By the time they returned to City Place, however, she had him so steamed, there was a pretty good chance he just might kill her himself.
14
"So,
you're the youngest."
The oncoming lights from the traffic on 1-95 shaded Nolan's face in shifting shadows as they headed away from the studio toward City Place. When he glanced Jillian's way, every angle, every plane, was hard with suspicion.
"The youngest what?"
Jillian smiled. Weary of Garrett's jaundiced take on everyone from her doorman to her makeup artist and incensed over his churlish behavior and overdone intrusion— Lycra her butt—in addition to dealing with several projects she had in the works Jillian made the time to do a little research on her bodyguard throughout the day.
God bless Google and high-speed Internet connections. It led her to a glut of material on Garrett and his brothers, who, she found out, were all ex-military, as was their father. Garrett's sister, Eve, however, had been Secret Service. Interesting.
"Of the Garrett children. Your twin sister, Eve, beat you by ten minutes."
He looked straight ahead, his hands tightening on the wheel. The muscles in his jaw were clenched so tight she wondered if he'd dislocate it.
"Your father was a Vietnam War veteran—a Ranger. Decorated. Went into law enforcement here in West Palm and later retired on partial disability from a line-of-duty gunshot wound to his leg."
In fact, she'd found out that it was after he'd retired from the police department that Wes Garrett had established his private security firm fifteen years ago—E.D.E.N. Security, Inc., E.D.E.N. being, she learned through her research, an acronym for his children's initials, Ethan, Dallas, Eve, and Nolan.
"After he got on his feet again, your father started ED.E.N—which your oldest brother, Ethan, now runs, along with Dallas and Eve. And now you're a part of it, too."
"I'm not a part of anything. I'm just doing my brother a favor. "
"I'm the favor?"
"A damn big one. Where, exactly, are you going with this?"
She looked up from her notes. The man behind the wheel was not a happy man. He didn't like his life laid out like hers had been laid out to him. A wiser woman might have backed off. Instead, Jillian acted as if she hadn't heard him and continued scanning the several pages of notes she'd printed.
She couldn't help it. His background fascinated her. In one interview with the local newspaper she learned that he'd been a high school football jock. When he wasn't drafted by the pros after college, he'd enlisted.
"I love this interview," she went on, knowing she was pressing hot button after hot button but feeling reckless and relatively safe since he was occupied with traffic. Besides, turnabout was fair play. "Direct quote: 'In college I majored in beer, football, and women—not necessarily in that order. After I graduated and I didn't get even a look-see by the pros, I had absolutely no clue who I was or what I wanted out of life except a need to continually test myself. I never wanted to go the military route like my brothers and father... but the next thing I knew I was walking into the army recruiter's office on Gun Club Road, signing up and saying good-bye to my cushy civilian life. A few years later, I was a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger. Leaner, meaner, and a helluva lot smarter than when I went in.'"
Jillian could vouch for the meaner part. And the other things she read supported both Jason "Plowboy" Wilson's and her father's claim to Garrett's hero status in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently enamored by the "local boy makes good" and the family connection, one specific newspaper reporter had spent a fair amount of time getting to know Nolan for an article he did a few years ago.
"You want to tell me why you're snooping around in my life?"
That she heard loud and clear. His words were so short and clipped and hard, there was no mistaking his anger. Tough.
"I was curious. I'm curious about something else. Tell me, other than the fact that it was a family tradition, why does a guy with a college degree sign up in the army as an enlisted man? I mean, enlisting would've been a dumb career move, right? With your degree, you could've been a commissioned officer."
Across the front seat she saw his jaw work.
"Or maybe you just thought it would be more fun," she concluded, since he'd closed up like a clam. "More of a personal challenge to be an ordinary grunt? Although, I've got to tell you, I read up on the grueling schedule the enlisted men go through and there isn't anything about it that sounds remotely like fun. Which means your idea of fun and mine are light-years apart."
"And you'd be wise to remember that. For instance, I don't find this fun."
Sometimes, going for the throat was simply the right thing to do. "The shoe doesn't feel so great on the other foot?"
"Ah. So you see this as retaliation because I have a file on you—regardless that it's part of my job to know everything I can about you."
"Just like it's part of my job to find out what makes news. You made news."
"I'm not one of your stories."
No. He wasn't one of her stories. But he'd become someone of great interest to her. Everything she'd learned about him today wasn't pretty. Sure, there was the good stuff, the American hero Army Ranger stuff. And yes, what he'd done—his bravery, his valor—it had all impressed her. But he'd partied hard in college and so she figured he must have a flaw or two in that otherwise perfect military record.
By all accounts, he was going to make the Rangers his career. And then he'd come home from Iraq. He hadn't been back a full week when he put in for separation.
And disappeared... until he showed up in her penthouse four days ago.
"You didn't stay a grunt long, though, did you? You became a Ranger a couple of years later."
"If you're going to research, then get it right. I got my Ranger patch a couple of years later. You graduate from Ranger School, you get the tab, but you aren't a Ranger until you serve in a Ranger battalion."
"OK, you served in a Ranger battalion. Then what?"
He let out a breath between puffed cheeks. "You're the reporter. Why don't you tell me?'
"All right," she said agreeably, and referred to her notes again. He'd shipped off to PLDC—Professional Leadership Development Course—where he learned how to be a junior NCO. "You made sergeant, became a team leader, then ... wait. It's here somewhere." She paged through the papers and finally found what she was looking for. BNCOC—Basic Non-Commissioned Officers Course. He'd aced it. "Eventually you were promoted to staff sergeant. Squad leader, right?"
