Page 14 of Threat of Danger
He stopped for a second to stare at her, his forehead furrowed. “That’s bullshit.”
At a different time, she might have been able to appreciate that he was instantly on her side, but at the moment, she was far from able to appreciate much about him. She shrugged and moved on.
He deposited the secretaire in the back of the garage and turned back for more. “You like LA?”
“If I didn’t like it, I’d go someplace else.”
Did she have to sound so defensive?Ah, hell, dammit.She didnothave to defend her life choices to anyone. She was an adult. She lived where she pleased. She didn’t need anyone’s permission.
“How did you get into stunts?”
She responded, but only because giving him the silent treatment would be childish. “I was climbing the rock wall at the gym, and someone came up to me. He was in the business. Gave me a card, and asked me to come and see him if I was interested.” She’d been bewildered, but she’d gone to the stunt studio anyway, signed a release, and joined the day’s training.
Stunt training was the kind of drug you only had to try once to be hopelessly addicted. The tasks were all-absorbing and required 100 percent attention, to be 100 percent there and mentally present. She couldn’t think about the past or her nightmares when she was suspended fifty feet above the ground on wires. For the first time since her three days of hell in the woods, Jess had felt completely free. She would have done anything to feel that freedom again and again.
“After I saw what it was about, I begged to be accepted for official training so I could be considered for a spot on the team.”
“Sounds like you found your place.”
“Have you?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you ended up being an author. After all the stuff you wrote for the school paper. You were always good at writing.” He’d been good at everything he’d ever tried.
As Derek pushed the dolly back to the house, the muscles flexed in his forearm and made Jess remember the endless hours she used to watch him playing rugby, running with the ball, blocking, flexing muscles that made all the girls sigh. Especially Jess. She’d definitely been his biggest cheerleader and most ardent admirer. In the past. As in, no longer. As in, she needed to stop ogling him.
She picked up her pace and cut in front of him, which solved the problem of having to look at him at all.
Inside, Zelda was standing by the kitchen sink, Sinatra on the CD player as she washed dishes and swayed to the music, oblivious to the fact that they’d come back.
Jess pointed at a giant Gothic sofa table, made of some kind of dark wood. One was more than enough per living room. “I think we might have to carry this by hand. You grab one end, I’ll grab the other.”
“I’ll go first so you won’t have to go down the front steps backward.”
She let him, but only because arguing with him would make him stay longer.
“Are you working on a book?” she asked as she walked with the clunky piece of furniture, then could have bitten her tongue. She didn’t care. She didn’t even want to be talking with him.
“Always,” he said easily.
“About what?” She didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.
“Another FBI thriller.”
His answer was suspiciously vague, but she didn’t push. She didn’t want him to think that she was overly interested. She wasn’t.
She managed to stay silent for all of thirty seconds. “What made you write novels?”
“You mean why not become a war correspondent or something like that?”
She nodded. He had the military experience, and he’d always been active, had craved being in the middle of the action.
“I’m done with war,” he said. “And I met a writer. She writes mysteries. You might have read her. She does pretty well. Carolyn Hargrove.”
The name wasn’t familiar, but Jess’s heart gave a hard thud in the middle of her chest. She wasnotjealous. She couldn’t be. The very idea was nutcrackers.
To prove that she was completely unaffected, she said, “So you fell in love with a writer, and ...?”
