Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (54 page)

She wrapped her arms around her, as if that would keep her from hurling herself at him, to beg him to stay. She would not beg. Her chin tilted up and she sucked in air. Her insides were wound tighter than a spool of thread, and her mouth tasted like sandpaper. Somehow, she managed to stay on her feet, although she couldn’t quite manage a smile.

Nick just stood there, a remoteness in his expression that chilled her. She realized he’d already gone away, beyond her reach. And she, too, retreated inside, trying to rebuild the protective wall this man had broken through. Her hand trembled slightly as she reached up to touch him for one last time, pushing back the stray lock of black hair from his forehead, feeling the stubble of his unshaven face, the pulse that beat strongly at his throat. His face remained expressionless but she felt the betraying swallow under her hands. One last touch.

“Take care of yourself,” she whispered, her voice stiff with emotion.

His nod was curt and his slate eyes were wintry as they traveled over her, from the top of her auburn hair to the painted toenails. At the sight of them, they flared with a naked longing that disappeared immediately, and when his eyes returned to hers, they were banked, empty.

“Live for yourself, Jaymee. You’ve been living for others, do it for yourself from now on,” he said, trying to sound gentle, when all he wanted was crush her to him.

He kissed her, hard and possessively, then turned and walked to his red Jeep. Not turning back, he started it up and drove off.

Live? Jaymee covered her mouth with her fist, and she had to bite down hard to control the torrent of pain choking out. Forget and live? Just like hoping he’d turn around and come back to her, that request was an impossible dream.

Big Bad Wolf: Chapter Sixteen

All she wanted was to be left alone. But no one would let her be. Mindy bothered her with phone calls. Her father followed her to work. Everyone rained her with conversation, questions, words. It was all strangely disjointed, as if she stood outside observing herself.

She couldn’t even escape to her other house. Strangers appeared one day to “sweep” the place, and like a robot, she followed Jed’s instructions, giving the password and handing them his note. She didn’t mention Nick at all. She couldn’t think about him.

A young man showed up to interrogate her, and it took a few minutes before she realized he was looking for Jed, and not Nick. His description could have fitted either one of them, except for the silver eyes. She’d answered in a detached manner until she remembered Grace, and what Nick had told her about the young girl. So she paid closer attention to the man and his questions. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and very polite but very thorough. When did she meet Jed? How?

Jaymee deflected the questions with the story she and Jed had agreed on, that she’d planned to lease her house to him for a year and he helped with the cleaning and remodeling.

“And you don’t know where he is now?” the young stranger asked, a touch skeptically.

His eyes, a warm, magnetic blue, were cool and quizzical as he studied her from head to toe. Like Nick, there was an air about him that hinted of something underneath that friendly demeanor. The way he stood so still amidst the activity of the other “sweepers” also reminded her a little of Jed. He might be a few years younger than her, but she had the feeling he’d seen a lot more about life than she’d ever known. Another mark against her. No wonder Nick thought she wouldn’t ever be “safe” enough for him. She was so stupid to think she could make it work.

“Nope,” Jaymee answered, looking back at him just as coolly.

His blue eyes narrowed, as if trying to gauge her honesty. “I find it strange you didn’t call the police.”

“I like Jed.” Jaymee cocked her head. “I trust him.” And Nick. And Grace.

“And you don’t trust me,” he stated. When Jaymee didn’t refute it, he added, “Why are you keeping information from me? Jed McNeil and I work for the same people. You obviously know more than you’re telling, what with a clean-up unit here sweeping your house after a bomb scare. I’m not here to harm him, or these guys here would have taken me out already. They know me.”

He nodded towards the people working around her house. Despite what little Jed had told her, Jaymee liked the intelligence gleaming in the younger man’s eyes, knew from instinct he wasn’t sent to harm Jed. However, she’d decided to side with Jed and Grace, and so she stuck with her story.

“All I know’s what I told you,” she told the stranger calmly. “Florida is full of transients. They come and go. Some I like, and some I don’t.”

He did smile then, and Jaymee had to smile back. The look he gave her was cocky and confident.

