And Able (3 page)

“Sometimes there is no choice.”

“I’m sure that’s true, in theory.”

“Screw theory. That’s an observation made on sixteen years spent as a soldier.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Who said I was offended?”

“Um…no one. Maybe I’d just better eat my dinner.”

“I still want to know why you don’t eat meat.”

“You’ll laugh at me.”

“No. I won’t.”

Her look said she didn’t believe him.

“I won’t.”

She sighed, giving in with bad grace. “Fine, but if you do…you just may find out how far from a true pacifist I really am. I have too vivid an imagination. When I eat a hamburger, I see some poor cow with tragic brown eyes facing the slaughterhouse.”

“That would put pretty much anyone off meat. So, why not think about something else?”

“I can’t. Did you ever watch the movie
 
Chicken Run
?”

“Yes. I’ve got a couple of nephews who think it’s their job in life to keep me educated on the animated movie industry.”

“Well, even chicken nuggets make me think of Ginger. She was such a gutsy little thing.”

“And you can’t stand the thought of eating her.”

“No.”

“The movie is fantasy. Ginger isn’t real.”

She laughed. “I know that, but I can’t help what my mind conjures up when I’m eating.”

In a way, he understood. He couldn’t help the images that his mind conjured up of her lying naked in his bed, either.

C
 
laire flipped off the call light for Lester’s room before making her way down the silent hallway to see what he needed. It was late, almost three in the morning, and few Belmont Manor residents were awake. Perhaps Lester was even the only one.

She found him clad in a robe and pajamas, sitting up in a chair and thumbing through a composition book like the ones she used to take notes in her classes.

“Did you need something, Lester?”

He looked up, his dark eyes intimidating even in a weathered face attached to a body stooped by age. “Just a little company. You didn’t work yesterday.”

According to the nurses and other aides, he never called for late-night company on the nights she had off. Maybe they didn’t listen with the same amount of tolerance to his sometimes confused ramblings. She’d had a lot of practice with her mom; Lester’s dementia was less taxing to her patience than her mom’s drunken discourse had been.

She smothered a yawn. “My best friend got married today…or yesterday, rather.” She smiled at the memory. Josette and Nitro were the perfect couple, and her friend deserved to be supremely happy; she was such a sweetheart. And Claire thought Nitro might actually turn out to be a man who could be counted on in the long run. “I took the night off to help her with last-minute preparations.”

Lester frowned. “I never got married.”

“I know.”

“A hired killer doesn’t make a good husband.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said, humoring him.

He looked down at the book in his lap and then shut it. “I killed too many people. Couldn’t bring myself to marry even after I retired. What if I talked in my sleep? I’d have had to kill my own wife.”

She didn’t know how much of what he said was truth, or how much was fantasy, but sometimes it sounded so real it was chilling. This was one of those times.

“I don’t think you would have killed your own wife, Lester.”

His gaze turned so cold it made her shiver. “You can’t let your emotions get in the way of a kill when you are a professional. I was a professional. The best.” Unmistakable pride laced his voice. “I would have done whatever I had to, but I didn’t want to face that kind of circumstance…so I never got married.”

“Were you lonely?” she asked, thinking of her own future stretching out years ahead of her.

Maybe putting up with sex was worth it to have a family, but then she’d have to deal with the vagaries of life and the risk that it could batter her kids the same way it had battered her. It didn’t seem fair to have kids in a world like the one that existed today.

“Never got lonely. Life is too full of interesting things to see and do. You appreciate that when you see a lot of death.”

“I imagine you do.”

“I like having you and Queenie around now, though. She’s a firecracker.” He smiled, his expression warming about twenty degrees. “If I had known I’d meet her in a place like this, I would have moved in sooner.”

“The feeling is obviously mutual. Queenie thinks you are a king among men.” Sweet and as bubbly as a bottle of soda pop, the other Belmont Manor resident had shown her preference for Lester from day one. Talk about opposites attracting.

“She’s nuts. I told her about what I did, but she just thought it made me more mysterious. She even read my kill book. The working of a woman’s brain is a mystifying thing.”

