Conspiracy Game (33 page)

“I will.”

“And stay the hell out of the bathroom. I don’t want you near the tile saw.”

“Jack.” Briony traced the pattern on the cover, looking around her at all the bright packages. Her fingers crept up to her earlobe, stroked the fiery rubies, and slid to her throat. “You can’t order me around, no matter how charming you are.”

Pain swirled in the depths of his eyes for just a moment. She caught the surge of sorrow in his mind. He turned away from her to open the closet door. “I told you I wouldn’t be an easy man to live with.”

“What does that mean?” Briony asked, frowning, trying to grasp what he
wasn’t
saying to her. She sank down onto the edge of the bed. “I’m a grown woman, Jack.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, rubbed his brow with the pad of his thumb, and sighed. “I’m a control freak, Bri. It’s one of the biggest reasons we live here, so far away from everyone. It’s why I mostly work alone. I go out on my own and I control the situation. If I work with a team, I run the team. It’s who I am.”

“That isn’t big news, Jack,” Briony pointed out. She pulled clothes from the packages and began removing tags. “It isn’t an excuse to take away my rights as an adult to make my own decisions. Control is an illusion anyway. No one can control another person.”

“I control what I can, and it helps to keep everyone safe.”

“You don’t trust yourself.”

“No. I realized a long time ago I don’t think or react like other people. Under the right circumstances, things could go wrong.”

Briony busied herself with putting clothes in the drawers, all the while trying to grasp what he was saying. Jebediah, Ken, and now even Jack were all warning her about something in Jack that even he feared. She turned to look at his face. Whatever it was, he was more afraid of it than he was of a sniper’s bullet.

“I don’t think you’d ever hurt me, Jack. Not ever. You don’t have it in you. Is that what you’re afraid of?”

He looked at her, something moving in his eyes. Pain? Sorrow? Haunting fear? She couldn’t read his emotion. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly, ashamed.

She went to him, framed his face with her hands. “I do. Remember Luther? He hit me with no problem. I made him angry and he punched me. He didn’t slap me. He didn’t try to restrain me, he punched me with his fist. Maybe if I were your enemy… ”

He caught her wrists and yanked them down, holding them hard against his chest. “That’s just it, baby. That’s just it.” He dropped her hands and went out of the room. She heard the door slam as he left the house.

Briony let out her breath and sank down onto the bed more confused than ever.

The cursory knock didn’t startle her; she already knew that Ken’s stocky frame filled the doorway. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Where’d he go?”

“He’s probably headed to the shop. He hangs a bag there and works out when the devil rides him too hard.” He shrugged. “Either that or he’ll soothe himself with woodworking.”

“Why would he think I could ever become his enemy, Ken? I told him I knew he’d never hurt me, maybe if I was his enemy, but
never
otherwise. He’s afraid of hurting me, isn’t he?”

A muscle jumped in Ken’s jaw. He rubbed his thumb along a scar down the left side of his face. “He’s afraid of hurting everyone. He has to tell you himself, Briony. It has to come from him—and then you have to decide if you’re strong enough to live with him.”

“This is temporary.”

He shook his head. “You’re deceiving yourself and you know it.”

“He walked out. He said I was a liability. He told me he wasn’t the kind of man who would ever have a woman or kid.”

“I’m sure he did say those things. He believes he shouldn’t have a family. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want a family. He isn’t going to walk away from you ever again.”

“I don’t want him like that. Trapped because we were forced together by an outside source and now he’s stuck because I needed help.”

Ken leaned his hip against the doorjamb, a gesture very reminiscent of Jack. “What do you think he would have done had you been kidnapped and word got back to him? Even if he didn’t think the child was his, what do you think he would have done?”

Briony plucked at the comforter. “I have no idea. I barely know Jack, and when I think I do know him, everyone warns me off—everyone including Jack.”

“He would have come after you and he would never—
never
—have stopped until he found you and got you out—or they killed him. Jack would never abandon someone who did what you did for him.”

“My brother helped him get out of Kinshasa. I just slept with him.”

Ken’s eyes darkened to a turbulent gray. “Don’t do that, Briony. Don’t cheapen what you did and don’t belittle yourself. You saved his life. He told me what happened.”

“He doesn’t owe me anything. If that’s why he’s doing this… ”

“You’re here because you’re carrying his child and he never wanted to walk away from you in the first place. He did it for you. He walked out of your life so you could have a normal life. And this time, if you want out—you’ll have to be the one to walk away, because he isn’t going to do it.”

Briony burst out laughing, but it sounded too close to hysteria, so she hastily crossed to the drawers and began looking through them for something to wear to the doctor’s office. “I don’t have a normal life, Ken. I can’t have a normal life because some megalomaniac dragged me out of an orphanage and experimented on me.” Her voice was getting louder, swinging out of control, but she couldn’t pull back. “And when he adopted me out, he made certain he could still experiment on me. And as an adult—well… ” She threw a sweater into the drawer and spun around, spreading her arms wide to encompass the room. “Here I am. Not like any other mother-to-be. No, I’ve got a man who doesn’t mind having sex with me because of the experiments, but would much rather I didn’t come near him, so no, Ken—my chances at a normal life frankly suck.”

“You in here upsetting my woman, Ken?” The voice was pitched so low—so soft—that for a moment Briony wasn’t certain she’d actually heard right, because those soft-spoken words sounded like a threat, but her body went still and her heart accelerated into high gear.

Jack moved into the room. His shirt was off, and a fine sheen of sweat covered his body as though he’d been working hard. Muscles rippled beneath scarred skin, and he crossed to her side, taking a T-shirt from the top of the bureau and wiping his face with it. He looked at his brother over the shirt, his eyes a peculiar silver.

