Street Game (15 page)

She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t blast him for trying to eat my hand in front of everyone.” Her gaze swept the restaurant. Several of the men were snickering between bites of food. “Why didn’t you just invite them all to sit with us? Maybe we could walk down the street like a solid wall of testosterone.”

Kane choked again, spewing food into his napkin. “If I don’t want you to say S-E-X, I certainly don’t think you should be saying
that.
Sheesh, woman. You’ve lost all sense of decorum since you’ve been on your own.”

Jaimie laughed. “You’re such a prude, Kane. I can say ‘prude,’ can’t I?”

“I’m not a prude,” he objected. “It’s just that there some things you don’t go talking about in public.”

Mack burst out laughing. “I tried to tell you she was out of control. We’re going to have to take her in hand.” He shamelessly leered at her.

“Tell Mack there are things you don’t go
doing
in public,” she replied hotly.

“I didn’t see a thing,” Kane defended piously.

Jaimie shrugged her slender shoulders nonchalantly. “Just for that, you two can fight over the check. Come on, I’m finished.” She tossed her napkin on the table and stood up.

“Jaimie.” Mack groaned. “Have a heart. We’re not finished.”

“I can’t help it if you’re slow eaters and fast talkers,” she replied sternly.

“You had a blueberry muffin,” Kane pointed out. “We had man-sized meals.”

“ ‘Had’ is the operative word here. It’s indecent and very bad manners to lick your plate.” She smiled sweetly. “I’ll meet you at the furniture shop.” She half turned.

Mack’s hand snaked out with the speed of a striking cobra, and shackled her fragile wrist, preventing movement. “We’re finished, honey, don’t be in such a hurry.” His thumb feathered across the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, sending little fingers of flames licking up her arm.

He was looking at her. She could clearly see that, focusing on her the way that always made her feel special, yet he gave an almost imperceptible nod and Brian and Jacob immediately rose and walked to the counter to pay their tab. They exited the restaurant without even glancing her way.

Jaimie felt the punch in the region of her belly. “You know, Mack,” she hissed softly between clenched teeth as she twisted her wrist, tried to pull free. “You don’t need to flirt with me to do the job. I’m smart enough to know what needs to be done.”

Mack tightened his grip, his thumb stilling over the pulse beating so frantically there. He got to his feet slowly, lazily, his arm sliding around her waist, drawing her to his side. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.” As an afterthought Mack added, “Without us.”

Jaimie set her jaw, but stopped struggling. It was useless drawing attention to them. It wouldn’t make Mack stop. “I wasn’t really going without you. I’m well aware you’re worried about someone coming after me. You don’t know me anymore, Mack. Don’t treat me like the child you used to know.”

Mack crowded her body just a little with his own. “I know you better than you know yourself. I know you better than your own mother did.”

“That’s not hard. Poor Mama didn’t know a thing about me except that I was too smart for my own good.” Jaimie briefly closed her eyes, thinking of her mother. Unwed pregnant teenager, boyfriend and family deserting her. The doctors, excited about her exceptional year-old child. Stacy Fielding had adored her baby girl, wanted something better than a life of waiting tables, and she’d struggled hard to give her a different life. Jaimie always wished she’d been one of those girls that had been ultrafeminine and giggly, instead of the serious, studious child she’d been. Her mother deserved that.

“You miss her, don’t you?” Mack dropped money on the table for the tip while Kane made his way up to the counter to pay the check.

“Of course I miss her. She had such a tragic life.”

She turned away from his comfort, that part of her that was still a child mourning her mother’s death unable to accept solace from him. Every morning she’d woken up and known she was facing another day without Mack. Now he was there and she felt more alone than ever. There had been Mack and Kane and her mother before Mack had brought her home to his mother and introduced her into his circle of friends. The boys had accepted her because Mack and Kane had. Now either everyone was gone or she’d lost that closeness with them.

