License to Kill Page 17

  “Did I hit my head? I can’t remember. I have a headache, though. If I have one, they didn’t tell me.”

  “You smacked your head right on the edge of the table when you decided to try out for a role as Sleeping Beauty. You reached across the table, I’m assuming for your glass of water, turned ghost white, and dropped like you’d been tapped between the eyes. I had no idea you could become paler than you already are, but you can, by the way. It was less of a fall and more of a slide, but the chair rolled out from under you.”

  Great. Nothing made a mess of pretrial briefings like somebody fainting at the table. “Mr. Desjardins is going to kill me.”

  “Not really. I wheedled information out of your doctor and notified your boss that you were under observation for dehydration and malnutrition. He then remembered you had missed your lunch and hadn’t been feeling well yesterday, so he’s in the throes of blaming himself. I told him you had a very bad track record for taking care of yourself when left unattended. For a lawyer, he seems like a pretty nice guy.” Jake’s amusement annoyed me, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of bristling.

  I needed Jake getting along with my boss like I needed a new hole in the head. “Found yourself an ally, have you?”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  Great. Just what I needed. One way or another, I needed to get rid of him and then think about resigning and finding some new place to hole up in so he wouldn’t remind me of everything I’d lost. It took a few deep breaths and drawing on my old martial arts training to control my temper and keep my voice calm. “Shouldn’t you be working on the Hemshaw case instead of warming that chair?”

  “That’s part of why I’m warming this chair. I’m to find out why you were on that side of the room.”

  “You didn’t like that I was sitting with the prosecution. You’re probably going to try to poorly hint that you have potential evidence acquitting a certain party, who has one fifty plus favorable custody to lose.” I shook my head. “Please go away.”

  “I see you haven’t lost your edge.”

  So much for making him go away with just asking. As he ignored my request, I replied, “Even the one advising lawyer noticed. You could cut that one with a rusty spoon, Jake. All the defense would have to do is suggest that to get a favorable plea bargain out of it without the hassle and expense of a full trial. It would take a damned good lawyer and a lot of evidence to stick anything on him over her.”

  “Therein the issue lies.”

  “You’re not going to leave now that you’ve imparted the wisdom I had figured out within five minutes of seeing the paperwork, are you?”

  “Not a chance in hell. I’m sure they’ll kick me out eventually, but until then, you’re stuck with me.”

  At least I wouldn’t have to actually put up with him. Dehydration and malnutrition made convenient excuses on why I would clock out and take a nap, but I knew the truth. No matter how bad things were between us, he’d stand guard over me while I slept.

  I couldn’t decide if I desired his protectiveness or wanted him to leave. Sleep wouldn’t help, but at least I’d dodge the problem for a while.

  Bright and early the next morning, I dealt with my discharge papers, but I couldn’t finish them in time to escape before Jake hunted me down and insisted on keeping me company. Of his parents, I saw no sign. Had I, I would have driven all three of them off, and I think Jake knew it.

  I wanted the assholes to show up. After a night in the hospital, I wanted to take my bad mood out on somebody, and I had a great deal of baggage I could unload on the pair of them. I’d even fling a few zingers Jake’s way unless he presented a convincing argument for why he should be granted asylum from my foul mood.

  “You’re not going to go away, are you?”

  “Desjardins suggested you go home, get some rest, and see how you feel tomorrow. I told him you were busy being discharged.”

  “I could have done that myself,” I snapped.

  “I know. In my defense, he called me so he wouldn’t bother you if you were still asleep.”

  Damn it. With my luck, my boss would start hinting I should go to damned counseling with Jake. He seemed like the type to poke his nose in my personal business when given an excuse.

  He probably liked Jake.

  Why did I always have to be surrounded by assholes?

  I forced myself to relax my shoulders and draw a deep breath to cool my temper. “Why are you here?”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  Hadn’t the time for that long gone by, ended right around the same time I’d told him we were through? More importantly, hadn’t the time for that ended at the same time he’d considered divorce papers and put everyone else over me? “Well, don’t. I haven’t changed my mind, Jake. I don’t believe you’ve changed yours.”

  He flinched at that. “I was a stupid idiot. I hadn’t changed my mind about us. I allowed my insecurities to come between us, but I hadn’t changed my mind about us.”

  “Actions speak louder than words, Jake. You can say that all day long, and I won’t believe you. You abandoned me, and I’m not some toy for you to be able to resume playing with because the latest toy is no longer interesting to you anymore.”

  “You were never a toy.”

  “No, I’m just not what is acceptable in your family. I’m worse than a toy. I was promised a lot of things that fell apart the instant I asked for the one thing nobody wanted to give me. No, I wasn’t a toy. I was a trophy.”

  “You are not a toy or a trophy.”

  I stared at him. “Why don’t you just do us both a favor and go away?”

  “You weigh less than ninety pounds, Karma. You should weigh one fifteen in your prime. You fainted because you weigh so little and aren’t eating enough. I’m worried, and nothing you say will change that. My first order of business is to take you somewhere for something to eat, and then I’m going to follow you home, tuck you into bed, and wait until lunch. I will then feed you again. In your current condition, I expect two large meals will send you directly into a stupor, so you’ll end up sleeping again until dinner. After a week of this, if the doctor is correct, you might look less like a skeleton. So, let’s skip the bullshit. What do you want for breakfast, and where do you live?”

