.

Better to think of him as the badass assassin. Agent, covert operator, assassin, whichever.

Semantics as far as she was concerned. She’d seen the man in action. She knew a fellow eliminator when she saw one.

She watched as the child disappeared around the far corner. This house was a child’s hide and seek paradise or nightmare, depending on one’s point of view.

Rori turned around and followed him to his study. The door was shut. To hell with this. She’d played nice for almost a week. She wasn’t one to be put out. If he wanted her help, fine, but she could find something to do other than play shadow to Ian Kinncaid.

And he could bloody well start talking to her.

Without knocking, she opened the door, then shut it behind her. He looked at her, the phone held between his shoulder and jaw as he flipped through the file in his hands.

She walked to the chair and flopped down, leaning back.

He frowned at her.

She frowned back.

“Yeah,” he said. “Who was she? Yes? Yes? Get me a name. Thanks.” He flipped the phone shut and clipped it to his belt to hang with the other three he had.

She herself had two. One for personal use and one for work.

Nikko had called so many times she’d lost count. On both phones, she simply wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Though she should probably ring him back soon before he started his own search for her.

“What?” he asked, walking around the desk to lean back against it. Today he wore his normal black trousers, matching black sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

She could see just a bit of black hair peeking out of the vee of his sweater.

“I would like to know what the hell is going on I’m not one of your lackeys or followers or --”

“Employees?” he supplied, crossing his feet.

“Employees?”

“As co-owner of KB Securities I would have employees,” he said, one side of his mouth kicking up on a grin.

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“KB?” she asked.

“Kinncaid-Brasher.”

“Should have chosen another name,” she muttered. Sounded like a jolly toyshop His expression didn’t change at all. Still a smirk. Those dark blue eyes holding a question--what question she wasn’t certain, nor did she want to know.

“I’m not a bloody employee, thank you.”

He scratched the side of his mouth. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. Any ideas yet on who hired you to off me?”

“Off?”

His gaze didn’t change.

“No. B-Widow hasn’t contacted me since before all hell broke loose.”

“Well,” he waved a hand. “We’ve enough people working on the threat as it is.

Doesn’t matter. What matters now is my family.”

The way he said it. My family. So definite. So bloody real. For a moment she wondered what it must be like to be considered that possessed. That taken, that owned.

Owned?

Family.

What the hell did she know about family, then? Family to her was either buggered or Nikko. And she preferred Nikko

Nikko. Perhaps she did know about family. Ties that held people together weren’t always forged in blood.

“And then you’ll get to meet them,” he said.

His words jeered her back. She frowned.

“And so that as my wife you don’t seem not to know a thing about them, I think I should show you something.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

He sighed as if annoyed. “My family. You’re to meet them. As my wife.”

“Like bloody hell.” She shook her head and wanted to stand, but didn’t. She tapped her foot. “Do you really think it necessary?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

She frowned and watched him thrum his fingers on his thigh.

“Do you think it wise?”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve people out looking for you who, I’m quite certain, would love to put a bullet in you. Why would you go to your family?”

He took a deep breath and ran an hand over his hair. “One I don’t want to lead anyone to my family. But, they have no idea about any of this, any of what I do. The least I have to do is make certain they are safe and things are as they should be. And two, Darya.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “I know this is all…”

“Buggered?” she supplied.

“British euphemism. Yeah, buggered.” He sighed and watched her. “If you have something else, other plans already in place, let me know and I’ll figure something out.

But I need to know that if anything happens to me, Darya has a place to go. A safe and secure place where she will be loved without question.” Those eyes hardened, burned a cold fire. “She’s been through too damn much to deserve otherwise. So we could use your 83

help in carrying off this cover. If you’re interested.”

She thought about, tapped her finger on her thigh and watched him. “How long?”

He shook his head. “Not a clue.”

“Basically, I play the little wife indefinitely. Why doesn’t that appeal to me?”

Nikko would have a fit, probably laughing his arse off.

“I could keep Darya safe,” she heard herself say.

He nodded. “Undoubtedly. But she needs more than safety and I don’t know that either of us can effectively give it to her.”

She studied him for a moment and felt again his loneliness brush momentarily against hers.

“We’re very fucked up creatures, you and I,” she muttered.

He half laughed, half grunted. Instead of answering he walked to the door and through it. She waited in the chair until he came back and looked back around the doorway.

“You coming?” His hand slapped the door facing.

She stood and rolled her neck. “I need a workout,” she muttered.

The smirk widened.

“Not that.” She took a deep breath and stretched her right arm by crossing it over her chest and pulling it to her by the elbow with her left hand. “I’d love to take your arse to the floor.” Damn the man and.… “You practice any hand to hand combat? Martial arts?” She stopped realizing how the entire exchanged could be construed into sex.

His grin might be deadly if she cared. And of course, she didn’t. He was just … a man.… His gaze raked over her. Maybe a really handsome, lickalicious type of man. A slow rainy day, make love in the bed all day kind of man, but still…. A man all the same.

“Want to find out?” he smiled even more, those brows rising.

She shook her head and stretched her other arm.

He just stared at her, his head tilting slightly. “Yeah, I think it would,” he said softly.

“What would what?”

His eyes narrowed a wee bit. “I’ll show you later,”

She only cocked a brow at him and motioned for him to go as she joined him in the hallway.

Again they walked down the long corridor. Such a lovely, filled … house. Big, wealthy house. She couldn’t live here, but it was without question fabulous.

“You bring lots of rescued kids, people, whatever here?”

He kept walking. “I’ve never brought anyone here. John knows it exists, but that was all.”

“Oh.”

The feeling that the house somehow reflected the owner wouldn’t leave her. Here he was, all shades of any man he wished to become, and his home could have been anyone’s.

Upstairs the soft winter light did little to brighten the darkened, antiqued, lined hallway. They walked passed Darya’s room, passed her own room to the master’s suite at the end of the hallway.

“The master’s domain. Men are such insecure creatures,” she muttered.

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He didn’t look at her as he opened the double doors and walked into the room.

She paused at the doorway.

What did the bloke think? “Look here, boyo.”

He halted and turned. There it was, that wicked grin again. “I didn’t ask you here to make love to you.” Again that gaze ran over her, as caressing as a hand “Though I’m quite certain it would be more than enjoyable.” He shook his head, a chuckle gravelling out across the room. “I wanted to show you my family so that you would know who was who, what they do.”

“A briefing.” Of course that was it. Bloody hell. What was she anyway? A complete ditz? Not that the idea of his didn’t have some lovely merit Then she actually looked around the room.

In dark blues and grays it could almost be dreary in such a setting with the dark woods and clouded fog laden days, but here, it seemed to suit him somehow. Wealth, tangled with sensuality and the knowledge that this was his domain.

Where the rest of the house did little to let her see into this mysterious man, here there things were different. The rest of the house was without a doubt a façade.

Everywhere she had looked nothing was answered, no clues were given as to who he was.

Not so here.

Dark canopied bed that she was sure very few could honestly afford, large enough for an orgy Blinking, she looked around the rest of the room, two walls covered in windows letting in the soft afternoon light. Comfort and quiet wealth.

A fire burned in the fireplace and on the mantle were photographs. Rori walked over to study them.

Ian and another dark headed man with a single dimple in his cheek. The two had their arms around each other and she could tell from the coloring and facial features they had to be related. Other photos of Ian and a red haired woman, the woman and an older man with white hair and the same cobalt eyes as Ian. There were other people, twin men, candid photos as if the photographed had no idea anyone was taking a picture.