Run From Fear (10 page)

“Talia, I’m still cool with you taking off early—”

“No, I’m fine. I want to work,” Talia cut her off.

“In that case, I could really use you back out there.”

Talia nodded and left. The office was so small she couldn’t help but brush against him on her way to the door. Jack held himself still as every nerve ending went on high alert.

He started to follow, but Susie stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Be careful with her.”

Jack frowned down at her. “Of course I will. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about the necklace. I may have given her this job as a favor to you and Alyssa—”

“Which you better keep to yourself,” Jack said, then winced at how harsh his voice sounded.

Fortunately Susie wasn’t intimidated. “That’s what I’m talking about. Talia is my friend, and I don’t want to see her get hurt by anyone, even in the name of protecting her.”

“I don’t want to see her hurt either.”

“Then like I said, be careful. This thing between you two…”

“There’s nothing between me and Talia.” Because
between
implied there was something on both sides of the equation.

Susie gave a little laugh and a knowing smile. “I’ve
seen you two together. If there’s nothing now, there will be soon. I guarantee it. And when it happens, just make sure it turns out good for her.”

Jack shook his head, wishing with everything in him that what she said was true. Knowing with every fiber of his being that it never could be.

Someone was watching her.

Rosario could feel the tickle between her shoulders. She tried to brush it away, told herself it was nothing, just a delayed reaction from the stupid thing with the raccoons the other night.

And it
was
raccoons. She wasn’t about to indulge Talia’s paranoia and believe it was something else. Admittedly, Rosario had been terrified, too, when the alarm started shrieking, which was why she’d called Jack. The police might have been on their way, but there was no one in the world who could make her feel safer than their very own self-appointed bodyguard.

Talia felt exactly the same about Jack, even though she tried to play it off like she was mostly annoyed when Jack came around. Rosario knew that because of what happened to her, Talia was pretty messed up about men. Even so, she’d lay odds that whatever feelings Talia had for Jack, annoyed wasn’t near the top of the list.

Jack wasn’t exactly indifferent either. Now whenever the two of them got together in a room, Rosario found herself wishing they would just do it already. The tension between them was enough to give her a migraine.

Damn, she wished Jack were here right now. He was
in town, and he’d probably even come if she called, but he was doing his real job right now.

Besides, if she called him for something as stupid as a creepy feeling, she’d be even lamer than her sister.

She tightened her grip on her shoulder strap and picked up her pace, the rubber soles of her Converse All Stars making almost no sound against the pavement.

She did a low-key scan to the sides and over both shoulders. At eight-thirty on Wednesday night, downtown Palo Alto was buzzing with activity. Couples out for dinner. Students heading out for an early drink or to study at one of the many coffee places that lined the street.

It was impossible to pick out an individual giving her an unusually intense stare. It was two blocks to the shuttle stop that would drive her back to campus. Normally she would cut across the street and duck through the alleyway between the Chinese restaurant and the Turkish hookah bar.

But tonight she stayed on the well-lit street. Dammit, she should have asked Gene to give her a ride or at least walk her to the shuttle stop. But her physics tutor was nice enough to squeeze an extra session in with her before midterms, and he made it clear he was meeting a date at the restaurant after they were finished.

Besides, she reminded herself, this was a totally safe area, with lots of people around. No one was going to try anything on her as long as she didn’t do anything stupid.

There was a group of students up ahead, five in all, boys and girls, who looked like they might be headed in the direction of the shuttle stop.

Rosario speed-walked until only a few feet separated them, close enough to look like she was part of the group to anyone passing by.

Safety in numbers.

One of about a thousand nuggets of advice Talia had pelted her with nonstop for the past two years.

The tingling grew more intense as they approached the shuttle stop. To her relief, the group stopped there, too, and Rosie hovered around their periphery as she kept a lookout. But there was nothing in the faces of the other people at the shuttle stop that should give her this creeped-out feeling.

She tried to shake it off, cursing herself and her sister when she couldn’t. It was Talia’s fault, so paranoid it had bled into Rosario until she couldn’t walk down a street without wondering if someone was going to jump out and snatch her.

It was Talia’s fault for getting them into a situation where the paranoia was justified.

Rosario felt a stab of guilt and shoved the horrible thought aside. Talia had never meant for there to be any threat to Rosario, real or imagined. Everything she’d done, she’d done so she could get custody of Rosario and keep her safe.

Rosario watched the streetlights stream by as the shuttle wound its way back to campus. As the creepy feeling eased, she reminded herself of all the reasons she loved her sister and why she should be thankful for everything Talia had done for her.

And she was. She truly was.

But as she stepped off the shuttle in front of her dorm, she took a cautious look around to see if anything was waiting to leap out of the shadows.

And wondered how it would feel to live without this fear, without the compulsion to always look over her shoulder. To be normal.

She’d barely completed the thought when a rough hand closed over her shoulder and wheeled her around. Adrenaline surged through her, lending her strength as she nailed her assailant with a hard elbow to the chest.

The man grunted and coughed. “What the hell, Rosie!”

