The Reckoning (6 page)

Help her. That was what he was here for. Wanting to hold her, comfort her, kiss her was a damn stupid, nonsensical compulsion.

Yes, there was an undeniable physical attraction between the two of them, but she didn't appear to be eager to explore it. And he didn't want to think that he was exploiting it. A woman who'd been “asleep” for ten years had to be out of practice in the ways of men and women. She wasn't ready for a flirtation, let alone a fling, which was all he had to offer.

He took another step back and bumped into a side table, its legs clattering against the hardwood floor. Linda jumped at the sound, spinning in her chair to confront him. “Emmett!” She held her hand to her throat. “You scared me.”

You scare me, too, honey,
he thought. That beautiful blond hair, those blue eyes and those delicate features seemed to have been put together with the express purpose of dissolving his good intentions.

He wanted to hold her, comfort her, kiss her.

But he wasn't going to do it. So he cleared his throat and cocked an eyebrow at the computer screen. “Book report making you crazy?”

She glanced at the screen, still showing that black void with only a few pinprick stars to alleviate its darkness. “No, that went okay. I was playing one of the dexterity games they sent home with me from rehab.”

He'd seen her practice them before. Some appeared to be logic-type word problems, while the ones that caused her shoulders to tense and her jaw to harden were the manual dexterity games that seemed like snazzier versions of the original Pac-Man and Asteroids. “The Evil Blaster obliterate all your rocket ships?”

“I don't want to talk about it. It makes me want to hit something. What about you? Did you have a pleasant afternoon?”

“I took a drive out to Ryan's ranch in Red Rock.” He couldn't believe he'd told her.

“To visit Lily?”

He shook his head. “Just to…to look at the land.”

“To visit Ryan.”

He stared at her. How did she know? “But Ryan isn't there,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. Ryan was nowhere, just as his brother Christopher was nowhere, just as Jessica Chandler was nowhere. His wanting it to be otherwise didn't change a damn thing.

Love didn't wake the dead. Jessica's father had told him that when Emmett had gone to the Chandler home to tell him she'd been found.
She
hadn't been found, John Chandler had corrected him. She was lost forever, no matter how much they cared for her, no matter how much and for how long they would grieve. Love didn't wake the dead.

“Your memories of Ryan are there, at the ranch.”

It was Linda talking again, and he transferred his focus to her face. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“Because it makes you want to hit something? I can relate to that.” The rueful tone in her voice prodded him again, sending another shot of sympathy pain through him. “The injury makes me feel so horribly defenseless sometimes, as if there were some dark force waiting out there, around the corner or on the other side of the window, to yank me back into the murky twilight.”

Since he was already there in that murky twilight, had been there since he'd heard of Christopher's death, he knew exactly what she meant. While his father had bodily hauled him out of the dingy cabin in the Sandia Mountains, his spirit still dwelled in the darkness.

He didn't wish that life in the shadows on anyone. He didn't want her to even fear it.

“Maybe we can do something about that vulnerability,” he said, remembering her telling him she used to be tough and that she wanted to be tough again. “We can do something about your urge to hit something at the same time, too. You know anything about martial arts?”

“Martial arts?”

“You know, Jackie Chan? Or think
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
”

She blinked her beautiful blue eyes at him. “Jackie Chan? Crouching dragons? I don't know what you're talking about.”

Of course she wouldn't. She'd been in that twilight world when the martial arts hero Jackie Chan had come to fame and the movie
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
had hit the theaters. “Tonight we have some DVDs to rent. But in the meantime, how about a little hand-to-hand sparring, secret agent accountant?”

The nickname had her smiling, which in turn made him almost smile as well. “Okay,” she said. “I guess I'm game.”

A few minutes later, they met in the workout room on the mat he'd laid out, both of them in sweatpants and T-shirts. Linda didn't look as if she'd any second thoughts. Her eyes were bright as she captured her hair into a ponytail.

