Jamie (9 page)

“I'm sorry. I'd blame it on nervousness, but that'd be a lie and you said you want the truth.”

Jamie continued to examine her thigh, tracing the bruises with a fingertip. “So you're just clumsy and gabby by nature, huh? Is that what you're telling me?”

“I'm afraid so. But I like to listen too, so will you tell me about this cabin and how you found it? And about your friends in Visitation.” He seemed resigned to her interrogation until she added, “And can you tell me why you haven't been with a woman in so long?”

Jamie's head shot up, his gaze clapping onto hers in red-hot male resentment. “Who says I haven't?”

“Ummm—”

“You can't tell me.” Brows coming together, Jamie growled, “You've got some nerve, lady.”

“I'm sorry! I just know that you've kept yourself alone, which I assumed meant celibate, too. But if you tell me otherwise—”

He interrupted her. “I'm not telling you a damn thing. ”

“All right.” Faith tried a conciliatory smile. “Then what about the cabin? Where'd you get it?”

Visibly tamping down his anger, Jamie worked his jaw and finally found a reasonable tone. “It used to belong to a wealthy, eccentric hunter.” He stood and on his way to the kitchen area, said, “He paid through the nose to have it built to his specifications. Then he died in a fall down the mountain, and his heirs didn't want any part of it. Too isolated and probably too many memories about the man who'd owned it.”

Faith blinked in surprise. She hadn't expected such a detailed accounting. “How'd you find out about it?”

While pulling ice from the freezer, Jamie glanced at her, and his expression went flat. “Dumb question, Faith. The same way I find out about everything. I just know.”

“Oh, yeah.” Her shoulder lifted in an apologetic shrug. “You had enough money to buy it outright?”

“The institute paid me well before I left.”

“Not that good. Remember, I was involved there.”

He dumped the ice into a hand towel, then stepped over to a utility cabinet. “Trust me.” After locating a hammer, he began pounding the ice into fragments. “Your involvement with Kline is not something I'm ever going to forget.”

Faith didn't want to give him too much time to get angry again, so she asked more questions. Speaking over the rap of the hammer, she asked, “So where'd you get the money?”

“Hoping to learn all my secrets?”

“Yes.” He glared at her over his shoulder, and Faith sighed. “But not to use them against you.”

He didn't appear convinced, but he let it go. “I know things, Faith. Gambling to make money is a cinch. Betting on horses is easy. Stocks are a piece of cake.”

Fascinated and taken by surprise, Faith pushed up into a sitting position. “That's ...”

“Illegal?”

“I was going to say ingenious. I never even thought of it.”

“Kline did.” Jamie began bundling the small towel together to make a compress of the crushed ice. “He said I had to stay at the institute, where I could be controlled, or the government would have me hunted down and eliminated. He said I was a security threat to the nation, given my mental abilities.”

“That bastard! ”

Dismissing her outrage, Jamie agreed. “He was that.”

It took Faith a moment to get her temper under control. More than ever, she was glad Kline had found a bad end to his evilness. “When did you finally realize that he lied to you just to keep you around?”

“I never knew for sure.” Jamie turned to face her, resting back on the counter. “But I finally decided I didn't care. I figured if they hunted me down, I'd be ready.”

Faith's heart wanted to break as she realized the terror he must have lived with. It explained a lot about his cautious nature and the way he'd isolated himself.

“I hid, and I covered my trail. But someone really determined could have found me. So after a few years, when no one came, it dawned on me that Kline could have been lying to serve his own purposes.”

Kline's influence on Jamie had been worse than Faith expected. Sympathy welled up, enough to choke her. But she hid it, instinctively knowing Jamie wouldn't want her pity. “I guess there's a lot about you that I don't know. I'm sorry.”

One brow lifted. “So you don't know that I have a comfortable savings? I'm shocked. I thought you'd dug up every little scrap of my life.”

