“Nah. Bear was the medic on his SEAL team. He patched me up. I’m fine. Damn Taggart got the jump on me. I’m getting old.”
And there was a reason he didn’t go into the field anymore. His body had taken enough damage to kill most men. He never talked about it, but she and Jamie had been at his side after a mission in South America had gone south. They’d helped him recover from numerous surgeries, including the metal plate he now had in his head. She hated to think how close she’d come to losing him. Which was the only reason she was still talking to him now. “That was not the smartest move. Taggart wouldn’t have killed me.”
He took a long swig of Scotch. “When he said you wouldn’t be a problem anymore, all I could think about was him tossing your body in a dumpster. I got a little upset.”
“A little?” He’d risked everything he’d ever worked for. If Taggart wanted to he could cause Ten no end of grief. Luckily, he was more worried about Jesse than he was angry about what Ten had done, and if her brother had really thought about the situation for two seconds, he would have known it.
“Fine. A lot.” He sat back, regarding her seriously. “Did you really take the bobble heads up to McKay-Taggart? I thought they were in storage. I packed them up when I packed up your house.”
God, she’d hoped he’d forgotten that little tidbit of information. “I changed my mind the night before. I just needed them close.”
Every time she looked at them she remembered how she’d laughed when Jamie had given her the first one for Christmas the year she turned seventeen. He’d bought them for her every birthday and Christmas until she had a complete set. They would laugh and have little races to see whose head bobbled the fastest, and then they would go back to reading because of all the books she’d read, Harry Potter had been her favorite. Jamie had read them after he realized how much she loved them. Those stories had become the first way they had really communicated.
“Are you sleeping with Jesse Murdoch?”
Her heart twisted at the hardness in Ten’s voice. “No.”
“But you want to.”
“I’m not going to.” She was tired and it was hours before she could do anything about it. She wondered if she could even sleep with Jesse in the same room. It was part of their “cover” that they stay together. “I understand why we’re playing things the way we are, but nothing is going to change. We’re pretending to be lovers. Nothing more. Did your men buy it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I told them we’re out of it, that you decided to stay on at McKay-Taggart with your boyfriend and Taggart is stashing you here until he can find the assassin. They now understand that it wasn’t a drill and there was no misunderstanding. They definitely got the point that Taggart is going to find the assassin.”
“So it’s safe to say that if this person is really hell-bent on killing Jesse, they’ll pick up the pace.”
“And they’ll know exactly where he is and who he’s with. I suspect they’ll underestimate you. All of my men now have tails. The minute one makes a move, we’ll be on them.” A long moment passed with Ten taking one drink and then another. “You know you can’t stay alone forever, Phoebe.”
“It’s too soon.” Her stomach knotted. She wasn’t ready to talk about this.
“It’s been two years.” Ten wouldn’t let it go. “Do you think Jamie would want you to be alone for the rest of your life?”
“I think it doesn’t matter because I’m not sleeping with Jesse.”
“But you want to.” He said it more softly this time.
“Damn it, Tennessee. What do you want me to say? I like the man. I think we were wrong about him. In all the time I’ve watched him he hasn’t done anything suspicious.”
“He talks in his sleep. A whole lot of Farsi. He talks about the man he called the Caliph.”
“And what does he say? Does he pledge his will to him?”
A sharp shake of Ten’s head was answer enough.
“He’s scared of the man.” If there was one thing she knew it was that Jesse hated the man who had tortured him.
“He’s angry, too,” Ten conceded.
“Has he done or said one thing in all the time you’ve watched him that made you believe he’s some kind of sleeper?”
“I think that sleepers are asleep until someone wants them to wake up. That’s why they work so well. They can stay inactive for years,” Ten said ominously. “I worry someone is going to wake that boy up and we won’t know how to deal with him. You won’t be able to handle him. You’ll be right there in the line of fire.”
She couldn’t help but think about how Jesse had calmed down at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t once threatened her even when he was in that state. He’d been protective. “He won’t hurt me.”