Dangerous Lover

Fourteen

Jack nearly missed it.

He was so intent on getting Caroline safely home, relaxed and curled up before the fire, that he’d tunnel-visioned, just like in battle. All he’d seen was Caroline, all he could think about was Caroline, taking up every ounce of space in his head.

He was still battle-primed, adrenaline still coursing through his system, without a proper outlet. The proper outlet would have been to smash that fucker Sanders’s face in, then haul him into the closest police station for assault and battery.

If he lived to be a million years old, he’d never forget glancing through the big glass panes of Caroline’s bookshop and seeing her struggling against a man.

He’d broken his own land-speed record getting in there and getting that man’s hands off Caroline.

She’d been in shock, though she’d come out of it with humor and grace. Still, all he wanted was to get her bundled up and into the house as fast as possible.

Jack had excellent situational awareness. Even with one goal in mind, he paid attention to what was around him. Only Caroline could mess with his head so much that he actually had the key in the lock and was turning it before seeing the faint scratches on the lock. Scratches that hadn’t been there that morning.

In an instant his Glock was in his hand, and he was rushing Caroline back to his rented SUV. He bundled her into the driver’s seat, made sure she had the keys and slammed the door shut.

“Jack!” Her voice was muffled through the closed door. Her eyes dropped to his weapon, then back to him. She looked shocked. “What’s going on?”

There wasn’t time to explain or reassure. Whoever had broken into the house could still be there, and Jack had to get in there, fast.

“Stay there and don’t move!” he mouthed, tapping on the window. Caroline nodded, face white, silver-gray eyes huge in her face.

Good girl.

Jack loped back to the front door and entered silently with the key, weapon out, in a stance guaranteed to cover a 180-degree field of fire in two seconds.

Entry, clear. Living room, clear. Kitchen, clear.

Moving fast, moving silently, he went methodically through every room in the house, basement to attic.

Out of habit, he’d left telltales in the bedroom and there were clear signs that someone had rifled through his things, Caroline’s closet and the dresser. Someone—or several someones—had gone through their personal possessions. It was harder to tell in the rest of the house, where he hadn’t left telltales.

As far as Jack could tell, nothing had been stolen. The TV and stereo were there, no artwork was gone from the walls, certainly nothing of his had been stolen, though there wasn’t much beyond dirty socks and underwear. Everything of value he had was in his new bank account and the bank vault.

Of course, Caroline’s TV and stereo set were at least ten years old and worth zero on the resale market. Though he didn’t know anything about art, he suspected that what was left on the walls wasn’t worth stealing. More or less everything of value in the house had already been sold, and not even the best thief in the world could steal walls and a roof.

When Jack was absolutely certain the house was empty, he pushed his gun into the waistband of his jeans and went out to get Caroline.

He hustled her up the steps.

“What was it, Jack? Is there someone in the house? Has the house been robbed?”

Damn, but he hated that white, pinched, anxious look on her face. If he had the fucker or fuckers who’d broken into Caroline’s home, he’d break their hands, finger by finger, to ensure that they never picked another lock again for the rest of their natural lives.

Not that Caroline’s locks were hard to pick. They weren’t, a two-year-old could get through them. They were worth shit. He could pick them blindfolded, with his hands in casts.

He closed the front door behind them, turned up the heat and folded her in his arms.

Too much stuff happening, all of it bad. He needed the feel of her in his arms like he needed his next breath.

“Jack?” Her voice was muffled in his jacket, shiny locks of red-gold hair escaping her wool cap to curl along his jacket. Jack bent to kiss her lightly, hand along the softness of her neck. His thumb grazed the pulse in her neck, beating a light, fast tattoo.

Feeling her safe in his arms, heart beating, calmed him a little.

“Jack.” Caroline’s voice was stronger and she pushed at him a little. Jack opened his arms, and she stepped back to look him in the face. “Tell me what’s going on.” She looked around carefully, then brought her gaze back to him. “I don’t see any damage.”

“No, no damage. Whatever it is they were looking for, it wasn’t here. What they usually look for is plasma TVs, high-end electronics. Expensive artwork. Meltable silver.”

“All gone,” she said. “A long time ago.” Her eyebrows drew together as she looked up at him. “Jack…when you got to the door you pulled out a gun. You had a gun. Where on earth did you get that?”

