by A. S. Green
Chapter Twelve
Natalie
Once we make Duluth, we cross the high bridge over the tip of Lake Superior and head into Wisconsin. The crossing requires a lot of braking and turning. Driving shouldn’t be so erotic, but every time Jax moves his leg or walks his hands around the wheel, I am hyperaware of every flex of muscle and line of sinew. It reminds me of the power of his body and how it felt moving against mine.
Every time we touched, even just our hands, it was electric. Baby, what you do to me. I can still pull up the sound of his voice when he realized I was a virgin—You should have told me—or how he stilled, waiting for me to catch up. That’s it. Just tell me when you’re ready. I remember the pressure of him moving inside me, so intense I swore I could hear colors and taste sound.
“Is it always like this?”
“Not by a long shot. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”
I didn’t know much, but I knew it wasn’t normal for two people to connect so quickly. I was sure of that.
The cars ahead of us come to an abrupt stop, and Jax hits the brakes. His arms brace against the wheel, and I see those same muscled forearms pushing up off my body as he arched his neck and released.
I clear my throat. I’m being ridiculous. Time marches on, and it’s time for me to do the same. This is a professional relationship now, and I can be professional. I take another stab at meaningless small talk, but the more I do, the more irritated he seems to get with me.
“Listen,” he says, “I appreciate your attempt to make the trip easier, but I prefer to be left to my thoughts.”
“Deep thoughts?” I ask, teasing just a little.
He tightens his mouth for a second before saying, “Not always. Sometimes I’ve got nothing in my head.”
I stare at him for a second, the corners of my mouth twitching. Does he really want to make it that easy for me? “You know you’ve walked yourself into a joke, right?”
He does nothing to acknowledge it.
“Oh, come on,” I say with a bit of exasperation. “Not going to even laugh at yourself for that one?”
He gives me the side eye.
“Fine,” I say with a shrug. “Then that’s my mission, and I choose to accept it.”
“What mission?”
“By the end of this day, some way, somehow, I am going to make you laugh.”
He breathes out hard through his nose. It’s a sound of derision. “Good luck with that.”
Then he braces his arm against the steering wheel again, and his bicep bulges. Ugh. He’s so hot I have to crack my own window for some additional air, then I distract myself by doing a Google search of all the sites we should see on our way to Chicago.
“Looks like we’re going to go through Roscoe, Illinois,” I say, breaking the silence.
“True.” He glances over at me, then flips on his blinker to switch lanes. More muscles flexing. God help me.
I clear my throat. “There’s a museum there that’s got the hats Bonnie and Clyde were wearing when they died.”
“Is that so?”
“And some of Elvis’s sunglasses.”
“All right.”
“So we should stop.”
Jax shakes his head. “Negative.”
I turn in my seat to look at him straight on, then blink twice before I realize he’s being serious. “You can’t go on a road trip and not see the sights.”
How does he not know this? On our way to the Mers concert in Kansas City, he was the one who made us stop at Leila’s Hair Museum to check out the six hundred wreaths of human hair.
I clear my throat and continue. “There’s also a funeral home in Palatine that has a mini-golf course with coffins and headstones for obstacles. The website says you can stop in and play a round so long as there isn’t a funeral going on. And there’s a—”
“This isn’t a pleasure cruise. I’m not happy we have to stop to get you a dress.”
I mutter, “You’re no fun.”
He doesn’t disagree.
My phone pings with a text. “It’s my dad.” Then I say to myself really more than Jax, “I hope everything’s okay at the post office.” I feel a little guilty. There’s all the retail inventory to go through today.
“He’s a grown man,” Jax says. “He’ll survive.”
I bite my tongue, because Jax simply doesn’t understand. I know everything my dad needs, and I know when he’s going to need it, and I know where to find it. There’s no way Elise can be all that for him in one day. My dad—hell, my family—survives only because I make it so.
My phone pings again. Dad can’t remember the password for the POS terminal. No worries. I got this.
…
After our second hour on the road, Jax finally gives in on the no-music rule, but we quickly lose our radio signal amid the corn and soybean fields, cheese chalets, and taxidermy shops.
He rests his left arm on the edge of his open window and, for a while, I’m distracted by the pale skin inside his elbow. Then the blue vein that runs just below the surface. His arm hair glints with gold from the sunlight, and I realize I have to shake myself out of this funk before I go insane.
“Do you have an aux cord?” I ask.
“No.”
“Yeah, right.” I jokingly slap at his arm. The Jax I knew had his iPod completely loaded and was so into the newest sound he’d drop everything to follow a random indie band like the Mers cross-country. He could tell you who won best new artist at the Grammys since 1959 and even had strong opinions on the necessity of preserving certain types of vintage stereo equipment. The Jax I knew would have an aux.
He looks down at the spot on his bicep where I made contact, and I recognize my mistake. I’m being too friendly. Too familiar. Unlike me, he has no context for it.
“Seriously?” I ask, reacclimating myself to the here and now. “You don’t have a cord?”
“Nothing but serious.”