Not in the least offended, Claire laughed. “I suppose it must seem that way to you.”

“JFK’s not as safe as he thinks he is,” Lester said, slipping back into the past.

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“I tried to tell Marv at the agency, but he said presidential safety wasn’t his detail. No one else in the government outside the agency knows I exist. They won’t listen to me.”

“Who is Marv?” she asked, curious in spite of herself.

“You know who he is. My contact with the agency. We were together in the war. He wasn’t much of a sniper, but he sure understood logistics.”

“World War I?”

“Yeah. You okay, Melba? You sure are asking some strange questions.”

Every once in a while he called her Melba, and all she’d learned about the other woman was that she’d worked in some secretarial capacity for Lester a long time ago. His senility was growing steadily worse, but Claire still liked being around him. She didn’t care if he made sense. He was an interesting man and knew more about odd trivia than she did.

She couldn’t stay and visit too long tonight, though, no matter how much she might want to. A group of politicians was coming on Monday to tour the facility. Apparently it was some part of a report they were doing on the living conditions of the elderly in Oregon.

It was up to her and the rest of the junior staff to make sure the place shone with cleanliness and gave the appearance of a healthful environment. Not that it wasn’t usually clean, but this was like spring cleaning at the end of summer.

Hotwire walked into his office and did a quick visual check of his equipment. A light flashed, indicating Claire’s alarm had gone off. He swore, adrenaline pumping into his blood, an immediate sense of impotency sweeping over him. What could he do for Claire from his home in Montana?

Nothing. He didn’t like knowing that. Not one bit.

Fortunately, the light was yellow, which meant she’d turned it off…or someone had.

He grabbed the phone and dialed Claire’s number.

She picked up on the third ring, sounding breathless. “Hello?”

That breathy little hello instantly started him thinking of her writhing in the middle of an acre of silk sheets. The predictable effect of his imagination on his cock wasn’t exactly comfortable. He grimaced. “It’s Hotwire.”

“Uh…hi.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Sure. Um…is there some reason it shouldn’t be?” She sounded guiltier than a kid caught sneaking out of her bedroom window after curfew.

“Your alarm went off.”

“Did you give the police instructions to call you if it did?” Her voice vibrated with outrage. “Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive? I do not need a baby-sitter. Seriously. What were you thinking? Don’t tell me this was Josette’s idea. Sheesh, I don’t know what you thought you could do about it, in any case.”

He’d noticed before that she talked fast and furiously when she was concerned about somebody else, angry, or feeling self-conscious. He wondered which one she was at the moment. She sounded mad, but there was something in her voice that hinted at embarrassment, too.

“Tell me about the alarm, Claire.”

A big, heavy sigh came across the phone line. “Classes are over in another week and a half.”

“So?”

“Well, my final project in my Unix programming class is due. There’s a glitch in the program and I’ve been trying to figure it out.”

“What does that have to do with the alarm going off?”

“I forgot to use the remote code on my laptop to disarm it when I got home.”

“There’s a keypad inside as well.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the alarm. I told you, I was trying to figure out my program…I didn’t think about the alarm at all.” That was definite chagrin in her voice. “Not until it went off, anyway.”

“Did the police come?”

“You know they did.”

In fact, he hadn’t. “Good.”

“It wasn’t
 
good
. It was awful. I was a nervous wreck trying to explain the alarm to the police. What if they’d thought I was the one breaking in? After all, the house doesn’t belong to me.”

“That’s highly unlikely.”

She grunted, the sound one of pure disgust. “I was mortified. The neighbors came out and gawked. One of them even came over to make sure I was all right.”

“How long did the alarm go off before you noticed it?” he asked, trying to control the amusement in his voice.

“I don’t know.” She sounded petulant and he’d never heard her sounding that way.

It made him horny. Heck, just about everything she did made him want her.

“I’m surprised your neighbor came to check on you.”

“He’s ex-military. A retired SEAL or something. You guys are all alike…interfering.”

He laughed.

