Jameson's Salvation

by Riley Edwards

  Jameson studied the three-inch laceration and luckily it was a clean, straight slice. It would be easy to close up.

  “Yep, that needs stitches all right. I’d guess twelve, maybe fifteen,” Jameson announced and Weston flipped him off.

  Kennedy pressed the washcloth against Weston’s arm and her other hand went to his back to steady herself as she applied pressure.

  Suddenly and with shocking clarity, Jameson understood Nixon. The man was positively insane when it came to McKenna. None of them could get near her without him looking harassed. Therefore, his friends did it more, just to get under his skin. They’d hug her hello, hug her goodbye, pat her on the back when she worked her magic and found them the intel they needed. Anytime they could, they’d touch her in a brotherly way. Nixon hated it.

  Seeing Weston sitting with his shirt off and Kennedy’s hands on his bare skin sent him ballistic.

  “Did the big asshole just growl?” Weston asked. “Possessive asshole. Maybe if you weren’t sucking face outside in your truck and you’d come up here sooner, your woman wouldn’t be worried about me bleeding out.”

  “You’re not gonna bleed out, idiot.”

  Not wanting Kennedy’s hands on Weston for any longer than necessary, Jameson told them to go into the conference room and he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. The med kit was in the other room and the chairs were leather. It would be easier to clean up blood should any drip when Jameson was sewing Weston up.

  Once again, Weston was seated and Kennedy was tending to his arm when Jameson entered the room. Jameson pulled out the med kit and rooted around for what he needed. Once he had everything laid out, he put on a pair of surgical gloves and turned to Kennedy.

  “I take it you’re okay with blood.”

  “Not fond of seeing someone I know bleed, but otherwise yes.”

  “Go wash up and put on a pair of gloves.” Kennedy didn’t move but her brow did raise and her lips flattened. “If you wouldn’t mind, I could use your help,” he added and she still hadn’t budged. “Please.”

  Kennedy waited for Weston to take over holding the washcloth on his arm and she left the room.

  “Knew you had it bad, but goddamn.”

  “You sure you wanna do this right before I’m gonna stitch you up?”

  “Might have to start calling you a house kitten. You and Nix both seem to have traded your balls for—”

  “Unless you want me to make you cry like a bitch in front of Kennedy, I wouldn’t finish that statement.”

  Weston tried but failed to hold back his shit-eating grin. “Right. Happy for you.”

  “Happy about what?” Kennedy asked, walking into the room with her hands in front of her, bent up at the elbows like a doctor on one of those TV dramas does when they walked into a surgical suite.

  “Nothing, babe. You’re gonna need some gloves, too.”

  Kennedy easily put on the two-sizes-too-big latex gloves and waited for Jameson’s next instruction.

  He explained what he needed her to do and got to work. Twenty minutes later, Weston had thirteen stitches and Jameson was cleaning up the mess when Kennedy asked, “What happened anyway?”

  “Asshole wasn’t too happy when I handed him the subpoena. Didn’t think much about it, the guy’s being disposed in a civil case. Apparently, he’s not willing to give testimony and was pissed we’d tracked him down. It was sloppy on my part; I should’ve been ready for anything. But goddamn, the man was quick on the draw and caught me on the arm before I could stop him.”

  Kennedy’s gaze was swinging back and forth between the two men and she was frowning.

  “I thought you guys were PIs.”

  “We are, among other things,” Weston started, and Jameson really wished his friend would keep his trap shut. Kennedy already looked freaked; he didn’t want her more worried about his job. “In this case, our client’s an attorney and hired us to track the guy down and serve him. Holden and Chasin are working a bond skip right now and are in West Virginia hunting. Nixon left this morning for Pennsylvania to haul a fugitive back to Maryland.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Kennedy muttered.

  “It’s really not. It’s mostly boring and the majority of our work is done in the office,” Jameson said.

  “Really?” Kennedy tipped her head to the bloody shirt still on the table then over at the angry red welt on Weston’s bicep before looking back at him with raised eyebrows.

  “Most of the time it’s not.”

  “You sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” she asked Weston. “Do you need antibiotics or something?”

  “Nope. Got bags of them at home. ‘Preciate it though.”

  “You should come home with me and Jameson, you need to put that arm up and eat something.”

  Jameson froze and sheer panic set in.

  Home.

  He didn’t have a home, hadn’t for a long time. He’d been given housing when he was in the Navy, then he’d rented crash pads, and now he was staying at a buddy’s house—but it was not his home. He hadn’t had one of those since before his dad had walked out and fucked his mom over. After his dad left, Jameson had lived in hell, the happy home he’d known was gone.

  “Kennedy, darlin’,” Weston started. “Can you do me a favor and run up to my office? There’s a gym bag up there and if you open it there should be a clean tee.”

  “Sure.” She smiled at him, happy to help.

  “You know which office is mine?”

  “Yeah, Jameson showed me.”

  Kennedy had left the room but Jameson barely noticed. He was too lost in his own head.

  “Don’t fuck this up and lock yourself away,” Weston snapped.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I saw it happen. She invited me home and you closed down.”

