Six
When Jane’s fingers hit the keyboard, Baran moved to her side to watch. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm?” She used the mouse to click on the icon for Internet access. At least she had a cable modem.
“With your hands.”
“Typing on the keyboard. It’s the only way to interface with this kind of computer.”
He frowned. “Why not just tell it what you want it to do?”
“It doesn’t listen very well.” She keyed Jack the Ripper into the search engine. The resulting list contained thousands of entries; she clicked on the most likely looking selection on the first page.
The site was loaded with an astonishing amount of information, everything from morgue photos to police statements to transcripts of newspaper articles of the time. There was even the lyrics of “Sweet Violets,” the song Mary Kelly had sung to Druas. Jane printed it all out and went to the next site. Baran picked up the printouts, sat down in the second office chair, and started scanning them, Freika standing on his hind legs to read over his shoulder.
More than an hour later she turned off the computer and sat back in her seat, scrubbing her hands over her face. “Well, now we’ve got the opposite problem—too much information, most of it unreliable, and no way to tell what Druas actually did. We can’t even be sure he killed the five that are usually attributed to the Ripper.”
The Whitechapel killer was thought to have murdered five women in London between the dates of August 31 and November 9, 1888: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols on August 31, Annie Chapman on September 8, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, both on September 30, and Mary Jane Kelly on November 9. But some researchers believed he’d killed other women as well, and there was considerable disagreement whether Eddowes was actually a Ripper victim at all.
“For what it’s worth,” Freika said, “the file TE gave me indicates they do think Druas murdered all five of the women.”
“That makes sense,” Baran said. “If the point is to enact the historical murders, he’d do all of them.”
Jane picked up a pencil and tapped it restlessly on the desk. “What about all those letters that were supposedly from the killer, including the one they took the Ripper name from—did he write any of them or not?” Even at the time, police believed most of the letters were frauds, written by unscrupulous journalists.
Baran shuffled through the stack. “Who knows? Though the package sent to this George Lusk with part of a kidney in it certainly might be genuine.”
“Judging from my file on him, it does sound like the kind of thing Druas would do,” Frieka said.
“Eeewww.” Jane put the pencil in her mouth and bit down, sinking her teeth in the wood while she thought. “I didn’t know the Ripper strangled those women first, but all the autopsies do seem to indicate that. The mutilations were done postmortem, getting progressively worse as he went along.” She grimaced and tossed the pencil aside. “Which doesn’t sound good for the women of Tayanita County.”
Including Jane herself. Better not think about that. She’d rather not have to race to the bathroom again.
Baran was still flipping through the stack. “What’s really ironic is all these elaborate theories about his identity. An English prince, a writer named Lewis Carroll…”
“Off with her head,” Jane muttered.
“…an artist, a doctor, even a woman. And each and every theory was dead wrong.”
“Funny how a time-traveling cyborg mercenary never made the list.” She rolled her eyes. “What were they thinking?”
They sat discussing the murders until even Jane’s vibrating tension couldn’t withstand the need for sleep any longer. She suggested calling it a night.
Baran nodded. “That’s a good idea. We’ll all be able to think a little clearer in the morning.” He stood, plainly waiting for her to lead the way.
Ohhhhh, boy, Jane realized. He’ll have to sleep in the same room with me. The sensual awareness that had dogged her rose on a gentle wave of heat. Even the horrors of the night evidently hadn’t managed to kill the attraction she felt. “The bedroom is upstairs.”
“I know.” He said the words briskly, without a trace of innuendo.
“I’ll stay down here and keep watch,” Freika said. “Druas may surprise all of us and actually use the door.”
Jane glanced at him. Despite his bland offer, the look in those lupine eyes was knowing and amused. Damn, she thought, even Wolfie expects us to get it on.
And he was probably right, she thought as she led the way upstairs. At least judging by the warm tingle spreading through her breasts. After the night she’d had, who’d have thought her battered brain could even produce that much hormone?
Battered or not, though, she was acutely aware of Baran’s potent male presence as he followed her into the bedroom. Fighting to ignore it, she tried to decide what to wear to bed that wouldn’t make her look as if she were inviting a bout of Warlord love.
