Chapter 27

            After a shower and a change of clothes, Miss Parker almost felt like herself again.

            The change of scenery helped, too, she thought as she stepped out onto the welcoming front porch of the farmhouse.  Hanging baskets filled with bright red geraniums were perfectly placed between the thick white columns spaced along the railing.  An unseen wind chime trilled a few cheery notes as a light breeze touched her face.

            Miss Parker took a deep breath of fresh air, glad to be free of the humidity of the city.  And it was such a relief to be out of that dingy motel room.  She thought last night would never end.  Even if she hadn’t been reluctant to go back to sleep after her nightmare, the kiss she and Jarod had shared had also contributed to her restlessness.  That kiss had reawakened feelings she’d thought she’s successfully suppressed and left her too physically aware of Jarod’s close proximity to just casually go back to sleep.  At first she’d been disappointed then annoyed that Jarod had pulled away, but as she tossed and turned the rest of the night, she’d finally come to realize that it had been a smart decision on his part.  Well, he was the genius, right?

            She started when she heard the sound of a foot crunching on gravel but relaxed when she saw it was only Jarod approaching on the circular drive.  Then she wondered at this new reaction; since when did she relax at the sight of Jarod?

            He quickly climbed the rough-hewn steps in the two low stone walls built into the hillside in front of the house but stopped when he reached the base of the wooden stairs leading to the porch.  She noticed his slight double take when he spotted her.

            “What?” she asked with a bit of irritation, suspecting what had prompted his reaction.

            He took no offense at her tone.  “I’m just not used to seeing you in anything but your usual… business attire,” he said.

            And she certainly wasn’t accustomed to wearing a plain white tank top and jeans.  Miss Parker glared down at him.  “I didn’t have much choice.  This is all someone packed for me.”

            Jarod’s lips twitched.  “That someone would be Mr. Broots,” he said mildly.

            Of course it would.  That explained the selection of bras and panties plus the black lace negligee she’d discovered in the bag.  It all made horrifying sense now; Broots had gotten so distracted going through her underwear drawer he hadn’t had time to make it past her dresser and get to the closet where she kept her usual outfits.  She hid her mortification, determined not to divulge exactly what items Broots had packed for her.

            Jarod tilted his head slightly and gave her an appraising look.  “I think he made a good choice,” he pronounced.  “Broots knew we’d be on the road and wanted to make sure your clothing was comfortable and provided ease of movement.  That wouldn’t be the case if you were wearing your usual short skirts and high heels.”

            Of course, he looked as comfortable and fit as ever in his black t-shirt and matching jeans.  “I did just fine chasing you all over the country in those short skirts and high heels,” she reminded him.

            Jarod stared up at her for a moment, a faraway look in his dark eyes.  She got the feeling he was remembering a few of those chases, and she was surprised by the slight smile she saw on his face.  “True,” he conceded finally.

            Although she wouldn’t admit it aloud, Miss Parker had to agree that her current attire was a good fit for their present surroundings.  Something about this place tugged at her memory…  “This is Harriet Tashman’s farm, isn’t it?” she said, suddenly recalling the time years ago when she’d first learned of the existence of Kyle, Jarod’s brother and Raines’ Pretender.  The Centre had identified the Tashman woman as a person who might lead them to Kyle.

            “It was,” Jarod said, climbing the last few steps to join her on the porch.  “I bought it from her about a year ago.”

            That was a surprise.  She’d never imagined Jarod as a property owner.

            “It’s beautiful here,” she said and meant it.  She preferred the city but also recognized the appeal of the country life.

            “Yes.”  Jarod moved to the end of the porch and gazed over the railing towards the barn.  “Ever since Harriet told me my parents and baby sister hid here for a couple of years, I’ve felt… drawn to this farm.  If they could feel that safe here, I thought… well, maybe I… maybe someday… this might be a place I could call… home.”

            The wistful note in his voice brought a lump to her throat as she realized how important this property was to him.  She felt strangely…what?  Perhaps grateful, even honored, that he should choose to bring her here.   

            Jarod cleared his own throat and went on, “Anyway, I thought this would be a safe place for us to stay for a while.  The Centre has no reason to connect you to this property, and I’m…”

            “Dead,” Miss Parker finished for him. 

            He turned a sharp glance her way in response to her accusing tone.  And just like that, the mood changed, darkened.  She wasn’t sorry; it was time for that explanation he kept promising.  She was ready to demand some answers, even if he wasn’t ready to give them.

            He met her determined gaze.  “I was never really dead.  I faked my death so that the Centre would finally stop chasing me.  It was the only way I could truly be free.”

