“No,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Shit, Jenna. I was so scared. Anything could have happened to you. Even if Boetsch hadn’t found us. Driving alone on those roads, in the snow…God, I pictured all kinds of terrible things. And then, when I realized Shadow was there, and when he told us what he was…well, I knew that if anything happened to you, it would be all my fault. I led him right to you. It was my job to protect you, and I failed you. I’m so sorry. You have no idea.”
“No, it was me,” I say. “All I had to do was listen to you, and everything would have been fine. You tried to tell me so many times, Joel. You told me it wasn’t safe for me to go outside the cabin. You told me what would happen, and that the only way to protect myself was to stay put. And I repaid you by running away, again and again, and making you chase me down and bring me back.” I rest a hand on his cheek, running my thumb gently under a bruise that’s just starting to form there. “I can’t believe you fought the way you did to protect my family. But if I hadn’t done what I did, you would never have had to be in that position at all.”
Joel looks at me and kisses my hand. “If you hadn’t run away, your dad would be in the clutches of Boetsch right now.”
He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine just as he did back in the cabin. It feels for a moment as if we are sharing all our experiences, pouring our thoughts and emotions into each other. The weight of the past twenty-four hours seems to lighten as we share it between us. I know my father will be walking back from the counter at any moment, and when he does, he’ll see the intimate moment we’re sharing. But I don’t care. Right now, Joel is the only thing in the world that can make me feel safe.
“Before you left,” he says. “By the fire, when we…”
“It wasn’t just about escaping,” I say quickly. “I don’t want to lie to you. It was about distracting you so I could get the handcuffs. But it wasn’t only about that. It was…I would have wanted to be with you either way. It was real.”
“It was real for me too,” he says, his voice husky with emotion. He tilts his face toward me, and I close my eyes and part my lips. I’m expecting a quick kiss—after all, we’re on the run, my father is here, and we’re sitting in an unromantic and brightly lit diner. But to my surprise, he takes his time, brushing my lips gently with his before slipping his hand to the back of my neck and pulling me close so we can explore each other’s mouths. I can almost forget the dire circumstances that have brought us here. I feel, in this moment, like a giddy teenager on my first date with an unbearably cute boy. I lean into his warmth, away from the cold reality that my life has become and let myself escape.
Dad returns to the table, coffees in hand, and clears his throat. Joel and I jump apart guiltily. He’s watching us with raised eyebrows, but I know that he’s more amused than anything else. I have no doubt he’ll question me later on the nature of my relationship with Joel. For now, though, he slides without comment into the opposite side of the booth. He pushes cups toward Joel and me, and we each take long drinks, letting the hot liquid revitalize us.
Finally, after several long minutes of silence, Joel speaks. “Here’s what I think we should do,” he says. He hunches over the table and keeps his voice low so we won’t be overheard. “I don’t think there’s going to be much else for us to the north. And we’re starting to flirt with the Canadian border. We’re going to have to change our course.”
“Go south?” Dad asks. “Won’t that take us right back to Shadow?”
“Probably,” Joel says, “and maybe even to Boetsch himself. So that won’t work. I can confirm at this point that both of your homes are under surveillance.”
That creeps me out. The idea of someone watching my house while I’m not there is a scary one, but I try to put it out of my mind. “What are we going to do, then?” I ask.
“We go west,” Joel says. “That gives us plenty of options. There will be numerous routes to take, which will make us harder to track. We’ll have virtually the entire country at our disposal. It’s really the only course of action that makes any sense at all.”
“If it’s such a logical move,” Dad says, “won’t Boetsch anticipate it?”
“Even if he does, he can’t cover the entire country,” Joel says. “It would still take a lot of luck for him to figure out exactly where we were. And once we’re outside the jurisdiction of certain police departments, I think this is going to get considerably easier. Boetsch has infiltrated most of the New Hampshire offices, but I doubt he has any corrupt officers west of the Mississippi.”
