The Mercenary Page 21

  “Sorry about the mess.” The words seemed automatic and Jodie didn’t believe he felt sorry at all. Not that she took offence of course. Despite her initial reaction, Jodie didn’t care how he kept his room.

  “What can I do for you?” He asked

  Watching as Eddie rummaged around in a drawer looking for something, Jodie took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk to you about Ainsley.” Now I have his full attention. “She’s feeling a little bit like a discarded sock.”

  “What?” His features contorted in confusion.

  “Okay bad choice of words. She’s head over heels in love with you but she’s not sure you feel the same way.” Eddie looked at Jodie, his face deadpan. I’ve made a big mistake, I shouldn’t have come.

  “She actually said that?” He stopped, frozen to the spot, just staring at her.

  Scratching the back of her head, Jodie began to fidget. “Well not in those exact words, I’m just trying to give you the heads up. You were kind enough to keep me from running from Danny. I’m trying to return the favor.”

  “Babe, you have it all wrong, I’m not running anywhere.”

  “Not you,” Jodie said.

  Eddie’s eyes widened, “she’s ready to bolt?”

  “No, but she’s starting to lean that way. I wanted you to realize before it became too late. She feels there are barriers between you, she thinks that maybe you don’t want to allow yourself to fall in love.” Taking a deep breath, Jodie fingered her hair as she composed her next sentence. “I know that she’s wrong, I can see that. But I couldn’t tell her what the problem really was. That’s why I’m telling you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, his body sagging with the burden of it all. “I can’t tell her Jodie, she’d never accept it. It’s not about trusting her to keep the secret. If she knew we’ve killed people...”

  “Is there no way you can tell her what you do without the worst parts? You’re going to have to tell her something. Ainsley can be patient, but she feels like she isn’t important to you. She’s concerned that you don’t have much free time to spend together. She also mentioned that she’s never been to your place. Once again, not criticizing, just giving you the opportunity to do something about it.” Jodie added, hoping that she sounded neutral instead of whiny.

  “I owe you one,” he said as he gave her a hug.

  “I send you flowers and you run into Eddie’s arms, what’s up with that?” Danny asked from the doorway where he stood, draped in nothing but a towel. His wet hair adhered to his neck and shoulders, casting rivulets of water down his bare torso. Jodie forgot what she’d been about to say and very nearly drooled onto the pile of clothes at her feet. How long will it be before I stop behaving like this? It’s so embarrassing.

  “No sexing it up in here thanks, go back to your own room.” Eddie laughed.

  Danny grinned and made his way across the hall with Jodie following like a lost puppy. She sat down on the bed and watched him put on his black chinos and a fitted black staff t-shirt. He pulled out a hair dryer and plugged it into the wall socket.

  “You have a hair dryer?” Jodie asked in disbelief.

  “Does that bother you in some way?” His lips curved upward in a lopsided smile.

  “I’ve never met a guy who owns a hair dryer.” She said stupidly.

  He laughed. “Well, now you have. I wouldn’t bother if I had shorter hair, but it doesn’t look very professional to turn up at work with a wet sloppy mess hanging down my back.” Switching on the appliance, Danny set to work, brushing out strands of caramel and directing the hot air at it.

  Though he did have a point, Jodie could imagine what her father and brother would have to say. Coming from a very macho family, Jodie knew Danny wasn’t like them. He still held an aura of masculinity, but he was what her father would call a ‘pretty-boy’. John Fletcher would have given him this label even if he’d had short hair. Jodie suspected the breath-taking eyes and the luscious full lips had something to do with it. She watched mesmerized as he worked on his hair, unable to say a word.

  “It’s most unfair that you turn up here when I’m already running late,” Danny grumbled over the sound of the dryer. “Especially when you wear pants that look like they were painted on.”

  Jodie looked down at her pants. “That’s a good thing?”

  “Oh yes.” With a cheeky dimpled grin, he switched off the hair dryer and set it down.

