Big Bad Wolf (9 page)

Of course he could.
The Programmer ate computer chips for breakfast, and, he added after giving his companion a brief glance, sexy roofers for dinner.
“It might take a while.
I’ve nothing to do this weekend, so if you want, I can come back and play with it.”
And get to his connections.

“You’ll have to tell me when.
I won’t be home much.”

“Going somewhere for the weekend?”
He wondered what she did for fun.

“No, I’ll be in and out, but if you tell me when it’s convenient for you, I’ll be here.”

“How about eleven in the morning?
Then you can feed me lunch.”

Jaymee nodded.
“Fine.
How much are you charging me to fix it?”

Nick shrugged.
“Let me work on it first.”
He eyed her with outrageous wickedness, and added, “I’m very negotiable about payments.”

She was determined to stick to business.
“Cash, then,” she said, gulping down her milk.
“If I’m not home when you arrive, just wait in the back porch.”

Turning off the computer, Nick stood up, stretching his back.
His knees creaked and popped in protest.
Hearing it, Jaymee tried to hide a grin.
Week one for Roofer Wannabes was always a painful experience.

“You think it’s funny, don’t you?” He made a threatening step toward her and she quickly pulled the two kitchen chairs between them.
“You like seeing me in pain.”

Jaymee tugged the chairs behind her as she went back into the kitchen.
“Is the big construction man in pain?” she mocked back, feeling safe with the chairs as protection.
“Come, come.
What about those tough muscles?”

Nick finished his drink and put the empty bottle in the sink.
He watched her arrange the chairs at the small table before walking to the counter.
Pulling out the top drawer, she withdrew some cash.

“Come on,” she said, “I’ll help you to your Jeep, poor limping thing.”

“It is getting dark and scary outside,” he agreed.
“Hold my hand?”

Her voice was Southern sweet in the semi-darkness.
“I hope the mosquitoes eat you up,
Langley
.

Nick showed up at the little house early on purpose.
Jaymee’s truck was where she’d parked it the night before, so she was either home or hadn’t used it to go wherever she had to be.
Walking down the path, he admired the clumps of hibiscus bushes in full bloom.
He didn’t really look last evening, but the property was quite picturesque, especially in the backyard with the view of the lake.

A wooden picnic table stood under an elm oak with dipping branches.
He recognized Jaymee’s shirts on a clothesline nearby. The lake was quite big, shared by surrounding properties, and he could see an upside down canoe on the bank.

If he stood quietly at the porch, he could hear the lazy buzz of summer all around — the bees and the frogs competing, the creaky clothesline, the hushing whispers of leaves as they rubbed each other, even the occasional watery plop from the lake.
Nick paused for a long moment on the steps.
He could see it very well.
A laughing Jaymee sitting at that picnic table with her three kids quarreling and fighting in this backyard.
They would all have curly dark auburn hair like their mother’s, with the same green and brown eyes, and be just as feisty, probably just as stubbor
n; and in the middle of all the
bedlam, Jaymee would raise her laughing eyes at him and —

He almost fell off the steps.
He had no business fantasizing about Jaymee Barrows like that.
It wasn’t like him to make up scenarios that could never be.
The moment Command found out he was alive, the instant he was briefed about the situation, he would be gone, with new orders.
And Jaymee would still be here, running her small business like it was part of a grand plan.
She’d meet a safe man, someone who would give her those things she wanted, and it’d be his eyes she’d seek over the noisy chatter of her children.

Nick calmly crushed the aluminum can in his hand, and turning away from the backyard, he tapped on the back door.
It was Bob Barrows who came to answer, his gaze turning suspicious at the sight of the visitor.

“She ain’t here.”

“She told me to meet her here,” Nick informed him.
He wondered what it was that made this old man so hostile toward his hard-working daughter.
“I was just making sure she isn’t home yet.”

“She’s busy enough without you taking up her time,” Bob said, not opening the door any wider.
“You ain’t no good for her, man.
Why don’t you just leave her be, so she won’t get her heart broken?”

“That’s a strange way of caring about your daughter, isn’t it?” Nick politely asked.
And because he wanted more details about Jaymee’s past, he added, “Could it be you’re just making sure there’s no possibility of her abandoning the business, and therefore, you?”

Bull’s eye, Nick thought, as he took note of the man’s sharp intake of breath.
The old guy’s switch, he disdainfully concluded, was pathetically easy to find.
He knew there was more to the story.
Jaymee apparently wasn’t knuckling under a bullying father; she was doing this of her own free will, and he intended to find out the reason.

“Well, is that Miss High and Mighty’s story to you?”
Bob Barrows’ runny eyes narrowed into malicious slits.
“You may fall for all that college knowledge she pretends to have, but if she was so smart, how come she’s in the hole she’s in?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”
Nick leaned nonchalantly against the railing.

A crafty smile fanned the wrinkles on the old man’s face.
“I can still see pretty good with my old eyes.
You want my daughter, don’t you?
You got
the
same look Danny boy had whenever he cast his wicked eyes in her direction.”

Bob pushed open the screen door and came out, shuffling his feet as if he wasn’t sure how far the floor was.
He squinted up at Nick.

