Hot Pursuit (16 page)

“Oh, God,” Jenn said.

“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Anyway, two days in Vegas and Sandy relapsed. It was …” He shook his head—apparently words couldn’t describe the awfulness. “She’s back on track now, thank God. She sends me an e-mail every few months, but other than that, she’s done what my father did. Total non-contact. I don’t blame her. She’s got to do what she needs to do to stay sober.” He looked down at his plate, as if he’d suddenly lost his appetite. “I wish I had an excuse like that to, you know, stay away. Husband Four follows my mom’s marry-an-alcoholic-dickhead pattern. But my little brother Ben is stuck there, so if I just never showed up, he’d be on his own—which he is most of the time, anyway, who am I kidding?”

She exhaled. “Wow.”

He glanced at her. “I win, right? In the dysfunction-off?”

Jenn nodded, unable to not smile. “Among other things, yes.”

“Yeah, I’ve learned that it’s pretty much a lock when I mention Hurricane Katrina,” he told her. “I get extra pain and suffering points for being in Iraq at the time.”

“Oh, my God, Dan …”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if they were dead or… Sandy and her husband—like I said, ex now, because he sucked
—their
two kids, my mother and Ben, and Eden, my younger sister … No word from any of them. Total radio silence. So I’m over there, right? And all these stories started coming in about people drowning in their houses, trapped up in their attics because the water rose so high. And then we saw the news footage about people dying at the Super Dome and Ben’s a diabetic, so …” He laughed ruefully at the face she was making. “I don’t talk about it a lot, because it’s so fucking pathetic—excuse me.”

“Brothers,” she reminded him. “Lots of them?”

“But I’m not one of them,” he said. “So I don’t have those same privileges.”

Jenn was so surprised, she spoke without thinking, “I don’t remind you of your sister?”

He laughed loudly at that. “Jesus, no. Not even close. Eden-she’s … gone.” His smile faded. “I lost her a long time ago, before Katrina even. And Sandy … ? You dress a
little
bit like her, but…” He turned slightly to face her, to look at her appraisingly. “She’s about four hundred years older than you are. In substance abuse years, I mean.”

Jenn nodded. She understood. Her father’s heart wasn’t the only thing that was failing on him, relatively early in his life. He’d abused his body, and it showed. Even fifteen years sober, next month.

“You’ve got this … I don’t know, freshness,” Dan continued. “It’s not really innocence. …”

He was studying her face, and she had to look away, embarrassed and oddly shy.

“You’re … unbroken,” he told her.

It was such a strange word for him to use, and she looked back at him, deep into his eyes, and something shifted inside of her. Was he … ? Seriously … ?

“Whatever happened with your father,” he continued, holding her gaze, “you survived it with your faith intact. You know, faith in the basic goodness of humanity?”

“You can really tell that, just from looking into my eyes?” she asked, putting Fwed-the-bunny down on the empty seat between them, because it looked as if he were going to move closer. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Absolutely.” Dan nodded. And he did move, but it was only to turn to face her. He pulled his right leg up on the couch, moving Fwed so that the rabbit now sat on his knee. “And from talking to you. Although, you know, I read palms, too.”

He held out his hand as if he expected her to offer up hers for him to read—yeah, right. She laughed, because it was all so … ridiculous.

“Are you right-or left-handed?” he asked.

“Right,” she told him. “Extremely. Like, my left hand is useless.”

“Oh, man,” he said, “mine was, too. But when we train—you know, the SEALs—we have to be as ambidextrous as possible. So before I even applied to be a SEAL candidate, I spent two weeks with my right hand tied behind my back. I’m talking fully tied, 24/7. I started out at about the speed of a clumsy first grader. Now I can do just about anything with my left hand that I can do with my right. You gotta keep practicing though. I still give myself what I think of as left-hand training days about once a week.”

God, he was charming. And handsome. And he was talking to her as if there were nowhere else he’d rather be, no one else he’d rather be talking to.

And she didn’t remind him of a sister.
Not even close
, he’d said.

“Gimme,” he said, holding his hand out to her again. “Your right hand. Come on, LeMay. Let’s have it.”