She made a sound like steam escaping a teakettle, and he bit off his laughter.

“That alarm is a big pain.” Something in her tone alerted him and he started running a diagnostic on the system from his computer.

“No strange phone calls, or anything?” he asked, just to keep her talking while the system ran its check.

“Other than this one? No.”

“There’s nothing odd about one friend calling to check on another.”

“I thought you were Josette’s friend.”

“Is there anything that says I can’t be yours as well?”

“Um…no.”

“Good.” Then his computer beeped and he glared at the screen, wanting to bite something. “Why did you disable the alarm, Claire?”

There were probably only a handful of people in the country that could have done it without the code, which he had not given
 
her
 
on purpose. And according to the stats he was now looking at, she’d done it a lot faster than even she should have been able to.

“How do you know I did?”

“I ran a diagnostic.”

“Oh. You mean you have my security system hooked up to your computer?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how you knew it had gone off?”

“Uh-huh. I didn’t leave instructions for the cops to call, but maybe I should fix that.”

“Don’t you dare. This was humiliating enough as it is.”

“The alarm can’t do you any good turned off.”

“I’m not having the police out here every other day because I accidentally set it off. That’s just not okay, Hotwire.”

“So don’t set it off.”

She was silent on the other end of the line.

“Come on, sugar. I know you struggle with focusing on the world around you sometimes, but you can train yourself to remember the alarm.”

“Why do you call me sugar? I’m not a piece of candy.”

“You taste as sweet as one.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Trust me. I’d rather suck on your tongue than a peppermint stick any day of the week.”

“You’re flirting with me,” she said accusingly.

“And I bet you’re blushing.” She acted tough, but she reacted to the attraction between them with more vulnerability than he was sure she wanted to admit to.

She sighed, the soft sound shivering through him. “Maybe.”

“You’re awfully innocent for a woman of twenty-eight.”

“Innocent is one thing I’m not.” The cynicism in her tone was absolute. “And how did you know how old I am? Did you hack into my identity records?”

“No. I found out the old-fashioned way. I asked Josie.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not going to sidetrack me from the issue at hand.”

“I wasn’t trying to sidetrack you.”

No, it probably hadn’t been on purpose. She just had a tendency to jump from one subject to another. “I’m turning the alarm back on and this time I want you to leave it that way.”

“If it goes off again, I’m cutting the wires.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“Watch me.”

“You do not have authorization to dismantle the alarm.”

“This is not the military. I don’t need authorization. I’m the one living here. If I don’t want an alarm disrupting my life, I don’t have to have one.”

“Then move out, but as her renter, you have no right to circumvent measures Josie has put in place to protect her property. The alarm and the house it safeguards belong to her, not you.” The words were harsh, but he had no choice.

He couldn’t force her to keep the alarm enabled from several hundred miles away, and he’d already used the argument about Claire’s own safety to no avail. She refused to give credence to his concerns, but that didn’t make them any less real. And he refused to dismiss them because she didn’t want the inconvenience of remembering the alarm.

“You’re right,” Claire said, her voice subdued. “I’m just the renter. This isn’t my home. I won’t disconnect the alarm again. If that was all you needed…”

Josie was going to kill him. He’d hurt Claire’s feelings and he wasn’t all that happy about it himself. “Claire—”

“Thank you for calling to check on m…the house. As I said, everything is fine.”

“Sugar—”

“I’ll try not to inconvenience you again. Good-bye.”

The phone went dead in his ear and he swore pungently, glad his mama wasn’t there to hear him. His army drill sergeant had never intimidated him like her five-feet-nothing of southern belle charm.

He hadn’t meant to hurt Claire, and he had not called to check on the damn house. His jaw ached from clenching it as he reset the alarm. He checked his messages and e-mail, but couldn’t get the hurt tone of Claire’s voice out of his head. Finally, he gave in and called her again.

She didn’t pick up, and he checked her schedule only to realize she had a class and would be working later that night. He left a message telling her he had re-armed the system, but didn’t know what to say to undo the damage he’d done to her feelings, or even if it was a good idea to try.