Big Bad Wolf (10 page)

Everything about her told him she was a loner, unattached, and had been for awhile, but he could be wrong.
Maybe she did have a fianc
é
somewhere and he just hadn’t shown his face around the job sites, that was all.
And maybe the fianc
é
would have his face smashed in, if he ever did.

Nick took a deliberate deep breath and exhaled.
She was interrupting his focus.
With resolute grimness, he pushed everything to the back of his mind, allowing only thoughts about the computer to remain.
He was almost done playing with the operating program.
Fixing what was wrong was easy enough, but he needed to rewrite parts of the program for his needs.

Just as he’d suspected, Jaymee wasn’t using DSL or wireless.
He kind of understood her thinking by now. Hell, he’d seen her cheap cell phone. He’d also noticed the TV antenna on the roof. She was cutting back on every little luxury most people took for granted. That would be over a thousand dollars of savings there in the bank.

He’d come prepared
.
Looking under the desk, he disengaged the phone line that hooked up the older computer to the wall outlet.
Then he stood up and checked the back of the new computer and found the phone line dangling loose.
Holding the line in his mouth, he pulled out a small plastic packet from his back pocket and poured its contents onto the table.
Several tiny flat microchips the size of fish flake food scattered out.

Nick cocked his head, listening intently for Jaymee’s movements outside the study.
He heard her moving around the sink area.
Making lunch, from the sounds of it.
Pulling out a pair of tweezers from the other back pocket, he used them to pick up a chip.
He released the line he was holding in his mouth into his other hand, and with a quick practiced twist, he inserted the microchip into the connector, firmly pressing it into place.
He plugged it into the outlet in the wall.

It took another five minutes before his link went through.
He hesitated when the password was requested.
If he gave it, Command would know he was alive, and so would anyone else monitoring his password.
They wouldn't be able to read hi
s message, but they’d know
he wasn’t dead, and after the narrow escape from his boat, h
e had a feeling
his demised condition was very important to the enemy.
If he’d been betrayed from the inside, then their attempt to kill him had failed.

No.
He would have to break in.
There were only a few personnel in his agency who could trace or recognize his encryptions, and really, only one who knew how to decode it, and then disguise a similar message back to him.
Step by step, his mind took him through the logistics.
Override the security checkpoints.
Invade through disguise.
Disrupt by merging simple commands.
Then make sure only one person would come across it.

He plucked at his lips as he manipulated the command strings that moved across the screen in rapid succession.
He had no idea when the man for whom he left the code would come across the message, and he was going to need another excuse to play with the computer.

Swiftly, he removed all traces of his activities and returned the screen to MENU.
Jaymee probably wouldn’t know he was breaking into the government’s most secured lines even if she was watching him, but Nick didn’t want to bet too heavily on that.
His boss had a way of grasping a situation very quickly.

“Lunch is ready! Nick?”

“Yeah, I’m almost done,” he called back as he finished up.

*

Jaymee couldn’t figure him out.
It was her source of pride since her unfortunate brush with the deceptive side of the male gender that she’d learned to read every one of them and put them in their rightful category.
Through the years, she and Mindy had exchanged notes.
There was the Bear, the one she could leave at a job site as long as there was honey, the promise of better pay if the job was done that day.
There was the Rabbit, the worker who hurried, hurried, hurried to finish a job.
From her list of restaurant adventures, Mindy, in her typical droll sense of humor, had added in the Drunken Monkey, the Snake, and the Peacock.
But he wasn’t any of those.

There was one more in her list, the most dangerous animal of all because he was the most deceptive, knowing when to hide under sheep’s clothing and be nice, only to turn around and devour women like her.
And nothing about Nick Langley had convinced her he was anything but a wolf, out on a hunt, only after a good time.

But sometimes she wondered whether she was wrong.
She couldn’t figure out why he was in her world at all, and most important, why he wanted her.
Unlike before, she didn’t have any money or assets now to interest a wolf.
Eight years of eluding men had taken away any confidence of how she could affect any male interest.

She flashed him a smile.
“How’s it going?”

Nick sat down at the kitchen table.
“Almost done.
I need a Philips screwdriver to open up the case.
I might as well check everything while I’m at it.”

Jaymee put the plate of cold chicken salad and a glass of milk in front of him.
“Go ahead.
I’m just glad the
the computer isn’t a lemon
, even though it’s a refurbished one
.”

Nick smiled at the food in front of him.
How long had it been since a woman fed him cold chicken salad and milk for a meal?
It was an uncomfortably homey gesture, and warm pleasure blunted the anger he’d been carrying.

“It’s not a Z-28,” he agreed, lifting a fork, “but it’ll take you where you want to go.”

He watched her take a sip of milk from his glass.
Nice lipstick.
Tempting lips.

“Let me get my dad to join us,” Jaymee said, heading for the screen door.
“Dad!
Dad!
Come in and eat your lunch.”

She turned to Nick and warned, “Just ignore his bad manners, al
l
right?”

Nick nodded.
Bob shuffled in, giving a wide yawn.
He cast a resentful look at Nick.

“Still here?
I thought you said he was your laborer, Jaymee, not your bodyguard.”

Jaymee set a place for him, then took the middle seat.
“He’s fixing the new computer.”
She gestured.
“Here, take your medication and get some food in you.”

