by Amy Gamet
“Blackmail you?”
“Stop it, Jax. I don’t want you to help me. Don’t you get that? I don’t need a hero. I need you to leave me alone and stay out of my life.”
“I owe Ralph more than that.”
“You owe Ralph the rest of his life with his wife and child, but it’s too late for you to pay what you owe.”
Jax slowed down and took an exit ramp off the highway.
“I wish it hadn’t happened, Jessa. I wish I could go back in time and change the decisions I made that day, but I can’t. Ralph knew the risks when he went in there. We all did.”
Her eyes began to burn. “Then why didn’t you go? Huh? How come you’re alive and my husband is dead?”
He didn’t answer, and she pushed at his shoulder. “How come you didn’t send someone else in there, someone who didn’t have a family waiting for him to come home?” She pushed him again, harder this time.
Jax pulled to the side of the road and turned to her, holding up his hands. “I made the best decision I could at the time with the information I had available to me.”
“Fuck you!” She was swinging wildly now, her fists connecting with skin and bone. “I hate you so much. I wish it was you who died that night, not my Ralph!”
She was sobbing, great gasping breaths and shudders racking her body as she tried to hurt him. Then she was just crying, tears streaming down her face as she cried out, years of pain and anguish coming out of her body like a spirit in an exorcism.
Then his arms were around her, his shoulder beneath her head, his body squeezing hers, and it felt so good to be comforted, so good to say the horrible things that had been festering inside her for too long. And even as she hated that it was Jax who was holding her, she knew no other man could release this burden. It had to be him, and that truth tethered her to him as surely as a physical chain.
She wiped her cheek on his shoulder and sniffed. He smelled good to her now instead of stifling as he had before, the warmth of his body carrying the spicy cinnamon scent that was uniquely his own.
They stayed like that, locked together, until the last of the shudders left her breath and the shoulder of his shirt was soaked from her tears.
Embarrassment began to creep into her awareness, and she lifted her head, scooting back to her side of the bench seat. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You have every right to feel the way you do.”
She looked out her window, her gaze catching on her own reflection, illuminated by the dashboard lights. Who was this woman, sitting in the dark with Jax Andersson, carrying his child? How had she gotten from the grieving widow to a person capable of doing such a thing?
“We need to stop for the night,” Jax said. “There’s a motel right up here.”
“Fine.”
He started the truck and drove to the motel, getting out to check in and coming back for her. “There’s only one room available. A king suite. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She didn’t answer, but her eyes squeezed shut. There would be no reprieve from this man tonight, and she desperately needed space. Time to herself to lick the wounds of this day, time to shore herself up for the days ahead. She had so much to think about, so much to consider, and none of it could be done with Jax sharing her space.
She followed him to the room, remembering the last time she’d followed him to a hotel room, only this time she was tired and beleaguered and worn.
He opened the door and held it for her, cold air from the air conditioner blasting her in the face.
Did he remember that, too? She snuck a glance at him, only to find him staring at her intently.
He remembered, all right.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said, anxious to put a locked door between herself and this man. Closing it behind her, she leaned up against it and shut her eyes. When she opened them, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Yelling at Jax in the car — telling him how she blamed him for Ralph’s death — was cathartic and exhausting. But what surprised her was her own reaction to the words being ripped from her chest.
She recognized her tirade from the days she spent in counseling following Ralph’s death. The stages of grief, her counselor had said. Blaming. Accepting. She couldn’t remember the others right now. But the accusations she’d flung at Jax were the stuff grief brochures were made of.
“I will never accept it,” she whispered to her reflection. Her anger at Jax Andersson was nothing she intended to get over.
Climbing into the shower, she felt herself relax — every muscle that had been clenched too tightly and shoulder that had been held too high seeming to drop in an instant. She ran a hand over her lower abdomen. “It was a long day today, huh, Baby? Don’t you worry about a thing. You just grow big and strong in there. I’ll take care of…”
Your daddy.
Her eyes popped open wide, but she focused on nothing. “Him.”
She let the water run over her until her fingers pruned and reluctantly turned off the water. She dried her body and put on one of two fresh outfits she’d brought with her before bracing herself to face Jax again.
He was lying back on the bed like a Greek god on a cloud, and she hated that she noticed how attractive he was.
“I got us some snacks,” he said. On the bed was a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and a package of pretzels. “That’s what you like, right?” he asked.
Her favorites, actually, and the wine would have gone a long way toward relieving her discomfiture if she could drink it. She took the pretzels. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“I remember lots of things.”
She looked away, not wanting to encourage the look she saw smoldering in his eyes.
“I remember how you like your coffee,” he said. “Cream, no sugar. And I remember you like to wake up early and go walking by yourself.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but she stared intently into her pretzel bag, ignoring the fluttering of her heartbeat and the liquid shimmer of his words on the air.