“Nice. But then I wouldn’t want it so easy. Less of a challenge. I’ll find him sooner or later,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Miss Barrows.”

She wondered whether he was part of this Virus Program Nick and Jed were in. No, she decided, as she watched him walk off to his car. He moved differently from the stealthy, lazy stroll she’d noticed in Nick and Jed. And there was an arrogance in the way he looked and walked that reminded her of a cat on the prowl. She shook her head as he drove off, mocking her own imagination. She hadn’t changed one bit, still putting men into animal categories.

Which suddenly brought her full circle back to Nick. Her big, bad wolf.

With iron determination, she forced the mental picture of Nick away. She didn’t think she could bear having Mindy call her, or having her father following her everywhere, or going through another awkward conversation with anyone who thought she needed consolation.

All she wanted was to be left alone. Was that too much to ask?

Later, she ordered shingles to be stocked at the other house the coming week, and after the call, ran all the way to the now “swept” place to start work on the roof.

For the next two days, she tore at the old roof by herself, digging up the shingles with a shovel. It was good, methodical work, the kind that exhausted her enough to sleep for a few hours at night. When she’d removed the shingles and original underlayment, she unrolled the tar felt paper over the cleaned-off plywood, fastening it down with simplex nails. The task was a two-man job, really, but she didn’t want company. Perspiration poured down her forehead and blinded momentarily, she hit her forefinger with the hammer at full force.

Pain jolted from the finger to every nerve end in her body. Cursing aloud and sucking her injured finger alternatively, she watched the blood blister that had immediately formed. The throbbing shot through her numbness, bringing her whole body alive again. Every feeling she’d tried to block pounced. With a groan, Jaymee sat down onto the roof.

Pain. It ploughed through her like a live current. Physical and mental pain wrapped around her like invisible wires, coiling tighter and tighter until she felt she would burst with the torture. The pain strangled her, made it impossible to move. Hugging her knees, she ground her head against her thighs, moaning and shivering even though it was ninety degrees outside.

Jaymee sat like that for a long time, unheeding of the heat, her eyes unseeing as she stared down at the tangled bushes around the old house. That was what her life was, she realized. An old house in need of repair and new life. So ignored outside, it was being choked by untended growth. She’d spent eight years working to pay for her past and planning to pay for her future. She’d never lived for herself as in the now, and if Nick had taught her anything, it was to live for the present, to enjoy what she could.

She took a deep breath and slowly got up. She felt as if she was a thousand years old. She leaned on the shovel for support, gathering her strength, making decisions. She had to change, to prune away all the tangled growth in her life, or she was going to end up like this old house. By the time her father came home that evening, she’d already booked the tickets.

“I’m taking off,” she announced. “I need to go away.” She waited for the protests.

Bob washed his hands at the sink and joined her at the table. “You deserve to go on a holiday, Jaymee girl.”

Jaymee stared at her father in undisguised astonishment. A month ago, he would have given her an earful about leaving for a vacation. Somehow, he’d changed these last few weeks.

“Where are you going?”

“Europe,” she told him, frowning. “Don’t worry, I’m using my own savings.” The money she’d put away to remodel her old house.

“You’ve always wanted to visit there. How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. A month. Two. Till my money runs out.” She paused. “Is it selfish? Can you take care of the business that long?”

“I think selfish is what you need to be right now, Jaymee girl. I’ve been selfish for too long.” Bob shifted in his chair uncomfortably. “I do remember how to run a roofing business, you know, even if I can’t get back on the roof. We can hang on till you come back.”

“The loans are up to date. The only bills are current ones, and the jobs are lined up...”

Bob interrupted gruffly, “I thought we agreed you’re going to be selfish. Now, tell me about your travel plans instead.”

For the first time in a long, long time, Bob Barrows smiled at his daughter and opened his arms. Jaymee slowly walked towards him and hugged her father.

***

The humidity reminded Killian of Jaymee. Sluicing water over his sweaty body after a hard day of hiking reminded him of Jaymee. Eating. Drinking. Sleeping. Every damned thing reminded him of her, and there was nothing for him to do but to endure it.