He said nothing.
"You stayed at that rank for a long time. Stuck with the Rangers for a long time for that matter. With your record, why didn't you go on to Special Forces? Green Beret or Delta?"
"Maybe I wasn't asked—just like you weren't asked to dig up all this crap."
"Oh, you were asked. You turned them down. Do you ever regret it?"
"I regret a lot of things. Like this conversation."
"Do you regret leaving the army?"
Nothing.
"So why did you leave?'
"You're like a damn dog with a bone, you know that?" He glared at her, then rolled his eyes and swore. "Spending ten years as a Ranger kicks anyone's butt, OK? My knees are for shit, and I was tired of the crap that goes on at Bat and in the regiment."
She waited a second, then went with her instincts, trusting that "sensitivity" factor she relied on. "But that's not why you left."
Whoa. That hit a nerve. His blue eyes glazed over with something that very much resembled pain before they hardened to ice.
"Is there a point to this interrogation?"
She wasn't sure anymore. She'd started out wanting to needle him. Now she just wanted to know... more to the point, she wanted him to want to tell her. "Just trying to figure you out."
Another surly silence followed while he took the Okeechobee exit. A few miles later, he pulled into a twenty-four hour grocery store.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm hungry. That finger food they served for lunch at the
station wasn't enough to keep a two-year-old alive, and you don't have any food in your refrigerator."
"I have food."
"One egg and some rusty lettuce. And I'm figuring there's a reason I haven't seen you cook anything yet."
"I can cook."
"Programming your speed dial with the phone numbers of your favorite restaurants does not constitute cooking." He jerked the car into
park
and cut the engine. "Come on. I need some red meat. And you need something to occupy your mouth."
His grip on her arm as he ushered her out of the car and toward the supermarket suddenly felt like more than a guiding hand. Just like his remark about finding something to occupy her mouth felt like a suggestion that made her cheeks hot.
"I take it," she said, hurrying to keep up with him and trying to get a highly improper and highly erotic image out of her mind, "we're not talking about you anymore?"
Nolan cast a covert glance at Jillian as he took two rare rib eyes off the countertop grill and set them on a platter. She sat placidly on a stool at the counter, one elbow on the black granite, her jaw in her palm while she alternately sipped from and played lazily with her wineglass.
Hell. He should have given her wine a long time ago. Since he'd poured her a glass half an hour ago, she'd stopped firing questions at him like bullets. Who knew that when she wasn't scared out of her mind a little alcohol could quiet her down? And who knew she'd have the balls to dig into his past... or the savvy to uncover what she had?
Her little fishing expedition—or witch hunt if you're Sting hairs—had caught him off-guard. He didn't like hearing his life story rolled out like a length of newsprint—even though he had to admit, his opinion of her had grudgingly ratcheted up yet another notch. Obviously, she'd made it as far as she had in the business on her own merit. Anyone who could dig up that much dirt in that short order couldn't be half-bad as an investigative reporter.
"Soup's on," he announced, carrying the platter and a salad bowl to the table.
She roused herself with a slow blink, as if she'd forgotten he was even there. Finally, she sort of spilled off the bar stool and with her wine in hand walked barefoot to the table. "Why root beer?"
He watched her settle herself in her chair. One of many mistakes he'd made so far. She'd ditched her white jacket and heels the minute they cleared her penthouse door. Just his luck, the only thing she was wearing besides a short white skirt that showed way too much pale, bare leg was a skimpy little coral pink top with straps as thin as spaghetti. Hell, he didn't know what it was called—a camisole, maybe. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was as sheer as silk and as sexy as bare skin. And the woman who had designed it had a deep and abiding insight about what brought a man to his knees.
Besides all the subtle shifting going on beneath it when she moved, her breasts pressed against the watery fabric; her nipples were as prominent as pencil erasers.
"Hel-looo?"
He dragged his gaze away from her chest to her face when he realized she was talking to him. "What?"
"Why root beer?" she asked, and he realized she was repeating a question.
He sat down, settled himself, and grabbed a steak knife. "Because I'm on-the-job."
"And?"
He angled her a look. "And because I like the real stuff too much."
"Hm." She considered him, sipped more wine. "I figured you more for a hard-liquor kind of guy."
"That, too," he said, slicing into his steak.
"Meaning you drink it or you like it too much?"
"Yeah to both. Eat. No more questions."
Absolutely no more questions. If she kept hammering away like she had in the car on the way back from the studio, he'd end up spilling his guts just to shut her up. And that was the last thing he wanted to do. So far, since she hadn't brought up the incident at Fort Benning, she must have missed his connection to Will. She didn't know about how he died. More specifically, she didn't know why he'd died. And she didn't know that when he'd DX'd out three months ago he'd launched a full-scale romance with the bottle.
"Did you know that you sometimes shout in your sleep?"
Her question hit him like a gut punch. He froze, somehow managed to keep his gaze from cutting to hers, then very methodically made himself resume chewing. After he swallowed, he snagged his root beer and cast a benign glance at her over the top of the bottle.
"I've heard you. In the night," she continued softly.
When he said nothing, her green eyes, like her voice, softened with something that could have been compassion.
"Nightmares?" she added with a gentleness completely at odds with the feelings burning in his gut.
He drew a steadying breath, let it out. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
She sipped more wine, then leaned forward, elbows on the table. Holy mother of God. The pose deepened her cleavage and all he could think about was how soft and warm and wonderful it would feel to bury his face there in the middle of the night when he woke up to the sound of men screaming and evidently did a little screaming himself.