Out of Uniform

by Catherine Mann

  Damn, she was restless. After waiting so long, a few more hours shouldn’t matter. But they did.

  Her life had changed too much, too fast. She and Jacob had slept together, a new memory that needed to be analyzed, pondered, savored. Except fear for Evan left her nearly breathless.

  As Jacob posted a Closed sign on the front entrance of the hotel, a room door swung wide. Emily stepped out, saw Jacob and stopped. He opened his mouth, and his sister shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. Emily’s shoulders rose as her eyes turned sulky. Jacob’s mouth closed. He nodded and turned away, disappearing inside.

  Dee could hardly believe what she’d just seen. Emily couldn’t actually be angry with Jacob. Chase had been the one in the wrong.

  Except logic didn’t always come into play with adolescent emotions.

  Dee wanted to leap from the truck and shake Emily by her two layers of oversize sweaters. Instead Dee rolled down the window. The teacher in her wouldn’t let the teen skulk away. “Emily? Over here.”

  Emily jerked and nearly slipped on a patch of ice, her heavy eye makeup smeared from tears. She glanced over her shoulder before turning back. Her feet skated along the ice as she warily approached.

  The moody teen scratched her boot heel through the sludge, the baby monitor in hand as she hugged herself. “You doing okay?”

  “Much better than last night.” Of course, that didn’t say much since she’d been mighty damn low.

  “Good.” She kicked a chunk of ice. “I’m sorry about your kid.”

  The ache with Evan’s name on it threatened to overwhelm her, but she wouldn’t let herself fall into a hole of forgetfulness again. She was stronger now. “Thank you, Emily. It’s a scary time for me.”

  Emily swiped at the sludge with her boot again before backing away. “Guess I should go.”

  Dee reached through the window to grab Emily’s elbow. Helping her would help Jacob, and he offered so few opportunities for anyone to give back to him. “No school today?”

  Emily eased her arm free. “It’s Saturday.”

  “Oh, right.” Her life was such a mess she couldn’t keep the days of the week straight. Some candidate for straightening out a sullen teen. “Where’s Chase?”

  Emily studied a snowdrift. “Home, released to his parents who’ve locked him in his room for the rest of his life.”

  So much for pointing out Chase’s brush with the police. Maybe a direct approach might be best. “I know it seems like your brother was rough on Chase last night, but Jacob would have been within his rights to do a lot worse.”

  What a mixed blessing to have regained her memory at such a horrible cost to Jacob and his sister.

  Emily twirled the nursery monitor by the flexible antennae. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Just think about seeing it from your brother’s side. Jacob made the hard choice, even if it’s tough to admit it.” Dee gripped Emily’s arm before she could bolt away. “I do understand how much it hurts when the man you love lets you down.”

  The teen blinked back tears and seemed ready to thaw…Then she backed away. “I gotta go help Grace pack Madison’s stuff.”

  Part of Dee screamed Emily just needed time to reason through the crazy shift in their world. But she’d seen how a day of unresolved anger could stretch into years of alienation. Heaven knew she’d learned that lesson the hard way with her parents, a mistake she planned to fix as soon as she found Evan.

  It was past time he met his grandparents. If only she hadn’t waited too long. The regret would be unbearable.

  She stepped out of the truck and charged after Emily. “Your brother loves you. I’ve seen that. He wants to help you but doesn’t know how.”

  Emily spun on her heels, anger as bright as her unshed tears. “Sure he loves me. He just doesn’t want a screw-up like me or Chase in his life. We’re not all perfect like him, you know. Wait till you mess up, then you’ll see. He’ll dump you just like he’s dumping me onto Grace.”

  The barb hit home and stuck like a prickly bur. Kids didn’t fight fair. She should have remembered that from her teaching days.

  Dee understood well enough how it felt to have a family member’s disapproval, but Jacob was different. “He’s not like your father.” Or mine. “He’s here for you.”

