by Cat Miller
“Well, that didn’t last long.” Jennifer felt tiny pressed against Rourke’s broad, muscular back.
“I was about thirteen when I had a growth spurt that put me head and shoulders above the other boys. Until then, I was a lanky little shit.”
“So your mom still calls you Stacy?” she asked. “Does your dad still complain about it?”
“Yes, that’s what Mom calls me.” He sounded exasperated. “It’s a family name, and she likes to remind me that it could have been Eustice. I’m really not sure that would have been worse. At least it’s a man’s name.
“My dad, well, he died in service when I was eight. Friendly fire.” Rourke didn’t sound like it was a topic he wanted to explore further. Jennifer didn’t want to upset him when their time together would soon be over, so she blew by the subject.
“I’m sorry for your loss. That must have been tough at such a young age.” Jennifer couldn’t imagine losing her father, even if he had disowned her. She still loved her parents very much. “Do your friends know your real name?”
“Luc and Dolce? Yes, they do after spending so much time around my mom, but neither of them has ever used it. They know I hate it.” Rourke sounded relieved that she hadn’t lingered on the subject of his father’s untimely passing.
“So you’ve been friends for a long time?”
Rourke rolled to his back and wrapped around Jennifer, pulling her tight to his side. She tucked herself, and Rourke warmed to his tale.
“I was on the playground, and it was getting dark. The rule was I had to be in the house when the street lights came on. I was playing basketball with some other boys, and the time got away from me. So Mom stomps down the street yelling, ‘Stacy!’, and the other kids laughed, of course, when they realized I was Stacy. They started with the usual taunts about being a girl. Everyone knew me as Rourke by then.
“I guess I was about ten. I had only recently met Luc. He was seven or eight at the time. Luc didn’t like people being picked on for their names.” He peeked down at her. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes.” She smiled, feeling warmed that Rourke would trust her with a secret.
“I could have it so much worse. Luc’s mother died in childbirth. She’d been through a trauma, so her mental faculties are seriously in question. She had a fever, and she was bleeding to death. Placenta Previa is what Luc said was her cause of death.”
Oh, the poor woman. Jennifer knew what that meant. The placenta was blocking the birth canal. If you didn’t catch that in time, the mother almost always died; but with today’s medical advances, the tragedy could almost always be avoided with strict prenatal care.
“When they asked Luc’s mom if she had a name for him, she gave them one. Then she died. She’d been living on the streets, so it took a while for them to locate the grandmother that raised Luc. She was able to give then the father’s name, though, but he wasn’t interested in taking the baby. So Luc had a first and last name registered before they found his grandma.” Rourke gazed off into space as if reflecting on the past. Jennifer sensed a long and painful story there, but she didn’t want to pry.
“What is his name?” she encouraged Rourke to go on.
Rourke looked so sad when he replied, “Lucifer. His name is Lucifer.”
Jennifer gasped. That poor man had grown up with that awful moniker hanging over his head. No wonder he was so hard.
“So you see, I could have had it way worse. Imagine the teacher calling out Lucifer during roll call on the first day of every school year.”
“I can imagine he took offense to people picking on your name?”
“He really did. Luc stepped in when I started to swing at the jerk calling me a girl. Little Luc threw a few punches of his own at the older boys. And that’s how the lifelong friendship between two fatherless boys with dreadful names began.” There was sincere affection in Rourke’s voice that made Jennifer a little jealous. She wished someone thought of her so fondly.
“What about Dolce?”
“She’s a year younger than Luc. She moved into the neighborhood not long after our brawl in the park. She was just a little thing. Dolce’s mom and grandma became friends with my mom and Rourke’s grandma. We all went to aftercare at the church together, and of course, Sunday school and regular church services, as we got older.
“At first, Dolce was a pain in the ass.” Rourke scratched his chin. “Now that I think about it, she’s still a pain in the ass.”
“I thought she was wonderful.” Jennifer defended for fellow female. Her brothers thought she was a pain, too. They never let her hang out with them.
