Kiss and Tell (16 page)

It was possible,
possible
, they weren't sure Jake was here. But one look at those sketches and there would be no doubt. Although she wasn't sure anyone would recognize the mellow-looking Jake Dolan in her drawings. The guy said something to the other two, indicating a page in the large sketchbook.

They answered in the same unintelligible language. The base didn't sound Latin, it sounded like...

Language was the least of Jake's problems, Marnie reminded herself, pulse thumping in her throat. There was no way to stop the confrontation about to take place.

Her head swiveled the other way. Jake, trapped inside the elevator, hadn't moved. "Good, you stay right where you are," she urged, dry-mouthed, waiting for the door to slide open, for the three men to ambush him. For the inevitable conclusion.

The phone in the cabin rang.
Her
phone.

Paralyzed, she stared at the screen. "Oh, hell, it's Dad."

One of the men picked up her cell phone from where she'd left it on the kitchen counter.

"No. No. No."

The phone continued ringing as the men conferred. The shrill
tring-tring-tring
sounded like fingernails on a blackboard as she waited. Marnie couldn't drag her gaze away to see how Jake was reacting to this latest development.

The ringing stopped abruptly.

The man handed the phone off to one of the others. They continued searching the cabin.

In the elevator Jake glared at the camera.

"Come down here and say that, darn it." She found herself standing a foot away from the sleek elevator door in Jake's high-tech basement. As if she could will the door to open, and him to step back inside the room where she waited, practically biting her nails.

Her attention shifted from one view to the other. One monitor showed the progress of the men systematically going through drawers and cabinets.

The other showed Jake, still as a statue.

Marnie shook her head. He'd never leave himself in a position to be trapped. Somewhere in that small box where he stood was a warning device.

"There'd
better
be," she muttered grimly, head turning to see what the baddies were up to now.

"Hey!" she yelled at the screen as one of them found her backpack and roughly went through the contents. "Don't you know it's rude to go through a lady's purse?"

He took something out of the side flap of the pack, called to one of his friends, and showed him the small brown plastic prescription pill bottle.

Her heart literally stopped, and she felt the blood drain from her head. "Oh, damn, don't take that."

After a brief dialogue the bottle disappeared into his pocket.

Marnie closed her eyes.

A thought occurred to her, and she groaned. Taking her pills was bad enough, but now the bad guys knew she was here, too.

Jake was going to kill her for not telling him about her need for medication.

"If I tell him. Which I won't," Marnie decided. It served no purpose. Jake had enough problems on his plate. One of them worrying about it was enough.

But oh, God. What if she had an attack?

She had to tell Jake.

She
had
to. There was no choice now.

Since Jake was immobile in his fancy silver box, and the men in black continued going through both the sketchbook and her backpack, Marnie went to retrieve the Oreos.

It was that or panic big time.

She was suddenly aware of each beat of her heart as she hadn't been in years. "Damn, damn, damn."

Pushing aside, for the moment, thoughts of impending doom, she took the half-empty package and perched on the very edge of the foot of Jake's bed.

She felt as she did when she watched a ball game. If she didn't root for the home team, they invariably lost. No matter how tired she was, she had to stay alert in case Jake needed her.

Time crawled. It seemed like forever, but it was only four cookies later that the men left the cabin. Marnie watched their progress from monitor to monitor until they disappeared into the trees.

"Okay, Jake, they've left. Be careful. And would you
please
speed this up? I'm having excessive heart palps here."

One cookie after they'd disappeared, Jake exited through the pantry.

No wonder the shelves appeared so shallow.

He moved silently through the shadows to the window. After checking outside, he went to the counter, where he quickly flipped the pages of her sketch pad. He glared directly into the camera and quirked a brow. Marnie gave him a little wave, knowing he couldn't see her.

He slipped inconspicuously across the room to check her backpack, as the bad guys had done. Then left both objects exactly where he'd found them. She sighed and bit into another cookie.

There wasn't much point having her backpack now, anyway.