“What are you going to teach me?” she asked. “I don't remember all the different styles, but there's a lot of them, right? Jujitsu, karate, tae kwon do…”

“Despite their historical roots, today many of the disciplines are mainly taught for competition and display,” he replied. “I'm going to teach you how to street fight.”

Her eyes went wide, but she didn't say anything more. Instead, he found himself filling the silence with all the admonitions he wished he could have given to every victim he'd encountered or been too late to help in the last half-dozen years. He talked quickly, as if he had to get it all out before an expiration date.

“When it comes to being on the streets, don't walk like a victim. Whenever he can, a criminal avoids those who appear determined and purposeful. They look for the unaware and helpless. Nervous about someone you see? Look them in the eye. Let them know you are aware of them and if you had to, you could identify them later. Never turn your back on someone who feels like a threat.”

Linda was running the palms of her hands up and down the fabric covering her thighs. It was a slightly anxious gesture, but he thought of her feeling vulnerable and he thought of all the defenseless people he'd met in his lifetime and continued with his lecture. “All repair or delivery or inspection persons should set up an appointment with you by phone, in advance, and carry photo ID. Check it thoroughly before you open your door to them. If someone gets into your house,
know that any weapons in your home might be used against you. Finally, most importantly, heed your instincts. Those warning bells going off in your head are
not
paranoia. Your senses are more powerful than you know and you should listen to them. But…”

She swallowed. “But?”

“But if you get caught in a bad situation, you can be smart enough and tough enough to help yourself get out of it.”

“And one session with you will improve my odds?”

“Probably not. And probably the paranoid one is me, but I'd like to see you, I'd like to see everyone, take a rigorous self-defense course that stresses awareness first, running like hell second, and any kind of combat as a last resort.”

Linda nodded slowly. “I think I'd like to do that. But for now, what can you teach me?”

He nodded back. “If you like, we can do a little every day.”

The attacks he prepared her for had to be the obvious ones—the shove, the headlock, the hair pull—and the countermoves easy to execute and remember. Nothing fancy. He focused on simplicity as he showed them to her, reminding her time and again that in a real situation she would likely be facing someone larger than herself and certainly more aggressive. She was breathing hard after thirty minutes, even though the simple defenses he demonstrated were based not on strength, but smarts.

“And then there's the pinch,” he told her as they faced each other across the mat. “Never underestimate the pinch.” He explained that pressing a thin fold of an attacker's skin between her forefinger and the harder surface of the second knuckle of the thumb could surprise and pain an assailant enough to give her the needed moments to get free and away. “Some of the best targets are the inside and back of the upper arms, the sides of the upper chest near the armpits, the inside
of either leg from just above the knee all the way to the groin, the fold of skin between the upper lip and nose, and the male genitals.”

She grimaced. Her hair was slipping from the rubber band, and she reached up to secure it more tightly. “I don't think I want to practice pinching you…anywhere.”

But he thought it was time for her to practice something else. Without giving her a word of warning, he lunged at her for a football tackle, his arms reaching out to grab her around the thighs.

She made a little blurp of surprise, then grabbed his waist with both hands. If he had been wearing a belt it would have been easier for her, but still she followed what they'd practiced and shifted her feet and body back, loosening his grip on her thighs. Now leverage favored her, and she bore down across the top of his back, forcing his body down and slamming his face into the mat.

He lay there, arms out to his sides, Linda draped over him, her head in the small of his back.

“Move up,” he ordered her, his voice thick. “Move up and away.”

She leapt to her feet. “Oh my God. I've hurt you! Are you all right? Should I call a doctor?”

“No, I'm fine.” Clearing his throat, he sat up. “Once you've got the attacker down, you need to get as far away from him as possible. Slam his face to the floor, then run, okay?”

She hunkered down to study him. “Are you sure you're all right?” Her hands patted at his shoulders and chest. “I didn't hurt something?”

