Free Job Hunt by Jackie Keswick Page A

phall.” He set the mug on the table and leaned back in the chair. “Let’s just say… it didn’t end well.”
    “How so?” The blush on Jack’s face intrigued Gareth enough to keep at it.
    “Well….” Jack picked up the mug and hid his face. “I set the ingredients on fire.”
    Gareth bit his lip in a valiant effort not to laugh, but it was useless. “That’s one way to get a hot curry.”
    “It’s not funny!”
    “Yes it is,” Gareth disagreed. “I didn’t think I’d almost have a curry house on my conscience. They still serve you?”
    “With great enthusiasm,” Jack admitted. “They don’t want to see the neighborhood go up in flames any more than I do.”
    “Never thought I’d screw up that badly,” Gareth admitted. “But I’ll make up for it. I promise. I’ll teach you how to cook without starting the next Great Fire of London.”
    “Good luck with that,” Jack grumbled, draining his mug and holding it up. “Is there any more?”
    “Sure.” Gareth reheated the remaining chocolate and refilled Jack’s mug. “Can’t believe that your police friends don’t look after you better,” he mused. “What do you usually do after one of these stunts? Just go home and dine on takeaway and beer?”
    Jack managed a lopsided grin. “That. And put my memory to use.”
    “Missing persons?”
    “Yes,” Jack sighed over his next sip of hot chocolate. “Clive always wants me to look through his database of perverts, but if I’ve spotted any likely kids—like those two boys tonight—I’d rather find out about them.”
    Their earlier banter had eased the tension in Jack’s frame, but now his shoulders crept toward his ears once more. Without a word Gareth rose and stepped behind Jack’s chair.
    “Do you think they can be helped?” he asked as he dropped his hands to Jack’s shoulders and started to rub the tight muscles.
    “If they’re strong enough.” Jack relaxed into Gareth’s touch with a soft exhale. “You don’t ever get out of hell undamaged. It tends to spit you out in jagged pieces. And sometimes it takes just too much effort to put yourself back together.”
    “I’ve always wondered how you knew that.”
    “Now you know.”
    “No, I don’t,” Gareth disagreed. He slid his fingers down to Jack’s shoulder blades, feeling the tightness in the trim frame and wanting to ease it. “I have a very faint idea. At most.”
    The rugby shirt’s collar hampered Gareth’s fingertips on the upward stroke, and he slipped his hand around to Jack’s chest to undo the top button. The fabric loosened, and Gareth’s fingers slid inside to push it wide… when Jack shot out of the chair and away from Gareth as if he’d been burned.
    “Don’t!”

C HAPTER SEVEN
C OMING H OME
     
     
    J ACK TURNED away at the same time as Gareth reached for him and yanked him back. His shirt tore open, revealing a thin strip of leather embossed with an intricate Celtic pattern around his neck. Jack flushed a dull red and stood rigid under Gareth’s scrutiny, staring anywhere but at the man before him.
    Gareth brushed fingers over the soft leather, tracing long-gone bloodstains. “I remember this,” he said, awed as the past came calling in the most unexpected way. His closest brush with death was a fractured memory of heat and sand, shouting voices, and the metallic scent and taste of blood. He’d drifted in and out of consciousness a good deal, especially toward the end, but he remembered Jack tearing the battered leather strip from Gareth’s arm and using it to fashion a tourniquet.
    He had never before considered the whereabouts of that particular strip of leather, and the fact that Jack wore it staggered and enlightened Gareth as much as Jack’s rigid stance and flushed face. Memories and old observations aligned like the tumblers in a complicated lock and opened up chances he’d not even dared to dream about. The choice was easy, though, and a moment later, he pinned Jack against the