Hot Contract (13 page)

Their beat-up loaner car had never looked so
welcome. Jen slid into the passenger seat and pulled her now
stained ruffles in around her. “Do you think they’ll follow
us?”

“Too early,” said Keegan. He adjusted the
rear view mirror. “It’ll take time for our weasel to report
in.”

“He doesn’t know where we are.”

He grinned at her. “We don’t want to make it
too easy. They won’t bite if I put out a road map.”

Jen sank back, intensely aware of Keegan in
the seat beside her. He looked better, not so stressed. Like
telling her about Connor had triggered some kind of catharsis. She
couldn’t even imagine how she’d feel if Percy was kidnapped.
Terri’s death ran over and over again. Bad memories. She’d drive
herself crazy if she didn’t stop.

“There they are,” she said, pointing to where
Fallon and Corlis stood waiting.

Fallon slammed into the back, first-up in
their filth collection contest. The bloodstains on his clothing
stood out like paint, although he’d washed his hands and arms in
deference to her phobia and smelled like foaming cleanser.

Corlis looked back down the narrow access
road. “Anyone see you leave?”

“Cameras,” said Keegan.

Fallon moved to let his partner in. The
smears on his sleeves were still damp, and matched the ones on his
knees. Jen had never asked the whereabouts of Deacon’s assailants.
If he’d killed them and disposed of the bodies, he felt no remorse.
She met Fallon’s eyes in the rear view mirror and they were just
eyes.

“What now?” she asked, turning back to
Keegan. “We’re not any closer to knowing what it was about Terri
that made her so important.”

“Now, we wait,” he said. “Once they figure
out we’re at the campground, we’ll get visitors.”

She wanted to tear her hair out in
frustration. “But how will they find out?”

“They’ll be monitoring the park’s entrances.
We didn’t come in past them, so we’ve got to be inside. It’s just a
matter of time.”

Corlis reached into her pocket and pulled out
a small pair of binoculars. “I thought there was something moving
on the access road.”

Fallon glanced at the distant flash of green.
“Gravel truck.”

Corlis focused her binoculars on the cab and
studied the driver for a long moment. “Yeah,” she said. “They’re
everywhere.”

Jen insisted on stopping at the camp store,
and it took Keegan little more than a second to realize he didn’t
have the heart to deny her. She was one hell of a trooper—for a
spoiled rich kid.

She bought big white athletic socks, which
looked like shit with her dress-up sandals, and a black nylon
jacket stenciled with the Volcanoes National Park logo. One for him
too, which she said made them match. Food and a box of condoms,
which she’d opened right there in front of everyone, and emptied
into his pocket.

“For later,” she’d whispered, leaning into
him.

Corlis followed him out to the car, leaving
Fallon to help with the packages.

She pointed to his pocket. A condom stuck out
over the top and damned if it wasn’t peach-flavored. “Have you lost
your mind?”

He grinned. Oh, yeah—he had a whole pocketful
of peach-flavored condoms.

“Yeah, okay,” Corlis said, her eyes
red-rimmed and glittering. “If you won’t listen, don’t come crying
to me when this whole thing blows. You’re playing with fire and
you’re going to get burned.”

Jen stepped out on the porch and the condoms
in his pocket felt like a gold ring. Jesus, how much of a hint did
he need? He wasn’t playing with fire—he was headed for total
nuclear annihilation, and if the prospect of completely turning
himself to ash and gone didn’t scare him, there was Corlis,
watching as Jen raced down the stairs into his arms and launched
off the bottom step like they were in a goddamned movie.

Fallon smirked, and the two guys sitting on
the bench in front of the store smirked and for all Keegan knew,
the woman in the goddamned store smirked.

He stopped her before she could plant a
slow-mo on his lips.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Keegan shook his head. “Nothing I can’t
handle.”

He split off from them with a mumbled excuse
the minute they got back to the cabin. If Jen was the suspicious
sort, she’d say he was out to dump her. God, had she really told
him about Tim? Worse yet, had she really bought him condoms? In
front of everyone?

Fallon carried her groceries in and dumped
them out on the counter. “I’ll go after him.”

