The Reckoning (10 page)

“Yeah. And yet we still believe we should have. Maybe that's what I think I can end by stopping him.”

“It's the FBI's job, Emmett.”

“I
am
the FBI.”

“On leave. And under no obligation to pursue a family member.”

“A couple of months ago, both of us were doing just that,” Emmett reminded him. “Should I apologize for dragging you into that?”

“Hell, no.” Collin flashed him a quick smile. “It's how I found my Lucy, right? But we both are aware that Jason has no scruples. He'll do anything. I don't want to see you get hurt.”

“I won't.”

“What about Linda and Ricky?”

“Don't you think I've already thought about that? From the very beginning? But my brother has no way of even knowing they exist or that I'm staying at the Armstrongs'. In any case, I take precautions. I never return to the guest house without ensuring I'm not being tailed.” But dread was washing over him, and washing away all the optimism he'd felt that morning. He'd made the decision to involve himself with Linda because he'd promised Ryan. He hadn't been using his FBI brain then.

“I should put the brakes on,” he muttered.

“With Linda?”

“Jason hangs over me like a dark cloud.”

“There goes your happy smile.”

“Do you blame me?” Emmett asked. “Would you allow yourself to get close to a woman knowing the ugliness that I do?”

Collin shrugged. “I know I was pleased to see you talking about your mom, and pies, and cozy situations with a woman and her boy.”

Emmett pushed away his plate with his half-eaten hamburger. Cozy didn't seem right, not right now. “I can be that man again, when I get Jason.”

“So in the meantime you're just going to sit around, waiting for him to tap you on the shoulder?”

“No.” The longer Jason remained free, the more risk there was to the innocents of the world, including Linda and Ricky. “I'm going to think of some way to flush him out.”

Collin nodded slowly. “Knowing what we do about your brother, that will work. You can't be too obvious, of course. He'll see through that and then be able to resist the lure. But if you can get yourself in the public eye, some publicity that has to do with good deeds or your new inheritance, or both,
that should tweak Jason enough to draw him out of wherever he's hiding.”

Emmett drummed his fingers on the tabletop again. “Good deeds…the new inheritance…”

“You have an idea?”

“A glimmer of one.” Emmett drained the last of his iced tea.

“What are you going to do about the lady?”

Emmett glanced at Collin. “Who?”

His cousin rolled his eyes. “The one you're cozy with! Damn, man. Have you forgotten already?”

No. He couldn't forget Linda for half a second. Not her incredible silky hair, the tight sheath of her body, the sweet surprise on her face when he stroked her breasts. But he had to back off from her and where they'd been heading until he found Jason. There could be no promises—spoken or unspoken—about the future yet. There'd be no more kisses or coziness or warm mornings in her bed until his brother was behind bars.

Linda looked over the words in her notebook before leaving her bedroom for the kitchen. She sniffed her just-showered forearm and relaxed. It was her usual floral scent, as opposed to the muskier one that had driven her crazy the past couple of days. With Emmett keeping his distance, she couldn't understand why his scent had seemed to surround her—until she realized she'd been lathering up with his bar in the shower.

This morning in the bathroom, she'd remembered to keep her hands off his things. Okay, fine, she'd opened his shampoo and taken a quick whiff of its manly fragrance, but she'd recapped it right away. Temptation wouldn't get the best of her. Not for his shampoo, not for
him.
Even a head-injured person had some pride, and Emmett's hands-off attitude made his position clear.

He didn't want her anymore.

But she wanted coffee, so she squared her shoulders and headed into the kitchen. As usual, he was sitting at the table with a mug and the San Antonio paper.

She gave him her brightest smile and her cheeriest voice. “Good morning!”

He gave her a surly grunt in return. He hadn't shaved and there were shadows beneath his eyes. If he still wasn't so gorgeous, she would have suspected he wasn't sleeping any better than she was.

She squeezed shut her eyes and turned away from him.

“Headache?” he asked.

“What?” She glanced over her shoulder at him.

“You're squinching your eyes. I thought maybe you felt another headache coming on.”

Linda thought he hadn't even looked up from his paper. “No, no headache.” She didn't want him to guess that what was bothering her was
him.
“A little restless, that's all.”

He grunted again. “We haven't been working out.”

No, they hadn't. She figured it was because he wanted to keep as far away from her as possible. Somehow, she'd turned him off or done something to turn him away from her. But she wasn't going to worry about it. Didn't she have more important things to think of?

