as the man went white, his eyes tightening around the corners, eyes clouding from the pain.
Patrick . . . his name was Patrick . . .
The second Joss pulled back, Patrick shook it off. He frowned, absently reaching up to rub his temple.
Pretending not to notice, Joss said, “So what happens if I don’t succeed?”
“You don’t want to know that.” Patrick smoothed his tie down. “Succeed and your life will be much easier.”
“I take it the last broker you had didn’t do a smashing job.”
“Perhaps he asked too many questions,” Patrick said.
Joss snorted. “Well, I haven’t accepted the job yet. And I need to understand the . . . situation, seeing as how I’m running on a very tight timetable. Knowledge is power, you know? And I can’t do my job if I’m handicapped.”
“You’ll accept the job,” Patrick said, his tone bored. “And you can do it in three weeks. You’re a resourceful man, I’ve heard.”
Resourceful.
Yeah. Joss was a resourceful man. He had a modern-day slaver tied up in one closet, and another one sitting in front of him, and he was doing his damnedest to figure out the best way to kill them both without getting caught, without having his boss find out . . . and even if he could do that, he still needed a few days to track down his lady before he got yanked off onto another assignment.
If he was a resourceful man, it should be a piece of cake.
* * *
ONCE Whitmore drove away, Tucker relaxed a little. Job done. He assumed.
Although what Chapman thought he would accomplish out here, he didn’t know. But she was running this show. Out of curiosity more than anything else, he continued to study the cabin.
Instinct didn’t let him go any closer. He knew that much without lowering his shields at all.
Trouble lay inside that cabin, and he wasn’t getting paid to get in trouble. Shit, he wasn’t getting paid to do anything. He was just helping Dru because he’d realized she was in over her head and she was one of the few people he called friend. He’d rather not lose her. That was a thought that left a weird little ache inside.
Lingering in the shadows, he continued to watch the cabin.
It was quiet.
Damn quiet.
Sighing, he settled down. He could head home, he knew. He’d done his part.
But he wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.
* * *
DRU wished she hadn’t destroyed the phone.
Lying in the bed, she wished she had a way to contact Tucker, but it would be tomorrow before she dared. If she hadn’t destroyed . . .
Bugger all.
She was so tired, her mind frayed out and stretched thin. She wasn’t thinking. She’d been shattered from everything that had happened that day, from the odd man she’d met, her reaction to him . . . both when he kissed her, and when she’d thought of him as Patrick was there. All of it left her not thinking well.
There had been no reason to dispose of the phone so hastily.
None.
She could have gotten up for her run early, as she always did, and disposed of it then. But no. She’d panicked.
Had he learned anything?
She wished she had a skill that was a bit more useful, able to reach out and touch his mind. Tucker had a mind that was open to that, when he allowed it. He couldn’t talk back, but if she was telepathic at all, all she would have to do was initiate the contact and they could have a nice little chat, right inside his head.
He’d spent quite a few years hiding from his abilities, a self-defense mechanism more than anything else. And he hid well. She felt nothing from him. Not a burn on her brain like what she’d felt earlier with . . . him. Not a spark of recognition that sometimes passed when she sensed another like her. With Tucker, she felt nothing.
But her gift didn’t work that way. She had no way to contact him that wouldn’t catch attention. Not until she could swipe another phone. She had a few more throwaways stashed, but she had to be careful not to use all of them, and getting one out now was just being silly.
She lay there, in the silence of the room, worrying, brooding.
It was a long, sleepless night. But she’d had a lot of those lately.
* * *
“RUN that by me again.”
If Joss hadn’t been so pissed off, he might have been amused at the tone he