“Yeah, do that,” said Corlis. She threw her
jacket on the couch and sprawled out on it, one arm thrown up over
her head. The thin black tank she wore was ringed with sweat and an
enormous holster balanced on her belly with an even bigger gun in
it.

She curled a finger through the guard, more
opaque than usual.

Jen fumbled at a package of pretzels. “Is
something wrong with Keegan?”

Corlis opened one eye, then closed it again.
“What do you want with my brother, Ms. Stalling?”

“The contract,” said Jen. “Tell me about
it.”

The idea that her father had tacked some
riders onto his standard contract made more sense than Keegan
actually wanting her. If he was Art’s current pick for stud
services, everything fell into place. Or maybe Keegan just got a
kick out of messing with her.

How well did she really know him? Tris had
once told her that control was a mental construct, and it worked
best when the person being controlled wanted the bait. Keegan was a
strategist. What if he’d decided sex was the best way to control
her? She was so starved for attention she would have given him
anything.

Anything? What did he matter anyway? He’d be
gone soon enough.

Corlis adjusted her gun and rolled over. “Go
in your bedroom or sit down, you’re getting on my nerves.”

“God knows, I’m sorry to get on your
nerves.”

Keegan’s sister sounded like she was choking
and it took Jen a second to realize she was laughing. At her?

“I’m not being funny,” she snarled.

“Maybe it’ll be all right after all. Time for
some kids running around DalCon. We’re all so damned serious. Maybe
some nieces or something, little girls. I’ll teach them to
shoot.”

“Me…and your brother?”

“Is that so hard to imagine?”

Jen flushed. “I can’t believe you think
Keegan would marry me.”

“That makes two of us.” Corlis swung her feet
to the floor and got up in a single lithe movement, her holster
hanging down between her breasts. “Don’t want to marry him? Go on,
run away, then. He’s coming down the path with those condoms in his
pocket, and I don’t want you to freak.”

Jen couldn’t help it. She felt ill with
humiliation. She bolted for the bedroom door and locked it.

Keegan entered the cabin and crossed the
room. “She in there?”

“Yeah,” said Corlis. She pulled her holster
into place, watching him like she knew something and was waiting
for him to find it out on his own.

“Honey?” Keegan rapped on the bedroom door,
then frowned when he realized it was locked. “Jen? We need to
talk.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to you,”
offered Corlis. She dragged a stool around and straddled it.

Keegan was that close to losing it, and his
sister's comments weren't talking him off the ledge. He rattled the
knob again.

Nothing.

Why the hell would Jen lock him out?

He looked at his sister, squatting on her
stool. “What did you say to her?”

Corlis rummaged through the pile of food
they’d picked up at the store. “Asked her about your wedding.”

She pulled out a plastic-wrapped hard-boiled
egg and eyed it dubiously. “Your girl have something about
eggs?”

Keegan's stomach clenched. “She’s not my
girl.”

“She seems to think she is and you think she
is. So marry her already.”

“You told Guinevere Stalling I wanted to
marry
her?”

“Do you have a problem with that? Go on, get
busy. Procreate. I want to be an aunt.”

Keegan felt a flash of panic. “Not gonna
happen.”

“Run that by me again?”

“Jesus, Liss! Make me go into details.”

Corlis threw him the egg and he caught it
without thinking.

“Eat it,” she said. “Settle your stomach. You
care for her and she feels something for you. Why fight it? Marry
her, have lots of kids. Chocolate at the reception. Something from
Fran’s...maybe chocolate-covered figs, the expensive ones.”

“I don’t want to marry her, I want to fuck
her, and thank you for making me say that to my sister.” Keegan
flipped the egg into the trash. “Jesus. How do you know I’m not
already sick of her? What makes you such an expert? You’ve been
with Fallon since grade school and you can’t see past the nose on
your face.”

Corlis stood. “My relationship with Fallon is
not open to discussion. If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

****

Jen punched her fist into the pillow. Money.
Most people wanted it. Guinevere Morgaine Stalling had way too
much.

Still, despite her name, few people
associated her with Art. She was short and pudgy, and everyone knew
Stallings were built on a grand scale. Therefore she wasn’t a
real
Stalling.

