скачать книгу бесплатно
“Have you looked them up?”
“No.” His mouth twisted again. “No phone, remember? But we stopped at their office on the way here. Pretty impressive setup. They’ve even got a helicopter, and apparently a small plane at the local airfield.”
“Fancy place?”
“No, not at all. Kind of hidden in the trees, not even a sign. Rafe says they work mostly by word of mouth. And lately, the dog.” She laughed. Jace shrugged. “Yeah. Sounds crazy, but here I am.”
A sudden warmth filled her. Yes, he was. She’d called, and he’d come. Just like he’d promised. “You’re still a good guy, Jace Robinson.”
He’d been looking at the new phone, but now his head came up sharply. “Not Robinson. Not anymore.”
Cassidy blinked. “What?”
“I don’t use...his name anymore.”
For a moment she just stared at him, unsure what, if anything, she should say to that. She’d always known he and his father didn’t get along and suspected from some things both her parents and Cory had said that he wasn’t a pleasant guy. And then Jace had started taking judo lessons with Cory, and she’d wondered again if there was more to it than just a guy’s fascination with martial arts. But then he’d started winning competitions, and he rarely mentioned his father anyway, so she’d kind of forgotten.
“Okay,” she finally said, knowing she sounded rather lame but unable to think of anything else to say.
“That’s it? ‘Okay’?” He looked at her steadily, as if daring her to question him.
She kept her voice even. “I assume you had good reason. From what little I knew of your father, I think I understand.”
He let out a breath, relaxing a little, and she wondered what others had assumed. That he was some career criminal looking for a new start, or some victim of media overreach looking for anonymity?
“I had it legally changed when my mom went back to her maiden name, Cahill.”
“So you’re Jace Cahill now?”
He nodded.
“Sounds good together,” she said, meaning it. She left it at that. “By whatever name, thank you for coming. I feel a little silly now. It sounds so crazy when I say it to someone else—” She stopped when he held up a hand.
“I’m sure most stalking victims think it sounds crazy until they find out it’s true. And better you take steps and it turns out not to be anything than not and it does. Or something.” He gave her that crooked smile that had always sent her pulse racing. It still did, and she looked down, a little embarrassed that after all this time he could have this effect on her.
She supposed she shouldn’t be. He had the same bright blue eyes and that same sweetly crooked smile. His body was still tall and lean, and he still had that way of shoving one hand in his jeans pocket that made her hyperaware of the lean maleness of his hips. The fact that he looked older now, a bit older even than she knew he was, only made him more attractive. True, he looked a bit careworn, his hair longer and a bit shaggy, his jeans frayed and faded, his jacket torn on one side, his boots worn and with what looked like a strip of duct tape across one toe. Then again, people paid lots of money for just that look in a futile effort to appear cool.
But that kind of guy didn’t travel over a thousand miles to keep a silly promise to look out for his friend’s younger sister.
“Let’s get you settled in,” she said, making an effort at sounding brisk and efficient, and succeeding somewhat. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved,” he admitted with a rueful twist of his mouth.
“Then aren’t you lucky I made spaghetti sauce yesterday,” she said lightly.
As if on cue his stomach growled. And it made his protest that she didn’t have to do that sound like exactly what it was, a token.
“You came all this way to help me, the least I can do is feed you.” She led him down the hall. He glanced at a doorway as they passed—Cory’s old room. “It’s still Cory’s,” she said, “not that he uses it anymore. He just stores a lot of junk in there. I can’t get him to clean it out.”
“I still remember those bunk beds your dad built. I always thought that was so cool. Not just the beds, but that he built them himself.”
He had always liked them, she remembered. And she remembered his reaction when he’d first looked at the footboards her father had carved. Hey, wings! Cory had looked at him blankly, even her father had seemed puzzled, but she had seen what he meant—the angle of the design did look like seagull wings.
“He was a very handy guy,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry,” Jace said. “I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories.”
“They’re not painful,” she assured him quickly. “I love that people remember him like that. Most people don’t talk about them, and it feels like they’ve forgotten they ever existed.”
They’d reached the door to the guest room. “I moved into the master,” she said. “After a year or so. It seemed silly not to, if I was going to keep the place.”
