Savor the Danger
Page 89

“He agreed to my assistance under duress,” Priss told them.
“Not really.” Trace kissed her temple. “I don’t want you involved in anything dangerous—”
“Hear, hear,” Dare said, lifting his cola in a toast and earning a hug from Molly.
“—but you’re great on the computer at tracking down records. And you’ve got a diabolical mind when it comes to deciphering the motives and probabilities of maniacs.”
“Meaning I make a good sounding board.” Priss grinned.
Shell-shocked over that disclosure, Jackson said, “You tell her things about…” He caught Priss’s challenging stare and rethought his words. “You know, business?”
“Sometimes, sure.” Trace shrugged. “I trust her, and she’s good at helping me fit the puzzle pieces together.”
“But you know there’s still a lot you don’t tell me.”
“I’ll take the fifth on that.” Trace kissed her before she could protest.
“I have to be careful what I say,” Dare mentioned.
Molly grinned. “He worries that I’ll borrow trade secrets for one of my suspense books.” She smacked his shoulder. “But of course I wouldn’t.”
They all laughed.
Growing antsy under Jackson’s unrelenting stare, Alani looked up. She felt the touch of his gaze clear down to her soul. She tried a smile, but he was so contained, he didn’t return the gesture.
Determined to be proactive, she picked up a sandwich and a cola and joined him at the other end of the room. Even while suffering great misgivings, she held on to his gaze and her smile.
“You should eat.” She offered him the food.
He took everything from her and set it on the table behind him. Lifting a long lock of her hair, he brought it up to his face, his eyes closed, expression pained. “You have the most amazing hair. So damn soft.”
“Jackson?”
He drew her into his arms, his nose at her temple, his hand sliding into her hair, around her skull. “It’s almost as pretty as your eyes.”
He seemed somewhat…desolate.
“What is it?” she whispered. The others were talking, pretending to pay them no attention.
She and Jackson both knew better; nothing got past Trace and Dare.
He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, then kissed the bridge of her nose, her cheekbone. “Don’t make me out to be something I’m not, okay?”
“You’re worrying me, Jackson.”
“Mmm.” He turned her so that her back rested against the patio door, and he shielded her from the gazes of others with his body. “That’s something I never want to do.”
She drew a fortifying breath. “Caring and worrying go hand in hand. Even if you didn’t have such a dangerous job, there would be times of concern.” She rested a hand over his strong heartbeat. “I can’t help that. I’m female.”
“Very female,” he murmured.
Now that sounded more like Jackson. “So you’re finally noticing that again?”
“Did I ever stop noticing?” Not giving her an opportunity to reply, he said, “There’s a lot to decide, a lot to be done.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, either. “Like what?”
He looked down at her mouth, then up into her eyes—and his cell phone rang. For one heartbeat of time, he froze. Everyone turned to them.
Alani saw the change in his demeanor and posture as he went hard and resolute, dark and dangerous in a nanosecond.
He stepped away from her while digging the phone from his jeans pocket.
He looked at the caller ID, and a calculated smile of satisfaction sent chills up her spine. “It’s Arizona.”
Both Dare and Trace came to attention. Their wives, too.
Alani reached out to touch Jackson, but as he opened the phone to answer, he stepped out of her reach—and then, to her disbelief, he turned his back on her.
INSTINCTIVELY NEEDING Alani distanced from any possible threat, Jackson separated himself from her before answering the phone. She already had some messed up, skewed perception of him, thinking him all noble and honorable.
He wasn’t a damn saint. Far from it, and he didn’t want his worry for Arizona to add to her confusion.
Her quick acceptance of things had left him reeling. It wasn’t what he’d expected. Jealousy, sure. A snit, maybe. He’d deliberately kept things from her—still kept things from her—but she accepted it with ease.
She was so goddamned understanding that it made his brain spin.
Would she as easily accept that Arizona was a part of his life now? He couldn’t abandon her.
But he wouldn’t give up Alani, either.
Done speculating, Jackson put the phone to his ear and, following protocol, said nothing. He just waited.
“It’s Arizona.”
Relief stiffened his spine even more. He went right to the point: “You’re okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He wasn’t buying that, not until he saw her himself. “Where are you?”
“Weeeellll… That’s the thing. I’m sort of…on the road.”
He paced away from the door, wishing he had real privacy—or more to the point, that the women weren’t in the room. But damn Dare and Trace, neither of them made a move to make that happen, and he felt the intrusion of the wives, of Alani, as a keen imposition. “I called.”