“Yeah, but I didn’t interact with her. I think she was helping Ethan with intake.” It’s true…other than the first night, I didn’t run into her at all.
“You took up fishing?”
He’s fishing about my fishing…and I was indeed fishing for information on my actual fishing expedition. I guess we’re both fishermen. As long as he doesn’t know about my middle-of-the-day field trip under the platform I’m good. “You would too if you were fed gruel three times a day. I’d have liked to snag a gator, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it back up to the platform.”
“What about the girl in the hospital?”
I need to make him work harder for information. “What girl?”
He shuffles through some notes on his desk. “A…Madison Rowland. You reportedly went to see her on a few occasions?”
I cock my head at him, trying to figure out his angle before responding. “Technically, the first time I wasn’t there to see her… I was there to escort Doc Daryn to his board meeting since he can’t seem to keep track of time himself.” The less organized and capable he thinks the Exilers are, the better. “His patient was a girl dying of an infected gunshot wound. She didn’t seem to have any family or friends, so I stopped by a couple times when I was bored. I do believe I was directed not to ‘hang out’ with my Exiler friends…and I could only do so much fishing, particularly when I got as sick of the fish as I did the gruel.”
Madison was still in the ICU when I left. Did she make it?
After I’d told Doc about her history, he found a psych-type to help her deal with all the crap she had been through (at least, the stuff she remembered) which made me feel a little better about leaving. It was still rough. She’d gotten a little attached to me—or was it the other way around? I don’t like the fact that she’s on Brad’s radar. I’ve got to figure out a way to go back and make sure she is okay.
Brad interrupts my train of thought. “How’s your son? For someone who claims to have little interaction with Kira, you’ve been spending an awful lot of time over at their place. Did I mention that I’ve moved in next door to them? I’m sure that I’ll be seeing you over there…I can play with my grandson while you play with your son. Won’t that be fabulous?”
Well…crap…I did not see that coming. I haven’t spent any time with Aiden. If I suddenly stop showing up there, it’ll look suspicious. If I keep up the same schedule, that will be a whole lot of “baby time.” If Brad sees us together, it’ll show that I’m clueless around him. I’m screwed. “Aiden’s great. Getting big and all that. I hang out with Ethan too. He is my brother, remember?”
He pushes away from his desk, stands up, and then comes around to stand in front of me, gripping my shoulder tightly. “Come, come. I do believe I told you about my great affinity for chess. Let’s play a game. Shall we?” A small table’s set up in front of the window with two chairs and a chessboard.
“I’d rather not.” I mumble.
His chest shakes as he lets out a roaring laugh. “I insist. I’m betting you could use the practice.”
Chess with a psychopath? I seriously hate my job.
“Order is never observed; it is disorder that attracts attention because it is awkward and intrusive.”
—Eliphas Levi
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kira
I’ve been back from Art City for a couple weeks and back to my regular routine, falling asleep at day completely exhausted. Jax and Ethan have been busy working. They spend time with the babies when they can, but they haven’t had much downtime. I’ve happily covered the slack. I missed Zander, Evvie, and Aiden so much while I was gone.
Today, I haven’t been asleep for more than twenty minutes before the baby assembly line day terror hits again. This time, however, a comforting pair of arms pulls me back flush against his body. “Shhh. I’m here, love.” I nuzzle against him and doze off.
My next dream is equally as vivid and scary but for an entirely different reason. A shirtless Jax is seducing me with hungry kisses. He climbs into bed with me to stave off a day terror, giving me a gentle massage at first, and then his hands start to roam. “You’re so beautiful, love,” he whispers over and over.
Right when things get seriously hot and heavy, I am shaken awake. My breathing is shallow, and my heart feels like it might take flight out of my chest.
Jax mumbles. “Good Gads, Kira. The day terrors I can handle…but not that. It’s evening. I’ve…I’ve got to go.” He doesn’t even look at me as he slips through the door and back into his own room. Good thing. My face is beet red. Moments later, I hear the shower running. Well that was awkward.
