Over the Line (30 page)

"Somewhere no one will ever think to look for you," Jase said, and hoped to hell he wasn't making another colossal mistake.

"Oh." She sliced him a skeptical look. "So we're going off planet."

He grinned. "Damn close."

Same night, Highway 150 near Cedar Rapids

So this is Iowa,
Janey thought as she sat in the front seat of a white pickup truck, her legs straddling the gearshift as a July heat and humidity that rivaled any summer day in Mississippi filled the cab through the open windows.

Baby Blue had been right. It was damn close to another world. Iowa—at least this part of it—was green, lush, and littered with rolling hills and beautiful patches of forests.

"You were expecting ...?" Baby Blue had asked after she'd remarked a number of times how beautiful it all was.

"Corn. Field after field of corn."

"We've got that, too." He resumed his study of the terrain as it flew past the window.

He sat beside her in the passenger seat, his right arm resting on the door above the open window, his left arm stretched across the back of the seat behind her. Bruce Wilson, the man Baby Blue had introduced as his father but who looked young enough to be his older brother—a very hot older brother—was behind the wheel.

And Janey was still in a state of fascination tinged with surprise. Baby Blue had brought her to his home. They'd landed at the Cedar Rapids airport about an hour ago— eight o'clock Iowa time—and she still hadn't quite wrapped her mind around that fact.

He'd been right about one thing, though. No one would ever think to look for her here. Especially since they'd made it look like a fuel stop and John had flown the Gulfstream on to Atlanta.

"Sorry about the air-conditioning," Bruce said with a shake of his head. "Broke last week and haven't had a chance to get it fixed yet. But then I hadn't figured on having to use the truck for anything but farm business. Mom was still at work with the car when Jase called or I'd have brought it. Man, is she going to be surprised when I pull in the drive with you."

Lots of surprises going around today,
Janey thought, giving Bruce a smile. "Don't worry about it. I love the heat. And that scent. What is that?" she asked as they passed a huge open field.

"Hay," Jase supplied. "Just cut."

"Sweet," Janey said. "And fresh."

"Nothing like it." Bruce turned off the four-lane they'd been traveling since leaving the airport. "Cut mine yesterday, too," he added, looking across Janey to his son.

"Guess I know what that means," Baby Blue said.

"What? What does it mean?" she asked when it was obvious neither father nor son felt the need to elaborate.

"I take it you're not a country girl." Bruce shot her a smile. "It means that if it doesn't rain, I'll be putting up hay in the next day or two and since Jase is home—if he's got the time, that is—he'll be getting a good workout."

"I've got the time, Dad," Baby Blue said soberly, and paid undue attention to the fields passing by outside the window.

Janey looked from Bruce to Baby Blue, who was staring straight ahead. The father-son resemblance was stunning. So was the adoration in Bruce's eyes when he'd first spotted Baby Blue at the airport terminal.

Yeah, she could see that there was love and affection all around ... and yet she sensed something else underlying it all. A cautious tension, maybe. She didn't know. Something was a little off. Both men seemed to carefully guard their words to each other.

"So where you from, Janey? And how'd you meet up with this son of mine?"

"Janey's from Mississippi," Baby Blue said before she could wonder how she was supposed to respond to Bruce's questions. "We work together."

"Oh," Bruce said thoughtfully. "You a... a wrestler, too?" His look clearly said he hoped the hell she wasn't.

"No. I'm not a wrestler." Janey grinned. "Although I do a little kickboxing."

She remembered the last time she'd engaged in kick-boxing. A quick glance at Baby Blue told her he was remembering it, too.

Good,
she thought.
You remember it well, farm boy. I hope you never forget it.
She knew she never would.

"Not doing that anymore, Dad," Baby Blue said, drawing her away from the memory. "I'm working security now. Out of West Palm Beach. For my old squad leader, Nolan Garrett? You've heard me talk about him."

"Yeah. No-man, right? Well. Your mom will be glad to hear that. About not wrestling anymore, I mean. She was always afraid her baby would get his face messed up," he added with a grin as an aside to Janey as he turned off the blacktop road onto crushed gravel.

"Wouldn't want that to happen." She smiled with Bruce when Baby Blue rolled his eyes.

"So... security, huh? What all's that entail?"

Baby Blue drummed his fingers on the window frame. "We design security setups for businesses, test existing security for others, and write recommendations. Sometimes we provide personal security."

"Personal security? You mean like... bank guards and night watchmen and such?"

"That, too," he said, and left it at that.

Okay. So she knew the ground rules now. His parents weren't supposed to know who she was and what Baby Blue provided for her. She understood. At least she thought she did.

"So... business brings you to Iowa?" Bruce continued his little fishing expedition when his son didn't elaborate.

"Nope. No business. We just came off a case," Baby Blue lied. "They gave us some downtime. Janey was kind of at loose ends since her parents are vacationing in Europe, so I offered to bring her home with me."

