Run Among Thorns (21 page)

It was Alan cooking, dressed casually in cargoes and a sandy-coloured long-sleeved T-shirt, with a tea towel tied round his waist. Beside the cooker on the counter was a stoneware dish with sausages, mushrooms, and tomatoes all jumbled together. On the stove was a pan of bacon and fried bread and a saucepan of scrambling eggs he was stirring vigorously. She began to drool.

He turned as she entered, and gave her a wary smile. “I thought I’d do a breakfast that would just keep warm, so you both could dig in as you got up.” He turned back to the gas stove. “McAllister not up?”

“I don’t know. I expect the smell of bacon hasn’t risen that far yet.”

She nicked a mushroom out of the dish, and dodged the flailing eggy spoon. He was still carefully concentrating on the eggs. “Um, Jenny?”

“Mmmm?”

“Is there really nothing more you can tell me about it?”

“Didn’t he tell you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think he probably gave you the bare facts. And left out all the feelings.” He glanced at her then, and she cursed her use of that word.

“Why is he protecting you?”

Good question
. Her eyes flicked to his face. Kier hadn’t even told him that? She chose her words carefully. “Because he was there. Because he defied them to help me. Because he was offering me safety, and I needed it. Because.”

“Is there something else between you two?”

“Oh, no!” she said quickly. Too quickly, because he looked at her again in that way he had when he was trying to read the truth off the back of her skull. “We’re not … suited,” she added.

He lifted the eggs off the heat and started to spoon them into another dish. Then he flicked the bacon and fried bread out of the pan and turned off the flame. “You bring the eggs,” he said, as he picked up the stoneware dish with the corner of his tea towel and went out to the dining room.

He’d already laid the table, and there were warmed plates on sea-grass mats. She’d always like the warm, rich rusty red of the walls in here, and the dark wood of the table and sideboard. Pale curtains were held back with curving black tiebacks, and let in a stream of morning light.

She lifted one wavy-backed chair carefully over the parquet floor and sat down. In silence, Alan dished out what he knew she liked, and she sort of liked the attention, the sense of being home. Which, since the death of their parents, Alan’s place had been, more or less.

The bacon tasted as good as it had smelled, just how she liked it, salty and succulent with crispy edges. For a few minutes she concentrated just on eating.

When Alan had cleaned his plate in short order, he looked up at her again. “How did you get back into the country?”

Ignoring her mother’s voice in her head telling her to sit up straight, she rested her elbows on the table and sighed.
McAllister drugged me and kidnapped me
. She thought about what Alan’s reaction might be to that, and to some of the other things that had happened to her, some of the things Kier had done.

Violent conflict wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

“Alan, I’m sorry, I really am, but I’m not ready to talk about all this yet. I will. I promise you that. I know I owe you an explanation, but not now, okay?”

He frowned down at his plate, pushing his fork over the ivy pattern. She didn’t blame him for not liking it; she’d be climbing the walls if their positions were reversed.

He looked up. “Do I have to do the big brother thing?”

“The ‘I’m older and bigger and I know best, and incidentally if you need anyone beaten up, that’s my job’ thing? No.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No, but that’s never stopped me before.”

“Don’t trust him, Jen.”

“That’s nice advice.” The cool voice from the doorway made Alan look past her with narrowed eyes, but she just closed her eyes and dropped her head between her hands.

Alan stood as McAllister came in, and drew a chair out for him before sitting back down. “But not unreasonable under the circumstances, I would say.”

“I would dispute that,” Kier said calmly, hooking the dish of food with his fork.

“I’m sure you would. However, I would maintain—”

Jenny slammed her hand down on the polished mahogany table. The cutlery jumped. So did the men.

“That’s enough!” she snapped. “If you can’t stop squaring off like this, I’m leaving.”

They both half-rose.

“Great.”

“Fine.”

“Alone!”

Alan was scowling, but she could have killed Kier for the gleam of wicked amusement in his eyes. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was still mussed, and God, he looked sexy.

She gritted her teeth together to stop that expression before it formed on her face, and tried to relax in her chair. She took a deep breath.

“Kier?”

He looked up at her from his piled-high plate, chewing a mouthful of bacon with strong, slow movements of his jaw that stretched the line of his throat. He licked a scrap of bacon out of the corner of his mouth. He swallowed, and so did she.

“Will we be here all day?” she asked.

“No. Maybe most of it.”

She turned back to her brother. “What are your plans today?”

“Whatever you need.”

“It would be best,” drawled Kier, “if you resumed your normal routine.”

Alan’s lips thinned, but he didn’t retaliate, and Jenny laid a hand on his in gratitude. “He’s probably right—”

“Probably!” Kier raised his brows in mock outrage.

“For God’s sake!” she snapped, and he ducked back to his breakfast, only a twitch of his lips betraying him. She squeezed Alan’s hand, and released it. “Go to work. We’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

“I’ll try to get home around lunchtime.”

“It’s okay—whenever you can.”

“Jen, are you sure?”

“Yes, Alan!” She took a breath. “Yes, I’m sure. Please go.”

“Okay.” Alan rose to leave, and came round to kiss her on the cheek.

Before he left the room, Kier’s voice rose to stop him. “Waring?”

With one hand on the doorjamb, Alan half-turned, brows raised.

