Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4) (23 page)

“Trying to shoot down Exxum’s extracurricular business. We dismantled some of his infrastructure, but he got away. Why did you stop writing to me, pet?” he insisted after a long pause.

“You came back.”

“I didn’t spank you.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he felt her smile. “I’m sure you’ll try.”

The hectic day had taken its toll, and in spite of everything, she soon began to relax and sound drowsy. “What do you think is Maldonado doing in Boston with Exxum?”

He had no clue, but if Maldonado had known about Elle, they would have never made it out of there as easily as they did.

“You called her ‘sweetheart,’” Elle whispered.

“What?”

“Marissa. The woman at the fund-raiser. The one you so shamelessly flirted with. You called her ‘sweetheart.’”

He circled her in his arms. “‘Sweetheart’ means nothing to me. It’s not personal. I call all of them ‘sweetheart’. Much easier than remembering the names of insubstantial and inconsequential women Alex flirts with.”

Elle snorted. “Because ‘pet’ is so personal.”

“Elle Cooper, twenty-eight. Loves chocolate and cheesy music. Smart-ass. Works hard, plays harder. Makes me laugh and hard and angry, all at the same time. Elle fucking Cooper, my pet, the bane of my existence.” He took her chin and forced her to look at him. “Pet is very personal. Pet means a hell of a lot to me.”

“Watch it. You keep talking like this, I’m going to get attached to you and start believing I do mean something to you.”

He didn’t answer. What could he say? That she meant the world to him and that regardless of that he was going to leave her?

“Go to sleep,” he finally said releasing her chin and hugging her tighter.

“I can’t stay here forever. You know that, right?”

No shit. She would implode there, in matter of days. Sooner probably. Elle wasn’t the yoga, meditation type. She needed action. He had nothing against keeping her naked in his bed, but they were bound to get hungry and he had shit to attend to.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come up with a plan.”

She harrumphed, but she was obviously too tired to fight him so she kept quiet. Better. Now wasn’t the moment to tell her he was going to stash her some place safe while he went after Maldonado.

That they had been allowed to leave the fund-raiser was proof that he didn’t know yet, but playing at pretending she could continue with her life was over. And so was his cover as Alex Ayala. Although God knew no law enforcement person in his right mind would have let a witness walk around freely, much less take her to the wolf’s den.

Be as it might, Jack was running out of time. He needed to act fast.

“Do you have cleaning supplies here?” she asked, half asleep.

Her question caught him off guard. “Just the basics. Why?”

“Come up with that plan of yours. Fast.”

“What?” he asked, not understanding, but she was already under.

Chapter Fifteen

Jack watched as Elle feverishly swept the porch. She’d started imploding faster than he’d guessed. They’d been at the cabin for a day and she’d already dusted the whole place, three times, cleaned the windows, with vinegar because apparently he didn’t have anything effective enough, and dismantled the kitchen to scrub every corner and put it back together. She was running in circles, searching for things to do and ways to keep busy.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned on the doorjamb. Man, she was worse off than he’d thought. He wouldn’t be surprised if she started pulling weeds out of the forest. With her determination, she could make a real dent in deforesting the whole state in no time at all.

She must have been reading his mind, or he was broadcasting his thoughts, because she lifted her gaze to him and opened her cute little mouth, ready to give him attitude, when her eyes strayed to the right. She pointed toward the shed with the broomstick.

“Do we have chopped wood?” He nodded but he could have saved himself the effort because she ignored him. “I’ll chop some.”

“Be my guest.”

That would exhaust her faster than sweeping the floors, he hoped.

His phone beeped. A message from Mullen. Damn, the bodyguard and the niece had been found dead. Execution style. Jack had been counting on them for Mullen to build the case. And apparently so had Mullen, because the device started shaking with an incoming call from the agent. Now that that last hope was gone, he was going to turn his attention to Elle.

Pick up, asshole. We need to talk about how to proceed. Bring her in. We need her.

He closed the text. Fuck it. He was not going to let Mullen use Elle.

The angry tone of the phone started again, but he disconnected it. Elle scrutinized him with fathomless black eyes. “Mullen?”

