Run From Fear (18 page)

“You have a boat?” She didn’t know why that surprised her.

His brows quirked in a puzzled frown. “No, I live on one,” he said, his tone implying that she should have somehow known that. “I rent a houseboat out on Lake Union.”

“I had no idea,” she said. It hit home, once again, how little she really knew about him despite how big a part he’d played in her life.

He shook his head ruefully. “No, I guess you wouldn’t,” he said, studying her with a funny look on his face. “It’s a nice place, with a second-floor deck that looks right out over the city. I’d like to show you sometime.”

There was a sudden charge in the tiny efficiency suite as Talia imagined Jack taking her hand to lead her onto his houseboat, taking her up to the deck to enjoy a glass of wine and the view.

And then…

It was like a metal door slammed shut in her brain. As it always did when she tried to imagine what came after. She didn’t want to relive it, the humiliation, the pain that went beyond the physical.

Of course, logically she knew it would be different with Jack, but since she couldn’t remember what different might feel like, she wasn’t even capable of fantasizing about it.

“I don’t imagine I’ll get back up to Seattle any time soon. Not with Margaret Grayson-Maxwell running around.”

Jack’s mouth tightened. “She doesn’t have any power over you or Rosie. If you want to come back, I can make it work for you—”

Talia cut him off. “I appreciate the offer, but I think the wounds are still a little too fresh for me to go back.” She turned and walked to the window that looked out over a side street. “Besides, with Rosie in school here, it’s not like I have anything or anyone to go back to.”

Jack was silent a few seconds. Finally he said, “No, I don’t guess you do.”

But when they got back to her house and she was standing under the hot spray of her own shower, she couldn’t stop thinking about what it might be like to visit Jack on his houseboat, for no other reason than they wanted to see each other. No dark past, no memories of what she’d done and what had been done to her.

A lovely fantasy
, she thought as she dressed, put on makeup, and dried her hair. Too bad it was about as likely to happen as Sarah Palin retreating to a quiet life out of the spotlight.

She trotted down the stairs, wondering how she was going to kill another two hours in close quarters with Jack
before it was time to go to work. She whipped around the corner to the kitchen and, distracted, didn’t see the wall of tanned skin and muscle until she was nose to chest with it.

Talk about a fantasy. She’d been speculating just a few hours ago what Jack might look like without his shirt. Now her mouth went dry as she was mere inches away from the reality, a reality that was leaps and bounds better than anything she could have imagined.

He was as muscular as she imagined, the muscles of his chest and abs chiseled from granite as they bunched and shifted. There was not an ounce of fat visible under a layer of tanned, tight skin.

And Jack was no waxed-up metrosexual either, what with his chest dusted with a light coat of dark hair that narrowed into a silky-looking stripe that bisected his belly and disappeared beneath the waistband of the pants that hung from his narrow hips. Her fingers tingled, itching to trace that happy trail to see if it was as soft as it looked, to feel that tanned, smooth skin.

He wasn’t without flaw, though. Scars of varying size and shape scattered his torso. Up under his right shoulder was a pucker of flesh that looked like it might have been a bullet wound. Those perfect abs were marred by a neat white line about six inches long where it looked like he might have had surgery. The left side of his rib cage was peppered with pale spots, which, as she looked closer, were scars left by small divots in his skin.

“Those are from when an IED went off next to me. The shrapnel sprayed me all up and down my left side.” He twisted so she could see the path the divots made up his side and the back of his shoulder, all the way up to his neck until they disappeared beneath his thick, dark hair.
As she looked down, the white flecks dipped beneath his waistband. “Tore up my leg pretty good. Looked like hamburger from my hip to right above my knee.”

Her hand reached out, and before she could stop herself, her fingers were tracing the white flecks dotting his rib cage. As her fingers made contact, Jack flinched.

Talia jerked her hand away and choked out an apology. “They don’t still hurt, do they?” she asked stupidly.

“No. Just look a little nasty.”

On the contrary, she wanted to tell him, the scars actually made him even hotter, if that was possible, the evidence of the wounds he’d survived adding another layer of credibility to his air of toughness, his attitude that said he could take on the world and come out the victor.

Mortified at having been caught staring dumbly for the second time in one day, Talia had to pry her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “I see a lot worse every time I get naked in front of a mirror.”

Heat flared in his eyes, letting her know in no uncertain terms that her scars wouldn’t be a deterrent if he ever got her naked.

But the scars on the inside were the ones she feared she’d never overcome.

He couldn’t get to her.

Gene’s hands shook as they curled around the steering wheel. His car had been parked across the street for hours now. He’d followed her all day, starting at the boxing gym. He wasn’t going to grab her in broad daylight—he wasn’t that stupid—but he wanted to see her nonetheless.

And her fucking gorilla hadn’t left her side. Even when she went to use the bathroom, he wouldn’t allow her to go to the locker room but made her use the single unisex bathroom whose entrance he guarded like a Roman centurion.

Gene had been forced to take a break for several hours in the middle of the day to go to the lab where he was working on his research to support his dissertation. There were also papers to grade for the undergrad classes he taught.

And, of course, there were office hours with Rosario Vega, an appointment he wouldn’t have missed if someone held a gun to his head. She was so young, so sweet, so… fresh.

The way she looked at him with stars in her eyes and gushed about how smart he was. He didn’t kid himself that she was actually attracted to him. He’d seen her around with that loser she dated.

You are a loser. You are nothing.