He told the lie so well that she wondered if he'd been working on it for a while or if lying just came easy to him.

"You must have been hard up for something to do." Bruce shot her another of those smiles that so made Janey think of his son.

"I'm easily entertained," she said, finding it just as easy to respond to Bruce Wilson's sense of humor.

"Seems she's never been cow tipping and wanted to give it a try," Baby Blue added with a glance her way.

Bruce laughed. "Well, we can sure make that happen for you, sweetheart."

"Okay. I'll bite." Janey didn't like the evil looks passing between the two of them. "What's cow tipping?"

"Something you need to experience firsthand," Baby Blue said. "You'll just have to wait and see."

"All right. I recognize a setup when I hear one. So if this is some sort of initiation for the farm-impaired, I'll just skip it, thanks, anyway."

Bruce chuckled. "I like her," he said as they approached a lane and turned in. "So much, in fact, that I think you ought to take her snipe hunting, too."

"Maybe," Baby Blue said. "We'll have to see how she handles country life."

"No offense, Mr. Wilson, but you and your son are full of it."

Bruce slapped the wheel and laughed. "Bruce. Just call me Bruce. And you're going to do just fine here, Janey. Just fine."

He might be right,
she realized as they drove up to a huge white two-story clapboard house and she felt the oddest sense of coming home. The first gentle shades of twilight were softening the horizon in hues of apricot and gold as she took in a wide set of steps that led up to a wraparound porch. Huge Boston ferns hung from the overhang. A pair of white wicker rockers flanked a low table on one side of the front door; on the other side a swing made for two was suspended from the porch ceiling by chains.

Flowers and shrubs bordered the lattice trim that surrounded the bottom of the porch. Brilliant yellow roses climbed a trellis near a corner porch post where an old border collie roused himself from his nap and, tail wagging lazily, tottered toward them.

"Welcome to Mayberry," Baby Blue said as he got out of the truck and held a hand out to help her down.

No kidding,
she thought as she stepped down to the ground. "Just so you know ... if Aunt Bea comes out of that door wiping her hands on her apron, you've got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy."

Why couldn't she be the spoiled brat of a diva she was supposed to be?
Jase thought darkly as he sat at his mother's dinner table across from Janey watching her charm both of his parents.

Why did she have to be sweet and hardworking and humble—with a backbone as hard as steel and a mouth that never failed to make him laugh, or get him hot.

"Jase?"

He looked from Janey to his mother, who was frowning at him. "Sorry, Mom. What?"

"I was telling Janey that you two need to go to the Burke Hoolie tomorrow night."

"Hoolie?" Janey smiled at his mom, who had welcomed Janey like family.

"It's an Irishman's excuse to drink, get drunk, and drink some more," Jase said, wishing his mother hadn't mentioned anything about a party—especially when he saw Janey's eyes light up.

"Don't pay any attention to him, dear. A hoolie is a party—an Irish party. Lots of food, dancing, and fun."

"And lots of drunks," Jase reminded the table at large.

"Spoken like a man who knows from experience," Janey said, grinning at him.

"Never knew you to be one to turn down a chance to drink, son," Bruce said, and suddenly the room grew quiet. Deathly so.

Jase felt his face burn red, felt a shame and an anger he didn't want to own boil up inside him.

He stood abruptly. "Great dinner, Mom. I'm going to get a little air. Excuse me."

And he walked outside. It was either that or make an ass out of himself in front of Janey, piss off his father, and make his mother cry.

It always came to this.

It fucking always came to this.

Chapter 17

Head buried under the hood of Jeremy's Mustang, Jase tinkered with the carburetor, lost somewhere between brooding over his relationship with his father and concern over the phone call he'd just received from Dallas Garrett.

Jase didn't know how long he'd been out here. An hour. Maybe two. Long enough for Dallas to tell him that (a) Edwin Grimm's hotshot lawyer had gotten him sprung from jail before they'd been able to get a man in place to tail him, and (b) another woman on the list from Alice Perkins's lockbox had recently met with an untimely death, and (c) Grimm had never been picky about the kind of bird hearts he'd used to terrorize Janey. Chicken, pigeon, duck. Nothing with feathers had been safe. It didn't necessarily toss Jase's copycat theory, but it didn't add any particular weight to it, either.

All in all, it had been just a peach of a day. Max's call just before dinner—another warning that reeked of desperation to never let Janey out of his sight—was small potatoes, though, compared to Dallas's news.

He didn't turn around when he heard the machine shed door open and saw the beam of a flashlight cut a path along the rafters.

"Want some company?"

Janey. Better her than the old man, he guessed, and got mad all over. At himself.

A line from an old Jack Nicholson/Tom Cruise movie came to mind:
"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"

Guess he'd proven that again tonight.

"Suit yourself." He went back to tinkering with the carburetor while she bent to pet Tucker, the collie, who had followed him out to the shed.