He nodded grudgingly. “He wants me to bring you in.”

“And?”

“Not going to happen.”

“Do you think we could share that phone?” she asked, picking up a log. “I need access to the Internet to check my e-mails. I did have a life before you forcibly nominated me for next season of
Survivor
.”

“Your life can wait.”

“What about Rosita’s? I don’t want Tate—”

“Rosita’s is fine. Tim and Paige have everything under control. James has Tate under control.”

Elle snorted. “Momzilla under control?”

“You underestimate James and his persuasive powers.”

She pondered for a sec. “You might be right.” Then she smiled sweetly at him and batted her eyelashes. “By the way, sweetie…”

“You’re so beautiful. Even while plotting.”

She even managed to look affronted. So cute. “What do you mean ‘plotting’?”

“It’s in those gorgeously manipulative eyes, pet.”

“In two days there’s this event—”

“No.”

“It’s
El Baile de los Diablos
. They perform—”

“Absolutely not,” he interrupted her again. He remembered seeing that pic on the wall of fame at Rosita’s, the one of her and Jonah dressed like devils, laughing, holding lit pitchforks at some kind of street event.

“But—”

“Fuck no.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line, chagrined. “You understand I have an ax and that this high-handed behavior of yours can get you in trouble?”

“I’ll risk it. Besides, if you chop me into pieces, you’ll never find your way out of here.”

She struck the wood, splinters flying all over. “Unless I call for help.”

“And how would you explain my untimely demise? Twenty-five to life is a long time.”

Her snort sounded insultingly derisive. “I would go free, believe me. Anyone that knows you would agree with me that offing you was self-defense.”

She swung the ax again and more pieces of wood went flying.

No doubt this was going to tire her fast. The question was, was that going to happen before or after losing a couple of fingers?

“We have enough wood,” he said after several near misses, and grabbing her by the hand, dragged her inside. “Let’s make dinner.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not hungry.”

“I’ll cook. No MREs.”

That seemed to spike her interest. “What exactly will you cook? The kitchen is spotless now. You going to hunt? Because you need to skin the poor devil before bringing it into the cabin. Not that I will eat that. I prefer my meat cut and in vacuum-sealed trays. The fewer similarities with the gruesome reality, the better.”

“The kitchen was already spotless, pet. And no hunting.” The way she was moving around like a headless chicken, catching anything would be impossible. “Spaghetti carbonara. Sterile enough? It’s Italian traditional cuisine.”

“It’s not traditional Italian,” she grumbled, following him to the kitchen. “It was invented during the Second World War. American soldiers stationed in Italy had bacon and eggs as rations, so the Italians came up with that recipe to use those ingredients.”

“Your Italian teacher told you that?” At least he was teaching her more than swear words.

She shook her head. “My brother did.”

At that, her face changed and went somber. “Tell me about your brother.”

“Great guy. Died. End of story.” He would have wanted to poke, but she did a total one-eighty. “Not sure how this mercenary shit works, but shouldn’t you get paid enough to have a kick-ass cabin with all the amenities in the world?”

“Don’t need them. This place is a getaway. Being connected is not getting away.”

“Neither is having to relieve yourself in the forest,” she countered and pointed at the supplies he was getting from the pantry. “Or having to put dehydrated egg yolks in the carbonara. I don’t dare to speculate what you’re using for bacon.”

“It’s edible and tastes like bacon. Good enough?” She didn’t look too convinced. “Besides, it provides all necessary nutrients.”

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only two necessary nutrients: chocolate and gelato.”

Man, she was worse than a kid.

“Oh, and pasta,” she added.

“Well, two out of three isn’t bad.”

“Two out of three?” she asked, her eyes already shiny with excitement. “Is there sugar here somewhere?”

“Those are empty calories. Useless.” He rummaged in his bag and put several protein bars on the table. “These are better and they taste like chocolate.”

She opened one, took a whiff, and barked out a laugh. “Sure. In what universe, Borg?”

“Go a couple of days without sugar. This will taste fantastic.”

She wrinkled her cute little nose and didn’t even dignify that with an answer.

