LITMIR.BIZ

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if you need beating up or not. Here.” Charlie handed him a foam cup.

      Belatedly Jack’s nose caught the scent of freshly brewed coffee. He took the cup, pulled off the plastic lid and stepped back, inhaling the aroma and watching warily as Charlie came inside. “You’re not going to punch me while I’m distracted by caffeine, are you?”

      “Spoken like a man with a guilty conscience.” Charlie hadn’t been here as often as Jack had been at his house when they were younger, but he knew his way around. He headed for the living room, flipped on the light and glanced at the couch. “Camping out?”

      “Something like that.” Jack sipped at his coffee and watched his friend.

      Charlie had been a tall, lanky teen, a forward on the basketball team in high school. He’d added muscle to his inches as he got older, but he was still long and lean, standing three inches over Jack’s six feet. He didn’t look much like his sister. His hair was redder, and he had a craggy face with a nose that would have done a Roman emperor proud. “I’ve got some questions to ask you.”

      “Figures.” Jack took another sip of coffee. It was hot and bitter and just might be strong enough to jump-start his brain. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any doughnuts to go with this coffee?”

      “I ate them on the way here.”

      Jack grimaced. “That figures, too.” He took another sip. He needed to be alert in case Charlie changed his mind about pounding him. “You might as well go ahead and ask whatever you came here to ask.”

      “Did you marry Annie because she’s pregnant?”

      Jack choked, coughed and managed to clear the coffee from his windpipe. “What kind of question is that?”

      “A pretty obvious one, I’d say.” Charlie set his cup down on the coffee table and moved restlessly over to the window. “This marriage happened awfully damned quick.”

      Jack sipped his coffee and watched Charlie pace as if the floor were covered in hot coals instead of bland beige carpet. Charlie was certainly uncomfortable with the idea of his little sister having had sex. “I don’t know why you woke me up to ask such a stupid question. Even you aren’t dumb enough to believe Annie would lie to you about something like that.”

      “I, uh…I didn’t ask her.”

      “You didn’t ask her. You thought your sister might be pregnant and had somehow forgotten to mention it, and you didn’t ask her.” Jack shook his head. “You’re an idiot, you know that? I hate to be the one to break this to you, Charlie, but Annie is twenty-six years old. I don’t think she’s a virgin anymore.”

      Charlie stopped moving. “No, she’s married. To you. And if I find out that she had to get married—”

      “Calm down. I didn’t touch her. Well, no, I did touch her, but not enough to get her pregnant.”

      Charlie glowered at him. “And just when did this touching take place—before the wedding, or afterward?”

      “Would it make you feel better if I said we’ve never been to bed together?”

      “No. That would be downright weird. You are married.”

      Jack took a healthy swallow of coffee. Obviously he needed more caffeine, or he was going to say something stupid and mess up an important friendship. Jack didn’t fool himself that he came first with Charlie—or anyone else, for that matter. Including Annie. With the McClains, family came first. Always. And however many hours Jack might have spent in the McClain kitchen when he was younger, he wasn’t really family.

      Though he was Charlie’s brother-in-law now. Funny. That hadn’t occurred to him before. He liked the idea.

      “Okay, so I’m acting like an idiot.” Charlie scraped his hair back from his face. “I didn’t really think you’d gotten her pregnant. You’ve got your flaws, but you wouldn’t have left her to handle things alone if she’d been carrying your child, no matter what kind of emergency came up with your job.”

      “Thanks for that much.”

      “She might have gotten pregnant by someone else, though. Someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t marry her. I thought maybe she told you about it, and you married her to give her child a father.”

      A peculiar feeling stole over Jack when he thought about Annie being pregnant by another man. It wasn’t jealousy. At least, he didn’t think it was, since it was nothing like the nasty twist of anger he’d felt when he’d heard that Annie might be interested in Toby Randall. No, this was a quiet feeling—quiet, but not gentle. Not soft. A stinging gray feeling, like an acid fog. “Have you taken to watching soap operas? That’s the screwiest idea you’ve come up with yet.”

      “But it’s just the sort of thing you would do, Jack. Or are you going to tell me that if Annie were pregnant and unmarried you wouldn’t offer to marry her?”

      “Well…” Jack rubbed a hand over his face. Charlie was right. He’d do just about anything for Annie. “That wasn’t how it happened, though. Annie wasn’t—isn’t—pregnant.” And his reasons for marrying her had been wholly selfish.

      “Yeah? So why did you two get married, then?”

      Jack didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t going to lie to Charlie. He’d already lied to Charlie’s sister, and that had felt bad enough.

      When the inspiration to get married had first hit Jack, it hadn’t occurred to him that Annie might want the empty trappings of romance slicked over the very real friendship they shared and the passion they’d just discovered. He’d thought she was too sensible to buy into all those pleasant lies about love that so many women wasted their lives on. On their wedding night he’d found out he’d been wrong.

      They had been alone in the elevator, on their way up to the honeymoon suite, and Jack had been skimming his mouth across hers, teasing himself with a taste of the feast waiting for them. All of a sudden she’d pulled back, her eyes serious and scared. She’d asked him if he loved her.

      Jack had felt sucker punched. He’d taken a couple of seconds too long to answer. Oh, he’d managed to smile and say what she wanted to hear, but his hesitation had hurt her. He hated that as much as he’d hated lying to her.

      “Well?” Charlie demanded. “Is it that hard to come up with a reason?”

      “I was hoping to think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t make you want to punch me.” Jack rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. It felt odd. He was used to having hair there. Annie had accused him of having let the barber scalp him. He smiled. At least she noticed him. She didn’t want to admit it, and she would have liked to push him back into his not-quite-a-brother place in her life, but she did notice him. And not as a brother.

      Charlie eyed him for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe I don’t want to know. If it has something to do with sex—”

      “You don’t want to know.”

      Charlie scowled and moved over to where he’d left his coffee. He took a sip, grimaced and set it down. “Damned stuff is cold.”

      “Serves you right for eating all the doughnuts. Why did you come hassle me so early, anyway?”

      “I’ve got a load of pipe that’s supposed to be in California tomorrow and I wanted to talk to you before I hit the road. Which reminds me—why did you tell me to keep an eye on Annie until I talked to you?”

      Jack frowned. “Damn. I wish you didn’t have to leave town right now.”

      “Curiouser and curiouser. If you’re looking for me to play matchmaker—”

      “No, it’s nothing like that.” Jack ran a hand over the top of his head. No way to lead into this gradually, he decided. “I think someone tried to kill me. There’s a chance that Annie is in danger, too.”

      The

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