Uh-oh. Jack had to be careful here.

Caroline had just entered his world.

He wanted her to become security-conscious without being afraid of him. Jack was perfectly aware of the fact that most people considered men like him to be paranoid. If you’ve lived your life in safety and comfort, and you haven’t traveled to the places he’d been, where humanity was at its rawest, most cruel, and where greed and lust were unbridled, then you looked at the precautions Jack took as a matter of course to be the result of a sick mind.

“I’m always armed,” he said gently. The heavy weight of his Glock in the small of his back felt good and right. “Or I know how to get my hands on a weapon pretty damn quick.”

“You mean, all this time we’ve been”—she waved a pink-tipped finger between them—“you’ve been armed?”

“Yes.” He let the word drop like a stone between them. This was part of him, an integral part. She had to learn to deal with it. Jack was willing to compromise, but not on this.

Caroline blinked and gave a half laugh. “I don’t believe this.”

“Believe it. I’m fully licensed to carry a concealed weapon, and I know how to use it, don’t worry about that.”

She was staring at him. “To tell you the truth, that hadn’t even occurred to me. I’m still trying to come to grips with the fact that someone I’m”—she swallowed—“someone I’m seeing runs around with a gun on his person. I don’t think I’ve ever even met someone who owns a gun, besides the sheriff. Not that I know of, anyway.”

“It’s a bad world out there, Caroline,” he said gently. “You have to be prepared.”

Fuck, but that was true. He’d seen it, he’d lived it. In the shelters he’d grown up in, a beauty like Caroline would have been raped the instant she’d reached puberty, probably even before. In Afghanistan, she’d have been dressed in a head-to-toe burqa and beaten if a man could hear her footsteps. There, too, she would have been raped, with the added pleasure of being sentenced to death for fornication.

In Sierra Leone—Jack’s back teeth ground together. He’d seen the shattered remains of the women who’d fallen into the hands of the Revolutionary Army. Death for them had been a release.

He knew what the world was like. Being armed, willing and able to defend the things he cared about, was deeply embedded in his bones, in his very DNA. And right now, Caroline topped the list of things he’d defend to the death.

“One last thing, honey.” Jack clasped her shoulders. Through the thick down he could feel her shoulder bones, delicate, fragile. Everything about her was delicate and fragile, in a world that hated beauty and delicacy. He could lose her at any time to the scumbags of the world. He had to remember that. “Do you have a safe?”

Caroline nodded, eyes big, fixed on his face. “Yes, it’s—”

“No.” He lay a long forefinger across her lips. “Don’t tell me. I don’t need to know. I want you to go check your safe to see if everything’s there that should be. Will you do that for me?”

Without another word, she disappeared upstairs, while Jack went over the living room again, more carefully this time. He still didn’t see anything missing, and he had a good visual memory.

It never failed to astonish him that most people kept their valuables in the living room or the bedroom. In his own house back in North Carolina, his wall safe had been behind the toilet.

Caroline came back down the stairs.

“Anything gone?”

“No.” She shook her head, looking troubled. “Everything is where it should be. In the bedroom, as well.” A quick glance around the living room was enough for her. She was familiar with her own space. “And nothing is missing here. There isn’t actually that much to steal. Are you sure the house was broken into?”

One picture was worth a thousand words. Jack simply took her hand and walked her to the front door. He opened it and took her hand to rub it over the shiny brass lock. “Feel that? Feel the slight scratches and abrasions?”

She nodded, finger moving gently over the brass and steel. “Maybe they were always there. How can you tell?”

“They weren’t here this morning, trust me on that. Those scratches come from lockpicks, and it would have taken the thief about a minute and a half, tops, to get in.”

“How would you know? And how come you noticed something as small as a few scratches?”

He had his own set of lockpicks in his duffel bag, though he thought it best not to mention that. She was spooked enough as it was. “We’re trained to pick locks in the Army, so I know what a picked lock looks like. And the first thing a soldier does is establish a secure perimeter and be aware of what’s inside that perimeter. I notice these things because I was trained to. Just about the first thing I noticed when I got here was that you have the flimsiest locks I’ve ever seen. A child could get through them, let alone a half-competent burglar.”

Her eyes widened, and a little color came into her cheeks. “Well, I’m sorry if my locks aren’t up to par, but it’s what I have, so deal with it.”

