by Jewel E. Ann
“Two twenty-five thirty-nine.”
Before Jessica could retrieve her money from her bag, Luke handed over his credit card.
“No, just wait I’ve got it.”
By the time she found her wallet he’d already signed for the purchase. He grabbed the two bags of essentials and nodded for her to head toward the car. After they were both fastened in, he started the car and looked over at her. She kept her eyes trained ahead to the gray stone siding of the store.
“If you need me to be Dr. Jones for an emergency session I can do that for you.”
“Two words … argyle socks. So just put the car in gear and let’s go.”
They stopped by a deli and picked up sandwiches and chips for their picnic. As they wormed their way through hills blanketed in trees, Jessica slipped her hand into her purse, retrieving her watermelon Bubblicious she snagged before the clerk could put it in the sack. Saliva flooded her mouth just from the smell after she unwrapped a piece. She popped it in her mouth and moaned with the first chew.
The party pooper shook his head in her peripheral vision.
“Open.” She held a piece to his lips.
Luke shook his head.
“You have to.”
Another shake.
“How are we going to swap gum in a few minutes if you don’t have a piece?”
“We’re not going—”
She shoved it in his mouth.
“You’re going to make me drive off the road.”
She grinned. “Then you should have let me drive. I’m an excellent driver.”
“Okay, Rain Man.” His response mumbled over the huge wad of gum.
“It’s true. It’s even possible that I was trained by a professional stuntman and former sprint car driver in the uh … art of high-speed chasing.”
Luke shot a quick sideways glance and several seconds later he shot her another with a look that fell somewhere between shock and horror. Jessica shrugged.
“I’m not sure I can marry you and not know everything about you.”
“Only if you marry me will you ever know everything about me. Think of it as a wedding gift.” She laughed, but it was a painful laugh. Nothing about G.A.I.L felt like a gift. It was a curse, one that not even death could destroy.
*
Only death would keep Luke from Jessica. One day he would marry her. One day he would know everything. Until then it didn’t matter. A feeling deep in his gut told him her secrets were so much bigger than either one of them. He saw it in the way her eyes pleaded with him to trust her.
However, they had much bigger issues to deal with at the moment. The love of his life had a serious addiction to Staples, which resulted in him being force-fed watermelon bubblegum—the worst possible flavor.
“Right here.” She pointed to a deserted scenic overlook.
He pulled into the gravel parking area.
“Did you bring a picnic blanket?” She peered at him over the frames of her glasses that sat low on her nose.
He slid his glasses down to mirror her serious look. “Yes. My mom gave me one.”
She smirked. “It’s probably the same one she and your dad wrapped around their wet naked bodies last night.”
He wrinkled his nose.
“Time to swap.” She leaned over and kissed him, running her tongue along the seam of his lips. “You suck at this,” she mumbled against his mouth. Then she pushed her gum into his mouth.
“What are you—”
“Give me your gum.” She teased his upper lip with the tip of her tongue, beckoning him to give it to her.
He shoved it in her mouth. The nasty watermelon taste almost ruined his favorite flavor—Jessica Day.
“You never swapped gum with a girl, did you?”
“Sorry.” He shrugged as she sat back in her seat.
Jessica sighed. “The first time I swapped gum was with a girl in fourth grade.”
Luke almost choked on his gum. “What?”
“Tina Reeves. She was “going with” a fifth grade boy. A rumor had been floating around that he was planning on French kissing Tina after school. She freaked out because she hadn’t ever kissed a boy, let alone French kissed. So I offered to teach her.”
Luke raised his usual skeptical brow. “You’d French kissed someone by the fourth grade?”
“No … not until Tina.”
Jessica’s unpredictability never ceased to amaze him.
“But I’d seen it in the movies. It basically looked like two people trying to swap gum. Fifteen minutes in my bedroom with a Madonna CD and two pieces of grape Hubba Bubba later, Tina was quite the French kisser.”
“How generous of you.”
“Anything to help out a friend.”
The woman before him had singlehandedly taken the life of a serial killer one unforgiving cut at a time. Even on their blind date when she bit him in the closet, she wasn’t a killer. He never knew that Jessica. All she had ever wanted to be with him was the Hubba Bubba girl who liked skinny dipping, wet dog kisses, and apparently Staples. Luke knew he would spend the rest of his life, giving her that life—giving her back her innocence.
“I’m starving.”
He nodded, not realizing how long he’d been staring at her. “Let’s eat.”
They spread out the blanket on a large boulder with a beautiful panoramic view of the lake.
“Which part of the blanket do you think hugged your dad’s balls?”
“Probably two inches from the part that flossed his crack.”
“Oh my God!” Her eyes grew wide. “I can’t believe you said that. How very un-Jones of you.” She laughed. “I fear I’ve tainted you.”
They sat side by side on the rock with their legs dangling off the edge, sandwiches in hand. Jessica nudged his shoulder.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Skinny dipping, waiting by the register at Staples, swapping gum … letting me experience life with you.”
“The experience is mine.”