He lifted his mug to his mouth. Beneath his T-shirt, his bicep bunched and she stared at it, fascinated. What would it
feel like beneath her cheek, against her mouth? If she traced the curve with her tongue, would his skin heat just as hers was doing right this very instant?

Making love with him had affected her memory, all right. She couldn't seem to forget how fabulous he had felt under her hands and inside her body.

Her daylight man.

“Linda?”

She blinked and noted he'd observed her preoccupation. She was still staring at him. Whirling back to the coffee, she cleared her throat. “What?”

She poured the last cup from the glass carafe into her mug, and then went about making a second pot. Throw away the filter and the used beans, but
not
the basket. New filter, more ground beans, rinse the carafe, pour the water into the machine. She could do this now.

“Shall we work on your self-defense moves today?”

Could she do that?

“I'm meeting with Lily at the Fortune headquarters later this morning, but I have time to practice your moves.”

Her self-defense moves. That was what she needed, right? Self-defense. If she could protect herself from hurt, then maybe she could protect herself from the way Emmett's disinterest was bothering her.

“Okay. Sure. Why not? How about now?”

She met him across the mat with less than half a cup of caffeine in her system. It was enough, though, to get her pulse jumping.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She glowered at him, annoyed by how attractive she found him and how it bothered her that he wasn't attracted back. “Just try to take me on.”

He frowned. “Didn't I tell you not to have that macho at
titude? These are last-resort moves, remember? Your first options are to avoid dangerous situations or run like a rabbit.”

Too bad. She was feeling pretty macho right now, if macho meant mean. A man should not call a woman his “light,” make perfect, heart-stopping love to her, then turn around and treat her like a near-stranger for the next few days. She bent her knees a little, then curled the fingers of both hands in a little “gimme” gesture.

“Just try to take me on,” she said again.

Emmett rolled his eyes. “I feel the animosity rolling off of you. What's up?”

“You'll feel more than animosity when you try to take me down,” she spit out. “I'm in a mood, Emmett.”

She hoped that wasn't a smile she saw twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I can see that. And what kind of mood is it, exactly?”

Hurt. Confused. Disappointed. Frustrated. Okay, really, really frustrated. Because he'd ignited this sexual fuse inside of her and then only given her that one opportunity to explode. And there he stood, as cool as you please, as if he didn't feel that desire still burning between them.

She could go after him for that.

Why didn't he want her anymore? And how could she achieve his same level of detachment?

“My mood is determined,” she told him. If he could pretend nothing had ever happened between them, then so could she.

He shrugged. “All right.” In a quick movement, he came toward her, grabbing her ponytail and pulling her forward.

She remembered what to do, even with the quick flood of adrenaline. Don't pull back. Follow the attacker's energy and step in toward him. She turned her body so that she was in a stable stance over her feet and at the same time slammed her elbow into his ribs.

Emmett grunted, let go.

She sprang back, breathing hard. “How'd I do?”

He was rubbing his side. “Has anyone ever told you you are one bony woman?”

“Whiner. How'd I do?”

“Great,” he acknowledged.

“Then do another one. Try to get me again.”

He gave her a wary glance. “Have I created a monster?”

You've created something.
She made that little “gimme” gesture again. “Come on, Emmett.”

He circled the mat and she shifted as he did, keeping her eyes open to what he might be planning. She was feeling pretty proud of herself but wasn't going to get cocky. However, she was going to show him that she could be as tough, as focused as he was. He would never guess that just watching the play of his muscles beneath his clothes could be distracting if she allowed it to be.

He darted forward.

Thinking about his muscles had been her undoing, because he was too quick for her to move out of reach. He slipped his arm around her head, then pulled in and down. The headlock.

She knew what she was supposed to do. The same as with the hair grab—she was not supposed to fight the attacker's movement, but follow it and use his energy to power her own escape. The technique was to go with the motion and as she did, she was to put both of her hands between her own neck and his arm. She was supposed to roll his arm outward while she let the weight of her body slip her head free of his loosening hold.

It was a good theory. She'd practiced it before.

But now she froze within his embrace, the side of her face against the hard wall of his chest. She could hear his heart thudding against her ear. His scent—that soap she'd used
and that shampoo she'd sniffed—wrapped around her just as tightly as his arm.

She loved how Emmett smelled.

“Are you all right?” His eased his hold.