  He’d said Emily wanted to stay in Rockfish, the reason he wasn’t taking her and the baby with him. Jacob took care of everyone.

  But he never let anyone get too close to him.

  Emily backed away. “I don’t need this psychobabble crud from you. I’m outta here.”

  Intellectually Dee understood Emily was transferring her anger from Chase over to Jacob. Yet as Dee watched Jacob lope down the steps with a Thermos of coffee in hand, she couldn’t help but remember Emily’s words.

  Such a perfectionist himself, how would Jacob accept failures from others? She had her fair share of flaws. Her perfectionist parents had frozen her out for years because of one mistake.

  Climbing back inside the truck, Dee shook off her own emotional baggage and focused on Jacob. While in many ways a loner, he never turned his back on anyone in need. He took care of lost souls like herself—like his sister—on a regular basis. Yet how close did he allow himself to become in return? How much of himself did he share?

  A woman could lean on those broad shoulders forever.

  Would he ever lean on her?

  She couldn’t settle for less than everything from a man ever again. If she and Jacob didn’t learn how to share control, find some balance between them, she feared she would lose Jacob as well as Evan. The chill inside her spread, and she couldn’t seem to jam her feet under that heater enough to warm herself.

  Jacob opened the driver’s-side door, a blast of cold air gusting inside. Dee suddenly realized they would be alone together for the night.

  When they arrived at the base’s visitor’s quarters, would they be staying in one room or two?

  Chapter 15

  T ossing aside his duffel bag next to the tiny microwave, Jacob wondered if Dee had expected him to get two rooms rather than one.

  A moot point since he was lucky to have snagged even this last available visitor’s quarter. She had been antsy and distant since he closed the door on the small space with a bed, a blue sofa and corner mini-kitchen. She would likely wear a hole in the carpet if she kept walking around.

  Worries for her son, he could understand. He’d felt that radiating from her every pore when he’d held her while they’d watched the sun come up. This was different.

  She’d been so certain the Suburban hadn’t gone into the river. Could she be doubting now? He didn’t even want to think of what it would do to her if that body turned out to be her ex-husband.

  He needed to calm her, if he only knew where to start. Right now, she’d taken to staring out the window as if she might find answers there.

  Parents always wanted to talk about their children. He’d learned that from his friends and a woman he’d once dated who had a kid from a prior relationship.

  He sat on the sofa and hoped that would encourage her to join him. “Tell me about Evan.”

  Dee’s head swiveled away from the window toward Jacob. Pain glinted in her eyes like icicles on the bare oaks outside, then melted with her tender smile. “Evan loves chocolate ice cream and anything that flies. He has this plastic plane, a tub toy, that he’s carried around forever, like his blanket.” She sniffled and scrubbed the back of her wrist under her nose as she leaned against the wall. “I promised him a toy aircraft carrier for his birthday.”

  Her ache lanced at him with surprising force. He’d felt empathy before, but this was something more. Her pain was his. His investment in finding Evan became all the more personal. “We’ll have another birthday for him with a huge cake and a trip to one of those places with goofy people in costumes, where kids can play video games.”

  How easily the word we slid from his mouth, bringing images of creating a normal family life.

/>   “He would like that…. His birthday.” Her hand fluttered to rest on her stomach. “He was an emergency C-section delivery. The placenta began to separate, and the doctor had to go in—” She blushed, staring at her crossed feet. “Oops, TMI.”

  “TMI?”

  “Too much information.” She tugged the hem of her sweater, molding cashmere to the gentle swell of her breasts. “You don’t need to hear all the details.”

  Jacob waited for her to continue. He wouldn’t let her shut down now that he finally had her talking.

  Dee shoved away from the wall, pacing restlessly, straightening a basket with coffee essentials, nudging the duffel upright with her toe, straightening the bedspread. “I used to mourn having lost out on the childbirth experience. Now I thank God for that scar.” She turned to Jacob. “It made me work harder at regaining my memory. Who knows how long I would have floated otherwise?”