With a furrowed brow, she looked up at him. “What are you experiencing?”
He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “You. You’re the greatest experience of my life.”
She shoved a bite of sandwich into her mouth and mumbled over it like the well-mannered lady she’d never be. “That’s just … sad for you.”
Luke watched her look out at the lake. He didn’t miss the glassy tears that attempted to pool in her eyes. Would she ever feel worthy of true, heart-stopping, soul-shattering love? He hoped so because it’s all he had to give her.
*
Her favorite doctor had been right: surrendering took as much strength as it did control. Every day she gave him a piece of her past in exchange for his future. As much as she wanted—needed—his love, accepting it took practice. A voice in her head kept reminding her to just “shut up and let him love you.”
“The day will come that I don’t want to kill Trigger, right?”
Luke sucked in a slow, deep breath. “I hope so. Maybe it will be the same day I care if Fran dies.”
Jessica tilted her head, resting it on his arm. “You care. You just haven’t let yourself feel it yet. Feelings are who we are … actions are what we’ve become. I became a killer. I just have yet to feel bad about it. But I hope to God that someday I do. Killers don’t feel remorse. If that day comes … I’ll finally be the woman you see. I’ve caught a glimpse of her in your eyes, and I can’t help but envy her.”
Luke twisted around and hopped off the boulder then offered his hand to her. “It’s funny how we don’t recognize our own reflections, but the one thing about them is they never lie.”
Taking his hand she jumped down. “Dr. Jones, you should have majored in philosophy. On a more positive topic … what’s your theory on me driving back to your parents?”
“I don’t have a theory, just a fact.”
“Really? Enlighten me.”
“You will not be driving my car.�
�
She made a horn-like buzzing sound. “Wrong answer.”
He folded the blanket and grabbed their empty bags then opened the trunk.
“Let me enlighten you. I’m going to strip, and ride your cock on the hood of your shiny red GTO, not giving a damn what passersby think until you—”
“Yeah all of that.” He gestured to his arms full with the big blanket and the lunch bags. “Would you grab the first aid kit? I scraped my ankle on the rock over there.”
She looked at the little box with the red cross on it. With a huff, she leaned into the trunk to reach it at the back, squirming until nearly three-fourths of her short stature was inside.
“Fuck!” She fell … no she was shoved into the trunk and he closed it on her. He. Locked. Her. In. The. Trunk.
“As much as I like you riding my cock, and in spite of last night’s bonding with my parents, I’m not an exhibitionist. And I just put a new coat of wax on her the other day so I’m not going to leave my ass print on the hood.” He knocked twice on the trunk. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic, but if you are, I’m pretty sure I just bought you some electric pillar candles in one of those sacks. They should take the edge off. Hold on tight, I’ll go slow.”
“Die. YOU. WILL. DIE!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Knight
1 Timothy 2:12
Jillian stared at her phone as the sun peaked over the horizon. AJ struggled to get to sleep the previous night, refusing to take any pills until after they’d had sex—sex that felt like making love, sex that gave her so much heartache and guilt. Luke was gone, she tried to tell herself, but he really wasn’t. Jessica died. Luke lived. Would it have been easier to move on had he died? Had Luke moved on? Had he made love to another? The ghost of the woman she once was couldn’t bear the thought, but Jillian Knight wished him a life filled with a wife who embraced his quirks and maybe someday little Joneses tearing his orderly life apart in the best possible way. She hoped her four-legged baby would live out the rest of his life in a house full of people who understood him the way Jessica had.
To avoid waking AJ, she perched in a chair outside the tent, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for her one-bar wireless service to return an answer to her biblical verse search. After churning in cyber circles the answer appeared on her screen.
“I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
“Fuck that,” she whispered to herself. Her finger hovered over the forward button as she contemplated sending the message to Jackson.
“Jill—”
She clicked off the screen and unzipped the front of the tent.
“Goddammit! AJ?” He lost consciousness and his body began to wrench in muscle contractions. She dropped to her knees beside him, watching in horror. There was nothing else she could do. It took less than two minutes that seemed like an eternity, and then he went completely limp. Her lower lip quivered between her teeth as she pressed her fingers to his neck. Closing her eyes, she swallowed hard, finally feeling his pulse.
“I can barely keep myself alive … I can’t do this,” she whispered, collapsing onto her side next to him.
After a few minutes he came to, focusing on her eyes with confusion in his.
“You had a seizure.”
“Sorry.”
Jillian huffed a small laugh. “You just up and left without anything, didn’t you? What is this? Am I here just to watch you die?” The bitterness bled through her words.
“I was dying with them … I’m living with you.”
“Well, then it’s a shitty way to live. You need some anti-seizure meds or something. I can’t watch this every day.”
“Take me back.” The defeat in his voice hurt worse than watching his body lose control.
“I’m not taking you back.” She crawled out of the tent, grabbed her phone, and walked toward the main road for privacy and better signal.
“I’m still getting texts.”
McGraw’s cynical laugh greeted her on the other end of the line. “Then let me bring you in. New identities, new location, maybe even a sex change. I always thought you should have been a guy.”