She was angry. Great. He loved seeing that lost, pale expression chased from her face. “Tomorrow, first thing, I’m getting a decent security system in place. Maybe a Pressley or a—”

“Whoa, Jack.” There were red flags now on her cheeks. She held up her hands in time-out sign. “I’m sorry, I realize that you’re security-conscious, but I simply can’t afford a security system, not the kind with electronic codes and alarmed windows and doors. I’m not entirely certain I could afford new locks for all the doors. So that is something that is simply going to have to wait.”

Something clenched in his chest. “I’m not expecting you to pay for it, Caroline. I’m perfectly willing to buy the system. And I could probably get a good professional discount if I use my father’s company’s name.”

“I can’t accept that.” She shook her head, her beautiful mouth set in a stubborn line. “I can’t afford to knock it off the rent, and I certainly can’t accept an expensive security system from you. So, I’m sorry, but the new security system won’t be coming anytime soon. We’ll just have to hope that the burglars don’t come back. Maybe there’s this burglar underworld, and the word has spread that there is nothing at all to steal at Greenbriars except for some mismatched silver, odd porcelain plates and my mother’s watercolors.”

Jack wished he could fast-forward to the next few weeks, or however long it took for them to become engaged, so that this nonsense about not accepting money from him could stop.

Instead, he ran the back of his forefinger along her neck, down to the delicate collarbones. She’d taken her coat off when she went upstairs to check on the safe—which was in her bedroom, he’d bet his left nut on it. Under the coat, she had a pretty turquoise V-neck sweater that turned her eyes a brilliant blue.

He watched her for a moment, running his finger under the collar of the sweater, loving the feel of her skin, like warm satin. “Do you know what I’d love to do?”

She shook her head.

He lowered his voice to a whisper as he lowered his eyes to her neck. “I would love to buy you a pearl necklace. The perfect pearl necklace. Your skin is made for pearls. I’d buy the slightly rosy-colored kind, I’m sure there’s a name for that—”

“Overtone.” She was smiling slightly.

“Pink overtone, then. I’d buy you strands of them, you’d look so beautiful, and it would give me so much pleasure. But you know what?”

Caroline shook her head again, watching his eyes.

“I’m betting that you already have a pearl necklace. Am I right?”

“Several. And very beautiful ones. They belonged to my mother.”

“Uh-huh. My point exactly. I’ll bet your father just loved buying them for your mother. You said he liked spoiling her. I can just imagine how much enjoyment he got out of his wife looking so beautiful in pearls he’d chosen for her.”

The memory of something made Caroline smile. This was working. Jack wasn’t used to convincing anyone to do something by coaxing. In the Army you gave orders, and they were obeyed. This was an entirely new field for him. He was going to have to get good at this skill, fast. Caroline had her own ideas about things, and she was no pushover.

“Well, the thing is this. Much as I’d love to buy you a pearl necklace, I know fu—damn all about the things. I’d get the wrong kind or the wrong size or the wrong number or something. Botch it up somehow. Just thinking about walking into a jewelry store makes me break out in a sweat. Pearl necklaces have not figured much in my life up to this point, and in all my training, they never came up once, so I’d be treading in very unfamiliar waters. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s security. And you would be doing me an enormous favor in letting me set up your security system for you because it would save me going out of my freaking mind with worry that a burglar can just waltz in here, only next time he might have a knife or a gun and catch you alone and hurt you if I’m not here. So could you consider it the equivalent of a pearl necklace from a suitor? And a huge personal favor to me?”

His hand was warming her skin up, releasing that faint scent of roses that always went straight to his dick. Jack wanted nothing more than to carry her upstairs, lay her on her bed, get on top of her, get in her, just as soon as was humanly possible. But she was upset. First that fucker McCullin, then her house being broken into—he needed to get her fed and relaxed before they could fuck.

No. Before they could make love.

Wow. It was the first time he’d ever called it that in his head. It was also the first time he’d wanted a willing woman and decided to put sex off because she might not be psychologically ready.

“I hate it that someone was in my house, going through my things,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“And you’ll set up a system no one can get through?”

He’d set up a system not even he could get through. He nodded.