Despite her body’s interest, she knew she wasn’t up to entertaining his libido. From the looks of that big body, it would be an exhausting proposition.
On the other hand, she didn’t care to bed down in the jeans and shirt she was wearing, either. It would be hard enough to get any rest as it was.
Pretending to ignore her brawny houseguest, Jane crossed to her cherry dresser, hoping to find something unattractive. The first thing she saw when she opened the drawer was a skimpy lace teddy. She buried it a little deeper and dug out a sleep shirt that was so big Baran could have worn it himself. After excavating a pair of baggy gray sweats to complete the keep-your-distance look, she started for the bathroom.
A hand caught the door before she could swing it closed. Baran stepped into the room after her.
“Hey, back off,” she protested. “I need to change and…stuff.”
“Didn’t we cover this downstairs? I go where you go.”
“Baran, you can’t follow me into every ladies’ room in Tayanita County. That’s just not going to work.”
“Why not?”
She sighed with elaborate patience. “Because the other ladies will not like it.”
“I don’t see any other ladies here, Jane.”
“Baran…”
He folded powerful arms and lifted a dark brow.
She threw up her hands. “Fine, whatever. Can you at least turn your back?”
“Why?”
“Okay, now you’re being a pain in the butt.” She reached for patience and gritted, “I don’t want to take off my clothes in front of you!”
That eyebrow climbed another fraction. “I hate to destroy whatever illusions you cherish, but I have seen naked women before.”
“Yeah, well, you haven’t seen this woman naked.”
Baran sighed at her surly tone. “Jane, I’m a soldier. Half my fellow soldiers are female. In combat conditions you quickly learn you don’t have to have sex with every woman you see without her clothes.” He smiled slightly, rubbing his jaw like a man remembering a right cross. “When I was sixteen, I had a female sergeant once who…Well, I didn’t make that mistake again.”
He was in combat when he was sixteen? She shook her head, deciding to explore that topic some other time. “Regardless of your experience, I don’t undress in front of men I don’t know. And I’m going to change this sweater. It smells like…never mind what it smells like, I’m not wearing it another minute.”
Baran leaned back against the door and looked amused. “Go ahead. I’ll try to control my lust.”
Something about that silent get-over-yourself air ignited her temper. “Fine,” she snarled, grabbing the hem of her top. “You want me to undress? Okay, I’ll undress.” In a single violent gesture she jerked it up and over her head and threw it directly at his face.
He caught the shirt out of the air and tossed it into a corner. His indifferent gaze didn’t even flicker.
She snarled. Suddenly the helpless fear that had battered her all night morphed into full-blown, defiant rage.
Jane twisted her arms behind her back, unfastened her bra, and stripped it off. She was too furious to feel embarrassed when her full breasts sprang free, nipples instantly pebbling. From, of course, the cool air.
Baran lifted a bored brow. So?
Jerk. Jane reached for her waistband and ripped open the button of her fly. Her zipper hissed loudly as she tugged it down and started squirming her way free. Her bare breasts bounced. She could almost feel him watching. Despite her anger, something heated low in her belly.
Her own reaction making her even angrier, she gave her butt a gratuitous wiggle as she struggled free of her pants and kicked them viciously aside. Dressed only in a silky thin pair of scarlet panties, she straightened to her full height and glared at him.
He couldn’t have looked more indifferent if he’d been watching a commercial for feminine hygiene products. He wasn’t even hard. Except…
His eyes were glowing again.
If Baran hadn’t instructed his computer to keep him from be- coming erect, he would have had a hard-on up to his rib cage.
Yet he’d meant what he’d said. He was used to seeing women—and other men, for that matter—walking around in various states of undress. He barely noticed anymore.
But those were battle-toughened fems, lithe, muscular warriors who could hold their own, whether in a brawl or in bed. If they were unbonded and you expressed an interest, they’d sleep with you as casually as he’d scratch Freika’s skull jack when it itched. They always gave good sex—he’d never had bad sex—but it wasn’t anything to get worked up about.
But Jane Colby’s deliciously full, pointed breasts were a different matter altogether. He wanted to taste one of those tight pink nipples so badly, his balls ached.
