Paying Up Read online

  Paying Up

  Mary Wine

  Chapter One

  Christina Jennifer Faulkner listened to her own sigh and grumbled. Life was being difficult today. She leaned forward to glare at the computer sitting in her dad’s store but the machine seemed less than impressed with her temper.

  Well…she was going to win!

  “Are you still messing with that order?”

  “Yes, Dad, the satellite link isn’t responding.”

  Again. She curled her lips back as the screen flashed her a broken connection message. She lifted her head as the open window let a low rumble in. The faint sound of a helicopter’s blades made her push away from the computer. The dish wouldn’t work right until the military aircraft was over the ridge.

  Her order would have to wait. Her frustration dissipated along with the aircraft noise. Funny how just knowing a little information made stuff easier to deal with. Most of the residents of Benton County assumed the helicopters used the area as a training ground.

  She knew better. It was knowledge she just might be healthier forgetting but she wasn’t stupid either. She’d seen the coal black military machines with her own eyes. Watched the men who commanded them, lived in the foreign bustle of a military compound that sat right up over the next ridge.

  Looking around her father’s shop, she smiled and a silvery giggle rippled out of her throat. Her dad ran a clothing slash winter stock store. Heavy boots and thick jackets along with propane space heaters and snow gear.

  Now, the real truth was, her dad just liked the woods in the winter. The shop was his personal sandbox and he enjoyed playing in it. The computer age was a menace as far as Tomas Faulkner was concerned. He liked a good magazine to order from.

  “Where are you off to tonight?

  Her dad looked up from a pile of magazines to run his parental eye over her clothing. Her short skirt didn’t miss his attention.

  “Cynthia is nursing a twisted ankle. Mick needs some help tonight.” The only bar in town was home to the best barbeque in Benton county. Known as The Pit, it was the center of Friday night in Benton. It was also Valentine’s Day week. Mick Trunal was too good of a family friend to leave at the mercy of a howling room full of hungry men and no waitress to shuttle beer in between the replays of tonight’s baseball game.

  Her dad grunted and raised his finger at her. “Call me when you get there.”

  “I will, Dad.” Standing up, she placed a kiss on his leathery cheek before she felt a sharp tug on her skirt.

  “Jacobs know you’re wearing that short a skirt?”

  “I don’t really care if he does.” Shane Jacobs hadn’t even dropped her so much as a phone call in over two months. Who cared if she wanted to show a little thigh?

  “Your attitude needs adjusting, my girl.”

  She blew her father another kiss as she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. Her dad thought Shane Jacobs walked on water. There was no point in debating any opinion she might have of him. The man had returned her to parents who believed her dead.

  She stepped out into the Benton night and smiled as the stars lit up the road. She lifted her shoulders as she began walking the short distance to the pool hall. It was only two blocks and the streets of Benton were perfectly safe to walk at night.

  At least that was what she’d like to believe again. This time her sigh was bitter. How did you resent knowing the truth? The world wasn’t a nice place, and living your days under that fairy-tale assumption was a good way to get killed before you even knew there was a gun pointed at your face.

  Her shoulder itched and she rubbed it out of habit. Her bullet wounds were healed now, but the scars her mirror showed her haunted her. It was absolutely terrifying the way life would just rise up in a surge of evil so thick, it devoured people before they even had time to think.

  Right here in sweet-looking Benton, she and her best friend had ended up fighting for their lives. Christina had to remind herself that it had really happened. Well, the four bullet wounds covering her torso weren’t the product of her imagination.

  Neither was Shane Jacobs. Looking up at the mountains that made up most of Benton County, she tried to see the house that she’d shared with the man. Oh, he’d been more of a jailer than a host but there were parts of the memory that refused to dwindle in her mind.

  You are so pathetic, Tina.

  Really! The man hadn’t remembered she was alive and here she was casting puppy dog eyes at a moonlit forest. Beyond dumb. Love was something that most men were born with the natural ability to avoid. They faked it to get sex. A woman had to be smarter than their slick words if she wanted to keep her sanity intact.

  A true smile lifted her lips. Roshelle had found one of those rare men who truly loved. You just couldn’t fake the way Jared Campbell followed her with his eyes. Her friend had emerged from their brush with evil and prevailed.

  She would too. Picking up her feet, Christina headed toward her destination. Maybe she’d even get herself a date tonight. It was time to look forward.

  * * * * *

  Major Shane Jacobs took after his parents. The man was a giant. Six-foot ten inches tall just like his father. He wasn’t lanky, either, instead his shoulders were broad and his chest wide.

  Roshelle hissed as the man used every millimeter of that chest capacity to yell at his men. It wasn’t a loss of temper explosion, instead it was a precise application of military command that shook the window behind her. The sentry guarding her snapped to attention before leaving to obey his commanding officer’s order.

  Her son sent out a soft whimper as the overabundance of noise startled him. Roshelle frowned at Shane but he seemed completely undisturbed by her pout.