“Not even my ego. I want you to get good at this, remember?” Okay, so his ears were ringing a little and his ego might be slightly dented, but she didn't need to know that. “You did great, Linda.”

She dropped to the mat beside him and gave him a grin that was brighter than summer sunshine. “I did, didn't I? I bested you.” Her hand came up and gave him a little playful shove to the shoulder. He let it take him over, flat onto his back.

He managed to take her with him. “You're not the only one with smooth moves,” he said, looking into her surprised eyes. She was half lying on his chest, her blond hair a curtain around her face. She was flushed and her eyes were still sparkling; he knew that he'd improved her mood and upped her level of confidence.

He'd helped her. There was no longer a reason to want to hold her, comfort her, kiss her.

But she was in his arms, and the comfort he was feeling seemed to be his, and the urge to kiss her was stronger than before. Once again, it was her fortitude that fascinated him. Instead of curling into a fetal position when life wasn't easy, she'd actually straightened out of such a position to reclaim her life.

She
was
tough.

“What did you say about those warning bells going off in my head?” she murmured, her gaze trained on his face. “That they're
not
paranoia?”

He had to smile at that. “You think I'm dangerous to you?”

“Not in the way that you mean.”

Emmett refused to let his fingers tighten on her shoulders. Instead, he kept his grasp light, feeling the damp warmth of her skin through the T-shirt. “I won't hurt you, Linda.”

She nodded. “You certainly won't mean to.”

“Then I should let you go.” Despite the knowledge that he should do just that, neither one of them moved a muscle.

“I've been an orphan since I first left for college at sixteen.” It was a statement of fact.

“That must have been rough.” He thought her confidence
required that he share one of his own. “I've been pretty much estranged from my own family since I left home. The events of the past nine months have put us in contact again, but we're not any closer than before.”

“I think I was pretty lonely, which was why I joined the Treasury Department after college.”

“I thought that was because you wanted to be a secret agent accountant.”

She made a face. “I should have known I'd live to regret telling you that. More than being a secret agent, I was looking to be part of a team…a family of sorts.”

“Interesting. I did my best to run away from my family.” The animosity between his two older brothers and the tension it had brought into his parents' home had been something he'd wanted to escape from for as long as he could remember.

“But going undercover at Fortune TX, Ltd. left me on my own.”

“And prey to Cameron.” Emmett instantly regretted the words.

Linda only looked thoughtful. “Maybe. I don't know. I don't think I'll ever know, since I can't remember much about that time and since I'm not that same twenty-two-year-old, no matter that the years passed without my really living them.”

They were still chest to chest and, oddly, it felt like the right way to be when trading confessions. Except… “Why are you telling me this?”

“I don't think I'm any good with men.”

He blinked. “Inexperience isn't quite the same as not being any good.”

She shrugged. “I don't have enough experience to know.”

“What are you getting at, Linda?”

Her breath came in, then released in a long exhale. It
pushed her soft breasts against his chest. His body hardened and he was grateful for the stretchy fabric of his sweats. This would have been hell in a tight pair of jeans.

“I'm saying, Emmett, that I
think
I know why we're lying here on the floor together, but I'm not sure exactly what to do about it and whether where it's leading would be very satisfying for either one of us.”

Did she mean leading to sex? Or to a relationship? One he was pretty damn confident he could handle; the other was completely out of the question.

So he put her away from him and sat up. “Okay, then, it's like I said. Combat as a last resort.” He stood.

“Yes,” she murmured as he left the room. “It
is
like you said. Awareness first, running like hell second.”

E
mmett figured that if Linda could drive herself—something she was working toward—she wouldn't have allowed him to chauffeur her to Ricky's soccer game a few days later. Earlier, on their way to another appointment, Nan and Dean had dropped the boy off for a quick pregame practice, so there was no one to interrupt the steady, heavy silence between Emmett and Linda.

Though they'd continued to coexist in the guest house without argument and had even practiced on the mat once again, the tension between them was rising with each hour.

