Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(84)

“Scrambled it is, then.”

Kadan left her because she had a small, sexy smile on her face, and was barely rubbing the towel over her skin, and he was going to ruin a good pair of jeans and embarrass himself. He stomped down the hall back to the kitchen, wishing he smoked. He slammed a frying pan onto the stove, muttering to himself. His radar went off and he spun around.

Tansy stood in the doorway, one towel in her hand, the other wrapped around her hair, and nothing else. “Have I upset you?”

Kadan shook his head, keeping his gaze on her face, willing his wayward eyes to focus. Unfortunately they focused on her mouth, which did little to help his situation. “Of course not. I’m just feeling a little out of sorts.”

“I don’t mind cooking. I need you to put the game pieces back on the table for me anyway. I’m not a great cook, but I manage.”

Naked. She was going to cook for him without a stitch of clothing on. He wouldn’t survive. “Like that?” Now his voice had dropped to pure smoke.

Tansy looked startled. She glanced down at herself. “No, of course not. I was planning on getting dressed first.” She turned and stormed off, her shoulders stiff.

Now he’d really upset her, and all he could think about was the sway of her ass as she stomped down the hall. Relationships were complicated when they really shouldn’t be. He sighed again and went down to the war room. He may as well set up the pieces before cooking. He needed to get his head straight, and walking into a room with so many victims screaming for justice had a way of reducing everything else to nothing. He might not be good with women, but he knew how to track killers.

She joined him when he’d finished separating the small figurines, using his gloves to ensure no prints or impressions of him transferred to a game piece. She came up behind him, so close he could feel the heat of her body. She smelled so good he wanted to breathe her in.

“I may as well finish the East Coast pieces. I’ve only got one left.”

“Not yet. You need to eat something. Come have your coffee while I cook you some breakfast.” He captured her fingers and tugged, taking her with him, wanting to put off the inevitable as long as possible.

She went with him without protest, making him feel a little better. Nothing had ever rocked his world or gotten under his skin until Tansy. Feeling shaken was a new experience for him. He pulled out her chair, brushing a kiss on top of her head. For the first time she sent him a real smile, one that lit her eyes, and he breathed again. When she was settled with a cup of coffee in her hands, he broke the eggs and began beating them into a frothy brew.

“How does your job work?” Kadan asked. “Did National Geographic hire you to take pictures for them?”

She shook her head. “I do freelance work. In this case, they picked up an article and photographs I did for them last year and loved it, knew I was still studying the cougar, and agreed in advance to help fund me. I was pretty thrilled. I had a great tutor in photography, and I’ve slowly been acquiring a reputation, but this was a huge break for me. But no, technically, they don’t employ me.”

“Who knew you were up in the Sierras?” Kadan asked. Now that his brain was working again, something was nagging at the back of his mind.

She took a sip of coffee and frowned at him over the cup. “My parents knew. And Charlie, at National Geographic. Well, he didn’t know where I was exactly, only that I was filming mountain lions.” She put down the coffee mug and leaned her chin into her palm. “How did you track me to the Sierras? I mean, it’s a big mountain range. How did you know I was at that exact location?”

“There was no way you were going to go anywhere without contacting your parents. Everything I read about you told me you wouldn’t go more than a few days without letting them know you were okay, even if you were in Africa somewhere shooting pictures.”

Tansy swept her hair back from her face. “So you just waited until I called home and traced the signal back to me.”

He shrugged. “It was easy enough. But no one else was watching your parents. I would have known.”

“Why is it important?”

“Your father said something to me that just keeps nagging at me.” He put the eggs in front of her and placed the other dish across from her. He sank down across the table from her and picked up his fork. “For just a moment let’s set aside the killers we’re tracking. They can’t know I was sent to find you. But someone knew where you were, and I don’t think they followed me.”

“Why? You can make mistakes,” she teased.

He forked eggs into his mouth, frowning as he chewed. “Not like that. I thought, at first, that they were after me. They were there to get you. To kill you. They weren’t going to bring you back to Whitney.”

She sat up straighter. “I thought they were men Whitney sent to get me, or someone who wanted you dead because of this investigation.”

“I imagine a lot of people would like to see me dead, but as far as I know, only the general asked me to clear up this murder mess. Everyone else thinks I’m involved in a different type of mission. So no, the killers weren’t there to stop me, they had to be there to kill you and I just happened to be in their way.”

“Who would want me dead besides Whitney?”

“Whitney doesn’t want you dead, honey, he wants babies out of you. And if I’d been thinking with my head and not my cock, I would have realized that immediately. He wants a baby out of us. You might not have been paired with me, but I was definitely paired with you. He wants our two talents bred into a child.”