by Cherry Adair
“Listen,” she hissed, prodding him in the ribs with her elbow.
“You were the fucking floor show, Christina,” the man yelled. Something metallic clattered to the floor, followed by the high-pitched noise of chair legs scraping across tile, then the tinkle of breaking glass. “You can’t even stand up,” he snapped, clearly disgusted and at the end of his rope. “Go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Aw, don’t be mad,” the woman slurred. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t do sloppy seconds. Or thirds.” Something thumped. “Bitch.” Something else thumped—Sara suspected the woman’s other shoe.
“Fine,” the woman shrieked loud enough to wake the dead. “I don’t need you. I’ll finish myself off with BOB.”
“Damn it, Jack,” Sara whispered, appalled. “Those people are right downstairs—downstairs?” There was no downstairs. “Where are we?”
“Oh, shit.” His voice was laced with amusement as he sat up beside her, scratching his chest.
“Jack?”
“You said to take you home.”
“And?”
“Tahoe.”
“Oh. My. God,” Sara gasped as giggles welled inside her.
Unsteady, muffled footsteps shuffled down the carpeted landing outside the bedroom. There was a thump, more broken glass—probably a picture off the wall, followed by the woman’s quiet, slurred, “Shit, I liked that one.”
“You sold the house, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” Jack laughed. “You going to teleport like that, or put on some clothes? We have about a nanosecond to decide.”
The door handle rattled.
STILL LAUGHING, THEY LANDED in a naked tangle of arms and legs on her bed at the hacienda. With a grin, Jack cupped her face in one large hand and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth. “That was close.”
Sara wound her arms around his neck, her heart aching with love for him. “I can’t believe we were in someone else’s house.” I can’t believe you sold the house where we were so happy.
“In their bed,” he corrected, nibbling her bare shoulder.
She cradled his head as he kissed a damp trail down her throat. The house, of course, was his to sell—they’d lived in it together for less than five months—but Sara knew he’d loved it and done a lot of the renovations himself over the years. She’d loved the house too. Loved Jack.
He drew her nipple into the hot cavern of his mouth, laving the hard bud with his tongue. The sensation shot to every cell in her body, and she hummed low in her throat, eliciting a throaty chuckle from Jack. “I see I still have work to do,” he murmured, sliding his mouth to her other breast.
Sara tangled her fingers in his hair, loving the roughness of his chin and the smoothness of his lips against her soft skin.
One moment, Sara was ridiculously happy, filled with renewed lust, laughter still fizzing inside her like bubbles of champagne; she didn’t want to be anywhere else but right where she was.
Then, as if a curtain had dropped over the sun, her mood shifted. Suddenly and inexplicably, her chest ached, and she felt as though her heart would break. Eyes stinging with unshed tears, she buried her face against Jack’s warm shoulder.
She resisted the inexorable tug of despair. Just a few more minutes of happiness was all she wanted. She tried to retrieve the laughter, the lightness, the love, but it was gone. Vanished.
Maybe it was the knowledge that with the sale of the house, her last tenuous connection with the baby was gone forever. When Jack had found out that she was pregnant, he’d been so thrilled that he’d rushed out and bought a crib the same day. As terrified as Sara had been about her pregnancy, she’d loved teasing him as he put the thing together.
But she’d barely done more than choose the color of the paint.
Just because they’d made love in the house they’d once shared didn’t mean anything, she reminded herself as Jack’s mouth moved down her body. Detached, she felt the stroke and glide of his hands and mouth as if it was happening to someone else
This was a posttrauma sex session. A crazy rush of adrenaline and the very basic need to feel safe. That was all. She couldn’t read any more into it than that.
She shifted restively as he started delving his tongue into her sex. “I have to take that shower, Jack.”
He looked up, his eyes hot and filled with lust. “Later.”
