Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(106)

There was no point fighting it, she thought. It was silly, resisting for resistance’s sake. God knows, she had nothing better to do. And she felt a hundred times safer with Nick. Even when he drove her crazy.

“As I’ll ever be,” Becca said, resigned.

A quick stop at a breakfast drive-thru, and they were on the road, speeding down the highway in Nick’s big predator pickup, on the way to Three Creeks Lodge. Becca stared out the window at the highway speeding by as she nibbled her ham and egg bagel. She was dazed by the unexpected U-turn her life had taken. She fished her telephone out of her bag, thinking about Carrie and Josh with a stab of uneasy guilt.

But what could she say? That she’d been fired from her job? That she was running away with a tall, dark stranger? They would just panic and get on her case, the nosy little stinkers. She’d never had much luck at teaching the two of them manners or boundaries. She’d always been a cream puff when it came to discipline. Hell, no one was perfect.

She couldn’t face them yet. She would call them both tonight.

Nick drove the truck the way he did everything, balls out. Which left her nothing to do except think about her problems. She had her choice of things to stress about. Being poor again? Career shot to hell? Carrie and Josh taking you-want-fries-with-that jobs? An ugly death at the hands of a mafiya thug?

And if that wasn’t enough, there was always the niggling little matter of exactly how long it had been since her last period.

She needed a distraction, fast. She looked over at Nick. “Um, do you ever talk?” she asked him. “You know…converse?”

“I talk all the time with you,” he said guardedly. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked so much in my life. My throat hurts from talking so much.”

“Oh, really? Then why is it that I know so little about you?”

He slanted her a narrow look. “I decline to answer that question.”

“Oh, really? And why is that?”

“It’s a trap,” he said. “I know a trap when I see one. Ask me straight questions, if you’re curious. I’ll answer them. If I can, that is.”

“Oh, of course,” she muttered. “Mr. Control Freak has got to cover his ass, at all costs.”

“Stop snarking, and ask your f*cking questions, already.”

Now that he was actually willing to answer her, she was caught unprepared.

“Um, where did you grow up?” she ventured. Lame, but it would do.

“Waylon, Wyoming. Otherwise known as the ass end of nowhere.”

“Good start,” she said, cautiously approving. “And your parents?”

“Dead,” he said.

She waited. “Oh,” she said delicately. “I don’t suppose you could elaborate on that? Do I get to know anything other than the fact that they’re dead?”

His face in profile looked clouded and sulky. “Like what?”

Becca sighed. Maybe stressing about her problems would be more restful. “Your mother, for instance,” she said patiently. “How old were you when she—”

“Twelve,” he said. “Breast cancer.”

Becca had to look away for a minute and wait for sudden tears to ease down. She swallowed, willing them away. “That’s awful,” she said, thinking of the hospital bed, the bedpan, the smell of disinfectant. The constant ache of grief. “We have something in common then.”

He frowned out the windshield. “How’s that?”

“I lost my dad when I was twelve, too. Pancreatic cancer.”

He let out a long sigh. “Sucked, didn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Big-time.”

“How about your mom?” he asked abruptly.

She was unprepared for him to take the initiative, and had to gather her composure. “Suicide, five years later,” she said. “She never got over Dad. She swallowed all of his leftover pain pills one night. I found her.”

He drew in a breath. “Jesus. That’s bad.”

“Yes, it was. And? That still leaves your father unaccounted for.”

“He died twelve years ago,” Nick said. “Drank himself to death. Counts as suicide. Just slower. He was one tough bastard. He ran a business in Waylon. Sold farm equipment.”

She waited to see if there was more and was on the verge of changing the subject when Nick blew out a sharp breath, shaking his head. “He was a violent, evil-tempered son of a bitch,” he said, his voice harsh. “I was glad when he died.”

Becca was daunted. It was hard to think of a response to that declaration that was not inane or incredibly invasive.

She opted for invasive. “Did he hit you?” she asked timidly.

He shook with bitter laughter. “Oh, hell, only when he was drunk. He tossed me through a plate glass window when I was seventeen.” He touched the scar that slashed crosswise through his thick eyebrow, rubbing it as if it ached. “That was when I decided it was time to beat hell out of there. Before he killed me.”

She winced. “Oh, God. That’s awful.”

He shrugged. “I did OK, once I left his house. Joined the Army. Got sent to the Middle East in the first Gulf war. I made MP after a few years. Suited my personality. I got a degree in criminology and Eastern European studies when I got out of the service. Then I joined the Feds. That’s it. My life.”