I shake my head but pop open the glove box to see what’s inside. I pull out a square of stiff, embroidered fabric. It’s a patch—the kind you might sew onto a jacket—with the US Navy logo.
“What’s this?” I ask. “Were you in the navy?”
A band of muscles flexes in his jaw. He almost seems mad that I asked. “Yes.”
So much for conversation, but I’ve got a million more questions. He was already twenty-four when we were together, and he never mentioned anything about the navy. “When? Where were you stationed?”
“Virginia.”
“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t elaborate, so I test our boundaries again—this time giving his arm a playful nudge. “Oh, come on. You were doing so well. This is called a conversation. Say it with me. Con-ver—”
His eyes dart over to me, and I can tell he’s not digging the sarcasm. New tack. All seriousness. “Fine. Did you have to go overseas?” And then I think, oh my God, was he ever injured? He doesn’t look hurt.
“This topic is over,” he says, and I can tell this is another one of his nonnegotiables. “How about you tell me how long you’ve lived on that island.”
I turn my body slightly away from his and subtly roll my eyes. Somewhere in the back of his thick skull, he knows the answer to that question already. “All my life.”
“Uh-huh. And why didn’t you ever leave? Didn’t you ever want to…do more?” His tone gives me pause. He sounds almost bitter. Like he takes it personally.
I shrug. “I always wanted to but never got the chance.” This isn’t exactly accurate, of course. More like never took the chance.
“Until now,” he adds.
Before I can respond, my phone pings. It’s a text from Kate: How’s it going? Have you called him on the carpet yet? Better yet, have you got him on the carpet?
I pinch my lips together and quickly snap back my response: What is *wrong* with you?
A second later Kate comes back with a sad emoji and Party pooper.
I snort. Those are strong words from Kate.
>
“Something wrong?” Jax asks.
“It’s just Kate. She’s checking to see how far we’ve gotten.” I smirk at my own innuendo.
“Do your friends always have to know every detail of your life?”
I shoot him a look of annoyance. “It’s not a detail of my life. You act like you don’t have friends who just call to say hey.”
“I don’t.”
“Of course you do. Everyone does.”
“I have employees, and I’ve got clients. We don’t say hey.”
I look at him, and his eyes move back and forth a few times between the road and my face. Then he notices I’m still holding the navy patch. He reaches over and slowly takes it from me.
As his long, warm fingers slide against mine, I suppress a gasp by quickly bending over and digging deeper into the glove box. I come up with a thin black nylon CD case with a dozen plastic sleeves. All but three are empty. There’s one disc that’s not even labeled.
“What’s this?” My voice is shaky, but hopefully I’m the only one who hears it.
He glances over, but then his eyes go back to the road. “Didn’t realize I still had that. I don’t remember what’s in there.”
“Is it okay if I play one?”
His lips tighten, but he doesn’t tell me no.
I pull out the unmarked one and slip it into the player. A second later, air catches in my throat. It’s the Mers. The title track to their Wild Child album.
She was down for the money, flew to the show,
my little wild child don’t go slow.
You’d think the memories would be done haunting me, but this one song finishes me off, drowning me in the heady scent of cigarettes, sweat, and years of stale beer soaked into old wooden dance floors.
Bodies jump in unison. Slick skin glances against my own. The tingling sensation—somehow both odd and familiar—of a new friend’s fingers exploring my body. His mouth on mine.
I can’t help but glance over. The corners of Jax’s eyes are tight. Is he thinking about macking on some faceless chick at a concert in Des Moines, or is it just the sun in his eyes?
Take a look and you might find
a girl who’s waiting all the time
To grab you tight and make the show;
wild child, wild child, please don’t go.
“What band is this?” I ask, testing the waters. “It sounds familiar.”
“I don’t remember their name, but they don’t exist anymore.” Jax hits the accelerator, and my body slams back against my seat.
Chapter Thirteen
Jackson
After More Than Three Hours on the Road
When we hit Eau Claire, Natalie pushes her seat back and extends her long legs onto the dash. A minute or so passes, and for a second I think she might fall asleep. Then she jerks up as if something has occurred to her, and she looks at me. Her bright-blue eyes are wide with a mixture of excitement and concern.
“At some point you’re going to tell me what you want me to do tonight, right?”
I give my head a little shake—part amusement, part disbelief.
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“That would have been a good question to ask me last night while we were still negotiating.” I glance over at her and suppress a smile.
She acts like she’s considering my logic, then she dismisses it with a wave of her hand. “Well, tell me now. Who’s your client?”
I don’t answer her question right away. “When you jumped in without knowing all the facts…that made me a little worried. Got my guy Murray to run a background check on you overnight…to make sure you were all there.” I tap my finger against my temple.
“A background check?” She sounds offended, but that just goes to show how unsophisticated her employment history has been. “On me?”
“You’re the only one in the car with me.”
She blinks once, slowly. “You checked into me?”
