The Last Lone Wolf (4 page)

But as much as she wanted this job, heck, as much as he’d like to get accustomed to eating this well, he couldn’t let that happen. For her own sake.

And he almost regretted that fact.

Almost.

There’s not much I won’t eat,” he finally admitted. “But we’re not interested in anything fancy up here. I’ve gotten used to eating simple, plain food. Plus, it’s better
for the clients when they’re here. Roast beef is going to give a man more energy on the mountain than a plate of snails.”

“Ew. Snails.” She smiled and shuddered. “No worries in that department, I promise.”

“Okay, good.” He finished off the pasty and thought about grabbing another as he watched her move around the kitchen. She sure as hell looked as if she knew what she was doing. Of course, he’d read her references, but tasting what she could do with food was different than reading about it.

He nibbled at the carrot and celery curls, dipping them in the accompanying sauce. She was a good cook, but that didn’t mean she would make it here. Hell, he told himself, look at her.

His gaze locked on her, he noted her delicate but curvy build. Her hair was in a ponytail that swung back and forth across her back like a pendulum with her movements. She was humming something just under her breath and when she opened a cupboard and reached for something, Jericho was treated to a glimpse of very pale, very smooth skin displayed when her blouse hitched up.

His mouth went dry and his blood stirred. Damn, it had been too long since he’d indulged in a long weekend of sweaty sex. And now that
that
thought had taken root in his mind, he was picturing Daisy Saxon in his bed, that thick, soft hair of hers spread across his pillow. Her smile aimed at him as he moved in for a long, languorous kiss. Her breath sliding from her lungs as he entered her.

Instantly, he shut down that train of thought and squirmed uncomfortably on the bar stool. He didn’t need her here. Didn’t want her here. Couldn’t have her here.

So he was just going to have to get rid of her—fast.

“I
t’s amazing,” Daisy whispered, almost as if she were in church. She’d awakened early—too many years of getting up and moving in the restaurant business—and after getting dressed, she’d taken Nikki outside to enjoy the mountain quiet. Her little dog was off exploring the yard and all of the shrubbery, leaving Daisy alone in the shadows.

Now, she was standing on the lawn, staring back at the house and realizing that in the pearly morning light, Jericho King’s log and glass mansion looked almost like a fairy-tale castle.

She’d been too busy yesterday finding her way there and then falling on her face to notice much about the place. Her gaze swept over the façade and another murmur of appreciation slipped from between her lips. Wide balconies stretched along the second floor, with
arched, twig-style railings. Behind those balconies, glass panels soared, allowing views of the tree-studded mountain and the lake in the distance.

The lodge itself was surrounded by tall pines, and the wind whispering through the branches sounded like sighs.

“It’s a good place, all right.” Jericho’s voice rumbled from right behind her and Daisy jumped.

“I didn’t hear you come up.”

“I walk quietly. Tend to in the woods.” He stared up at the house as dawn painted the honey-colored logs with rosy hues.

She nodded but silently guessed that his stealthiness also came from so many years spent in the military. “Well, it’s so quiet here anyway, it’s as if you’re afraid to make too much noise. I feel almost as if I’m in church or something. In the city,” she said on a sigh, “there’s always noise. Cars, trucks, sirens. Here…stillness.”

“One of the things I like best about it,” he said.

“I can see why,” she agreed. “I get tired of the crowds and the hustle and bustle myself. Somehow everything always seems to be rushed down in the city. Being here is almost like being on vacation!”

“Except for the working aspect,” he said dryly.

“Right.” She nodded and then continued talking. “Anyway, I woke up early and decided to look around a little. I didn’t actually get to see much yesterday and—” She broke off, looked up at him and added, “But I didn’t see anyone else so I thought I was the only one up.”

He laughed shortly, shoved his hands into the pockets of a battered, brown leather bomber jacket and said, “Trust me, everyone’s up.” He turned and pointed across
the wide compound at a smaller log version of the main house. “Sam and the guys live there and they’ve got a small kitchen outfitted so they can make coffee or whatever. You won’t see them much in the mornings, but come lunchtime and at dinner, they’ll be crowding around the table like they’re starving.”

“Good,” she said, looking up at him with a determined smile. “I like cooking for people who like to eat.”

“They do,” he told her. “As for right now, they’re all just busy doing the daily chores.”

“Right. Of course.” Foolish, she supposed, to have assumed she’d had the place to herself. But yesterday, all she’d seen was the main house and the barn. She’d never noticed the other building set back against the trees. Now she at least knew why the house had been so empty when she and Nikki had gotten up.