“I thought you’d already done that,” Ken said easily.

Briony frowned. Ken sounded easygoing enough, but his body shifted slightly into a much more defensible position. She looked from one brother to the other. “
Hello!
Are you both morons? I’m
pregnant.
That means emotional. I’m not supposed to be the one with the cool head here. I’m supposed to fall apart at the drop of a hat; it’s my prerogative. You two are supposed to smile and nod and agree with everything I say.”

Ken’s eyebrow shot up, and a ghost of a smile played for a moment with his mouth, and then disappeared. “Was I upsetting you, Briony?”

“I’m in a perpetual state of upset,” she reiterated. “I’ve never been pregnant before. I never even thought about having children.” She sank down onto the bed again, looking up at Jack. “
Never
. I have such a difficult time being around people, it never occurred to me the opportunity would be there.”

Jack stood in front of her, forcing her chin up with his thumb so she had to meet his gaze. “You want this baby.”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “It’s just scary. Everything is so frightening right now. I wish I wasn’t such a coward.”

The pad of Jack’s thumb rubbed over her lower lip. “It’s all right to be afraid, Briony; fear doesn’t make you a coward. Why shouldn’t you be afraid?” He crouched down in front of her, framing her face. “I want you here more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. And I have every intention of seeing you through this. You came here because you trusted your own instincts. I’m sure your brothers objected.”

A faint smile teased her mouth. “
Strenuously
objected.”

“But you knew to come to me anyway. I may be a lot of things, Briony, and I’m hell to live with, but you came to me for protection and
that
is guaranteed. Just keep trusting me.”

Ken came up on the other side of her, looking so heartbreakingly like Jack. He put one hand on his twin’s shoulder and the other on her shoulder. “We’re in this together—all the way, Briony. Here, where we live, we have a policy that it’s okay to be who we really are. Jack gets a little dicey sometimes and I have my own demons. If you’re afraid or sick or want to stand outside and scream, it’s all good.”

Briony nodded, struggling not to cry. She didn’t know what acceptance was. She’d never had it. She had always fit into the circus world because her family needed her to—not because it was her choice. She’d fought every day of her life to appear normal. Here, with Jack and Ken, she felt no pain at all being near them. They both shielded her, not only from their thoughts, but Jack had been able to keep her from feeling the effects of violence up close.

Was it really that simple? She touched their minds and found sincerity. They both had concerns and both were a little leery of the new situation, a woman—nearly a stranger—in their comfortable, safe world, but both were more than willing to accept her and learn how to live with her.

How to live with her.
They were willing to adjust for her. Was she willing to adjust for them? She looked up at Jack, at his peculiarly colored eyes that seemed to go from charcoal gray to glittering silver, depending on his mood. Could she put herself totally in his hands? She already liked and respected Ken. She might be willing to try for Jack—but could she hand Jack her heart when she knew the attraction was because of genetic manipulation? She needed to go slow—take one day at a time and see where it led her. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Thank you both.”

Jack felt relief sweep through him. Briony was afraid, but she was accepting their offer. He didn’t know what he would have done if she’d tried to run. “You’d better get ready to go, babe,” he said. “It’s a long drive down the mountain and we don’t want to miss the doctor appointment.”

“We can eat dinner in town,” Ken added, flicking his brother a warning glance.

“I’ll cook tonight,” Jack offered as he stood up, tousling Briony’s hair.

“We can eat dinner in town. I got up at four this morning and removed the traps and set alarms. I’ve still got the tile job to do. Don’t give me grief on this.”

“See how he whines.” Jack appealed to Briony.

“I’m being reasonable, Bri,” Ken protested. “You’ve never tasted his cooking,” he added, following Jack’s example and ruffling her hair.

She sat very still, just absorbing the affection in that simple motion. It should have made her feel like a child, but even Jack’s persistent orders had nothing to do with thinking she was a child. “I’d like dinner out,” she ventured.

Jack groaned. “Don’t help him, Briony. It won’t just be dinner. He’ll want to go listen to music. Every time, every
single
time I’m dumb enough to agree to dinner, we end up at the Last Saloon listening to his country music. He flirts all night and I sit there watching his back.”

“I’m trying to get him to work on his social skills,” Ken explained. “And the music is awesome. You do like country music, don’t you, Briony?”

“Yes.”

“And you do agree Jack needs a little work on his social skills,” Ken prompted.

“He flirts just fine,” Briony said.

“Jack? Flirts?” Ken looked shocked. “If he does, he’s only flirted with you. The ladies sashay up to him, and he gives them that deadpan look, and they scurry away. It’s embarrassing.”

“Really?” She glanced at Jack.

“You’re not taking Briony to the bar,” Jack decreed. “Some drunken idiot cowboy is going to take one look at her and decide he’s going to dance with her, and I’ll have to bury his body out in the forest.”

“Or you could just dance with me yourself and not have to kill anyone,” Briony suggested. “It might be easier.”

“Dance?”

“You do know how to dance, don’t you?”

“You’d distract me,” Jack said.

“From what?”

“I watch Ken’s back. Now I’ve got two of you to look after.”

“How about this,” Briony suggested. “Ken can dance and we’ll both watch out for him. And don’t worry, Ken—if one of the ladies starts groping you on the dance floor, I’ll be all over it in a heartbeat. But then, Ken can watch out for us while we dance. Ken, you could do that, couldn’t you?”

“It’s a deal, as long as you let the ladies grope me.”

Jack threw his hands into the air. “So this is how it’s going to be. You’re going to double team me, aren’t you?”

Ken and Briony exchanged a grin and nodded, unrepentant.

C
HAPTER 
13