Make Mine a Marine (3 page)

He determinedly thrust away a flood of unwanted emotions, and moved to a sofa behind the desk. Brushing aside a slew of quilted teddy bears, Brodie laid BJ on the cushions, propping her head on a stuffed plaid heart.

“Monster in my head…” she murmured, stirring as he elevated her feet.

Brodie knew all about the monsters that haunted a person's dreams. He got a reminder of his own tortured demons each time he caught his reflection in a storefront window or rearview mirror. For him, it was natural, as much a part of him as breathing. But for BJ, this couldn't be right.

He squatted on the floor beside her. With one hand, he took both of hers and began rubbing them, kneading warmth into her limp fingers. He smoothed her bangs from her forehead. Her skin was cool to the touch.

She had short, soft curly hair, in a nondescript brownish-blond color. He saw nothing striking about her even features. She wasn't pretty. She wasn't plain. She was just—average.

Brodie thought it strange that he’d noticed her looks. And even stranger that he wasn't disappointed. Maybe it had something to do with the friendly, open smile with which she had first greeted him. Or the way her eyes boldly met and held his gaze, despite the way she had to crane her neck to do so.

Or maybe it just had to do with the fact he was a male animal who had been too long without a mate, and the sensation of holding a living, breathing female in his arms was all it took to send his hormones into overdrive. It wasn't a comforting thought.

“Wake up, BJ,” he whispered, his voice dark and bass deep. “C'mon. Wake up.”

Footsteps on the carpet alerted him to company. “BJ!” Emma knelt beside him, frowning with fear. “Is she hurt?”

“Don't know. She hit the top of the stairs and had an attack of some kind. When it stopped, she collapsed.”

“This isn't the first time. Sometimes she loses track of hours. I have no idea how to help her. That's why I went through Jonathan's journal to track you down.” Emma went to a built-in bar and brought back some wet paper towels to dab on BJ's face. “I wasn't sure you'd come.”

“We all made a pact to look out for whoever was left behind.”

Emma flashed him an apologetic look. “I led you to believe that I needed help, that the company was in trouble. But it's really BJ I'm concerned about.”

He shrugged off the misinformation that had gotten him here and jerked his chin toward BJ. “Looks like she needs a physician or a psychiatrist more than she needs my services.”

“There's a slight problem with that. BJ has some real hang-ups about men in lab coats, especially shrinks. I can't get her near one. Jas and I have both tried.”

Brodie wondered what someone as smart mouthed yet ingenuous as BJ had to fear from a psychiatrist.

Emma continued, “Besides, tomorrow at the stockholders' party, we're announcing the opening of our new Tokyo office. BJ doesn't want any bad publicity concerning her mental condition to scare off potential backers.”

BJ moaned, shifted on the pillow, and groaned again. “Tell him all of it, Emma. If he's the savior you say he is, you'd better tell him everything.”

Her eyes fluttered open. For the first time, Brodie noticed their unusual color. Not just green, but dark and blue-flecked, like a shadowy spruce forest. Earlier they had sparkled with humor, gleamed with intelligence. Now, a haze of uncertainty and fatigue clouded her eyes.

Her gaze wavered over Emma, then settled on Brodie. “It's not just my ideas that are being stolen. They're taking my sanity. Somebody's playing with my head. It's as if they're tapped into my brain, pulling out ideas before I can even get them on paper.”

“Enough.” Emma chastised BJ with a worried frown. “Nobody believes you're going insane.”

“So what just happened was normal behavior?” BJ's caustic remark echoed in the quiet.

“What did just happen?” Brodie asked. He rose and walked around the room, looking for hidden surveillance devices, getting a feel for BJ Kincaid.

Emma helped BJ sit up. BJ waved aside any further help and focused on Brodie. “You won't find any bugs—audio, visual, or tapped into the computer lines—I've checked.”

Brodie admired her astuteness. Nonetheless, he remained quiet. A long silence passed before BJ continued.