Funny, when she’d decided to move back into this house after her parents had been killed in that accident, she’d thought she would find it too big, too full of memories for her to ever relax. And yet she’d found it strangely comforting.
“Only makes sense,” he said. “And you’ve made it yours.”
“I’ve tried.” She had redone many things, added her own touch.
“Besides, it’s not like being somewhere else is going to stop the memories. They’re in you. Places just trigger them.”
She stared at him. “Yes. Exactly.”
It wasn’t that she was surprised; Jace had always had depth to him. One of those memories he’d just mentioned flashed into her mind, of her sixteen-year-old self saying to her mother how much more mature—that was a popular word to her then—he seemed than Cory.
“He is,” her mother had said, a touch of sadness in her voice. “His father is...a difficult man.”
She had wondered for an instant if the sadness was for Jace or that Cory wasn’t as mature. Decided it had to be for Jace, because she was sure Cory would eventually catch up. She’d been wrong about that, but at the time she’d been certain.
“But his mom’s so sweet,” she’d said.
“Yes. Which makes it even more difficult.”
She hadn’t understood then. But when her father had come home with the news that Jace and his mother had moved away because his father had left them, she thought she did.
“Can I ask you something?” she said when they were in the guest room, he’d dropped his worn pack on the bed and she’d shown him where clean towels were.
“You can always ask,” he said.
Doesn’t mean I’ll answer. She heard what he didn’t say but went ahead. “When your mom moved away, you were... eighteen.” He nodded, giving her a curious look. “I was just wondering...you had that job at the lumberyard, and your friends here...” She trailed off awkwardly.
“You mean why did I go with her?”
“Yes.”
He leaned against the small dresser, crossing his ankles and his arms. Defensively? she wondered. “Thinking I was a mama’s boy who couldn’t be away from her?”
Yes, definitely defensively. “I never thought that. Ever.”
He let out an audible breath. “She needed help. I couldn’t just walk away.”
“Especially after your father did.”
His gaze narrowed. “You know that, then.”
She smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid the whole neighborhood did.”
He grimaced. “I figured.”
“We all knew your dad was...”
“An assh—”
He cut himself off. She found herself wondering if he’d done it to avoid being foul in front of her, or if he really didn’t like calling his father crude names, even if they fit. Either way, it only made her more certain Jace Rob—Cahill was exactly the guy she remembered. The good guy she remembered.
Unfortunately, she thought as she left him to get settled, that also meant he was still the guy she’d had her first-ever serious crush on. The guy whose thick-lashed eyes had stirred her to sighs, and whose lean, broad-shouldered body had caused feelings in her she hadn’t even recognized. The guy all others since had had to measure up to, and usually failed.
And from what she’d seen—and felt—so far, that hadn’t changed a bit.
Chapter 6 (#u5281a46f-a79a-591b-9a97-854d3b05137c)
Jace listened to her footsteps as she went back down the hall. He was feeling a little off balance, here in this house where he’d spent many hours as a kid. It had been a revelation to him then, that not all parents fought constantly, that in some homes, children were appreciated and encouraged by their father, not a nuisance to be rid of as often as possible.
I didn’t mean to break it, Mr. Grant, really. Please...
His own heartfelt plea as he stood over the shards of the flower pot he’d inadvertently shattered with the baseball he and Cory had been tossing. Cory had told him to burn it in and he had, but Cory had panicked at the last second and dodged away.
He remembered cringing when Cory’s father had crouched before him.
I know you didn’t, Jace. It’s all right. It was an accident. Come on in, have some lunch.
He remembered the shock that had filled him at that moment, that not only was Mr. Grant not going to scream curses at him, but that he was still welcome in his house. Remembered even more the look in the man’s eyes, the look he hated and only later had come to recognize as pity.
A wave of weariness swept over him, and he sat on the edge of the bed. It had been a long haul just to get here, and he was afraid Rafe might have been a bit optimistic about him being able to stay awake until he took over. He wondered what the guy was doing, suspected it had something to do with that industrial-strength laptop he’d seen in the car that looked like it could withstand a direct hit from a hand grenade.