Unfortunately, the look she was giving him was pure, unadulterated go-to-hell. Despite his powers, he strongly suspected if he touched her, she’d make him pay.
But those pretty nipples might just be worth it….
Blithely ignoring how close Baran was to losing control, Jane curled a delicate lip at him and turned her back with a mocking roll of her ass.
His gaze followed the long, sweet indentation of her spine down to her narrow waist and rounded behind. Her butt was clad only in something thin and silky and bright red, and there were two tempting little dimples right above her waistband. He pictured cupping that pretty butt in his hands while he lowered her onto his shaft….
She picked up the shirt she’d brought in with her and started dragging it on over her head. Her long, silken back curved and twisted with the motion, as if daring him to reach out and touch. He controlled his hungry hands with an effort.
She put on the pants next, sliding in one long leg at a time before slowly pulling the baggy fabric up over her thighs. Her firm behind flexed as she twitched the loose bottoms into place. Baran seriously considered bending her over that marble countertop and pulling them down again.
Throttle back, Warlord. Keep it together.
It didn’t help that every breath he took was scented with arousal—his own, and hers. Despite her irritation, she was getting just as hot as he was.
Unfortunately, he’d made such a point of being immune to her nudity, he couldn’t afford to indulge in any of the things he so badly wanted to do. She needed to trust him, and he needed to remain firmly in control. He knew he’d seduce her eventually, but now wasn’t the time.
Maintaining his blank expression, he set his jaw and clamped a grip over his lust.
“I need to use the toilet, Baran,” she said, sounding reluctant, as if it galled her to ask. “Step outside a second. I promise to scream if Druas beams in like Captain Kirk.”
He grappled for his fraying patience. “Jane, every minute is every minute. I’m not going to risk getting you killed to preserve your twenty-first-century concept of modesty.”
True, the chances that the killer would Jump into the bathroom at this particular instant were pretty slim. Unfortunately, Baran knew those odds would increase as time went on and the killer took up sensor surveillance. He had to establish standard procedure now so Jane wouldn’t balk over it later.
She whirled to glare at him. “This is embarrassing, dammit!” Her breasts rose and fell behind that too-big shirt that didn’t hide nearly as much as she thought it did. “It’s one thing to do a strip tease, but there are certain bodily functions I don’t like to share. Period. And somehow, I don’t think women three hundred years from now feel any differently.”
“People do all kinds of things in combat they wouldn’t normally do.”
“This isn’t combat!”
“Actually, it is.” But he turned his back anyway, the gesture designed to silently underscore that he’d gone as far as he intended to.
He knew he’d made his point.
Jerk.
Jane was still simmering when Baran led the way back into the bedroom a few moments later. He could have stepped out of the room for sixty seconds; he didn’t have to be such a dominant schmuck about it. He…
Slid out of the leather coat and tossed it over the armchair, then grabbed his sweater and pulled it over his head. Muscle rippled up and down his long, powerful back with the movement.
She gaped at the sudden expanse of deliciously bare Baran as he bent to pull off his boots. He looked as if God had sculpted every ridge, muscle, and hollow personally as an illustration to lesser mortals.
That, or the Devil had done the sculpting in order to tempt vulnerable females into sin….
Then he started pulling his pants down his long thighs, and Jane roused from her hypnotized shock. “What the hell are you doing?” She knew exactly what he was doing, of course.
This was payback.
Very effective payback, too. The man had the most gorgeous male butt she’d ever seen, particularly clad only in a pair of tight, white jockies.
Baran calmly turned, folding his pants. The view from the front was even more stunning. His broad, V-shaped torso looked as if it belonged on the cover of a romance novel, the kind good Southern mothers threw in the trash. Most powerfully built men tended to look a little short-legged, but Baran’s were as long as the rest of his body. And in between…
Well, he didn’t strike her as the type to stuff a sock in his shorts, so that bulge had to be real. Considering that he wasn’t even erect, the man had to be hung like a Brahma bull.
And the grin he was wearing as he watched her check him out reminded her of his furry partner downstairs—all white, wicked teeth and dishonorable intentions.
Yeah, this was Operation Payback, all right. “What are you doing?” she demanded again.