“These episodes happen two, three times a week. For about three months now. It's like…”

He heard her breath catch. The recollection obviously pained her. But he said nothing to ease her discomfort. It wasn't his place to do so. He’d agreed to help Emma because he owed her husband a favor. But when the job was finished, he intended to get back to his own life, solitary hell that it was. He didn't need to worry about anybody else's pain.

“It's like a shadow creeping into my brain. I feel it coming, pushing out everything else. Suffocating my ability to reason. Sometimes I beat it back, like today. Other times…I don't know when I lose it. Next thing I know, I wake up. I have a memory of the time passing, but nothing tangible to show for it. I'd write them off as dreams except they're too real. And afterward, I have the most awful headache you can imagine.”

Brodie paused at the DVD collection on the shelves. The movies consisted mostly of science fiction, including a vast assortment of old monster movies. Frankenstein. The Thing. Godzilla. She must think him a real-life extension of those video monstrosities.

“See anyone you know? You're not even listening to me.”

Decades of training in steely self-control kept him from starting at the sound of BJ's voice near his elbow.

“I heard every word.” He angled his face toward hers. She had incredibly expressive eyes. And the pissed-off message she broadcast to him now was unmistakable. He had to admire her courage. People rarely stood up to him. A savage look or sharp word usually deterred any challengers.

He'd enjoy going a few verbal rounds with BJ. She didn't intimidate easily. She spoke her mind and teased him more than most people ever dared try. But while the idea sounded provocative, he was in no position to indulge himself. Personal involvement meant risk. It meant the possibility of caring. And caring meant death.

He would never take that risk again.

Brodie hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans, hunched his shoulders and scowled at BJ. “You talk about monsters in your head. Ghosts taking over your thoughts.” He nodded toward the shelves of movies. “You're sure you're not imagining this?”

Color flooded her cheeks. Then she caught him completely off guard and shoved at his chest, knocking him back a step. “You…You…Get the hell out of here!”

After the emotional release of the first blow, BJ attacked him in earnest. Brodie shifted his weight to balance himself, and stood immovable while BJ punctuated each word with a furious, desperate shove.

“I'm…not…crazy…!”

“BJ, stop.” Emma gently reprimanded her friend and hurried over to help. But Brodie shook his head and warned her off.

BJ couldn't damage him, so Brodie took the brunt of her outburst, lifting some of the burden of coping from the two women. That much he could do for them.

“I am not crazy,” BJ repeated through sobbing breaths, clasping his hands and clinging to him like a lifeline. “Somebody's doing this to me. I'm not crazy.”

He absorbed the last of her fury and frustration into his calloused palms. When she was spent, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against him, seeking comfort.

From him?

The trusting gesture surprised him even more than the first blow of her attack.

She must have finally realized he had nothing to offer her, because she pulled away. She took a step back and hugged herself tightly, giving herself the solace he could not. She lifted her face to his.

BJ's eyes were dark, desperate, hopeful.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I promise to keep it all together if you stay and help me. Please.”

This wasn't right. Expecting him to be anybody's rescuer. Missing data or industrial espionage he could handle.

But asking him to help a damsel in distress? In the cobwebby recesses of his mind, he tried to remember what laughter sounded like. He should be laughing at their ludicrous expectations of him.

Emma stepped behind BJ, squeezing her shoulders in support.

“Jonathan said you handled unusual cases for him.” Emma's concerned focus was on her friend, while BJ still concentrated her pleading eyes on him. “But more than that, he said you never quit until everyone was safe. Until everyone was accounted for. You weren't on his last mission, were you?”

Brodie shook his head. Jonathan Ramsey never returned from that last mission. The team had searched for over a year but found no body. Brodie still followed up any remote lead that presented itself. But his friend seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.

Emma blinked moisture from her smoky blue eyes. “I believe if you had been on that mission, Jonathan would have come home to me. He believed in you that much. Because of that, so do I.