“Don't let go!” She grabbed his forearm as she was supposed to. “Give me a minute. I can do this. I can get away from you.”

But what if she didn't want to? What if she wanted to stay against him all day, his warmth and strength surrounding her.

Over her head, she heard him draw in ragged breaths. That was weird, because she wasn't fighting him in the least. She was just standing in his embrace. It shouldn't be hard for him to breathe.

“Emmett—”

“Linda—”

They spoke at the same time.

He started again. “Maybe we shouldn't—”

“I can do this.” She would. Tightening her hold on his arm, she attempted to push his elbow out. But he didn't budge, and when she strengthened her grasp, he only held her tighter against his thudding heart.

Frustrated, she shoved her shoulder into his chest, a move coming from her mood and not her previous lessons. But somehow it worked, or kind of worked, because when she did it again, he lost his balance. They fell toward the mat; she was still in the circle of his arm.

Thwack.
He landed flat on his back. She landed on top of him.

They stared at each other, both of them breathing hard.

“You hurt?” he asked.

“No. You?”

“No.”

But neither of them moved. She had no idea why Emmett
stayed supine, but she was out-and-out stunned, because her pelvis-to-pelvis sprawl over him made one thing perfectly clear.

He wasn't as immune to her as he was pretending to be.

M
aybe the meeting on the mat would have gone somewhere, but Ricky chose that moment to bang on the guest house door. Emmett put her away from him in a flash, leaving her to wish the boy a good-morning all alone. The ten-year-old was on his way to school, and he'd stopped to say goodbye. He'd been doing that lately, and today he wanted her to sign a permission slip.

“Permission for what?” she said, frowning down at the half sheet of paper.

“We're going to a bookstore at the mall to hear an author talk,” Ricky said. “It's probably going to be dumb, but if I don't get the slip signed, I'll have to sit in a third-grade class and do multiplication tables again.”

“What's three times five?”

“Fifteen.”

“Seven times eight?”

Ricky rolled his eyes. “Fifty-six.”

She had only one more question to ask. “Nine times three.”

“Twenty-seven.” He sent her a quasi-exasperated look. “Satisfied?”

“Yep. The bookstore it is, then.”

He hung around a few more minutes after she'd penned her name on the Parent or Guardian line. She offered him a piece of toast, but instead he exchanged the apple in his brown bag lunch for one of the bananas ripening on the counter. He also snitched a couple of cookies, but she pretended not to see it. Maybe it wasn't motherly of her, but an extra Oreo or two wasn't going to send either one of them to jail.

Finally she waved him off for the bus stop. She stood in the doorway of the guest house and watched him stride away with the rollicking, confident gait of a boy who had extra cookies in his pocket and a field trip to look forward to the next day.

“He could have had Nan sign that slip, you know.”

Linda turned to face Emmett. She was glad she was still gripping the doorjamb, because the sight of him in a gray suit, white shirt and emerald necktie made her knees go soft. “You think?” Not what
she
was thinking, not when he looked so sophisticated and so male in his businessman attire.

“He's accepting you.”

“Uh-huh.” Whatever he said. Emmett's face was clean shaven and she could smell the slight limey tang of aftershave. Some brain-injured people found certain senses were heightened after their trauma, and Linda was just realizing that her sensitive nose might be a side effect of hers. It wasn't something to rue, though, not when she found Emmett so delicious to be around.

What if she said that to him? What if she told him, outright, out-front, straightaway?
I love the way you smell.
Her mouth opened, but then she quickly closed it. That was one
of the things they'd worked on in rehab. Acting on impulse, saying the first thing that came into one's head, that was something to be careful about. Normal, uninjured people censored themselves. It was part of the social contract, the counselors had taught them, and she was usually pretty good about remembering it. And wasn't it just plain dangerous to reveal so much of yourself? What if she'd misread everything about that morning in her bed the other day and then that proof of his arousal on the mat a little earlier? He
could
have had a banana in his pocket.

The thought made her smile, but it didn't solve her problem. If you were always second-guessing and censoring yourself, how did you ever signal your wants and desires?

“I'm going to be gone a few hours,” Emmett said. “Would you like something while I'm out? I could stop by the grocery store or someplace else.”

That
was how a woman would send out signals to her man. She'd go to the department store or to a specialty shop and buy something really sexy, some little nothing that said everything she couldn't.

Annoyance flashed through Linda.
She
couldn't do that. She couldn't ask Emmett to bring home satin lingerie, size skinny. And she couldn't see herself asking Nan to make a Victoria's Secret run with her, either.