  Brushing his hair and whipping it back into a black elastic band, Danny replaced the hairbrush on the dresser. Before Jodie could blink, he knelt on the floor in front of her, running his hands up her legs. Danny’s thumbs pressed along her inner thighs and when he got right to the top, Jodie’s back arched a little as she let out a soft moan.

  “Oh God, don’t do that.” She squeaked.

  “You like that huh?”

  Jodie reciprocated by planting her lips on his and kissing him with a hungered desire.

  “Well crap.” He said when they parted. “Now I really don’t want to go to work. How am I ever going to get you out of my head long enough to do my job?”

  “Archer, Pirini, we gotta go!” Rufus called from the other end of the house.

  “I’m going to go home.” Jodie announced with a coy smile. “But if I wake up in the morning and I’m not alone in my bed... that would be okay.”

  Danny’s face broke into a mile-wide smile, “I’m going to take that as a personal invitation.” He kissed her forehead.

  “See you later.”

  Chapter 16

  Jodie rolled over and glanced at the clock. 6:30 am, and Danny wasn’t there. The club closed at midnight on Wednesday and Thursday. If he’d been planning to show up, he’d have already been there by now. Not knowing why he hadn’t shown up bothered her, and it annoyed her that she felt that way.

  Sitting down at the dining room table with a cup of coffee and her laptop, Jodie surfed the Internet and checked her emails. She took a long shower, applied her makeup and gathered her things together. Slipping on a pair of shoes, she walked out the door to go to work and almost tripped over Luke’s curled-up sleeping form. Her gaze had been too fixated on the large pool of blood near the steps to the path. Jodie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Luke!” She cried. “Wake up!”

  Eyelids fluttering, he started to sit up, lifting his drowsy gaze to look at her. “I lost my key.”

  “You don’t live here anymore,” she reminded him, judgment sneaking into her tone. ”Are you drunk?”

  That caught his attention “No, I’m not, I swear!” He shot to his feet and began dusting off his clothes.

  “What is that?” She asked, pointing to the blood.

  Luke followed her gaze and scratched his head with a sigh. “It was a pig.”

  “Another one?” She moaned in despair.

  “It came for me with a couple of others. I tried to outrun them, but a great big fucking bear blocked my path. So, I ran in the only other direction I had available and ended up here. When I got to the house, Danny came running out and shifted. He took a hunk from the hide of one bastard; the bear took care of another. All three pigs fled into the woods and Danny and the bear ran after them.”

  Danny had been there after all. Jodie felt sad that she had no memory of it, though she knew that he’d be all right, he had one of the bears with him. She didn’t need to know which one.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said at last.

  “I ran to draw them away from Mum, Dad and the girls. I didn’t change until we got to the woods; they were already in animal form, out in the open.” He shook his head in disbelief, “they must really want us dead. Why would they want to kill us

  Jodie?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged.

  “Danny saved my life,” Luke said, his voice cracking. “The bear would have got the boars eventually, but if Danny hadn’t come out of the house when he did, I’d be dead.”

  “He’s good like that.” Jodie murmured. “He’s no
t a bad man Luke.”

  “I’m beginning to see that. I’ve been a real asshole, I hated him for opening my eyes to Mara’s ways. I wanted it to be his fault. The first time he came, I thought he’d come for me. I’ve done some bad things Jodie, I’ve been stupid and dangerous, and I thought my time had come. When I realized it hadn’t, I hated him even more. I wanted to be dead, I got so depressed and so screwed up, I stopped caring about anything anymore.

  “I didn’t want to be a pig and the pigs didn’t want me, but they didn’t like me going rogue either. If I didn’t join them, they didn’t want me around at all. I got so angry with Danny for interfering, but if he and the other guys in the Unit hadn’t stepped in, I’d be in much bigger trouble than I already am. I still don’t like the guy and have issues with you dating him, but I shouldn’t have told you he was a bad person. ”

  Such a huge admission on Luke’s part, Jodie felt proud of him for being man enough to say the words aloud. She hugged him and told him that she loved him.