  “You’re a stubborn lady.” He admired the fortitude she had to possess in order to trudge through biting Rockfish winds to get back to the hotel after her ex had left her for dead on a deserted road. “I think you’d have punched through the fog before long.”

  Dee paused from evening out the mini-blinds to smile. “Thank you again for all you’ve done.”

  He didn’t want her gratitude. What did he want? She was important to him. A couple of weeks ago he would have said too important and run like hell. “No thanks needed. And, Dee? We’re going to find your son.”

  “You say that with such confidence. I envy your self-assurance.” She crossed to the sofa and dropped to sit beside him. “I’ve made so many mistakes, Jacob—big screw-ups. I can’t help but wonder if this is my punishment, that I’ve somehow brought this on myself and Evan’s the one who will pay.”

  “We all make mistakes.” He’d made his own fair share in not connecting with his sister. Hell, look at how he’d never managed a serious relationship in thirty-two years. “Worry about your child, cry for him, shout out your frustration. That’s normal. But put the blame where it belongs. On Blane.”

  She shook her head in mute denial.

  Jacob silently damned Blane Lambert to hell for making Dee so wary. Evan and Dee, and even Jacob, were all having to pay. “Mistakes are tough to accept, especially when the stakes are so high. I’m not giving up until I find him. You have to trust me to do this with you.”

  A spark fired in her eyes. “That’s all great—” she held up a firm finger “—as long as I get to be an equal partner in reclaiming my life and my son. While I’m grateful for your help, I can’t sit back and count on you to do everything for me. I need to take charge, to have some control.”

  She flattened her hand against his chest. Memories of making love to her rolled through his mind like a video on fast-forward. He wanted her again, but needed to think about her. She was going through hell right now, had to be suffering from huge emotional fallout after all they’d learned at the police station and from Spike.

  Jacob stared at her hand on his chest. She might need him to lay off, but then again, she might need the comfort after hearing about the Suburban in the water, the body near it.

  He didn’t even want to think about the implications himself, so he couldn’t imagine how torn up she had to be. The air hung heavy between them as he looked back down at her. “Do you want me to sleep on the sofa?”

  A smile, her first today and not much of a smile at that, but a definite tilt to her lips tipped into her cheeks as she swayed toward him. Then he saw the heat, the desire, the need to escape firing into her eyes.

  “In the bed, with me,” she said with conviction, sliding her arms around his waist and tipping her face in an unmistakable invitation for a kiss. “Or we could stay here together on the sofa for now, the bed later.”

  “Good. Because that’s exactly where I want to be.” He reminded himself now wasn’t the time to talk about futures when hers was so uncertain. All the same, he couldn’t help but want more from her. And the more he wanted, the more he stood to lose.

  She’d come full circle, starting in one small lodging room, ending in another. Only this time, she wouldn’t let the world control her.

  She’d meant what she’d said. She wanted to share his room, Jacob’s bed.

  The thought threatened to scare the warmth right out of her. But her every maternal instinct screamed that her son was alive and she knew she was doing everything possible to find him, thanks to Jacob’s help. She couldn’t find Evan tonight, but she could soothe her heart and soul enough now to carry on the fight tomorrow when she might need every scrap of strength she possessed to cope with whatever they discovered.

  Dee angled forward and found his mouth. Jacob looped his arms low around her waist. Kiss for kiss, he twined his tongue with hers, exploring, tasting, demanding.

  She pressed against him until he relented and leaned back on the sofa. Anchoring him, she flattened her tender breasts to his chest, rolled her hips against his already rigid arousal. His hands reached for her shirt, and she shoved them away, pinning them to his sides. This was her show, her night to lose herself if only for a few hours.

  Dee inched away from him, her mouth being the last thing to break contact. “Don’t move.”

  His brows lowered over his moody eyes. He paused, then raised his hands in surrender. Layer by layer, she tossed aside his clothes, rediscovering every patch of his skin with her mouth until tendons strained along his neck.

  Again Jacob reached for her. “Dee, enough.”