  “I—”

  “I know you, and I’ve never known you to be a liar. Don’t start being one now. I’m gonna tell it to you straight. I like her.” Jameson jerked at his friend’s admission. “She’s smart and funny and damn if she’s not hot as hell. I’d jump at the chance to make a play. Let me rephrase that, I would’ve made my play and she’d be in my bed right now and I wouldn’t be squandering the gift, if I hadn’t known you were interested. Don’t make me regret steppin’ aside by fucking this up because she used a phrase that freaks you out. You know what she meant when she said it and you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

  Jameson heard Weston’s words, but he’d stopped comprehending them after he’d heard that Weston would’ve made a move for Kennedy. It played into all of his insecurities. Weston was the better choice. The better man. But Jameson didn’t have it in him to step aside, Kennedy was his. He’d felt it the first day he’d seen her in front of her mom’s house. It was more than a spark of interest. It was more than her beauty. There had been a moment when Jameson saw the fire and determination in Kennedy’s eyes and he’d known right then if he didn’t run like a coward, she’d have the power to own him.

  And he had been right.

  “You’re reading me wrong,” Jameson growled and took a step toward one of his best friends. “I know what Kennedy meant. I just wasn’t prepared for how much I’d like hearing it.”

  “Good.” Weston held his eyes and made no move to retreat from a very angry Jameson.

  “Now, you wanna talk about why you’re thinking about being in my woman’s bed?”

  “Not thinking about it. Said I would’ve made a play. But I didn’t. And you damn well know why I didn’t. Glad to see you pulled your head out of your ass because you deserve this.”

  Before either man could say more, Kennedy came into the conference room holding a t-shirt. Her nose was scrunched and she handed Weston the bunched-up material.

  “You need to wash that bag,” she told him. “This was the cleanest tee I could find.”

  “Thanks.” Weston chuckled and pulled on his shirt. “And thanks for the offer to feed me, but I’m gonna hea
d home, shower, and hit the sack. Another time?”

  “Are you sure you don’t need help? We could go with you back to your place and get you settled.”

  Kennedy was speaking in “we’s” and Jameson liked that, especially now having confirmation that at one time Weston had been interested in her.

  “’Preciate your concern, but this isn’t the first time I’ve had a little scrape and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

  Jameson was happy Weston had donned the tee and was no longer standing in front of Kennedy bare-chested.

  The two men shook hands, Weston thanked Jameson again for sewing him up, said his goodbyes to Kennedy, and left.

  Kennedy and Jameson followed suit, locking up the office, and then heading home. He was surprised when on the way home, Kennedy hadn’t asked any questions about his job or commented on Weston’s wound. They were almost to her house when Jameson decided to broach the subject.

  “You okay with what happened?”

  “Which part? Weston getting hurt? No. Finding out that your job is more dangerous than I’d thought? No. Finding out you know how to stitch up a wound and you’re very proficient at it? No.”

  “So breaking that down, you’re not okay with any of it.”

  “Not right now, but I will be. I have no choice, but it will take me more than an hour to process it. Never seen someone get their arm sewn without some sort of anesthetic or painkiller. And I’ve never seen anyone but a doctor give stitches.”

  Then Jameson did something he never thought he’d do in an effort to help Kennedy get past her fear.

  “You can ask me anything you want.”

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “In the Navy. I have basic med training.”

  “And you were a Navy SEAL?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head and asked, “Does that happen a lot?”

  “When we were in the teams and deployed, yes. But that’s the first time it’s happened since we started Gemini Group.”

  “The scar on your shoulder and the one on your torso?”

  “The one on my shoulder was a bullet graze. Hurt like a motherfucker when the adrenaline from the firefight wore off. I’d wished the bullet had actually gone through rather than burning my skin off. The scar on my stomach is from a blade. We’d breached a house and were cleaning it when a man jumped out from inside a hidden closet. When he attacked, he stupidly went for center mass and hit my vest, but his last slash as he was going down, hit below my plates and gashed my stomach. Holden stitched me up when we got back to base. He’s better at it than I am, his patch jobs rarely leave scars. It would look worse now if one of the other guys sewed me up.”

  “And your back? I saw a few puckered scars there.”

  “Shrapnel. We were rescuing an aid worker. When we got to the camp where he was being held, there was a second hostage we weren’t prepared for. I gave her my vest and on the way out, the terrorists detonated a bomb. I was hit with some fragments.”

  Jameson pulled into Kennedy’s drive and parked next to her truck. He was happy to see the newly installed motion light flooded the area nice and bright.

  He unbuckled and turned toward her and asked, “What else do you want to know?”

  Jameson had found that answering her questions wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.

  “You’ve been shot at a lot.” That was a statement but he still answered in the affirmative.

  “And you’ve shot back.”

  “If that is your nice way of asking if I’ve killed someone, the answer is yes.”

  Kennedy was suspiciously quiet, and as much as he feared her censure, she had a right to know what kind of man she’d invited into her home and her bed.

  “I told you I’m the way I am because of the things I’ve seen and done. I’m not proud of taking lives but I am proud of my service.” Jameson shifted in his seat. “I do not take joy in killing another human, but I don’t feel remorse or sympathy for ending a warlord’s life, or a terrorist’s, or any other man or woman who meant us harm. I don’t dwell on the people I’ve killed or the act of ending a life. I dwell on the knowledge that people are seriously fucked-up.”