Sloshed.
Probably been so since last night.
Nick studied him for a second.
“Who is Danny?”

Sitting down slowly in the rocking chair, Bob gave him that shifty, knowing look again.
“Why, her fianc
é
, of course.”
And he laughed, enjoying Nick’s surprise.
“I knew I could get you with that one, boy!
She already got herself a pretty boy, she doesn’t need a second one.”

Nick was unprepared for the surge of anger that swamped him.
A fianc
é
.
He hadn’t expected that piece of information at all.
Reason told him the old man was lying, but his own reaction to the news, even if it were untrue, jarred him.
This
wa
sn’t him at all.
The Programmer rarely acted on emotions.
Through the years, he’d gotten used to efficiently study
ing
a system and taking it apart, and out of habit, he did it to people around him.
It helped him put distance between him and his targets.
This jumble of emotions—anger and yes, jealousy—startled him.

Before he could probe Bob further, he heard footsteps coming from the side of the house, then Jaymee rounded the corner, with her usual fast strides.
She stopped abruptly at the sight of him and her father, looking from one to the other as if to gauge what was happening.
Wearing rumpled clothing and with her hair in its usual untidy ponytail, she looked tired.

Nick narrowed his eyes.
She looked like she’d just gotten out of bed.
He squeezed the crushed aluminum in his hand tighter.

“Hi,” Jaymee greeted, climbing the porch steps.
“’Morning, Dad.
Feeling better?”

Her father just grunted, rocking the chair, his eyes half closed.

“Hi,” Nick said.

“Come on into the house.
I need a glass of water.
God, it’s hot today.”

Jaymee frowned slightly, sensing something wasn’t right.
Nick had followed her silently into the kitchen and watched her pour water into two glasses.
He was angry about something.
She could feel it, even though his face was cool and unreadable.

Nick waited till she drank down the glass of water.
“You look tired.”
He studied at her disheveled appearance again.
Wherever she’d spent the night, she hadn’t taken her truck with her, which meant someone had picked her up and dropped her off.
The seed of suspicion put a scowl on his face.
“Busy morning?”

She was looking away, so he didn’t bother hiding his black stare.

“Hmm,” she agreed, yawning on cue.
“Nothing a cup of coffee won’t fix, though.
Go ahead and make yourself comfortable in the study.
I’ll be right there as soon as I wash up.”

He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, turn her around and demand to know where she’d spent the night.
Was it with this Danny person?
Without a word, he did as she told him, sitting himself in front of the new computer.
He didn’t wait for her, turning on the machine.

Jaymee quickly ran a brush through her tangles and pulled at her clothes in an effort to look less unkempt.
Normally, she wouldn’t care what she looked like, but then, she hadn’t acted normal since Nick showed up.
She gave herself a critical lookover in the mirror.
She made a face.
She wasn’t a fresh-faced twenty year-old any more.
Eight years of the kind of work she did had dissolved the baby fat around her face, leaving her far too lean and hollow-cheeked.
There was nothing there to attract a man.
Boring hazel eyes.
Boring lips.
Bad hair.
She sighed.
Maybe some lipstick would help.
And definitely keep that tangled mess of hair off her face.

The sound of fingers tapping on the keyboard came from the study as she crossed the kitchen, her hands busy securing the pin in her hair.
She could hear the rocking chair outside the kitchen window, and she stuck her head out to check on her father.
He had dozed off, as was his mid-morning habit.
Good.
She didn’t want him confronting Nick again.
He probably hadn’t even noticed him standing on the porch.

“Any progress?” she asked, walking in and standing beside Nick.

She had no idea what he was doing as he kept typing senseless sentences.
It must be the right thing since the computer seemed to be talking back to him, flashing messages on its screen and blipping encouraging noises.

“Mmmhmm.”

Several minutes of silence went by before she tried again.
“Is it a serious problem?”

“No.”
She found his fast-moving fingers absolutely fascinating.

“Can I do anything?”

“No.”

Jaymee sighed.
He was treating the damned machine like some long lost lover, and what was more, it was responding to his touch with a lot more enthusiasm than an inanimate object ought to have.
It was obviously a female computer.
“Well, I guess I’ll fix us something to eat and do some chores.
Holler if you need me.”

“OK.”

She studied him a moment longer.
So much for freshening up.
What’d it be like to be at the receiving end of that unwavering concentration?
At that moment, he raked an impatient hand through those dark, luxuriant too-long locks, muttered something back to the machine, and went back to typing.
His eyes hadn’t left the screen since she came in.
All that lipstick, she mournfully sighed again.
Wasted.

When she left the room, Nick heaved an answering sigh of his own.
Frustration dominated the jumbled emotions he felt.
Frustration and anger.
It was disconcerting.
He had, before him, what he needed—easy access to spend time online and break through firewalls so he could leave a message for his contact privately—and he should be feeling elated at his good luck.
Instead, all he wanted to do at the moment was lock the study door and kiss a certain woman into telling him her secrets.
The memory of the taste of her mouth called him, and the thought of her kissing somebody else after he left her the night before felt like a 100-lb weight on his chest.