The wicked gleam in his eyes intensified. What would you like me to do? But if he was thinking the question, he didn’t ask it. “Getting ready for bed.”
Jane folded her arms, ignoring the hot, eager trickle she felt somewhere south of her waistband. “You’d better not be about to tell me you sleep in the nude,” she said. “Because your butt is going to need some padding when you bunk down on the floor.”
“What I’ve got on now is sufficient,” he said coolly. “And I have no intention of sleeping on the floor. I need to be close to you.”
“You know, somehow I get the impression you’re milking this,” she said, eyeing him. “But I’ve got to be wrong. You couldn’t be that big a jerk.”
He propped big fists on his hips, silently tempting her eyes back to that intriguing bulge. “Is that any way to talk to a man who came three hundred years to save your luscious…neck?”
“That depends on what you’re planning to charge me for it.”
“I don’t charge.”
But you’re not above enjoying whatever fringe benefits you can get, either. She clamped her lips shut before she could say the words. “Fine. Whatever. Just keep your distance.”
Jane waited for some silken comeback, but he made no reply. Pointedly ignoring him, she stalked to the bed and flipped back the covers. Her copy of Dark Passion flew out of the covers and sailed through the air. He snagged it in midflight and handed it back to her.
“Interesting reading.” The purr in Baran’s voice was a perfect match to the predatory grin on his face.
Her own face heated as she remembered the scene she’d been enjoying when she’d heard the murder call earlier that evening. The hero had just tied up the heroine and…
“If you’d been any kind of gentleman, you would have kept your nose out of my book!”
He contemplated the point, then grinned that slow, wicked grin again. “Actually, if I understand the term—I don’t believe I am a gentleman.”
“I noticed!” With a huff she tossed the paperback on the nightstand, climbed into bed, turned her back on him, and curled tightly into a defensive ball.
He laughed softly. The mattress sank as he slid onto it. “Do you normally sleep with the lights on?”
She hissed and jumped up to flip the switch, then turned back toward the bed.
And stopped dead, the hair rising on the back of her neck. His eyes were glowing again, shining in the darkness like a special effect in a horror flick. And after viewing that recording, she didn’t need anything else gnawing at her fragile composure. “Could you not do that?”
“Do what?” His voice was a velvety male purr, intimate and seductive.
“The glowing bit with the eyes.” Trying not to look at him, she hurried back to the bed and slipped between the covers. “It’s unnerving as hell.”
“Unfortunately, that’s one of the few body functions I have no control over. They’re designed that way.”
“Sounds like a serious drawback in battle.” Small talk. Yeah. Get him thinking about something other than sex. Get herself thinking about something other than sex.
“I normally wear an armored helmet. The visor hides them.”
She rolled over to face him and propped her head on her palm. “So why do they? Glow.”
He sighed. “Jane, I thought the idea of going to bed was to sleep.”
“I just wondered.”
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
But half an hour later Jane was still awake, her burning eyes fixed on the ceiling. She could hear Baran’s steady breathing in the bed next to her, feel his sold, comforting presence.
But every time she closed her lids, she saw a flash of silver and a spray of red, heard Druas humming that snatch of song as he…
She felt so damn cold.
Curling on her side, Jane drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her body. She shivered. She’d been all right as long as Baran had been awake to fight with, but now in the silent darkness the horror came rushing back.
It suddenly hit her the killer had been humming the same song he’d made Mary Kelly sing.
Jesus. Jack the Ripper intended to turn her into the star of a pornographic snuff video for a gang of perverts three hundred years in the future. And she was sleeping next to a time traveler who’d come back all those centuries to protect her.
When had her life become an episode of the Twilight Zone?
She was so tired her eyeballs ached, but the idea of going to sleep made her heart pound. She knew she’d find Druas and his knife in her dreams.
If only Baran would wake up and distract her again with one of those mind-bending lectures on time travel delivered with those hot bedroom eyes. Even if they did glow in the dark.
God, she was cold.
Had it hurt when Druas slit Mary Kelly’s throat, or had she already been dead?
Cut it out, dammit.
She shivered again, but this time she had trouble stopping. She curled tighter, hugging her knees. And slowly became aware of a sense of warmth at her back.