He still didn't know if she thought he'd rejected her when they'd been breast to chest that afternoon on the mat. But even if she did, he wasn't going to correct her impression. Anything that kept them apart and kept them from unleashing this latent sexual energy on each other was something to be nurtured, not destroyed.

He glanced over at her. “I'll drop you off and then I'm going to pick up someone else. I think she'll like to see the game.”

Linda kept her gaze trained out the window. “She? You're bringing a date?” Her voice was chilly, and very, very polite. “That's nice, but please don't think you have to spend your time with a woman babysitting me. Ricky and I can find someone to bring us back to the house.”

He rolled his eyes. “It's not—” Deciding against explaining, he closed his mouth. In a few moments, they'd reached the field and she exited the car without a smile, a second glance, without anything beyond a thank-you. It left him free, however, to watch her walk away from him without her knowledge.

She looked damn good, mouthwateringly good, in a pair of butt-hugging shorts, her long legs naked of everything but a pair of flimsy sandals. Her flag of blond hair fluttered in the breeze and he might have stared all day if a car hadn't come up behind him and honked.

It only took him a short time to collect his “date” and return with her to the soccer field. With Nan and Dean unable to attend the game, he'd thought of bringing the other woman. Not only would she provide a much-needed buffer between himself and Linda, he'd figured she would welcome the outing.

“Lily!” Linda exclaimed, as she saw the other woman climbing up into the stands. The glance she cast at Emmett stopped just short of a glare. “No one told me you were coming to the game.” She stood up and gave Lily a hug. “How are you?” she said softly. “I am so happy you're here. Ricky will be, too.”

Lily Fortune, a widow of just a few short weeks, was close to sixty, Emmett knew. Grief and the rigors of her recent kidnapping at Jason's hands had added more heavy threads of silver to her dark hair, but she remained a fine-looking
woman. As she sat down on the wooden bench, she pulled on a pair of dark sunglasses to cover her large, tilted brown eyes and then linked her arm with Linda's. “I'm getting by,” she said, “by keeping myself busy with activities like lunches with old friends—why I was in San Antonio today—and the important soccer matches of my favorite ten-year-old boy.”

Emmett seated himself on Lily's other side. “And you're busy with the arrangements for the upcoming Fortune reunion, right? I heard that you're going through with that.”

Linda's eyes rounded. “Lily, no. You can't want to take on such a big project right now.”

“It's exactly a big project that I need,” the older woman said, her voice firm. “It keeps me busy and I like the idea of everyone finally getting together.”

“There were Fortunes galore—” Emmett stopped himself.

“At Ryan's memorial service,” Lily finished matter-of-factly. “But this is different. This is going to be a happy occasion.”

Emmett scoffed to himself. Happy occasion? Unless they rounded up Jason in the next couple of weeks, there were going to be plenty of dark thoughts at that happy occasion. “I'll get him,” he muttered to himself.

But Lily heard him. “Of course you will. But I won't let even Jason ruin the big party I have planned. Well, that Ryan planned, really. It was his dream.”

Emmett couldn't disagree with that. Years before, in the 1970s, Ryan had been reunited with the family of Patrick Fortune, his cousin in New York. Patrick and his wife, Lacey, had five children, all whom had spent summers in Texas and who had ultimately settled near Ryan.

The previous November, after Jason had been jailed for the murder of his girlfriend Melissa and then implicated in Christopher's death, Ryan had been contacted by Emmett's father, Blake. It was Blake who had explained why the hereditary,
distinctive Fortune birthmark had been found on Christopher's body—Blake's father and Ryan's father had been half brothers. Ryan had immediately embraced what was left of the Jamison clan, despite the trouble Jason Jamison had brought to the area. And even after Jason had kidnapped his beloved Lily.

Ryan had been a man whose appreciation for family ran very, very deep.

“Emmett?” Lily put a cool hand on his arm. “Are you all right?”