As much as she wanted to stay where she was, Sara forced herself to roll away from him, taking a large, ruffled pillow with her. “No. Sorry.” She wished she could shut off her thoughts and just enjoy the moment. But the past hung like a veil of darkness over any future they might have, spoiling the mood.
“I have a business meeting in Lima this afternoon, so I’d better get cracking, or I’ll be really late.” Only if the shower ran more than five hours, since it was barely dawn. But Jack didn’t need to know that.
Jack smiled, but she could tell he couldn’t figure out why she’d gone from sizzling to arctic in two seconds flat.
“I’ll speed up the process and shower with you.” He was gloriously, unashamedly naked. She wondered what he’d do if he knew Harry was sleeping under her bed. She could just see a few inches of the boa’s tail under the bed skirt.
Harry was, unfortunately, going to suffer the fallout of her Sarulu experience, because the thought of touching him now gave her the willies. Poor Harry.
“No, relax. It’ll be quicker if I shower by myself.” Before Jack could respond, she closed the bathroom door.
Showering was one of Sara’s favorite things to do, especially when she was stressed. Lots of hot water, mounds of scented bubbles … and, once upon a time, Jack.
She showered in record time, then pulled on the apple-green satin robe hanging behind the door on a quilted hanger. Tying the sash, she strolled back into the bedroom.
“That’s cheating,” Jack said huskily, shoulders propped against the headboard. Now he wore jeans, but nothing else. Sara wanted to throw herself at him and kiss her way down his broad, tanned chest. She went to sit at her dressing table instead. Back in the day, they’d been known to spend an entire weekend in bed.
Jack’s eyes smoldered. “That robe is clinging to your damp skin, you know.”
She picked up her comb and ran it through her wet hair. “You’re half-naked,” she pointed out, watching him in the mirror. He was going through the motions of the game, but she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. What was going on in his head?
God. What the hell was going on in hers? Her mood was flickering like a switch. High. Low. On. Off. Hot. Cold.
Narrow-eyed, Jack leaned forward. “So fair’s fair?”
She shrugged, then gave a little scream, half surprise, half laughter, as her robe disappeared, leaving her sitting there damp and naked. “Now who’s cheating?” she demanded, magically removing his jeans at the same time she shimmered onto the bed. Onto him.
Knees on either side of his hips, she held him down with her hands on his chest. “You were saying?” Just as she leaned down to nibble at his lips, Jack grasped her shoulders. Suddenly, his expression was anything but loverlike. He looked haggard and beaten.
“Where the fuck did we go wrong, Sara?” he asked, his voice raw. He plucked her hand off his chest and held it in both of his, over his heart. “How the hell did we go from this to shit?”
Sara’s heart clutched. “God, Jack …”
His fingers tightened around her hand. “Just one moment of honesty in all this, Sara. Please?”
She rubbed her suddenly throbbing temple. “Not naked.”
“Fine.” He was back in his jeans and added a black T-shirt.
Sara materialized jeans and T-shirt as well, then had to put some distance between them and went to sit on the other side of the bed.
“No.” Jack snatched her hand and tugged her back into the middle of the bed facing him. “You wanna go first?” When she shook her pounding head, he said, “Okay. I loved you, Sara. I’ve never fe
lt that way about another woman—ever.”
“Right.” She tried to extricate her hand, but he just tightened his hold. Rather than arm-wrestle him, Sara left her hand in his. “You loved me so much you didn’t believe me when I told you what happened. My heart had just been wrenched out; I was a physical and emotional wreck. I needed you, Jack. You chose to believe the worst and threw me away. That’s how we went from this to shit.”
Chapter Thirteen
I didn’t throw—damn it, Sara. You told me flat out that you weren’t ready for children.”
“Right. I wasn’t. But that changed when we found out I was pregnant. It changed, Jack. I was scared, but I was also excited.”
“You never told me you were anything other than ambivalent.”