“I need to drive,” she blurted out. “I need to get my license so I can have some independence.”

He blinked and took a half step back. “I hadn't realized I was crowding you.”

No. No, no, no.
She rubbed her forehead, trying to think her way through the misunderstanding. But it was all muddling inside her head. His great scent, her great lingerie plan, the great-and-growing-greater annoyance that she couldn't do anything about either of them.

“You need your pills.” He strode to the bathroom and then the kitchen, and was back in a flash with her pain medication and a glass of water.

It only increased her annoyance and sense of frustration. “I don't need a keeper.” She didn't want him to see her as an invalid, an obligation. “I need a driving lesson.”

“Fine.” The brush of his hands was impersonal as he handed over the water and the tablets. “As soon as I get back from the Fortune headquarters.”

 

Jason hunkered down in the rusty Buick, the car parked so he could see the entrance to the high-rise headquarters of Fortune TX, Ltd. The nearby street sign read Kingston Street and the public park at the end of the block was called Kingston Park, both named for the selfish bastard that had shattered Grandpa Farley Jamison's dreams.

Jason had the urge to get out and spit on the signage, but he couldn't attract attention to himself. He didn't want to miss anyone going into the office building, either. He'd been staking out the place for days, not even leaving the car to relieve himself. Every morning he brought along an empty juice bottle to take care of that necessity.

It didn't matter. He'd take his leaks in the gutter if it meant making his brother Emmett pay.

Sliding his hand in his pocket, he felt the warm metal casing of his cell phone. Maybe he should give the stinkin' straight arrow a call. Just a little jolt to let him know that brother Jason was on the job.

But nah. Let the bugger sweat.

Still, even a conversation with someone from the stupid side of his family gene pool sounded entertaining. Waiting was hellishly boring. Being anonymous while waiting was even more hellishly boring.

Jason was accustomed to attention. Like that architect chick he'd met at the coffee place. He'd liked the way she'd looked at him with her big eyes, all impressed by his act as the grieving but game P.I. But she was probably as duplicitous as the rest of her gender. Think of Melissa. Cheating bitch. She'd thought to double-cross him by starting an affair with Ryan. Jason had choked the life out of her before that could happen.

Of course, then that Nosy Parker reporter had seen him and gone squealing to the police. Just another stupid bitch getting in his way.

He shifted in his seat and glared at the unfamiliar young woman coming down the sidewalk toward him. She'd probably try to get in his way if she could, too. Lifting his hand, he pretended to take target practice at her with his thumb and forefinger. She couldn't see him through the tinted windshield, but he imagined her surprise when he pressed the “trigger” of his thumb, anyway.
Pow.

The next woman who tried to hamper his plans was going to get it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. He'd let those people go—the egg farmer's daughter and the businessman he'd carjacked—but that was Jason's last good deed. He hadn't been appreciated or treated right, so now the gloves were coming off.

Emmett and whoever else Jason didn't like were going to pay.

A car turned into the Fortune TX, Ltd. entrance. He squinted against the glare, making sure he could get a good look of the driver. And bingo! It had taken four days and four plastic bottles of piss, but he'd just found the man he was looking for.

The straight arrow had gone for the target, just as Jason had predicted.

Damn, he was smart. Now he just had to wait.

It took a couple of hours. But Jason didn't let the time get to him. Sure, he felt the ol' adrenaline kicking in, but it only sharpened his focus. When he finally saw Emmett pull out of the Fortune headquarters parking lot, Jason was ready to trail him.

The San Antonio afternoon traffic was his friend. It slowed down his brother's big SUV but gave enough camouflage in which the Buick could hide. “What is that Sting song?” he said aloud, then hummed a few bars. “‘I'll Be Watching You.'”

Emmett's vehicle was heading more toward the center of town. Jason shifted in his seat, spine going a little straighter, to catch his brother making a quick maneuver to take advantage of a stale green left-turn arrow.

“Damn it,” Jason muttered, as he was forced to make his own speedy maneuver to keep up. The car he cut off honked angrily behind him and he gave the slowpoke the finger. Didn't the world know it should make way for Jason Jamison?

Emmett was driving faster now, and Jason had to put the pedal to the metal. The piece-of-crap Buick didn't like being pushed—hell, it probably wanted to be pushed, but by human hands—and it coughed and wheezed as it lurched down the street. He was forced to back off in case the noise attracted his brother's attention.

