by Ann, Jewel E
“Different how?
“When he killed Claire it hardened me to the world. I had so much hate for the unfairness of it all. But when I killed him it hardened my feelings toward Jessica Day. She was trained in defense, not revenge. I was trained to think of it like that. We were defenders, like soldiers, not killers. We don’t call soldiers in the military killers, even if they kill.”
“So you were upset with yourself?”
“Disappointed. Separated. In denial. I don’t know, I just no longer knew who I was or who I was supposed to be. Jessica the defender has friends, drinks too much wine, and pursues her career. Jessica the killer just …”
“Just?”
“Waits.”
“Waits for what?”
“Trigger.”
“Who’s Trigger?”
“The one that got away.”
“Matthew Green?”
She nodded.
Luke had to push through his own emotions and leave them behind. Jessica’s lover didn’t want to know any more. He too wanted it to all just disappear. But Dr. Jones owed it to her and he owed it to Luke. He had to make things right.
“You want Matthew Green dead?”
She shook her head then looked over at him with tears in her eyes. He knew she hated those tears. Maybe someday she’d realize the strength in setting them free. Luke felt privileged that she trusted him with her vulnerability—with her tears. The need to go to her and wrap her in his arms pained him. Why? Why couldn’t love heal everything?
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered, her face scrunched with pain.
“I’ll never hate you.”
“I don’t just want him dead … I want to kill him because he didn’t save my friend.”
Luke couldn’t take that away. No one could take that away. Two voices resided inside her, and she needed that separation to keep a small shred of her sanity. He, however, couldn’t separate the two. He had to love both of them as one for her to have any chance of offering forgiveness and finding acceptance.
“I can see it…” she blinked, releasing the tears “…in your eyes. You wonder what’s wrong with you. You wonder how you could even consider loving someone as awful as me.”
Dr. Jones needed to stay focused and not let his emotions override the progress they were making. But that man—the one who loved her more than a clean mirror, or a tidy coffee table, or oxygen for that matter—told the good doctor to fuck off. Then he stood and went to her.
That man, the one who never felt guilty for loving the woman, he sat on the bed and pulled her onto his lap, straddling his legs. She hugged him with a fierce intensity.
“You don’t see anything,” he whispered. “You’re so blind because the only thing in my eyes is adoration. God, I love every part of you so much I can’t even think straight. You’re my goddamn miracle and there’s nothing in life more amazing than a miracle.”
Love was not a problem to solve or a choice to make, simply an involuntary feeling that explained human existence. It wasn’t contingent on anything, and everyone was capable of giving and receiving it. Words couldn’t define feelings. Luke didn’t know why he had to love her. He just did.
“Show me …” she sat back, looking so vulnerable with her tear-stained cheeks “…show me how much you adore me, Luke.” It wasn’t so much a request as a desperate plea.
They held each other’s gaze for a few silent moments.
“I won’t hurt you,” she promised. “You’re my everything … the life that beats inside my chest.” She took his hand and placed it over her heart. “Do you feel that? Every. Single. One. Is for you.”
He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “Yours,” he whispered.
*
Luke became Jessica’s prodigy of love. He accepted her without judgment, held her in reverence, and trusted her implicitly. No one loved like Luke loved. For that, she gave him everything.
She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it away from his chest.
Pressing her lips to the scar on his shoulder, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t—”
She moved her mouth back to his, tasting and savoring him. “Let me … let me be sorry for what I did to you. Okay?”
He nodded then removed her shirt. “I need to see you … all of you.” He smiled while unfastening her bra.
It was a vulnerable smile. Not like the controlled one he used every day with patients or even his family and friends. There was one very special smile that looked like a child who just had all his dreams come true. That was a very private smile for Jessica.
“What if I want more than your heart?” He cupped her breast and brushed his thumb over her nipple.
She smiled. “Take everything.”
He leaned back on the bed, letting her straddle his waist. “You first.”
Drifting forward, she kissed his neck, followed by every inch of his chest.
Never. Never again would she hurt him. He was the miracle.
She stood and removed the rest of her clothes and then his. That smile, her smile, came back to his handsome face.
That smile quickly faded as Luke cleared his throat. “Out.”
Jessica frowned at Jones who sat on the floor watching them.
“Sorry, Jones.” She ushered him out and shut the door. “Now … you need to remind me of what this whole adoration thing feels like.” She crawled up the bed and laid her naked body on his. There was no room for her past, no room for fear, no room for control.
His hands explored her body, hers explored his. Their lips connected as they shared soft moans. Luke lifted her hips and slid into her. “Luke …”
“I told you…” he kissed her neck “…if I had you in my bed…” his tongue slid over her nipple “…I’d never want to leave.”
“Oh … my … God …” Her eyes closed as she completely surrendered, letting him pull her under to depths of intimacy she never knew existed.
By the time she resurfaced—sated, exhausted, and thoroughly adored—Luke’s body was draped over hers. She didn’t panic and that realization flickered in her watery eyes as she hugged him. Jessica felt certain of very few things in life, but Luke’s love had become an indisputable law of nature—of that, she was absolutely certain. His body became her security. He would protect her from her demons … forever.
