The Keeper Read online

  In short, she was always busy—there was always something to do—and, as such, being able to fall asleep was never a problem. Drifting off on the couch on the rare nights she tried to watch a movie or read a book was a more common issue. Maybe that was part of her Problem With Men. Impaired judgment from lack of rest? Mariette gave a mental shrug. In lieu of anything else, she’d take it.

  Nathaniel, aka Crooked Dick, had been forever insisting that she take off and leave one of her girls in charge and, while she imagined that seemed like a reasonable request, Mariette had just never been able to do it. She’d put everything she had into her business—building it had to come first. She should have known when he’d made the you-make-cookies-you’re-not-saving-the-world comment that he wasn’t the guy for her.

  Asshole.

  She didn’t give a damn if she was a Porta-Potty cleaner, she’d still give it her best effort. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, Aunt Marianne used to always say.

  Interestingly enough, she got the impression that Jack Martin was the same, adhered to the same standard no matter what he was doing. He seemed just as concerned with catching her Butter Bandit as he did with anything else. No doubt those especially keen observation skills and attention to detail had made him a fine soldier.

  Honestly, it was those very skills that had made her unaccountably nervous. If he’d seen that much after a few minutes interviewing Audwin Jefferson and a passing glance at Bobby Ray, then what had he noticed about her? What sort of observations had he made?

  She was almost afraid to speculate.

  Mariette had never mastered the art of hiding her feelings. If she was mad, she said so. If she was happy, she said that, too. Living with her mother, she’d had to be an excellent communicator and therefore never tried to hold anything back or hide. While her mother might have missed sarcasm and the like, she was top-notch at reading moods, could pick up on the tiniest shift in Mariette’s demeanor. Even if she’d been so inclined, there’d been no point in trying to conceal her feelings.

  And until all six and half feet of his splendidly proportioned frame had come walking through her door she’d never had to worry about it.

  But no one had ever affected her quite so strongly before in her life. No one had ever made her feel so much. On a physical level, he didn’t just flip every switch, he fried the circuits. The size of his hands, the breadth of his shoulders. All that mouth-watering muscle. The hot way he ducked his head and smiled when imparting a small joke, the simple quirk of his lips, the barest hint of a dimple in his cheek…and she became a quivering, all-but-drooling pile of goo.

  She released a shaky breath.

  And then there was the way he moved. It was one of the sexiest things she believed she’d ever seen. It was this loose-hipped, rolling sort of gait that telegraphed his strength, his confidence, his very badass-ness. There was something uniquely intense about him, a banked sort of energy bubbling just beneath the surface. Still waters might run deep, but Jack Martin was more like a tsunami.

  And seeing that kind of power gentle with a smile for a girl like Livvie. Seeing the genuine tenderness in his gaze, his desire to please her…

  Now, that was some kind of man. That took strength.

  And he was in her living room, Mariette thought, her nipples tingling at the thought. She could hear the low hum of the television, the occasional noise that signaled a shift on the couch, a clink of ice hitting the side of a glass. For whatever reason, she’d imagined having a man stay here with her would feel odd, would pollute her space, even—despite her poor choices, she’d never let a man sleep over before—but Jack seemed to be the exception to that rule.

  When she’d come out to tell him good-night after taking her shower, she’d found him staring at a photograph on her mantel, a soft smile on his lips. It was one of her favorites—a candid Aunt Marianne had taken of her and her mother at the beach. She’d been five at the time. They’d had on matching sun hats, sitting toe-to-toe, legs spread-eagle, building a sand castle between them. They’d worn the same identical expression of concentration.

  “You were a chubby kid,” he’d said, pointing out a fat roll, then had gestured to the painted flames canvas in the hearth where a real fire would have been if the chimney would have worked. “Toasty.”

  Mariette giggled, remembering, and flopped restlessly onto her back. Glanced at the clock. Three minutes had passed since the last time she’d looked at it. Sheesh. This was ridiculous. He was here so that she could go to sleep, so that she could rest without worrying.

  How ironic that her very protection would be the thing that would keep her up at night.

  She was too tightly wound, too aware of her own body and it had been too long since her last orgasm. And he was too hot and too close and too…everything else.

  A low throb built in her sex in time with the steady beat of her heart and her nipples pearled even tighter behind her pajama top. A soft hiss slipped between her lips and she shifted, pressing her legs more tightly together to ease the seemingly unending ache.

  If anything, that made it worse.

  Mariette rolled her head to look at the clock again and then whimpered softly in frustration. Two minutes since the last time. Shit. She was doomed. There was no way in hell she was going to be able to fall asleep in this sort of state. With a resigned sigh, she pushed up out of bed, slipped her feet into her Betty Boop house shoes and padded quietly into the living room.

  Jack smiled when he saw her and pulled one of those small earbuds from his left ear. He’d been looking at something on his laptop screen, but nonchalantly closed the lid when she’d walked in.

  Too nonchalantly.

