by Jewel E. Ann
“Then come with me.”
Jackson shook his head.
“Because of Ryn?”
“Because I have students, and a house, and a life here now. Because we’re not supposed to leave this state without notifying G.A.I.L, because—”
“Because you’re in love.”
“No.” He glared at her, continuing the adamant shake of his head.
“I don’t blame you for staying for her, but don’t blame me for leaving for him.”
“Not the same thing and you know—”
“You’re right, it’s not! You’ve been here with Ryn and I’ve been a fucking miserable mess for weeks, but you wouldn’t know it because I’ve done what I do best—ignore the worst Goddamned hand of cards anyone has ever been dealt.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “But I’m tired of missing him and wondering why he’s there and I’m here.”
Jackson sighed. “Fine, then call McGraw and if he approves your little trip then you have my blessing.”
“I’m going and you’re not going to say anything to McGraw,” Jillian said each word with slow precision.
“You can’t do this to me again.”
Jillian drew her brows together. “Again?”
“Claire.”
“Don’t,” she warned.
“You told me you were going to San Diego with Claire and I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anyone.”
“That’s not—”
“What?” Jackson rested his hands on his hips and leaned forward. “Fair? Is that what you were going to say? Because you’re right, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that you make me feel responsible for everybody’s fucking life. It’s not fair that I have to keep your secrets and keep you alive.”
He was right and every cell in her brain knew it. A downside to being Jillian Knight was the tendency to ignore all reason. She did everything one-hundred percent or not at all. AJ was unfinished business.
“I absolve you of your brotherly duties because I’m going. I have to.”
Jackson looked at the ceiling. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
Passionate. Jillian lived her life with an intensity born of deep passion. Jackson did too, he just refused to see their shared reflection in the mirror.
*
McGraw didn’t stop Jillian from making her first trip to Portland. Jillian had no reason to believe he’d stop her from making a second trip. Although Jackson didn’t like him, he still referred to McGraw as Jillian’s other big brother. She retched a little every time Jackson made the comparison.
After landing in Portland, she rented a Jeep and texted AJ.
Done
Her nerves were frayed from the opposing friction of fear and anticipation over seeing him. She had no idea why he’d beckoned her and why it seemed to be such a secret. It didn’t matter. He was the only one who mattered as she waited in a Subway parking lot just five miles from his parents’ house.
Sarge: One hour. 2 blocks north.
“Calm the fuck down, Jillian.” She rested her hand over her chest. “It’s not like you’re kidnapping him.”
It had been too many weeks since she’d seen him. A lifetime ago, or so it felt after resigning herself to the fact that she would never see him again. She held her breath as a figure moved toward the Jeep, a dark shadow in the night.
He opened the door and slid in the gray leather seat. Jillian continued to hold her breath. He didn’t even look at her.
“Go.” The profile of the man beside her barely resembled the man she’d been with in Omaha. He’d lost weight, mostly muscle weight, and his cheekbones were more prominent against his slightly sunken eyes. No hair. No eye brows. No eye lashes.
Her gaze lingered on the raised burn mark near his left temple. She clenched her hand to keep from reaching for him. Finally, she exhaled, turning on the headlights and shifting into drive.
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“Home?”
He shook his head.
Less than ten minutes later he was asleep. She rested her hand on his. He didn’t move so she just drove. By three in the morning Jillian needed sleep. Somewhere in nowhere Idaho she pulled into the parking lot of a hotel and paid for a room. AJ still hadn’t moved. Jillian found herself brushing her fingers over his wrist, feeling for a pulse. A weak beat, but nonetheless, a beat.
“AJ?” she whispered several times before he stirred to consciousness. “Let’s go inside.”
With groggy eyes he surveyed the area and nodded once. Jillian wrapped his arm around her shoulder, doing her best to steady him enough to make it to the room. He collapsed on the bed and just like that, he was out again. Jillian swallowed past the lump in her throat as she looked at the shell of a man that she used to know.
After pulling off his shoes, she tucked a pillow under his head and tried to move his legs so they both rested on the bed instead of hanging off the edge. Then she sank onto the bed next to his and closed her eyes, hoping when she opened them he’d look different—stronger, more alive.
*
A moaning of a wounded animal woke Jillian several hours later. She shot up, disoriented and panicked until AJ came into sight. He coughed a few times then squinted his eyes open.
“Water,” he said with a raspy voice.
Jillian filled a cup in the bathroom and handed it to him as he struggled to a sitting position on the bed. He took it down in three large swallows.
“More.”
She nodded and refilled his cup. After drinking the second glassful, he let his eyes settle on her for the first time.
“You’re stunning,” he whispered, the dryness in his throat still evident.
Luke had told her everything was relative, so although she felt far from stunning, given her present company, she conceded to the stunning compliment.
“Thank you. You look like shit.”
AJ worked hard for a small smile. It was barely detectable, but she saw it.
“God, I’ve missed you.” He dropped his head back against the headboard.
“Well, I assumed from the nasty burns that they’ve been frying your brain, but that crazy statement just confirmed it.”