  “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

  Most women would have considered that rude. Roshelle admitted she would have been one of them just a few short months ago. Now? Well, she was used to the giant and the way he ran her husband’s unit. It wasn’t sociable but it was polished in its deadly efficiency. Her mountain home was more of a military base most of the time. The Army Rangers that made up her husband’s unit were always ready for any threat that might show up. Here, security took precedence over niceties, manners and even privacy. It was something she accepted as part of the man she’d married.

  “Did you have an answer to that, ma’am?”

  Her son jumped and filled his month-old chest before wailing in that glass-cutting tone of a newborn. Shane froze in his tracks as he looked at the one person on the premises who wasn’t going to be impressed with his authority. Her son turned red as he screamed out his displeasure.

  Her breasts instantly responded to her infant. Milk soaked the front of her shirt despite the fact that she’d fed Tivon only forty-five minutes earlier.

  “OHHH… Shane Jacobs, you need to work off that steam somewhere away from me!”

  The scent of her milk made her son frantic. His arms beat back and forth as he made loud, sucking sounds with his little mouth. She couldn’t feed him now! Her breasts weren’t full and that meant Tivon wouldn’t end up with a full belly either. Getting a newborn on schedule wasn’t easy and she glared at Shane as her son continued to demand a nipple.

  “Yes, he does.” Grace Campbell didn’t raise her voice. The woman appeared from the side of the house and walked on silent feet toward Roshelle. Her mother-in-law still fascinated her. The woman held the most amazing will. It seemed to radiate around her.

  She reached for her grandson and Tivon immediately stopped his screaming. His eyes locked with the emerald green ones of his grandmother as the baby seemed to connect with her on some higher level.

  That was entirely possible. Grace Campbell was a psychic, and Roshelle had learned to respect that fact. Her husband’s mind was as sharp as his m
other’s and the gift seemed to be part of her son’s genetic code.

  Grace didn’t make a single sound. She didn’t cuddle or rock her grandson. Instead she supported his head in a steady hand as her arm took his weight. Tivon stuck a fist into his mouth while his little emerald eyes stared into his grandmother’s.

  “Go shower. I’ll deal with Jacobs.”

  Shane snorted but Roshelle had to resist the urge to laugh. Grace was a woman of few words, but she backed up each and everyone of them. Turning around she went looking toward that shower before she ended up smelling like spoilt milk. It would almost be worth the stench to stick around.

  Shane cussed under his breath and waited. He was out of line and knew it. There weren’t many people on the mountain who could make him listen to them if he didn’t want to, but his father’s operative was one of them. Despite her lack of rank, she was his senior.

  Grace was busy studying her grandson and seemed to be ignoring him. He knew better. The veteran psychic was razor-sharp even in midlife. She’d lived her entire life in a unit of Army Rangers. Nothing got past the woman.

  Her green eyes shifted to him before the corner of her mouth twitched up ever so slightly. She turned away from the house and walked down the front steps as she continued her mental connection with the baby.

  Shane fell into step beside her. She sent those sharp eyes sideways at him before raising an eyebrow. “Lonely, Jacobs? Sorry, but I don’t need any company.”

  “I thought you were going to deal with me.”

  She stopped and glared at him. “The only person who can deal with your problem is you. It would be nice for the rest of us if you got around to doing that before that girl goes and marries some other resident of the county. Then I might have to consider shooting you.”

  Shane halted and watched the woman head toward the trees. Grace wasn’t much on civilization. She preferred the forest to the walls of a house and had raised her three sons among the trees.

  He was used to that, actually more comfortable with rugged harsh edges opposed to civil niceties. He lived his life surrounded by military bluntness. His problem was the fact that he had an itch for the soft, delicate female he’d met right here on his mountain.

  Another curse rolled out of his mouth as Shane considered lighting a cigarette. The problem with that was he didn’t smoke. The habit seemed to have become attractive just about the same time he’d met Ms. Christina Faulkner.

  If he lit up, his mother just might kill him. If he didn’t, Christina’s memory might make him wish for that death. Discovering someone else saw right through him didn’t help. Grace had more than her fair share of insight but with his luck, every damn man under his command knew what was eating him.

  Shit!

  Turning around he headed back across the front drive that separated his house from Jared Campbell’s home. A dry laugh escaped his throat. Jared did in fact have himself a home now. It was funny that a woman had brought about that change.

  Jared had found himself a rare gem in Roshelle. Damned if Shane had any clue how the woman did it, but she managed to balance out her life among the military element that surrounded her. Civilians didn’t transplant well into the classified realm that he and Jared lived in.

  A silver laugh rose from memory as he recalled just how Christina tossed her blonde head of curls. Her blue eyes sparkled every time she giggled. His mouth wanted to twitch up into a stupid grin every time he heard that voice, even in his memory. No woman should be allowed to keep a man company in his dreams if she hadn’t discovered what kind of sheets he slept between. For Christ’s sake, he hadn’t even slapped her bottom.

  No, you idiot, all you did was watch her.

  Maybe that was the trouble. He’d watched the way she walked and the way she worried her lower lip as she contemplated trying to outwit him. She cuddled up with a pillow as she slept and always kicked the covers off her feet so that her little painted toenails peeked out.