  “You’d better come inside and phone Mum and Dad before they send a search party.”

  “True,” he managed a wan smile. “I heard about Zach’s little freak out.”

  “How are you really doing?” She asked.

  “I’m struggling,” Luke dry washed his face. “Even right now, I’m finding it hard to focus on the conversation. I want a drink so much.”

  Putting an arm around him, she smiled a sisterly smile, “then come inside and I’ll make you some tea instead.” She’d be late for work, but she didn’t care. Luke needed her, so she would be there for him.

  “Alright,” he conceded as they stepped into the house.

  Jodie sent Danny several text messages during the course of the day and he didn’t reply to any of them. She would have liked reassurance, but didn’t feel concerned. For all she knew he might just be sleeping off the drama of the previous night. Jodie also felt confident now that someone would tell her if anything untoward occurred.

  Up to date with her work, Jodie found the remaining tasks menial and boring, but it gave her plenty of time to think. She felt tired of not feeling safe in her own home, hating that she had no idea who had sent all the pigs after them, or why. She needed answers. More importantly, she needed to stop feeling so vulnerable.

  She thought about what Danny had said about her Therian heritage and decided she needed to talk to her grandmother. It was just as well Jodie didn’t have any serious tasks demanding attention. With her stomach queasy and tied up in knots, life outside the office dominated her thoughts. She knew she wouldn’t enjoy broaching this subject with Irene, also fearing she wouldn’t like what her gran had to say.

  Irene had just finished her evening meal and heading out of the dining room as Jodie walked in. Pleased to see her, Irene’s face lit up with a happy smile as Jodie suggested a walk in the garden. The smart woman knew what her granddaughter had come for. The crisp air offered a pleasant reprieve as they walked across the expansive flat lawns of Seaview, searching for a private place to talk.

  “How’s your head dear?” She asked.

  Jodie pulled back her hair and showed Irene the scar,

  “it’s fine now.”

  “And your back?”

  “I still get niggles on occasion but I’m okay. Honest

  Gran.”

  “I’m glad,” she smiled a little, but her eyes looked sad.

  “He didn’t mean it,” Jodie said of Luke.

  Irene looked at her for a long moment, her discerning green eyes speculating, and her thin lips drawn into a line. “It doesn’t matter if it was intentional. That boy has responsibilities. I understand that he is broken and hurting right now, but it’s no excuse. He could have killed you!”

  Ok now she sounds like Danny. “He’s sorry,” Jodie floundered. “And I forgive him.”

  “Remorse is not always a good thing. It can lull you into a false sense of security. Be very careful Jodie, there is more to Luke than he even knows himself.”

  “I know that he’s Therian, as am I,” Jodie thrust out her chin in defiance.

  Olive eyes widening in alarm, Irene stared at her, “who told you that?”

  “A friend. One who knows the difference between Lycans and Therians? One who could tell that Luke is both.”

  “Only powerful shifters have that ability,” Irene had gone pale, and she looked as if she’d aged ten years in the last couple of minutes.

  “He’s special,” Jodie assured her.

  She drew her cardigan tighter around herself and looked out across the distant ocean. “Jodie, there is so much that you do not know. Be wary who you trust.”

  “Help me to know, Gran. Tell me about where I come from.”

  “No.” She said firmly, and that appeared to be the end of that.

  Unable to hide her disappointment, Jodie closed her eyes and turned away. “Why not?”

  “Knowing where you came from will not help you right now.”

  “People are trying to kill me – Lycans, Gran. And they are after Luke too,” all fired up again, Jodie’s eyes were back on her grandmother, pleading for the help she sought.

  “I tried so hard to keep you separate from this world,” her voice sounded so frail, her newly stooped posture reminding Jodie that Gran had become an old woman.

  “Why doesn’t Dad know?”