  And again she pushed aside his questing hands. “Not nearly.”

  “Well, hell,” he growled. “Then it’s my turn.”

  “Soon. We’ve still got the bed later.”

  Employing the same slow precision with which she’d tossed aside his clothes, she repeated with her own. None of her prior insecurities remained as she shrugged off her bra, stepped from her jeans and whisked away her panties. His gaze heated with appreciation as he watched, further firing her own need.

  Dee scooped his pants from the floor and pulled free his wallet. A quick search uncovered just what she’d expected. He’d come prepared.

  She plucked out the condom and braced her knees on either side of his hips. Dee clasped him, silencing him as she unrolled the condom with a languorous stroke.

  Groaning, he palmed her back and brought her down to him, skin to skin for the first time in what felt like forever. Dee sighed, gently brushing herself along the tempting rasp of the hair on his chest—then gasped as his hands cupped her bottom.

  “Enough,” he said again, his voice leaving no room for argument.

  They rolled from the sofa in a tangle of arms and legs. Jacob twisted at the last minute, and she landed on top of him.

  Exactly where she wanted to be, in control.

  She wriggled until her legs straddled him again. As she lifted to ease herself on him, he grabbed her hips. With a growl of frustration, she clasped his wrists and pinned his arms to the floor.

  Dee took him inside her, control slipping elusively away as the heat of him filled her. Jacob’s jaw clenched as he battled for restraint. She reveled in pushing him to the edge before he’d even had a chance to touch her.

  He shook his hands free of her grasp and filled them with her breasts, his thumbs circling her already pebble-tight peaks. She slid her hands over his and pressed while her hips rocked against him.

  He palmed the small of Dee’s back and began rolling her off him. She resisted. He braced a leg around hers and started to flip Dee to her back. Again, she resisted, her eyes sparking a mix of mischief and resolve.

  He stroked her hair from her face, searching her eyes. “What do you want from me?”

  “Everything.”

  Jacob hooked her leg over his hip and flipped her to her back in a smooth sweep that left her gasping, gripping his shoulders to secure herself the swirl of sensation.

  He drove into her with powerful thrusts she met and equaled. She found new strength in his, new reserves she ne
ver knew she possessed.

  Jacob reached between them and stroked her, teased her. “You’re mine.”

  Dee tensed her leg around him, her body trembling with the force of powerful emotions she only just barely contained. “You’re mine.”

  She watched her words register in his mind a second before she catapulted him over the edge, Jacob’s hoarse shouts of completion sending an aftershock through her. Somewhere in her fogged brain, she heard him gasping, too.

  Was he shaking or was she?

  He gathered her to his chest, buried his face in her hair, and she wondered what the hell had just happened between them.

  You’re mine.

  Her words or his? On a day filled with too many questions, she couldn’t find the answer before sleep overwhelmed her.

  The ringing alarm clock pulled Dee from sleep. She waited for Jacob to hit the snooze button, but the warm weight of his leg between hers didn’t move. The steady beat of his heart thumped beneath her ear as she squinted against the morning light piercing through the mini-blinds.

  Slowly the layers of grogginess peeled away and she realized it wasn’t a clock, it was the—

  “Phone, damn it.” Jacob bolted upright and reached to snag the receiver. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then up to his mussed hair. “Jacob Stone here.”

  Dee gasped, sat up, praying he’d picked up in time. No one knew to call them here except for his friend with the OSI. Anyone else would have used his cell phone number.

  She hugged the plaid cover to ward off the chill of the winter morning and abrupt wake-up after the night of warm comfort in Jacob’s arms. Still, she was immediately alert. Tense. Waiting for any news of her little boy.

  “Yeah,” he barked into the receiver, paused, frowned, glanced at her with inscrutable eyes. “Uh-huh. Right. She’s here with me.”

  Bad news? She prepped herself for the possibility the body in the river could be Blane’s after all. She couldn’t let herself think about the possibility they had found her precious son in those icy waters.