“Oh, she’s the best now, but as a kid, when she wanted to do everything Luc, and I was doing, though, not so much. We could not shake her. Eventually, she wore us down. For a girl, she was pretty tough. We taught her to throw a punch and ride a bike and spit like a real dude.” Rourke chuckled. “She’s been the baby sister neither Luc nor I knew we wanted, but I don’t think either of us would ever trade her in. She’s our glue. The thing that holds us all together.”
There was real love there in his voice when Rourke spoke about his friends. It sounded like Rourke had had a pretty good childhood, complete with siblings, to spite being an only child with a name he hated who had lost his dad at a young age. She caressed his skin and pondered the lack of ink.
“You don’t have any tattoos. Not even a Navy tattoo. Why do I think of military men as being all tattooed warriors with foul mouths?” she asked rhetorically. Rourke chuckled.
“Many of my friends are tattooed. I just haven’t found anything I wanted to look at forever yet. As far as a Navy tattoo, that isn’t something a SEAL would do. Not until they leave teams permanently and retire,” he explained.
“Why? I thought to be a SEAL was a big deal.”
“It’s an honor we work hard to attain and maintain, but operators go into places other military personnel doesn't go. We go behind enemy lines when we’re down range. If we’re seized, the U.S. will not admit knowledge of our presence behind the lines. We can’t have any easily identifiable marks, either. Imagine how pleased the enemy would be to know they had a SEAL with knowledge of special ops missions. It would be terrible for the captured operator.” Rourke shivered. “I don’t even want to think about what would happen to them.”
“Operator?” she asked.
“It’s what Special Forces members are called. We’re operators,” he explained.
“Are you gone a lot?” She shouldn’t ask. It didn’t matter since she wouldn’t be around once he returned to his job, but the lack of personal items in his home disturbed Jennifer. How often could he possibly be home?
“I’m gone three hundred or more days a year. Much of that, I’m completely out of reach,” he admitted.
And that put a complete halt to the conversation. Jennifer was trying to imagine being with a man who was gone more than he was home. You would need to be entirely committed to each other for it to work. And the fear of him never coming back would eat her alive.
“I’m starving,” Rourke interrupted her maudlin thoughts. “I was on my way to dinner when I literally ran into you.” Rourke crawled out of the bed that took up most of the room and pulled on his underwear. “I’m going to get a quick shower. Then, while you shower, I’ll make us some dinner.”
“Sounds good.” Jennifer gave Rourke a false smile of agreement.
This was her chance. As much as it hurt, she would have to get away from Rourke before they got any closer. She was already head over heels for the sexy SEAL. Jennifer would make the choice to keep Rourke safe because she was almost sure he had some level of feelings for her as well. He’d been searching for her. That had to mean something, right? Maybe it was just the instinct of a military man wanting to protect those weaker than him. Maybe not, but Jennifer couldn’t allow Evan to know about Rourke. If anything happened to Rourke, Jennifer’s heart would never mend.
It would hurt her deeply to walk away from him yet
again. More like sneak away, but at least she would know Rourke was out there somewhere alive and happy without a criminal dogging his steps. He would move on and forget her in no time. And didn’t that suck. The pain knifing through Jennifer’s chest at the thought of Rourke with another woman was telling. She’d fallen for Rourke so hard and fast that she doubted she’d ever be the same.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of answering my questions either. You turned the tables by digging into my past. That was a temporary reprieve. Over dinner, I expect an explanation for why you’re skulking around in men’s clothes, among other things.” His bass voice became even more gravelly with the unspoken threat of what he might do to get the information he wanted.
As interested as Jennifer was to find out exactly what lengths Rourke would go to make her talk, she knew it was time to go. She bobbed her head without voicing an agreement to Rourke’s demand. He nodded back as if satisfied that Jennifer was going to submit to his interrogation.