“So we go west,” Dad says.
“Unless anyone has any objections.” Joel looks at each of us in turn.
I don’t want to travel across the country, of course, leaving everything I know behind. But as I think about the prospect, I realize it doesn’t bother me as much as losing my identity once did. Maybe I’ve simply adjusted to the idea, but maybe it’s something more. Maybe the realization that wherever I go, Joel will be beside me is making this all a little easier to bear.
“No objections here,” I say. “Let’s do it.”
We stop at a motel about an hour west of the diner, in a tiny town whose name I completely miss on the way in. It is made up of two intersecting streets and has a single traffic light hanging on a wire. The motel is a single strip of drive-up rooms, and when we walk into the detached lobby we can see that room keys number one through six are still hanging on pegs on the wall behind the desk. The place is tiny and clearly infrequently visited, but it’s clean and well-maintained. It will be a decent place to spend the night.
Joel slips my father some more cash, and Dad requests three rooms while Joel and I examine the decor. The furniture looks like it was purchased in the seventies, and the floor is linoleum. After a few moments, Dad steps back from the desk and hands us each a key—not a key card, but an actual key on a chain. My chain bears the number two, and I see that Joel is holding number one. Quietly, we file out of the lobby and across the dark property to the row of rooms.
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Joel says. “Get some sleep and be ready.”
Dad nods. “Thank you again for your dedication, Joel. It’s good to have someone we can trust in our corner. I know this job has been more than you bargained for.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Joel says. “I committed to this. I’m going to see it through.”
Dad nods and goes into his room.
I head into my own room and lie down on the bed. It feels strange to be in a motel room without a suitcase to unpack or toiletries to lay out on the sink. I don’t even have a change of clothes. I get up and take a quick shower, hoping it will relax me, then curl up on the bed and try to sleep, but I can’t. My mind is frantic. I have too many questions about what tomorrow will hold, both for my safety and my father’s and for my future with Joel.
Maybe I don’t need to wait until tomorrow to get one of those answers.
I slip my key into my pocket and creep out of my room, remembering that I need to lock the door behind me. Then I head over to door number one and knock gently.
The door opens almost immediately as if he’s been expecting me, and before I can speak his mouth is on mine. He pulls me into the room and kicks the door closed, and almost immediately I lose track of where we are. We’re turning, and the room seems to be spinning around us. I’m aware of falling just before the bed rushes up to catch me. Joel wriggles me out of my pants, shedding his own at the same time—there’s just no time to bother with shirts—then he grips my hips tightly, and pulls me to him. I throw my head back, overcome with the feel of him, hoping this will last forever.
Chapter 17
Jenna
Waking up in Joel’s arms is blissful. For the longest time, I don’t even move. He’s still asleep—I can tell by his deep, steady breathing—and his arm is heavy over me like a blanket. I curl in on myself, glee radiating from my heart out to my extremities.
My phone ri
ngs.
My hand goes to my hip automatically, but of course, it isn’t there. My pants are in a pile on the floor where Joel tossed them last night in the heat of the moment. I don’t want to wake him. Maybe I can get out, retrieve the phone, and slide back into his embrace. Carefully, I lift his arm and slip free of it, then go to my pants and fish the phone out of the pocket.
The number is only one digit off from that of the burner phone Joel gave me, so I know who it must belong to. “Dad?”
“Jenna?” His voice is higher than usual and shaky.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
“Jenna, he’s here, he’s in the room—”
An ominous, heavy thud sounds and Dad makes a low groaning sound.
“Dad?” I say, not bothering to be quiet, and Joel’s eyes snap open. I see his military training kicking in—he’s immediately up and alert, at my side, mouthing “what’s wrong” to me, but I don’t know what to say or how to respond.
“Shadow,” Dad says thickly. “Shadow is here.”
