Page 61 of Guilty as Sin
“What I thought at the time,” he said. “Terrorism. It’s about disrupting your life and your peace of mind. It’s not about making you angry, it’s about making you afraid.”
“Spoken from experience.”
“Spoken by somebody who knows what happens to prisoners captured by Afghans, and what that knowledge can do to a soldier’s mind. Fear’s a powerful thing.”
“All right,” she said. “I feel much better about the chickens.”
He smiled. “It’s not a competition. It’s an example. Question for you. Do you mind me burying murderer and murderee in the same grave? That going to offend your sensibilities? You’ve got a dead opossum and a dead hen out there, and if you don’t want to see chicken cannibalism, I need to put them underground.”
“My,” she said, “this is an interesting first date. Burying a woman’s chicken.”
He laughed out loud. “Yeah. And I’ll still take it.”
“Then, no.” She was looking more relaxed than she had since he’d got here. “I’m not sentimental about poultry burial. And thanks.”
You need to tell him.The thought was very nearly shrieking at her.
I have to wait for Lily, to make sure she’s all right with me sharing it.
No, she didn’t, and she knew it. If ever a man’s entire self saidTrustworthy,it was Jace’s. The real reason was a whole lot simpler. He clearly had some black and white ideas about right and wrong. Kind of like her. And this wouldn’t look right to him at all. It was one thing to impersonate Lily in order to protect her. It was another to have sex with a man who thought you were a different woman. It was the other night all over again, stomping on his heart and his decency, but so much worse.
Then she came back up to the house, and he was already starting to cook breakfast. Wearing another of those slightly snug T-shirts that showed off his muscles, his beard a dark shadow, his hair black, and a smile at sight of her that was so sweet, it took her breath away.
He took the milk bottle from her and handed her a mug of coffee in exchange, and she said, “What are you making? And can I help?” There was Canadian bacon in a frying pan, and it smelled amazing.
He said, “One-man job. Eggs benedict, Aussie style.”
“Oh, man.” She watched him do it. It was a performance, well practiced and carefully choreographed, and in ten minutes more, he’d set two plates on the counter and was coming around to sit beside her. “I never thought of putting it on bread,” she said, taking her first bite. Sauteed spinach, Canadian bacon, poached eggs, and Hollandaise sauce, layered onto thick slabs of toast. “That’sgood.Where did you get bread like this here?”
“Made it. And that’s Aussie style again, on the bread instead of that weird thing you have. So-called English muffins.” When she stared at him, he shrugged. Not an embarrassed shrug, either. You’d have to go to some serious effort to threaten Jace’s masculinity. “I’m a writer. I can’t sit and stare at the computer all day. I need to move around occasionally, I don’t always want company, and I don’t like to eat out all the time. Besides, I spent too many years eating ratpacks. Ration packs. Meals ready to eat. If you’d done that, I reckon you’d learn to cook, too. What the Australian army can do to spaghetti Bolognese in a pouch beggars belief.”
She took a sip of coffee and considered that. “Last night, I thought that your ex-wife—what’s her name?”
“Caroline.” He didn’t say it like it bothered him.
“Well, I thought Caroline was nuts. Now, I think she must be certifiable.”
He smiled. “Ah. You have to be a match, though. But for the sake of research—what specifically did you think she shouldn’t have left behind? If you tell me, I’ll do it again.”
She put a hand on her chest, then laughed at herself. “Whoa. You don’t get any worse, do you? It was all good. You know it was. But when you stopped.” She sobered, looked into those blue eyes, and told him, because she wanted him to know. “When I hurt, and you felt it, and you stopped. You made me feel…” She had to stop, swallow.
“Cared for,” he said quietly. “I hope. Precious.”
She leaned over and put her head against his chest like a completely different woman, a woman with no barriers, and his arm came around her like it had to be there. He didn’t try to kiss her. He just held her.
“Yes,” she said. It was easier to say from down here. “That was it.”
He stroked a hand over her hair. “Yeah. And you made me feel just that good, too. Just that lucky. But if my ex was crazy, what was yours? I can’t imagine a man letting you go. You know my whole story. I don’t know much of yours.”
She sat up again. “I don’t know your whole story. Not even close. I don’t know why you know how to milk goats, for one thing.”
It was a diversion, and he saw it. He didn’t pursue it, but his eyes were guarded again. Because she’d let the tender moment pass by instead of hanging onto it like any rational woman would have. Instead of hanging ontohim.“I’m going to tell you,” he said. “Call it setting an example. I learnt how from a boy. An Afghani named Samir. Eleven, twelve years old, and missing a leg from a land mine. His goats’ milk wasn’t as good as yours, but we weren’t too choosy. Cheekiest little fella you ever saw, and he could milk a goat in five minutes flat. Taught me to do it for the fun of it, I reckon. Some people can find fun wherever they are, and others can’t find it anywhere at all. He was one of the lucky ones.”
“I guess the camp isn’t there anymore,” she said after a moment. “Wherever that was.”
“No. And neither is he. He’s dead.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t like she hadn’t had an idea of all the things he must have been through, and still, it shook her. “How?”