“That wasn’t ambivalence. It was terror. I was working through my fear, and I needed time to adjust. People I loved died. My parents, my dog … I was scared. I already had nightmares that I’d be doing some stupid bit of magic and I’d kill you, and suddenly, I was responsible for a tiny little being.” Tears stung her eyes. “I was terrified.”
He squeezed her hand, shaking his head, his eyes bleak. “I thought you were pissed off,” he said, voice raw. “You should have come to me, told me how scared you were. Hell, the thought of bringing a baby into this world was pretty damned freaking scary for me too. We could have worked it out. Together.” He must’ve read her expression, because he said, “Take a breath and don’t pull away. We have to sort through this, one way or the other.”
Why? They’d said what needed to be said. “I went to see you. Afterward. You told me to go to hell. And I went.”
He frowned. “Afterward when?”
“Grant finally changed his mind, persuaded me to give you another chance. I went to Barrow Creek. I couldn’t stand that you believed I’d had an abortion.”
“Are you saying you tried to find me in the Northern Territory eighteen months ago?” he demanded, incredulous.
“I didn’t try. I Trace-teleported and found your camp—why am I telling you this? You were there.”
“Pretend that I wasn’t.”
Sara sighed. “Fine. I waited for you all day.” Hurting. Emotionally in pain. Alone with nothing but her thoughts and fears for six long, lonely hours. “The second you saw me, you told me to fuck off.”
He shook his head. “Never happened.”
Sara tugged at her hand. Again, he kept an implacable hold on it. “Are you calling me a liar? Again?” The headache behind her eyes ballooned into a sharp rhythm in time with her heartbeat.
“No.” Jack’s eyes were narrowed as if he was thinking something through. “But I am seeing a damn pattern of illusions.”
She blinked at the non sequitur, rubbing one temple with her fingers. “Illusions?”
“Headache?”
What illusions? Damn it, she needed some aspirin. “I’m fine. Carry on so we can get this over with.”
“Tell me about the abortion. I’m not going to say a word until you’re done. Then it’ll be my turn, all right?”
She shook her head and tried again to pull away. “I can’t do this. I really can’t.”
“Tell me what happened that day, Sara.”
She took a deep, unsteady breath. “You were in Australia that week.”
“I remember. Setting up to start—sorry. Go on.”
“It wasn’t a damn abortion, Jack. I had a miscarriage. I lost the baby, and you were thousands o-of m-miles away.” She was furious to find herself crying, something she hadn’t been able to do since that god-awful day. She punched Jack’s chest with her free hand.
He captured that hand too. “I saw the doctor’s report, Sara. It said abortion.”
“S-spontaneous abortion. It was an ectopic p-pregnancy—the egg implanted itself in my fallopian tube. I was only thirteen weeks, and I started having contractions an hour after you left.” Tears splashed on their joined hands. “My ob-gyn told me to go lie down. But the cramps and pain got worse. When the bleeding started, I teleported to the nearest h-hospital and called you again.”
His hands tightened over hers, and he held her gaze, his eyes almost black with emotion. “Jesus, Sara—”
“The most common procedure performed to stop bleeding and prevent infection after a miscarriage is a dilation and curettage. I had a D&C, Jack. Not an abortion.”
She sucked in a lungful of air to steady herself. “I wanted our baby. You made an assumption, Jack. You didn’t ask. If you loved me, you would have given me the benefit of the doubt.”
She looked at him, expecting to see a look of skepticism or doubt on his face. All she saw was pain. After another controlled breath, she continued, “I still couldn’t reach you, couldn’t even pick up a trace of you, and I called Grant. He came to Tahoe and took care of me. It was hideous, Jack. I was devastated. We tried to call you, but your phone didn’t even ring. We couldn’t even leave a damn message.”
“I believe you. I do. But the paperwork from the hospital didn’t say a fucking thing about a D&C or miscarriage, or anything like it.”
She shrugged, and the movement made her cry out as her headache intensified. Jack picked her up, turned her around, and started massaging her neck and shoulders. “Tell me about these headaches.”