Yes, she had the hots for a fucking leech who treated her like garbage. It was her only flaw, but he couldn’t fault her. How could she not know better than to cheapen herself after she was raised by that whore of a sister?

But the way she looked at him, with unadulterated admiration for his superior brain, it was like a breath of fresh air. She was even coming to appreciate his sense of humor. They were becoming not just teacher and student, but friends.

Which would make it that much easier to use Rosie to get to her sister.

And he would need all the help he could get.

Perhaps he had gone too far in sending her the DVD.
He’d expected her to be scared. But he hadn’t foreseen the hiring of a full-time bodyguard, a huge brick wall of a man who accompanied her everywhere—the gym, work, and now home. Gene had been watching the house for hours and the gorilla showed no signs of leaving.

No matter how ready he was, he couldn’t get to her to-night. The knowledge made him feel like a thousand spiders were crawling over his skin. The gorilla was smart, highly trained, and hypervigilant. There was no easy way past him.

Anything worth having was worth waiting for, he reminded himself.

In the meantime, he’d released Number 4 just this morning. The police should be aware of her soon, if they weren’t already.

He wondered if the police would find her unconscious form before the drugs wore off like the other girls, or if she’d come to in the open space preserve where he’d dumped her. He’d given her a little extra—she was a fighter and he didn’t want her waking up and alerting anyone until he was long gone.

He started the car and pulled away from the curb across from Talia’s house. There was nothing more to be done with Talia tonight.

He thought of Number 4, struggling under him as blood ran down her back and sides. Felt the surge build up inside him as he envisioned the perfection of the cuts.

He couldn’t have Talia, but he could have another.

He would take advantage of this opportunity to run through the process one last time. To fine-tune every step so everything went exactly the way he wanted.

T
hough the situation wasn’t exactly comfortable, by the morning of the third day, Jack and Talia had settled into something of a routine. Jack, always an early riser, was usually up at least an hour before Talia regardless of how late they stayed up after Talia got off work.

He spent the time catching up on e-mails and phone calls to Danny, who was also a crack-of-dawn riser. Even though Jack wasn’t on so-called active duty right now, he could add some value in strategizing how to approach certain clients’ unique needs.

This morning Danny wanted his opinion on the best way to ferret out a spy in a case of suspected industrial espionage at a local biotech company. Before he hung up, Danny said, “You’re coming Saturday, right?”

Jack’s mind drew a blank. He usually had no problem committing his schedule to memory, but lately his close proximity to Talia was scrambling his brain so much he was going to have to work harder to keep his shit together.

“Jesus, I know you’re walking around with most of your blood in your dick, but don’t tell me you forgot my father’s engagement party?”

Right. Now he remembered. After years of living like
a monk as he searched the world for his missing wife, Joe Taggart and his sons had finally discovered that Anna Taggart had been dead for nearly two decades. Finally able to move on, Joe had found love again in the arms of a woman who had worked with Gemini to find her missing daughter.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t think so, Danny. Talia works Saturdays and I can’t leave her alone—”

“Bring her. Tell her to take the night off.”

“I don’t know if it’s such a good idea—”

“Goddamn it, Jack, you’re one of my best friends and you’ve known my dad for years. You’re really going to let us down for some damaged goods who’s never going to fuck you—”

“Don’t you fucking talk about her like that,” Jack shouted. If Danny had been in front of him, Jack would have had his hands around his throat. “I know we go way back, and you’re worried about me getting pulled into another bad situation. But I care about Talia and I don’t want to see her hurt, especially by my so-called friends.”

He cringed at Danny’s satisfied chuckle. Danny loved nothing better than to find a person’s weak spot and give it a good poke. “Bring her Saturday. Let her prove to me she’s worth the trouble. I promise I’ll be nice.”

“I swear to God if you so much as look at her sideways, I’ll put your ass in a sling.”

“You are such a goner.”

Jack hung up, a lump of dread in his stomach as he realized his friend was probably right. He was a goner, and the last few days had only rammed the truth home.

Why the hell did he do this to himself? Why couldn’t
he just find some nice, normal girl who didn’t need saving? Or at least someone capable of overcoming her dysfunction enough to have a semi-normal relationship?

Although, Jack reflected, given his history, he didn’t know if he’d recognize a normal relationship if it came up and bit him in the ass.

So yeah, here he was again, charging in like a superhero for a woman who wouldn’t or couldn’t give him what he wanted. And it was getting worse the more time he spent with her.

Yeah, his physical reaction to her after seeing her for the first time in nearly two years had hit him like a sucker punch. But the more time he spent with her, the more he realized he really liked being around her.

Even now, though it was bordering on torture to have to be so close to her and not lay a finger on her, he was anticipating the moment when she’d emerge from her room and walk down the stairs.

A door opened and closed upstairs and his heart gave an extra hard thud against his ribs. As he heard her footsteps on the stairs, he poured her a cup of coffee and added milk. She walked into the kitchen and accepted the cup with a smile.

“You’re spoiling me,” she said, and took a long drink. “I could really get used to having you around.”

So could I
, Jack thought with a funny twist in his chest. Take away the creep who was forcing Talia to relive her past trauma, and they were like any other couple. It was way too easy for him to imagine days like the last few—wake up to chat over a cup of coffee, go work out, run errands, work, followed by a good-natured squabble over whether to watch a documentary on the History Channel or another episode
of
Top Chef
before heading off to bed—stretching endlessly into the future.

Okay, to be fair, if he had his way, he’d skip the TV and go straight to bed. With Talia. Where they could argue over who got to be on top before he had her until they were both too weak to move.