Rosie pulled her punch, but not enough, when she recognized Kevin’s voice. Her fist caught him with a glancing blow on the cheekbone.

She felt a split second of guilt as he staggered back.

“What did you do that for?”

She put her hand up to her mouth in horror. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you.” Her sympathy quickly faded as she remembered how he’d ditched her to go get shitfaced at Z-bar after they left Suzette’s Sunday night. “What the hell are you doing, jumping out of the dark to grab me?”

“You didn’t have to punch me.” Kevin held his fingers up to his eye and winced.

Wuss.

“How else am I supposed to talk to you when you won’t return my calls or texts? I sent you, like, fifty messages on Facebook.”

“Yeah, and I told you I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other. Especially lurking outside my dorm waiting to give me a heart attack.”

“Wait.” Kevin grabbed her arm. She tried to jerk away. “Come on, Rosie, I said I was sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t mean crap,” she said. “I’m tired of chasing after you all the time just so you can treat me like shit.”

“What, you think that nerd you met tonight is going to treat you so much better?”

The anger that surged through her gave her the strength to jerk away. “You were following me?” She shook her head. That explained the creepy tingle. “We’re done, Kevin. You have no right to know where I’m going, who I’m meeting, and you sure as hell don’t have the right to stalk me all over town.” She grabbed her backpack from where she’d dropped it on the ground. “Asshole,” she muttered. “Talia was right about you from the beginning.”

“Yeah?” Kevin called as she stomped up the walkway to her dorm. “You better watch out, bitch. No one gets to treat me like this, not you or your cunt of a sister.”

Rosario’s back stiffened and she forced herself to ignore him. As she walked up to her room, she told herself it was nothing, just a bunch of smack talk from an idiot who was sky high and didn’t like the word
no
.

It took her half an hour to stop shaking.

Why? Why now?
Talia wondered as she drove home with Jack’s headlights glowing in her rearview mirror.

As expected, he hadn’t even acknowledged her halfhearted protest that he didn’t need to stay at the restaurant, quietly nursing a cup of coffee at the bar while he waited for her shift to end so he could see her home safely.

And in truth, Talia was more than happy to have him there. The appearance of that damn necklace… She shuddered and gripped the wheel harder.

It brought back too many memories. Of David’s fingers fastening it around her neck. The way the delicate chain felt as heavy as a slave’s collar.

Its coolness against her skin when she lay helplessly on
the floor, forced to watch Nate Brewster murder equally helpless women as his knife sliced through her own skin.

She hated to admit the weakness, but she needed Jack there, his strong, steady presence chasing away the darkness.

And, God, the way he’d held her. His hands so big and warm against her back, pressing her in close to that mile-wide chest of his.

His scent had flooded her senses, clean and woodsy layered over male musk. Chasing away the demons. Folding her in a cocoon so safe and warm that the bad guys would never be able to get to her.

There had been something else there too. A vibe, an energy, an awareness that was new for her.

If he felt it too, he gave no indication. There was nothing in the way he touched her that would lead her to believe that the hug was any different from one he might have given to his little sister.

Yet she couldn’t get the feel of him, the scent of him out of her head. For longer than she could remember, she’d tolerated a man’s touch with gritted teeth and reminders that it couldn’t last indefinitely.

But tonight all those weird yearnings she’d started to feel around Jack were converging around a need. To be held. To touch and be touched, by a man who was big and tough and who had seen and done things that would bring a lesser man to his knees.

A man who would cut off his own arm before he hurt her, she knew.

Yet that didn’t mean he felt anything more, she thought as she turned into her driveway and clicked the button to open the garage door.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself from wishing as Jack pulled up behind her and parked in her driveway. He got out of the car and followed her in, waited while she disarmed the alarm and unlocked the door before following her into the kitchen.

Wishing she could go back, way back, to when she was just a normal young girl looking for love. Before she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with David Maxwell, too blinded by his charisma and grand romantic gestures to see the evil that lurked underneath before it was too late. Because if she was that girl, even if she wasn’t sure about how Jack felt about her, she would have the guts to try.

Instead of awkwardly offering him a cup of coffee as he took up all the space in her kitchen, she’d lead him to the couch and pour him a glass of wine. Or something stronger.

She’d laugh and flirt and toss her hair like she used to do in high school. Get Jack to smile back and flash those dimples while they talked about anything else but Talia’s safety and how she was getting along in the big bad world.

She’d tilt her head back, part her lips, make it obvious she was waiting for his kiss.

And she’d never have the memory of the way his eyes had darkened with revulsion the one and only time she’d made it clear she wouldn’t turn down his advances.

“Do you want me to stay?” Jack asked around a yawn. “I can take the couch.” Lines of fatigue formed around eyes that were nevertheless on high alert and full of concern.

And nothing else.

She shook her head and swallowed around the lump
in her throat as she watched him go. Even if there was a chance Jack’s feelings might have changed, the memory of his total and complete rejection that long-ago night was enough to prevent her from ever making any kind of move.