Conspiracy Game (36 page)

She patted his hand. “I hate to be the one to give you the bad news, but you determine the sex of the baby, so if we have a girl, it’s all your fault.”

The touch of her hand, light and teasing over his, squeezed the air out of his lungs. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered how he’d gotten so lucky, to have her in his home, in his bed, lying in the dark teasing him. It didn’t seem possible. His life was what he’d chosen and he had no complaints. He was used to silence. To being alone. There were days when he didn’t talk to another human being, and weeks when he went without conversing with anyone other than Ken. He had always thought of himself as solitary—it was safer for everyone that way—but now, with Briony lying beside him, her body warm and soft and her scent teasing his senses, he felt an odd sense of peace.

“Strange thing.” He made the confession aloud, not knowing why, but wanting her to know. “I’ve never actually relaxed with anyone around, not enough to sleep. Even out in the field, I have to move away from everyone or I don’t close my eyes—but you relax me. Before, when we were together, first I thought it was exhaustion, and then the sex, but it’s you.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “It’s just you.”

She was going to rip him apart when she tried to leave him, and it would come—maybe not now, or a month from now, but sooner or later, his domineering ways would make her need to rebel. She couldn’t understand the demons that drove him. Hell, he couldn’t—why should he expect that she would?

“I thought I could relax with you because you shield me from emotion, but that’s not the reason either.” She turned toward him, her fingers brushing his face as if she could read his expression. “You don’t think Whitney could do that too, do you?”

“No.” His voice turned grim. “Whitney doesn’t want to make it easy on anyone, Briony. He could have kept you with an anchor, but he deliberately put you with a family where you’d be out in the public on a daily basis. You
had
to interact. That was on purpose, for his little experiments. What were you made of? Could you find a way to overcome the pain? Overcome your differences living in a normal family? Bastard. He knew you were going to suffer every damn day of your life—and that there was every possibility your family would reject you eventually.”

“They thought I was autistic at first. Mom would hold me, and I felt everything she was feeling, knew what she was thinking, and it hurt so bad. I used to curl up in a ball under my bed and hide. She cried and cried, and I knew I was failing her.”

His hand found her hair. “That’s bullshit, baby. You’ve never failed anyone in your life. You did whatever it took to live in that family and fit in. Whitney needs someone to cap his ass.”

Briony snuggled closer to him, so close he could feel her breath against his chest. “Well, don’t do it tonight. I’m thinking I’m going to have nightmares about little boys running wild in the forest and me chasing them all. If I wake up screaming, it’s your fault.”

He loved the soft, drowsy note in her voice; it was as sexy as could be. What would it be like to be normal? He didn’t know. Ken didn’t know. And he doubted if Briony would ever know. But she was with him now, and he could wrap his arms around her, and somehow the memories of blood and death seemed far away.

C
HAPTER 
14

“
Oh
you angel!” Ken leaned across the table and pressed a kiss to Briony’s temple. “Who knew the woman liked to cook? Marry me right now. We’ll run away together.”

“Get the hell off of her,” Jack said, his tone mild. He forked another bite of fluffy omelet into his mouth. “I had the good sense to get her pregnant, so you can just back off.”

“Good food and a beautiful woman haven’t improved your disposition much,” Ken grumbled. “And having a baby hasn’t improved your language either.”

“Not one baby,” Jack corrected, “
two
.”

Briony laughed softly, shaking her head at him. There was a note of pride in his voice he hadn’t bothered to conceal—one totally at odds with his tough, scarred features. “You’re so conceited.”

The sound of her laughter slid over his skin like fingers trailing over his nerve endings, stirring his body into yet another erection. He could sit across from her every morning, drinking in her tousled hair and her bright eyes and sunny smile. Even if Ken was deliberately provoking him by making goo-goo eyes at her.

“Well if you’re going to insist on twins every time I get pregnant, this is it, buster,” she said and reached over to pour coffee into Ken’s cup.

“Even your coffee is great,” Ken said.

Briony’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “How would I know? Every time I try to sneak a cup, your brother dumps it down the sink.”

Jack lifted the book he had open at the table. “It says right here, caffeine isn’t good for you or the baby. And we need fresh fruit, not juice. Do you have any idea of the amount of calcium you need?”

She yanked the book out of his hand and flung it across the room hard enough that it hit the wall. “You’ve got to stop reading from the Book of Satan. You’re clearly becoming obsessed.”

“Rebellion!” Ken grinned at her. “I knew it was coming. You can’t mess with a woman’s coffee, Jack. See, hon, if you marry me and cook three meals a day with a snack or two thrown in daily, I’ll let you have all the coffee you want.”

“How good of you to
let
me.” Briony kicked his shin under the table. “You just pretend to be the sweet, easygoing brother. I’m not marrying you so you have a cook.”