  Damn, she hoped he hadn’t been watching internet porn. Watching porn while he was supposed to be protecting her would demote him from perfect-guy status and kill her lady-bits-quiver-for-him permanently.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, his brow wrinkling. “Am I keeping you up?”

  In a manner of speaking, yes, but she could hardly say that, now, could she? He’d changed into a pair of loose pajama pants, the kind that tied at the waist, and a dark T-shirt. His gun was lying within reach on the end table and seeing it gave her a little shiver of dread. She sincerely hoped he wouldn’t need that.

  “No,” she lied. “I was just thirsty.” She pointed awkwardly to the kitchen and, feeling ridiculous, headed in that direction.

  Liquor, Mariette thought. Liquor never failed to put her to sleep. She’d never been much of a drinker—preferred to have control of herself at all times—but on the rare occasions she’d indulged she’d ended up quite mellow and sleepy. She poked around in the cabinets, trying not to make too much noise in the process, and then finally located the bourbon she typically used to make praline sauce. Rather than dirty a glass, she just ducked low and tipped the bottle up.

  It belatedly occurred to her that she probably looked like an alcoholic sneaking a quick fix, which was of course the moment Jack cleared his throat.

  “How rude,” he chided from the doorway, an amused smile on his lips. He tsked. “You could have at least offered to share.”

  CURLED UP IN THE backseat of his car, which he’d parked at a local truck stop, Billy Ray huddled deeper into his coat and tried in vain to keep his teeth from chattering. He’d stayed inside the diner for as long as he could without drawing any suspicion—or getting run off for loitering—then had reluctantly left the cozy warmth for his chilly Buick. He couldn’t afford to run the car all night—it would use too much gas—and wished he would have thought to bring a blanket from his motel room.

  He was absolutely freezing.

  But at least he was alive.

  And if Uncle Mackie got ahold of him, he knew he’d be praying for death, so, ultimately, this was the better alternative.

  Because he
knew Uncle Mackie had someone watching his motel room, he didn’t dare go back there—wasn’t safe—and now that the big guy was snooping around for Mariette, he couldn’t afford to attempt to go after the coin again.

  At least not yet.

  He’d have to at some point—he wouldn’t have a choice—but doing it on the heels of what had happened last night would no doubt be a terrible mistake and he’d made so many of those already…

  At least he hadn’t seriously injured her, Bobby Ray told himself, still appalled that he’d hit her with that damned dough roller. He liked Mariette. She didn’t look at him the way other people did, with suspicion in their eyes and a predisposed inclination to distrust him.

  Like Audwin, Mariette never failed to offer him a real smile—he knew the difference, was familiar enough with the other kind to spot the genuine article—and usually insisted that he take some sort of snack with him when he left her shop. He’d cruised by after he’d left work and, to his profound relief, had spotted her in her usual place behind the counter.

  Despair closed in on him again and he could feel tears clog the back of his throat. He swallowed them back, forcing them to recede. Bad things always happened when he cried. In fact, he hadn’t shed a tear since he was eight years old and his old man had given him this ghastly permanent smile.

  He always found it odd that people stared at him—he couldn’t bear to look at himself.

  He really hated that he’d mucked things up, that he’d made such terrible decisions, that, ultimately, he was stealing from the only people who’d ever made him feel like more than a second-class citizen, but he just didn’t see any other way. He either paid Uncle Mackie back or they’d hurt him and Billy Ray was sick to death of being hurt. Of being someone else’s punching bag.

  If he could only get the coin…

  What was it one of his foster mother had always said? If dreams were horses, then beggars would ride. He laughed miserably.

  That pretty much summed up the state of things, didn’t it?

  It was hopeless, Bobby Ray thought. There was no way out. And until he got that coin back he had no choice but to take another one.

  The mere idea made him sick and his stomach suddenly heaved. He quickly leaned over and emptied it into the floorboard, then wiped a shaky hand over the back of his mouth and fought misery.

  As usual, he lost.

  JACK FOUND MARIETTE crouched furtively in front of the kitchen counter, bottle tipped back like a seasoned drinker. He enjoyed the blinking, miserable alarm that skittered across her expression the minute he’d caught her.

  Eyes wide, her long dark hair hanging in a tangled curtain around her face, she slowly lowered the bottle and winced at the burn. “This is not what it looks like,” she said in a low wheeze.

  He raised a brow and leaned against the doorjamb. “Oh?”

  Rather than get up, she exhaled mightily, settled on her rear end and relaxed against the cabinets. She wore a pair of pale blue flannel pajamas decorated with cupcakes and a to-hell-with-it resigned smile. She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “It helps me sleep.”

  “They make medication for that, you know.”

  She took another swig, the delicate muscles in her creamy throat working as she swallowed and then hiccupped rather adorably. “This is faster.”

  He chuckled and shook his head, sincerely hoping that it wasn’t his fault that she couldn’t sleep. He didn’t think that he’d made that much noise, but who knew? He’d actually turned up the volume on his hearing aid so that he wouldn’t miss any noise from downstairs and had been watching one of his lip-reading tutorials online to pass some of the time.