Another hint of a smile. “Come here.” He opened his arms.
Jillian stared at him.
“Don’t act like you’re afraid of breaking me. You’ve already done that … more than once.”
She wanted, needed, a smart-ass remark to give back to him, but seeing him that way broke something inside of her. So she curled up on his lap and rested her ear against his chest as he wrapped her in his arms.
“Jackson’s screwing your housekeeper.” She batted away a rebel tear.
AJ’s chest vibrated with a soft chuckle. “Of course he is.”
“She’s beautiful and very nice. I can’t believe you didn’t snatch her up yourself.”
He kissed the top of her head and another tear broke free, but she caught it before it fell to his chest. “I’m not into the pretty, nice girls. I kinda have a thing for evil temptresses who usually have a black eye or busted lip. Flawless beauty is overrated.”
Jillian smiled, pressing her lips to his sternum. “You just said I’m stunning.”
“I meant shocking. Your hair is a tangled mess, and you need a shower.”
“Fuck you.”
Another kiss on her head. “There’s my girl.”
“At least I have hair.”
“Low blow.”
She slid her hand over his crotch. “I don’t think you’re ready for a low blow. Maybe after I get some food in you.”
“You’re emasculating.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Her fingers drifted down his ribs that had become more prominent than his half dozen. “Aric James?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you running away?”
The already stagnant air in the room thickened in the silence.
“I’m taking a break.”
“A
break from what?”
AJ rested his cheek on the top of her head and squeezed her so tight she could barely breathe. “Death.”
Jillian cursed her damn tears. Love hurt so much.
“I left a note next to my phone for my family. It said everything there is to say, then it ended in goodbye.”
His thumb brushed her cheek, catching a few tears. Tears that belonged to him. Tears of pain … his pain. She couldn’t stop drowning in his pain.
“When I saw you parked along the side of the road, it was the first real breath I’d taken in over six weeks.”
Every word pulled the knot in her stomach tighter.
“Greta had a Lascivio party.”
Jillian loved the way his gentle laugh tickled her cheek. If he could take a break from death, so could she.
“I knew you and your brother would rob all innocence from Peaceful Woods.”
“We’re doing our best.”
“I’ve taken you away from Lilith.”
“Their daughter is coming to stay for a while. Maybe until I get home.”
“So how long do I have you?”
The knot tightened even more.
“As long as you need me.”
*
AJ needed her. How long he needed her was the question that had a grave answer. Forever. Unfortunately, AJ’s forever had a finite number of days compared to most other people. He loved his parents and even the newfound friendship he’d made with Brooke—an amends of sorts. The only reprieve from thinking non-stop about Jillian came with a weekend visit from Cage. He loved that boy. He loved him so damn much.
His parents took him to his doctor appointments, fed him, washed his laundry, and encouraged him in his dark times that had become more frequent as the effects of the radiation began to set in. Yet he started to resent their presence in his life because it all came at a cost and Jillian was that cost.
“You’re not eating enough.” She gave him her best evil glare as he poked around at his plate of room service food: grilled salmon, broccoli, and a twice-baked potato. “You only ate a dry piece of toast and a hard-boiled egg for breakfast.”
“You ordered everything on the menu.”
Jillian shrugged as she slurped in a long piece of spaghetti. “You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you to see what you wanted.”
“I haven’t had an appetite worth shit for weeks.”
“Clearly.” She gave him the once-over look.
“Sorry.” He frowned at his barely-touched plate of food. “I’m not a great dinner date yet.”
“No worries.” She held up one of the paper napkins. “It’s not a real date anyway.”
AJ shook his head. “You’re impossible. I can’t believe with all the meals we’ve shared that none of them have qualified as a date because of the stupid napkin not meeting your standards.”
“Well, a girl’s gotta have standards.”
“You don’t see how ridiculous it is that your napkin standards exceed your dress-code standards for getting the mail?”
She sucked in the last piece of pasta then licked her lips. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been wearing more clothes lately to get the mail.”
“Because it’s colder outside. Right?”
A smirk stole her attempt to come across as a changed woman. “Maybe.”
AJ went to stand then grabbed his head, eyes squeezed tight.
“You’re in pain.”
“No.” His seething response contradicted the “no.”
Jillian riffled through his backpack, the only thing he brought with him. “These?” She held up a prescription bottle.
He peeked through his squint. “Yes.”
She handed him two and his water. “You only have four left. Maybe you should call your doctor’s office and see if they can call in a refill.”
AJ shook his head, swallowing the last of the water. “Something tells me when a cancer patient goes MIA, doctors don’t continue to offer up drugs.”
“You didn’t finish treatment?”
“Two weeks left. Close enough.”
“Jesus! You put in all that time and misery to quit two weeks before the finish.”
“Finish?” He laughed through the pain. “When they, as you put it, ‘fry my brain,’ I’m not sure there is a finish.”
“So now what?” Jillian moved their plates to the tray by the door.