I glance over at her again and narrow my eyes. Her surprise is a little much, even coming from a small town where every potential employer has known her since birth. “You graduated cum laude from Bell Harbor College; you live with your parents, even though you’ve saved enough to get your own place; you have a well-used Netflix subscription, as well as ones to In Style magazine, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone; you pay your taxes on time and get a small refund every year but you never use it to take a vacation; you have a black belt in karate; and—”
“How do you know that? I haven’t done karate since I was twelve.”
“Write-up in the paper. The whole island was very proud. Can you still kick through a board?”
“Want to test me?” She arches one eyebrow; there are probably a few things she’d like to kick at this point. For me, I can’t help thinking what a little physical contact might do to refresh her memory.
“What I want—” I glance over and hold her gaze a little longer than I should given I’m driving, but the highway is straight. Obviously I’m a glutton for punishment. Her eyes are still wide, her lips are parted. I want to kiss every tiny freckle across the bridge of her nose. “—is to know why you never asked me last night what I’ve hired you to do.”
She exhales and shakes her head. “I figured if the job was too difficult for me, you wouldn’t have brought me.”
“Hmm,” I say in a way that should tell her I’m not convinced. “And it had nothing to do with being that desperate to get off the island?”
She gives me what I think is supposed to be the evil eye, but it just comes off as cute. When I don’t cower, she tosses one spiraling red lock over her shoulder and says, “Whatever. Back to topic. Who’s the celebrity client for tonight? Please tell me it’s George Clooney.”
Is that the kind of man she’s into these days? “It’s not Clooney.”
“I was kind of counting on Clooney,” she says with a sigh.
“It’s not Clooney.”
“Then who?” She drops her feet to the floor and turns in her seat to face me again.
“Mrs. John Fenton III.” I look over my left shoulder and switch lanes.
“Never heard of her. Or him, for that matter.”
I speed up, pass the guy we’ve been following, then switch back to the right lane. “No reason you should have.”
“I thought you only did celebrity gigs.”
“High-profile security, but that’s just one small part of my business. Most of the time it’s investigations; we’re either tracking down skips or looking into an employee some company suspects of embezzling. Cheating husbands. Cheating wives. Drug dealers. Insurance fraud…”
“Okay, so tonight?”
“Tonight there’s a meeting of real estate moguls at a mansion in downtown Chicago. The house is owned by a nonprofit that’s looking for investors to do a big restoration project. If they can’t come up with the cash, it will likely get torn down to make way for some new high-rise condominiums. Some of the potential investors are going to be hard to convince.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip, then asks, “So what are we doing there?”
“One of my team members has me set up as a possible investor. Charles Ridgeway from Toronto. You call me Charlie tonight.”
“You should totally vote to save the building, Charlie.” She says this so brightly I get a flash of a younger version of her. Always ready to jump in. Never looking twice.
“I’m not there to cast a vote.”
She frowns, then she looks toward her window. After another second, she looks back at me with her eyebrows pulled together. “If you’re Charlie, who am I?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out.”
I didn’t mean to sound so heavy, but I guess my subconscious has been wondering this since last night. Who is she now? Why did she never do all the exciting things she planned for herself? Whatever happened to the girl who wanted to manage a rock band and travel the world? Maybe bust up a few hotel rooms?
She calls
me out. “Is that some kind of existential metaphor? Because that will get old real fast.”
I purse my lips in acknowledgment, then, after a second, say, “Fine. Erin was going to play the part of my cousin. That’s now you.”
“What’s my name?”
“You’re Natalie O’Brien.”
“Boring.”
“Not necessarily.” She has never been boring. “But if you want, you can be Natalie Ridgeway.”
“Cool, but I’m still not following. Who’s Mrs. John Fenton III?”
“The wife of one of the real estate moguls who will be in attendance. He’s from Lansing, but he’s been spending most of his time lately in Chicago. He’s been telling his wife it’s for business, but she suspects he’s being unfaithful.”
“His wife thinks he has a girlfriend in Chicago.”
I tip my head to the side in partial confirmation. “She suspects he’s had many girlfriends in Chicago.”
“And you’re going to somehow learn the truth while you’re talking restoration projects over dinner?”
“No,” I say slowly. Is this the point where she flakes on me? “You are.”
“Me?” she squeaks.
“Okay. We both are. But you’re going to find out if the bastard is inclined to cheat on his wife.”
“Wh—? Are you…? You think I’m going to sleep with some skeevy rich guy from Michigan? Forget about it! You cannot be serious.” Then she mutters, so low I don’t think I’m supposed to hear, “I’m going to kill Kate for getting me into this.”
I shake my head.
“What?” she asks. “I’m not. Is this what you meant about me being a sex kitten? Why would you think I’d be down with that?”
“You’re going to flirt with Fenton and see if he has any inclination toward a woman other than his wife. That’s a start.”
“And you think he’ll be interested in me?”
“Is that a trick question?” God, look at her. Who wouldn’t be interested? I’m not in a position to have a woman in my life, and even I’m interested.
For a second she looks flattered, then she’s back to looking freaked and wanting to throttle me. “Then what? How far do I have to take this?”
