by Lisa Boone
She pulled on the faded blue tee shirt and striped pajama bottoms then turned to the floor length mirror next to the bed. She turned to the side, not exactly pleased with the way her body disappeared underneath the material.
She twisted the end of the tee shirt into a knot at her side pulling it across her midriff before turning her attention to the waistband which hung just a bit too low on her hips and the bottom of each hem which pooled at her feet. She tightened the drawstring then rolled each hem over and over until she could walk without tripping. Satisfied with the overall look, she then turned her attention to the gigantic bedroom.
A huge canopy king-sized bed sat on one side of the room between an ornate fireplace and the door to the large master bathroom. On the other side of the room was a sitting area with a worn floral couch, flanked by two chairs and opposite a large picture window. She walked over to the window and looked out between the boards covering the glass. Rain lashed at the windowpane, but as lighting crossed the sky, she got a good view of the stables and the gorge just beyond that.
It must be beautiful in the daylight, she thought, as the sky went dark again. She turned from the window. Noticing a family album lying on a writing desk in the corner, she picked it up and began flipping through Jamie’s family photos, eagerly looking for any sign of him.
Halfway through, she finally found an adorable baby picture. She smiled as she watched him grow from a smiling happy toddler to the sweet young boy she vaguely remembered saving her all those years ago. The last picture she came to was a picture of Jamie bending over, blowing out ten multicolored candles on his birthday cake. His beaming parents stood behind him.
She flipped to the next page in the album and frowned. Her frown deepened as she flipped through empty page after page. She had hoped to see more pictures of him and his family, but it appeared as if everything stopped shortly after he turned ten.
She learned from her sister Madison that Jamie’s folks had passed away at some point before he was fifteen, and his aunt and uncle had raised him, but she really didn’t know much more than that. Jamie had always changed the subject whenever she had asked him about his family.
She flipped over the last page and stopped, surprised to see her own face. She pulled back the plastic cover and pulled the picture out.
It was a picture of her and Jamie at the pub on Halloween. He stood on one side of the bar dressed in regular street clothes and she stood on the other, wearing a fifties styled pink poodle skirt. In the picture, she was smiling and laughing at him as he playfully tried to grab the scarf tied around her hair.
Now, why would he keep this picture of just the two of us? She thought as a warm feeling swept through her. A slow smile lit up her face.
The creak of a board outside the room caught her attention. She quickly stuck the picture back inside and closed the album before turning around. She hid the album behind her back as Jamie appeared.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. He stood in the doorway, clad only in a pair of worn jeans, which hung low on his hips, his hair wet from his shower. She bit her lip.
He smiled softly, his gaze falling to his rolled up pajama bottoms dusting the floor at her feet. He started to say something, but then paused as his gaze slipped to something past her body.
She glanced behind her shoulder, wondering what had drawn his attention from her only a moment before. She caught her reflection in the mirror, the album clearly visible in her hands. She brought it out in front of her as if she hadn’t just been caught snooping and tried to act natural. “It looks like someone’s been living here.”
The corner of his lips quirked up. “I’ve been living here for the past month,” he said, reaching for the album.
“Oh?”
The picture of the two of them slipped out of the album and to the floor.
His face reddened as he bent to pick up the photo.
“Nice picture,” she said, snatching it out of his hands.
“I thought so.” He looked over her shoulder. “I don’t usually take good pictures, but I thought I looked pretty decent that night.”
“Very,” she affirmed. “Is that the only reason you kept this particular picture?”
“I can’t think of any other reason.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Can you?”
She pursed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Hmm. You know, I look pretty decent too. I’d really like to have a copy of this … Wait, I have an idea,” she said placing her fingers at the top of the photograph. “Why don’t you keep your half and…” He made a quick grab for the picture but she jerked it out of his reach. “What?”
Smiling, he reached around her to grab her wrist. “Give me my picture.”
“Why?” Sarah lightly pushed against his chest and stepped back, giggling as he followed her. Tumbling back onto the bed, she play-wrestled with him over the photo. When he finally took her wrists in his hands and loomed over her, she grinned up at him. “I’ve come up with a perfect compromise. You keep your half, and I’ll keep mine.”
He grinned as he pinned her beneath him. “No, get your own picture. This one’s mine.” He plucked it out of her hand.
“Where did you even find it?”
“Nathan. He was taking pictures for the pub website that night and I just happened to come across it …”
“You stole it?”
“It’s digital. I made a copy of it.” He placed the picture on the nightstand. “If you want one that badly I’ll make a copy for you too.”
“Where are the other pictures?” she asked as he stretched out next to her on the bed.
“On Nathan’s computer.”
“No, the other ones of you in the album,” she said rolling to her side to face him. “They all stopped when you turned ten.”
“There aren’t any others.”
“I saw one of you and Robin at Kristen and Phoebe’s stables.”
“That’s probably the only one that exists. Are you hungry? I think I have some soup downstairs.”