She should have realized the moment the baddies had seen her stuff that Jake would leave everything as they had found it. Obviously he didn't want them to know he'd returned to his cabin.

She tamped down a shudder of panic.

She'd be fine without her medication.

Just fine.

There was no point getting herself into a knot when there was nothing she could do about it.

She allowed her gaze to slip from Jake to the reddish glow outside where Duchess still lay low, almost hidden by the foliage.

"Come on, big guy, she's waiting for the all-clear."

Jake's broad back came into view as he cracked the front door. He whistled softly. She imagined Duchess's ears swiveling at the sound. Marnie perked up. Yes!

He whistled again.

Head low, Duchess crawled cautiously from her hiding place, then became a swiftly moving red ghost as she shot like a bat out of hell across the clearing. The large dog took the fallen tree in front of the cabin in one long, low, graceful leap.

Jake opened the door a little wider. Duchess darted into the room. He pushed the door shut behind her.

Marnie punched the air with her fist. "Yes!"

Duchess was one happy dog. Her nails clicked ecstatically on the wood flooring as she danced around Jake, tongue lolling as she told him in doggie-speak just how grateful she was he'd saved her. It was frustrating to be able to hear them up there and not be able to join in.

Marnie had to grin. She wished she could see the expression on Jake's face at such lavish gratitude.

A movement from one of the other monitors caught her eye. Still smiling, she turned to get a good look at the red image.

The smile slipped. "No, no, no, no,
no!
"

An assassin stood silently, half hidden by the corner of the building. "How long have
you
been there, you turkey?"

Had he seen Duchess? Had he seen Jake open the door?

Her heart lodged in her throat and stayed there.

His movements illuminated by uncertain moonlight, Jake moved around inside the cabin. What in heaven's name was he doing now?

The man moved stealthily around outside the cabin. Marnie could observe every inch of the front of the small structure in one or the other of the monitors. She watched him pause three feet from a window and realized she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled shakily and leaned forward.

In the cabin, Jake lay his hand on Duchess's large head in a clear warning.

The assassin slid another foot, his back to the wall. His right hand lifted, holding what was obviously a weapon.

"Comeoncomeoncomeon."

Jake crouched, then stood, holding a hundred and five pounds of dog in his arms. With movements as slow and graceful as a choreographed ballet dancer's, Jake, carrying Duchess, moved to the back of the cabin.

He'd heard the guy
. "Right, Jake? You know he's out there?"

A board creaked beneath Jake's boots.

Marnie bit her lower lip and froze.

Outside, the man shifted but didn't take a step.

Inside the cabin the enormous bulk of Jake and dog slipped into the bathroom. The door glided closed behind them.

The bad guy took the two steps necessary to stare in the window. Marnie could see his back in one monitor, his head and chest in another. Like the others, he was mummy-wrapped, his features well concealed by his black garb.

Jake and Duchess were now trapped in the bathroom.

"Jeez, Jake–" Marnie shook her head "–what the heck are you doing?"

It almost seemed anticlimactic when he finally entered the small elevator. Clever Jake – there were entrances and exits galore.

Seconds later the door into the basement slid open. Duchess bounded out ahead of him. Marnie hopped off the bed and braced herself. "Hi, pretty girl," she crooned in relief to the dog, but her eyes were on the man.

The dog's nails clicked ecstatically on the floor as she raced toward her mistress.

Duchess leaped, and her front paws slammed into Marnie's chest. If Marnie hadn't been ready, she would have fallen. The dog slathered her face with kisses, whimpering and wagging her tail before abandoning her to do the same to her hero.

Eyes still locked with hers, Jake stopped the dog's antics with a hand gesture. Duchess turned and gave her mistress a happy grin, then darted off to sniff and explore.

Still maintaining eye contact, Marnie walked over and punched Jake in the solar plexus, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough for him to blink in surprise.