“Headaches … why? What do they have to do with a-anything?”
“You get these severe headaches—when?”
“Not that often.”
“When you’re stressed?”
“No.”
“When you think about your parents?”
“Yes. Always.”
“When you think about the miscarriage?”
“Yes.”
“When you think about me?”
She turned around. “Sometimes.”
“Hear me out for a second, okay? I trusted you as I’d never trusted or loved another human being in my life. Why would I suddenly believe the worst of you, without proof? Without talking about it?”
“Clearly you didn’t trust me. I don’t understand where you’re going with this. What are you getting at?”
“I think that Grant wanted us apart. He never liked me, was never happy for your happiness. He did everything, in a very subtle way, to break us apart. And when that didn’t work, he used some kind of a mind illusion to drive a wedge between us.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jack!” Sara jumped off the bed. Folding her arms tightly against her midriff, she glared at him, the tears drying stiffly on her cheeks. “You always do this, use Grant to deflect our arguments. Don’t bring him into this again. For the umpteenth time: he is not a freaking wizard! So even if he wanted to, he couldn’t use mind control over me. Unless he’s a secret hypnotist or something.”
“What if he’s the Omnivatic we’re looking for?”
“What?” Sara stared at him incredulously. “What’s wrong with you, Jack? Why not Pia, or Inga, or William? None of them give off a wizard trace—does that mean they’re Omnivatics too?”
“He was there when your parents died. He kept you in an exclusive boarding school in England—and away from the wizard community—half your life. You work for him, live with him—”
“You’re jealous.”
Jack leaned forward, intent. “He manipulates you. Preys on your feelings. Keeps you dependent. I believe he used your miscarriage to his advantage. Something that he knew we’d believe like nothing else. Our emotions were high. It was the perfect time to draw from each other’s strength. Instead, with a little help from your friend Grant, we turned on each other. He effectively hammered that wedge home.”
“He protects me. Too much sometimes. But whatever he does, he does because he loves me and doesn’t want to see me hurt.”
“Why doesn’t he like you to use your magic?”
“Because it has a tendency to go haywire and hurt people.” Her voice was tight, her emotions in turmoil. Poor Harry, about to slither from under the bed, made a U-turn and went back into hiding.
Jack stood beside the bed, now wearing his heavy boots. He had a huge knife in a scabbard on his thigh, and a gun in a belt holster. It was a good thing the boa was undetectable, Sara thought bitterly. If Jack would shoot Alberto, he’d sure as hell shoot a snake.
“Grant tell you that?” he demanded sarcastically, tucking in his shirt with force.
“I’m living this life, Jackson.” She scooped her hair into a low ponytail. “I tell me that. Facts are facts.”
“I think Baltzer seeded that idea in your head the moment that fire killed your folks.” He walked to the connecting door, and paused. “Convenient to make you believe that your magic killed your parents. It would make you feel like shit, not to mention guilty and dependent. His to manipulate.”
“So Grant killed my parents? Destroyed my entire family?” Sara raised one eyebrow. “Stuck me in a fabulous boarding school and paid for an amazing education when he didn’t have to? Made me his business partner, with a fat paycheck and spectacular benefits, to do a job I adore? Okay, I’ll bite. To what purpose? What does he want?”
“You,” Jack said grimly, opening the door between their rooms. “He wants you, Sara.”
PISSED, JACK SHUT THE door behind him. How the hell had something so good turned to shit in the blink of a goddamned eye? Again! He leaned against the cool wood and closed his eyes as he went back over his new line of reasoning.
Fact: When they were anywhere other than in Baltzer’s fucking orbit, things between them were, if not perfect, then workable.
Fact: The minute they were anywhere near Baltzer, the shit hit the fan. Feelings were inflamed, reason went out the window.
Fact: Whenever Sara started to think about something that might not be good for Baltzer, she got a splitting headache.
Fact: Sara had been the victim of entirely too many illusions, and all of them somehow connected to Baltzer.
