“You think Brant would be crazy about the idea of you living on a remote mountain top with a bunch of ex-Marines? Living with a bunch of guys isn’t easy.”
Former Marines? All of them? She shook that thought away and stayed focused on the conversation.
“Brant was a Marine. He’d probably love the fact that I’m here. He’d consider me to be perfectly safe surrounded by the kind of men he trusted.”
“You’re making this harder than it has to be,” he muttered.
“No,” she told him flatly. “You’re the one doing that. All I did was apply for a job. Which I got. You’ve already tasted my cooking and loved it. So the only complaint you’ve got against me is that I don’t belong here? Not good enough.”
She stared up into pale blue eyes that seemed to be boring directly into hers as if he were trying to read her thoughts before she could say them. “Now, I’ll remind you that Brant was my younger brother. He didn’t make decisions for me, and it would be really difficult for him to start doing it now.”
Jericho King’s scowl was an impressive thing. She imagined it had once frightened young recruits into jumping to attention and springing into whatever action Jericho had expected from them. She refused to be intimidated by it.
“I knew him,” he pointed out. “I think I can figure out you being here wouldn’t thrill your brother.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “you did know Brant and I’m glad to have that connection. Somehow,” she added, “it makes his memory come more alive when I’m around other people who remember him. But I knew him better, I think, than you did. And even if he were here to cast a vote on all of this, it wouldn’t be up to him. This is my decision.”
“And mine,” he reminded her.
His face looked hard and his eyes were as cold as twin blocks of ice. The rising sun spilled more light and created darker shadows all at the same time. She watched Jericho’s face, hoping to spot a chink in his armor. But she found nothing. There was no give on his features, no soft understanding or kind consideration. This was the face of a warrior. A man tested in battle and honed down to a fine edge. If she expected to hold her own with him, she’d need every ounce of her own strength and self-confidence. If she let him know she was worried in the slightest, that would give him far too much of an advantage in this little test of wills.
She took a breath, blew it out again and said, “Okay, yeah. It’s your decision, too. But you promised me a chance. And I’m holding you to it.”
He blew out an impatient breath. “You’ve got to be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”
“If you think I’m insulted by that, you’re wrong.” Daisy bent down, scooped up Nikki and held her close. “Maybe I’ve never been on a battlefield, but I’ve had to work hard for everything I’ve ever had.”
“That’s not—”
“I know what it’s like to push yourself.” She cut him off neatly and poked him in the chest with the tip of her index finger. “I’ve been on my own a long time. I raised my brother by myself with no one to help. I know what it is to be so tired all you want to do is lie down and not get up for a year. And I know what it’s like to ignore that urge because you’ve just got way too many things to do.” She lifted her chin and fixed her gaze on his. “I’m not afraid. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to get what I want.”
He nodded abruptly. “You know what? Fine. You don’t want to listen to reason, that’s your choice. You want to do this, we’ll do it. Be ready at dawn tomorrow. We’ll head up the mountain and then we’ll see just how badly you want this stupid job.”
* * *
He had to be out of his mind. That was the only explanation for any of this. In the soft, hazy light just before dawn, Jericho checked the sky, hitched his backpack higher and glared at the house. As if firing dirty looks at the place would make Daisy Saxon appear.
“It ain’t dawn yet,” Sam said as he walked up quietly.
No, it wasn’t. So she wasn’t late yet. “Close enough.”
“Uh-huh.” The older man shoved one hand through thinning gray hair. “So what’s the plan, JK? You taking her out on the mountain just to submarine her?”
He shot one wary glance at his friend. Was he that easy to read? Would Daisy figure out that he was going to see to it that she failed her survival test? Besides, it wasn’t as if he were going to deliberately sabotage her. He just wouldn’t be offering her any extra help. And left to her own pitiful devices, he had no doubt she’d be finished before the day was out.
“What do you care?” he asked, neither confirming nor denying the man’s suspicions.
Sam gave him a look Jericho hadn’t seen since the older man had been his drill instructor when he first joined the Corps. When he was through with boot camp, Jericho and Sam had become friends and had kept in touch through all of their separate postings over the years. Sam had been a Marine for twenty years when he mustered out and coming here to King Mountain had seemed the logical choice.
The older man had been restless—too young to retire and too old to stay in the Corps—so he’d come here and become a part of King Adventure. He’d had as much a part in making the camp successful as Jericho had and they got along fine usually, two men with like minds, though they were separated by nearly two decades in age.
They were family, Jericho realized. But then, so were all of the guys who worked for him. Misfits mostly—men with no families, nowhere to go. Some had seen combat and didn’t feel comfortable around lots of people. Some had simply yearned for wide-open spaces and a job with fewer restrictions than the nine-to-five route. Whatever their reasons, they’d all come here looking for work and wound up finding a place to call home.
And until this very moment, he and Sam hadn’t butted heads over anything important in years.
“She seems like a nice kid, is all,” he was saying. “And I don’t want to think you’re taking her on the mountain just to break her spirit.”
Jericho felt a rush of irritation swamp him as he looked at one of his oldest friends. The fact that guilt was riding right under that irritation was only more frustrating. Did the man have to read him so well? “Damn it, Sam, I would have thought you’d not only understand but agree with me on this. Did you get a good look at her? You can see for yourself she doesn’t belong here.”
He snorted and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I see nothing of the kind. I see you trying to get rid of a pretty woman because she makes you twitchy.”
Twitchy didn’t even begin to cover what Daisy did to him, Jericho thought, but damned if he’d admit to it. “Bull. I’m doing this for her, not to her.”
“Yeah, you can say that all you want, but I’ve known you too long to buy into it.” Sam shook his head and smiled knowingly. “That girl in there gets to you and you don’t like it, so you figure to haul her ass out before she settles in.”
Another shot too damn close to home, Jericho told himself and wondered if he’d somehow lost his poker face over the past couple of years of civilian life. Or maybe he was only transparent to people who’d known him so damn long. “It’s not just that—”
Sam snorted again.
“Fine, you want me to admit it? She’s hot. Hot enough that I’ve been on edge since she fell onto the lawn practically at my feet.” He scowled into the distance, where the rising sun was just kissing the treetops. “Hell, she’s a walking forest fire. But it’s more than that. I served with her brother. Her dead brother. Now she’s looking to me to provide a kind of link to him or something.”
“That so bad?” Sam countered. “Everybody needs connections, JK. She lost her brother. Isn’t