“I wouldn't even know where to look. No, I only know what my... Never mind.” If Faith told Jamie where she'd gotten her information, it wouldn't take him long to learn the rest.

Jamie's shoulders tightened, but he said nothing. He turned back to the cabinet and quickly and efficiently prepared the coffeemaker, which set her mouth to watering. More than ever before, she needed her morning kick of caffeine.

But when Jamie set the moonshine on the counter too, Faith bit back a groan. Next to the moonshine, he stacked a clean cloth and some ointment.

“I don't want to drink any more of that, Jamie.”

“It's for your leg, not your mouth.” He snorted. “You get too damn amorous when you drink.”

Remembering some of what she'd said and done the night before, Faith blushed. “Should I apologize again, then?”

Jamie shrugged, and she said, “No, I don't think I will. The truth is, you'd interest me whether I was drunk or not. And you already know it, because I'm not blocking my thoughts.”

“Wrong.” With the ice pack in hand, Jamie started toward her. “The fact that you can hide your thoughts at will means I can't trust anything you say. You distort things, picking and choosing what I glean and what you keep well buried.”

“What you read is real, Jamie.”

“But taken out of context, anything can be misconstrued.”

Accepting that he had a point, Faith felt compelled to explain. “I had to learn to do it for Cory.”

“Is that right?”

“She's a child, Jamie. Whenever I was upset or sad, she took on the emotion. She used to cry, and I wouldn't know why. I thought she had colic. Or worse. Even though the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with her, it scared me to death. But the more afraid I got, the more upset she got. It was ... heartbreaking.”

Jamie sat close to her and moved the hem of the flannel shirt out of his way so he could see her thigh. “It bothers you so much when she cries?”

“If you've never loved a child, then you can't know. ”

Jamie gave her an unreadable look. “No, I've never loved a kid.”

Baring her soul, Faith pressed a hand to her heart and said, “It's devastating. I'd sooner take a beating than see Cory hurt or afraid.”

Jamie's expression changed, but Faith had no clue to his thoughts. As usual, he didn't let her see any more than he wanted her to see. “How did you figure out that she reacted to your feelings?”

“Purely by accident. I'd been paying—or rather,
trying to
pay—the monthly bills. I was stressed, and Cory kept crying even though I did everything in my power to get her to stop. She wasn't even six months old yet, and I was so worn out that I thought I'd just die. Then a song came on the radio and I started singing to her, dancing. My brain sort of relaxed. I relaxed. And then... Cory relaxed.”

Gently placing the ice pack against her leg, Jamie asked, “Don't most moms sing to their kids?”

Wow.
Faith caught her breath as the cold about stopped her heart. Luckily, his question gave her something else to focus on.

“Sure. I sang to her all the time. But this was the first time that I deliberately lightened my own mood. And it worked.”

“So she felt all this as an infant?”

“Absolutely. From then on, I paid attention to her mood swings, and they often reflected my own. Whenever something bothered me, rather than dwell on those emotions, I'd think about how much I loved her, how precious she is to me. I counted my blessings instead of looking at the problems.”

“But the problems were still there.”

“Of course. I just didn't let them interfere between my daughter and me. I watched the birds out the window, looked at photographs of loved ones. I'd sing and dance, watch cartoons, or read an amusing book. And eventually I figured out how to put one emotion aside to concentrate on another.”

With one hand, Jamie held the ice pack in place. With the other, he tipped up Faith's chin. His eyes were dark, probing her thoughts even before he said, “What about lust?”

The question surprised her so, that Faith blinked twice before croaking,
“What?”

“You're a grown woman, Faith. I know you've felt it. When you dated, when men visited.” He dropped his hand and leaned away from her. “If your daughter knows your feelings, how did she react to that?”

Faith shook her head. She couldn't tell Jamie that other than family and the occasional friend, men didn't visit her. Before finding Jamie again, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt lust.