He blinked away the bright sunshine's sting, then avoided meeting her gaze by seeking Ricky on the field. The game was just about to start and it wasn't hard to find the boy's sunny hair. “Looks like he's playing goalie this quarter,” he said, watching him pull on a shirt different from the others on his team.

“Goalie?” Linda's voice sounded panicked.
“Goalie?”

Emmett tried placating her. “You've seen him play before. He's a great goalie. He won't be hurt.”

“It's not about him getting physically hurt.” Linda bounced up from her seat. “I can't sit when he plays goalie. Do you realize what happens when a boy plays goalie? If the ball goes in, he gets all the blame!”

“No—”

“Yes, I've seen it happen. And then they look over at the boy's mother and the boy's mother feels as if she needs to do two things—grab her kid up into her arms and then disappear into a hole in the earth.” She started clattering down the bench seats. “I need to take a little walk.”

Emmett half rose to follow her, but Lily put her hand on his arm again. “Let her go. This sports-watching can take practice—and lots of little walks.”

“That's right,” he said, settling back onto the bench. “I'm sure you've done your share of this kind of thing.”

“Baseball and ballet. Soccer games and school plays. My girls, Hannah and Maria, were involved in everything. My son, Cole, was a sports fanatic. Honing his competitive skills for his grown-up life as a lawyer, I suppose.”

Emmett had met the older man at the memorial service a few weeks ago and knew something else about him, as well. “Ryan told me Cole is Ricky's half brother. Cameron was his father, too.”

Lily nodded. “That's the truth, and an old, old story. But Ricky has some other half siblings as well, Cameron's children with his wife, Mary Ellen. You've met Holden and Logan, of course, who both work at Fortune TX, Ltd. Their sister, Eden, is married to Sheikh Ben Ramir. With Linda's permission, of course, I'd like to introduce Ricky to all of them at the reunion—as their little brother.”

Emmett looked at the older woman. “Is that such a good idea? We've kept it a secret until now. That was Ryan's decision.”

“A decision he made ten years ago, when he didn't want it to get out what Cameron had done. But the years have passed, and his other children have matured and come to grips with the man their father was. I have told someone else about Ricky's parentage—my niece, Susan Fortune, who is a psychologist and experienced with children. She agrees with me that Ricky could benefit from the truth. Don't you think he would feel more secure with the knowledge he had a real place in this family, beyond friendship? And real brothers and a sister who will look out for him all his life?”

Emmett sighed. “I'm not the one you should ask about sibling relationships, obviously.”

“Oh, dear.” Lily frowned at him. “I didn't want to bring up painful memories for you.”

But they were always there, lying just below the surface,
ready to grab him like monsters he'd imagined under his bed as a kid. “I'm just not in the mood to think about parties right now, Lily. I'm sorry.”

She was prevented from answering by the hail of an older couple seated farther down in the stands. They came over to Lily to exchange hugs and express their condolences and how much they missed Ryan. From there, a parade of well-wishers found their way to her all with glowing praise for her husband and sympathy for his widow.

Emmett had to distance himself from the emotions swirling around him. Though he remained in place, he focused on the game, silently rooting for Ricky's team. The kid was a great player, talented all around, and Emmett found himself gripping his own knee as a ball rolled dangerously close to the goal box. But Ricky scrambled for it and kicked it far down the field.

Smiling at the boy's success, Emmett searched the area for Linda. He spied her at the far end of the grass, leaning against the cyclone fencing, her fingers hooked into the wire diamond patterns. She was smiling, too, and he caught her eye and gave her a thumbs-up sign. She flashed him one back, but low at her side, in case, he thought, Ricky was watching. She already knew a mother shouldn't be too effusive.

He laughed out loud.

“That's something I've been waiting to hear,” Lily said, her mouth curving up.

“What?”

“You, Emmett Jamison, laughing.”

He rubbed his hand over his hair. “I'm not much of a ha-ha sort of guy. It's not been much of a ha-ha time in my life.” Already he felt guilty for even that small release.

