Endless Night

by Maureen A. Miller

  “Not now, Margaret.” His voice was glacial.

  Were it not for his cagey reaction, Margaret wouldn’t have given the tableau much consideration, but the fact that he positioned his hip on the desk to conceal the printer only spurred her curiosity.

  In some ways, since the night she had rejected him, Margaret had more liberties than anyone else who worked at Fortran and Rosenberg. She attributed that to the modicum of respect she felt Gordon possessed for her.

  And now Margaret chose to abuse those liberties. She tipped her chin up, clutched the stack of folders close to her chest and took two bold steps into his office. The two men exchanged glances, the younger shifting uncomfortably in his seat. It struck her that the young man was exceptionally tall—tall enough to be seated with his knees higher than the desk.

  Gordon arrested her attention. “Margaret, I am busy. Come back later.”

  There was no denying the animosity there, but still the drone of the printer intrigued her—that, and the fact that Gordon’s normally unflappable disposition seemed frayed. Dare she even say that there was a hint of perspiration beneath his gelled hairline?

  When Margaret openly gawked at the gangly young man with an overactive pituitary gland, Gordon managed a level command.

  “Mr. Jones is a client, Margaret. He was under the impression that his meeting with me would be confidential.”

  The reprimand stung and succeeded in making her retreat, but as soon as she was back in her office, she wasted no time checking the appointments for the day to determine who the enigmatic Mr. Jones and Mr. Jones Senior were.

  Unremarkably, Mr. Jones was in fact listed for 11:00 a.m., but with no case reference, and as Margaret heard the thick accent resume behind her, she’d muttered, Jones indeed.

  The stillness at the other end of the line stirred.

  “Margaret.”

  Megan slammed the receiver down, but not before she recognized the tinny resonance of a cell phone. Gordon was on the move. Coming closer.

  On a clear day the bedroom window gave her a visual span of at least a mile of Grayson Path’s winding trail, allowing her to see right up to the ravine where the old bridge sat. The land itself cloaked the structure, but if a car approached, she was ready for an aerial assault.

  God, what had she been reduced to?

  Megan stared at the gun in her hand and felt a dizzy sense of displacement. When the time came, would she actually be able to use it? Would she be able to shoot to defend herself?

  Thoughts roiled through her mind in chaotic dissonance. She wanted to call her mother, but couldn’t risk it. Generally they didn’t speak, in most part due to Megan’s preoccupation with her job, but more so the fact that her mother had started a different life half the country away.

  Last week she needed to confirm that her mother was safe after Gordon’s first phone call, but the conversation was cut short because there was marching-band practice to dash off to and then a birthday party. Meredith Kincaid was happily married to a banker, and a busy stepmother to his teenage son, and though sometimes Megan wanted nothing more than to spill the events of the last year and cry on her mother’s shoulder, life and circumstances kept her from doing so. As far as Meredith Kincaid was concerned, Megan was in Maine to work in a small law practice and escape the city.

  It was for the best though. She needed to remain alone in every facet.

  Megan’s palm landed on the window in despair. She had achieved her goal. She was alone. And she couldn’t handle it. She needed Jake.

  Retracting her hand from the frosted glass, away from the arctic wind that trickled through the poorly sealed window frame, for a brief second she thought she detected a glint of moonlight off a windshield. Rubbing a circle in the condensation, there was no trace of a vehicle, no sign of Jake.

  Jake.

  It was unfair of her to call him. Selfish to do so. But for the first time, Megan’s beleaguered mind was forced to accept one fact. She was afraid.

  She fought that admission with spells of daring such as her target practice out back. An improvised shooting range was set up with tin cans lined atop the remains of a wooden fence, a flimsy barrier between the yard and a hundred-foot plunge down to the angry breakers. As well, there was the practiced adaptability through Wakefield House’s darkened halls, to the point that she could compete with a ninja in the stealth category. Her body was toned up from weightlifting and she had read everything she could find on the art of ninjitsu. Even this very perch served as her sniper tower, although her handgun would only be useful at close range.