Baran.
He seemed to radiate heat like a big male furnace. She found herself inching in his direction.
She tried to think of what she would do in the morning, how she’d protect herself. Her father’s old .38 revolver was packed away with the rest of his stuff up in the attic, but she hadn’t practiced with it in years. Maybe she should go to the firing range….
Damn, Baran was warm. Jane edged a little closer and bumped into his hard, muscular side.
She slid away.
Practice. She needed to dig the gun out and practice with it. And what was she going to tell Tom Reynolds? She might know who the killer was, but she’d never be able to tell the police. God forbid they actually catch him—from what Baran had said, Druas would rip them apart.
Hell, she’d be lucky if he didn’t rip her apart.
Don’t think about that, Jane. Go to sleep.
She curled tighter into herself and tried to ignore all the man-shaped pools of blackness in the room her imagination wanted to turn into serial killers. Temptingly close to her back, Baran slept, big and warm, breathing quietly. Stranger or not, she wished her pride would let her curl into his arms.
She was so tired, so wrung out from the terror and rage that had filled her night. Her eyelids slid closed, only to snap open again. She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to dream, but she was tired. So tired. So…
They were fighting again.
Jane crouched under the dining room table, hidden by the drape of the linen tablecloth. Ducking her head, she cupped shaking hands over her ears as her father screamed insults at her mother. Her heart was pounding inside her Cabbage Patch Kids pajamas. They’d fought before, but this was worse. So much worse.
She felt sick.
“If you walk out that door, Jeanine, I swear to God you’ll never see Jane again!”
“You can’t do that! She’s my child. I’ll sue for custody.”
“You won’t get it. People in this county owe me, and don’t think they won’t pay their debts.”
“And don’t think I won’t tell them what you’ve done to me!”
His laugh was dark and ugly. “You can’t prove anything.”
“Don’t bet on it. I’ve got photos, Bill.”
The silence that stretched between them jangled until Jane began to cry, stuffing her pajama top into her mouth to stifle any noise.
“Where?” Her father’s low, deadly snarl made her freeze like a rabbit.
“Where you’ll never find them. I’ve got a friend you don’t know anything about. I told her everything. She’ll—”
“She? Or he?” Jane heard the familiar sound of a slap and squeezed her eyes shut. “Is it a he?”
“No!”
“Who?”
“I’m not telling you! But she’ll testify, and the photos…”
His laugh was mocking. “They won’t care, Jeanine. This is South Carolina.”
“And I’m Jane’s mother, and South Carolina judges think ten-year-old girls belong with their mothers. Particularly if their fathers are abusive, wife-beating…Hit me again and I swear I’ll go to the police. How will that look in your precious paper?”
Jane could hear him breathing.
“Jane!” Her mother’s shout almost startled a scream out of her. She clamped both hands over her mouth. “Jane, come on. We’re leaving.”
“All right, bitch, you can go. But she’s staying.”
“I’m not leaving without—”
“She’s a Colby, Jeanine. I’m leaving the paper to her, just like Colbys have for a hundred years. You’re not taking her out of this town.”
“I’m not leaving without her.”
They went quiet again. Jane, too terrified to move, swallowed hard and fought against the need to throw up.
“If you don’t leave without her,” her father said, in a low, deadly voice, “I’m going to kill you.”
A hot tear plopped onto Jane’s bare foot. She stuffed her pajama top deeper into her mouth.
Her mother laughed, her voice too high, too wild. “They’d catch you, Bill.”
“I’ve covered a lot of trials, Jeanine. You think I don’t know how to create reasonable doubt?”
Jane fought not to sob. She knew she didn’t dare give herself away.
“Get out, Jeanine,” her father said, his voice soft and cold. “And you’d better not apply for custody.”
Jane heard the door slam. Something hit the wall with a crash. Glass broke. Her father began to curse, his voice vicious with rage.
She curled tighter into a ball and quivered. If he found her…
Jane jolted awake to find herself standing in darkness.
“Jane?”
She whirled, stifling her scream from long habit. Moonlight streamed in the window, silhouetting the big male figure sitting up in the bed.