Kiss and Tell (36 page)

Marnie had come swimming out of it several times, groggy and disoriented, calling his name, then fallen back to sleep... He hadn't left her side for more than ten minutes in the past two days.

He doubted she'd remember any of the brief conversations with him or her family. The anesthetic and loss of blood had knocked her for a loop. She'd spent a restful night last night, and Jake had laid his head beside hers on the pillow, his body twisted in the chair, just so he could breathe with her.

Damn. Am I a fool, or what?

"Good. You're still here."

Jake's head shot up as Michael Wright walked into the room. "I thought you guys went back to the hotel."

"The others went ahead. I wanted a word with you, alone. Outside."

It wasn't a request.

Jake rose from the uncomfortable chair, ready for the inevitable confrontation. In a way he was looking forward to it – to hearing out loud and in the open everything he'd been saying to himself for two days now. He followed the other man out into the hallway.

Tall, dark, and surly, Michael was the oldest and least charming of the brothers. His military training gave him the muscle and short haircut. He had his sister's blue eyes, but there was nothing either soft or feminine about the man leading the way through a side door to a small outside patio.

"If you're going to beat the crap outta me," Jake told the other man mildly, "better take it off hospital grounds."

He wasn't wearing a jacket, and icy air bit through his flannel shirt. His eyes burned from lack of sleep, his side hurt like hell, and he wasn't going to defend his actions to Marnie's brother either physically or verbally.

Not that the physical release wouldn't be a godsend, the way he was feeling. But there wasn't a damn thing the other man could possibly say that Jake hadn't thought himself multiplied to infinity.

"The family discussed the pros and cons of that action. We decided against it. For now." Michael stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jacket and narrowed his eyes, hunching his shoulders against the biting cold.

"I've heard of you before, you know." He looked out at the mountains beyond the manicured gardens of the hospital. "T-FLAC has quite a few ex-SEALs." He turned to look at Jake. "None of the men believed you were the mole."

When Jake responded with a disbelieving snort, Michael said flatly, "You have quite the rep, Tin Man. Quite the rep. Fair. Honest. Honorable. A veritable Boy Scout. You're also known to be hell on wheels when crossed. Antisocial. And relentless in your pursuit of the bad guys."

Michael leaned his hip against the low wall separating the patio from the brown lawn of the late fall garden. "In fact, you're precisely the kind of guy I'd like at my back in a dark alley. You and I could've been friends, if not for one thing."

"And that is?"

"You might choose to fight fair, Tin Man, but you're still a warrior. One we don't want anywhere near our sister. Marnie doesn't need a fighting man.
Capisce?
"

Oh, yeah. Only too well.

"I did some checking. They think highly of you at T-FLAC," Michael said grudgingly. "You're a hero for taking down Dancer, and with him SPA."

Jake had spoken to his boss already and resolved their conflict. All was set right with the spy world. It was his personal world that was FUBAR. He looked at Michael Wright and raised a brow. "That's nice to know. And your point is?"

"My point," Michael said grimly, pacing the narrow confines of the cement patio like a tightly leashed tiger, "is that Marnie needs someone who can take care of her. Something you, apparently, are incapable of doing."

And there it was. In the open. Short and sweet, and wrapped up in a neat package.

Jake would rather have taken the physical hit.

"Don't beat around the bush, do you?" Jake raised a hand when Michael stepped forward, blood in his eye. "Don't waste your energy. We both know you're right." Jake paused, torn. "Before I go, I have to have a promise from you."

"I don't owe you any goddamn promises, pal," Michael snarled, eyes blazing. "That's my kid sister in there. A girl with a bad heart you damn near got killed with your wet work. A kid who, no thanks to you, just had a bullet taken out of her. A kid who could have died without any of her family ever seeing her again.

"You want a promise? How about if I promise not to kill you if you're out of our lives in five? How about
that
for a promise?"

Jake wasn't about to go into the semantics of Michael's calling Marnie a kid. She might be that to her brothers, but she sure as hell was all woman to him.