  All of these feats acknowledged, Megan feared that when the time came to meet her demon head-on she would fail.

  Only one person came to mind to seek help from. Only one person had gained her trust at a time when trust was the last thing she sought to bestow. She wanted Jake here, not so much for protection, but for the stability he provided. She tried to convince herself she was prepared for a confrontation with Gordon, but the truth was that she felt only a step ahead of helpless.

  Jake had embraced her as if hers was a life worth saving, and her selfishness could get him killed.

  In haste, she’d dialed O’Flanagan’s number.

  Now, she felt she had to reach Jake to retract the plea that had been uttered from her heart and not well conceived. If Jake came here he would be right in the line of fire. But over the phone, over the din of the bar, Serena reported that Jake left fifteen minutes ago.

  What have I done?

  Megan saw the lights of the Jeep climb nimbly up a grassy knoll, and a half second later she heard the rugged hum of its engine. Jake was a mile away. Tears started to mar her vision, but she blinked them back. Feeling so much older than thirty-two years of age, she pushed away from the window and started downstairs.

  Jake wrenched the vehicle into Park. He didn’t take the time to kick the mud off the bottom of his boots as he climbed onto the porch. Two loud raps on the door and an urgent “Megan” produced no results.

  He yanked the screen open and tried the brass handle, but it was locked. He pounded the mottled wood, and was nearly tempted to kick it in when a shadow passed by the single pane of glass. The handle clicked beneath his touch and on the screech of a hinge, the front door swung open.

  The ghost of Wakefield House greeted him with ocean-blue eyes that could make a man believe in an afterlife.

  Neither spoke. The exchange was much more vivid without words to diminish it. Megan stood at the door, much like the first time he’d seen her. An oversized sweater made her appear vulnerable, while her fingers clutched the doorframe with a tenacity that pained him. Although, this time her free hand was wrapped around the barrel of an automatic weapon.

  Jake only briefly acknowledged these details before he returned to her eyes. They shined with recently shed tears and in those misty layers, he felt he could see directly into her soul.

  For the longest time they stood there, locked in place by the power of this silent exchange. This look they shared said, “Put your cards on the table. Now, are you going to fold, or are you going to up the ante?”

  Never in his life had Jake experienced this type of connection with a woman. He thought he had been in love once. For a time that relationship was intense, maybe even briefly passionate, but this moment convinced him otherwise. Passion took on a whole new meaning. Not just a raw sexual urge, but an overwhelming longing for something that suddenly seemed attainable.

  Under the scope of Megan’s gaze he felt naked and invincible at the same time. He could feel her inside of him as if they shared a body. They didn’t touch, but he sensed the quickened beat of her heart. He sensed the soft thud of her pulse at each wrist, and he heard Megan crying inside.

  His glance fell to the gun clutched in her trembling hand. He stared at it blankly for a moment, and then looked up at her face again. Her skin was porcelain-white, nearly translucent to the point that shadows of exhaustion lurked beneath the flesh. The effect only heightened the vi
vid shade of her eyes. Long dark lashes fluttered over her cheeks, once—a quick blink, and then she had him again.

  He took a step. His arm lifted. His fingers went into her hair, behind her neck, and then he kissed her.

  Someone once wrote in a song, “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”

  Megan didn’t want to think anymore or be right. She just wanted to feel. Jake’s arms slipped around her. He drew her into him, as if he could protect her in this embrace, and indeed, she believed he could. With each sweep of his mouth, the fear numbed. With each touch of his lips, her awareness of him intensified.

  Jake had not said one word. He had not asked a single question. He had just looked at her—into her, and knew what she needed, knew that she needed this.

  Never was there a worse time for her to have these feelings, about a stranger, no less. But it had happened, and it only solidified the need to end the oppression of Gordon Fortran.

