Willing

Chapter 9

Josie slid into the seat opposite Daniel, the smell of melting butter and waffles making her mouth water. He hadn’t bothered to put a shirt on, and she found his naked torso a lot more interesting than the food, no matter how hungry she was.

“Stop that, Josette, or we won’t make it out of the hotel room today.”

Her gaze skittered to his face. His jaw was clenched, and his brown eyes were melting her with their heat.

“Doing what?” she asked innocently.

“Looking at me like you’d rather pour your syrup on my chest than on your waffle.”

“Sounds sticky. I guess I’d have to lick it off then, huh?”

She watched in fascination as his male nipples hardened. “Yes.”

Heat zoomed into her most sensitive body parts at the image, and she licked her lips, tasting him in her mind. “Would you let me do that?”

He made a choked sound, half laugh, half groan. “Another time, but not this morning. We have to get back to your house.”

He was right. They had work to do, and Claire would be waiting for them. Josie had left a message for her at the nursing home, but things had been a little crazy, and she didn’t want her roommate worrying unnecessarily. For a computer geek, Claire had a pretty strong maternal instinct.

“I suppose, but don’t blame me if my mind wanders when you’re not wearing all your clothes. You’re a very sexy man fully dressed. Naked, you’re a killer.”

“To you.”

“You can’t tell me lots of women don’t find you about the sexiest thing they’ve ever seen. You’ve got rock-hard muscles on a physique most men would kill for, the looks of an ancient warrior and eyes women get lost in.” He’d certainly fueled her fantasies since she met him, but she had to admit, reality far exceeded her imagination.

He stared at her as if she was an alien species.

“What?” she demanded, frowning. “You aren’t blind. You can see yourself in a mirror.”

“My eyes aren’t as kind as yours. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a man like the one you described.”

“What do you see?”

“My father.”

“You look a lot like your dad?”

“Yes.” There was no pleasure in his voice at the comparison.

She’d never heard him mention his parents. “Do you see him very often?”

“Never.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes.”

Daniel’s eyes burned with rage for a brief moment, but then it was gone. Nonetheless, it had been too poignant to mistake.

“You don’t get along?” she fished.

“No.”

“Does he still live on the res?” Hotwire had told her once that Daniel had been raised on a reservation, but not why he’d left it.

“No.”

If he were anyone else, she’d be sure the short answers meant he didn’t want to talk about it, but Daniel was laconic at the best of times. He was also blunt enough to tell her to mind her own business if she asked him something he didn’t want to answer.

“Where is he?”

“In prison.”

No wonder Daniel didn’t like resembling his father.

“What about your mom?”

“She died before he went to prison.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am, too. She was a gentle woman. Soft.”

She stretched, pulling her T-shirt taut across her braless breasts, the nipples of which were still reacting to the image of licking syrup from his naked torso. “Unlike me.”

Daniel’s grim expression turned sexual in a heartbeat, just as she’d hoped it would. She remembered what he’d said about her softness yesterday and wanted to refocus his mind and take the look of grief out of his eyes.

“You feel soft enough to me.”

She grinned, feeling soft in a place she couldn’t afford to tell him about. Her heart. “I’m glad you think so.”

“Hashkeh Naabah.”

“What?”

“It’s my true name among the Sioux.”

“What does it mean?”

“Angry Warrior.”

“Why?”

“I made no secret of the fact that as soon as I was old enough I would leave the reservation. The one way I knew I could do it was as a soldier, so I told everyone I was going to become one.”

“Why angry?”

“I have a hel—heck of a temper.”

She smiled at how he stopped himself from swearing. She liked that he tried to around her. It was like an ongoing reminder he saw her as more woman than soldier. Not that she was a soldier anymore…at least that’s what she kept telling herself. How well her attempt at transformation was working, she wasn’t entirely sure.

After all, she’d armed herself just like the old days when she took Daniel into her dad’s hidden underground room.

“I’ve never seen you lose your temper.”

“That’s because you didn’t meet me until after I was assigned under Master Sergeant Cordell.”

“He taught you to control your temper?”

“Yes. He knew about my dad and drilled self-control into me as an alternative to turning out like him.”

“Your dad has a bad temper?”

“Yes.”

She wondered if that was why he’d ended up in prison, but didn’t want to hurt Daniel by asking. “Master Sergeant Cordell must be a pretty good trainer.”

“He is. He’s the one that nicknamed me Nitro. I hated it at the time. It was a constant reminder I was like my dad. He meant it to be. He pushed my temper every chance he got until I could control my anger in the most provoking circumstances he could imagine, and he had a pretty good imagination.”

Josie read between the lines to the torment Daniel must have endured to learn his immovable self-control and shuddered. “I’m not sure I’d like this master sergeant.”

“You will.”

“You expect me to meet him?”

“I want you to.”