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
Disbelief echoed in her sarcastic laugh. “What do I think? I think I let you go, gave you back to your family so they could be with you for as long as you had left. I think my whole fucking life has been an epic tale of bad timing.” Plunking down on the bed, she sighed. “I’m not going to lie. I wanted to use you. You triggered something in me and I couldn’t think about anything else. I wanted to make you bleed and suffer. The need to conquer you consumed me. There was something so cathartic about the fight for control.”
“But?”
Jillian shook her head. “But I’m not a monster anymore, even though I’ve done some things in my life that are unforgivable. I have this human side that still feels, and most of the time I hate those feelings that make me so vulnerable.”
Luke would have been proud of those words and that realization kept her talking.
“When we met, I saw someone in you … someone I hated.” Someone she murdered. “But then I saw someone else and everything changed.”
AJ held out his hand and Jillian took it, straddling his lap. “Who did you see?”
Brushing the pad of her thumb over his naked brow followed by the burn marks on his head, she shared a sad smile. “Me. Beneath your hardened exterior and need for self-preservation, I saw a painful vulnerability—one that you would never show. Some days when I look at you it feels like I’m seeing my reflection.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jackson may have missed his calling. Playing music required one special gift, writing it encompassed a whole new level of talent. Of course, he could do both and made it look effortless. Playing meant he was in a jovial mood, composing happened only when he needed to completely forget about life. Ryn showed up unannounced on that particular forget-about-life day.
A knock at the door. Another knock. The chime of the doorbell.
Jackson played several measures, erased a few notes, added a sharp, and played it again.
A few more loud raps at the door.
“Hello?” Ryn cracked open the door with hesitation.
Jackson gritted his teeth. Something was off, maybe just one note, but that one wrong note ruined the whole piece.
“Hey.”
He looked up with a slight squint.
Ryn stopped in her approach. “I knocked … and rang the doorbell.”
Jackson nodded once, pushing his taped glasses up his nose.
“I missed you yesterday.”
Tuesday. Jackson chose not to be there when she cleaned their house. The women in his life had been playing him, using him. It was Karma, he couldn’t deny it, but that didn’t mean he would continue to take it up the backside. Jackson wasn’t Jude, but the same blood coursed through his veins and nobody—especially not a woman—could jerk him around like a toy, to be played with then discarded on a whim.
“I didn’t want to distract you.” He looked back down at his composition book, changing a chord, possibly the offending one.
“You wouldn’t have. Or maybe you would have, but only because I may have wanted you to.”
Keeping his eyes trained on the music, he chuckled a soft breath of sarcasm. “Well, by all means … whatever you want is all that fucking matters.”
She drew in a breath and held it for a few seconds. “Um … have I done something wrong?”
“Wrong? No, that couldn’t possibly be. You’re a woman and women can do no wrong. Isn’t that correct?”
“Maybe I’ll just go,” she said with a small voice, backing up one slow step at a time.
“Sounds like the best i
dea I’ve heard all day.”
“Why are you being such an asshole all of a sudden?”
“Asshole?” Jackson stood, sending the bench crashing behind him. “You think I’m being an asshole.” He stalked toward her.
Ryn took another step back.
“I’m not being an asshole!”
The booming rage in his voice made her flinch. With her next step back she tripped over the leg of the chair, falling backwards.
“D-don’t hit me … p-please don’t.” She curled into a ball, covering her head with her arms.
The entire world gave out beneath him. Ryn on his floor, helpless and shaking—fearing him. Nothing had ever felt so gutting.
“Fuck … Ryn.” He bent down.
“No!” She tensed, her whole body tightening into a smaller ball as a sob escaped.
“It’s okay.” He hooked her waist with one arm. She screamed and flailed as he picked her up, trapping her arms with his as he sat on the couch.
“Let me go!”
“Shh … I’m not going to hurt you.”
Eventually she surrendered, falling limp in his arms with her face buried in his chest.
“You’re right. I’m an asshole … such a fucking asshole,” he whispered in her ear. “But I swear to God, I’d never hurt you.”
His sister was a caged animal with sensitive trigger points. Jackson should have known that a woman who survived an abusive marriage would have her own triggers and breaking points.
Asshole … total asshole.
He held her tight, gliding a calming hand over her hair while whispering sorry to her over and over. After she stopped shaking, he cupped her red, tear-stained face and tilted it up to him.
“I am so fucking sorry.”
Ryn sniffled, rolling her lips together. “I’m so embarrassed.” She tried to shake her head in his grasp. “I can’t believe I reacted like that. I guess … I don’t know … I tripped so many times trying to get away from Preston, and when I was on the ground he …” huge tears rolled down her cheeks as she bit her quivering lip.
“He hit you?”
She nodded.
“He kicked you?”
Another nod.
Jackson’s brow tensed. “No one is ever going to make you feel that vulnerable again. I promise.” Brushing his lips against hers, he waited for her to respond. After a few seconds she kissed him, slow at first then desperate as her hands clawed his shirt as if she couldn’t get close enough.