Jenn didn’t put her hand in his. That felt too weird. Instead, she just held it out, palm up, as she laughed to show that she didn’t take this—or his bedroom eyes and quicksilver smile—at all seriously.

But he took hold of her, pulling her closer, the heat of his own palm warm against the back of her hand. And again, something moved inside of her.

It was a swirling mix of attraction and desire, because instead of looking down at her hand, he was gazing into her eyes, and he smiled as if he liked what he saw. Which was, again, ridiculous. He was Brad Pitt handsome, and she was …

Available.

Ah. There it was.

He was spending the night here, and he wanted to spend it
not
on the kitchen floor.

“You know, I’m not an idiot,” Jenn said, but the words came out sounding breathless and, yes, faintly idiotic. Because even if he were the absolute King of Immediate Gratification, ruler of Love-the-One-You’re-with-Land, and even if she
were
the Queen of Available—which, okay, she was—this was far from the way the scenario usually ran.

That look in his eyes was anything but brotherly.

He was, as the saying went, a Sure Thing.

Assuming she was into a really hot night of completely casual sex, no strings attached.

“I can see that you’re not,” he told her, glancing up from her palm. “An idiot. This right here”—he traced the line in the middle of her palm—“is your head line. Not headline, like,
extra extra, read all about it
. But the line for your head, as opposed to the line for your heart—which is this one, right here.” Again he traced her palm—at the top this time—with the tip of one big finger.

His hands were really huge, she realized. Bigger than hers, with her long, skinny, ET-phone-home fingers. They were callused, too, his hands—with nails that were neatly trimmed. His skin was quite
a few shades darker than hers, as if he spent a lot of time in the sun and tanned effortlessly.

She burned and peeled, so she usually remained pretty solidly cavefish white, even in the heat of the summer.

“Both your head and your heart lines are well defined,” he told her. “You’re well balanced—maybe even a little too pragmatic. See, your heart line goes straight across. If it goes up here”—he traced his finger up between her first and middle fingers, which felt sinfully good—“moving away from your head line, you’re more of a dreamer. But look at how close the two lines come together. Judging from that, I’d say it’s highly unlikely you’re going to run off with Emilio, the man on the flying trapeze, to join the circus.”

She leaned over to get a better look, and when she glanced up at him, their faces were much too close, so she backed off. It was hard not to smile, though, when he was smiling at her like that. “I think you’re making this up.”

God, but he smelled good—like her brother Alan’s best friend John, a John that she didn’t ever actually date, but had desperately wanted to. He was an avid snowboarder, and he, too, always smelled like a mix of sunscreen and fresh air, even in the winter.

“Wait, I’m not done,” Dan said, laughing as she tried to pull her hand free. He wouldn’t let her go. “And I’m not making this up. I’ve spent some serious vacation time in N’Orleans. I’ve had my own palm read plenty. And I paid attention.”

“And what did they tell you—the myriad of wise palm readers who bamboozled you?
You will go to New York,”
she intoned,
“and have Chinese food in a very small, very hot studio apartment…”

He laughed. “It’s never that detailed. Although one of them said—I’ll remember this one forever. Wait, let me get it right…” He paused, and then recited,
“You’ll get what you want, but whether or not you realize, before it’s too late, that you truly
want
what you
get,
is up to you.”

“Ooh,” Jenn said. “Deep. And how much did you pay for that
gem of wisdom? Because I got a fortune cookie? In the kitchen? That’s probably going to be just as profound, but mine came free with my dinner.”

“Scoff all you want,” he said. “But you might want to be careful because look, your fate line is pretty fractured.”

He pushed the palm of her hand slightly together, then traced a jagged line that appeared right down the center, going from her middle finger to her wrist.

“It’s solid to your heart line,” he informed her, “and solid
after
your head line, but in between the two? It’s a mess.”

It was. “Let me see yours,” she said, and he finally let her go, in order to hold his hand out for her.

“Solid fate line, right here,” he said, pointing to it.

“I don’t know why I’m looking. For all I know, mine’s the way it’s supposed to be and you’re the one with the crazy fate of doom or… whatever.” She had to get closer to see it, and as she peered down at his hand, she laughed. “Here’s where, if you were one of my brothers? You’d smack me in the face and shout something like
Boo-yah! You share the fate of the moron!”

