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“I learned,” he yelled back.
She swam away from the kayak, the life vest inching up under her armpits. “You’re a jerk, you know that? A lying, money-grubbing jerk.”
“Get it all out.” He swam toward the ladder, his strokes long and powerful.
She swam after him, her own strokes choppy with anger. “And you’re a first-class—” Viper found the right word. “Asshole!”
He glanced back at her, then mounted the ladder. “Anything else?”
She grabbed the bottom rung. The water hadn’t lost its spring chill, and her teeth chattered so hard they hurt. “A liar, a fraud, a—” She broke off as she spotted the lump. Exactly where she expected to see it. She scrambled up the ladder after him. “I hope that gun is waterproof. No? Too bad.”
He sat on the dock and peeled up the right leg of his jeans, revealing the black leather ankle holster that explained why he’d refused to wear shorts at Caddo Lake, why he wouldn’t go in the water. He pulled the gun out and flipped open the bullet chamber.
“Are you back on duty?” She shoved her wet, dyed hair out of her eyes, her finger snagging on a dread. “Did my parents extend your contract?”
“If you have a problem with what happened, take it up with your family, not with me. I was just doing my job.” He knocked the bullets into his hand.
“They hired you again. That’s why you’re here.”
“No. I’m here because I heard that somebody was squatting in my house. Anybody mention that breaking and entering is a crime?” He blew into the empty chambers.
She was dizzy with fury. “Anybody mention that bodyguards are supposed to identify themselves?”
“Like I said. Take it up with your family.”
She stared down at the top of his head. His hair was already starting to curl. Those wild curls. Thick and rancorous. What kind of man had hair like that? She fumbled with the buckles on her life vest, so angry with him—with herself—she could barely unfasten them. She’d come all this way because of a kiss that she’d convinced herself meant something. And she’d been partially right. It meant that she’d lost her mind. She tore off the vest. “That’s going to be your defense, isn’t it? You were just doing your job.”
“Believe me. It wasn’t easy.” He stopped blowing into the bullet chambers long enough to take in her hair and the thorn and blood tattoo around her arm. “I hope none of that’s permanent. You look weird.”
“Screw you.” Viper would have said, “Fuck you,” but Lucy’s lips couldn’t quite shape the words. “I’m sure you liked that little job perk you picked up at the end? Nailing the president’s daughter has to give you bragging rights in the bodyguard locker room.”
Now he looked almost as angry as she felt. “Is that what you think?”
What I think is that I lost every shred of my dignity when I came here. “What I think is that you’re a professional, so you should have acted like one. That meant telling me who you were. More important, it meant keeping your hands to yourself.”
He sprang up from the dock. “I damn well did! All those days we were trapped in that shitty little hole on Caddo Lake. The two of us rubbing against each other. You running around in a piece of black cellophane you called a bathing suit and that pink top even somebody half blind could see through. I damn well kept my hands to myself then.”
She’d pierced his armor, a small bandage to her pride. “You knew all about me, Panda—or whatever your name really is. You had a dossier full of information on me, but you didn’t reveal one honest thing about yourself. You played me for an idiot.”
“I didn’t play you at all. What happened that night had nothing to do with the job. We were two people who wanted each other. It’s that simple.”
But it hadn’t been simple to her. If it had been simple, she would never have come here.
“I did my job,” he said. “I don’t owe you any more explanations.”
She had to know—had to ask—and Viper formed a sneer to hide the importance of her question. “Did your job include that pathetic, guilt-filled kiss at the airport?”
“What are you talking about?”
His confusion cracked another layer of her self-esteem. “That kiss had your guilty conscience smeared all over it,” she said. “You wanted some kind of absolution because you knew exactly how sleazy you were.”
He stood there stony-faced. “If that’s the way you see it, I’m not going to try to change your mind.”
She wanted him to change her mind. To say something that would make her feel better about everything that had happened since she’d jumped on the back of his motorcycle. But he didn’t, and she’d only inspire pity if she said more herself.
He didn’t try to hold her back as she left the dock. She stopped at the outdoor shower. With her clothes on, she shampooed the lake water out of her hair, then wrapped a beach towel around herself and went inside. A trail of wet footprints followed her across the kitchen floor. She shot the lock on her bedroom door, peeled off her wet clothes, and slipped into a black tank, her leather-belted green tutu skirt, and her combat boots. She took another few minutes to smudge her eyes in black and her lips in brown, and put in her nose ring. Then she stuffed everything she could fit into her backpack. The ferry left in half an hour. It was finally time to go home.
A late-model dark gray SUV with Illinois plates sat in the drive. Odd to think of him behind the wheel of a car. She climbed on the mountain bike and headed for town.