“Why?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Where does he live?”

“He retired to Tillamook.”

“Is that why you wanted to buy in to my dad’s training school? So you could be near him more often?”

“That was one reason.”

She knew the other already. Daniel wasn’t ready to get out of the business, even though Wolf and Hotwire had been. He’d turned down their offer of partnership in the security consulting venture in order to go into soldier training with her dad.

Not wanting to dwell on his inability to move on from the paramilitary life, she said, “My mom used to call me Josie-bear.”

One corner of his mouth tilted, and his brown eyes warmed. “Is that your secret name?”

She nodded gravely. “I don’t bandy it about.”

“I can see why.”

“You think it’s too kidish, or that it doesn’t fit?” she asked archly, never having been flirtatious in her whole life. “Don’t you find me huggable?”

“The name fits you perfectly, but you’re safer not advertising how cuddly you are. Other men might get the wrong idea.”

“You mean that they can cuddle me?”

“They can’t.” He was back to looking fierce.

“You’re pretty possessive for a guy who sees me as nothing more than an obsession.”

“You’re my obsession.” But he didn’t deny that’s all she was to him.

“For now,” she taunted, unable to stifle the need to push him.

“For as long as you agree to share your body with mine.”

“You mean our arrangement is exclusive?”

“Damn right it is.”

“Watch it, Nitro, your temper is slipping.” And wasn’t it interesting she could impact it like she did, a mere obsession like her.

Her thoughts splintered as he stood up in a silent, feral rush. He came around the table with an unmistakable intent.

“I was just teasing you,” she screeched as he pulled her out of her chair and swung her up over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Feeding my obsession.”

“Are you sure you’re not just trying to assert your male dominance?” she asked breathlessly as she fell back on the bed where he tossed her.

“No man could dominate you, little warrior.”

Maybe not, but her love for a man might make her submit to behavior she would normally crush beneath her size-seven combat boots. “I’m not a warrior. Not anymore.”

“You’re a warrior in here.” He pressed his forefinger against her left breast. “It doesn’t matter what you do with your life; underneath you’ll always be who you are.”

If someone else had said that, she would have felt despair, and a resurgence of her ongoing fear she would never have a normal life, but the way he said it made her feel as though being a warrior at heart was a good thing. His expression said that to him, she was anything but a freak, so she smiled and pulled his head down to hers.

Their lovemaking was elemental and fast and left her panting beneath Daniel in total shock at how quickly her body could find the ultimate pleasure in his.

“You’re really good at this,” she croaked.

“We’re good together.” He kissed her, hard and thoroughly, until she clung to him in renewed passion.

He pulled his lips away and looked down at her, his expression as fierce as any tribal chieftain. “Remember that. You wouldn’t feel this way with another man.” He kissed her again. “Only me.”

She knew he was right, but was afraid it was because her emotions were a lot more involved than she could afford them to be rather than a simple sexual chemistry thing.

There was a city police car parked in front of the house when Daniel pulled his SUV into Josie’s driveway.

“What in the world is going on?” Josie asked.

“Let’s go find out.”

Claire came out the front door as Daniel and Josie got out of the four-wheel drive. She looked even more disreputable than the first time he’d seen her, and her face was pinched with exhaustion.

She stopped in front of him and Josie, her expression bleak. “The house got broken into last night.”

“What?” Josie asked. “When you were here?”

“No. It happened before I got home this morning.”

Daniel put his arm around Josie’s shoulders and hugged her into his side. “What did they take?”

“The usual…our computers, the television, my grandmother’s l-locket…” Claire’s face crumpled.

Josie pulled away from Daniel to wrap her friend in her arms. “Oh, honey…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. My laptop is gone. I can’t do my schoolwork. Yours is, too. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure something out, and it’s certainly not your fault.”

Claire nodded. “The police don’t think I’ll ever see Grandma’s locket again. It was the only thing I had of my family. It’s like I don’t exist anymore.”

Daniel could hear the pain in her voice, but he didn’t know how to comfort Josie’s roommate and was frankly glad it wasn’t his job.

Josie hugged Claire again. “Oh, sweetie…”

Daniel left Josie comforting Claire and went inside to talk to the police.

“It looks like a standard break-in and entry and burglary,” the officer in charge said.

“Did the neighbors see anything?” Daniel asked.

“Not that we’ve been able to ascertain.” The uniformed policeman referred to his pad. “The best we can do is narrow the break-in time to a six-hour window.”

Daniel’s instincts were screaming at him that this break-in had been anything but routine. It was linked to the explosion on the mountain; he could feel it. He’d wait to see if Josie drew the same conclusion before saying anything, though.

He went over the list of items missing with the police officer. “Your girlfriend will need to go through her things as well, so we can make sure the list is complete.”

“I’ll make sure Josie does that.”