“Is that why you buried your cock in my ass?”
“What the fuck do you want?” On the outside he’d perfected the tough-guy role, but Jillian—Jessica—always ignited the fuse on his patience.
“AJ needs his anti-seizure medication.”
“Do you have a prescription?”
“No. He didn’t bring any with him.”
“You’re dreaming, little girl. I’m flattered you think I’m God, but I’m not. I can’t just thumb through a PDR and find him the right medication.”
“Clearly you’re an old fuck who hasn’t been to the doctor recently. Welcome to the digital age where everyone’s entire life, including their medical records, can be accessed online.”
“You’re asking me to break into the hospital’s database?”
“I’m not asking. Message me with the pharmacy information.”
*
Jillian and AJ continued south with her drug dealer on speed dial. Each passing day AJ seemed to be doing better. Jillian would have been skeptical had AJ himself not acted a little shocked. He admitted the doctors said radiation was a wait and see situation. She insisted he still take his medications, if for no other reason than the fact that she’d repeatedly sold her soul to the Devil, or vice versa, to get them.
“You’ve been gone a while. How long is Jackson going to let you gallivant around the country with me?”
Jillian grinned, keeping her eyes trained to the miles of Texas highway before them. “I occasionally check in with my parole officer … can you say the same? Besides, I told you Jackson’s too busy courting your ex-cleaning lady.”
“Courting?”
“Yes. He’s decided it’s time to marry and populate the world with little Knights. Pun intended.”
“I think she’s close to my age and maybe has a teenager or something. Shouldn’t he be courting someone in their childbearing years?”
“I like Ryn and I should land my fist in your junk on her behalf for making her seem old and barren. Not to mention she’s worked for you how many years? And you think she “maybe” has a child who FYI is twenty-one—a daughter.”
“She was my cleaning lady, not my psychiatrist.”
That hit so close to home.
“And honestly, I rarely saw her. Most people aren’t home when their cleaning lady comes, and she only came twice a month. She actually did more odd jobs for me. I don’t mind scrubbing toilets and running a vacuum, but laundry, dusting those stupid mini-blinds, light fixtures, and cleaning my fish tank…” she felt him glaring at the side of her head “…that’s the stuff she did for me and it didn’t require an exchange of personal information.”
“I think when you ask someone to wash and fold your tighty-whities there really should be an exchange of personal information.”
AJ shook his head. “It was more sheets and towels, occasionally my uniform or ironing some shirts.”
“Good to know … I thought she must have been pretty desperate for work. Anyway, I hope it works out. I’d love to be an aunt. I’d be the coolest aunt ever.”
“Is that enough?”
“What do you mean?” She stole a quick, sideways glance.
“Don’t you want to be a mom?”
“I feel like we’ve had this discussion.”
“I feel like you’re afraid to admit what you want, or maybe you’re even afraid to want it at all.”
“I don’t want you to die. I’m not afraid to admit that. I want a romantic date with cloth napkins. I want to always be on top when we have sex.”
The last part was a lie. Jillian realized her list of wants turned into her needs. Her deepest truth: she didn’t want everything she needed or maybe she didn’t want to need it. Needs were weaknesses.
“You’d be an amazing mother.”
She guf
fawed. “How can you even say that with a straight face?”
“Your compassion equals your strength, and you’re the strongest person I know.”
“Well, it’s a moot point. You can’t have kids and I choose you.”
“But—”
“I. Choose. You. And don’t you dare talk about the fucking cancer. You’re better … we’re better.”
AJ sighed, gazing out his window. “We’re better,” he whispered.
*
If he loved her, he’d let her go. AJ couldn’t get that thought out of his damaged mind. Jillian loved him and she let him go with a simple thank you. He blamed his selfishness on the tumor … by that point he blamed everything on the tumor. How much of her life could he steal and still feel like a man and not an inconsiderate bastard?
“How do you feel about ice cream?” She slowed, pulling into the dinky parking lot of an ice cream shop with a few picnic tables in front.
“I feel like you want some.”
“I do.”
That smile. When they first met he never imagined one day having a long list of traits he loved about Jillian Knight—quite the opposite. Life was nothing if not unimaginable. The woman was real. She never faked anything, not a single word, not a single smile. Every ounce of her being screamed, “Take me as I am.”
Hence the selfishness. If life was short, then AJ’s was less than a breath from ending, so he wanted to end it with something real.
“Let’s get ice cream then.” He smiled back at her.
“I hope they have dipped cones.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the window.
“I’ll have a twist cone dipped in chocolate.” Her eyes beamed as if all her dreams just came true.
Who was this woman with the innocence of a young child dying to escape?
“Small vanilla in a cup.”
“What?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “What he means is a hot caramel sundae with pecans.”
“I do?” He looked down at her.
“You do.” She pressed a kiss to his arm as he handed the lady a twenty.
They took their cool treats to the picnic table.
“We should stay here for the winter. I bet Omaha sucks in the winter.”