  Amazingly though, all her conviction grew fuzzy. Jake kissed her again and again, and her limbs felt heavy, blood pooling downward. Somewhere deep within, she had enough strength to release the door and loop her free arm around his neck. Gun still in hand, she lifted that arm and wound it around him until her body was arched in his embrace.

  Jake wouldn’t stop. It was nothing invasive. Not a wild mating of mouths or a chaotic tangle of tongues. No, he just kissed her, and kissed her, and Megan thought she was drowning. She felt as if she had turned into rain and would pour right out of his grasp and spill onto the veranda.

  Finally, mercifully, his head drew back.

  “You called,” Jake whispered in a husky voice. His eyebrow arched. “Did you need something?”

  Oh, yeah, that was it. She was in love. What man would accept a woman greeting him at the front door with a gun in hand, that same gun now wrapped around his neck, and ask, did you need something?

  “You.” It wrenched from so far deep in her throat, she wasn’t even sure the word had surfaced.

  But the diverse colors in Jake’s eyes convened, and the corners pinched in pain as a soft breath passed over his lips. He gripped her shoulders and his eyebrows dipped, the stern set of his jaw so tense she could see a muscle pump beneath the tan flesh.

  “Megan,” he began.

  “Look.” She jolted out of his grip. “Sorry about that. I was just, I just—”

  He moved so fast. His hands were up in her hair, and his mouth possessed her before she could even complete the thought. Quick. Hot. And then it was gone.

  “Why don’t you just leave it at ‘you wanted me’?” he offered roughly.

  “Why don’t you just—” Damn, he looked so good. Dark, strong and with eyes that burned like gold when the sun poked through a cloudbank, “—come inside.”

  “Thank you for asking.”

  Maybe his voice was glib, but every move Jake made was a concerto of taut muscles. As he entered the foyer, his head craned into the den and angled to the right to scope out the dining room and lastly, his gaze drilled forward into the thick shadows that obscured the rest of Wakefield House.

  At length, his glance returned to Megan, and she felt it like a physical caress. “Something is going on between us,” he declared in a husky voice. The tone held her captive and she couldn’t move if her life depended on it. “If you dare stand there and deny it—”

  “I don’t,” she rushed.

  Some of the tension eased from his shoulders. He shrugged out of his jacket and stood before her in a black pullover sweater and worn jeans.

  “Alright.” He ran a hand over his mouth. “Then it’s time for you to talk.”

  Megan looked down at the gun in her hand. She felt disassociated from it, as if the GLOCK, and even her hand, belonged to someone else.

  It did. Margaret Simmons.

  Despondent, her eyes returned to Jake’s, but what she saw there made her hesitate.

  “Jake.” She read the facial structure, the pinched mouth, the fatigue that clouded an expression she had come to consider devilishly handsome and dramatically intense. The cyclone of color in his eyes exposed a bevy of emotions. “What’s wrong?”

  He laughed. It was forced. “Oh, no you don’t. Megan—Meg, it’s too late for diversions. I want to know what’s happening here. What’s happening to you?” The hand that had rubbed across his mouth dropped into a frustrated fist at his side. “Let me help. Trust me at least to do that.”

  Megan stood rooted. Her feet felt leaden. The gun grew heavier. Tears inched their way behind her eyes again, obscuring her vision so that now the gun was merely a nebulous appendage, a caricature of her own hand. She blinked repeatedly and looked up toward the window so that the tears could slide back behind her eyes.

  “So much for the brief span of sunshine,” she whispered bleakly.

  Jake didn’t say anything. He just watched her.

  A tremor coursed through her, the ripple felt down to her fingertips, which clenched around the barrel. Slowly, painfully, she lifted it in offering and managed a raspy plea. “Can you take this? It’s grown so heavy.”

  Trust.

  Jake stepped forward. His hand wrapped around hers to suffuse it with heat. And then magically, the weight of the gun was gone.

  “Talk to me.”