After leaving Mack, she had learned to cope on her own. She didn’t want Mack coming back into her life with false promises and letting her lean on him. The memories of her childhood, good and bad, came flooding back with him. And the year she’d spent believing he loved her and wanted her for his wife, for the mother of his children. She’d lost her mother in the worst, most horrific way, and he knew she craved stability. But, when she’d gone to him and pleaded with him to give her what she needed, he’d been arrogant and aloof, pointing out her failings as a GhostWalker. Telling her he was committed to the program and wouldn’t have time or energy right then for a family.

Her throat closed at the memory. She couldn’t think about her mother, and she didn’t want to think about that last parting with Mack. They were together now for a short time, not under the best of circumstances, but she was determined to have a good day with them.

Mack slipped his arm around her shoulders in a gesture of comfort and she allowed herself to be led from the restaurant, sandwiched between the two men. Once on the street, he dropped his arm, stepping to the side of her.

“Keep moving, honey,” he ordered. “We studied the route from here and we can walk on the same side of the street all the way down. Stay between us. You know the drill.”

“You look like overzealous bodyguards,” she complained. It seemed natural to have one on either side of her, a leftover habit from childhood.

“We’ve been guarding your body for as long as I can remember,” Mack said with a teasing grin.

They joined the throng moving busily from block to block. Somehow the crowds seemed to part, the two men never once allowing anyone to so much as casually brush against her. She moved forward, aware that Jacob and Ethan were behind her. Her mind just did that—expanded and positioned the people around her.

The weather was cool and a bit misty, the fog gray and gloomy, but already clearing with a promise of a nice afternoon. She enjoyed being able to move through a bustling, crowded street free of pain, taking in the sights and buildings without the mind-numbing information that always crowded into her head. Mack and Kane gave her that freedom. Most of the time she spent locked away from the world. It had taken months to find Joe, a man she could work with without the psychic backlash that was so debilitating with most people. There were a few rare people that had natural shields and she’d worked hard, interviewing nearly three hundred applicants before she’d found him.

Something odd fluttered into her mind, pushed aside the warm happiness, leaving a sudden cold fear. She snuck a long, slow look around her, making certain to stay in step. She kept her same facial expression, her body language the same.

“What is it?” Mack’s voice was low.

He’d always been so tuned to her. It was strange. When he appeared to be paying the least attention, he caught everything, the smallest nuance. When he appeared to be wholly focused on her, he was completely aware of his surroundings.

“I don’t know,” she said, and there was no keeping the uneasiness from her voice.

We go to red.
Mack sent out the order without hesitation. “Let’s abort, Jaimie.”

She flashed him a quick look. “I’m not on a mission. We’re buying a bed. I could be picking up a threat to anyone. Someone thinking about going postal. It’s faint and I can’t identify it yet. It happens all the time. You know that.”

“I don’t want to take chances with your life,” he said.

“I thought you said the two men Javier took down were going to kidnap me,” she pointed out. “That doesn’t necessarily read that my life was in danger.”

They were nearly to the furniture store. She kept moving forward, her gaze on the entrance, but her heart was beating fast now. Mack was protective, but to take them all to the highest risk when she couldn’t even sort out a bad feeling was not like him.

“The tranq wasn’t a tranq. It was truth serum. They were going to question you, Jaimie, and they’d brought a few instruments with them.”

Her mouth went dry. “Torture?” She looked up at him then. And then at Kane’s carefully averted face. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his eyelid flickered. “They were going to torture me?”

“Damn it, Jaimie.”

Mack shielded her as a group of unruly teenagers on skateboards rushed past. Javier did a series of showy tricks to the whistles and admiration of the kids, shot her a jaunty grin, and kept going, skating through the crowd, laughing at the curses and snarls as people moved out of the way. He scattered everyone behind them, answering the obscene gestures with one of his own.

“He could be crazy, you know,” Jaimie said.

“I have no doubt he is.”

“I want to buy the beds today, Mack. I don’t want to spend today terrified and locked up in a room alone.”

He didn’t point out she wouldn’t be alone.
You see anything?
He sent the call out to them all, his men, his family, moving in and out of the crowd. Gideon up on the rooftops, following their every move, his rifle an extension of him.

Not a thing, boss.
The reports came back, all assuring him.

Do we abort, Top?
Marc was at the door, ready to go inside.