“I don’t want milk,” the old man growled.

“Sorry, beer and medication don’t go together,” she calmly informed him.
“If you end up in the hospital this time, I’ll have to mortgage the house to pay the bills, and then you won’t get your business back in the black for sure.”

Nick suddenly realized Jaymee dangled the roofing business in front of her father like bait.
Every time he pushed her too far, she would bring up the subject of getting the business back in the black, and it always had the desired
e
ffect
.
The old man sat and washed down the pills with a glass of milk and obediently started on his meal.
Nick wondered what it was all about.
The father seemed to have a hold over his daughter, and in a strange way, vice-versa.

“So, will I be able to use the new computer soon?” Jaymee wanted to know.

“As soon as you get everything updated and reconfigured.”

She sighed.
“That means another month or so.”

Nick frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Transferring programs and files was assembly work, like eating.

“My abilities with a computer don’t go beyond turning it on, pointing the mouse, and saving a file,” confessed Jaymee with a wry smile.
“Anything more difficult usually means reading a manual, deciphering lots of error messages, redoing the same procedure a dozen times, and God knows what else.
You’ll see.
What with all the other chores I’ve to do, it’ll take a month before I get the new computer set up.”

She made it so easy, the operative in him mocked him for taking advantage of her.
“I can do it for you,” Nick offered, calmly reaching for a roll.
“I can help you out in the evenings, do anything you want.”

Bob grunted at the other end of the table and his watery eyes told him exactly what he thought of
the
offer.
“I’ll bet you would do anything she wants,” he said.
Turning to Jaymee, he added, “You ain’t learned a lesson yet, I guess you just ain’t as bright as I thought.
Help you out in the evenings, do anything you want.
You just stick him back to real work and watch that pretty face wilt in the sun.”

“He does work in the sun,” Jaymee quietly said, but her face was slightly flushed at her father’s none-too-subtle accusations. “You don’t have to like everyone I hire, Dad, and if you’ve nothing good to say, why don’t you just keep it to yourself?”

“He ain’t got much to say to defend himself, does he?” Bob sneered at Nick.

Nick looked across the table, calmly chewing, then swallowing.
“What your daughter and I do isn’t your business, Mr. Barrows.”

“Nick...” Jaymee began.

“Ain’t my business?” Bob barked out in sudden wrath.
“If I don’t keep an eye on her, she won’t have any business left at all.
The last time she mixed business with pleasure, she near bankrupted me!
And sent her ma to an early grave, she did!”

“That’s enough,” Jaymee cut in, her voice low.
Why, why, why did he have to keep bringing it up?

As if her father heard her, he continued, “I’ve to remind her so she won’t forget.
She wants to play, let her do what she promised me, let her pay for her mistake first.
My daddy taught us to always pay for our mistakes, and she…”

Nick stood up.
He’d had enough.
“As far as I can tell, you’ve got the most hard-working daughter around.”
His voice was no longer that lazy, gravelly drawl.
“Let’s go for a walk, Jay.
I need to work off a sudden indigestion.”

There was a cold, dangerous edge to it, and Jaymee shivered at the sound.
She stared at his outstretched hand and looked up into calm and steady eyes the color of winter sky.
She couldn’t read his thoughts as those unfathomable eyes demanded her to do as he said.
She placed her hand in his and got up.

Bob continued eating, already forgetting the outburst of a few moments before.
“Go for a walk,” he repeated.
“I’ll clean up.”

Summer heat blasted them the moment they stepped off the porch into the bright sunlight.
The air was thick with humidity and tension.
In silence, Jaymee walked toward the lake, heading for the picnic table under the elm oak.
The shade beckoned invitingly as the heat beat down on their unprotected heads.

“This used to be my favorite spot,” she said, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“I used to sit right here to do my homework.
Only the lake kept tempting me, and I always ended up in that small canoe.”
She sighed, wanting those easy days back.

“You have a nice piece of property here,” Nick agreed, as he looked toward the lake.

“It’s not mine.
It’s Dad’s,” Jaymee corrected.
Plucking a small branch of hibiscus off a bush, she pulled out the flowers, plucking the petals off one by one.

“It’ll be yours one day.”

Her eyes were
the
muddy color he knew echoed her mood.
“I don’t want it.
My goal is to move out in two years.”

“Why two years?”

“You aren’t the only person with stuff to straighten out, Nick.”
She gazed at the lake with its bright gleaming ripples of gold.
“I’m sure you noticed my father and I don’t get along too well.”

“He isn’t exactly there all the time,” he agreed.
“Drinking will do that to you, though.
The violent mood swings, I mean.”

Jaymee nodded.
“Yes.
He’s gotten worse the last year but he’s a tough old bastard, even after the stroke.
He’ll be OK when I hand him back his business.”

“But why the time table?
Why two years?”
Nick stretched out his long length next to her body on the grass, leaning back on his hands.

He was so easy to talk to, but she wasn’t going to tell her story to this man beside her.
She’d already let him in too much.
Besides, why would a sad tale of a misguided, trusting young woman interest him?
He was only interested in staying long enough to make some money so he could move on.
She kept plucking at the spray of hibiscus in her hands.