by A. S. Green
You should have said something, Sparke. Reminded her who you are.
Negative. I’m not the one who walked away. On top of that, I haven’t gone and changed my looks. There’s no reason for her not to have recognized me. All I’ve done is cut my hair and grown a beard. But I guess when Natalie O’Brien throws someone away, she throws him away.
She went on with her life. I went back to…
“Fuck!”
Obviously I didn’t mean much to her. That’s fine. I’ve been there before. What we had… It was a short blip on the radar. Five weeks. What I’ve been through since… What I lived through…
Exactly. You lived, Sparke.
I make a scoffing sound and drop my keys and wallet on the bedside table. Then I text Murray to do an emergency background check on one Natalie O’Brien.
I kick off my shoes, unbutton my shirt, and remove my pants. I hang them up, then retrieve my jacket from the floor, sealing up all my work clothes in a garment bag that I fold over the back of the chair.
Wearing just my boxers, I walk into the tiny bathroom. The walls are paneled in knotted pine. There’s a small crack running diagonally across the bottom corner of the mirror. My face looks ancient. Like I haven’t slept in days. Months, maybe.
And now I’ve saddled myself with Natalie O’Brien for twenty-four hours. How am I supposed to pull that off? Sitting in the cab of my Escalade with her just inches away. Smelling like flowers, all that amazing hair… And, Christ, those lush curves I used to know so well—looking more like a woman than she even did before.
I brace my hands wide on the counter and hang my head. What the hell is wrong with me?
You just want to be close to her again.
I lift my head and stare myself dead in the eye. She won’t show in the morning. No chance in hell. She’s probably lying in her bed right now in full-on panic mode. She’s probably on the phone with her friend the party planner, trying to figure out how to bail on me without sounding like the flake I accused her of being.
Given that she bailed on me before, I thought that word was the elephant-size hint that would kick some memory loose, but no.
Shit. I should have given this job to Murray.
Too late now, asshole. Might as well make the best of it.
“Shut up, Charlie.” I won’t get any sleep if I can’t get him to stop riding my ass. “The fact that you keep talking to me is just one more reason why I won’t be making the best of anything with Natalie.”
She deserves better. For Christ’s sake, my closest relationship is with the dead man in my head. I’m so messed up, I could be grand marshal of the shit parade. The thought almost makes me laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed. Christ, was it with her? No. There were good times after that. There must have been. I’m sure of it.
Tomorrow, if she shows, I’ll just have to grin and bear it. Do the job, then send her back to her safe little life. Pretend we don’t have a history. Pretend that earlier tonight, when we were standing outside the ladies’ room, I didn’t want to wrap all that fantastic red hair in my fist and kiss her so hard her knees would buckle.
The way she handled all that blood. Never flinched. She’s always been so cool. That’s what drew me to her in the first place.
How could anyone so amazing let herself waste away on that tiny little island? Someone like her should be thriving in a big city. New York. Los Angeles. Hell, even Chicago. Maybe it’ll be good for her to see the city tomorrow. Maybe it’ll inspire her to get away and do more.
Jesus, why do I care?
I don’t.
I know what comes from letting people in. They worm their way into your heart, then leave you. Just like that. Pulverized. Raw. Not again. It’s just twenty-four hours. I’ve lived through far worse.
Speaking of worse, my phone chooses that exact moment to ring. I walk back into the bedroom and accept the call despite my better judgment. “Debra.”
“Jackson,” she says mimicking my formal tone. It’s two a.m. in New York, but she sounds wide-awake. This is not new.
“What do you need?” I frown at the painting over the bed: two gnomes kissing under a pine tree.
She pauses as she decides what tack she’s going to take, bitchy or saccharine. “Now, sweetheart, why would you think I needed something?”
Saccharine. “Must have something to do with the fact you’re calling.”
She clicks her tongue. “Don’t sass. You know your mother doesn’t like sass.”
I sit on the edge of the mattress and do my level best not to engage. “It’s late, Debra. I’m just off work. I’m tired. What do you need from me?”
She makes a noise as if I’ve offended her, but then she says, “The super is gonna turn off my electric. I need help.”
I close my eyes and try to think. I’ve heard stories like this from her before. Remember what happened last year, I tell myself. Remember how you found her. Give her money, and she won’t spend it on the electric bill.
“Jax, please.” She’s whining. God, I hate this part. “I need you.”
She doesn’t need me, and I sure as hell don’t need her. I push my toe against the cigarette burn in the carpet. “I’ll call Leslie. She’ll have it deposited into your account. But this is the last time, Debra. Do you hear me? Last time.”
“Of course it is, Jackson. Thank you. Sleep well, son.” She hangs up before I can tell her what she’s heard a million times before—only one woman had the right to call me “son,” and it sure as hell wasn’t her.
Chapter Ten
Natalie
7:00 a.m.