“Don’t mention to anyone you have seen or heard from your sister. If anyone mentions the situation to you, feign shock.”

“That won’t be hard.”

“Don’t goof off, Waring. It’s important.”

Alan deliberately transferred his gaze to Jenny. “You can trust me, sis.” Was it her imagination, or did he put a stress on the personal pronoun there?

Then he was gone.

Silence reigned in the dining room, broken occasionally by the click and squeak of cutlery on crockery. Kier was making short work of a huge breakfast, and, insofar as she was any judge, he seemed to be enjoying it. He put away the last forkful, and glanced across at her.

“Coffee?”

“Instant.” She could match Mr. Monosyllabic.

“Fine.”

She got up with quiet dignity and went through to the kitchen to boil a kettle.

Jenny was in a huff again. Apparently it went beyond his role to ask for coffee in the morning. With a sigh, Kier gathered up the dirty dishes and carried them through to the kitchen.

Jenny was just stirring his coffee, and set it down on the counter near him with a sharp click that made some of the dark liquid slop angrily over the rim of the mug. It had a picture of Homer Simpson on it, saying something about donuts.

She ran a sinkful of water, squirted dish soap into it, and began to wash the breakfast dishes.

He unbuttoned the cuffs of his light denim shirt and deftly rolled the sleeves up past his elbows. Snagging a dish towel, he propped his hip against the counter beside her and began to dry what she washed.

He studied her as she worked. She seemed a little jumpy this morning, but the close-mouthed, shadowed-eyed woman of the night before seemed to have gone. Good.

She’d let her hair down, and as she worked in vigorous movements it swung back and forth across her shoulder. He caught the suspicion of blue shadows under her eyes and a tightness to the lips that had haunted last night’s dreams, but there was a warm glow of colour, too, rosy on her cheek, and he knew she was aware of him watching her.

He wasn’t the only one doing the studying, Kier realised eventually. Working busily, seemingly focused on her menial task, she was nevertheless stealing glances at him undercover, half-hidden by the sweep of her curls. He felt the flicker of her eyes as he reached across to pick up another dripping plate. Her gaze skipped out, danced along his arm, and skipped back again. She never said a word.

They reached for the draining board at the same time, and she snatched her hand back, losing her grip on the plate she held. He caught it, and watched her blush, but still she said nothing.

Kier continued to watch her in silence, fascinated, if he was honest, with the smooth line of her shoulders under that dark green jumper. It was the way she leaned her hips against the counter in front of her and arched her spine away from it, the way her breasts swayed in counterpoint to the movement of her hair, that had his mouth suddenly going dry as dust. She wasn’t wearing a bra, he realised, and the thought made him suddenly obsessed with touching her, taking hold of her, turning her to him, lifting up that baggy top, and allowing his hands the license they craved.

Suddenly he realised they were alone.

He nearly laughed aloud at the thought—they’d been alone from the start. They’d been alone in the longhouse, at her house, in the car.

In the car. He remembered kissing her in the car, remembered the taste of her. Hell, his mind was even supplying sneak previews of things they hadn’t even done yet, that weren’t even there to remember. Yet.

It was different here, though. He was almost getting used to the idea of being on her side. She wasn’t exhausted, or hurting. They weren’t struggling to outrun a maniac.

“When—” he cleared his throat. “When will Alan be back?”

She glanced at him sidelong, put a dish in the rack. “He’s usually home around six, when he’s working. But he said he’ll try to be home at lunchtime. One.”

It was only eightish. Five hours. At the outside.

Five hours in which to find out what they were up against, what the Agency’s intentions were, to formulate an acceptable plan to get them out of this, to …

Five hours alone with Jenny, on her territory, on her terms.

His mouth was dry.

“Uh, Kier?”

He grunted.

“It’s dry.”

Jenny watched Kier look down at the plate he’d been drying for the past few minutes, obviously embarrassed. He set it down on the counter, and picked up the next one, avoiding her gaze.

Well, at least he wasn’t staring at her anymore. Which gave her a chance to return the favour.

It was ridiculous, really. She’d never found housework soothing, but something about the hot water, or the lemon washing up liquid, had washed away her annoyance at Kier, and at Alan. Working there, beside Kier, she was growing more and more aware of him. Of the close-looming bulk of him; of the controlled, even movements of his strong hands; of the smooth, corded strength of his forearms.

She wished he’d roll down his sleeves.

No, she didn’t.

She bit her lip, appalled at herself. She was supposed to be angry with him. Not watching the jump of tendons on the inside of his wrist out of the corner of her eye.

That was it. No more dishes to wash. She hunted around the bottom of the bowl, checking for stray teaspoons, but there weren’t any. If there were, she could keep her hands safely in the bowl, and off him.

How did this happen?
she thought. But the truth was, she was just running out of reasons for it
not
to happen. Before now, she’d been threatened, or hurt, or chased, or, lately, chaperoned.

She looked down at her hands, still hiding in the dishwater. All those reasons
not
to were bursting like so many soap bubbles. And the truth was—oh, heavens—everything about him hypnotised her, and she was tired of fighting it.

Smiling to herself, she lifted her hands, stepped closer to Kier, and snagged a corner of the tea towel to dry them. He stood unmoving as she did so, and she didn’t look up at him, only watching the movement of his chest, level with her eyes.