Cheating Time (28 page)

Jayden's lips pursed.

Suddenly, I was the one consoling him.
"You're right, Jayden. Gran loves Tawney too much to let anything
happen to her. He had an entire backpack full of rations. They'll
be able to survive until they make it to the safe house. Then
they'll rest. Mom said it's a place Tawney will love. There's a
hammock in a tree house where she will spend all day every day
reading," I said, and I could almost imagine her doing just
that.

Jayden smiled also. He knew as well as I did
that Tawney would love nothing more.

"What are we going to do now, Jayden?" I
asked.

Jayden pulled me a little tighter. "You're
going to the preparatory academy. Your dad will demand I get
accepted into their guard and that I get assigned as your personal
Surrogate. Barone won't do anything that will upset your mother now
that he has her back. He'll agree," Jayden said.

I hoped and prayed everything was going to
be as easy as he assumed.

"What are we going to do about Thorne? I
mean… you heard what Gran said, and you know as well as I do that
Dad doesn't know what he's asked us to do," I reminded him.

Again, Jayden's lips pursed and his jaw was
clenched.

"I know. Let's just get through this. Then
we'll decide what else we need to do and if we need to talk to your
dad about it," Jayden responded.

"Rorie is Thorne's twin sister. I'm not sure
if you realized that. I-I just want you to know I like them, and
I-I think they're as much victims as we are."

"Yeah, I saw he was pretty protective of
her. I suspected there was something there, but I never thought she
was his twin. Either way, I'm not quite ready to risk your life
confiding in him. For now, everything we know needs to stay between
the two of us. Do you hear?" Jayden ordered like he thought of me
as one of his soldiers.

I guess that is exactly
what I am now.

My head bobbed. "I hear you."

"I'm going to take you back to his tent, and
I'm going to guard it from the outside just like I have been all
night."

I looked him in the eyes. "I thought you
were in the Surrogates' tent, resting."

"No can do. I've been outside that tent all
night, and I'll be out there the rest of the night."

I eyed him suspiciously. "Were you
eavesdropping?"

My face was burning. I tried to remember
everything I'd said. My face got hotter when I thought about
Thorne's kiss.

Jayden leaned down into my ear and
whispered, "I don't care who he thinks he is to you. If he kisses
you again, he's going to find out exactly who I am to you."

I wasn't the one in danger, and I was scared
of the Jayden issuing the warning.

I leaned my forehead into his chest. "I'm so
embarrassed."

"You shouldn't be. He was the one who
started it." Jayden cleared his throat. "I have to admit it
would've been a nice ego booster if you'd pushed him away and
slapped him, but at least I know you weren't into it. Not like you
are when we kiss."

"I didn't know what to do. There was some
part of me that knew I was supposed to be okay with him. There was
a part of me that wanted to be okay with him kissing me.
Theoretically, all the right physiological surges were happening."
Jayden's entire body went rock hard.

Trying to figure out how to explain what I
needed him to know in a gentler and less brutally honest way, I bit
my lip. Then I grabbed his hand and spread his fingers open and
placed his open palm over my racing heart.

"All of them but the one that is the most
important. The one that stops and starts here," I said before
gulping loudly.

Jayden's eyes locked with mine, and he
smiled like he'd just been given the best gift of his life.

"It's because it belongs to you, Jayden. No
one else," I whispered into his ear before kissing his neck just
below.

When I did that, Jayden came undone. He
snatched me up and kissed me long and hard all the while walking
with my feet floating above the ground until my back hit the trunk
of a tree.

Pinning me, Jayden kissed me everywhere he
could. Forehead, eyes, cheeks, neck, collarbone, shoulders.
Finally, he stopped on my lips, parting them with his tongue and
deepening our embrace in a way that told me Jayden wanted me in
every way I was willing to give him.

The palms of both his hands were splayed
open on my back and getting to know every inch of me without moving
into forbidden territory. With him kissing me like that and me
wanting him like I did, I was sure I'd never even consider refusing
him, but he was afraid enough of my father to keep it as first base
as possible.

After a long few minutes of kissing, Jayden
pulled back and with a hoarse voice said, "You have mine, too,
Carlie. You've had it for a long time. I've just never been brave
enough to tell you."

I rolled my eyes. "You'd rather fight with
me than tell me something like that?"

He chuckled. "It wasn't necessarily you I
was afraid of. Your father is a very scary man. I've seen him in
action. You haven't."

I laughed, aloud. "You are a Surrogate
Soldier. Nothing is supposed to scare you… least of all the man who
thinks you walk on water."

"He'd be angry if he knew, Carlie. You don't
understand."

I grabbed his cheeks in my hands. "He loves
you like a son, Jayden. Why would he care if we were together?"

"I don't blame him. He knows it would make
your life hard, and he loves you too much to see you walk through
life with the stigma that comes with being the mate of a Surrogate.
It means people will treat you like you have social leprosy… and
you'll never be able to have kids… he'd never have grandkids.
That's an important reason to walk away from this right now,
Carlie. Walk away before it's any harder on us and your family
disowns you," he pleaded, and it came from an altruistic place so
deep inside Jayden that I wanted to weep for him.

"I can't," I said simply. "I love you, and I
can't."

His entire body relaxed, and he let out a
long, relieved sigh. "I love you, too." He kissed my forehead. "I
love you, too," he whispered again. "Now, I need to get you back to
your tent before anyone knows you're gone."

I wanted to argue with him and tell him I
didn't care if I ever went back to that tent. I wanted to let him
know my body was experiencing the surge of hormones that Thorne had
tried to elicit in me earlier, and they would prevent me from going
to sleep anytime soon. Most of all, I just wanted to stay with
him.