“You're not to blame for anything, Emmett. You're much too sensible for that.”

“How about for my brother getting away from us? I should have been able to stop him.”

Lily was shaking her head. “But Ryan would still be gone now, wouldn't he? He wouldn't want you wasting your time on what-could-have-beens.”

“Maybe I've been wasting my time with Linda and Ricky,” he muttered. “I've let them derail me from my pursuit of Jason.”

“Oh, is that right?” Lily scoffed. “I have my contacts, too, young man, and I happen to know you're in daily communication with the FBI team and the police working this case. They told me about Jason's taunting call to you and that they've encouraged you to lie low and wait for him to make another. All the other leads are exhausted.”

“
I
haven't exhausted them. Maybe if I—”

“You know you're doing the right thing. Even your cousin Collin agrees.”

Emmett made an impatient gesture. “Collin's derailed himself, thanks to Lucy. A woman can do that to a man.”

“Is that what Linda has done to you, Emmett?”

“Linda…” Linda seemed to be his punishment these days. She was so beautiful, so sexy; she had so much that he could admire—her courage, her ability to build a new life for herself and her son. His attraction to her only hurt, because he knew it wasn't right to pursue her. “Linda needs protection.”

“From you? I doubt that.”

“She hasn't been around a man in years. I wouldn't want to give her the wrong idea.”

“Why, Emmett.” Lily was smiling at him now. “I wouldn't have guessed you to be so sexist. Don't you think she's smart enough to make up her own mind about you and what she wants from you?”

“I didn't say she isn't smart!” He knew she was smart. And funny.
Secret agent accountant.
And so damn sexy. His gaze
was drawn to her again, and he watched the way the breeze plastered her thin T-shirt to her breasts. She'd gained weight, too, he thought, and in a good way. “I don't want her to think that I'm planning on staying around.”

Lily's smile turned sly. “Maybe, just maybe, that isn't the kind of staying power she's interested in.”

He looked over, eyebrows raised. “I'm not sure how I should take that, Lily.”

“With the best of intentions, Emmett. I want you—Ryan and I both want you—to be happy. To reach out to life, really live the moment, instead of wallowing in all the ugliness.”

He frowned. “You make me sound like a pig in mud.”

“Nope. Pigs are happy creatures. Come out to the ranch and I'll show you.”

“I'm—” Happy, he wanted to say, but he couldn't. Happiness always seemed to be out of his reach, a daydream, a fantasy, nothing substantial enough to stay.

“What are you two talking about?”

Linda was back, smelling like a fresh breeze and with a smile on her face. “Ricky's sitting out the next quarter, so I can relax for a while.”

“We're talking about Emmett,” Lily said. “And how he should reach out for what he wants.”

Linda stilled. Her gaze leapt to Emmett's and there was that hum between them, a sexual connection that was like a long fuse, burning at both ends, with a bomb in the middle. He couldn't imagine the potential explosion. But God, he wanted to let it rock his world.

“I think he should reach out, too,” Linda said, her gaze not leaving his. “Reach out and discover exactly what's there, right at the end of his fingertips.”

Yeah, he could imagine the explosion, Emmett amended. And he was so tempted to let it rock his world.

 

Maybe because she'd survived her mother-of-soccer-goalie quarter, maybe because Lily had seemed so serene, maybe because of the warm, late afternoon air, as the soccer game ended, Linda found herself with full-on spring fever. With a smile on her face, she followed the older woman out of the stands and onto the field to form the traditional victory tunnel with the other parents. Lily faced another grandmotherly type to link hands above their heads, leaving Linda to face Emmett.

“Reach out and discover exactly what's there?” he murmured to her, holding up his arms.

She hesitated, feeling a flush crawl over her face. It was what she'd said to him in the stands during the game, and even with Lily as a chaperone, it had sounded to her own ears like a pretty straightforward invitation.
Reach out and touch
me.