“She's an innocent child. Her concept of feelings doesn't extend to something like... desire. It's not in her understanding. She would interpret it another way, maybe as ... I don't know. An intensity of caring or something.”

“Like wanting coffee?” Jamie asked, and Faith considered smacking him.

“Yes, like that. She'd equate it with wanting, but not in a sexual way. Hate, lust, fury, and most other strong, adult emotions aren't in her repertoire. She's a child, so the way she interprets things will always be slanted with what she knows.”

Appearing very dissatisfied with her explanation, Jamie pushed to his feet. “So this special ability of yours is self-taught out of necessity, as part of an altruistic mother's love?”

Coming out of nowhere, his sarcasm lashed against Faith. She glared at him. “Yes.”

“It's not just a means to dupe me?”

Throwing up her hands, Faith stressed, “I don't want to dupe you. I want to help you.”

“So I can help your daughter in return—but naturally you can't give me details?”

Because she couldn't, Faith shrugged. “That's about it.”

Jamie stepped away. “And I'm supposed to take your word on ... faith?”

“Don't be nasty. This situation is hard enough on us both as it is.”

“Fine.”

Faith thought he let that go too easily, but she wasn't sure what to say. He went to the counter, poured a cup of coffee, and returned with it, the moonshine, the cloth, and the ointment.

It was an odd mix, and Faith eyed his approach, asking hopefully, “Is the coffee for me?”

Jamie glanced at her as he seated himself. “Sure. If you want to explain. Otherwise, it's for me.” And just to be despicable, she was sure, he took a savoring sip of the coffee.

“Dirty pool, Jamie.”

“So sue me.” He set the mug of coffee out of her reach, then dabbed the cloth in the moonshine and settled close to her on the couch. “This is going to hurt like hell.”

“And won't that just make your day?”

He stroked his thumb over her jaw. Staring first at her mouth, then into her eyes, he said, “I don't want you here, Faith, and if I could send you away right now, believe me, I would. But I've never taken pleasure in someone else's pain.”

His justified censure made her feel like a heel, and she winced. “I know that. I'm sorry.”

Jamie's touch lingered a second more before he gave his attention back to her leg. “The scratch isn't deep.”

“Then ...”

“There's no reason to take chances, Faith. Especially high up on this mountain.”

Darn. “Okay. Covering her face with her hands, Faith held her breath... and still she gasped in pain when the alcohol hit her abraded skin. It burned like fire, kept on burning and burning, even as Jamie blew against the scratch in an effort to ease the sting.

“Quit complaining,” he finally said, surprising her with the grumpy words when his touch was so tender. He put a clean cloth over her leg before again easing the ice pack into place. “You brought it on yourself, and I'll be damned if I want your leg to get infected and fall off.”

“Gee, your concern warms me.”

Jamie glanced up. “I'll never get rid of you if that happens.”

If he meant to help her forget the sting, his tactic worked. Faith smacked his shoulder. “Don't exaggerate. It's not that bad.”

He settled into the couch with his coffee—the brat—and shrugged. “You never know.” As he again sipped, he took in the sight of her scrunched-up face. “It's still burning?”

“Yeah, and if you won't give me coffee, at least distract me.” She flapped a hand to hurry him. “Tell me about your friends.”

“Not much to tell. Joe moved here with Luna and took over running the lake. He's an original badass, complete with earring and tattoo and enough muscle to put off most grown men. He'd never planned to be a husband or father, but inheriting Willow and Austin proved he could do both as good as he does everything else.”

“I take it Willow and Austin are the kids?”

“Yeah.” He looked off in the distance at nothing in particular. Almost to himself, he said, “Amazing how resilient kids are.” He shook his head. “They had it rough for a while there, but now they're happy. And secure.”

Faith knew just how important feeling safe and secure could be. She felt both with Jamie. “You like Joe?”

“I respect him. He's an odd family guy, big and mean, with a visage that usually guarantees compliance with any orders he might give. But once you get to know him—”