            The truth of what he said was right there in front of her – he wasn’t a ghost or some scientific breakthrough – but she could not wrap her mind around what he’d just said.  She said slowly, “What do you mean you were ‘never really dead?’  I saw Lyle shoot you.”  The gunshot had been incredibly loud in that dusty warehouse loft.  “I saw you fall out the window.”  The glass had seemed to shatter in slow motion, his body falling almost gracefully from view.  “I saw you die, Jarod!”  He’d been so pale, so still in that hellish alley…

            She could see the horror of what she was reliving reflected in his pained expression.  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.  “You weren’t supposed to be there.  You were supposed to be in Las Vegas.  Why weren’t you?”  The desperation in his voice made her realize he’d been tortured by this question for a long time.

            “Mechanical problems with the plane,” she murmured.  “I was bumped to a later flight.”

            “You were flying commercial?  Why didn’t you take the Centre jet?”

            “After that e-mail you sent me” – the one referring to their intimate moments in the elevator – “I didn’t want Lyle tagging along when I went to Vegas.  I thought you might actually be there” – Why had she thought that?  Had she really believed he had arranged a romantic tryst in Sin City? “and I didn’t want to take the chance of you getting captured.”

            Jarod looked slightly stunned.  “Mechanical problems,” he repeated, as if he couldn’t believe something so mundane had ruined his complex plan.

            She suddenly knew the answer to a question that had tormented her.  “That’s why you were so surprised to see me at the warehouse,” she said.  His eyes had widened in shock…  “You had this all planned, and you didn’t want me there when you… died?”

            “You were never meant to see that.”

            She barely registered the sympathy in his voice as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.  “I thought you had lured Lyle there to kill him, but...your plan was to have him kill you!”

            “You thought I’d come to Blue Cove to kill Lyle?” He sounded disturbed by the idea.

            No, she wasn’t going to talk about that.  She needed more details about Jarod’s “death.”  How in the hell had he pulled it off?  “Jarod, Lyle did shoot you.  You were bleeding!”

            “Yeah, well, that wasn’t part of the plan,” he said ruefully.  “Lyle was supposed to miss.  Unfortunately, when you called my name, I turned and wasn’t positioned correctly for when he fired.  Luckily, the bullet went straight through.”  He rotated his left shoulder slowly with a slight wince.  “I guess the blood made it more convincing, at least.”

            There’s been so much blood, soaking his shirt, staining her hands, warm and sticky…She could still smell it.  Unprepared for the vivid flash of memory, she had to put a hand on the porch railing to steady herself. 

            “Miss Parker?”  He started towards her.

            She held out her other hand to ward off his approach.  “I’m fine,” she said sharply.  “Go on.”

            He didn’t look convinced but reluctantly continued with his explanation.  “Well, the plan was for Lyle to shoot and for me to fall, hitting my head in such a way that it would cause a hematoma resulting in my death.  I’ve been a stuntman so I knew I could handle a fall from that height, but I put a mattress in the dumpster earlier and removed any sharp objects so I could be sure of a soft landing.”

            Okay, so that explained the blood and the handy dumpster.  “But… you had no pulse.”  Even knowing he was very much alive, it was still hard to say the words.

            “Remember the time when Raines and Lyle stopped my heart so they could try out an experimental resuscitation drug?  I came across that same drug during one of my Pretends.  Since then, I’ve had a chance to perfect it.  I used another medicine to put me in a coma-like state that makes it impossible to detect a pulse without the proper equipment”

            “But the doctor back at the infirmary… surely, he would have known…”  Then she realized.  “He was in on it, wasn’t he?  When he disappeared, Broots and I thought the Triumverate snatched him as punishment for failing to save you.  But he was just getting away before his part in your plan was discovered.”

Jarod nodded.  “He’s someone I met during my…travels.  He owed me a favor, so he agreed to my somewhat crazy – and dangerous – plan.  I gave him a false identity and credentials I knew would land him a position at the Centre.  He had to make sure he was on call on that Friday, so he’d be the one to pronounce me dead.  Then he administered the drug to revive me and shipped me off to the cryonics institute.  The antidote takes some time to work, so I had to rely on another associate – someone who works in a morgue - to switch my body with that of a homeless man’s and get me safely out of the facility.”

            Miss Parker imagined he had a whole network of grateful acquaintances who would happily assist him, but she was amazed at the speed in which he’d put his plan in motion.  He’d only had a few weeks between the day he’d escaped and the day he’d “died.”  And even with all of his planning, he’d still had to make some pretty good guesses for it all to work out.  “How did you know the Centre would choose to freeze your body?”

            “Well, I knew they owned Lazarus Ltd., so it made sense.”  Jarod managed a small, grim smile.  “I figured the Centre wouldn’t let go of me, even in death.”

            Miss Parker didn’t bother to ask how Jarod knew about the cryonics facility when she had not been aware of it; he always seemed to know more secrets than she did, a fact that she found annoying, but one which had literally saved his life this time.