The urge to lie down, just for a moment, nearly swamped him. But he was afraid if he did he would be asleep before he hit the pillow.
You’ve got first watch.
Damn, that made it sound so real. He’d known Cassie was scared, but it hadn’t really seemed possible that she was in real danger until Rafe had said that. He was taking this very seriously, and given his demeanor and that look in his eyes, Jace guessed he knew what he was talking about.
He stood up abruptly before that pillow could lure him in. He opened his pack and started pulling out what was there. He’d packed light, so there wasn’t much, and what there was needed washing after the long trek. Maybe he could do that here, if Cassie didn’t mind.
It hit him then, and his head came up. He looked around the room. The walls were a neutral cream, with splashes of green and blue—the throw pillow on the chair, the vase on the dresser and the geometric pattern of the comforter on the bed. But in his mind’s eye it was a pale green, with white shelves on that wall, full of books almost to the ceiling. And that silly, droopy stuffed dog on the top shelf. He’d always thought of him as standing guard over her precious books.
Belatedly what she had meant when she’d talked of moving into the master bedroom registered. This had been Cassie’s room. He’d only seen it a couple of times, and that had been from down the hall at Cory’s room, when the door happened to be open. And once when he’d come out and caught her peeking out into the hallway, as if to see if anyone was around. When she’d seen him, she’d gasped and darted back inside and closed the door.
That was the first time he’d thought maybe Cory was right about Cassie having a crush on him.
It felt odd—maybe downright weird—to be in this room now. True, it was totally different now, down to the color, but it still nagged at him.
He caught a whiff of some luscious scent that his stomach quickly registered as food and a second later his mind labeled spaghetti sauce. It wiped all else from his mind, and he headed down the hall.
Cassie was putting a foil-wrapped bundle in the oven. She glanced at him. “You mind garlic?”
“Only if there’s not enough,” he said, sucking in a deep breath of the great smells.
She laughed and shut the oven door. “In about fifteen, then.”
“Great. Thank you.”
She just smiled at him, and he felt an odd sort of tumble inside.
“While I was stirring, I looked up Foxworth,” she said. “It seems they’re quite something.”
She nodded toward the tablet that lay on the counter. He picked it up and looked at the website she had open. It was slick, streamlined, and had all the basics. Contact info for the five locations Rafe had mentioned, although no addresses. A short bio of the namesakes of the Foundation, Rafe’s boss’s parents. Some effusively grateful testimonials, clearly written by people who had been at the end of their rope.
And not much more. In fact, it seemed to him that if you didn’t already know what they did, you’d never know what they did.
“It doesn’t really say what they do,” she said, echoing his thought.
“Rafe said they work mostly by word of mouth. And the dog.” She laughed again. He looked at her. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”
“I wasn’t,” she said ruefully, “until you got here. But I feel much better now.”
“Worth the trip, then,” he said, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t at all sure he was going to be able to help. But he was fairly sure Rafe knew what he was doing, so maybe he had helped, indirectly. Or the dog had.
“That’s so sad, about the guy’s parents dying in that terrorist attack.”
“What inspired the whole thing, Rafe said. They turned it into something good. Kind of like you keeping the family business going.”
She sighed. “Not what I’d pictured myself doing, but I couldn’t just let it go.”
He remembered what she’d told him with heartfelt earnestness when she’d been about fourteen. “You wanted to travel the country, see all the places you’d read about.”
She looked startled. “You remember that?”
“Sure.” I understood. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
Then, it had only been the desire to escape. But now running off with Cassidy Grant took on an entirely different meaning.
Whoa. He almost took a step back. This sudden awareness of her, as not his best friend’s little sister, but of the woman she was now, had him completely off-kilter.
“I guess we don’t always get what we want,” she said, and she gave him a sideways glance.
He had the strangest feeling she was talking about him, or at least the kid she’d once had a crush on. Then he told himself he was only thinking that because of the crazy direction his own thoughts had veered into.
“Could I borrow your washing machine?” he asked, rather abruptly, trying to snap his weird train of thought.
“Of course. If you need something to wear while you wash your things, Cory has some stuff in the closet in his room.” She wrinkled her nose. “If you can get to it past all the other stuff in there.”
