Deep breath. Keep it together Ice.
Focus.
He searched for something to say, to keep him in the present, and homed in on the first thing that came to mind. “Do you have a death wish or something? Showing up at the most dangerous housing complex in the south side of Mount Vernon, in the dark, alone. It was a total rookie move. One that could have gotten you killed.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel to keep from reaching over to shake some sense into her. Anger boiled deep in his gut. Not good. Convincing wealthy benefactors to part with their cash in support of her crisis center was where she belonged. Not on the front line, dealing with reprobates and confronting danger.
His heart pounded. A trickle of sweat wove its way down his temple.
“I’ll have you know I’ve been doing this for three years,” she said, “since I started the Women’s Crisis Center. And I have never run into a problem until tonight.”
Three years? “Pure dumb luck.” His heart skipped a beat. “At some point your luck will run out.” Just like his had. He wanted to hit something. “Did Justin know?”
“As of tonight he does,” she said.
“This woman, the one you set out to rescue tonight. She’s so special her safety is worth putting yours at risk?”
“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” she asked.
He knew everything that mattered. She was smart, funny, thoughtful, beautiful, sexy, and there was a time he’d rather spend his time with her than with anyone else.
She shifted in her seat to face him. “Come on, Ian. Tell the truth. You never looked me up on the Internet? Never gave in to that niggling interest people seem to have about just how much I’m worth?”
Eyes focused on the road, he shook his head. “Sorry to disappoint but I prefer to get to know people on my own terms rather than reading what others have to say about them, and I’m more interested in your body than your bank account.” Was interested. Was, as in past tense. He could not allow Jaci to distract him from what he had to do.
She smiled. “You always tell it like it is, don’t you?”
He glanced over and smiled right back. “That’s why you love me.”
Her smile vanished.
Wrong thing to say. Idiot. Because she didn’t love him. At the moment she barely liked him, her scorn totally justified. It was for the best, for both of them. That didn’t mean he had to like it.
He waited for her to lay into him.
Instead she said, “When you get home tonight, go online and keyword Piermont Tragedy, Scarsdale, New York. Then you’ll understand why I will do whatever I can to help women escape abusive relationships. And since I’m of legal age, no one gets a say in how I go about doing it.” She turned back toward the window. “This conversation is over.”
In the interest of peace between them, he let the topic slide. “I, uh, got your letter.” Perfectly formed cursive written on classy pale pink stationery in purple ink. Five pages front and back, upbeat, with no mention of her proposal of marriage or his rude, hasty retreat. The woman could make the simple act of doing laundry entertaining. And the scent. Her perfume. He’d stored it in a zipper-lock plastic bag to preserve the aroma, carried it in his pocket, slept with it, jerked off to it.
“If you’d left me a way to contact you before you took off, if you’d put forth the slightest effort by writing me back or e-mailing me or in some way letting me know it got to you, maybe I would have sent you more.” She spoke without moving, still looking out the window. But the emotion in her voice let him know he’d hurt her feelings.
So much for peace between them.
He tried to explain. “When I’m in a warzone I can’t be distracted by thoughts of home. I’m there to do a job, to complete the tasks I’m assigned and get out alive.” He glanced at her. “And I thought it’d be easier on you to not feel obligated to write me or think about me.” Or worry or search for lists of dead and wounded every time a bloody battle made the news. Like his mother had each time his father had been deployed overseas.
“So let me get this straight.” She turned to him and finally took off that ridiculous wig. “For the better part of four months we spent a portion of almost every day together. I ran with you.”
He’d timed his runs to make sure he’d pass by their parking lot at exactly six o’clock to facilitate their meeting up for the last five miles of his ten mile jog.
“I cooked for you.”
His mouth watered at the memory of her chicken with rosemary.
“We watched movies on my couch.”
His body ached to feel her cuddled up beside him.
“Our friendship progressed to the point I invited you into my bed, into my body, into my future. And in that feeble-minded head of yours you came to the conclusion if you fled my condo—in your boxer shorts you were in such a hurry—then scurried off to the base hours before you were scheduled to report and cut off all contact with me I would poof,” she flared out her fingers in front of her beautiful face, “forget all about you?”
Or hate him. Either way, a clean break.
“Maybe your attempt would have been more successful,” she went on, “if you hadn’t stolen from me. If each time I looked at the shelves in my living room I wasn’t reminded that the empty space where my favorite picture of Jena and me is supposed to be is empty because of you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “All you had to do was ask, and I’d have happily given you a picture.”
But it may not have been the one he’d wanted. Jaci and her identical twin, standing arm in arm by what looked like the family swimming pool, wearing matching string bikinis so skimpy they wouldn’t have passed for bathing suits on most public U.S. beaches.
And had he asked to take a picture of her with him to war, she would have thought there was more to their relationship than there was. Or than he’d thought there was at the time.
Would she be less angry if he’d ripped the photo down the center and only taken the half with her in it? Because as much as he’d wanted to make a clean break, he couldn’t get himself to leave without having some piece of her to hold on to, and one glimpse of the snapshot in the light and he could tell the twins apart.
Jaci’s smile warm and genuine. Her eyes lit with laughter, fun, and mischief. Her sister’s smile shy almost forced. Cautious. Her eyes haunted and sad.
“Maybe if someone hadn’t e-mailed my brother and a dozen or so other men in our social circle that some soldier in Iraq was bragging about a threesome he’d had with me and Jena. God.” She threw the wig in a bag at her feet. “The thought repulses me. You repulse me.”
Ian fought for calm as he leaned out the window to punch in his code, waited for the metal gates to open and steered the car into the parking lot of their luxury high rise. “I never said that, Jaci. I swear.”
“Were we or were we not referred to as Ice melt?” she yelled. “That’s your nickname, isn’t it? Ice?”
Ian parked the car in Jaci’s spot, turned off the engine, and shifted to face her. “I didn’t tell anyone you, Jena and I had sex together.” He ran a hand over his face. Disgusted. “Guys are pigs. Get a bunch of them together on a military base, add in a picture of two, identical, hot, almost naked women, and it was the twin fantasy run amok.”
Apparently he was going about this explanation thing all wrong because Jaci thrust open her car door and jumped out like the interior of the vehicle had caught fire.
“Wait,” he called out, rushing through the rain, his left leg stiff, slowing him down.