            “Well, I suppose congratulations are in order, Jarod,” she said.  “You pulled off your greatest Pretend yet.  We all truly believed you were dead.”

            There was no triumph in his expression.  “I don’t regret what I did,” he said, “but I do regret the way I had to do it.  I want you to know that when you walked into that warehouse loft, I would have called the whole thing off if I could have.  But I’d already taken the drug that would put me in the coma, so I had no choice but to go forward with the plan.”

            She felt a flash of irritation.  “Why wouldn’t you go forward with it?”

            “I told you, I didn’t want you to see…”

            “Oh, that’s right, you didn’t want me to suffer the anguish of watching you die,” she interrupted harshly, even angrier now because damn it, he was right; she wished with all her heart that she hadn’t had to experience those dreadful moments in that hellish alley.  But she refused to let him know how those memories still haunted her.  “Don’t get me wrong, I would have preferred to have skipped that whole dramatic scene in the alley.  I mean, I broke a nail doing CPR on you and ruined an expensive silk blouse by getting your blood all over it.”

            Her sarcasm only seemed to increase his concern for her.  “Miss Parker, I’m so sorry,” he said, reaching out for her.

            She backed away so quickly she almost tripped over the small welcome mat at the door.  “What do want from me, Jarod?” she asked in exasperation.  “Forgiveness?  Well, if it’s absolution you seek, try a priest.  Oh, hell, you’ve probably been one, so why don’t you just forgive yourself?” 

            Horrified to realize she was dangerously close to tears, she turned and escaped into the house, letting the screen door bang shut behind her, and praying that he wouldn’t follow her.

            The late afternoon sunlight cast a golden sheen across the smooth surface of the pond.  Jarod gazed at the still water and wished he could find an inner peace to match his surroundings.

            He’d just finished a long phone conversation with Sydney, and after going through the whole explanation of how he’d faked his own death for the second time in one day, he was feeling a bit on edge.  He supposed the reactions of Miss Parker and Sydney had affected him more than he’d expected.

            Or perhaps it was their non-reactions that disturbed him.  He would have preferred speaking to Sydney in person, but circumstances made that impossible, so he’d had to rely on audible clues to guess his mentor’s state of mind.  Not an easy task, since Sydney barely spoke a word all through Jarod’s account.  Then he’d asked several questions about the heart resuscitation drug.  He’d sounded sincerely intrigued by this medical breakthrough, but Jarod knew it was an evasion technique.  In the same way Miss Parker used sarcasm to avoid expressing her true feelings, Sydney relied on dry scientific jargon to hide his emotions.

            And when Jarod had run out of answers (or, rather, limited his answers because he didn’t want to risk information about this dangerous drug reaching the wrong people at the Centre), Sydney had deftly changed the subject to Miss Parker and how she was dealing with recent events.  Again, Jarod had no doubt Sydney’s concern about Miss Parker was genuine, but asking about her was also a handy way to avoid talking about how he himself was coping with Jarod’s sudden return from the dead.

            But Jarod had been unable to supply any definitive answers about Miss Parker’s frame of mind, other than that she’d seemed more like her old self today.  Jarod had finally hung up, suspecting that both he and his former teacher had found the conversation less than satisfying.

            He wished Sydney were here to provide the calm perspective of a therapist, although Miss Parker would likely have spurned any “professional” help from her colleague.  Jarod had been a psychiatrist and could easily identify the conflicting emotions she was experiencing right now, but he couldn’t maintain a clinical detachment when dealing with her.  Besides being the main cause for her current state of upheaval, he cared too deeply about her to ever be objective.

            It had taken all of his willpower to not go after her earlier today when she’d run into the farmhouse.  She may have seemed in control with her parting shots, but the pointed barbs she’d flung at him before beating a hasty retreat came across as more of a desperate defense and not an aggressive attack.  He knew she needed time to absorb what he’d told her, so he’d avoided the house all afternoon, giving her solitude to clear her head or maybe even take a nap.  Miss Parker was the strongest person he knew, but anyone would be close to exhaustion after the traumatic events of the past few weeks, especially the past twenty-four hours.  She’d always had hard edges, which she used as a shield against feelings she believed made her weak, but right now he was afraid those edges were too brittle to withstand the onslaught of powerful emotions she had to be experiencing.  What if she broke?  He had to find a way to help her release the anger, fear, grief – whatever she was struggling to contain.  But how?

            A slight sound behind him caused him to whirl around, instantly on alert.  When he saw it was just Miss Parker approaching with her natural cat-like stealth, his fight or flight response shut down.  As he felt his body relax, he welcomed this strange new reaction to his former pursuer; it was nice to not feel the urge to run at the sight of her.

