Killjoy (30 page)

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my aunt. Granted, she can be difficult, but I’m sure, once you got to know her, you’d love her as much as I do.”

He grinned. “I don’t see that happening.”

She took a bite of her turkey sandwich, thought it tasted like pressed sawdust, and picked up her glass of iced tea to wash it down.

“You want this?” she asked as she pushed the plate toward him.

He pushed it back. “You need to eat that,” he said as he helped himself to one of the limp potato chips.

She noticed him watching the highway beyond the parking lot. “They don’t get much business here, do they?”

“They’re closing in fifteen minutes. Maybe that’s why we’re the only customers. Tell me something, Avery. When you filled out your application to work for the Bureau, was it your goal to become an agent?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

She was about to give him her standard answer, but then decided to be completely honest with him. Besides, she was pretty sure he’d cut through the bull and know she wasn’t telling him the truth.

“I thought I should want to be an agent. An FBI agent saved my life, and I think that was when I got it into my head that I wanted to be just like him. You know, save people.”

“So you were going to save the world. How old were you when you made this momentous decision?”

“Twelve. I’d just turned twelve.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Why?”

“That you didn’t change your mind, that you held on to that goal all through high school and college.”

“Do you remember what you wanted to be when you were young?”

“I don’t remember how old I was when I decided it would be pretty cool to be an astronaut. Maybe ten or eleven.”

“That plan didn’t work out?” she asked, teasing.

“Life got in the way,” he said. “I ended up in engineering at Tulane, graduated, and joined the Marines.”

“Why the Marines?”

“I was drunk.”

She didn’t buy it. “Tell me the real reason.”

“I thought I could make a difference. I liked the discipline, and I wanted something different than Bowen, Louisiana.”

“But you live in Bowen now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I had to go away to realize what I really wanted in life. I actually live outside of Bowen, in the swamp.”

“You really did drop out of life, didn’t you?”

“I like solitude.”

“Guess you don’t get much company in the swamp.”

“I like that too. Where did you go to college?” he asked.

“Santa Clara University,” she answered. “Then Stanford.” She took another bite of her sandwich and could barely get the horrible food down. The bread was soggy; the lettuce was wilted, and the turkey was dry.

“Neither one of us went very far away. We both stayed close to home. Carrie wanted me to go to college in L.A. so I could work part-time for her company.”

“Doing what?”

She blushed. The instantaneous reaction made him all the more curious.

“She was pushing me to do more commercials. I got roped into doing one for her when she was in a bind.”

“So what’d you have to do in this commercial?”

“Hold up a bar of soap, bat my eyelashes, and sing a silly jingle.”

He didn’t laugh but he came close. “Sing it for me.”

“No,” she said. “I was awful and I hated it. I guess I’m an introvert,” she added with a shrug. “Since I’d had this dream of becoming an agent for so long, Carrie gave in and stopped nagging me. We both gave in actually.”

She pushed her plate to the side, and John Paul reached over and took a couple more potato chips. “How did you give in?”

She folded her paper napkin just so and placed it on the table. “I did a project at a grade school in San Jose for one of my classes, and I really enjoyed working with the children, so much so that I considered becoming a teacher. I was good with them,” she added, a hint of surprise in her voice. “I even went so far as to take a couple of the classes I would need to get a teaching certificate. I thought I could teach history. I didn’t tell Carrie, though.”

“Why not? What does she have against teachers?”

“Nothing. She just didn’t want me to become one.”

He leaned back and stared at her. “Avery, what aren’t you telling me?”

Ignoring the question, she called out to the waitress to please bring them their bill.

“Come on, babe. Answer me. Why didn’t she want you to teach?”

“The pay’s terrible.”

“What else?”

“Teachers don’t get much respect. You know what they say. Those who can do, and those who can’t teach. Carrie didn’t think there was much . . . status in teaching. My aunt isn’t a shrew,” she said. “I know I’ve made her sound terrible, but she isn’t like that. Honest.”

“So was that all? That was your reason for not teaching? There wasn’t enough status?”

“Carrie didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to be around kids.”

“Why not?”

He wasn’t going to let it drop. “She thought it would be too difficult for me.”

“Ah.”

“What does that mean?”

He homed in like a pigeon. “You can’t have kids, can you?”

She wanted to tell him. She felt an overwhelming need to tell him everything, to spill her guts, as her uncle Tony would say. She’d never felt this need before, but John Paul wasn’t like any other man. He didn’t give a hoot about silly things like status. He wasn’t a game player, and he didn’t have a hidden agenda. What you saw was what you got. Maybe that was the reason she was so attracted to him. And so comfortable.

“I don’t know how you made that leap.”

“You told me you weren’t ever going to get married, which I thought was a little odd.”

She jumped on his comment with a vengeance. “Why? Because all women should want to get married? You can’t really believe that. Lots of women are very happy living the single life.”

He put his hand up. “Whoa,” he said. “I don’t disagree, but when you told me you weren’t going to get married, you were damned defensive about it. That’s what I thought was odd. Now I understand why. You can’t have children, and that’s the reason Carrie doesn’t want you working with them. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

She was primed for a fight. She’d let him see her vulnerability, and she knew that if he gave her an ounce of sympathy or was the least bit compassionate, she would lose it. She’d either pull his hair out or her own. Worse, in her estimation, she might cry. She knew her reaction was a defense mechanism, but she didn’t care. Staring into his eyes, she waited, daring him to be nice to her.

He stared back. “Well?” she finally demanded when he didn’t say a word.

“That’s just damned stupid.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, sugar. You love working with kids, so that’s what you ought to do. Listening to your aunt and trying to please her is just damned stupid.”

“But I’m good at my job in the Bureau.”

“So what? You’ve got more than one talent, don’t you? You can be good doing a lot of different things.”