"Two promises," he told Michael. "One. Find Duchess up there and get her home. "Two—" Jake cleared his throat. "Two, stay with her until she's well enough to go home. Don't let her wake up alone in the hospital." He looked at the other man. "Please."

After a pause, Michael nodded.

Jake let out the breath he'd been holding and stuffed his fingertips in the front pocket of his new jeans. "I'll go in and say good-bye."

"She's sleeping."

"Then you won't mind staying out here until I'm gone, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer Jake walked inside, praying that she was indeed sleeping. He didn't think he could bear to see her eyes when he told her good-bye.

*

Three days later they reluctantly released her from the small mountain hospital. Marnie, taking the path of least resistance, went home to her father's house instead of her own small cottage a few miles away.

There she let the housekeeper tuck her into bed in her old room and lay staring at the ceiling for two days until she forced herself to snap out of her lethargy.

She showered, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast on Monday morning to find her entire family at the kitchen table. There was much scraping of chairs as they all rose at the same time to hover over her.

Her father, big, rugged, and still handsome, his dark hair touched with silver, came over to give her a gentle bear hug. He was dressed for the office in a three-piece Armani suit and the tie she'd given him last year for his birthday. Marnie returned the hug. He felt big, safe, and infinitely dear.

"Morning, Daddy. Muskrats."

Her father let her go but looked down at her with keen eyes that read more into her expression than she would have liked. "It's good to have you up and about," he told her calmly. "Sit down and have some breakfast."

Kyle slung a brotherly arm around her shoulders and led her to a chair. "How're you doing, kidlet?"

"Just peachy, thank you." Since her brother the doctor had poked and prodded her endlessly for the last couple of days, he should know.

"Just like old times." Marnie took her place at the table and opened her napkin on her lap. "Are you all quite recovered from my injuries yet?" she asked mildly, looking around the table at her father and her Four Musketeers.

She thought how dear they were, with their worried eyes and grim expressions. They all loved her so much. She couldn't imagine her life without them. They'd always just
been
there, through all her highs and lows, through surgeries, through ghastly boyfriends. They'd been her wall of love. Protecting her. Treasuring her.

And she thought of Jake.

Jake, who'd never had anyone to care about him. Jake, who'd had his friends taken from him – twice in the case of Lurch. Jake, whose first love had betrayed him. Jake, alone. Isolated.

Tears sprang to her eyes.
Darn it.
She was still weak and weepy. She missed Jake so much it was a far worse physical ache than her injury.

"A bullet wound is nothing to take lightly, honey. Especially for a girl in your condition," her father told her, beckoning Hester, their housekeeper, to serve Marnie's breakfast. It was an unnecessary order, of course. The housekeeper had worked for them for almost twenty years and had X-ray ears and was already dishing up Marnie's food.

"Dad, I'm
twenty-seven
years old. Not a
girl
anymore. Second, I'm not in a
condition
. I'm as healthy as a horse. Yes, Daddy, I
am
." She prodded Kyle, sitting beside her. "Tell everyone, including yourself, Doc, how healthy I am."

"She's good," Kyle agreed.

Marnie looked around at the five large men taking up most of the room at the table. They might hear it. They might even agree with Kyle. That didn't mean they were going to treat her any differently than they had all her life. She sighed.

"Don't you have cows to punch?" she asked Derek, who lounged back in his chair cradling a cup of coffee between his long fingers. No one seeing her brother away from his ranch would guess he was a cattleman. He wore two-thousand-dollar suits and cashmere sweaters. Not a dark hair out of place. Yet she'd seen him soaked with sweat, a bandanna tied around his head as he castrated bulls, standing knee deep in cow poop.

"Things are under control." He grinned. "Don't sweat it."

"And you?" she demanded of his twin, Kane, the world-renowned photographer. They were identical in looks and opposites in personalities. While Derek was charm personified, Kane was quiet, kept to himself, and was almost antisocial. "Don't you have shutters to bug or something?"

Marnie glanced up and smiled as the housekeeper set a plate of eggs and bacon before her. "Thanks, Hessie." She looked back at Kane. "Well?"