The officer nodded. “Well, there’s not much more we can do here. I’ll file my report and get back to you if we find anything out.”

“Josie, are your CDs in their cabinet?”

Daniel looked up from the list he and Josie had been compiling of her missing property.

Claire stood in the doorway, her brows knit in a disturbed frown. No surprise there. According to Josie, her roommate was a long way from having the financial resources to replace her stolen computer equipment. Since her class load was weighted heavily toward computer studies, that was a major problem for her. He figured there had to be a way to help Claire without damaging her pride, but Josie would know best what it was.

They could talk about it later.

“I don’t know,” Josie said in reply to Claire’s question, getting up from her swivel chair.

She crossed to the small corner entertainment unit in the spare bedroom she used as a study. Popping open a door on the lower cabinet, she revealed a large selection of CDs in their jewel cases. She looked up at Claire and asked, “Did you want to borrow one?”

“No, but the DVDs are in the entertainment center, too. And my portable CD player is still in the drawer beside my bed along with my music.”

Josie smiled, her green eyes flickering with warmth. “I’m glad. I hate the fact they took as much as they did.”

“I don’t think you’re getting the point your roommate is trying to make,” Daniel said, not happy to have confirming evidence the break-in hadn’t been a run-of-the-mill burglary.

He felt certain it had been orchestrated by the people responsible for the attempt on Tyler’s life. They had not balked at killing once. He could easily imagine what they would have done if either woman had been home last night. Josie could take care of herself, but even a seasoned soldier was at a disadvantage during a surprise attack, and her security measures were nonexistent.

Thinking about it made him ask, “Why don’t you have a security system?”

“Because this is my house, not my fortress.”

It was that normal life thing again. Her desire to leave her mercenary life behind was really starting to bite him in the ass. “Josette, normal people have security systems.”

“Which are useless if the perpetrator has any kind of specialized knowledge.” She closed the CD cabinet and came back over to her computer desk, where she’d been trying to identify what had been stolen.

“So go with something harder to circumvent.”

“But then I wouldn’t be living like a normal person, would I? I’d still be perpetrating the soldier mentality. Anyway, I don’t see what my lack of a security system has to do with the thieves leaving my CDs behind.”

“Whoever broke in last night is a lot more dangerous than a burglar looking for his next score.”

Claire pushed her black plastic-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “I think he’s right, Josette. I read this article online a few months ago about petty theft and the used entertainment industry market. According to what I read, CDs and DVDs are popular items to steal because they’re so easy to get rid of. You don’t have to prove ownership, and a lot of used dealers will give cash on the dollar for them.”

“If the perps who broke into your house were petty thieves, why take the television, which is easier to trace and more conspicuous to carry, but leave behind the CDs and DVDs?”

“Maybe they were in a hurry.”

She wasn’t being a smartass; she was being a good soldier and presenting another alternative, but she knew he was right.

“All of my CD-ROMs are gone,” Claire said.

“Mine, too.” Josie waved her hand toward her desk. “So are my disks, for that matter. They took pretty much everything related to my computer.”

Claire frowned, her intelligent eyes sharp. “Diskettes aren’t worth anything. Even new, they hardly cost anything. The only value they could have to a thief is the data stored on them, and you don’t keep data that could be turned into income.”

“You said you had copies of your dad’s records on your computer,” he reminded Josie.

“Yes.”

“Did anyone else know about the computerization of his files?”

She shrugged, her mouth twisting wryly. “Probably quite a few. He complained about it a lot to the other trainers that worked for him.”

“The school was destroyed along with all its files. Your computerized records were stolen along with anything that might conceivably have copies of them on it.”

“You think someone tried to kill Dad because of what he had in his files?”

“Yes.”

“But I’ve been through them. There’s nothing there that could warrant that kind of reaction. Despite his personal paranoia, he doesn’t keep track of behavior he deems suspicious.”

“Your dad’s records had to have something in them that someone didn’t want him to have.”

Claire sat down with a thump on the armchair in the corner and ran her fingers through her hair, making the wild tangle even messier. “Nitro’s theory is scary, but it’s the only one that makes sense of what has happened.”

Daniel put the list he’d been holding down on the desk and curled his fingers into fists, using techniques he’d taught himself to control his inner rage. The whole situation was really starting to piss him off. First these miscreants blew up his and Tyler’s merc school before Daniel had even had a chance to work out how he was going to turn wannabe mercenaries into soldiers. They tried to kill his business partner, and then they broke into Josie’s home while he was elsewhere.

He didn’t even want to think about the fact the woman whose body gave him so much pleasure would probably be dead if she hadn’t been out taking a midnight stroll in the forest the night of the explosion.

“I have to agree with you two. Whoever broke in here took a lot of stuff to make it look like a regular burglary, but they dismissed too many things a real thief looking for easy cash would not have left behind.” Josie’s worried expression did nothing for Daniel’s temper.