  He looked out the windshield, thankful for the light. “There are men out there that will starve their people for power, they will rape their women for control. There are women who will sell their daughters for food, but more astonishing is that there are places in this world where a mother has to make that choice.”

  Jameson didn’t dare look back at Kennedy as he went on. “Men who will strap bombs to their daughters because they know that Americans will grapple with the moral dilemma before we shoot a ten-year-old girl. They give their five-year-old sons rifles and hide behind them, because again, we will struggle with killing a child.”

  He shifted his gaze to his hands gripping the steering wheel. “That haunts you, knowing you had no choice, your decency and honor was stolen from you and you were forced to end a child’s life. A child who should’ve been home tucked away and protected. Instead, their own flesh taught them hate and sent them out to kill and be killed.”

  Jameson hadn’t realized he’d fisted his hands until Kennedy reached over and pried his fingers open and laced them with hers.

  “There are times when I hate myself more than I hate the world. I fucking hate I’m not strong enough to bury it.”

  He hadn’t meant to tell Kennedy his closely guarded secret. He’d never told anyone that. His friends all thought his bad attitude and general dislike for everybody was simply because he was an asshole. They had no idea it was because the person he despised most was himself for being weaker than them. The kernel of distrust his father had planted had blossomed into a forest and Jameson wasn’t strong enough to stop it. He’d allowed it to take over his life and turn him into a cynical prick. And war hadn’t helped, it had only reinforced his notions, there was no such thing as love. There was only evil in the world—and in an effort to protect himself, he’d gone into seclusion, only allowing those who proved themselves close.

  “You can’t bury it, Jameson,” Kennedy spoke softly. “And it’s not because you’re weak, it’s because you’re a good man. A protector.” She squeezed his hands in her tiny ones.

  “You can’t forget what you’ve seen because the things you’ve witnessed are disgusting and atrocious. They’re unforgettable to you, because it’s unfathomable that a man would harm his child. A woman would be put in the position to have to sell her child. But you did not do those things, they did. And yes, they took your control, forced you to do something or see something that burns your soul. And it burns because you are good person.”

  Kennedy searched his face. “I hope you don’t think that by you sharing that with me I think less of you. I may be just a girl from a small town living a simple life, but I’m not naïve to the fact we’ve been at war for a long time. And knowing that means I know that men like you exist. The men that are sent to keep us safe. Who face things that they should never have to.”

  She ran her thumbs over the tops of his fingers. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done. If it weren’t for men like you that live with the burdens you do, I could be one of those women. I don’t like that you carry the pain, but, Jameson, the alternative is that one day it may be my children or their children that are one of those women with no rights, no protection, living under the constant threat of being harmed.”

  Kennedy paused and squeezed his hand and shook it, bringing his attention from staring unseeing out the windshield to looking at her. Determination and compassion shone in her eyes, and the tight knot in Jameson’s gut started to loosen.

  “I’m not trying to diminish what you’ve seen, I’m telling you that you’ve made a difference and I hope that helps you just a little bit. I appreciate your sacrifice. You feel things much deeper than you let on and that does not make you weak, that makes you strong. It makes me proud to know you. It makes me thankful.”

  Jame
son was at a loss for words. But just because he couldn’t find his voice didn’t mean he hadn’t felt every word Kennedy had said—every single one of them had penetrated the fortress he’d built around his heart. She rocked the very foundation he’d spent years fortifying. He would’ve bet his life that his walls were so high, so armor-plated, that no one would’ve been able to scale them. Yet there she was, standing on the other side, seeing Jameson for the man he was, not the man he’d pretended to be. It was both disconcerting and soothing.

  He had no idea how to deal with the riot of emotions that had taken over. He feared in that moment anything he said would scare the hell out of her, because the thoughts racing through his mind scared him to death.

  It was too soon to say he loved her, but damn if it didn’t feel like it. Or at least what he’d imagined love would feel like. There was no denying what he felt went beyond friendship and attraction. It was soul binding. Unsettling and calming. He’d been honest with her and instead of condemnation she’d given him something he never thought he’d taste—peace.

  “Come on, let’s get inside.” Her smile was small and tentative.

  He nodded his acceptance, and when they made their way into the house, he took her hand and led her up the stairs into her bedroom, slowly stripped her clothes off, his followed, and he laid her down on her bed.

  Then Jameson did one more thing he never thought he’d do in his lifetime. He made love to Kennedy Lane. No words passed his lips as they explored her curves, but they said everything he couldn’t. His hands roamed her body, strong and sure, and finally when his body covered hers the magnitude of their connection was undeniable. Moving slowly inside of her this time instead of taking what she was offering, Jameson gave her everything.

  And it was then that Jameson realized he’d lied to her. He hadn’t meant to and at the time he had no way of knowing. But the first time they’d been together, he had held something back. Not his attention, not his lust for her, not his need. But he’d certainly held his emotions in check. And he knew that with a hundred percent certainty, because now he wasn’t.