  The details of her sultry walk were embedded in his mind, the motion of her hips as they swayed back and forth. Even the soft feminine scent of her hair seemed to be recorded like classified data in his mind. He’d made the mistake of touching her just one single time and the feel of her bottom across his legs still made his cock itch.

  The word idiot wasn’t strong enough. Shane looked at his house and turned toward one of his helicopters instead. He was inventing work to avoid going into his house. Somehow, the place was uncomfortable without his guest in residence. Yup, idiot wasn’t the word.

  It was fool.

  * * * * *

  “I’ve got an order for you.”

  Christina felt a chill run down her neck. She’d been serving customers all night but she knew that tone of voice. It was deep and hard as steel. The shiver shaking her collided with her temper. She turned on her heel as she refused to shrink away from the man sitting in the corner of the pool hall side of The Pit.

  Half the place was a bar and dance floor and the other side a pool hall. Rourke Campbell was leaning against the doorjamb with one booted foot crossed over the other. His arms were crossed over his chest giving him the lazy look of any Benton County resident looking for a little kick back fun.

  She knew better. He was Jared Campbell’s brother and as lethal as a cobra. Her time on their mountain had been filled with whispers of psychics. It wasn’t something they told you about, instead she’d witnessed it firsthand. This man, just like his brother, was an operative with the black forces of the Army. They lived on the edge of life and melted into the erased pages of classified operations.

  His lips curled back to show her an even row of teeth. His eyes were the same emerald green as Jared’s and seemed to cut right into her soul. She stomped her foot into the wooden floor as the urge to scurry off to the kitchen filled her immediate thoughts.

  She stood in place and let his eyes inspect her. It wasn’t the first time since her return from his secret home that she’d noticed someone watching her. She’d kept her word to his father, Sheriff Brice Campbell. Not a single word had passed her lips about the compound over the ridge. But that didn’t mean his family had any intention of letting her memory dim. They watched her and made sure she knew it.

  Sometimes the sheriff just dropped in to her father’s store, other times it was just that tingle on her neck that called her attention to some musclebound man sitting in a car outside a shop she’d stopped into. Their eyes set them apart from other civilian men. She’d never understood why military men said the word civilian like it referred to another species than their own.

  Now she understood.

  “Don’t worry, I haven’t bitten anyone all day.”

  “Oh, well, I think that means you’re about to snap any second. We have a leash law in The Pit. All animals must be secured in the patio area.”

  He laughed at her. Tipped his head back and let a rumble of male amusement hit the ceiling. His eyes sparkled when they caught her again. A sharp glint of appreciation made her shift in her shoes. Rourke Campbell was certainly every inch a solid hunk of male but she didn’t want him to start looking at her like a woman.

  One dark eyebrow rose in response to her reaction. His lips settled into a grin that was just a little too sympathetic. Confusion hit her but she kept her lips closed. This family didn’t answer questions, they bred them.

  “If you’ve got some coffee back there, bring a mug back for me. Black, double strong if you’ve got it.”

  Oh, they had it. Double black was regular stock at The Pit. For that matter, most establishments that had a bar doubled as a coffee house. It was just the little fact that Rourke Campbell was planning on staying around long enough to drink that coffee that made her frown on her way to the kitchen.

  It was like she was stuck somewhere between her kidnapping ordeal and her real life. Yes, she was home but she wasn’t living her life. Instead she felt a rope attaching her to the life and death struggle that had ended with four bullets hitting her flesh.
/>   You couldn’t go back in life. Maybe that was the lesson she needed to accept. Once innocence was gone, you had to make your way as best you could. Using her hip, she pushed the door open while balancing a tray with Rourke’s coffee on it. She lifted her chin as she walked back toward the man. She did know about his life—so what? She’d keep her promise and somehow find the courage to stop worrying so much about the possibilities of the hard world out there.

  * * * * *

  “Dr. Roshelle Campbell, you look remarkably domesticated this evening.”

  Roshelle didn’t jump. A little smile lifted her lips as she managed to control her need to react to Jared’s brother’s games. Rourke enjoyed appearing out of a shadow almost as much as her husband did.

  “And you look like someone I’ve repeatedly asked to knock on the door.”

  Rourke showed her his teeth in response. “Why? You can feel me if you pay attention.”

  His words sparked a rise of pride that spread over her face. Roshelle enjoyed it as Rourke continued to grin at her. She could feel him. Her empathic senses were gaining focus every time she made herself understand them. It was something that took practice and her husband’s family was quite willing to help her get all the practice she needed.

  “Guilty. I was half asleep.”

  “Well, I’m not. I stopped and had some coffee tonight. That friend of yours makes a mean cup of double black and delivered it in a skirt so short, I’m still thinking about it.”

  Now that she was paying attention, Roshelle felt the unmistakable rise of heat in her living room. She looked around the room but the men held their faces in calm masks that didn’t give her any clue as to who found Rourke’s statement so offensive.

  Her husband jerked his head up to catch her eyes. Jared had entered her mind the night they met and the link was strengthening every day. Their son was chewing on his father’s finger and looking impossibly tiny next to her large husband. Tivon wasn’t small either! The baby had arrived at nine and a half pounds and ate like a wolf cub.

  Jared suddenly looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know Christina was working at The Pit.”