Phantom Game (GhostWalkers 18)

“You don’t believe her either, do you?” Camellia came right out and asked him.

“That’s a tough one, honey. I don’t know her. I’m not the kind of man to hang with the women from the other teams. In the old days, before the enhancements, I might have been considered a player, but not anymore. I make everyone nervous when I walk into a room. Whitney put too much of every predatory animal he could in me. Makes for an ugly mix. So I tend to keep to myself. I avoid trouble with the others that way.”

Camellia spun around to look at him. “Wait a minute. When you say this, I’m getting a feeling that I don’t like. Your team members accept you, and you don’t make them nervous, right? Because you go on missions with them all the time and probably have saved their asses.”

He tried not to smile. “Just as they’ve saved mine.”

“So when you say you make everyone nervous when you walk in a room, you aren’t really talking about Team Two members either, are you? Because they’re enhanced as well. It’s their women who don’t know you,” she clarified. “That’s what you’re saying, Jonas. Ken wouldn’t like it if you disturbed her peace of mind, even though you’re up here checking out a threat to her and her family.”

His heart fluttered in his chest. She sounded outraged on his behalf. “Camellia.” He said her name gently, wanting to kiss her again, just because she stood for him and she didn’t know him. He might have deserved her championing him at one time in his life, but Whitney had changed him for all time. “Thank you. I wish I could live up to your good opinion of me.”

“Aren’t you up here checking out a threat to Marigold’s family? It isn’t just Lily and Ryland’s family. You mentioned Briony and Jack. Marigold and Ken. I heard you. Right when we first were talking together. I wanted you to tell me everything you could about them. At the same time, I didn’t want you to say anything more. I was confused and hurt. But I do know you were here for one reason. You felt a threat when no one else did, and you came to make certain the families with wives and children were safe.”

“I suppose I can’t deny that, Camellia. It’s just that with a mixture of all the various enhancements Whitney stuck in me, I can become extremely aggressive. I don’t like it, and I do my best to control it, but that doesn’t mean I’m nice the majority of the time. I’m better outdoors.”

She gestured toward the trail, retreating from his side, dropping a step behind him. “I think I am too. At least, after spending so much time on my own, I feel more at home outside with my plants.”

Jonas knew she was telling him she wasn’t going to accompany him back down to either fortress, not even to the one Team One had built. They were separate from Team Two, a distance away, although escape routes connected them. He didn’t know how Ryland was going to feel about Camellia’s refusal to introduce herself. He would just have to tell Ryland that the man would have to make a trip up the mountain if he wanted to meet her—that was assuming Jonas could convince her not to run.

With a sigh, he resumed walking down the mountain. “You’ll like Jeff and Kyle.” She would. He tried not to think too much about that. “Jeff Hollister and Kyle Forbes are two of the best men I know. Kyle helped me when I was at my absolute worst. Both men stood by me when others would have walked away.”

They continued walking along that very narrow, almost nonexistent trail that wound through the trees. The fog was by turns either dense or thinner, depending on if the wind could penetrate the heavier brush.

“Where was the rest of your team? Weren’t they supportive?”

He found himself with a ghost of a smile on his face. This woman. She didn’t miss anything. “I’d gone off by myself. Something terrible had happened. Really bad. No one blamed me but me. It was well after we’d been broken out of the laboratory and I knew everyone was relatively safe. I had to think things over. I was a mess. Jeff was in bad shape. He had no business coming after me with Kyle, but he did. I didn’t think anyone could find me. That damn Kyle, he’s pretty crazy.”

The affection and compassion that came his way through the network made him clear his throat against a sudden welling of emotion. He’d thought he’d managed to conceal the deep affection he felt for the two men. But he hadn’t considered that the highway of information connecting Camellia and himself worked both ways. Images and feelings had poured from Camellia to him, but apparently, she was on the receiving end as well. She had just as clear of a picture of him as he had of her. He didn’t like that. She could see the worst in him. The jealousy. The way he wanted to hold her close to him. Keep her away from everyone else.