If Jed noticed his foul mood, he didn’t say anything. Her name wasn’t mentioned once since they’d left. Their assignment had been completed a week ago after they had trapped their targets, and Jed had relayed electronically to Command the decoded encryption board. He had the satisfaction of personally dealing with them, especially two, whose description fitted that given by Jaymee, down to the smell of cologne.

There was still much to do. The scums who had used Jaymee against him had been mere mercenaries. They had given the names of their handlers, but in the world of covert games, handlers had handlers, and every personal agenda had to be determined before the next move.

Killian watched as Jed cleaned and cooked fish over an open fire. Grace was taking a nap close by, having been thoroughly worked out by her father that morning in a series of exercises. He could only marvel at the young girl’s tolerance for pain, for it was pain and endurance Jed was training her in.

He mulled over his next step. Jed had told him getting those men wasn’t enough. He had his own agenda to meet.

Killian understood. There was still Grace to think about and time spent training her meant extra time for Jed to assimilate his information and come up with a solution to the crisis waiting for them back at Command. For himself, this particular mission was over. Time to return to Command Center and be debriefed.

“I’m going back tomorrow,” he said. “Is everything taken care of?”

Jed’s glance was calculating. “It depends on what you mean.”

His attention returned to the fish. Killian sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for mind games.

“The hell you don’t.” He couldn’t help the curtness in his reply. Sleep had eluded him for weeks now.

“The satellites are going to be destroyed. The unit is still looking for me, and,” Jed paused a beat, then went on conversationally, “Jaymee had left a message where I told her.”

Killian wanted to punch something, someone. Even her name was painful to hear. “And?”

“The team came and swept the place, and she’s fine, I suppose.”

“What the hell do you mean, you suppose?”

He glared at his cousin’s cool silver stare. Jed shrugged. His tone of voice was deceptively nonchalant, meant to infuriate.

“I can’t vouch for what she’s going through or how she is, since I’m not there physically. She mentioned some young man looking for me, and that was all there was to her message.”

“She didn’t ask about me?” Why did he ask that? He didn’t want to know.

“Of course she did,” Jed replied, still in that mild voice. “What do you want me to tell her? That you don’t care, or that you do?”

“Damn you, Jed.”

“You’re the one looking damned, cousin.” The retort was dry, amused.

“Back off!” Killian all but snarled, then reined in his anger with effort. “What did you want me to do? Take her with me to D.C.? Leave her whenever I take off? I thought, of all people, you would understand the danger.” He regretted his outburst immediately. Jed didn’t deserve that. Sighing, he attempted to apologize. “I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight.”

Jed was silent as he turned the fish over in the pan. “There are always choices, Nick.”

“Yeah, tell Command that.”

“I haven’t reported to them you’re alive. In fact, you missed a relevant part of Jaymee’s message. They’re looking for me, Kill. No one else.”

The silence that followed was broken by Grace, who sat up in her sleeping bag, yawning.

“What do you mean?” Nick queried carefully, trying to read his cousin’s expression.

“You tell me. What do you want it to mean? Is the Programmer dead, or not? Has he disappeared? Enquiring agencies want to know.” There was true amusement tingeing Jed’s voice now.

To Nick’s amazement, Jed started to laugh as he continued to stare at him. His own mind was running a sixty-yard dash to...to what? Freedom. Jaymee. Sunshine. Jaymee.

“What about you?” he asked, his voice a low gravelly rumble. “You said Jaymee wrote someone was coming after you. They’ll get you sooner or later.”

Jed shrugged again, his usually harsh demeanor softened by amusement. “I’m not dead, just missing. I know how to keep in touch with them and give them relevant information just to show how much I miss them. They’ll find me in a year or so. I’ll give that young tracker that long, and if he fails, I’ll show up at Command Center like I promised.”

“Maybe the tracker will give up.” It was entirely possible. Tracking the Ice Man wasn’t an easy assignment, and a young tracker probably didn’t have the experience or the patience.