  Damn it. As always, I had no trouble believing Jake would live up to his threats, as he refused to quit once he decided something, a little like me before I’d been shattered. “I’m not impressed.”

  “If I cared if you were impressed, I’d be heartbroken. You wanted space. I gave it to you. Now that I’ve run into you in a freak coincidence, and knowing you have managed to more than half kill yourself in the matter of a few months, I’ve changed my mind. So, no. I’m ignoring your bullshit, and I will continue to do so until I’m satisfied you’re not going to end up in the hospital again.”

  With my roommate having beaten me through the discharge process, there’d be no one to witness Jake’s death if I could figure out how to use something as a weapon. Would the IV stand be enough to break through his thick skull? “I am contemplating a triple homicide with no doubt of guilt so there won’t be any point in a trial.”

  “My parents will not be involved in this whatsoever unless you invite them.”

  “Until they hunt me down after I finish killing you.”

  “I’m willing to take my chances. What do you want for breakfast?”

  I shot a glare at him, finished signing the paperwork, and left the room to hunt down the nurse so I could finalize my discharge and escape from the hospital. With no sign of being deterred, Jake followed me.

  Twenty minutes later, grumbling over the absurd rule of discharging patients in wheelchairs despite having walked around to handle my paperwork, I wheeled myself out, slapping away Jake’s hands whenever he tried to take over. I would have made my getaway a great deal faster if I hadn’t kept fighting him off.

  He found me amusing, which annoyed me even more.

  �
��You’re not going to win,” he informed me while we searched for a cab. “And since you have refused to say what you want for breakfast, I’ll choose for you.”

  “Fine. I want food.”

  “Conveniently, that’s what I settled with.”

  While I wasn’t willing to call him an asshole quite yet, I spent a great deal of time thinking it.

  My barren little apartment wasn’t large enough for two people, and Jake hated everything about it, from its location to its size and general lack of creature comforts. He didn’t say a word, but I noticed the way his cheek twitched, his eyes narrowed, and his body stiffened. Worst of all, every last one of his predictions turned out to be true. When I wasn’t taking a cold shower to stay awake long enough to eat, I maintained a dubious relationship with consciousness.

  Jake made himself at home on my couch and worked on his phone, and when morning came, a large brown and gold wolf slept curled around my feet.

  I was supposed to hate everything about him, but he warmed my feet, and he woke the sense of security I’d lost long ago. Being alone should have been my new reality, one without respite, but he trampled into my territory, fit himself onto my bed, and slept as though he belonged.

  My traitor heart had missed his presence.

  The rest of me feared what his presence represented, and to keep my traitor heart restrained, I kicked Jake awake. “My landlord doesn’t allow pets in the building.”

  He bared his teeth at me. Scowling, I thumped my foot into his shoulder. It wasn’t until I got up and took my morning shower that he changed back to human, and I found him on my couch wearing a pair of jeans and a smile.

  I’d been right. He’d maintained his prime health, and he’d been doing some work on his chest and arms. His abs would attract every woman in the state if someone took a picture of him with his shirt off.

  Before we’d fallen apart, I’d been secretively gleeful that his chest and those abs had been mine.

  “Your bare chest isn’t going to win you anything,” I grumbled, heading to the kitchenette in an effort to ignore my unfair reaction to him showing off a little skin.

  “My nose tells me otherwise.”

  I hated wolves and their ultra-sensitive noses. “I’d break like a twig right now anyway.”

  “I’m sure I could come up with something.”

  I bet he could, too, which wasn’t helping me ignore his presence in my apartment. “As there is no us, there is no us in bed, either. When are you going to leave?”

  “We only have the Hemshaw case in the works; we’re functioning as a backup team. And honestly? Our marital status will put a kink in things, so we’ll be yanked off the case and another team will take over. I’m filling in as an auxiliary special agent at the moment. Mom and Dad are doing their usual but filling in with CARD as needed. I bounce between CARD and HRT, although I’ve done some work with violent crimes, too. I haven’t enjoyed my work without you there with me.”

  “Well, you should have thought about the consequences of benching me in all elements of your life. More importantly, that didn’t answer my question.”

  Jake smirked, and I clacked my teeth so I wouldn’t chitter at the asshole for testing my patience.

  “Jake,” I warned.

  Rather than being properly intimidated by my annoyance, he kept on with his damned smug smile. “Okay. You’re right. It didn’t. I’m not leaving until you’re better. This is not up for negotiation.”

  Damn it. When Jake gave an open-ended answer left to his interpretation, ‘never’ was likely an accurate assumption. “I’m not allowed to have pets in the apartment.”

  “I’ll bribe your sleaze bag landlord to look the other way for a while.”

  “I’m not supposed to have anyone in here with me, either. Especially brutish men.”

  “Bribes go a long way. I’m hardly brutish.”

  “You’re a giant. You have not lost any height. You’re a brutish man, and my landlord is not a sleaze bag. She’s just cheap.”