He worked fast and soon dinner was ready. Elle stayed with him during the whole process, chattering nonstop about Rosita’s and her job at the airport. He loved to hear her talk. He would love it even better if she would tell him why she couldn’t stay still. Why she couldn’t stand the silence. Why she couldn’t stop talking.

“Let’s go to the sofa. I’m sick and tired of the hard benches,” Elle said.

The sofa table was too small and low to eat from, so she tucked her legs under her ass and, holding the plate with one hand, dug in right away. Jack sat beside her and, putting his boots over the raggedy table, followed suit.

“Not bad,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“Told you. Ronnie’s favorite food while growing up.”

“You cooked for her?”

He nodded. “We lived off pasta for years. We prepared
spaghetti a la putanesca
all the time.”

“So you like slut spaghetti.”

Jack laughed. “Slut spaghetti? Some Italian you speak.”

“Sounds much better than
pasta a la putanesca
,” she retorted, wrinkling her nose.

True. “How come you speak Italian?”

“How come you speak Spanish?” she said in answer.

They stared at each other, defiantly, neither one backing down.

“Yeah, I figured as much,” she said finally, her smile resigned. But with a sigh she added, “Jonah was the only one in our family who spoke Italian. With him gone I took it upon myself to make sure that part of our heritage wouldn’t get lost.”

Her offering tugged at his heart. “He would be damn impressed by the list of insults you know.”

“Oh, he was worse, I can assure you,” she said with a giggle.

She’d shared, without demanding anything in return, so he gave in. “We lived in the projects. Up until I started school, I thought Spanish was the official language of this country. All our neighbors spoke it and my mother wasn’t around much. Whenever she was, talking wasn’t one of her priorities. There was this old lady next door, Celia. I learned to talk thanks to her, actually.” And to cook and read and write. Anything worth knowing he’d learned from Celia.

“Where’s your mother now? Is she…?”

“Dead? Nope. The bitch found Jesus and now goes around speaking in bumper stickers and pretending to be holier-than-thou, turning up her nose at everyone and claiming that God has forgiven her so no one has the right to judge her. Apparently she wasn’t at fault because she was sick, and she has nothing to feel ashamed of or apologize for. All her debts are settled.”

“Wow. Talk about living in an alternate reality.”

Jack let out a dry chuckle. “Tell me about it. She even twisted the Twelve Steps into her liking. Transforming them into Twelve Steps on how to let you off the hook after ruining everybody’s life. All she had to do was repent and voilà, the slate is wiped clean and she never broke a plate.” Let alone tortured her kids. That her kids didn’t want to have anything to do with her was chalked up to Jack and Ronnie’s lack of empathy and Christian heart, not to the fact that she’d come back guns blazing, patronizing them, and had dared to question Jack’s way of raising Ronnie, who had gone ballistic.

“Do you have any contact?”

Jack shook his head. “Last reunion didn’t go too smooth. I would never let her close to the people I loved, but I don’t hold a grudge. Ronnie does. And she’s very vocal about it.”

“What about begging for forgiveness instead of demanding it?”
Ronnie had asked their mother.

“The Almighty has already forgiven me.”

Ronnie had snorted.
“The Almighty was not the one beaten up and burned and abused.”
Then she’d pointed at Jack.
“He’s the one you need to beg on your knees for his pardon.”

It had gone south pretty fast from there. Their mother had claimed her conscience was clear for whenever God called her by his side or some preachy shit like that. At that point Jack hadn’t been paying too much attention, busy as he’d been keeping Ronnie away from her.

“What makes you think you’ll end up by God’s side?”
Ronnie had sneered as Jack had dragged her away.
“I see you in a much hotter place. Don’t forget the bikini.”

Elle seemed to notice he didn’t want to talk about that and spared him. “What does your sister think of your mercenary career?”

“What do you think? She runs a biker bar when I specifically ordered her to open a bakery. When she got her driver’s license, I bought her a cute, small, sensible car. When I came back from an assignment, she had tricked it out, and nowadays she needs a ladder to get in. In her spare time she drives monster trucks and likes to compete in Monster Jam.”

“What do I think?” she repeated, studying him. “I think she doesn’t know.”