"I'm between assignments right now."

"You, too?" she asked Michael, who sat brooding beside their father and searching her face for God only knows what.

"Yeah," he said, reaching for the coffeepot to fill her mug. He ladled two spoons of sugar into the brew, then added milk and picked up a spoon. "Between assignments."

Marnie watched him stir her coffee. "Have you by any chance noticed what you're doing, Michael Dominic Wright?"

"What?"

"You just fixed my coffee as if I were a handicapped two-year-old."

"You're hurt."

"Yeah, Michael. I was
shot
. You've been shot before. Being alive beats the alternative, doesn't it? Nevertheless, I'm quite capable of putting milk and sugar in my own coffee." Marnie sighed as she looked around the table. "Look, you guys, I appreciate your going up there to help us. Thank you for worrying about me. But I'm fine now. Really, I am. Not talking about it isn't going to make what happened up there go away."

Her father leaned over and took her hand. "We tried talking you out of going up there alone, honey. We're not blaming you, but look what happened."

"Dad, guys, I hate to shock you all, but I wouldn't have missed going up there, and experiencing what I did, for all the tea in China. The getting shot part wasn't so hot," she added wryly, adding more milk to her mug. "But everything else I experienced was worth it."

"I don't want to hear the details," Michael snarled, getting up and going to the toaster. Half a second after he put his hand over the slots the toast popped up. Marnie had no idea how he always knew something was going to happen before it happened, even down to something as simple as the toast popping. He tossed the hot toast onto a plate and strode back to the table.

"Trust me, I wasn't going to give you details. Look, I went up to Grammy's cottage to think some things through. And despite all the running around and the dramatics, I've resolved some of those things in my mind." She glanced at their faces.

Behind Kane's shoulder the housekeeper gave her an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up.

"Dad, as much as I love you, I quit. I don't want to be a programmer. I don't want to work in an office behind a computer all day."

"Sure, honey. What about if I move you to—"

"No, Dad. I
quit
quit."

"You'll feel better after you get back into your routine and—"

"No, I won't. I'm going to try my hand at illustrating full time. After breakfast I'm going back home. I'm going to convert my second bedroom into a studio. Then I'm going to put together a portfolio of my work and make some calls, and see what happens."

"Great idea, kidlet," Kane told her. "I always said you have terrific talent. Why don't I drive you back and see what we can do about getting that studio set up?"

"I'll take the ride, thanks. But the studio I'll take care of myself."

There was a chorus of protests.

Marnie raised her hand. "
Stop
. You guys have to let me sink or swim on my own. I know you all love me, but you're smothering me. I have to take a big part of that blame. I've made excuses all my life and taken the path of least resistance. One, because I love you all and I didn't want to hurt any feelings. And two, because it was so much easier not to swim against the tide. But that's
got
to stop. I'm a big girl. I have to do things on my own. Please help me by not helping me so much. Okay?"

Without waiting for their answer – after all, it wouldn't make any difference at this point – Marnie said briskly, "Now, which of you got rid of the man I love? The man who could very well be the father of my baby?"

Chapter Eighteen

N
ine-thirty-nine La Mesa Terrace was at the end of a cul-de-sac in a quiet residential neighborhood. At three-thirty in the afternoon a few kids, bundled to their noses in heavy outerwear, jostled each other on the sidewalk on their way home from school as Jake drove slowly down the street.

It was typical northern California winter weather. Bright and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky. Not as cold as the mountains, but fresh and crisp as a green apple. He'd left the window down and let the wind blow on his face for the five-hour trip down from the mountains.

He'd realized a little too late that she'd probably be at work. Or recuperating at her father's house. Or in a Paris art school studying some young stud's form.

"Glad to be home, girl?" he asked Duchess, who sat regally in the front seat, ears perked, tongue lolling. She'd been good company. No complaints, and a good listener.

Even at under five miles per, he was at the end of the street in about a minute and a half. Jake's heart had raced here in double time. He eased Marnie's little red Beamer alongside the curb.