They were almost on top of the shop. “Let’s just order the beds,” Jaimie said. “We’re already here and I don’t have a strong feeling one way or the other right now. Please, Mack.”

We’ll proceed, but be careful, Marc. You’re my eyes.

Mack recognized it was important to her to be as normal as possible. She probably hadn’t been out in public in weeks. Joe had done her shopping, or she’d had everything delivered. He knew her routines. She preferred working alone or in the dead of night in empty buildings where the psychic overload didn’t sicken her to the point of brain bleeds. He’d seen it happen before. “Let’s just get this done fast. You tell me the first sign of uneasiness. We’ll get you out, Jaimie. No one’s going to get their hands on you.”

She had a bad taste in her mouth. She’d brought the storm down on her own head. None of this was Mack’s fault and she was actually grateful he was there. She had no doubt she would have had a good chance of getting away before the two men had gotten to her, but she would have lost everything she’d worked for and would have had to run for the rest of her life.

“Would you have come back to me?” Mack asked, guessing her thoughts.

She took a breath. “No.” She would never have brought danger to him. He should have known that without making her say it.

She was looking at his face and caught the flash of anger quickly hidden behind his mask. For a moment her stomach shifted, but then he pushed open the door and Kane moved through, his larger body blocking hers. Mack fell into step behind her. She could feel Mack, and she moved in step with him as she followed Kane without hesitation. She’d never be foolish enough to put them in danger. She loved them, whether Mack understood her or not.

Do your thing, Jaimie,
Kane said.

In here? With all these people?
It would hurt like hell, opening herself up that way. She glanced at Mack. He obviously hadn’t heard Kane’s request, which meant he wouldn’t condone it. She bit her lip, took a breath, and expanded her mind, realizing Kane didn’t want any of the men in jeopardy. Civilians surrounded them. If an enemy was close, they had to know.

At once she was assailed with energy from every direction. Emotions hit hard, a solid punch to her stomach as anger and guilt and happiness and grief poured in from every direction. She pressed her lips together to keep anything from slipping past her throat, but her footsteps faltered. Mack put a hand on her back, but his eyes searched the customers moving around the store.

“You all right?”

She managed a nod as she waited for her brain to accept the overload so she could begin the sorting process. She forced herself to continue forward, although she had to concentrate on each separate step. As far as she could tell, no one in the store had lethal intentions toward anyone. A woman had lost her son in a car accident and another was contemplating suicide. There were two men who were criminals, a shoplifter, a very harassed mother of two. The list went on and on, but she didn’t feel anyone threatening her.

She took a breath, let it out, and breathed away the sickness collecting in the pit of her stomach as she closed her mind to the assault. She tasted blood in her mouth and reached in her pocket for a handkerchief. She pressed it to her nose, keeping her back to Mack as she followed Kane onto the floor they were looking for.

We’re good.

You certain?

I told you, didn’t I? Did you think I’m so desperate to do whatever I want that I’d put one of my brothers in jeopardy?
She let the bite in her voice sink in.

Kane turned his head and looked at her, coming to an abrupt stop when he spotted the red staining the cloth. His eyes widened. “Jaimie.”

“What have you done?” Mack demanded, whirling her around to face him. He took the cloth from her hand to examine the amount of blood as Kane blocked any view of her body. “We’re both with you. You shouldn’t be having this much trouble.”

“I’m all right. I’ve always been far more sensitive than the rest of you. Even with both of you around, there’s no way to minimize the effect with this many people.”

“Why the hell did you do this to yourself?” Mack’s voice was gruff.

She bit her lip as he gently cleaned the last remnants of blood from her face. “I wanted to make certain there was no danger. I don’t want the boys hurt, or any innocent bystanders. If these men were willing to torture me to see what information I have on Whitney, they’re willing to hurt anyone around me as well.”

“I asked her to,” Kane admitted, refusing to allow Jaimie to take the brunt of Mack’s anger. He knew Mack, knew his fears for Jaimie, the way he suffered every time she was in pain. He was helpless to stop it, and Mack didn’t like to be helpless. “I knew you wouldn’t ask her.”