He got up to pay the bill and then made a phone call, but all the while, he never took his gaze off the parking lot. Avery looked over at the waitress who blew a bubble twice the size of her face and then leaned on the counter and stared at him.

Five minutes later he hung up the phone. “Come on. We need to get going.”

She followed him to the car. He was about to open the door for her when she asked, “What are you good at doing?”

“Lots of things.”

“I know you worked for the CIA. What was your talent then?”

He didn’t deny it. “Shooting. I was a good shooter. No, that’s not true. I wasn’t just good. I was great. Eyesight of an eagle.”

“Anything else you’re good at doing?”

“Yeah,” he drawled. He put his arm around her waist and began to slowly pull her toward him. “I’m real good at a couple of other things too.”

“Like what?”

He drew her closer and put his lips to her ear. “If things go the way I plan, you’ll get to see firsthand,” he whispered.

“Oh, brother,” she answered breathlessly.

Could he feel her goose bumps? Probably, she thought as she sighed and turned to look into his eyes.

Smiling gently, he kissed her warm, soft mouth, taking his time coaxing a response. She was becoming impossible to resist. The dazed look in her eyes made him feel arrogantly pleased with himself. “We’d better get out of here before I get carried away and show you right now.”

He opened the door for her and then got behind the wheel. They drove out of the lot and once again headed toward Denver. “We need to put some distance between us and that diner,” he told her. “The waitress will remember you.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. You’re definitely memorable.”

“News flash, sugar,” she drawled, trying to imitate his sexy southern accent. “Bubble Gum was staring at
you.
”

He shrugged. “It’s going to take us at least another hour or more to get to Tyler’s cabin. If I see a store on the way, we’ll stop and get some supplies.”

“I doubt anything will be open this late.”

“And that’s important because?”

“Shame on you. You’re going to break in?”

“They’ll never know I was there.”

She didn’t try to dissuade him. She was too busy thinking about his earlier remark. What would happen if things went the way he planned?

Thirty miles down the road, they found a fish-and-tackle/ grocery store. It was dark inside.

John Paul’s skills seemed endless. He got the door unlocked without making a scratch, charmed the black Doberman guard dog, and shopped to his heart’s content. She helped him carry two gallons of milk and four grocery sacks to the car.

He calculated the expense as he sacked the items and left four twenty-dollar bills sticking out from under the cash register.

“How long are we going to be staying at Tyler’s place?” she asked when they were once again on their way. “We’ve got enough food for a month.”

“We’ll stay at least one night, maybe two,” he answered. “Tyler told me there’s a little town about fifteen miles from the cabin. I’ve got Theo checking on a couple of things, and when I find out what is going on, we’ll decide what to do.”

“I’m not going to miss that trial.”

“I understand. May I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“Is Skarrett the reason you can’t have children?”

“Yes,” she said. “A bullet hit just right, but you know what? I would never have had children anyway. I wouldn’t take the risk that what’s wrong with Jilly is genetic. So, you see, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, it does,” he argued. “Skarrett took that choice away from you. That’s what matters.”

He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice, but she didn’t become upset. What he’d said was true.

She changed the subject to a less stressful one, talking about silly things that had happened to her when she was growing up. He told her stories about his life and his family, and when he talked about his father, she laughed several times.

“People really call him Big Daddy?”

“Yeah, they do. You’ll like him,” he predicted.

He was assuming she would meet his father someday. She’d like that. She wanted to know about his family and his home and his work. She wanted to know everything about him. Before she could continue the conversation, they saw two pairs of headlights coming up the road toward them.

He swerved onto a side road and turned his lights off.

They silently waited until the cars passed by.

“When you asked your brother-in-law to help, were you worried he might tell the FBI where we’re going?”

“Because he’s with Justice?”

“Yes.”

“Family comes first, sugar. Always.”

“Still . . .”

“He won’t tell, and he will help. I told him what I needed done, and he agreed.”

“Good. I’m glad we can trust him.”

They waited in the dark for a few minutes before he felt it was safe for them to go.

Avery’s mind wandered and then circled around and around what he’d whispered in her ear. Maybe if she stopped staring at him, she could think about something else. It had been such a long time since she’d been intimate with a man, and she thought she had become an expert at blocking those thoughts and urges.

She
had
been an expert anyway, until he came into her life. Now the floodgates were wide open, and all she could think about was touching him. Everywhere.

For thirty more minutes she battled to think about something other than sex. She mentally balanced her checkbook, then calculated how long she could stay in her apartment without a paycheck coming in. Three months or four? If she got fired.

She started tapping her foot on the floor. Who was she kidding? Of course she was going to get fired. They couldn’t arrest her for being insubordinate, but would Carter charge her with hindering an investigation?

John Paul put his hand on her knee. “How come you’re so jittery?” Then, before she could come up with a good lie, he said, “There it is.”

He pulled onto a dirt road. His night vision was better than hers. She hadn’t even noticed the little curve. “You’re sure?”

His hand was still on her leg, and she wasn’t inclined to move it. She stared straight ahead, pretending to watch the road as she thought about ripping his clothes off him.

Was she turning into a slut? She shook her head. No, she was simply having normal urges, like any other woman, but because she hadn’t had those urges in so long, she wasn’t handling herself well.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

Sex, damn it. I’m thinking about sex. “Nothing much.”

“Yeah?”

Even his voice was sexy. Threading her fingers through her hair, she realized how tense she was, and how horribly unsure of herself.

They drove around a bank of trees, and then the road flattened into what she thought might be a field. It was impossible to tell in the dark. She began tapping her foot on the floorboard again. She was nervous about being alone with him in the secluded cabin.

He pulled up to the steps in front. When he turned the motor and the lights off, it was pitch black. She couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face.