Jaimie bit down on her lip. Mack never hesitated asking her opinion. Never. Even if he knew he wouldn’t like her answer. He listened to her, respected her. She knew he did. One time he hadn’t listened, and she’d left—walked out on him. He’d been upset. His men had been wounded. He’d nearly been killed. They’d walked into a trap. She’d blamed him for leading them there, and yet, she was just as much to blame. They all were. But in the end, they’d let Mack shoulder the responsibility for it, just as they always did. The others let it go, but she hadn’t. She’d accused him, and then she’d walked out when he didn’t respond.

She dropped her head in her hands, rubbing at her pounding temples. Instantly Mack’s fingers were on her scalp, massaging her head, in an effort to ease the ache.

“Are you tired, honey? Maybe we should lay this down for a while. You could sleep a few hours and look it over with fresh eyes.”

“I’m okay. Let me go through all of these. I’m reading through Sergeant Major’s replies as well. I might find something else.”

“I have to agree with Jaimie here,” Javier said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but either he has the best code in the world, or he’s simply writing Griffen a few lines a day, in a way that would tell the sergeant major that he was okay. Everyday stuff.”

“What about the times Kane and Brian were sent out and I ordered you and Ethan and Gideon to go as backup? He wanted to go the last time.”

“I checked for letters during those dates,” Javier said, “and nothing changed. He never once mentioned the mission or any of the men. He didn’t say he was disappointed for not going. He skipped a day, but that wasn’t unusual.”

“His skipped days don’t necessarily correspond with your missions,” Jaimie said.

“I thought of that and checked.”

“Could something be buried in the letters we’re not seeing?” Mack asked.

Javier snorted and Jaimie gave him a quick, flashing smile. Mack threw his hands into the air. “Okay, okay, I’ll shut up. It’s just that . . .”

Hell. He liked the kid. He thought of Sergeant Major not only as a good friend, but perhaps a favorite uncle. Contemplating killing both men was not pleasant. And if they were father and son—and the kid was innocent—how was he going to kill Sergeant Major and live with the son? Either way, Griffen had to answer for the suicide missions.

“Damn it, Jaimie.”

“I’m doing the best I can, Mack.” Her voice was soothing. “I know this is upsetting, but don’t think about it until the facts are in.”

He knew his mouth gaped open. It was the last thing he expected out of her mouth. Condemnation maybe. But quiet support? She knew what was at stake. What the hell had changed her mind? He would never understand women as long as he lived—at least not Jaimie.

He took up his pacing again. He’d just been handed the biggest asset a GhostWalker team could have—a psychic surgeon—yet he’d been kept in the dark.

Would the boy have come forward in combat if there was an injury? Paul had been antsy the moment Gideon had stepped into the room. His hands had begun a complicated and obsessive-compulsive pattern, as if his entire body was already psychically tuned to the suffering man. What would have happened if he’d been exposed to Jaimie after she used her talent? Why hadn’t Sergeant Major, or Paul, revealed his talent so he could be used when he clearly so needed to heal?

Mack rubbed his forehead. He hated mysteries.

CHAPTER 13

It was late into the night before Jaimie and Javier were satisfied they could find nothing more from the letters. If there was a code, it was a brilliant one they couldn’t decipher, and Jaimie couldn’t accept that Paul or his father would be able to create anything she couldn’t at least get a glimmer of. Maybe it was arrogance, but she’d never failed to see a pattern, even a small one, and she couldn’t detect one now.

She pushed back her chair and rubbed at her eyes. “I’ve got the computer analyzing the e-mails, searching for something we may have missed, but I think we’ve got everything we’re going to out of these letters.”

Mack wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her body into his, letting his warmth seep into her shivering body. She hadn’t even realized the temperature was dropping in the room. “Are you both still going with the theory that Paul is Sergeant Major’s son?”

Jaimie put her head back against his chest. “I say definitely. If not, Griffen raised him.”

“I’m going with Jaimie on this one, boss,” Javier agreed. “There was no ‘dad’ or

‘son’ or outward sign of affection, but it was in the feel of it. And why the hell keep the letters at all? He’s a kid missing his family.”

“His last name is Mangan, not Griffen. His mother is Shiobhan Mangan. She’s an ambassador’s daughter, a very diplomatic family. She’s the current Irish ambassador.

He’s an American citizen and his file says he was raised here with an aunt. His father is Theodore Greystone. Not Griffen.”

Mack snapped his fingers, irritated with himself. “Griffen comes from money,” he said. “Old money, some blueblood family from the South. I remember seeing a spread in a magazine once and his family had an old plantation dating back years. The name of the plantation was Greystone. I thought at the time that it fit. The columns were all made of huge gray stones and it made an impression on me.”

“What are you going to do?” Jaimie asked.

“Don’t either of you say anything to him.” He turned his head and pressed a kiss against her temple. “Thanks, Jaimie. I hope to God you’re right over this. I like the kid.”

“You gonna kiss me too, boss?” Javier asked.

“If you want. Right on the lips,” Mack offered.