The SUV made another turn and Jason followed. They were in a residential area now, not unlike the 'burb he'd lived in with Melissa the slut. The way she'd decorated the place they'd owned there, he should have known she wasn't good enough for him. She'd hired some snooty designer who'd painted every room in a different jarring color—lime green for the kitchen, fuchsia for the master bedroom. No man could get a good night's sleep surrounded by all that pink.

Not to mention all those sick glass sculptures Melissa had dropped wads of cash to buy. Instead of throttling her, he should have knocked her over the head with one of them. Women. What a waste of time they were outside of the bedroom.

“Damn!” Jason had to hang a right on two wheels. Preoccupied with thoughts of the bimbo, he'd nearly missed Emmett's next turn. “Focus,” he told himself. “Keep your eyes on the prize.”

He had to keep farther back now, because there was even less traffic here and the houses were larger—friggin' mansions. What the hell was his little brother doing in this wealthy family-dom? Jason peered down a gated drive, then had to jerk his attention back to the road as Emmett made another series of turns. Jason followed, and then…then it was as if Emmett had disappeared.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Jason slowed to a crawl, swiveling his head for a sign of the SUV. Down one of these other driveways? The houses in this area had large detached garages and he could glimpse the roofs of guest cottages behind some of the large main houses.

Approaching an intersection, he looked in all directions. “There!” he crowed to himself. Just down the block was Emmett's SUV, still on the move. Jason turned, speeding so he wouldn't miss his quarry's next turn. But then, out of a hedge-lined driveway, a white Hummer shot into the street, blocking his path.

Jason stood on the brakes. The Buick burned rubber against the blacktop. A woman rolled down her window, an apologetic smile on her face. She gave him a little wave. “Sorry,” he saw her mouth.

It didn't ease his fuming temper. Scowling, he steered his car around the hulking gas-guzzler in front of him to see—

No sign of Emmett. None.

His brother had gotten clean away.

The Hummer driver was behind him. He stared at the woman in his rearview mirror. If looks could kill, she'd be dead. Dumb, stupid bitch. She was blond, like Melissa. God, how he hated blondes.

The next one who got in his way was going to pay for Melissa, and this greedy Hummer driver, and all the others who'd gotten in his way.

 

Linda's mood hadn't improved much several hours later as Emmett drove her toward the outskirts of town, looking for a deserted area for her to practice behind the wheel. “How was your meeting?” she asked, trying to sound polite.

“Fine.”

She didn't ask what it was about, figuring if he wanted her to know he would share it with her. Which got her remembering that maybe he didn't want to share anything with her. Frustration again. Disappointment. Annoyance.

When he pulled into the empty parking lot of a half-completed industrial park, she could barely bring herself to look at him. “Ready?” he asked.

“Sure.” They changed places, and he told her how to adjust the SUV's driver's seat. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt again, but his attitude was as businesslike as his business suit had been.

“Start the car,” he said.

As much as she wanted this, she was nervous again. She blew out a breath, then rubbed her damp palms along her thighs. The car roared to life when she turned the key.

She jumped. “This is the biggest car I've ever driven,” she said. “I feel like I could climb a mountain in this thing instead of tooling it down the street.”

“Why don't you start by moving forward. Put it into Drive.”

She did, then released the parking brake.

“Give it some gas.”

The pedal was sensitive. She thought she was being gentle with it, but the car shot forward as if pulled by stagecoach horses feeling a whip.

Her foot stamped on the brakes. Even in their shoulder harnesses, she and Emmett jerked forward, then slammed back.

“Damn it,” he bit out. “Go easy, okay?”

“I was trying to.” She thought the vehicle might be a little like its owner. Big, but touchy, touchy, touchy.

“Do it again,” Emmett said. “Remember a little gas goes a long way.”

“Fine.” Linda inhaled a deep breath, then let her foot press down on the pedal again. The car seemed to buck forward, but then it settled into a slow acceleration. She edged cautiously forward.

“Good,” Emmett murmured. “Now take it around the perimeter of the lot. There's nothing around here for you to worry about except for that big pole in the middle.”

He shouldn't have said that. Whatever that big pole was for—a flag, a sign to be installed later?—it now seemed to have a magnetic attraction. The circles she made grew ever tighter in its direction. Though she tried widening her path again, she always found herself heading closer to that big piece of metal.