The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter
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was no place like home.
Jared hoped, for the umpteenth time, that they hadn’t cut it short because they’d wanted to keep an eye on him. They kept making excuses to drop by. Lena in particular wouldn’t stop hovering—which was rich, given how much she hated it whenever someone did that to her.
She had already been by this morning. She’d skipped out to the shops, because apparently Jared needed more food in the fridge, but she’d left Trig behind with Jared. Trig was currently out on the deck, examining his parachute, because apparently they were doing a jump just as soon as Jared’s ribs had healed.
Without physical challenge in his life, Jared got cranky, Trig had informed him blithely. And they needed to fix that.
Apparently a lot of things about Jared needed fixing.
Jared glared afresh at the psych report in his hand. His psych report, fresh off the back of his debrief. A normal person probably wouldn’t have asked his brother to swipe a psych report from the secure ASIS databanks, but to Jared’s way of thinking that was what genius younger brothers were for.
It had been three days since Rowan Farringdon had called him in to her office and asked him what he needed in order to finish the job. Three days and now he was on leave for two weeks—thinking about his future, trying to settle into the ‘now’ and going quietly out of his mind.
‘Who writes these delusional masterpieces anyway?’ he asked Trig.
‘Psychiatrists.’ Trig looked up from the parachute spread out before him, eyes narrowed as he took in Jared’s scowl. ‘Stop obsessing.’
‘I’m not obsessing. I’m disagreeing with the evaluation.’
‘You shouldn’t have the evaluation. No disagreeing with that.’
‘Apparently I have an Oedipal complex.’
‘Your mother’s dead, dude. How can you be in love with her?’
‘Could be I’m in love with a ghost. A perfect memory.’
‘Was she perfect?’
Jared thought back to what little he could remember. His mother’s wild curly black hair and the deep blue eyes that both he and his sister Lena had inherited. Her patience with her wayward children and her fierce defence of them when anyone else tried to discipline them.
‘Yes.’
‘You know that if you do have an Oedipal complex you’re going to have to bond with your father in order to get over it?’
‘Bite me.’
‘Okay—not ready.’
‘She said that the last emotional attachment I made was you.’
‘Who said?’
‘Rowan Farringdon.’
‘Ah.’
‘What do you mean, “ah”?’
‘Are you ready for that beer? I’m really ready for a beer.’
‘What do you think of her?’
‘Who?’
Jared just looked at him.
Trig abandoned his parachute inspection and headed across the huge open entertaining area towards the kitchen.
He pulled out two beers, twisted the tops off and padded back out to the deck area that Jared had made his own.
‘She’s the first female section head in thirty years,’ Trig said as he passed Jared a beer. ‘I think she has connections, ambition, and a mind made for taking people apart and reshaping them to her purpose. That’s not a criticism, by the way, it’s respect. She’s older than you, Jare.’
‘So?’
‘Oedipus?’
‘I am not looking for a mother figure. Don’t make me shoot you. Lena would not be pleased.’
‘Neither would I.’
‘I asked her to have dinner with me.’
‘Bet that went down a treat.’
‘I almost kissed her.’ He was rubbing his hand over his lips just thinking about it. ‘Wanted to.’
‘You want my thoughts on that?’ Trig offered warily.
‘Only if you’re not going to call me psychologically maladjusted, three kinds of stupid, and pathologically unable to take direction.’
‘Or you could just be in need of sex.’
‘You think I should have sex with her?’
‘No, I think you should have sex with someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘Has that ever been a problem for you before? What about Bridie?’
‘Too nice. I want her to be married by now, with a kid on the ground and one on the way.’ He caught Trig staring at him strangely and shrugged. ‘It’s what she wanted.’
‘Simone?’
‘Too soft. What if I break her?’
‘Simone’s brother?’
Jared felt his lips twitch. ‘The psych report says I’m heterosexual.’
‘Yeah, ‘cause we’re believing that now.’ Trig took a long swig of his beer. ‘You said you wanted someone who wouldn’t break. Just putting it out there …’
‘I want a woman who won’t break, and I’ve found one. Gorgeous, whip-smart and powerful. And—if I’m reading her right—interested.’
‘Yeah … nothing at all to do with you having information she wants.’
‘There is that. Still … Makes for interesting conversation.’
And then his phone beeped. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the message.
‘Trouble?’
‘Hopefully. Director Farringdon’s coming here bright and early Monday morning. For what reason, she doesn’t say.’
‘Hnh …’ offered Trig after a very long pause.
‘Probably something to do with Antonov’s last mole that I haven’t uncovered yet. Probably nothing to do with sex at all. Still …’
Jared was nothing if not adaptable, and he’d take his opportunities as they came.
‘Don’t do it, my friend,’ Trig told him.
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Think of the complications.’
‘She gets what she wants. I get what I want. There are none.’
‘What about in the long run? How would it affect your career if you had a relationship with her? How would it affect hers?’
‘Not sure I have a career left, to be honest. Not sure I want one.’
‘And hers?’
‘Guess we’d find out.’
Trig’s troubled gaze rested on him. ‘Jare, do you ever think about what your short-term decisions might cost people in the long run?’
‘All the time. I know I’ve screwed up. Lena getting wounded under my command and now never being able to have kids of her own. That’s on me.’
‘No. I don’t think that. Lena doesn’t think that way either. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens. And we’re all still alive.’
‘Then you’re talking about the lengths I