Joel presses his ear next to mine by the phone and holds his finger to his lips, his eyes trained on mine. I nod, understanding the message. Don’t let them know I’m listening. “Where are you, Dad?” I ask, stalling for time.
“The motel room,” he says. I breathe a sigh of relief. At least Shadow hasn’t taken Dad away yet, back to Boetsch. But why is he allowing Dad to call me?
Joel grabs a piece of paper and a pen from the motel desk and scrawls a question on it. I read it aloud. “How did he find us?”
“He put some kind of tracker in my pocket,” Dad says. “I don’t know. He didn’t explain it very well.”
Joel writes something else.
“What does he want?” I read aloud, feeling a chill. Of course, that’s why he hasn’t taken Dad away yet. This is a negotiation.
“I’m supposed to tell you and Joel to come out to the parking lot,” Dad says, “but Jenna, listen, I don’t think you should—”
There’s another loud thud, and then a different voice fills my ear. “Jenna?” It’s Shadow.
“What do you want?”
“Come out to the parking lot,” he says. “I believe your father would like to see you one more time before he dies.”
The line disconnects, and I look at Joel, dumbstruck with horror.
Chapter 18
Joel
“All right,” I say. “You stay here, Jenna. I’ll go out and talk to him.”
“No way,” she says, stubborn as always. She’s already pulling on her clothes. “I’m going with you.”
“Jenna, it’s going to be incredibly dangerous out there,” I say. Already my mind is half gone, with Fred and Shadow in the other room. Already I’m trying to figure out what I can do to salvage the situation. At least this time Shadow won’t have the element of surprise. Because of that, there’s a chance I’ll be able to match him in a fight. I flex my hands, trying to mentally prepare myself for a slugging match with my old friend.
On the other hand, though, Shadow almost certainly has a gun. And I don’t. Fat lot of good my fists will be against a gun. If I go out there swinging, it could get all three of us killed. No, I need to be smarter than that. I need to think of another way.
Jenna seems to have no such hesitations. She’s tying her shoes like she’s in a race, and she stands up from the bed and strides over to the door. “Let’s go,” she demands.
“Jenna, wait a minute.” I still don’t want her coming with me. “If I’m protecting you, it will make it harder for me to look out for your father.”
“I’m not asking you to protect me.” Her voice is sharp. The tone she uses when she wants to be in control but isn’t.
I turn and grab her by her shoulders, careful to restrain myself from squeezing too hard. I don’t want to hurt her. “How could I do anything else?” I say. “Do you imagine I could let you stand in front of Shadow and not want to leap between the two of you? If he makes me choose between shielding you or your father, who do you think I’m going to pick? I can’t protect him if doing so means you might get hurt. Don’t you understand? I can’t.”
She looks into my eyes, and I know she gets it. But then she whispers, “I can’t let you go out there without me, though. I can’t do it.”
I pull her into an embrace. I want to shove her into the motel room’s closet and bar the door so nothing can get to her, so she can’t be hurt. I want to protect her. That’s all I’ve wanted to do from the moment I met her, but it’s escalated now. It’s not just a job. It’s an urgent need, deep inside me. I can’t let her be hurt.
“You wouldn’t be able to let me go alone either,” she whispers in my ear. I know she’s right.
“Okay,” I say, holding her back at arm’s length. My heart already feels like a stone. “Stay right behind me, then. Do exactly as I say. No improvising. Do you understand?”
She nods seriously. “I understand.”
I sigh. She may understand, but when has Jenna ever been able to follow instructions? I’m taking an awful risk letting her come with me. I just don’t know how I can stop her.
I open the door and step out into the motel yard, a patch of mostly dead grass that stretches between the row of rooms for rent and the detached lobby. In the daylight, the place is even more depressing than it was last night. I can see the crumbling paint on the exterior walls and the broken highway sign, which hangs at an angle as if one of its bolts has come loose. I’d be willing to bet this place goes weeks between customers. I wonder how they’re even bringing in enough business to stay open.