            And what a glorious sight it was.  He’d made light of her casual appearance before, but what he hadn’t told her was that he found her just as beautiful in jeans as in any of her form-fitting ensembles.  As she walked slowly across the grass towards him, the late day sun bathed her make-up-free face in a soft glow.  Her loveliness took his breath away.  He thought how the surroundings suited her; this was where she belonged, gliding across a sun-dappled lawn, not stalking the winding windowless corridors of some stark fortress.

            He remained silent as she drew near.  He would let her speak first, so he could assess her mood. 

            She came to a stop a few feet away and regarded him with the uncertainty he was feeling.  “I have a question,” she said finally, “and I’d like an honest answer.”

            He owed her that much.  “Alright,” he said.

            “Why?”

            The question surprised him, since he’d already told her the reason for faking his death.  But if hearing the explanation again would help her to accept what he’d done, he was happy to comply.  “Like I told you earlier,” he said, “I realized this was the only way I could make the Centre stop chasing me.”

            “No,” she said with a slight frown, “I understand why you pretended to be dead.  What I want to know is why you came back.  You were finally free, Jarod.  Why risk everything by revealing you were still alive?”

            Jarod had been wondering how to make her open up to him, but it was her question that would force him to reveal his true feelings.  He’d promised her the truth; would she be able to handle it?

            His eyes met hers.  “For you,” he said simply.

            She looked confused.  “But when you called Sydney, you didn’t know about… about what happened… that I’d need help…”

            “No, I didn’t know about Lyle.  Before I decided to fake my own death, I already knew I’d come back for you.”

            Even though the day was still warm, she rubbed one arm as if feeling a sudden chill.  “What… what do you mean?”

            “Remember my last night at the Centre?  I asked you to come with me.”

            “And I told you to forget about me and concentrate on finding your family!”  A slight breeze sent a lock of hair into her face and she brushed it away impatiently.  “Jarod, now is your chance to live your life the way you want to!”

“I don’t want a life without you in it,” he said quietly.

            “Since when do we get what we want?” 

            The bitter resignation in her voice tore at his heart.  He took the few steps separating them and captured her hand in his.  “Since now!” he said urgently.  “We just have to want it badly enough.”

            She stared down at his hand holding hers.  All was silent, save for the sounds of nature around them: the gruff croaking of a frog, the effortless trill of a bird in a nearby tree, the rustling of cattails along the pond’s edge.

            He squeezed her hand.  Please, Miss Parker, he thought, please want this, too.

            Abruptly, she pulled free and took off running for the house.

            No!  This time he ran after her.  He knew she was fast in heels, but in the low-soled canvas shoes Broots had packed for her, she moved like a gazelle.  Jarod didn’t catch up to her until she’d reached the porch.  He barely managed to grab her arm before she could escape inside.

            “Let me go!”  She spun to face him.

            “No!”  Jarod pressed her back against the wall of the house.  “You have to stop running away!”

            “I’m not the one who runs,” she declared.

            “You’re running from us,” he insisted, tightening his grip on her shoulders.  “You’re running from your own feelings!”

            “You don’t know what I’m feeling, Jarod.”

            “Don’t I?”  He pressed his body close to hers, their faces mere inches apart.  “Right now you’re feeling your heart beat so fast and so loud you’re sure I can hear it.”  He couldn’t, not over the hammering of his own heart.

            With one finger he lightly traced the curve of her cheek.  “Now you’re feeling light-headed, almost dizzy,” he went on softly, as his own head swam with the scent of her.

Then he brushed his thumb gently over her bottom lip, feeling a jolt of his own as her mouth opened slightly on a sharp intake of breath.  “And now you’re thinking that if I don’t kiss you right this second…”

            His mouth claimed hers.  Afraid she would pull away, he poured all of his longing and need for her into the kiss, holding nothing back…

            Miss Parker was surprised by Jarod’s passion, but she wasn’t complaining.  Heart beating wildly and head spinning, she returned the kiss with equal hunger.  Expecting him to back off at any second like he had last night, she clung to him, determined to get maximum pleasure from this moment.  She threaded her fingers through his hair and delighted in the feel of his hands roaming wildly over her body.

            Still locked in their frantic embrace, they somehow stumbled into the house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom.  They tumbled onto the bed, and Miss Parker tugged Jarod’s shirt from his jeans, desperate to lay her hands on the warm bare skin of his chest.

            Even though she’d anticipated it, she still felt a pang of disappointment when Jarod pulled away.  She bit back a groan of frustration as he propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at her.

            He had the strangest expression on his face.  Was that embarrassment?  “I know I’m this genius who can become anyone he wants to be,” he said slowly, awkwardly, “but right here, right now, with you, I’m just… Jarod.”

            Did he think she expected Casanova?  She took his face tenderly between her hands and answered the mute plea in his soulful brown eyes.  “Good,” she said, “because right now Jarod is exactly who I want.”

            His relieved smile was a sight to behold.  Then his eyes darkened with renewed desire and he eagerly returned to her welcoming embrace.