When Rourke turned away from Jennifer, she wanted to leap out of the bed and wrap her arms around him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him and was only trying to protect him. She wanted to suggest he come back to bed to hold her a little longer, but she knew none of those things would make their parting any easier.
Rourke disappeared into his small bathroom and the high-pitched squeak of the shower taps being turned on reached Jennifer’s ears. She climbed out of the bed that was rumpled from their loving and tugged on her men’s clothes with a painfully heavy heart thudding slowly in her chest. Jennifer thought of leaving him a note but changed her mind when she couldn’t think of a thing to say that would forgive her act of abandonment, again.
When Jennifer’s feet hit the pavement outside of Rourke’s apartment building, she took off jogging to put as much space between them as she could before he exited his bathroom to find her missing, which should be happening any minute. Rourke didn’t behave like the kind of man who took overly long primping in the bathroom. With a face and body like Rourke’s, why would he need to?
Jennifer made it back to her little cubby in the church basement with tears running down her face. If she didn’t know her heart was in top condition from a lifetime of dancing, she’d swear she had a coronary. The agony of losing the man she wanted more than her next breath was overwhelming her.
Jennifer curled into a ball on her squeaky little bed and let the sorrow escape in loud, coughing sobs. Rourke would be so angry with her. Would he be hurt, too? Was it wrong that she hoped it wasn’t easy for him to lose her either? She didn’t want to Rourke to suffer, but the woman in her wanted to believe he cared for her, too. Even if just a little.
She had no idea how long she lay there feeling sorry for herself and wondering what Rourke was doing. There was no window in her room, so she didn’t know if night had fallen over Vegas or not. Did it matter? For now, her life consisted of these four walls inside of her little room. And she hadn’t made it to her apartment before running into Rourke. So there Jennifer still was with no money, and no clothes, other than those three fucking dresses Jennifer couldn’t wait to burn.
* * *
Jennifer hunkered down in the corner of the laundry room closet and closed her eyes tightly, like a child who hoped the monster under her bed wouldn’t see her, if she couldn’t see it. She didn’t move, didn’t even breathe as the sound of heavy footfalls rushed past in the hall.
“I know she’s here! Find her or the boss is going to have our skins! I’ll check this floor. You go search the parking lot. She couldn’t have gotten far.”
Jennifer had finally gotten up the nerve to venture out of the church after her last attempt landed her in Rourke’s bed. She couldn’t even think of Rourke without a lump forming in her throat. Her time with him had been far too short. It was something she would never forget. Even if she wanted to. Her heart ached for a chance to show him how much she wanted to give them the time to get to know each other. It just wasn’t in the cards for them. He would be going back to the Navy, and Jennifer would be leaving town for who knew where as soon as possible. He must think she was some kind of slut after sleeping with him and running away twice. She couldn’t thing about that now, though.
An intense feeling of foreboding had been hitting Jennifer hard for days. She had to move on soon. Jennifer’s intuition screamed at her to leave Las Vegas now, before it was too late. It had taken Jennifer a solid week come up with a new outfit to wear from church donations and steel herself to risk running into Rourke again on her way to the bus stop. She needed to retrieve some clothing and her stash of money if she were going to get out of town, but shit had gone wrong faster than she could have imagined possible.
The laundry room door in her building flew open and cracked against the door of the tiny closet that hid her from Evan’s man. There was no window in the room for her to escape through, only several washers, dryers, and two folding tables. Footsteps entered, and she knew they were looking for her. The closet was so small you couldn’t see it if you didn’t shut the door to the hall.
Jennifer clutched the bag of clothes and personal possessions she’d managed to gather from her apartment before she noticed several men leap out of a dark sedan and run toward her apartment building. She recognized one of the men. He’d been there in Evan’s home while she was a captive. Jennifer clutched her bag to her chest and prayed. These people were dangerous. If they found her, Jennifer would never be seen again.
It had to be that bitch next door who ratted her out. Either that or Evan had men watching her apartment all day, every day. It had taken them too long to show up for her to believe that was true. She’d run into her neighbor, Marcy when she tried to sneak into the building unnoticed. She hadn’t seen anyone else.