Jenna steps out of the room behind me. She’s staying close, which is good. I can feel her breath on the back of my neck. I feel a sudden longing to reach behind me and grip her hand, but I know I need to keep my own hands free.
From a room at the far end of the strip, two figures emerge. One, I can tell immediately, is Fred Shears, the thick gray hair atop his head. Behind him is a much taller figure in uniform that I know must be Shadow, and for the very first time, I feel a chill at the sight of my old friend.
Fred and Shadow cross the yard to stand in front of us. I stand still and wait for them. It’s kind of a cheap move, but I like the way making someone walk to me tips the balance of power in my favor.
“Good morning,” Shadow calls when he’s still a few yards away.
I don’t answer.
“Sleep well?” Shadow asks. “I’d be surprised if you had, in a place like this.” He peers across the space between us. “You’re looking well this morning,” he says to Jenna.
My blood boils. “She isn’t part of this, Shadow.”
“My instructions say different,” he says. “I’m supposed to bring both of them to Boetsch.”
“Yesterday, you said you didn’t need her,” I say. Though keeping my voice calm, I’m suddenly terrified. I should have trusted my instincts. I should never have brought Jenna out here. If anything happens to her, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.
“Things change,” Shadow says. “When the three of you ran away, I had to report to Boetsch on what happened. Now he wants the girl too. But don’t worry, Joel,” he adds, “you can still walk away from this. Boetsch isn’t interested in you. Just hand the girl over to me and let me leave with the two of them. You and I can forget this ever happened and go back to the way we used to be.”
“What?” I ask. “You really think I’m going to give her to you and that we’ll just go on being friends afterward? You can forget it. You’re not taking Jenna.”
Shadow’s face seems to soften slightly. “Joel, think about this,” he says. “I’m armed. You’re not. You already know how this is going to play out. And who are they to you? Who is she? She’s just a job. You don’t want to fight, not over a job. Not knowing how it’s going to end.”
Jenna is so much more than a job to me at this point. I can feel the fact that her breathing has sped up since this conversation started. I can tell that she’s nervous. Everything I do, every
choice I make, is informed by her presence behind me. If she were taken away from me, I would lose my mind. I wouldn’t know what to do.
But I can’t let Shadow know that. Not only because I don’t want him to know how much power he would have over me if he managed to get his hands on Jenna, although that is a concern. I would probably do anything he said if her life were in his hands. But I also don’t want to share how I feel about Jenna just yet. Not with Shadow, certainly. But really, not with anybody. I want to hold them to myself, to revel in them privately.
If only I had the time to do that without distraction.
I regard Shadow, standing across the yard from me, gun in hand. He looks like a different person from the man I knew in the service. “How did this happen to you?” I ask. “Your values were ironclad, the same as mine. How can you look at me now and suggest that I turn over the people I’m charged with protecting because it’s just a job? Was the Navy just a job?”
Shadow is tight-lipped. “That’s different.”
“It’s not different,” I say. “Only your allegiance is different. You’ve gone from serving your country to serving Carl Boetsch. Why, Shadow? Why are you working for that man? He’s a low life. He’s scum. He takes advantage of good people, cheats them out of their money. You’re better than that.”
“You don’t know me anymore, Joel,” Shadow says.
His voice is quieter. Maybe I can get through to him.
“I think I do,” I say. “I think you’re still exactly who you’ve always been. And I don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. How long has it been going on, Shadow? Just tell me that. How long have you been working for Boetsch?”
“He approached me months ago,” Shadow mutters.
“Months.” I have to admit, this is a blow. If Shadow has been working for Boetsch that long, he’s probably responsible for having found and turned over a lot of people. The Shears family is probably the tip of the iceberg. Any innocent person who stumbled across Boetsch’s dealings would have had to be dealt with—not to mention the borrowers he’d loaned money to who never managed to pay him back. “God, Shadow. What have you done?”
My Protector (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 5) Page 12