“Emma, I don't deserve that kind of trust.”

“Beowulf.”

Brodie's attention quickly attuned to BJ's husky, honeyed whisper. “Beowulf?”

“That's you.”

He thought he had left fear far behind, but the innocent hope in her deep green eyes frightened him.

“You're comparing me to one of the monsters in the story?”

“No.” She reached for one of his hands and gently spread it open, palm up. With her thumb she traced the expanse of his long, blunt-tipped fingers, touching each scar and callus as if his hand were a rare, precious thing. “You're the slayer of monsters.”

Even more than her words, BJ's guileless, gentle touches rocked him to the core. She didn't even know him. The damn fool didn't have sense enough to understand that he could break her neck with that hand. Yet she held on to him, fearful only of the monster inside her head, not of the one standing before her.

Brodie swore violently to himself. This job was going to get personal, he could tell. Yet, despite his misgivings, he accepted that he had already signed on for the duration.

Delaying the inevitable, he thrust BJ and her soulful eyes away from him and stalked across the room. He swiped a hand over his stubbly hair before turning to speak.

“I don't think you're crazy.” He wasted no time in getting down to work. “I suspect you're under the influence of mind control.”

“Mind control?” BJ and Emma echoed together.

“Posthypnotic suggestion. Brainwashing. I can't be certain, but that's my guess. The attacks come on suddenly, then vanish, leaving a vague memory, but no tangible proof.”  He saw the wheels turning in BJ’s head, first evaluating, then accepting his hypothesis.

“You think someone has programmed me?  How?  Who?”

He shrugged his shoulders.  “Figuring out how it’s being done, and who’s responsible, is harder to solve.  It will be pretty damn difficult, in fact.”

“But not impossible.”

“No.”  He paced the room, needing an outlet for the sudden wellspring of energy coursing through him.  He always experienced this rush when he geared up for battle.  And this could only be described as a battle.  A battle with an unseen enemy haunting an innocent woman’s mind.  And an ongoing battle within himself.  He couldn’t afford to lose either one.

“I’ll become your shadow,” he explained.  “Learn your habits, your friends, at home and at work.  I’ll need to observe these episodes firsthand, plus see who has a motive and the opportunity to trigger them.  You’ll feel like a lab rat with the scrutiny I’ll put you through.”

He paused when he saw that his words made her look uncomfortable.  “Lab rat?  Just what does that mean, exactly?”

“It means I’m going to move in with you. I’m going to drive you wherever you need to go.  I’m going to be at every meeting you attend.  I need to know everything in order to figure this out. I'll be closer to you than your own shadow.”

“Is that really necessary?”

He could see some backbone returning, and he felt encouraged rather than put off by her accusing look. “It is if you want me to find out the truth,” he said.

“Can't you just ask me some questions?”

“Do you have the answers?”

Defiance sparkled in her eyes. Then she looked over at Emma and sighed with quiet resignation. “Okay.”

He wondered what concession she had just made. “Everywhere, BJ. I mean it.”

After a tense moment, she smiled.  It was like the sun breaking through the clouds. Bright and beautiful. The kind of smile you couldn't resist returning. Unless you never had any reason to smile. Like Brodie.

“I'll get used to it. I'm warning you, though. Folks will talk. I don't usually keep company with tall, dark strangers.”

She was teasing again. Where the hell did she get her misplaced faith in him? Slayer of monsters? Ha! Couldn't she see the truth right before her eyes?

Still, her innocent trust touched something in him. His intrinsic code of honor, no doubt.

“I'll help you,” he heard himself promise. “I'll find out who's playing with your head, and how it's being done. I'll put a stop to it.”

Or else he’d always be haunted by BJ’s frank green eyes, wide open and trusting. Looking to the big, ugly monster of a man for answers. And asking for—of all things to expect from a man who held none for himself—hope.