I can’t leave things as they are. It’s not like I can control what I dream, and I need Jax in my life—for Evvie and for me. So after I hear the water stop running, I wait a couple minutes and then knock on his door.
He answers dressed in nothing but a towel and does not seem the least bit surprised to see me. My entire body flushes with color.
“Hey.” As I scan him, my eyes glue themselves to his rock-hard chest and defined abs. I trace every groove and contour with my eyes. He is beautiful. I twist the bottom of my daygown in my hand and nervously shift from foot to foot.
“You need something?” His response is curt.
“Um…I…uh…well…earlier…sorry…dreaming…awkward…sorry…again.” I stumble over my words like a complete idiot. Slowly, I lift my gaze to his face to see how much damage I’ve done. I’m biting my lip so hard, I taste blood.
His dimples are on full display. It has been quite a while since he has really smiled at me. “You’re adorable when you stammer, love. Why don’t you hop in the shower and get dressed…please.” I’m in a spaghetti strap daygown and suddenly feel self-conscious as his gaze traverses my poorly covered body. “I’ll get the babies changed and dressed, and you can feed them when you’re ready.”
“Uh…yeah…okay…shower…dressed. You…uh…too…clothes…distracting.” I need a fire hose. My cheeks are ablaze. I whirl around and stumble to my dresser to find some clothes. It isn’t until I walk into the bathroom that Jax finally closes his door. He must think I’m such an idiot. Over and over again, he makes it clear that he’s not attracted to me in that way, but I can’t seem to get my brain to understand. My stupid brain is going to make me lose one of the best things that has ever happened to me. And now that I’ve seen him in a towel, I fear that I’m going to be having more—not less—dreams about him.
I crank the water up to a scorching temperature and scrub myself with Theranberry body wash. When my entire body has taken on the red hue of my cheeks, I find clarity. The time for crushes and schoolgirl romances is long past. Aiden, Evvie, and Zander have to come first.
Consider my track record. I wasted a year with Tristan, who was cheating on me the entire time with my best friend, Briella. I met Ethan the night I caught Tristan and Bri together…and while I can’t say that it was love at first sight, it was definitely really-like-a-lot at first sight. And I held on to that crush for months, using it as a distraction from the horrible things I was experiencing. Sure, we ended up Cleaved but our time together? We had a fake relationship, a friendship, and then a couple actual nights of real relationship before being separated for a year. A year in which we both changed dramatically.
Oh, and let’s not forget Blake—the boy who ditched me for his cause over and over again, and then purposefully got himself Exiled to avoid even the possibility of being Cleaved to me. Once in Exile, he immediately hooked up with Bailey Goodington. That girl had the nerve to confront me in Art City and threaten me. She thinks I plan to try to suck Blake into my “screwed up family” with “the bastard child of mine.” If I do this, she will “make us suffer” dearly. I laughed in her face since the only way to suck Blake back in would be to make the babies disappear.
I’m convinced that I must have a tattoo on my forehead that shows up when guys approach. “Only Volatile, Unreliable Guys Need Apply.” Unfortunately, volatile, unreliable
guys don’t make the best life partners or fathers. And let’s face it—not many guys could handle being a parent to babies with three different fathers. Blake? He won’t even acknowledge having parented one of them. Ethan only pays attention to Zander. And Jax isn’t interested in me.
I want love, romance, the whole works. I’m just not convinced it will happen. I really thought I’d have it all with Ethan. How hard did you really try though? Good point. What’s that quote by Teddy Roosevelt? “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” Then there’s the good ’ol, “anything worth having is worth fighting for.” I bailed on Ethan as soon as it got hard, and I need to apologize to him for it. Maybe even give him another chance? Do I want that? I do know that Ethan deserved better from me. I selfishly figured that I’d already endured enough pain and difficulty for a lifetime over the past year, and that I didn’t need any more from my Cleave. Maybe, had I given it a little more effort and fought for Ethan, he wouldn’t have turned on Jax, and their relationship wouldn’t be so strained.