“Jess?” he mumbled into her shoulder.
“Hmm?” She teased her hands along his back, tracing each muscle.
“If I wake up tomorrow and live to tell about it … you should move in with me.”
She shoved him off her. Traipsing naked into his great room, she kissed Jones goodnight and put him in his kennel. Returning with two arms full of blankets and pillows, she blew him a kiss while tossing everything on the bed.
Luke turned on his side, resting his head on his hand with amusement tugging at his lips. “What are you doing?”
Jessica ignored him, proceeding to construct a barrier in the middle of the bed, separating the Qin dynasty from the Nomads. “Hurry up and go to sleep. Don’t flail, and let me wake you in the morning.”
He chuckled. “I can’t even see you.”
She peeked through a small hole in the pillow and blanket wall. “Jones is going to be so excited.”
“Not if you accidentally snap my neck in the morning.”
She blew him another kiss. “I’ve got you—I’ll always have you.”
Chapter Eight
Knight
Jackson scowled at Jillian from his piano as Brooke and her family settled into the lower-level bedrooms for their two-night stay.
“I know your mental state has been the hot topic for years, but this is truly insane.”
Jillian pressed her index finger to her lips.
“Don’t shush me. Those kids are going to tear this place apart.”
“Well, good thing we hired a cleaning lady.”
“She has a name you know.”
Jillian raised a brow. “Ry
n, yes I know. I hired her … as our cleaning lady.”
“Well she could be more than that.”
“Oh?” A smile crept along Jillian’s lips. “Did you propose or offer her your body to help her stave off menopause?”
Jackson narrowed his eyes.
“I’m kidding. Either way she should invite you to stay the weekend so I don’t have to deal with your Oscar the Grouch attitude … oh wait, that’s right, you’re Mr. Snuffleupagus.”
“Not any more.”
“Ryn not into penis role-playing?”
Jackson failed to hide his grin. “Somehow I doubt it.”
“Hmm … that’s a shame. I was going to suggest that Lascivio create a line of penis accessories. I think action hero dress-up could be quite fun.”
“Would AJ do it?” Jackson raised a questioning brow.
“Would AJ do what?” Brooke asked, rounding the corner from the stairs.
Jillian gave Jackson the hairy eyeball before turning toward Brooke. “Grill out … even though it looks like it could rain.”
“Trust me … AJ would grill out in the middle of a hurricane.” Brooke shook her head.
Jillian smiled. AJ had softened her, exposed her humanity. Maybe it was crazy for her to invite her lover’s ex-wife to stay with her. Jillian didn’t have a boiling pot of jealousy waiting to erupt inside of her, but Brooke proved that with exposed humanity came a little spark of jealousy. It was a miserable emotion. AJ and Brooke had been married and raised a child. Of course Brooke would know him better than Jillian.
“Well, it was nice to meet you.” Jackson smiled at Brooke. “I’m going to … take off.”
Jillian nodded. “Good idea.” She winked at him as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door.
“Your brother is …” Brooke stared at the door.
“Yes, he’s a freak of nature. But I’d say the same thing about you, knowing you have a twenty-one-year-old son and five-year-old twins.” Jillian stopped shy of actually saying the word angel.
“Pfft … I hired a personal trainer after the girls were born. I’ve had a tummy tuck and breast implants, but none of it stops me from peeing a little when I jump rope with the girls.”
Jillian’s jaw dropped.
“TMI?” Brooke scrunched her nose.
Jillian shook her head and maybe fell a little in love with Brooke in that moment. The angel’s wings weren’t real.
“I wanted to like you and it’s official … now I can.”
Brooke laughed. “I wanted to hate you and it’s official … now I can’t.”
Jillian’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you hate me?”
Brooke eased up onto the kitchen barstool and crossed her long thin legs. “Because you found what I lost.”
“What’s that?”
“His love.”
“You didn’t lose his love. You lost him. And I don’t think I’m with the man you married. I doubt he still exists.”
Brooke seemed to think about it as she stared intently at Jillian. “Char told me about…” she paused “…the tumor.”
Jillian nodded.
“Do you think that’s the real reason for his change in personality?” Brooke’s eyes filled with unshed tears.
She had to feel a pang of guilt as if she, too, was responsible for missing something, assuming it was the PTSD.
“It could be, especially now, but even one of his doctors said he probably has PTSD, but sifting through his symptoms to determine which category they belong in is useless at this point. No one is to blame and we can’t change what already is.”
Jillian said it for Brooke’s benefit, but she wanted there to be someone to blame. Having someone to blame made dealing with the pain so much easier.
“You do know that his parents asked him to move back to Portland for treatment so they or we can help take care of him while he goes through radiation?”
Jillian did not know that. “I … what did he tell them?”
“He said he’d think about it.”
“When did he say that?” She tried to hide her disappointment, or anger, or whatever feeling triggered some sort of meltdown inside her.