Marcy always seemed to be in the hall when Evan picked Jennifer up for a date. Marcy gushed to Jennifer about how handsome Evan was and how lucky she was to have hooked a wealthy man. Marcy could have his crazy ass. Evan must have asked Marcy to call him if she saw Jennifer.
Jennifer couldn’t think of any other explanation for her sudden discovery when she dared to go home. She’d taken a bus there in a new set of borrowed clothing. She wanted to be incognito, and she’d done a good job of it after the practice she had the week before. Jennifer could pass for a short man or a teenage boy if you didn’t look at her too closely. Her hair was up in a ball cap. She wore jeans that sagged off her hips so badly that she needed a belt and an over-sized jersey. She’d watched the building from across the street for over an hour before approaching. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so she went in with sweaty palms and a pounding heart.
She would be evicted soon if the rent wasn’t paid. Undoubtedly, she’d been fired from her job when she never returned to work. She couldn’t very well go ask for her job back. Evan would find her in no time if he were going to shows as often as he had in the past. Not that he’d gone to even one show in town that she knew of after he plucked her out of her life. Either way, the rent wouldn’t be paid again this month. It was only a matter of time before her things were left by the dumpster for her neighbors to pick through.
She had to get to her place and take everything she could carry, including her stash of cash from the fake frozen juice container in the freezer. Then she could hopefully get out of town without being noticed. The longer she stayed in the church, the more danger she put everyone there in. She’d imposed on the church’s kindness for long enough. Jennifer needed to get out of Vegas altogether. Where she’d go, she didn’t know. The first bus out of town would have to be good enough.
Disaster struck when Jennifer literally bumped into Marcy by the mailboxes. It was like a rerun of the week before, only this time, it wasn’t a sexy SEAL who discovered Jennifer. Jennifer was trying to keep her head down when she walked right into the other woman. The hat fell off, and Marcy recognized her right away. Marcy made a snarky comment about Jennifer’s new style. The bitch. Marcy always looked perfect.
Jennifer
hurried passed Marcy and up the stairs. The feeling of impending doom mounted as she rummaged around for the things she needed and anything else she could possibly carry. She hadn’t been home for more than twenty minutes when she saw several of Evan’s men burst from a black sedan on the parking lot below. How the hell had he found her.
Jennifer grabbed the one bag she’d managed to pack and the can of cash from the freezer in just enough time to exit her apartment and duck into the laundry room. Evan’s men were storming up the steps when Jennifer squeezed into the utility closet. She heard them kick in her apartment door.
Now Jennifer was stuck there hiding from Evan again. She was sick of it. It had been a month since she’d fled Evan’s office in fear for her life. All the days since that replayed in Jennifer’s terrified mind. She relived every moment of her captivity as well as all of the blood and death she’d seen at the end. Her feet ached with the remembered pain of running for her life in those damn heels.
Fear of discovery had her spending a few days hiding out in casinos around the strip. It was unbelievable how many good hidey-holes you could find in a casino. It was easy to get lost in the crowds, too. On the beginning of her fourth day of casino hide-and-go-seek, Jennifer wandered into The Inferno Hotel and Casino.
She was rumpled, starving, and paranoid as all hell when she stumbled right into the arms of Pastor Davis. He had caught her before she landed on her knees. Jennifer looked up into his warm brown eyes set in a tan, timeworn face with a shock of mostly white hair. Something in that face told her she was safe. Something in her face must have told the pastor that Jennifer was in desperate need of help.
That’s how she ended up living in the church basement. The pastor bullied her into leaving with him. He took her to the church where his lovely angel of a wife was waiting for them. Jennifer told them only what she had to so they understood her situation. She was running for her life, and Jennifer didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. The kind older couple installed her into the little secret room behind the church kitchen until Jennifer had somewhere else to go. There she stayed hiding and biding her time.