Jenn felt the exhale from his laughter move her hair—he was that close. And when she looked up at him, he didn’t move back. He just smiled into her eyes.

“Your brothers were harsh,” he said.

And he kissed her.

Jenn saw it coming. He telegraphed it, totally, his gaze flickering down to her mouth, once, twice, lingering that second time before he looked into her eyes again and leaned toward her, catching her mouth with his.

It was gentle and sweet—reverent, almost. As first kisses went, it was quite possibly the loveliest she’d ever had. He smelled even better up close, his lips a soft contrast to the stubble on his chin.

She kissed him back, until the logical part of her brain overcame her total surprise and she pulled away, but she was still dumbstruck,
so all she did was stare at him. He’d just
kissed
her. He’d just kissed
her
.

“Sorry,” he said, but it was supremely obvious that he didn’t mean it. “I couldn’t resist. I just… I like you. You’re … really cute.”

It was his word choice that brought the fantasy crashing down around her, and gave her back her ability to speak.
Cute?
Was he serious?

“Unbroken,” she reminded him. “Fresh and unbroken. Cute tends to be petite or maybe … freckled. With curly hair. But definitely petite.”

He actually had the balls to argue with her. “Cute has nothing to do with—”

“You should’ve gone for
funny,”
she said. “I’ve been called funny before, and that works. Particularly when it’s combined with
smart
. I like
smart.”

“Petite’s way overrated anyway,” he insisted. “I’m not petite, so why would I want—”

“What
do
you want?” Jenn asked.

Of course, that question, direct and to the point, silenced him.

She waited, raising her eyebrows.

“Well,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I want to get to know you better, so—”

“Bullshit,” Jenn said. “At least be honest. Are you going off assignment here, or is this, like, a standard part of the Troubleshooters
save me from the pig-heart-wielding madman
personal security package? Round-the-clock bodyguarding with an optional bonus orgasm. A
Save me, Fuck me
two-for-the-price-of-one?”

He laughed at that. “You
are
funny,” he said.

“Too late,” she told him. “You went with
cute.”

“I went with
I like you,”
he countered. “You
are
cute, and I
do
like you, and I guess I thought you maybe liked me, too—”

“No, thank you,” Jenn said. “Okay? I’m going to make it easier for both of us, and just say
no thanks
to whatever you have in mind.
Yes, you’re a fabulous kisser and I’m sure I’ll regret this for the rest of my life. But I have a set of rules and guidelines for how I live my life and I absolutely do
not
have one-night stands with—”

“I’ve got two weeks.” He interrupted her. “You want honesty, Jenn? I’ll give you honesty. I don’t do one-night stands either and, okay, for the sake of transparency and full disclosure, I’ve done plenty of one-nighters in my life, yeah, but I don’t like ’em. Well. I don’t
not
like ’em, but…” He exhaled hard and started over. “I like the kind of sex you have around day five, you know? The kind where we’re out at a restaurant and we order dinner and we’re talking about movies or books or something and you look at me and smile and there’s this crazy spark and the waiter brings the food right at that moment, and we both go,
We’ll take it to go
, and the anticipation is so sweet, because we both know
exactly
how great it’s going to be when we get home and fall into bed.”

Jenn was silent and he just waited, watching her with those eyes and that face and that incredible body beneath that T-shirt and those cargo pants.

“You’re good,” she finally said. “You’re
really
good. My bullshit meter’s totally pinned, and yet a part of me’s still going,
wow, yeah, day five …”

“It’s not bullshit,” he said, and his nose should have grown a good ten inches, and God, don’t think about
anything
growing like that, but he
was
a rather large man, with those big,
big
hands, so it was hard not to think about it… “I like you, Jenn. So I’m going to put it all out on the table and be completely honest here. I would love to hook up with you, starting tonight. I can stay in town for two weeks, if you don’t mind me crashing here with you when the Trouble shooters assignment ends. After that, though, I’m heading back overseas, and although I can’t tell you exactly where I’m going, it’ll probably be to Afghanistan, and I’ll probably be there for months.”