Deliciously Dangerous

“Is something wrong?”

“No. Why? Should there be something wrong?”

She smiled and opened the volume in her hand as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Even her heart remained calm, beating normally. Written on the page in a neat hand was an inscription. “To my son. Here is a bit of our heritage. Although we’re Americans, it’ll help you understand your roots and where you came from.”

The words touched her-a father giving a collection of poetry to his son so that he could have a sense of family and belonging.

Moments later she felt his hand on her nape, the warmth sending little prickles of sensation down her back and arms, but she kept her eyes glued to the page. “Did you read this?” she asked.

“Do you want me to tell you it’s all for show?”

She closed the book, wishing he didn’t evade every question she asked him. It was like he was the one who was the ghost.

“We have to be on our guard all the time. It’s the nature of the business. So you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. We aren’t a couple. We don’t have any intention of staying together. I know this is a deal with fringe benefits. So you can lie to me if you wish and I’ll pretend that it’s the truth.”

“Then why do you ask me so many questions?”

Callie’s stomach jumped. Of course, the reason was because she was undercover to reveal the identity of the Ghost, and how to get to him. But if she was honest with herself, the real reason was because she wanted to know. She had this insatiable need to discover everything about Jammer.

But she tamped all of that down and responded with the easiest answer. “Just wondering. You’re an enigma, Jammer. Just trying to find out what’s behind it.”

“You’d be better off not knowing anything, Gina.”

“You’re probably right.” He was, too; she had to get her wits back. She had to keep telling herself that this man wasn’t who he seemed to be. He was in a dangerous business. He bought and sold weapons to perpetuate wars and death. He did it for profit. She couldn’t be blinded by the way he treated her or how she felt when she was close to him.

Just because she couldn’t reconcile what he’d done for her sister or the DEA agent didn’t change the cold, hard facts. Jammer, the Ghost and-if she could manage it-Fuentes would all go down and be nothing but names on a prison roster when she was done.

She closed the book and went to return it to the shelf, working to corral her feelings, to get the right perspective on the situation.

But he bent his head down, his lips close to her ear. “What if I said that my ancestry is Scottish? That the book you hold was a present from my father, who wanted me to understand my lineage? Who thought that it was important to know where you came from before you found out where you were going? Who every day of his life gave me the wisdom and the nurturing that a father is supposed to give his son? What if I told you that he instilled in me a sense of place, an anchor to ground me? An anchor that has helped me in both hard times and good times?”

She steeled herself against the tortured tone of his voice, the raw emotion in his hands as they settled on her shoulders and squeezed gently. The trouble with being undercover was that she had to decipher what was real and what was fabricated. She had to step lightly to keep herself alive, and not fall for a charming gunrunner with a depth she hadn’t expected and couldn’t buy into. Her heart had to remain untouched.

She turned around and faced him. “I would say that you’re very good at lying, Jammer.” She tried to push down the lump in her throat as she pushed the book into his hands.

“I would have to be lying, wouldn’t I? With a father like that, with that kind of upbringing-to be that boy, one lucky enough to have that kind of parenting-I wouldn’t have turned out like me. A ruthless, greedy bastard, selling death.”

She smiled as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Exactly. You ought to think about writing fiction. You’d be very good at it.”

“No, the thoughts I have in my head should stay there. Truth is more chilling than fiction. Keeping you alive will be enough for me to worry about.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ve lost everyone who matters to me. I’ve got enough death on my conscience to last me more than one lifetime.”

A thick, heavy silence hung in the air as their gazes held. Jammer’s expression was turbulent, wistful, his fingers tight on her upper arms. She had the realization that he could have snapped her in half like a twig. She had never been quite so aware of the differences in their sizes, had never felt quite so overwhelmed by a man before.

“I’ve got enough death on my conscience to last me…” The words sank into her brain one by one to be scrutinized and a chill ran through her.

She stared at him for a long moment, watching him struggle to rein back the emotions that swirled in his eyes. She forced herself to relax by degrees, and breathed easier as his grip loosened. His hands settled on her shoulders.

“Would you like to unburden yourself?” she asked softly.

Very deliberately he lifted his hands from her shoulders and turned away from her. “No, I wouldn’t.”

She couldn’t admit she was shaken or show that her legs and her heart had been affected by his words. She wouldn’t believe that the affection in his voice, that terrible sense of loss in his eyes, was real. She was the one in charge of the situation. She was the one who had to remain calm and aloof.

She walked out of the room, digging in her pocket for her cell phone. She had a new determination to call Damian and find out if he’d gotten what he needed, or if she would have to make another trip down here to fulfill her mission.

“I think I will take that nap now, Jammer. Wake me in about an hour, would you?”

She vowed not to let the image of him standing there holding that book in his hands affect her as she headed for the stairs, her fingers already pressing the digits as she climbed. The faster she found out who the Ghost was, the faster she could get out of this situation.

She stopped on the steps and closed her eyes. Damn him and his secrets and his feigned vulnerability. For that was what it was. He was good, but she would have to be better.

She ignored the voice in her head that told her she was wrong. She wasn’t wrong.

When Damian answered, she stepped into Jammer’s room and closed the door.

JAMMER STOOD IN THE library, the leather of the book smooth against his palms. Why did she have to choose this volume over all the others? It was the only one in the room that was connected to a dead man. A ghost.

He felt all the ghosts in his life crowding him. Shifting his shoulders at the deep well of pain and loss, he reached up and slid the book back in place.

She was killing him by slow degrees. For the first time he chafed at the constraints he’d agreed to willingly when he went into this arrangement.

She was far too close, and every facet of his equilibrium was threatened, physically, emotionally, intellectually.

The urge to tell her the truth was there, the words right on the tip of his tongue. And that urge was so strong it actually made his insides cramp. He knew she couldn’t possibly guess at what was really going on.

He was disappointed that she hadn’t questioned him further, tried to glean whether or not his little “story” about his father was real.

His brain scrambled to logically weigh all the pros and cons of truly opening up to her, but his head was in a constant war with the reactions of his body and his heart. It was all such a huge jumble, there was no way he could make a rational judgment. Not with her looking at him with those bright and direct eyes and him wanting all sorts of things that were in conflict with why he was here and what he’d promised to get done. But his mind wouldn’t stop spinning, teasing him with ridiculous possibilities, ones that should seem outrageous at best, terrifying at worst. And yet he couldn’t stop that little voice from whispering tauntingly, teasingly, that perhaps it was possible he could somehow come out of this alive and free, and she might be the one woman with whom he could become whole.