He rolled toward her side of the bed. “I remember how you lay in a hammock with one leg trailing on the ground and the other up high by the knot. I remember the big smile on your face when you ride a bike, like you’re a kid who just figured out how to do it. But more than anything else, I remember your laugh.”
Somewhere between coffee and bike rides she’d stopped breathing.
Jax touched her face. “You have the most beautiful laugh. I want to hear it again someday.”
Jessa swallowed a pretzel, forcing the dryness past her knotted throat. She thought of everything she wanted in this moment and everything she didn’t want. The things she couldn’t deal with. “Please don’t be nice to me tonight,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“I don’t think I can take it.”
He stared at her for a moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. He sat up. “I’m going to shower, too.”
Disappointment curled in her stomach and she silently cursed her ambivalence before scurrying under the covers and opening the book. What was so special about this book that made it important enough to break into her house for?
Unlike Jax, she knew the book must be the reason for the break-ins, and she was determined to read as much as she could tonight in hopes she could answer that question.
13
Jax had the water on as hot as it would go, the heat seeping into his tight neck muscles and melting the tension away. His mind replayed the scene with Jessa in his truck that night, her all-consuming anger and the blame she placed squarely at his feet.
What he’d told her was true. Ralph did know the danger that awaited him at Steele’s mansion, but that didn’t make her assessment any less correct. He was responsible for Ralph’s death. He’d always known that.
And now he desperately wanted Ralph’s wife. He wanted her in the cab of his truck when she cried and beat on him. He wanted her just now in the bedroom when she told him sh
e couldn’t handle what was happening between them. He wanted her even more now than he did the night they’d made love.
What kind of person did that make him?
He closed his eyes against the searing spray. He’d always thought she was beautiful. But now things were different, more complicated, and he was far more culpable than he’d ever been before.
Because it wasn’t just sex. And it wasn’t just a preoccupation with her physical beauty. He wanted Jessa, and not just in his bed. He thought of Ralph and mumbled under his breath, “I hope it’s okay with you.” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “She hates my guts, if it’s any consolation.” He turned off the water.
After seeing the depth of Jessa’s feelings, he didn’t understand why she’d come to him. Hatred and lust were particularly strange bedfellows, though there was no denying the chemistry between them.
When they’d walked down the corridor toward the room tonight, it was like déjà vu. Then the air conditioning had blasted them with cold air, and he was right back there, Jessa standing before him, so skittish he thought she might bolt.
He tugged on his jeans and opened the bathroom door, steam wafting out around him in the cold room. Jessa was already asleep, the book on her chest as if she’d been reading, and he took it and put it on the nightstand.
Despite everything she’d said to him today, he still wanted her, and he allowed himself to wonder what would happen if he woke her up with kisses.
She’d probably punch me in the face.
Moving to the other side of the bed, he took a pillow and a spare blanket from the closet and settled on the floor. He fell asleep listening to the rise and fall of Jessa’s breathing, his mind replaying the familiar tape of the two of them making love.
Imagining what could have happened tonight if she’d been willing.
He wasn’t sure what woke him.
Sitting up, Jax took in the hotel room, his memory quickly returning.
“My baby,” mumbled Jessa.
He stood up and walked to her side of the bed, guilt like a familiar drink he had sipped too often. She was still dreaming of the baby she lost, and he ached for her as he sat on the edge of the bed and lightly stroked her hair.
“You’ll have another baby someday, sweetheart,” he whispered.
She swatted at his hand. “She’s mine!”
He jostled her shoulder. “Jessa, it’s just a dream. Wake up.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him blankly.
“You were dreaming,” he said.
Her brows drew together, her eyes wide open. “You can’t have her. I’m her mother.”
“Okay, you can have her,” he agreed, and Jessa leaned back against the pillows.
“No visibation,” she said.
He smiled at her slurred speech. “Right. No visibation.”
He climbed back under his own covers.
No visitation?
His eyes popped open. She was dreaming of fighting over a child. Not actual history, after all. He rolled onto his side. Jessa seemed to be under a tremendous amount of stress right now, and clearly her mind wasn’t giving her any break.
14
Jessa was sitting with her legs curled up on the bench seat and her arms wrapped around her middle. If Jax didn’t know better, he’d think she was sick, but she insisted she was fine.
“I don’t understand what you think the lawyers can tell you,” she said.
“I have a hunch that Maria Elena’s death wasn’t a random event. We know whoever was stalking your beach house was armed with a sniper rifle, so we have to consider the possibility the real Maria Elena was killed by the same person who’s after you.”
“What, she was murdered?”
Jax nodded. “By an intruder. Cops said it was likely a burglary in progress, but she lived alone, so there was no way to tell if anything was actually taken.”
“What do you think?”