“Well, I guess you convinced me.” Caroline took in a deep breath, and Jack heroically kept his eyes on her face, though he had excellent peripheral vision and could see her breasts swelling a little under the sweater. “I’ll accept your gift with thanks, and I guess I’ll give you a little gift in return. Dinner.”

She raised herself up on tiptoe to kiss him awkwardly on the side of his mouth. Jack was so surprised, he simply stood there like a dork. By the time he thought to kiss her back, she’d disappeared into the kitchen.

He stood there for a long time, listening to her rattle pans and run water in the kitchen, remembering the sharp burst of feeling in his chest when she’d kissed him.

He rubbed his hand over his chest, where it hurt.

Sanders sat behind his desk, teeth grinding. He’d combed his hair and straightened his clothes in his car before coming back to his office, but there must have been something else visible enough to set off alarms—the rage coming off him like steam, maybe—because his secretary had given him a startled look as he strode by.

Caroline was lost. Doubly lost. It was true, maybe he shouldn’t have pushed her so hard. But damn, walking into her shop, he’d been taken by a sudden surge of lust. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how perfect for him. So when she stood there, in her dinky little one-room bookshop that probably barely paid the rent and told him—him! — that no, she didn’t want to go to the most fabulous hotel in Washington state and no she didn’t want box tickets to the opera, he’d lost it.

Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it, but goddammit, when she said no, something snapped.

Caroline had never been great in the sack, but when she fought him, he could feel her fire, and it excited him. He shouldn’t have pushed it as hard as he did, but damn, he’d been turned on.

And then it turned out that Caroline wasn’t free after all. She was fucking someone else, and that someone else was territorial and violent.

In all these years, in the back of his mind, Sanders had taken it for granted that when he finally decided to settle down, it would be with Caroline, and she would fall into his arms with gratitude. After all, he was offering to give her back the life she’d been born to and had lost with her parents’ death.

He’d always expected that she’d be free for him. But she’d hooked up with that son of a bitch who’d nearly broken his arm, and now she wasn’t free anymore.

Something would have to be done and soon. Now that he’d made up his mind about Caroline, he wasn’t going to let some violent asshole dressed like a bum steal his woman.

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. McCullin you have a visitor.”

Sanders pushed the button. “I don’t want to see anyone, Lori. Hold off all calls this afternoon.”

“Ah…Mr. McCullin, you might want to see…this person. Wait!” her voice squawked through the speaker. “You can’t go in there without permission! Hey, mister—”

The door to Sanders’s office opened and a man walked in, holding out a badge at chest height. Not too tall, sandy hair, black horn rim glasses, cheap shiny black suit. “Mr. McCullin? Mr. Sanders McCullin?”

Sanders couldn’t make the badge out. “Yes. Yes, I am. As I told my secretary to tell you, however, I’m very busy this after—”

“Mr. McCullin, my name is Darrell Butler. Special Agent Darrell Butler, of the New York FBI office. I understand you know a certain Ms. Caroline Lake. We’re making inquiries about a man she’s seeing, who is currently going by the name Jack Prescott. He is a very dangerous criminal. We have reason to believe that this man has committed war crimes and that he has stolen a fortune in diamonds in Africa.”

Sanders sat back down, staring at the man, feeling hope unfurl in his chest once again. “Please,” he said to the FBI agent. “Have a seat.”

Jack was feeling rattled, so he went to tighten the pipes under the downstairs bathroom sink while Caroline cooked. The pipes were leaking, dripping water all over the place and, all in all, he thought her bathroom sink was a pretty good metaphor for his life. He was dripping too, leaking emotions all over the place.

Jack hardly recognized himself, it was like he was losing bits of himself by the wayside.

Caroline was messing with his head and tripping up his heart. In all these years, while dreaming of her and—in the most private recesses of his head—dreaming of bedding her, it never occurred to him that being with Caroline was going to change him in any fundamental way.

Jack knew himself and was very comfortable with who he was. He’d had a hard life, and it had taught him self-reliance and coolness and a great deal of emotional detachment in whatever he did.

Caroline had blown all that right out of the water.

His head had nearly exploded when he’d seen that fucker McCullin manhandling her. It was a good thing he hadn’t known that he was the handsome blond boy Ben had seen through the windows that Christmas Eve long ago. He’d spent the past twelve years hating that boy, wondering whether he was the man Caroline would marry and have children with.