  “Sources tell me otherwise.”

  I frowned, crossed my arms over my chest, and glowered at him. “I’ve had no trouble.”

  “You’ve only had no trouble because you haven’t needed anything, you know your way around a wrench and home renovations, and you’re on the top floor of the building. Heat rises. Otherwise, you’d freeze during the winter.”

  To keep from chittering or otherwise growling at him, I checked my refrigerator in the off-chance food had magically teleported its way inside. The interior resembled a barren wasteland, and I drummed my hand on the door, wondering how I could turn some cream and butter into something edible. “That factored into picking this apartment.”

  “So you could save on your electric bill?”

  “Give the man a prize for basic common sense,” I muttered.

  Glaring at the empty interior of my refrigerator didn’t make food appear, much to my disappointment.

  “If you want something to eat, we’ll have to go out. I’m also either going to have to bribe your landlord or find someplace suitably nearby.”

  “You have a house in Baltimore.”

  “No, we have a house in Baltimore. You’re not there, so I don’t really enjoy living in it. I asked someone to keep the place clean and watch it while I’m here.”

  “And whose fault is that?” I snapped.

  “Mine.”

  His answer took the wind out of my sails. “What do you want?”

  “I thought it was obvious.”

  “Humor me.”

  “I want you to come home.”

  I’d heard that story before, and I hadn’t believed it then. I still didn’t believe it. “Why should I put myself through that again? We already know how this story ends. We’ve been there before. Your parents are going to pressure you into getting rid of me so you can mate with a proper bitch, and I’ll be tossed to the curb. I’m a secretary at a law firm now, the only person outside of the technical department who isn’t a paralegal or better. I have nothing anyone in the FBI wants, and I like it that way. I have no desire to return to the FBI in any capacity, and really, I have no desire to do much of anything at all. That is my reality now, and that’s how it will be for the foreseeable future. You had your chance. You threw it away.”

  I had thrown it away, too, but I kept a firm hold of the little pride I had left.

  “I have definitive proof you’re my mate, which means no matter how much they may have wanted that, it’s not even an option. They can whine and cry all they want, but it won’t change anything. I know the truth now.”

  I regretted my lack of a coffee maker. A little bit of coffee and a lot of whisky would have made the conversation easier to bear. The truth he believed wouldn’t save us. There was nothing left of us to save. I’d already given up, and I saw no need to change my mind about that.

  I’d been discarded because I hadn’t been good enough, and I wouldn’t forget that. I wouldn’t be walked on again, nor would I allow myself to be brought back into an unwanted half-life. All being with him would do was remind me I wanted what he had, and I wanted something I could never have.

  Sighing didn’t ease the building pressure in my chest. “All right. Explain, and do so with the understanding I probably won’t believe you. Explain knowing that it doesn’t matter what you say at this point. It’s not going to change anything.”

  “I didn’t rut at all this winter. That’s definitive proof.”

  “You’re not a buck.” It also didn’t explain anything, especially the significance of his claim. “That tells me nothing, Jake.”

  “I told you Fenerec have a winter mating season. We rut. Mated pairs have two styles of rut. In a healthy relationship, it’s an extremely intense time, especially around the full moon.”

  Anything dealing with Jake and a bed classified as intense, a memory that did absolutely nothing to help control my awareness of him without his shirt. “And when the pair has a failed relationship? And don’t mi
sunderstand me, Jake. We are a failed relationship. This isn’t a ‘where do we go from here’ talk. I’m only having this conversation so maybe you can have some closure.”

  “Males with a pregnant bitch and males separated from their mate fall into the same category. Zip, zilch, nada. You could’ve dropped me in a strip club during an orgy, and I wouldn’t have been interested.”

  I tried to imagine Jake in a strip club during an orgy and failed. Were orgies even done at strip clubs? If so, had I just never been lucky enough to be part of that sort of bust? An orgy at a strip club would make for some interesting break room conversation.

  No, I wasn’t supposed to think about the past at all—or miss things like the break room chats. “So?”

  “You weren’t in the area, so I never went into rut. That’s considered definitive evidence, especially when the rutting, unmated females ignored me. I wasn’t interested in them, either. On an instinctual level, they understood I’m claimed property. It doesn’t get more definitive as that.”

  “So what? What does that matter?”

  “No rut, no puppies. That’s how it works. Fenerec are infertile outside of the rut. Now, there are rare circumstances where a rut out of season can be induced, but it essentially involves an epic sex marathon lasting several days to a week, where the couple does nothing but eat and keep each other company in bed. There have been couples who have tried to do it on purpose without success.”

  A half-naked Jake sprawled on my couch talking about a week-long sex binge tested me far more than I liked. “And just how did you get this information?”

  “That’s how I was born. Apparently, my parents took a two-week vacation and thought they wouldn’t have to worry about children since it was outside of the rut. It turns out they were wrong. Fortunately for me, Dad figured out how to stop Mom from transforming, so I made it into the world alive, which began a yearly draw for the lucky couple to have the next puppy in the pack. Dad can only handle preventing one transformation at a time, but it’s better than any of the other packs in the area. Mom has figured it out, too, which is making things easier on the pack.”