“I think whoever wants that book killed Maria Elena so she’d never receive it. Only the lawyers from Harold Hopewell’s estate can tell us what would have happened if Maria Elena hadn’t risen from the dead. If they sent the inheritance to her, but she wasn’t alive to receive it, what would have happened to that package?”
“You think the next heir in line is the killer.”
“Exactly. And the person who’s after you.” Jax stared in his rearview mirror. “Don’t turn around, but we’ve got a tail. They’ve been following us since we left the hotel.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’re always two cars behind us. Never right behind, but twice now I’ve sped up and they catch up, then get two cars behind. When I stopped for gas, they stopped, too, but no one got out of the car. They want me to know they’re there.”
“What do we do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Aren’t you going to drink yours?” He’d gotten her a double espresso at the gas station, something he knew she liked, but he was nearly done with his cup and she had yet to touch hers.
“I gave it up. If there is someone following us, they must have been following us yesterday, too.”
“Not necessarily. I would have noticed if they were. Hang on.” He cut across two lanes of traffic to exit at a rest stop that advertised a McDonald’s and a Starbucks Coffee.
Jessa turned around. “They kept going.”
Jax parked the truck and turned to her. “There must be a transmitter on something. What did you bring with you?”
“Just my purse and the book.”
“Let me see your purse.”
“I don’t think…”
He picked it up off the floor. “We’re looking for something small, probably plastic but it could be metal.” He began digging through the contents of her purse. Within moments, he withdrew a cube slightly smaller than an old flash bulb. “Bingo.”
“That’s not mine,” she said.
“A GPS transmitter. It’s reporting our location as we speak. These are professionals, not amateurs, Jessa.”
Maybe even professional hit men.
The thought was unsettling.
Jessa held the transmitter in her palm. “Whoever broke into the house must have put it there.”
“My guess is, we’re going to find our dark sedan within a mile or two of this rest stop, pulled over with imaginary car trouble and waiting for us.”
“What do we do now?”
Jax looked around the parking lot. “We find a rest stop employee who didn’t bother to lock his car. Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
He made his way briskly across the parking lot to a row of cars set apart from the masses of highway traffic. The second car he tried was unlocked, and the gate pass he was looking for was tucked neatly under the visor.
He climbed back in next to Jessa, handing her the card. “This will get us out the backside of the rest stop through the employee entrance. Our tail is going to take awhile to catch up to us once he realizes where we’ve gone.”
He reached for his drink, only to find them both missing. “What happened to my coffee?”
“I threw it away. That much caffeine isn’t good for you.”
“You threw out my coffee?”
“Why don’t we just throw the GPS in a trash can, too, so this person stops following us?”
“Because it’s time to find out who’s after you, and we’re going to use the GPS as bait.” He swung around behind the rest stop service building. “You’re lucky we’re in a hurry, or I’d run inside Starbucks and buy two more.” He shook his head. “Who throws away someone else’s coffee?”
15
Jessa’s stomach was refusing to settle this morning, even after she’d dumped the coffee. The smell that had started her insides cartwheeling was still threatening to turn into something far more disgusting.
She watched as Jax unpacked his weapons from the bed of the truck. Rifle cases, pistol cases, a small box that looked a lot like a briefcase. That on
e probably held the explosives. She closed her eyes and shimmied her shoulders, a cold breeze seeming to blow through her.
She’d grown up around guns, and Ralph certainly owned more than his fair share. There’d even been a time when she enjoyed shooting, but that was before she was married to Ralph and saw him come home twice with bullet wounds. That was enough to make her shy away from guns.
She didn't want anything to do with HERO Force. There had been a time in her life when she thought it was an admirable organization, when she thought the men who earned their living working for it were a special breed.
Now she just thought they were crazy.
Why else would a man put everything and everyone he cared about on a back burner? Why else would the man she loved have put HERO Force before her happiness?
She hadn't gotten over it. Hadn't moved on, hadn't found some way to forgive him. She hadn't become the person she used to be, and dammit, she was angry. Angry that Ralph was dead, and that a part of her had died with him.
She hadn't wanted him to go on that mission to Steele's house. But had he listened to her? Of course not. He listened to the almighty HERO Force instead, and the commands of their fearless leader, Jax Andersson.
Now here she was with Jax experiencing all of the same things she had experienced with Ralph, fighting all of the same battles she had thought were behind her, and she was highly aware of the baby in her belly who needed her protection and a safe, quiet life.
The exact opposite of everything HERO Force stood for.
Jax opened the rifle case and took out a weapon. He met her stare. "Do you know how to shoot?"
"Yes.”
"Do you want the Glock or the rifle?"
Jessa closed her eyes. "Neither."
"Our tail should be here momentarily. I might need some help from you."
She thought of the baby in her belly and longed to find safety away from this place.
You’ll never be safe so long as this person is trying to kill you.
Jax eyed her warily. "I have no idea what we're going to be up against here, Jessa. I might need you armed."