  He had to do something that was going to require enough of his attention to forget about her being just a room away.

  As the night progressed, he’d become more aware of her and less concerned with the consequences.

  Not good.

  Honestly, when she’d walked into the living room after her shower, her face scrubbed clean, her nose shiny and all that hair pulled up into a wet knot on top of her head… Just remembering made blood race to his groin, made his balls tighten and his dick swell. Unbound breasts, the hint of nipple behind fabric, that generous ass…

  Hands down one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen.

  And, remarkably, she’d been fully clothed.

  At least, on the surface, anyway.

  He imagined that the rest of her skin beneath the fluffy floor-length chenille robe she’d been wearing was just as lovely and dewy soft as her face had been. He didn’t know what sort of soap she’d used—though he fully intended to investigate that later out of nothing but sheer curiosity—but it had followed her into the living room and had smelled so damned good he’d wanted to slide his nose along her neck and inhale the skin in the hollow of her collarbone. It was something exotic with vanilla undertones, sexy and wholesome and unaccountably mouthwatering.

  She was mouthwatering.

  And knowing that she was so close—all but breathing the same air—and yet untouchable had been unbelievably torturous. He’d desperately needed a distraction, one that would require a great deal of concentration on his part, so watching the videos had been his first thought.

  And they were typically his last, as well.

  Jack had come to terms with leaving the military, had even been able to shift the blame off his shoulders because, ultimately, he’d done everything he was supposed to do. War was war and there were times when, even with every precaution in place, people were still going to get hurt, still going to die. Seeing any life cut short was awful—heart wrenching—but he’d had a soft spot for Johnson. The boy had been barely twenty, smart and hardworking with a moral compass that didn’t drift the way so many of his contemporaries did. The military had made a man out of him much more quickly than the real world would have done and he’d acclimated well, with grace and wisdom beyond his years. He’d had so much potential and his death, aside from being horrible, was such a waste.

  That he’d been desperately trying to share his dying words with Jack—his expression, the fear, the very need that had been written in his panicked eyes—was something that haunted him mercilessly. He could remember everything about that encounter down to the last detail, from the specks and smudges of dirt on Johnson’s face to the way his mouth moved while he was talking. It wasn’t until he went to get his last hearing aid and he’d noticed a teenager at the clinic lip-reading that it occurred to him that he could learn, and once he learned it, he could figure out exactly what it was that Johnson had been trying to tell him.

  Once that was done, he could finally close that chapter of his life and move on. Or as much as he imagined he’d ever be able to, anyway. But if it had been important enough that he’d spent his last breath trying to share it with him, Jack knew that this was something that he couldn’t simply ignore. He had a duty to the boy to see whatever it was through.

  And he would.

  His gaze drifted over Mariette once more, her lush little body hugged in warm flannel, her creamy cheeks pinkened from the alcohol and a pang of longing—and something else, something much more significant and harder to define—shot through him. He’d never met anyone quite like her before, who engaged every single part of him the way she did. The desire was legendary, singular even, and more pressing than anything he’d ever experienced…but it was much more than that.

  She was much more than that.

  She was intriguing, a mystery, an enigma wrapped in cupcake pajamas and vanilla scent. She was hardworking and tenderhearted, creative and smart, loyal to those who earned her favor and quick to champion them if she felt they were threatened.

  She was also single, which boggled the mind.

  He couldn’t believe that no one had snapped her up yet. That some enterprising youn
g professional hadn’t dragged her to the altar and impregnated her posthaste. Because he was unnaturally curious about her, Jack had looked at every picture that was on display and noted the distinct absence of a current or even a past significant other. He couldn’t imagine that it was anything but her choice. So…why? Had the actions of her father so permanently put her off men that she’d paint them all with the same brush? Or was it something else?

  These were things that were none of his business and yet he fully intended to find out the answers to them.

  Irrationally, he needed to know.

  She looked up at him, her pale gray eyes a little less focused than they were previously, and with a slow smile of the mildly impaired, offered him the bottle.

  Chuckling under his breath, Jack sidled forward and accepted it, then placed it carefully on the counter. He offered her a hand. “Think you can sleep now?”

  She looked at his hand as though it were a foreign object, then back at him, almost balefully. She swallowed hard. “Probably not, but I should try.”

  With a resigned sigh she grabbed hold and allowed him to help her up. She stood a little too quickly, wobbled, and fell against his chest. She inhaled sharply at the contact—a telling breath, both music and doom to his ears—and looked up at him.

  The need he saw there nearly felled him.

  She was soft and warm, her unbound breasts pressed against him and her scent tangled around him. He was literally burning up from the inside out and yet he was frozen, couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it.

  He’d instinctively wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from falling and, though he knew he should let go, couldn’t seem to get his brain to make the required command that would move her away from him, that would disconnect whatever it was that was happening between them. This close he could see little bursts of green radiating from her pupil and a tiny freckle to the bottom left of her eye.