Golden Lies - Barbara Freethy [106]
It would all be over soon. They might not find the dragon, but he was confident they would get closer to the truth. The pieces were falling into place. He just had to concentrate on the task at hand and forget about the woman sitting next to him. If only she didn't smell so good. Did she wash her hair with perfume? The scent of sweet wildflowers seemed to fill the car. He pushed the automatic button for the window to let the breeze in, anything to break the intimacy growing between them.
Paige shot him a curious look. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," he said gruffly.
"You're not acting fine. You seem tense. You're angry because we didn't get to finish what we started."
"We were finished," he said shortly.
"Really? I wasn't."
"Well, you don't get everything you want, Paige. I know that's probably a foreign concept for you, but it's the truth. Some things, some people you just can't have, and it doesn't matter what your last name is."
She sent him a curious look. "Jeez, what brought that on?"
He shrugged. "It's just the way it is."
"Are you under the impression that I think I can get anything or anyone I want? Because believe me, that's not the case. In fact, very few people in my life ever do what I want them to do. I've often thought I have absolutely no impact on anyone's choices."
"That's not true."
"Oh, it's true. For example, my mother let me get a cat when I was a little girl. She thought it would keep me company after my sister died. It was a small black-and-white kitten and I adored it, but it refused to sleep on my bed. When I tried to pick it up, it hissed at me."
"You should have gotten a dog."
"The point is I couldn't even make my own cat do what I wanted it to do." She shook a finger at him. "And don't you dare call me poor little rich girl again. You'd feel bad if your pet didn't like you."
"I never had a pet, not one that belonged just to me. There were some animals at one of the communes we lived in. It was actually more of a farm with pigs, chickens, dogs, cats."
"You lived in a commune? Like a cult kind of place?"
"More like a transient, don't-feel-like-being-a-responsible-citizen kind of place."
"What a crazy life that must have been."
"It was. Moving into my grandparents' house was culture shock. They ate dinner every night at six o'clock, not six-fifteen or six-thirty, but six. My grandfather always had the same cocktail before dinner, a Manhattan. And my grandmother used to watch game shows on a small television set in the kitchen as she cleaned up after us. They had so many rules I thought I'd gone to prison."
She smiled at him. "You liked it."
"I liked the structure, the predictability," he admitted. "It was sometimes stifling, and I complained a lot, but deep down it felt good to know what was going to happen from day to day."
"And that's what you liked about being a marine, too?"
"Yes. Plus I got to combine that structure with danger and excitement."
"Do you miss it?"
"Sometimes." He thought about her question far more seriously than she'd probably intended, but then again, he'd been considering the subject a lot lately. "But this is where I'm meant to be."
"Do you like the security business? Or are you doing it out of a sense of responsibility to your grandparents?"
"I like it. There are certainly opportunities for improved security these days."
"So it's going to be a long-term commitment?"
"Did I say that?"
She smiled. "You don't like that word -- commitment."
"Most things don't last. Not jobs, not relationships."
"You're very cynical. And yet you have grandparents who adore each other. They grew together not apart."
"They're the rare exception."
"Maybe," she admitted, her smile dimming. "My parents certainly aren't a shining example of anything."
"Let's go find your sister," he said, as he pulled the car into a parking space.
"Words I never