“Yesterday when they talked on the phone.”
Jillian had practically been living at his house the previous week to help him out and go with him to his appointments, but somehow that bit of information had not been shared with her.
*
It did rain and they still grilled out. Dodge and Lilith came for dinner too, but Cage couldn’t make it because he had a late practice to prepare for his first preseason game. The girls played hide-and-seek, then Stan took them out on his paddle boat with their dad.
At one point Brooke and AJ disappeared inside, and when they both returned Jillian could tell Brooke had been crying and maybe AJ too. He wore a baseball hat pulled low on his head, which made it hard to get a good look at his eyes.
Jillian found herself not fitting into Dodge and Lilith’s conversation with AJ’s parents, and AJ himself seemed to be avoiding her, so after dinner she sneaked out the door and went home. In that moment she regretted shoving Jackson out of the house because she needed a good kick in the ass to push her past the rut she’d fallen into since Brooke’s revelation about the possibility of AJ moving back to Portland.
“Hey, I wondered where you went,” AJ said, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Jillian stilled the punching bag and tugged off her gloves. “I wanted to give you some time with your family.”
“That’s nice of you, but you didn’t have to leave.”
She shrugged, wiping the sweat off her brow with her arm. “I needed to work out anyway, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to be down here later when Brooke and everyone came back so …”
“Oh … well, after you shower come back over for a little bit. Okay?”
She nodded.
AJ started back up the stairs.
“I’m mad,” she said. That admission, those two words, ripped through her gut. Jillian didn’t want to be mad, and she sure didn’t want the insecurity that came with confessing her vulnerability.
He stopped and turned, an uneasy squint tugging at his brow.
The giving-a-shit, channeling her humanity thing, took its toll on her that day.
“I’m mad. Okay? I was mad that time when I took Cage out on a date because you had the balls to go out with Carin after our moment in the shower that morning. So, I’m sorry. I should have just told you upfront that I was mad. I didn’t, but I am now.”
“You’re mad at me now?” AJ looked lost. Typical male.
“Yes, and I’m not even going to play the whole mind-fuck guessing game with you.” Her voice grew louder with each word. “I’m just going to tell you and then you’re going to apologize for even considering leaving me to move back to Portland!”
AJ closed his eyes. “I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what? That they asked you or that you’re considering it?”
He looked at her but didn’t answer.
“You’re leaving.” She shook her head.
“I didn’t say that.” He walked back down the stairs.
She retreated. “Well, you didn’t say you’re staying.”
“I didn’t say anything!” An eerie silence followed his echo.
“I can’t move to Portland with you,” she said, her voice soft—regretful. “But maybe you weren’t going to ask me to anyway.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” His shoulders slumped. “I haven’t even told my son that I’m dying.”
“You’re not—”
“Don’t!” He sighed. “I’ll let everyone but you think that a miracle is going to happen. My parents believe it, Brooke believes it—hell, even I want to believe it—but you are my real … my truth. You are the only clarity in this whole fucked-up mess. You don’t have to watch me die to accept that it’s going to happen. But what if they do?”
She couldn’t look at him. He’d put her up on a
pedestal as if she were invincible, a rock that could not be broken. He was so very wrong.
AJ kissed the top of her head. “I have to go back over there.” He turned and walked up the stairs.
“AJ?”
“Yeah?” he answered with his back to her.
“There’s no acceptance in watching someone die. There’s only a lifetime of regret from knowing you couldn’t stop it from happening.”
Chapter Nine
It took Ryn several days to recover from a near-kiss, or a half-kiss, or whatever involved Jackson’s tongue grazing the top of her lip. Her hormones giving her whiplash didn’t help either. Unpredictable periods toyed with her, making it impossible to prepare for them. In the middle of the night she had a hot flash. A. Hot. Flash! What was she, sixty? Then the next minute she thought about sex—nonstop. She imagined having sex with every guy she saw, and it had nothing to do with their looks because she also imagined every couple she saw having sex too.
Sex. Sweat. Sex.
Her body couldn’t decide if it wanted to act sixteen or sixty.
Gunner barked while she made a late dinner: an egg salad sandwich. She knew someone had to be at her house because it’s the only time he barked when she was home.
“Who’s here, baby?” She looked out the front window and jumped, pressing her back against the wall next to the window, trying to hide.
“Oh God.” Ryn closed her eyes. Her khaki shorts had permanent oil stains from lemon wood polish and her large T-shirt looked even more grotesque and two sizes too big, resembling a night shirt. She couldn’t bear to think about her bra: a compression sports bra that made her chest one small speed bump. Maybe the large shirt was a blessing.
The door bell rang. “Just a minute.” She grimaced. He could probably tell from the nearness of her voice that she was two feet from the door. There was never an extra dose of confidence around when she needed it.
“Hi … what are you doing here?” She tried to keep most of her body hidden behind the door.
“I’ve been displaced from my house by twins.”
“Twins?”
“Five-year-old girls.”
“Oh … cute.”