Why do I feel like I’m being continually tested and will be lucky to get a passing grade?
I’ve kept the babies waiting long enough. I get out of the shower and finish getting ready. I decide to let my hair dry naturally curly and apply some light makeup—just enough to hide the dark circles under my eyes and appear to be amongst the living. Once dressed in a purple, lace top and white skirt I go search for Jax and the babies. I find them in the playroom. The babies are all lined up in bouncy chairs and being fed baby cereal, a recent addition to their diet by the nurses who watched them while I was in Art City. Based on their messy faces, I think they are wearing more than they are eating.
“They still don’t love it, huh?”
Jax motions for me to come sit by him. “Have you eaten yet?”
I shake my head. “Then close your eyes and open your mouth,” he says. “I’ve got something for you.”
I’m imagining getting a bite of delicious donut or pastry, but instead Jax dumps a heaping spoonful of baby cereal into my mouth. I spew it out all over Jax. “Ugh. Nasty.”
He grabs one of the baby’s burp rags and uses it to clean up my face and his. “Can you blame the babies for not wanting to eat it?”
“You suck. Your turn.” I grab for the food and then wrestle Jax to the ground. My left hand snakes into his hair and tugs it in an attempt to hold him steady while my right hand wields the cereal-filled spoon. He’s writhing under me, trying to escape, but all I can think about is what he looked like in that towel.
The door opens, and I look up to see Ethan. This looks bad. I’m straddling Jax, in a skirt. Granted, I’m also smearing baby food all over his face since he has his mouth locked shut. Ethan says, “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to spend some time with Zander.”
I jump up and pull down my skirt. “You’re not interrupting anything. Jax tricked me into eating this nasty baby food, and I was just trying to repay the favor—unsuccessfully.”
Jax sits up, grabs the rag, and wipes off his face. He tickles the babies and ruffles each of their heads before standing and giving me a wink. “I’ve got to run to a meeting. See you guys later.” Then he disappears.
Ethan gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. I’m sure he’s upset at what he thinks he saw. It is time to make amends, apologize for hurting him. I suck in a deep breath and try to find the right words.
“Hey, I need to talk to you,” I say. “I wanted to apologize…for being such a sucky Cleave…for keeping you in the dark after the babies were born, for letting you think I was dead, and for running when things got tough. You deserved better. I’m so sorry.”
He closes the distance and wraps his arms around me and whispers in my ear. “You don’t know what that means to me. I’m sorry too. I wasn’t exactly nice about it all.”
There’s an awkward silence. He pulls back from the hug and looks at me. I don’t know what to say or where to go from here and neither does he. He’s the first to break the silence. “How’d you like to come back to Earth with me to attend Henry’s post-election party? I don’t have a choice about being there. If the polls are right, Henry’s going to win the election by a landslide, so his staff is planning quite the celebration. The time change will suck, but maybe we can go a night early? In the morning, we could go buy you a dress. That evening we can eat Henry’s overpriced food while pretending to be happy about the SCI takeover.”
It has been a while since I’ve been back to Earth. Jax and I were on the run last time, so we definitely weren’t hitting malls to buy formalwear or attending fancy parties. “That sounds good. Let me make the arrangements with the nurses. Can you watch the babies while I do that?”
“All of them?” he asks.
“Yep. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
He looks a little panicked, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. As I leave the room the babies start fussing. I think about going back and getting Evvie and Aiden, but I stop myself. If we’re ever going to have a chance of making things work, we’ve both got to put in the effort. And that means he needs to learn how to be around all the babies, not just Zander.
Seven months ago: United States
Earth seemed the safest place to go after the attack on my life in Military City. The SCI and my would-be assassins would be hunting for us on Thera. We started in Texas, but after months of searing Theran heat I wanted some cold weather. Heat and pregnancy did not mix well. So we moved to Maine, Wyoming, and then to Washington State in a town called Friday Harbor. Jax felt safer changing destinations frequently. I’d have preferred to explore Europe or someplace exciting, but we didn’t have passports—or at least I didn’t. Jax had a full-blown alternate identity set up as Jack Mitchell, complete with credit cards, bank account, driver’s license, and social security number.