Before he could move away from her, she gripped his arm, stilling him. “What happened, Jamie?” When he didn’t answer, she asked, “How did you end up with Patrick O’Malley? Why on earth did you leave this place and start working for him, especially at such a young age?”
He propped the pillows behind his head before wrapping an arm around her waist, bringing her closer.
She tentatively laid a hand on his chest as she gazed down at him. “Why did you lie to me?”
He gently traced his fingers down her cheek. “About?”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth about Robin? Why didn’t you tell me the real reason you were in prison?”
“Well, I had tried to introduce myself to pretty girls by saying, hi my name is Jamie, I’m a convicted murderer, but for some reason that wasn’t the icebreaker I was going for.”
She lightly slapped his arm. “Very funny. You could’ve told me the truth.”
He pushed back her hair. “I wish I had. You would’ve run to the hills.”
“Is it so bad having me around?”
“No,” he admitted softly, “but it’s not good for you.”
“You’re always trying to protect me,” she said laying her head on his chest.
“For good reason.” He sighed as he cupped her hand against his chest. “I wish someone had protected me.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “What happened?”
“Shortly after my tenth birthday my parents’ plane crashed. My dad died instantly,” he said softly. “He used to love to fly. He flew in Vietnam. This buddy of his told me at his funeral that he was the best he’d ever seen.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She survived, but just barely. She lingered for another couple of years in a hospital. She was never the same though. She didn’t even know who I was.”
“I’m so sorry.” She hugged him closer not sure what else to say.
“My Aunt L
aura came to take care of me and the farm.” He snorted. “She was horrible at it. She tried but she just didn’t know what to do with me or the horses. Everything started falling apart. When money became tight, she sold the horses.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t sell the house.”
“Couldn’t. When Mom finally passed away a few years later, the land came to me and it was placed in a trust, but it didn’t matter at that point. Aunt Laura had met someone by then. Someone with money. They married and she moved us to Lexington to live with him and his son.”
“What was he like?”
“Roger? He was okay. He loved her and was nice to me.”
“Kristen and Phoebe said that he worked for Patrick O’Malley.”
“Sometimes. When Patrick needed something unpleasant done to someone, he called Roger and Roger did it. Aunt Laura had no idea who he really was or what he was into when she married him.”
“What did she do when she found out?”
“She never did. One of Roger’s enemies killed her a few years after they got married.”
“Why?”
“Revenge for something Roger did. Roger killed him and then we went on the run.”
“He took you with him?”
“Why not? I didn’t have any other family. Roger and Brian were all I had.”
She gasped. “Brian? As in Doctor Brian Shaw?”
“Well, he wasn’t a doctor then,” he said running a hand through her hair. “Back then, he was an annoying kid. It didn’t last long though. The cops caught up to him in Arizona, but not before he dropped me and Brian off at a friend of his for safe keeping. I was there for two weeks before the friend got tired of taking care of us and passed us along to his crazy uncle and aunt.” His hands stilled in her hair. “Roger wasn’t the best influence but at least he was sane. This guy though …”
“What was he like?”
“Scary. At first, he seemed normal, but then he started getting weirder and weirder. Really possessive. His wife and kids were just as strange. One night at dinner, Brian asked him if he could take us to see Roger in jail. The guy didn’t say anything, he just walked into our bedroom and destroyed everything in there with a hammer. His son tried to set the house on fire the next night. Have no idea why. He just decided to set the drapes on fire. Brian was terrified of them. I even started sleeping with a baseball bat.”
“How long were you there?”
“Six very long months,” he said trailing his fingers down her arm. “I don’t think Brian ever recovered.”
She laid her head on his chest. “Did they hurt you?”
“Sometimes,” he murmured softly.
Her arms tightened around him, as an overpowering need to protect him swept through her. “How did you and Brian finally get away?”
“I killed him.”
She jerked her head up.
“One night, I woke up to the sound of the guy’s kids screaming their heads off. By the time I got out there, he had killed all but his youngest daughter. The only reason he didn’t kill her was because I stopped him with my baseball bat.”
“Why did he kill everyone?”
“Who knows? The guy was insane. Anyway, once he was dead, we took off. We had to live on the streets for a while, but we eventually made it back here.”
Sarah sat up. “Why didn’t you wait for the police?”
“I was fifteen years old and scared. I had no idea what was going to happen. All I knew was that Roger was sitting in jail and I didn’t feel like joining him. All I wanted to do was go home.”
“How did you get here?”
“Hitched rides. I eventually stole a car in Missouri. It took us a few months but we made it.”
Sarah shook her head unable to fathom how he managed to survive. “What did you do when you got here? Who took care of you?”
“I took care of us. My father taught me how to hunt and fish. I had no choice but to learn how to live off the streets when we ran away. It wasn’t easy but we managed. It was only for a few months anyway. Roger was acquitted a little while later. He eventually found us and took us to Patrick O’Malley.”
“Why?”
