Woman Of Innocence. Lindsay McKenna

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      She nodded hesitantly. Old habits died hard. At the office, he was always Mr. Davis. Jenny never called any of the mercenaries by their first names. When she saw his mouth curve faintly, relief shot through her. Even his gray eyes warmed a bit as he looked at her. It was much easier to deal with than his focused inspection.

      “Good,” he murmured. “I need to know a little about you. About your background. That will help me to help you in formulating your base questions.”

      The sincerity in his voice shook her, and the earnestness in his slate-colored eyes warmed her to her quaking, cowardly soul. Jenny had never expected that her questions would be worthy of the interview, much less meet with Matt Davis’s approval.

      Choking, she looked at him in disbelief. “You…want to know about me?”

      With a nonchalant shrug he said, “Why not? You’re my partner on this mission.”

      “I see….”

      “You know, for all your friendliness and helpfulness, you’re a closed book.”

      Wincing, Jenny looked down at the handful of papers in her hand. “I’m afraid I haven’t led a very exciting life…Matt, and I really don’t want to bore you with my life story.”

      Such a cream puff. And a delicious one. Matt stopped himself from reaching out to stroke her hair, which looked deliciously mussed. Jenny wore no makeup and the way her blond hair fell soft and straight around her face made her look like a pixie. She looked so young. Yet he saw pain in her eyes and he wondered why. “Want to play twenty questions, then?”

      She managed a weak smile. “No, you don’t have to dig. I’ll tell you. But I warn you, you’ll probably be snoring like you were five minutes before I woke you up.”

      His brows raised. “I was snoring?”

      Chuckling shyly, Jenny said, “It wasn’t loud or anything. Your head was tipped back, was all. A person’s tongue relaxes when they sleep, and I’m sure yours was up against your windpipe, which was why you were snoring.”

      Giving her a look of respect, he said, “You’re just a font of information, aren’t you?”

      Touching her cheeks, which were heating up beneath his dark, unrelenting inspection, Jenny felt her heart beating erratically. Did the man know he could charm even the meanest snake with those eyes of his? She wanted desperately to drown in his warm gaze. Just the hint of one corner of his mouth lifting upward sent her heart soaring with unaccountable joy. When he smiled, that hard mask fell away and she got a look at the real Matt Davis. She blossomed beneath his attention, especially when he gave her that crooked smile.

      “One of my foster mothers always said I was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none,” she began ruefully in answer to his question. “I know just enough about a lot of things to be dangerous, I guess.” Waving her hands nervously, she added, “I have such a problem sticking with one thing and finishing it. I’m a Pisces, you see. My moon’s in Gemini and I have Libra rising. I’m full of air and water, and the two don’t mix very well, so I’m always at odds with myself. At least, that’s what she said.”

      Foster mother? Matt scowled at how nervous Jenny was now. He saw the worry in her eyes, and the way the corners of her soft, delicious mouth pulled in. “I don’t know much about astrology,” he admitted.

      “You’re a Scorpio!” She blurted the words before she could stop herself. Slapping a hand over her mouth, she gazed at him wide-eyed as he tilted his head and regarded her in the silence.

      “You got my birthdate from my personnel record?”

      She nodded, her stomach sinking.

      “I see.”

      Allowing her hand to drop from her lips, she said in a breathless tone, “Don’t worry. The information won’t go anywhere. I know Scorpio people want their privacy. And they don’t like people who talk about them to other people, either. They’re very, very intense. Very focused. That’s why you’re so good at being a merc. You’re a natural warrior. You know how to gauge people. Your perceptions are rarely wrong, either.”

      “I’m impressed. You almost make me sound like a good guy.” He saw her frown and then shift restlessly in the leather seat. “So what about yourself? How about your growing-up years? Where were you born?”

      Jenny’s mouth quirked. Her stomach tightened. She knew Matt had come from a very prestigious and rich family. He’d been at the Naval Academy and finished in the top five percent of his class. He’d earned medals as a SEAL during the Gulf War. He’d been the head of his team until he’d quit to come and work for Perseus. She also knew, from the personal history in his file, that his parents had been married for over thirty years: the Davises were a happy family, no doubt. Matt had an older sister, a medical doctor who had graduated from Princeton University with honors. Jenny’s hands hands fluttered helplessly as she answered his question. “I was born in Medford, Oregon.”

      “Oregon’s a nice place. I’ve often fished for trout up in the Cascade Mountains above that little town.” Somehow, Matt found himself wanting to alleviate the tension around her lovely mouth and erase the fear from her eyes. “Did you ever go fishing in Klamath Lake, which is near there? Or fish for steelhead trout on the Rogue River?”

      She shook her head and looked out the plane window. The sky was a bright blue, with high, filmy cirrus clouds. “Uh, no…”

      “Not a fisherperson?” he teased. She refused to look at him. Now her hands were clenched, white-knuckled, in the lap of her dark purple skirt.

      Softly, she answered, “No…I don’t like hurting anything. It pains me to even think of putting a sharp hook into a poor, defenseless little worm. It has no way of protecting itself from us…what we might do to it. Humans are a lot stronger, and sometimes brutal….”

      Matt scowled. He heard a lot of pain in Jenny’s voice. In fact, he could barely hear her, her voice had gone so soft. Her face had drained of color and she was pale. Very pale. And now she was sitting very, very still. His gut crawled with trepidation. Realizing he was stepping into very raw territory regarding her personal life, he said in a rasping tone, “Don’t mind me. Sometimes I’m like a damn bull in a china shop. I don’t know when to stop asking questions. My ex-wife will confirm my dazzling skills in that regard.”

      Turning her head, she met and held his stormy eyes. Once again, Jenny was seeing him without that armorlike mask in place. Now he was searching and unsure of himself. She’d never have thought anything could rattle the heroic Matt Davis, decorated navy hero. Especially something she said. Her. A mouse. A ordinary person who had never accomplished anything of note in life. Except to be a great assistant to Morgan Trayhern. And she had also gotten a degree in psychology. She was proud of that accomplishment, too. But it wasn’t the same as saving lives, like Matt did.

      “My life,” Jenny began quietly, “isn’t anything to write home about.” Shrugging, she opened her hands and said, “I was taken from my mother, who was a crack addict, when I was born. She died when I was a year old. I don’t really remember anything about her…. I was turned over to the state, and over the next eighteen years, I went through five foster homes.” She saw his brows gather grimly. And she saw sympathy reflected in his eyes. Heartened that he wasn’t going to make fun of her, or tell her that she was less worthy in his view, she added, “I guess maybe that’s why I went into psychology—to СКАЧАТЬ