Untameable: Merciless

“He’s quite a boy.”

“Thanks.”

“His dad died in the service, I understand?” He didn’t look at her as he said it.

“Overseas. In the military.”

“Sad.”

“Very.” She got up. “More coffee?”

He chuckled. “No, thanks. I tend to be wired even at good times. Too much caffeine can be a real killer, in my case.”

“I drink too much of it,” she confessed.

He got to his feet. “I’ll get working on those locks. Do you go back to the office tomorrow?”

She hesitated. “Well, I don’t know,” she said suddenly. “My boss won’t be there, and the only cases I’m working are his …”

Just as she said it, the phone rang.

She got up to answer it, hesitated, with her hand outstretched as if she were about to put it into fire.

She jerked it up. “Hello?”

There was a long silence.

Her blood felt as if it froze. “Hello?” she repeated.

The line went dead.

She turned and looked at Rourke with absolute horror.

He took the receiver from her, punched in some numbers, listened and then spoke. “Yeah,” he said to someone. “Do it quick. I want to know what brand of liquor he drinks in ten minutes or less. Just do it.” He hung up. Joceline was amazed at how authoritative, and how businesslike, he could be when he wasn’t clowning around.

“You have it tapped,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he replied curtly. “The minute I pulled into the driveway.”

She bit her lower lip. “I’m glad you came over.”

His eyebrows arched. His one eye twinkled. “You are? I can have a marriage license drawn up in less than an hour …!”

“Stop that,” she muttered. “I’m not going to get married.”

“But I have my own teeth,” he protested. “And I don’t even have a gray hair yet.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“A man with good teeth and no gray hair is a fine matrimonial prospect. I can also speak six impossibly difficult languages, including Afrikaans,” he added.

She went to clean the coffeepot, shaking her head the whole way.

ROURKE installed dead bolts and window locks. He also brought thermal curtains, heavy ones, for the windows. He didn’t tell her that a sniper would have a field day with the block of apartments overlooking hers. She wouldn’t have thought that anyone would be crazy enough to shoot at her or the boy.

That diary really puzzled him. He went out to get something to eat, and while he was out, he made two more telephone calls. Joceline would have had a heart attack if she’d heard the topic of discussion.

JOCELINE DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. She was certainly safe enough. Rourke had kipped down on the sofa in the living room, despite her protests, fully dressed. She was uncomfortable with a man in her apartment, but she couldn’t say much. That phone call with just heavy breathing had terrified her. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but she was afraid for Markie. There were good reasons that she didn’t advertise anything about his beginnings. Now they could serve to end his young life.

She tossed and turned. Jon would be all right, Kilraven had told her he was certain of it. But she couldn’t get the picture of his white face and closed eyes and bloodstained lips out of her mind. He was such a strong, lively man that it was more disturbing to see him helpless. If he died, she didn’t know what she’d do. She’d made decisions that had come back to haunt her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have kept secrets. It had seemed the only possibility at the time. But, now …

She got up just before daylight and went into the kitchen to make breakfast, bleary-eyed and sleepy.

Rourke glanced into the kitchen. She was already fully dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt. She wouldn’t wear that rig to work, of course, but she wasn’t making food in her nightgown with a strange man in her apartment.

“Hungry?” she asked, smiling as he joined her in the doorway.

“I could eat. Cereal?” he asked.

“Oh, no. I make biscuits and eggs and bacon for Markie. I want to send him to school with a good breakfast.”

“Biscuits? Real biscuits?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes.” She got out a wrought-iron skillet. “I make them in this,” she said, running her fingers lightly over the coal-black surface. “It belonged to my great-grandmother. It’s the only real heirloom I have.”

“Impressive,” he said, and meant it. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid myself.”

She smiled. “It brings back a lot of memories.”

“Did you know your great-grandmother?”

“Oh, no, she died before I was even born. But my grandmother talked about her all the time.”

He frowned. “What about your parents?”

She swallowed. “My father died, years ago. My mother and I don’t speak.”

“Sorry.”

“Me, too. It would have been nice if Markie had some grandparents of his own.”

He pursed his lips and watched her deft hands make the dough and roll it out and cut it.

“You do that very well,” he said.

She laughed. “I’ve had lots of practice.”

“You can cook. But you won’t make coffee at the office.”