As if the thought of her had conjured the dog from thin air, Nikki barreled across the lawn, charging Jericho with a ferocity belying her size. Her low growl erupted from her tiny chest and when she reached them, she stood in front of Daisy as if daring the big man to hurt her.

Shaking his head at the dog, Jericho said, “You know that’s just coyote bait.”

She gasped, bent down and snatched up her dog. Cradling her close, Daisy stroked a hand down Nikki’s back and shot a nervous glance around her at the surrounding trees. “Don’t say that.”

“Dogs like that don’t belong here,” he told her and his blue eyes were cold and remote. “Hell, it’s small enough it could get carried away by a hawk.”

“Great,” she muttered, looking up. “Now I have to check the skies, too?”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said, shooting the still growling dog a look of mutual dislike. Then he shifted his glance to Daisy. “Why are you really here?”

“I told you.”

“Yeah, but you could work anywhere. You’re a good cook.”

“Thanks!” She smiled at him and accepted the casually delivered compliment as if he’d delivered it with a speech and a glass of celebratory champagne.

“So why here?”

Daisy thought about that for a long minute. Wasn’t as if she could tell him why…not exactly, anyway. So she did the best she could and walked a wide circle around the absolute truth. Setting Nikki down on the grass, she stood up and said, “I told you that I wanted a change…”

“Yeah, but this seems like a radical jump to make.”

“Maybe,” she admitted, taking another look at the fantasy lodge draped in sunlight, “but what’s the point in making a change if it’s a safe one? If I just move from one apartment in the city to another? From one restaurant to another? That’s not change. That’s just…
ch.
”

“What?”

“You know,” she explained, “not a whole change, just a partial one, so a
ch.
”

He shook his head again and rolled his eyes. “Why here, though?”

“Because you knew my brother,” she blurted, giving him at least that much of the absolute truth. “And
because Brant wrote to me about you. He admired you. A lot.”

His features froze up and his eyes went glacial. Daisy had to wonder why.

“He was a good kid,” Jericho said after a long moment or two of silence.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “he was.”

She’d come a long way in the past year. Used to be that thoughts of Brant would have tears filling her eyes and her throat closing up on a knot of emotion. Now, though, she could remember him and smile. She drew on all of the happy memories she had of him to comfort her and the tears were coming fewer and further between these days.

Still, when she spoke about him, her voice went a little wistful. “He was several years younger than me, you know. Our parents died when he was very small, so I practically raised him. Always felt more like his mom than his sister.”

“He told me about you.”

“He did?” An eager smile curved her mouth. Oh, this was what she’d wanted. What she’d hungered for. Someone else who had known Brant. Who could remember him with her and keep his memory fresh and meaningful. Plus, Jericho King had known him at the end of Brant’s life and those were pieces that Daisy needed. She wanted to know everything. “What did he say about me? No, wait.” She stopped and held up one hand. “If he was complaining about me, maybe I don’t want to know.”

His features relaxed enough that one corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Brant only had
good things to say about you. Used to tell his buddies all about your secret sauce for hamburgers. Talked about it so much he had the other guys begging him to shut up because he was torturing them.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.” Her eyes welled with unexpected tears and a too-familiar ache settled around her heart. “Thank you for telling me. It’s hard for me, you know, not knowing what his life was like before he died. I mean, some of his friends wrote to me after…but it’s really good to hear you talk about him. To know you knew him. And liked him. I— Damn it.”

“Hey, don’t cry.” His eyes flashed and his voice was sharp. “Seriously. Don’t.”

She sniffed and huffed out a laugh. “I’m not going to. Oh, trust me, when I got word that Brant had died, I cried for days. Weeks.”

Turning, she started walking because she just couldn’t stand still a moment longer. Nikki was right on her heels as she moved across the lawn and Jericho was just a step behind the dog.

“It felt sometimes that I’d never stop crying. The slightest thing set me off. His favorite song playing on the radio. Finding his old first baseman’s glove on the floor of his closet. Even Nikki made me cry.”

“That I understand,” he muttered.

Daisy laughed and was grateful for it. He was such a guy. “I meant, Brant gave her to me for my birthday just before he shipped out. So she was my last link to him and when he was gone—” Shaking her head a little, she sighed, looked down at the tiny dog and smiled. “But I realized after a while that Nikki was a blessing. With
her, I wasn’t completely alone, you know? I still had something from Brant with me.”

“Yeah, I get that,” he said softly.

She looked up at him, her gaze locking with his. “I appreciated the letter you wrote me.”

His jaw worked as if he were chewing on words to taste them before allowing them to escape. “And I’m sorry I had to write it.”

