“Yeah. I’ve got it now.” He glanced a second time to make certain the machine wasn’t plugged in. When he did so, he watched Amaryllis out of the corner of his eye. He was very leery of things that didn’t add up, and she was one of them.
“I have to check each of these for continuity with the multimeter. There’s a schematic drawing that shows which is the inlet and which is the pump. Hopefully, we can figure out what’s wrong right here.” He busied himself checking the first one. “How long have you known Marie?”
There was a small silence. He glanced at her over his shoulder. She was fidgeting. Her eyes met his and she shrugged. “About a year. I met her in the grocery store. She needed help and I needed a job. She was, for me, like your Nonny, or more like a sister and mother all rolled into one. I didn’t come from the best circumstances either. Marie showed me that didn’t matter. I could still make something of myself.”
“That’s good. Did you know her husband?” He didn’t know why he asked when he knew the answer, maybe to catch her in a lie. She had no way of knowing his team had investigated Marie before his arrival.
“No. He had already passed away, but she talks about him so much that I feel as if I know him.”
“I think this is it, Amaryllis.” He loved her name. “We’re going to have to order the part and rush it here. So, it looks like dish duty for us for the next few days.”
“She isn’t going to like a guest doing the dishes. I can, but really, thank you for this.”
“Put the part number in and see who has the best price and the fastest delivery. I’m doing the dishes because I told Marie I would and I’m a man of my word. Besides”—he carefully put the tools away—“you’d like to get rid of me so I’m sticking around just to bug you.”
“That’s mean.”
“No, I’m expanding your horizons. Pushing your comfort zone. Showing you that even rough-looking men can be nice.” He finished closing up the machine so he could stand up. Sitting on the floor so long had stiffened his leg. He stumbled a little but caught himself.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He sounded gruff. Maybe even harsh, his voice clipped and abrupt. He was looking better and better to a woman he really wanted to impress.
She didn’t ask again. “Stop fishing for compliments. You do look tough, but you know you’re good-looking.”
He coughed to cover his snort of derision. By no means could he be called good-looking. There were some seriously good-looking men in his unit—and he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t mind her thinking that though.
“You want to wash or dry?”
“I’ll dry. I know where everything goes.”
“You just want to see my tattoos.”
“There is that,” she agreed. Once again, she gave him a small smile and that look that he wasn’t sure how to interpret. “The ones I can see are beautiful. Someone does good work.”
He nodded. “Started going to him when I was in my late teens. Still go back to Chicago so he can do the work on me. You have any?”
She shook her head. “No, but I always wanted one.”
“What would it be?”
She shrugged. “Something very personal to me. Maybe the flower.”
His gut tightened. He turned to survey the stainless-steel sink, not wanting her to see his face just in case his expression changed. “I don’t know much about flowers. My name’s all about the Bible. Malichai was either just a book or a prophet or both, although my mother couldn’t even get the spelling right. That was so like her.” He wasn’t above pushing a little bitterness into his voice, although he’d gotten over that somewhere on the streets of Chicago. “Much rather have a pretty name like yours. Is the flower pretty?”
“I think so. It always looks radiant to me. Very striking depending on the color. The ones I like the most are scarlet.”
He glanced back at her as hot water filled the sink. “I can see you as scarlet. You’re a beautiful woman so having a name like Amaryllis really suits you.”
She flashed him a small smile. “Are you a prophet or a book?”
No one had ever asked him that before. He read to people from the book of death and called it the bible occasionally. Okay. More than occasionally. But he felt more often he was the prophet, letting his enemy know he was doomed.
“If I had to choose, I’d choose to be identified as the prophet.”
She pulled a fresh towel from a drawer and stood next to him. The moment she was close, he found he took her in with every breath he drew. The more he breathed, the more he was aware of her. Every cell in his body seemed focused on her. He knew when she took a breath. When she let it out. He breathed with her. In. Out. Together. As if they were already exchanging breath.
Malichai had never felt so intimate with a woman, and he wasn’t touching her. He didn’t need to. He felt her on his skin. Her breath moved over him. Her scent surrounded him. When he handed her a plate, their fingers brushed and lightning struck him deep, forked through his body, spreading an electrical charge through his veins so that she struck at his heart and cock simultaneously.
He could barely think, his head pounding, but it was imperative for him to sort things out. Amaryllis was the name of a flower. Many women were named after flowers. Just because she had that name didn’t mean she was one of Dr. Whitney’s experiments. He’d taken infants from orphanages, female children he’d considered throwaways, and he’d experimented on them. He’d worked to enhance psychic abilities they may have had. He’d introduced animal DNA into their bodies. He’d given them cancer. He’d conducted all kinds of hideous experiments in order to be able to create the perfect soldier—him. Malichai.
Whitney had done all those things to the little girls just to perfect what he would do to those men he deemed worthy of his program. He kept the girls and trained them as soldiers, and then, wanting more babies to work with, introduced them into a breeding program. Several of the women had escaped. Some still went out on missions for him. It was impossible to tell one from the other. If Amaryllis was involved in any way with Whitney, she was a danger to him and to national security. If an enemy of their country ever found her and took her, they would take her apart to find out just how Whitney had created his GhostWalkers.
If Amaryllis really was part of Whitney’s program, how was it possible it would be a coincidence that she just happened to be at the bed-and-breakfast he’d chosen to visit? She’d said she’d been there a year. If he could confirm that with Marie, he’d feel much better.
“What do people do on vacations?”