Suffice to say I didn’t sleep well. I spent my wakefulness packing, then packing some more. I justify my two bags by the simple fact that I don’t know what to bring for a working road trip as assistant to a serious badass-investigator-cherry-popper with no long-term memory.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I say into the phone as I buzz around my bedroom, looking for last-minute things. He’s already down at the post office and wondering where I am. “I’ve found someone to sub for me. Elise…yes, Elise. Don’t worry. She’ll do great… Dad, it’ll just be twenty-four hours. I’ve got you all taken care of. You’ll barely have time to miss me… Love you, too. Now I gotta go.” I make a kiss into the phone, then head for the marina and nine hours in a car with Jax. All aboard! The crazy train has left the station.
Bennet takes me across the channel on his new boat. Delilah comes along for the ride and keeps me warm.
Once we’re tied off at the dock outside the Rainy Cove Resort, Bennet waits for me to decide the next step. I guess the dark circles under my eyes are confessing my nervousness.
No time for that. I set Delilah on the floor, give the bottom edge of my shorts a little tug, then step out of the boat and onto the dock.
Bennet hands me my thermos of coffee, then grabs my two suitcases. We head toward the cabins, and he deposits my bags behind the shiny black Escalade. Once his arms are free, he pulls me into a big-brother hug. “You’re sure about this?”
“Not at all.” I hug him back, then step out of his arms.
“Listen, Nat.” He rakes one hand through his wind-tangled hair. “I’ve watched you for a few years now. I know everyone counts on you, probably more than they should, but you don’t owe this guy anything. You don’t need to take on his problems on top of everything else you do.”
“I know. I’m not doing it for him.” At least not totally. Jax does, in fact, need me, but I’m doing this for me. I’ve never been to Chicago.
Bennet exhales. “Well, I guess that makes me feel a little better.”
I glance behind me at cabin number twelve, then back to Bennet. “Every year it gets harder to leave. I don’t want to get stuck.”
A part of me has a twinge of guilt remembering that my father wanted to leave the island—and my mother—years ago, but I convinced him I’d help make his life easier if he’d only stay. So that’s what I did: threw myself into easing the way for ev
eryone around me.
Some people might call it codependent. I called it love, and now my parents are back together, so it was worth the effort.
“I know. I just don’t want to see you get hurt by this guy.” He shoves his hands into his pockets as if he’d like to give me another hug but doesn’t want to undo my tenuous hold on self-confidence. Good guy.
I give him a little nod. “Men can be jerks, B. I know that already. Don’t worry. There won’t be any surprises.”
He tips his head to the side. “Sucks that that’s the lesson life’s taught you.”
“Yeah, well…” I say on a sigh. “They can’t all be you, right?”
He gives me a sheepish smile because we both know, once upon a time, he almost fucked things up with Kate.
I chuck him on the shoulder. No need for things to get so serious. “Thanks for the ride. But you should get back to your woman.”
His eyes go warm. He looks like he wishes he could teleport himself back over the lake, but he takes the time to give me another hug. “Take care. Be good. Let us know how things are going.”
I click my heels and salute.
Bennet jogs down the small hill to the dock, hops into his boat, and unties the line. He raises his hand to wave, and I watch him bob over a few waves before he really takes off. When it’s too late to call him back, I say a little prayer that ends not with an “amen” but with a screen door slamming.
I turn to see Jax on the front porch of his cabin. His beard is a little thicker. He’s also wearing perfectly faded jeans that are slung low on his hips and a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up.
My favorite leather jacket in the whole world is draped over his arm, and in his hand is a bright-yellow coffee cup with steam rolling out over the top.
“You’re here,” he says, like he can’t quite believe it.
“So it would appear.”
He adjusts his attitude into one of nonchalance and takes a sip of coffee.
I gesture toward Bennet, who’s making a beeline across the water; his boat’s motor is barely audible now. “Bennet gave me a lift. I didn’t want to bother with my car on the ferry.”
Jax turns toward the line of Bennet’s wake. “You’ve got a lot of friends.”
I shrug. “I’ve got enough.”
His attention quickly shifts to me, and I fold my arms over my chest in case the cool morning air is making my nipples pop through my T-shirt.
He rolls his lips inward, then inhales deeply before letting out a forced exhale. “Got anything to say to me?”
“Um…” Of course I could have said a whole lot yesterday, but I’m sticking with my decision to stay quiet. I doubt I’ll be going to Chicago if I remind him of our history. “You mean like, ‘thank you for the awesome opportunity’?”
His face hardens, and he jerks his head in the direction of the SUV. “Never mind. Let’s motor.”
That’s when he spots my bags sitting on the ground behind his car. He raises his eyebrows in a way that says, You do remember it’s only twenty-four hours? I shrug in response to his unspoken question. He then opens the back and heaves my suitcases into the cargo area beside a hanging garment bag, his duffel, and three heavy-duty cases of what’s got to be very expensive equipment.
He slams the door shut and heads for the driver’s side. I climb into the passenger seat and slip my thermos into the cup holder.
Jax turns the ignition, then takes another sip of his coffee. It’s still in that open mug. I click my tongue and give my head a little shake. “You’re going to slosh boiling coffee all over yourself once we get moving.”
“No, I won’t.” He takes another sip and winces from the heat.
“Suit yourself,” I say on a shrug. “It’s your burned crotch.”
“I never spill hot coffee on my crotch,” he says as he shifts out of park. “Call it a gift.”