In her eight years away from StallingCo, not
one man had so much as moved in her direction. Men didn’t want her,
they wanted Guinevere Morgaine and for a taste of her trust fund,
they’d gladly do her. But it seemed Keegan actually did want her.
He wanted to fuck her.

Jen curled over on her side, shivering in her
stupid nylon jacket. It wasn’t warm enough, so she pulled the
covers over her shoulders, cold down to the bone.

The front door slammed. She heard Keegan
swear under his breath. Footsteps paused in front of her door and
moved away again.

She felt too heavy to get up. All she’d ever
wanted was a life away from her father’s expectations and the
piranha-tank frenzy of StallingCo, a chance to prove her abilities,
and to somehow make a difference. After Tim’s betrayal, she’d spent
a long time healing herself. Not that what she’d originally felt
for Tim was anything like the storm Keegan woke in her. After her
mother’s death, her upbringing had been so restricted she’d learned
to put a box around her emotions. Emotions were suspect.

Why on earth did she want Keegan? So he could
lie to her face about how he cared? So he could tell her what he
thought she wanted to hear? Look at how he’d used her. She’d all
but fallen over herself helping him make a fool out of her. He
didn’t want her for who she was on the inside.

How could she have expected any different?
She was a scientist. She could face down a lava flow but she
couldn’t look into his eyes and tell Keegan Dalfrey to give her
back her condoms? She didn’t want to fuck him. Not even once.

She got up and opened the door.

Keegan eyed her warily, his expression
completely closed. “Guinevere,” he said. Not Jen. Big mistake.

“A common misconception,” she said quietly.
“It’s really Guinevere Morgaine.”

Without warning, the front door shuddered
under the impact of something big and slammed back, bouncing off
the wall. Makena stood in the doorway, breathing hard, all dressed
up in his bright yellow volunteer paramedic shirt.

His eyes rolled from her to Keegan. Time
clicked into slow-motion as he charged into the room. The barrel of
his gun looked shockingly bright, all stripped metal and
blaze-orange. He brought it up and shot Keegan twice in rapid
succession.

Keegan fell heavily, one hand behind his
back. There was a holster in his waistband. Makena took Keegan’s
gun, disappeared out the door and came back brushing his hands
off.

“Damn, that felt good,” he said. He slotted
another round of darts into his tranquilizer gun and stood over
Keegan’s body.

Jen knocked the barrel up. “Makena
Stalling-Kualani! Do not shoot that man again.”

Makena sneered. “Way to get attached to the
help, Guinevere.”

“That’s your trank gun. I can’t believe you
just shot Keegan with bird darts. Does he look like a
honeycreeper?”

Makena slanted her a big, shit-eating grin,
“Nah, he looks like a squirrel. Grab your things and let’s go. This
place is going to get crowded real soon.”

Jen bunched her hands in her jacket pockets
and stared at Keegan, her stomach churning out acid. She wanted to
help him. She didn’t want to help him. She didn’t know exactly what
she wanted to do. But whatever it was didn’t involve standing
around here, waiting for Keegan to wake up.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Somewhere safe. The Aina know where you
are.”

She followed her cousin out to where his Land
Rover was wedged in beside the rental. Makena tossed his dart gun
on the picnic table and held the door for her.

“In,” he said. “I don’t know how much time we
have.”

He was out on the highway before she thought
to ask him about Fallon and Corlis.

“If you mean his backup, they were arguing.
It was easy to get the drop on them.”

Jen sighed. “God, you just make friends
wherever you go, don’t you?”

“You have no idea,” said Makena.

She frowned, subconscious thoughts bubbling
up to the surface. “Makena? How do you know what the Aina are
doing?”

Her cousin pulled over to the side of the
road, and hesitated before turning to her. “Remember how I used to
run with Percy?”

“Percy gave you the info? He’s here?”

Makena slung an arm across the back of her
chair and brought his other hand out of his pocket. “No,” he said,
opening his hand. “Percy isn’t involved in this, but I wish to hell
he was.”

He held her in place while he pressed the pad
over her nose and mouth. Jen kicked viciously, her eyes going wider
as she realized she couldn’t breathe. There was something on the
sponge pad, something sweet and damp. She tried to hold her breath,
but he simply waited until her eyes rolled up in her head and
darkness closed in around her.