“I’ll pass just this once. Wouldn’t want Jaimie to get jealous.” Javier winked at him, kissed Jaimie’s cheek, and sauntered up the stairs as if he hadn’t been up half the night.

“You’re very fond of that man,” Mack said.

“Very,” she acknowledged. “And so are you.”

“He worries me,” Mack admitted. “They all do, but Javier is entirely unpredictable. There’s no way of knowing how he’ll react to any given situation.”

“You saved his life, Mack. A long time ago, on the streets, he could have gone either way. You pulled him into your circle, and he made the decision to follow your lead. He would have been a criminal.”

“He didn’t have much of a chance.”

“He’s always been different. You gave him a moral code. He didn’t have that until you came along.” She turned her head and looked up at him. “When you talk to me, Mack, sometimes you make me crazy, but I want to try again. Read some books on communicating with women, that’s my only advice to you, because you suck at it.”

A slow smile accompanied the slow burning deep in his groin. She was so beautiful to him. So sexy. She didn’t even have to try very hard. “Now’s not the time to give me good news, honey, not with all the boys camping out in our bedroom.”

“Everything is not about sex.”

His eyebrow shot up. “It’s not?”

Jaimie laughed and shook her head, turning to cut off his step before he made it to the stairs. She circled his neck with her arms. “I’m sorry. For earlier. For accusing you.”

He settled his hands at her waist, his heart squeezing down hard like a vise.

“Don’t think I won’t do it if I have to, Jaimie. That’s part of who I am. I won’t like it, but if I have to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger to save everyone else, I’d do it. You have to know who and what I am. This time, I want you to know who you’re loving.”

Her heart jumped at the word. He rarely if ever used the L word, certainly not to her. “I know. If I told you I missed you every hour of every day, what would you say to that?”

“I’d say you couldn’t possibly have missed me more than I missed you. You tore out my heart, Jaimie. Don’t do it again. I’m not going to be perfect at this. I’d rather you snap me out of it some way. Kick me in the shins. Punch me. Get my attention.

But don’t walk out on me when I’m being dense.”

She touched her tongue to her bottom lip, a sign he recognized as being nervous.

Mack kissed her. Hard. Long. With his heart and soul. He never wanted her nervous when she talked to him. She could twist him up inside like no one else could and maybe that did set his teeth on edge, but he’d pay that price if it meant having her.

Keeping her. Waking up every morning to her. He wanted to grow old with her. He wanted her there by his side when he died.

The problem with kissing her was it caused other much more intense reactions.

His body immediately made urgent demands, hot and hard, and so painfully full he could barely stand the touch of his jeans. Worse, there was no way to stop kissing her once he started. He devoured her mouth, loving the velvet heat and the way she tasted.

His hand slipped beneath her shirt to cup her br**sts. “I can barely stand not touching you,” he whispered. “I love your skin. The way you taste. Your mouth.” He bit on her lower lip, tugged, and then teased with his tongue. “You’ve got me hurting like hell, baby.”

“I do?” She reached down to slide her hand over the thick bulge in his jeans.

“How very unfair of me.”

He buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder. “I’m so tired, Jaimie. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing.” He whispered the words into her stillness, her peace. Jaimie was his haven, the only refuge he had, and he’d been lost without her.

Without her quick wit and ready smile, the devotion in her eyes and her soft, sweet, welcoming body. She seemed magic and she could wipe out every ugly thing in his life. “I need you, Jaimie. Right now, baby.”

To make him forget the image of pulling out his gun, putting it to Paul’s head, and pulling the trigger. He would have done it himself, never putting it on one of his men to carry the burden. Just the thought that he could have done it sickened him. He wanted to forget what kind of man he was. Not one who would plan the death of a friend or an untried kid on his team. He wanted to lose himself in the magic of her body and just be hers.

Jaimie heard the need, the ache, in his voice. This wasn’t about wild, uninhibited sex. This was something altogether different. She framed his face with her hands and looked into his eyes—eyes full of shadows and guilt. She tipped her head and pressed kisses along his mouth and throat, giving herself to him. Offering herself. A gift. She opened his shirt and kissed her way over the heavy muscles, her hands on the front of his jeans, parting the material.

She heard his soft groan as she circled the impressive girth, her fingers stroking caresses over familiar territory. Before she could kneel, he caught the hem of her shirt.

“I have to look at you,” he whispered, that hoarse edge stealing into his tone, the one she loved. He yanked her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor. Catching her around her back, he urged her into him, bending her nearly backward as he unhooked her bra, spilling her br**sts into the night air.

He buried his face in the soft, warm mounds, kissing her, breathing her in. He could hear the blood rushing like a drug through his veins. His heart pounded hard.

There was no way a man like him, so dark inside, so lost, could find a way out of his own skin. Jaimie with her unreserved generosity could take him into paradise. He turned his head and flicked a taut nipple with his tongue. Of course her body responded. She always responded. She always gave to him no matter what he asked.

“Everything,” he whispered and took possession of her breast, driving her up fast as only he knew how to do. The flicks of his tongue, the edge of his teeth. Suckling hard and then gently. Giving attention to both br**sts until she was nearly sobbing.