“That’s not right,” Ken complained, rubbing his shin and trying to look pathetic. “I’m still growing, and all I get around here is lists for work.” He held up a small notebook and scowled at his brother. “No fuel to keep me going.”

“She’s not cooking your meals, Ken, so stop whining.” Jack glanced over at Briony. “I told you he whined.”

“Wheedle,” Ken corrected. “I wheedle. It sounds so much better than whining.”

Laughing, Briony shook her head. “You two are so crazy. So is it okay for me to walk through the yard now?”

“We just have alarms set,” Ken said, “small strobes that will go off to alert us if anyone has breached the parameters. It’s safe enough.”

Jack looked up alertly. “Are you planning on going for a walk today?”

She nodded. “If I have the time. I want to do a little cleaning and put together something for dinner.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Idiot,” Ken hissed, wadding up a napkin and throwing it at his brother. “Are you insane? Don’t listen to him, Briony. You want to cook, get on with it, I say.”

“I like to cook, Jack. It’s always been something I’ve been interested in doing. I didn’t have a chance to do a lot of it, but now I’ve got several months to play.”

“I bought you some sketchpads the other day,” Jack said. “I left them in the great room on the coffee table along with a few other drawing supplies.”

“You did?” Briony’s eyes lit up. “Thank you for remembering.”

“He’s been looking all morning at a furniture book,” Ken confided. “Thinks he can make a better cradle than you can find anywhere else, and he probably can too. Believe it or not, my brother’s gifted that way.” There was a singular note of pride in Ken’s voice.

Jack flicked a repressing glance at him and then caught the expression on Briony’s transparent face. She looked at him almost as if the sun rose and set with him. Her expression turned his insides out and made him uncomfortable. She was getting the wrong idea about him. Part of him loved it and part of him—the sane part—hated it. And damn him to hell, there were the beginnings of love in her eyes. Between Ken and Briony he felt like a fraud. They were killing him with their belief in him.

He rose abruptly, nearly knocking the chair over, shoved it out of his way, and caught her chin in his hand. He hadn’t intended to touch her, or even acknowledge her, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Stay close to the house,” he warned gruffly and bent to brush her mouth with his.

Heat flared instantly, the moment his lips feathered against the soft curve of hers. His hand slipped to the nape of her neck, tilting her head for a better angle, so his tongue could delve deep, teasing, stroking, exploring her incredible mouth. He pulled away abruptly—self-preservation required it—and pressed his brow to hers, breathing deep. “You remember one thing. You decide you want to get married, it’s going to be to me.”

Briony watched him stalk outside, slamming the kitchen door behind him. Both eyebrows raised, she turned to Ken.

“Close your mouth, honey. That’s Jack trying to be romantic and failing miserably.
Don’t
let him get away with that shit either. If he’s going to ask you, make him do it all the way. You know—down on one knee, looking stupid.”

Briony nearly choked. “That’s just mean, Ken.”

He leaned close to her. “If you do it, Briony, tell me first so I can videotape it. I could blackmail him for the rest of his life.”

“He would never get on his knees for anyone,” she pointed out, gathering dishes and taking them to the sink. “It would never happen.”

“You could just be wrong, Miss Jenkins.” Ken pushed back his chair and caught up his hat. “I think, for you, he’d do just about anything.”

Briony watched him saunter out the back door and walk along the path toward the shop, taking the same direction Jack had. She took a deep breath and turned around, surveying the large kitchen with its wood floor and large beams. It was beautiful to her—the wide open spaces. It looked—and felt—like a home to her.

She glanced back to the window, her gaze searching for Jack. “Why do I feel so strongly about you? Why do I feel like I know you better than you know yourself?”

She set the dishes in the sink and wandered through the house, exploring the various rooms. It was obvious to her that the two men had planned each section of the house carefully. Ken’s style was distinctly different from Jack’s—yet there were touches here and there that reminded her of his twin. He liked Western motifs and music, yet he had a gun cabinet beside his bed and another in his office—just as Jack did. Jack had shelves of books everywhere.

Briony retrieved the pregnancy book and carried it into his office. She stood in the doorway frowning. The office was finished, walls in place, a beautiful one-of-a-kind desk that she suspected Jack had built, piles of papers, and a box containing a brand-new computer. Beside the box was another carton containing paper, but it was open and there was a column as long as or longer than her arm of paper spread across the desk and onto the floor. She went closer to examine the handwritten notes.

Two separate masculine scrawls, one stating in very crude terms that Ken could shove the computer somewhere impossible to shove and Jack wasn’t opening the thing. Ken answered with a long dissertation about computers being a necessity in their new business venture and Jack could just come out of his cave and quit bellyaching. The rest of the notes were a daily ongoing argument about who would get the computer up and running. Ken was adamant that it was Jack’s job since he was going to have deal with all the actual people, and Jack stated that he absolutely wasn’t touching the machine under any circumstances.