In the end, I didn't say a word because he
had things he needed to do, and I wasn't going to make him think I
was too weak to be without him. Jayden wasn't a man who would want
a woman who thought he needed to be with her every second of the
day.

Besides, that's not who I
am.

He intertwined his fingers with mine and led
me back to my tent. After a kiss on the cheek, he nudged me inside.
When I turned around with a plan to—
quietly
—make my way back to my cot, I saw Thorne
leaning back in his chair and looking at me with every ounce of
betrayal he felt.

Floating in the air in front of him were
images of heart and brain rhythms, a pulse rate, blood and
pulmonary pressures, and oxygen saturation. I didn't need to ask
whose they were. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd seen
exactly how my body reacted when I was with Jayden.

I cleared my throat and decided there was
nothing to say. My relationship with Jayden wasn't one I was going
to be explaining to anyone. Not even the betrayed physician sitting
in front of me.

"Rorie," I heard Thorne whisper somewhere in
my dreams.

I curved into a tighter ball and tried to
fall back into the deep sleep I'd just been enjoying.

"Rorie, it's time to get up, sweetie,"
Thorne whispered.

My eyes popped open, and I saw Thorne wiping
the hair from her face. He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Rorie," he sang. "It's time to get up."

"Thorne, I'm still sleepy." She smiled up at
him, stretching and yawning.

"
Shh!
" he
cautioned.

I sat up and stretched just like she had.
"No need to be quiet. I'm up."

"You barely slept. You need to get more
rest," Thorne insisted.

"I'm fine. Besides, I'm Rorie's sous-chef
until I go to the academy," I said, grinning over to Rorie.

Rorie jumped up and bounced while clapping
her hands. "Carles, you're going to help me in the kitchen. That'll
be so much fun."

Rorie's exuberance, her trust, her
affections for her brother were nothing short of contagious. When I
caught a glance of Thorne, he was standing with his mouth open,
staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"No one has ever offered to help her.
Everyone here has let her work her fingers to the bone, and not one
person has thanked her or offered to help her," he explained.

"Well, I'm going to lead by example. Maybe
if others see me helping, they'll realize how rude they've been," I
said, shrugging. "If not. It won't matter. Working together, Rorie
and I can run circles around these people around here. We don't
need their help."

Rorie was bobbing her head vehemently.

She wrapped her hand around mine and said,
"Come on, Carles. This is going to be so much fun."

I wanted to laugh. The last thing I would
ever consider fun was kitchen duty, but I wasn't about to tell
Rorie that. She loved it too much for me to put it down.

Thorne followed when we walked toward the
door. I turned around and said, "Where are you going?"

He looked shy. "I thought I'd come and
help."

I eyed him like he'd eyed me earlier and
regurgitated his own words. "
You
barely slept.
You
need to get more
rest."

He chuckled. "I got all I needed. Now let's
go. These people'll be up soon. There'll be riots if there's no
coffee and breakfast."

"Whatever. Suit yourself," I said, letting
Rorie pull me toward the galley.

* * *

Two hours later, there were pans of eggs,
trays of sausage and bacon, and baskets of biscuits waiting for the
camp's infirmary workers and soldiers to come through the food
line. Thorne and I had gone out of our way to follow Rorie's every
instruction. Even then, there were times Rorie wasn't pleased with
our offer of hard labor. She very gently asked that I whisk the
eggs fast and hard so they would be fluffy. In my humble opinion, I
was doing just that. In Rorie's, I was not.

After a few minutes and before I totally
ruined her good name, she took the whisk from me and began beating
the eggs with more force than I would have ever thought possible
for the petite girl.

I stuck my tongue out at Thorne after he
laughed when she took the task away from me, and I got even by
laughing when she told him she might have to throw his pan of
biscuits away they were so misshapen. It was obvious Thorne wasn't
used to anything but love and praise coming from his sister. He'd
never met her alter ego, the one that wanted every aspect of the
meal to be perfect.

Soon the galley was full and the din of
conversation and the clattering of trays and glasses and silverware
echoed off the walls, making it seem louder than it actually
was.

I was serving eggs when a tray was pushed
under the glass divider. I put one spoon of eggs—per Rorie's
orders—on the tray. When the tray stayed put, I glanced up. Jayden
was the soldier demanding more. He gave me a lopsided grin and a
wink. I blushed like a little girl, shook my head, and gave him
another spoon of eggs, making sure to hide what I'd done from
Rorie.

After spending hours with her, I'd learned
she was a rule follower through and through. If Thorne told her to
do something, she was going to do it or die trying. It only took me
a few minutes to realize rules made Rorie feel safe. As long as she
did what she was told and followed all the rules, she wouldn't get
in trouble.

Holding up the line, Jayden asked, "Can you
stop and eat with me?"

I looked at the long line and shook my head.
"No can do. I'm Rorie's sous-chef. If she cooks, I cook. If she
serves, I serve. If she cleans, I clean. I won't be finished until
she is."

Rorie looked over at me and smiled. She
loved having my help, but more than anything, she loved working
side by side with her brother.

"You're holding up the line. Do you want
anything else?" Thorne asked Jayden gruffly.

Jayden's eyes never left mine. "No, man. I
have all I need."

If he wasn't trying to antagonize Thorne,
I'd have swooned over what he said and the way he looked at me.
Because I knew it didn't sit well with Thorne, I rolled my eyes and
said, "Then keep it moving. We have people who are desperate to try
Rorie's breakfast. She's famous for her fluffy eggs and perfectly
shaped biscuits. We can't have anyone holding up the line," I said,
grinning toward Jayden and giving him my own wink.