"You – you
jerk!
You scared me half to death! There were three,
three
, of those creepy guys right there in the cabin, just waiting to...to do
whatever
they planned on doing to you. Then, no sooner had they slunk off into the trees than that other one came – he was right outside. If he'd moved a little faster, he would have seen you. And if he'd seen you, he would have shot you. I saw the gun. And I was stuck down here, with no way to warn you."

"Take a breath," Jake said dryly.

She socked him again, this time leaving her balled fist on his chest. "You have to give me a way to help you. A way to warn you. Damn it, Jake, you could have been killed, or hurt, or something."

"So you punched me?"

Marnie flattened her palm on his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart through his jacket. "Yeah, so I punched you. You're lucky that's all I did. I hate feeling helpless. Don't make me go through that again."

"Or what?" Jake asked, stepping forward and crowding her against the foot of the bed.

Marnie gave him a blank look. "Oh. I'm supposed to have an answer to the 'or what' question, right?"

Jake's mouth quirked. "It makes it more effective, yes."

The last bit of adrenaline leaked out of her, Marnie let her head flop on his chest. He didn't exactly stiffen, but she felt him go dead still. What
was
it with this guy? How could he be so impervious?

"Just out of curiosity," Jake said over her head, "why the hell would you give a damn, one way or the other, if they got me?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms about his waist inside his damp jacket, and pressed her cheek against his chest.
Oh, Jake
. "I told you, I hate the sight of blood."

"You really do chatter when you're scared, don't you?"

She could have sworn she felt his mouth against her hair. She swallowed the thickness in her throat. "Even the Man of Steel was vulnerable if the bad guys had kryptonite."

"There's a silent alarm in the elevator," he said calmly. "I knew they were there."

He laid his cheek against her temple and locked his left arm around her waist. Her calves were flush against the bed. If she leaned back just little...

"If they'd got me, you would never have been able to exit the lair. Did you think of that?"

"No, frankly I didn't. I was worried about you. And I got whiplash while I was at it," she added, nose buried against the heavy beat at the base of his throat. He smelled of the outdoors, of pine and snow, and man. So vital, yet not indestructible.
Oh, God, what if...

"Is this how it works?" he asked roughly, his arms tightening around her. "The tear-filled eyes?" He kissed the outside corner of her eye.

"The sincerity in your voice?"

His large, callused hand stroked her throat. A shiver racked her frame. Ripples of desire started in her belly, then fanned out in concentric circles to engulf her body.

"Is this where I start to believe you could possibly give a damn?" he whispered, his mouth a breath away from hers.

"Is this where we take our clothes off and you show me how badly you want to make love to me?" He nibbled an agonizingly slow path to her lips. Marnie turned her head slightly, catching his mouth with hers.

For half a heartbeat he sank into the kiss. Then he jerked his head away sharply and looked down at her with a detached coldness that made blood pound in her ears.

"Is that how this works for you, Marnie?" he repeated, voice and eyes hard.

She had been listening to his tone. Not what he was saying. She'd been anticipating what came next. And the answer with him was, of course, nothing.
Lover talk
, she'd idiotically thought. She shook her head, more at herself than at Jake, and adroitly sidestepped him.

"Are you speaking to me?" she asked tiredly. "Or the woman who betrayed you and tried to cut your throat?" She held her arms out at her sides. "Take a good look, Jake. She and I aren't the same person. It'll be your loss if you keep comparing apples and oranges."

"It's all fruit to me."

"Oh, Jake." Her gaze skimmed his features. "Are you in or out again?"

His eyes met hers. "Why? Got plans?"

"I thought you might like something hot to drink if you were going out again."

Jake walked over to the monitors and sat down in the chair before the console. Duchess looked back and forth between them as if trying to decide which one to go to. Marnie indicated with a subtle hand gesture to go to Jake. He was the one in need of comfort right now. If he wouldn't take it from her, perhaps he'd take it from Duchess.

The dog ambled over, resting her large head against Jake's thigh as he manipulated the cameras. He absently fondled her ears, as he scanned each screen.