“Oregon’s a nice place. I’ve often fished for trout up in the Cascade Mountains above that little town.” Somehow, Matt found himself wanting to alleviate the tension around her lovely mouth and erase the fear from her eyes. “Did you ever go fishing in Klamath Lake, which is near there? Or fish for steelhead trout on the Rogue River?”
She shook her head and looked out the plane window. The sky was a bright blue, with high, filmy cirrus clouds. “Uh, no…”
“Not a fisherperson?” he teased. She refused to look at him. Now her hands were clenched, white-knuckled, in the lap of her dark purple skirt.
Softly, she answered, “No…I don’t like hurting anything. It pains me to even think of putting a sharp hook into a poor, defenseless little worm. It has no way of protecting itself from us…what we might do to it. Humans are a lot stronger, and sometimes brutal….”
Matt scowled. He heard a lot of pain in Jenny’s voice. In fact, he could barely hear her, her voice had gone so soft. Her face had drained of color and she was pale. Very pale. And now she was sitting very, very still. His gut crawled with trepidation. Realizing he was stepping into very raw territory regarding her personal life, he said in a rasping tone, “Don’t mind me. Sometimes I’m like a damn bull in a china shop. I don’t know when to stop asking questions. My ex-wife will confirm my dazzling skills in that regard.”
Turning her head, she met and held his stormy eyes. Once again, Jenny was seeing him without that armorlike mask in place. Now he was searching and unsure of himself. She’d never have thought anything could rattle the heroic Matt Davis, decorated navy hero. Especially something she said. Her. A mouse. A ordinary person who had never accomplished anything of note in life. Except to be a great assistant to Morgan Trayhern. And she had also gotten a degree in psychology. She was proud of that accomplishment, too. But it wasn’t the same as saving lives, like Matt did.
“My life,” Jenny began quietly, “isn’t anything to write home about.” Shrugging, she opened her hands and said, “I was taken from my mother, who was a crack addict, when I was born. She died when I was a year old. I don’t really remember anything about her…. I was turned over to the state, and over the next eighteen years, I went through five foster homes.” She saw his brows gather grimly. And she saw sympathy reflected in his eyes. Heartened that he wasn’t going to make fun of her, or tell her that she was less worthy in his view, she added, “I guess maybe that’s why I went into psychology—to try and understand myself. I was hyperactive in kindergarten. I couldn’t sit still. I disrupted the class. They said it was because my mother was a drug addict. But I never touched drugs—never wanted to. After I left my last foster home, I went to Bryn Mawr and worked to get a degree. I had to do something to prove to myself I wasn’t totally a worthless human being.”
She tapped her head. “I still have ADD—attention deficit disorder. When I was a kid they tried to drug me up to my eyeballs, in an attempt to calm me down. I just have a different way of working and thinking than most people. I thought becoming a psychologist would help me…to try and figure out who I am…or what I could be…. Oh, I know I’m a scaredy-cat. I screech if I see a spider…or a snake.” Jenny shivered, placed her arms around herself and made a face. “I really do leap up on a chair if I see a mouse. I’m such a coward. After all, I’m much bigger than any tiny little mouse or teeny spider or other creepy-crawly.” She sighed sadly. “I’m such a mess.”
“There’re plenty of people who’ve come from broken homes,” Matt said. “And they go on to make something of themselves in life. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Jenny. You weren’t the drug addict, your mother was. You were the innocent in all this.” Without thinking, he lifted his hand and gently stroked her small, slumped shoulders.
Matt’s touch was magical. As his strong fingers moved across her tightly knotted shoulders, she closed her eyes. His touch was healing. She felt the warmth of his hand, the strength, but also the tenderness of his touch. Amazed that such a large man could be so gentle, she released a long, pent-up sigh. Opening her eyes as his hand lifted away, she managed a sliver of a smile.
“You’re being very kind. Thank you. I know you don’t have to be. You’re a hero ten times over. You don’t have to put up with little people, like myself.” Her mouth quirked and she avoided his gaze. “I’m sure you didn’t want this mission with me. Oh, not that anyone’s said anything….” Jenny lifted her hands. “You’re probably doing this because Morgan asked you to. I know how he sometimes puts pressure on a merc, to get them to team with someone they’ve never worked with before.”
Just the flittery look in Jenny’s narrowed blue eyes made Matt’s heart wrench. “Whoa!” he murmured. “Slow down, will you?”
“I know…I talk a mile a minute. It’s that Gemini moon of mine. We Geminis blather all the time. People like me don’t know when to shut up.”
“I’m interested in what you’re saying, but you’re running along at Mach 3 with your hair on fire, and I can’t get a question in edgewise.”
Laughing, Jenny nodded. “Fair enough. Okay, I’ll shut up and you ask what you want.” She couldn’t believe that he didn’t think less of her because of her background.
As Matt sat up, the look in his eyes set her heart palpitating for no reason. Maybe it was his unexpected touch. She would never forget that wonderful feeling of his hand sliding across her shoulders. Even now her flesh tingled.
Looking down and studying her questions more thoroughly, he murmured, “For someone who has ADD, you’ve done a very nice, disciplined and thoughtful job creating these questions. Looking at your work, I wouldn’t ever think you had attention problems.”
Making a frustrated noise, Jenny wrinkled her nose. “I was so afraid that Morgan wouldn’t hire me when I told him I had ADD. People like me often make a thorough mess of everything, Matt.” She gestured nervously toward the notes he held. “My mind works differently. I see things—letters and words—differently from the normal population. I’ve had to retrain and reteach myself how to think and do things your way, not mine.” She managed a small smile of triumph. “It was hard, but I really wanted to do it, to fit in, you know?”
“Growing up, did you stand out at school?” Matt saw the instant anguish in her eyes. Jenny avoided his incisive gaze and clenched her hands in her lap again. He was discovering that when he hit a painful nerve in Jenny, she would naturally assume that cowering position.
“It was awful,,” she admitted softly, her voice wobbly with tears. “I was put back into a remedial class. A lot of kids made fun of me. They called me stupid. A geek. And it got so bad I just hid. I ran from them in the halls when I saw the cliques coming toward me to tease me.” She nervously touched her hair. “I wasn’t pretty. I was such a stick compared to the other girls…and no boy would ever look at me. They called me Fraidy Cat. That was my name in school. The boys would put plastic spiders and bugs in my chair, or they’d throw them in my hair, or the girls would drop one on my tray in the cafeteria….” Sighing, Jenny forced herself to look up at Matt. His face was thundercloud dark with anger. At first she thought he was angry at her. But when he unexpectedly reached out and gripped her hand, and she felt his gentle strength around her clammy fingers, Jenny knew different.
“Kids can be brutal,” he growled. “No wonder you’re so jumpy as an adult.”
Matt didn’t want to let go of her hand. He saw Jenny’s eyes grow tender as he held and gently squeezed her damp, cool fingers. Every protective instinct he owned rose to the surface. With the pieces of information she was divulging to him, he could understand why she was excruciatingly nervous and flighty. Her ADD made