Alias

He readily accepted, groaning as he sipped.

“Tough night gathering the bad guys?” She sipped her own.

“Paperwork.” He glanced around the kitchen. “What’s all this?” He motioned to the bucket on the kitchen table, then peered into it. “Plaster?”

“I’m making faces, masks.” Her kitchen looked like a lab and she wondered at the wisdom of having him here right now.

“Mind if I hang around and watch?”

She hesitated for a second. “No, of course not. Actually I’d love a little help keeping an eye on Charlie since I’m alone.”

“No problem. Where is he?”

“Living room. Cartoons and grape juice.”

Jack set his cup down and gave her a look that said, can I see him? She smiled and nodded, following Jack into the room.

They found Charlie in his pj’s, tucked in a corner of the sofa like a bunny burrowed in for the winter. His face was smeared with jelly, a half-eaten piece of toast in his hand. Darcy didn’t think Jack would get a rise out of her son, he wasn’t interested in anything but the cartoons. She was wrong.

“Hey, pal.”

Charlie looked up, grinning widely. “Jack!” He shot off the couch and plowed into Jack’s knees.

Jack lifted him and her son looked so tiny in his arms. “So what’s with this?” He pointed to his chest, and when Charlie looked down, Jack nudged his nose up.

Charlie giggled and something inside her fell a little harder for Jack. He was so good to Charlie.

“You wanna watch Transformers with me?”

“Maybe later, I’m going to help your mom for a bit. If that’s okay.”

Her son looked disappointed for a second till the cartoon came back on. Jack set him down, then followed Darcy back to the kitchen.

She added more plaster powder to the water, stirring.

“So explain this.”

“I’ve got to make a fresh cast of my face in relief before I can build a mask. My old form is getting mushy.” She gestured to the plaster head and shoulders sitting on a stand that secured it to the edge of the table.

“I make a relief of my own face, then make a cast from that and put it on the head form. It’s hard and solid. Then with soft latex and foam, I build a new face on top of that. That way it fits over mine without any wrinkles or gaps.”

“Can you put that stuff on anyone?” From a plastic box, he picked up a fake nose, a chin and half a lip.

“Yeah, in a crunch, but you have to fill in the space between the skin and the latex with a fast-drying foam and it leaves it hard, so the facial features don’t move with the wearer. It has to be thin where it contacts with the major muscles of the face, so it moves with expressions. If it doesn’t fit, it sort of defeats the purpose. Too noticeable.”

He took up his coffee, his gaze moving over her equipment. “I’ve seen you in these masks a lot, but you never said where you learned all this.”

She stopped stirring for a second, then continued. “I wanted to work on movies and took a course.”

It was a bald-faced lie, Darcy thought, but she couldn’t say more. Nor could she look at Jack and say it. It was hard to lie to him, even if it was to protect herself and Charlie.

“Over the years, I’ve just gotten better at it, studied, tried different approaches.” The truth was Darcy had worked on movies for a few years before she married Maurice, then a couple after. She’d studied acting in college, and had gotten a couple of good minor roles in films, but she preferred the hair, makeup, and mostly, special-effects facial mechanics.

“Is this human hair?”

She glanced up, struggling with the mix as the plaster thickened. He held a sample from her selection of bound locks of hair. “Yeah, I have to put each hair in individually to make the hairline look authentic. Then put on a wig and blend the hair so there’s no line.”

Jack sipped his coffee, picking up the facial mask she’d used the other night, then riffling through the box of wigs and hairpieces. Darcy even had stuff to make her look like a man.

“You really think all this will protect you?”

“It has so far.” He was more interested in watching her than the process, she thought.

“I think that roundhouse kick and your wicked knife do more.”

“I do this to avoid being recognized. No one can trace me.”

“Stopping altogether would help.”

“You walk into danger every time you hunt a bounty, so just because I’m a woman—”

“A woman with a child to think about.”

Darcy groaned, stirring. “Leave it alone, Jack.”

“I just don’t want to see anything happen to you, Piper.”

“Why?”

He pulled out a chair and sat, sipping his coffee. “If I have to say, then you’re not as smart as I thought.”

She met his gaze and wondered why she always felt stripped naked when he was near. “Must you stare?”

“You’re an exceptionally pretty woman, why shouldn’t I stare?”

She gave him a dry look. “It’s confirmed, your taste is all in your mouth. I look like a drowned rat.” She fluffed her hair and Jack leaned over the table.

“Why is it so hard for you to take a compliment?”

She met his gaze head on. “I haven’t had many.”

His eyebrows shot up and those intense eyes roamed her body from feet to hair. “Maybe they didn’t have the guts to say.”

“Why would you think that?”

“It could be the barrier around you that’s better than a castle wall.”

She looked him over, liking what she saw too much. “A girl has to protect herself from those unseemly types.”