“Which means they aren’t going to fence the stuff.” From the despondent tone of Claire’s voice, Daniel figured she was thinking of her grandmother’s necklace. “They’ll probably just throw it away.”

Josie got up and went across the room to put an arm around Claire’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“You lost stuff, too.”

“Not my mementos.”

“At least we weren’t home,” Claire said, her voice stretching for a positive note.

Josie didn’t say what Daniel was sure she was thinking, because he was thinking it, too. If Claire had been home, she wouldn’t have had a chance against the perpetrators.

“I wish I’d been here,” he said.

Claire’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “I don’t think I could keep living someplace a person had died.”

“I don’t want to kill them,” he said to Claire, wondering what the suddenly impassive expression on Josie’s face meant. “I want to know who they are and why in the hel—blazes they tried to kill my business partner.”

“I have every intention of figuring that out.” Stubborn determination radiated off of Josie like the afterglow of a nuclear explosion.

“We’ve got pretty much nothing to go on.” And he was a mercenary, not a trained detective.

Wolf was the tactician expert, and Hotwire knew more about searching out information than the ground staff for black ops, but Daniel knew best how to fight and win. If he couldn’t identify his enemy, he couldn’t fight.

Josie stood up, her pretty body enticing him, even though he knew making love should be the last thing on his mind right now.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You must see something I don’t.”

“We now know our enemies are worried about something Dad has in his records, worried enough to kill to make sure it stays buried.”

“So?”

“All we’ve got to do is go through those records with a fine-tooth comb.”

“We don’t have them to go through, and from what you remember, there’s nothing suspicious in them anyway.”

“I wasn’t looking for it when I computerized the files. And we do have a copy of the records.”

“You have a backup?”

“Yes.”

“But they took all your storage media.”

“Not my jump drive. I keep it with me all the time.”

“Everyone should. It’s the most efficient form of backup,” Claire said, sounding like a female version of Hotwire.

“What’s a jump drive?”

“Hold on a sec, and I’ll show you.” Josie grabbed her hot pink backpack-style purse from the hardwood floor beside the door and dug in the outside pocket.

She pulled out a small silver object about the size of his finger. “This is my jump drive. It holds 256 megabytes. I keep my whole document directory on it all the time.”

“And you’ve got the school’s records on it?” He knew about bombs the size of pens that could blow up buildings, but the idea that a tiny thing like that held all the records stored in several filing cabinets made his head hurt.

“We don’t have a computer to pull the drive up on,” Claire said dejectedly from her chair.

“No problem.” This was a logistics problem he could handle. “Hotwire should be here soon, and he always travels with his laptop, but is there any reason we can’t just buy you two new computers?”

“Hotwire is coming?” Claire and Josie chorused at the same time, ignoring his suggestion to buy new laptops.

Claire looked dismayed by the prospect, but Josie looked overjoyed, and that did nothing for Daniel’s temper. “Yes, he wants to help with the investigation,” he bit out.

Josie smiled. “That’s so sweet of him.”

She hadn’t thought Daniel was sweet when he’d offered to help. In fact, she’d tried to talk him out of it. His temper slipped one more notch.

Josie put the vegetarian lasagna in the oven and turned back to the counter to grate carrots for the salad she would serve with it.

“I didn’t know you could bake the lasagna without boiling the noodles first,” Claire said from the table, where she was spreading garlic butter on a loaf of French bread.

“It’s a trick Wolf taught me.” She sprinkled the grated carrots over the salad and then smiled at Claire, knowing anything she told the other woman had almost no chance of being used in practical application. “You increase the sauce a little bit and cover it for the first forty-five minutes of baking.”

“So, Wolf is giving you cooking lessons while Hotwire teaches you how to be a computer geek?” Daniel leaned against the counter, so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body luring her.

Only he’d been acting as if he’d never had an obsession with her body, as though they hadn’t spent the night before making love. He’d said he wished he’d been there when the thieves came, implying he regretted the night they’d spent together. She couldn’t regret it, and knowing he did, even if his reasoning was more than justified, hurt.

“Wolf gave me a few tips, but labeling Hotwire as a mere computer geek is like calling an Olympic triathlete a Sunday jogger. Did you have a question about that?” she asked, nodding toward the list of missing items he was holding.

He’d come into the kitchen when she started making dinner and had been holding the list then, but so far, he hadn’t said anything about it. He hadn’t said anything at all until just now. He’d been standing there all broody and masculine, putting off male pheromones her body was reacting to despite his lack of overt encouragement.

Increased tension emanated off of him in indecipherable waves. What had him so uptight?

“Did you leave the journals off on purpose, or did you forget about them?” he asked.

Josie was puzzled by the question. She’d never said the journals had been taken. “They aren’t missing.”