“Oh,” she said, giving him a tremulous smile as she reached out to lay one hand on his arm, “so am I. I wish with all my heart that Brant was still here. But he isn’t. And I wanted you to know that it helped hearing from you. That reading about his friends and how much he meant to all of you gave me some comfort. You know, in case you were wondering.”

He looked mortally uncomfortable and Daisy asked herself again,
Why?
Surely it would be a good thing for him to know that what he’d done had helped her get through a truly hideous slice of life.

“He was a good Marine,” he said after a long moment of silence.

“High praise indeed, coming from you,” she said, remembering all the letters Brant had written to her. “My brother talked about you all the time in his letters to me. About how he admired you. How he tried to emulate you. Learn from you.”

Clearly unhappy with the conversation, Jericho bent down, snatched up a fallen twig from the grass and sent it sailing toward the tree line. “He did fine. Would have made a hell of a career Marine.”

She knew that was exactly what Brant had wanted. Knew that her little brother had wanted to serve his
country and test himself alongside other Marines. It had been important to him. So important that he’d given his life for his beliefs. And though her heart hurt still at his absence, being around Jericho—a man that had known and served with Brant—made it almost seem as if she hadn’t lost him completely.

That was only one of the reasons she’d come here to get pregnant, she reminded herself. Jericho had known and liked Brant. But he was also a part of the very military that had taken the last of her family from her. Wasn’t it only right that he now give her a family?

She winced at the direction of her own thoughts. She wasn’t a woman used to lying or manipulating. And a part of her wasn’t happy with what she was doing. After all, she was planning on tricking a man into making a child with her. Things didn’t get much more devious than that.

But what choice did she have, really? She wanted a family again. Wanted to love again. And if she came right out and asked, she was sure Jericho wouldn’t say,
Sure, let’s get right on that!

No, this was the only way. The only way to fill the hole in her heart left by Brant’s death.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I almost met you before.”

“When?”

“At Camp Pendleton. I went to see Brant before he shipped out and while he was showing me around the base, he spotted you.” She smiled at the memory. Her brother had been so excited, so proud. He’d introduced Daisy to most of his friends and taken her to his favorite spots on base. “You were coming out of some building
and Brant was dragging me over to meet you when a colonel walked up to join you. When the two of you left together, Brant was disappointed.”

She also recalled clearly just how good Jericho King had looked in uniform. Tall and built and, even from a distance, clearly gorgeous. She’d been a little disappointed at not meeting him herself. Yet, here she stood now, more than a year later, at his home.
Life took you on some pretty strange journeys,
she thought.

“He was a good Marine,” Jericho said again, as if struggling to give her whatever it was she needed to hear. “He had a lot of friends in the unit.”

“He was always like that,” Daisy answered with a wisp of sorrow in her voice for days gone past. “People liked being around him.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything. As they came to the edge of the lawn, the rising sun began to clear the treetops, spilling what looked like gold dust across the tips of the pines. “I liked your brother,” he finally said, staring off down the mountain as if searching for signs of an invading army. “Because of that, I’m going to tell you something you need to hear whether you want to or not.”

“Sounds ominous.”

He tore his gaze from the distance and looked down at her. “You don’t belong here, Daisy.”

“What?”

She hadn’t expected that, but looking at him now she couldn’t imagine why not. Harsh shadows cast by sunlight sliding through the trees lay across his face, darkening his eyes and making him look even more formidable than usual. His mouth was a grim, straight
line as he said, “You don’t belong here, on the mountain. This is not your kind of place, Daisy.”

Worry gnawed at her insides for a few uncomfortable moments, then that sensation gave way to aggravation. Was he going to change his mind? Toss her out before he’d even given her a chance to prove herself? He didn’t know her. Didn’t know what she might be capable of or not. How dare he think he could decide what she could and couldn’t do.

“It’s my kind of place if I say it is,” she told him.

He blew out a breath and his mouth tightened even further until she could see that muscle in his jaw twitch again. “It’s not that easy. Besides, I don’t think your brother would want you here.”

She blinked at him. Using her brother to get rid of her? “Excuse me?”

“You think Brant would be crazy about the idea of you living on a remote mountain top with a bunch of ex-Marines? Living with a bunch of guys isn’t easy.”

Former Marines? All of them? She shook that thought away and stayed focused on the conversation.

“Brant was a Marine. He’d probably love the fact that I’m here. He’d consider me to be perfectly safe surrounded by the kind of men he trusted.”

“You’re making this harder than it has to be,” he muttered.

“No,” she told him flatly. “You’re the one doing that. All I did was apply for a job. Which I got. You’ve already tasted my cooking and loved it. So the only complaint you’ve got against me is that I don’t
belong
here? Not good enough.”