The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [42]
“Take a couple of Advil before you go to bed,” J.T. advised from the grill. “You’ll be grateful in the morning.”
“If I live that long,” she muttered. She rolled over onto her side. She was sore around her ribs. She hadn’t realized muscle existed there.
“Food’s ready. Eat up. We’ll take a walk after dinner. It’s important you don’t get stiff.”
She said, “Aaaagh.”
“Remember, no whining.”
“For God’s sake, J.T. Give the woman a glass of wine and ease up before you kill her.”
Tess looked at Marion with surprise, then gratitude. Marion had remained in the house most of the day. Tess could pinpoint her location by following the smell of chain-smoked cigarettes. Now the agent was dressed in fine linen slacks and a classic cream-colored silk blouse with billowing sleeves and graceful cuffs. With her hair pulled back in a French twist, delicate gold hoops winking at her ears, and more gold accenting her narrow leather belt, she belonged in an upper-class garden party. Her face, however, ruined the impression. Her delicate features were frozen into a hard look, her blue eyes perpetually narrowed into a stern, suspicious stare. When she walked, she had the fast, determined footsteps of a woman who would mow you down if you didn’t get the hell out of her way.
If Marion MacAllister had met Jim Beckett, Tess was sure she would have fired her gun first and asked questions later.
They ate out on the patio. Marion served a salad with a light raspberry vinaigrette. J.T. barbecued chicken accompanied by dirty rice and beans. She needed protein, he told her, and dumped an extra spoonful of rice and beans on her plate.
She ate everything, discovering an appetite that was powerful and foreign to her. She started out with silverware and delicate movements. Then she gave up and followed J.T.’s example, greedily tearing the chicken into strips and popping them into her mouth with her fingers.
“Is Freddie coming back?” she asked between mouthfuls.
J.T. and Marion exchanged glances. “No,” J.T. said, his gaze never leaving Marion’s.
Marion simply shrugged. She ate only the salad and half a chicken breast. After warring with herself for a full minute, Tess helped herself to the other half.
“Go easy,” J.T. commented.
“I know how to eat.”
He raised one brow but shut up. For all his words of caution, he ate two whole chicken breasts and three helping of rice and black beans. He chewed voraciously, chasing down his food with long gulps of iced tea.
And every now and then she saw his gaze slide to Marion’s beer with barely tamped hunger.
“So what did we learn in fugitive training camp today?” Marion asked at last. Done with her meal, she sat back and lit up.
“Swimming and weights,” Tess volunteered.
“She has a ways to go,” J.T. supplied.
The conversation drifted. They listened in silence to the distant sound of crickets singing in the dusk and the occasional whir of hummingbirds among the cactus.
“Do you swim?” Tess asked Marion.
“A little.”
“She rides. Dressage.” J.T. pushed his plate away. His gaze rested on his sister. “At least she did when we were younger.”
“I stopped.”
“Hmm.”
“There was no point to it,” she said sharply. “No one rides horses in real life. It’s not a usable or marketable skill. Really, it was a waste of time.”
“You think?” J.T. drawled neutrally.
His fingers rotated the empty glass in front of him, sliding up the condensation on the side, then twirling the base again. “I used to watch you ride. I thought you were pretty good.”
“You watched me ride?”
“Yeah. I did. Could never figure out how you managed it. Such a tiny thing commanding a twelve-hundred-pound beast around the ring. I used to think you belonged to the horse more than you belonged to us.”
“I never saw you at the arena.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Huh,” Marion said. There seemed to be a wealth of suspicion in that grunt.
J.T.