  She tried not to hear the hushed urgency in his voice, but it was there.

  “Jake—” In the kitchen, the wall phone began to ring. Her body shuddered with each chime, but she refused to budge.

  Jake barely acknowledged the persistent sound. He seemed attuned with every flinch of her body, as if the tremors extended to him.

  Still, the phone rang.

  Let it ring, she thought. Let it ring. Answering it only proved that she was sitting here waiting for Gordon to come get her. To hell with Gordon Fortran. Literally.

  “Solicitors,” Jake’s soft voice rumbled between the peals. “Bastards.”

  Who knew why that comment proved to be the catalyst? The tears that Megan had managed to blink away finally offset her efforts and coursed unchecked down her cheeks. Through a misty veil she saw Jake watching her.

  Still, the phone rang.

  He moved to pick it up and Megan snapped from her trance. “No,” she nearly screamed.

  Caught in midmotion, Jake lowered his arm and turned to her with a grave look as the phone fell silent.

  She would not back down from his intense stare. She hefted her head. “I—I’m hiding up here—in this house.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I—” A vague response would not dissuade the determined gleam in his eyes, yet at the same time she sought to protect him with ambiguity.

  “Alright, goddammit.” She breathed and brushed a nervous hand through her hair, finally meeting his stare dead-on. “You want to know what happened?” It was a challenge. “A year ago I witnessed a murder.”

  It wasn’t what he was expecting. Actually, Jake was thinking more along the lines of something like she was married, she was hiding from her husband, she was practicing for the convent—she was off-limits by some means and he wasn’t permitted to have her. Which God help him, he would battle any of those obstacles to have her.

  A witness to murder. Yeah, he could handle that.

  “Witness protection?” It would make sense, he thought. The confusion with the name, and the fact that he had seen nothing of a personal nature that would identify this enigmatic woman, all indicated witness protection.

  Megan snorted in response to that.

  “No, nothing so glamorous.”

  “How long ago? What murder? Is the guy out of prison now? Is that who is calling?” The questions could have rolled on for hours were it not for the shadows that crept into her gaze.

  Only moments ago, her tears had nearly proven his undoing. Jake still wanted to reach for Megan, to drag her into his embrace and hold her until every tremor subsided, but her wary stance held him at bay.

  “No,” she said.

  “The police must hav
e you protected in some manner? They put you up here?”

  “No.”

  Jake started to feel edgy. “They’re involved, aren’t they? You reported the murder, right?”

  Megan’s chin rose above the confines of her turtleneck. She cleared her throat and he could see the muscles in her neck move. She shook her head.

  “Then I’m going to have to assume that you had a really good reason not to.” His voice took on a deeper timbre.

  Megan nipped at her lower lip and her eyes fled his inquisition. For what seemed like an interminable period, Jake held his breath and waited for her eyes to meet his again. His heart nearly broke at the pain there. Torment, indecision and misguided determination spiked the cerulean irises, only to blur behind a fresh veil of tears. He took a tentative step toward her.

  Megan’s body stiffened, but she did not retreat. “When you first came here, I thought that he sent you,” she whispered.

  Damn. It all made sense now. Every minor reaction of Megan’s since the moment he met her made some semblance of logic. Well, everything but her kisses and that scorching connection in the dark. If she had been afraid he was the long arm of the law, or the extended hand of a murderer, then why had she melted in his embrace and kissed him like her destiny existed in that kiss?

  “He could have,” Jake began, cautious, “but if that were the case…” His hand lifted to her chin as he saw her quiver in an effort not to withdraw. He touched it and watched her eyes churn with a smoldering volley of fear and desire. The effect floored him.

  “If that were the case—” his voice was thick, “—I would either have brought you to him, or killed you.” He moved in, close enough that their bodies whispered together. “I wouldn’t do this.”

  Jake’s fingers raised that chin a fraction more, just enough that his mouth could consume her. And when it did, he realized that he was lost.

  Chapter Twelve