Even without knowing who he was, Jack had gone haywire inside. Another minute and he’d have shattered the guy’s arm. The rage in his head had been so loud he knew he was capable of killing the man, which would have landed him in jail. Once in the slammer, he could kiss Caroline good-bye, literally, not to mention spending the next twenty-five years of his life behind bars.

It was only Caroline’s hand on his arm that had pulled him back from the brink.

And just now, coming in. If he’d been paying attention, he’d have seen the tampering around the lock from the driveway. Instead, he almost missed it. That never happened. He was always security-conscious and had a sixth and even seventh sense for breaches of security.

So he lay on his back under the sink in Caroline’s chilly little downstairs bathroom, feeling good about stopping the leaky sink, tightening the bolts fastening the toilet bowl to the floor and repairing the showerhead, all the while wishing he could fix himself, get himself back to the way he’d been BC—before Caroline—cold, businesslike, detached.

Caroline stuck her beautiful head into the doorway and smiled at him. It was like being struck by lightning.

“Dinner’s ready, Jack,” she said, and walked back to the kitchen. His eyes tracked her every step of the way, watching the way her shiny hair bounced on her shoulders, how her hips swayed slightly, listening to the light sound of her heels on the marble floor echoing the beat of his heart.

A faint scent of roses hung in the air.

Jack rubbed his chest again, where it hurt. Fuck, maybe he should see a cardiologist.

After the FBI agent left, Sanders sat very still at his desk, staring at his hands.

The office was quiet. He employed an administrative secretary, two legal secretaries and two interns. Everyone had long since gone, knocking off early due to the bad weather. He was alone in his office and with his thoughts.

Sanders was very aware that he’d just been handed a second chance with Caroline, but the next few steps had to be handled very carefully.

The FBI Special Agent had his own agenda and his own priorities and they had nothing whatsoever to do with getting Caroline Lake back together with Sanders McCullin.

Special Agent Butler had been very clear on that. He’d also been clear that he didn’t want interference from Sanders. Butler had wanted some information and had warned Sanders to keep away, something Sanders had no intention of doing, not when it was a question of getting Caroline back.

When the fuck did she start going out with this guy—this Jack Prescott or whatever his name was? It must have been a very recent affair because just last week Sanders had seen Jenna, and she hadn’t said anything about Caroline going out with someone.

It just went to show that Caroline didn’t know how to manage her life. She didn’t listen to him when he’d told her to put Toby in a home, she didn’t listen to him when he told her to sell Greenbriars and now she’d hooked up with a criminal.

Instinctively, Sanders knew that this would be wonderful ammunition when they got married. Whenever she questioned his judgment, he had big howitzers full of ammo to pull out. Yeah? And who fucked a mass murderer?

She’d shut up and do what he said, guaranteed.

The past twenty-four hours had given him some startling revelations about himself. He’d been dancing around Caroline for years. He’d fucked other women, sure, hell—he was a man, wasn’t he? But she’d always been in the back of his mind, and he knew he’d been waiting for just the right moment to come. That moment was now, without any interference from her family.

He’d also discovered that he very much liked having the upper hand with her. It was an aspect of himself that had never come to the fore with other women. His women were savvy and good fucks. He’d never wanted much more from them than a good time in bed and maybe some networking for his job. By the time he might start caring about them obeying him, he’d moved on.

But it turned out he liked dominance, a lot.

Dominance.

Caroline needed dominance. She needed a strong hand. And to his amazement and enjoyment, when she resisted, it turned him on, powerfully. So when they were married, he could look forward to an obedient wife, dependent on him for money and reluctant to cross him because she’d fucked the wrong guy. Sanders would never let her forget it.

Sanders looked at the visiting card Special Agent Butler had left and at the number on the bottom.

Sanders was a careful lawyer, used to checking all his facts. He rarely lost arguments, and he rarely lost cases because of that aspect of his character.

He picked up the phone and punched in the number. The phone was picked up on the second ring. “New York FBI Field Office, how may I help you?” a female voice with a heavy Hispanic accent said.

“Yes, I’d like to speak with Special Agent Darrell Butler please.”

“I’m sorry sir, but Special Agent Butler is out of the office. Can I take a message?”

“No, thank you.”

Sanders put the receiver down gently in its cradle, smiling.

Yes, things had taken a wonderful turn.