“Roger had business in New York and didn’t want us around. He probably would have left us there, but then Brian stole something out of O’Malley’s house and he told Roger to come pick us up.”
“What did he steal?”
“Oh, just some trinket. He may have gotten hold of some jewelry. I’m not sure. He was always picking things up back then. Half the time, I don’t even think he was aware he was doing it.”
“Kristen thought you got thrown out because you were fooling around with Robin.”
“Nah, it had nothing to do with her.”
“What did you do then?”
“Roger took us to New York. That’s when Brian told him what I had done in Arizona. He swore he wouldn’t ever tell a soul, but he blabbed the first night he was back with his dad. When I found out that Roger knew, I was afraid, but Roger seemed really proud of me. He started paying more attention to me. Started teaching me stuff. Started taking me with him everywhere he went.”
“But what about school, sports, dances, parties? You know, typical teenage things.”
“Brian got to do that sort of thing. Roger had different plans for me. He said it was time for me to start earning my keep. At first, it wasn’t so bad, but after a while, things got worse, especially when he moved us back here. Patrick O’Malley and one of his closest friends had a falling out over the pub. It used to belong to Charlie Hogan, but Patrick decided one day that he wanted it and stole it out from underneath him. Charlie went on the warpath. People started dying and Patrick called Roger to come take care of the problem.”
“Is that when Charlie tried to kill Kristen, Robin and Phoebe?”
“Who told you about that?”
“Phoebe.”
He grunted. “Patrick got word that Charlie and his men were holed up in some abandoned hospital outside of town and he decided to go end the war once and for all.”
“Phoebe said you got left behind.”
“They wanted me to kill Wade Hogan. He was a couple of years older than I was, but we had got to know each other pretty well that first month I had stayed with the O’Malleys. This was before the war between Charlie and Patrick started. Charlie used to bring Wade up to Bellemeade all the time, and when nothing was going on, he and I used to play cards in the stables. Patrick and Roger thought I could trick Wade into coming out in the open. I told them no. Wade had never done anything to me and I knew he couldn’t stand his grandpa, so I didn’t see any reason to kill him. They were so mad at me. Anyway, it was all a trick. Charlie wasn’t in some abandoned hospital. It was just a ruse to get Patrick out so he could kill the girls.” He reached for her then, bringing her back down to his side.
She rested against his chest as he slid a hand up her arm. “Why?”
“Revenge.” He threaded his fingers through her hair again, letting the strands slip through his fingers. “That’s all it was. Just pure revenge.” He paused. “Roger died at that hospital. Some of Charlie’s men were lying in wait and they killed him. I took Roger’s place after that. Suddenly, I was Patrick’s go-to guy. Cleaning up his messes. Taking care of his little problems. God, I hated it.”
“Why didn’t you run away? Run back here?”
“Because I knew they would find me. By the time I had enough and was ready to run, powerful, evil, dangerous men knew my name. The police knew my name. I made some huge mistakes in my life—”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You were a child.”
“I was sixteen. I knew what I was doing was wrong and yet I continued making those same mistakes and hating myself for them. My parents raised me to be a good man. A good, decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal and most certainly don’t kill in cold blood kind of man. They did not raise me to be this. I’ve done things I’m not proud of and if I coul
d do it all again, I would have run from Roger. I would have stayed as far away from him as I could. But I can’t change the past and no matter what I do I can’t seem to escape it either. Do you realize that the only reason you’re in danger right now is because of me and my past?” He cupped her cheek. “If that gun hadn’t have jammed when it did—”
She kissed the inside of his wrist. “But it did.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand what made you jump in front of me.”
“I …” She bit her lip, trying to come up with a lie, some little white lie to keep him from knowing how much he meant to her but nothing would come. “I did it because I love you,” she finally said as the words tumbled out. “I love you so much, Jamie.” Tears threatened to spill over. “Please stop pushing me away. It hurts too much when you do. I just want—”
He pressed his mouth to her lips, cutting off whatever she was about to say next as he kissed her over and over again, only breaking away when the sound of glass breaking and something hitting the door downstairs caught his attention.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sarah stood at the window several minutes later wishing Jamie would return. The wind and rain had intensified and was now battering the old house causing boards to groan and old shutters to bang against the wall. She twisted her fingers nervously looking for any sign of him moving about outside.
After they had broken apart from each other, Jamie grabbed a gun out of the nightstand and went downstairs to investigate while she waited nervously upstairs jumping at every little sound, as her mind conjured up nightmare scenarios of Fletcher sneaking through the house.
A board creaked in the hallway causing her to jump.
She ran to the door as Jamie called her name and knocked on the door. “What happened?” she asked letting him in.
“Everything’s fine,” he said removing his boots and then jacket. “The wind took off the old screen door at the back of the house. I put it in the stable.” He ran a hand through his wet hair. “I’ll be glad when this storm’s over. It sounds like it’s about to take the whole house down.”