Chapter Eleven
Natalie
Jax drives with his window wide-open and, despite the tornado of hair flying around my head, tells me that the open window is a “nonnegotiable.” I huff out a breath and tie my hair up into a knot. Nothing left to do but focus on the two-lane county road that lies barren before us, because apparently Jax doesn’t do small talk.
Or big talk, for that matter.
He doesn’t comment on last night’s wedding, the island, or even the deer that just darted out in front of us. He certainly says nothing about the bizarre situation in which we now find ourselves. He doesn’t even turn on the radio.
My curiosity is desperate to fill the huge gaps between the little bits I already know about him (shitty parents, sainted grandmother, former bouncer, excellent lover, now big-shot New York security firm owner), but his answers come out clipped and slightly irritated. His tone should make me squirm, but somehow it’s a comfort to know why he started his business (had the skills), and where he learned them (here and there). It’s enough of an almost normal conversation that I reweigh the pros and cons of coming clean.
Is it too late to pretend that it just occurred to me that we know each other? Like, I hadn’t realized it until we were back on the road together, but bam! It just hit me.
What would I say? Something like, Hey, Jax. I just realized! You’re the guy who popped my cherry, screwed me until I couldn’t see straight, then totally ruined me for all other men, oh, is that a McDonald’s? I hear they brought back the McRib.
Or would that make everything worse?
What if I bite the bullet and remind him of our history, but he still can’t place me? What if he ends up being like, Oh, that was you? And then we have to sit here, in this close space, for fucking hours. God, that would be awkward as hell.
It’s already awkward as hell. I swear I’ve never had such perfect posture. And my hands. What are they doing? They’re just sitting there on my knees, turned up like, what? Like he’s suddenly going to want to hold one?
I decide not to say anything, and after a while, my silence sits like another sullen passenger, reclining there in the gaping space between us.
The rhythm of tires going over the seams in the road comes into hyperfocus. Without thinking, I begin to count them. Thirty… One seventy… Three hundred and twelve… Four—
“So, hey.”
“Fuck!” My body jerks at the unexpected sound, and I slap my palm over my heart. Oh, God. I think I’m having a heart attack.
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “What the hell, Natalie?”
“You startled me. Are you always so loud?” My heart is pounding frantically against my palm. I take a calming breath. It’s almost enough. One more.
When my chest settles back into a less alarming rhythm, I find sufficient breath to finally say, “You can’t sit there quietly forever, then suddenly say something. Not out of the blue like that. Not without proper warning.”
“Like what?”
“Like clear your throat or something first, dude. Jeez. Now, what did you want to say?”
His lips turn down at the corners. “I was starting to ask what you packed. You brought a lot.”
“Oh.” I take another breath. “I didn’t know what I’d need, so I brought a little of everything. No worries. I’m not moving in with you.” God, please tell me I did not say that.
His jaw tenses for a second. “Did you bring that black dress you were wearing last night?”
“No,” I say on a laugh. “It’s in my hamper. I did bring lots of black, though. I got the idea from the rest of your team that that’s how you want your people to dress.”
“But not a black dress?”
“Um…I mostly packed pants and long-sleeved T-shirts. Nice ones, though.”
“T-shirts?” He glances over. “I thought I made it clear. You need to dress sexy for this job.”
My mouth pops open, and it takes me a second before I respond. “I thought you were joking with that sex kitten crap.”
“How would that be considered a joke?” he asks.
<
br /> I make a huffing sound and unwrap a hard candy that I had in my purse. “Would your other assistants wear a dress? Because you can stick your double standard where the sun don’t shine.” His team last night was dressed for action, not for the party.
“Erin, the one you’re covering for, she would. The others only when they’re in drag.”
I turn to face him, because I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not. “Are you making a joke?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t even crack a smile. Does he ever laugh? I remember the sound, but it’s hard to picture it coming out of the man beside me.
“I brought a few dresses. A black leather mini…”
“Something less headbanger, please.”
“Okay. I’ve got a strapless yellow maxidress and a navy T-shirt dress. I thought I’d want something comfortable for the plane ride home.” I bite down and crack the candy.
“Then we’ll stop somewhere. Pick something up. Good thing we left on time. Here…” He fishes his phone out of the pocket of his leather jacket and tosses it to me. “While I’m thinking about it, put your number in my phone for later.”
I’m tempted to make a sarcastic comment about how he never used my number before, so why start now? I avoid the temptation by turning on the radio. “Y’know, if there was something specific you wanted me to wear, you could have told me.”
“And you could have asked,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road.
“We’re going to have a lot of trouble if we don’t start communicating better.”
He glances over, and his eyes lock with mine before taking a quick dip to my mouth. His jaw tightens, those thin bands of muscle flexing, then he goes back to staring straight ahead. “Duly noted. Here are some more nonnegotiables: I do the driving.”
“Fine by me.”
“And no music. I prefer the quiet.”
“But…”
“And this is not a democracy.” He drains the remains of his coffee, and when he sets down his mug, it’s at a different angle than before. World’s Greatest Grandson, it says. A lump rises in my throat.