We rented a small house in Friday Harbor with a nice view and in walking distance to the quaint seaside town. It was, by far, my favorite spot on our tour of “small towns USA.” I’d been pretty glum after having six attempts on my life in six weeks. The bandage on my neck was a constant reminder at how close I’d come to dying. My panic attacks had subsided, but I was depressed. And I hadn’t had a therapy session in a while.
Jax decided to combat my case of the blues with “Operation: Make Kira Smile.”
“We’re going whale watching today,” Jax declared as he ripped the covers off of me.
I covered my head with my pillow and grumbled. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
He scooped me up, pillow and all, and dumped me into a pre-filled, warm, soapy bath.
“What is it with you and putting me into water fully clothed?”
He threw his head back and laughed, showing off his dimples. “You just say the word, and I’ll be happy to strip you first, next time.”
I splashed him with a healthy dose of water and suds.
When we got to the boat, I panicked. I associated boats with trips to SCI portals, being taken away from my Cleave, and high-speed chases while being shot at. Jax coaxed me on, lending me a calming hand. He’d arranged to have a special “big pregnant woman” seat brought on board to make me as comfortable as possible. We saw a dozen orcas, including a couple babies, on our tour.
“See, I told you that you’re not as big as a whale. You’re not even as big as a baby whale.” Jax joked as a mom and baby swam alongside the boat. Both orcas were showoffs and gave us a SeaWorld-worthy show, launching themselves out of the water and splashing back down.
I smiled. The sun peeked through the clouds, the wind whistled, the crisp, salty air filled my nostrils, a bald eagle flew overhead, and I was alive.
Jax woke me on day two with fresh cinnamon rolls from the local bakery.
“Now that is the way to get me up.” I wiped the sleep from my eyes and stretched.
He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I’ve drawn you another bath, love. Eat up, and then get ready. I have a fun day planned
.”
It was an unseasonably warm day, so I dressed in a long-sleeved, yellow jersey and multi-colored maxi skirt, which was about as comfortable as I could get given how huge I was. We walked outside, and I laughed when I saw that Jax had rented us a red Scoot Coupe. It looked like a three-wheeled, miniature convertible VW Beetle.
“I hope you don’t expect me to drive because there is no way that my stomach will fit behind that wheel. In fact, it will be a miracle if I fit in there at all.”
Jax mussed his hair before putting on a helmet and handing me one with a pair of sunglasses. “I am your humble chauffeur, servant, and whatever else you need me to be.”
We spent the day exploring the island. Jax had packed a picnic lunch, which we ate at a small, deserted beach. Dressed in faded jeans, a long-sleeved blue pullover, cowboy boots, and a baseball cap, Jax almost passed for being normal. The moment his golden eyes lit up, his dimples appeared, or he opened his mouth and melodic, slightly-accented words rolled off his tongue, he became something a whole lot more extraordinary.
I’d been so exhausted the following day that I got a reprieve. Jax brought me an e-reader filled with novels and a fabulous spread of food that I nibbled on all day. I asked Jax if he thought I could get away with calling Ethan—just to hear his voice—but he told me that Ethan’s phones were tapped, and his apartment was bugged.
Although I thought of Ethan often and wondered what it would be like once we were reunited as a Cleaved couple, I had long since come to grips with the separation. I felt guilty because I questioned whether what we had was real. I knew so little about him. We had spent almost no time together as a couple. There were days when I couldn’t even picture him. My memory of him was fading. I knew his eyes were sapphire-blue and that his hair was dark, but I couldn’t put it all together. The slope of his nose? His jawline? Exactly how thick his lashes were? When he started his smile, did the left or right corner of his mouth turn up first? When we escaped Military City, I had to leave my tablet with all the pictures of him on it behind because it could be tracked.
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