  A long and troubled silence followed. Though impossible to tell what went through Irene’s mind, Jodie knew that yet again a whole new dimension would be added to the already complex web of her life. She waited for her Gran to continue, trying not to fidget.

  “He changed for the first time at four years old,” Irene replied with great reluctance. “We didn’t want him to, we’d not taught him our way. He wielded so much power he did it all by himself. He killed a man Jodie; it was the most awful thing...” She could not bear to finish her statement and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. Delicately dabbing at the corners of her eyes, she gave a dainty sniff.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Imagining her father ever doing such a thing stretched beyond Jodie’s capabilities. He’d always been a big man who commanded respect, a proud individual with very high morals. A man of honor, John Fletcher would never intentionally break the law. The fact that he’d been four at the time did not matter. It would destroy him to know he had done this.

  “We couldn’t tell the authorities what had happened, so we fled.” Irene began again. We changed our names and moved to New Zealand. Your Grandfather taught John how to suppress the change. We told him that allowing his beast to emerge was bad, that he must never let it out. It destroyed a part of me that we did this to him.

  “As he grew, he forgot about that other part of himself. He became such a proud man, I could never tell him what he had done. He lived a good life and appeared happy without his beast. I believed you and Luke would be able to do the same. I know I’ve been a coward, please forgive me.”

  The tears came thick and fast, and when she’d completed the pointless task of drying her eyes, Irene pressed the handkerchief to her lips as though it would suppress the sobs threatening to break free.

  “What if the same thing had happened to Luke?” She wanted to know. Her Grandmother’s emotional pain upset Jodie, but she couldn’t leave without the answers she had come for.

  Sitting down on a nearby bench Irene balled up the handkerchief and lowered her hand to her lap with a sigh. “I was ready for that. I kept an eye out for signs; I wouldn’t have let Luke hurt anyone! It wasn’t until he told me he’d become a Lycan that I realized I had made a mistake. Then when he hurt you...” Tears splashed down onto her dress.

  “It’s not your fault that he hurt me.” Jodie said, beginning to feel bad for her interrogation. “If you had taught us about our heritage, I might have been able to protect myself better. I need you to show me how to change, so that I can be safe.”

  “You want this for the wrong reasons,” Irene said.

  Oh but to have
her strength and stubbornness. “I don’t see any better reason than staying alive,” Jodie did not understand.

  “What we are is not a weapon, it is something beautiful. To be at one with nature, to feel the freedom of the wild, is one of God’s greatest gifts. I will not have you tarnish that the way your brother and father have done.”

  “Dad was too young to know better, and you haven’t given Luke a chance!” Jodie cried, defensive and frustrated. “Perhaps if Luke knew his true heritage, then he wouldn’t be in the mess that he is in.”

  “We are finished talking about this for now,” Irene’s authoritative tone should have put the matter to rest, but it didn’t.

  “No, we aren’t!” Jodie argued, her eyes blazing.

  “Yes, we are.” Getting to her feet and drawing the cardigan around her body, Irene took a moment to steady herself and set off for the building. “There’s a documentary I want to watch on the History Channel.”

  Jodie’s shoulders slumped in defeat. There would be no changing Irene’s mind once it had been made up. Walking back to her room, Jodie hugged her Gran goodbye. She’d grown very tired of being drip fed information. Just once, couldn’t somebody tell me the whole story? Are people trying to make my life more dicult? Are they hoping I get a stomach ulcer? Right then, that was exactly how it felt.

  A text message came later that evening from Danny, an apology for not being in touch and thanking her for being understanding. How nice of him to assume that I would be. Jodie sent a message back saying that she appreciated him taking the time to check in.

  On Friday Jodie, Ainsley and Laura decided to go to The Furnace. They invited Jessie to go too, though more out of courtesy than anything else. Turning up around 8:00 pm, they were late enough that Danny and Eddie were sure to be there, but early enough that the place wouldn’t be packed yet. Sure enough, the front door didn’t even have a queue. Rufus seemed pleased to see them.