He didn’t think dealing with Drea would be anywhere near as easy.
“She threw a chair at her therapist?” Jem repeated now into the phone.
“Yes, Jem.” Carolina’s tone let him know that, somehow, she thought it was all his fault. Like his influence could travel over the miles. “Well, she’s definitely been hanging out with you for too long. Because that’s totally your MO.”
“Why does she want to see me now?”
“She’s learning more about Section 8. The kidnapping, but she wants to hear it from you. She’s also asking more questions about being wanted by the FBI, and you’re going to have to be the one to tell her what she’s really up against. You need to fix this, Jeremiah.”
Next she’d be middle-naming him. “Suppose I can’t?”
Carolina softened for an instant. “There’s nothing you can’t do when you set your mind to it.”
He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that there were things he hadn’t been able to fix, people he couldn’t save. But he’d never used that as an excuse not to try.
Chapter Four
Three nights after Drea told Carolina she needed to see Jem, he strolled in casually through the door to the balcony off her bedroom.
On the third floor. “That isn’t normal,” Drea told him.
“It is for me, babe.”
His voice … it was like an electric current, a low buzz running from the base of her spine outward. She didn’t recognize it as much as her body responded to it.
And he watched her, gauging her reaction. And then he gave her an easy, lazy smile. “I heard you wanted to see me.”
Yes, but she hadn’t expected to be struck stupid in his presence. Especially because he was moving toward her, his steps slow and sure, never tearing his gaze from hers.
His stride was what she imagined a stalking panther’s to be.
“I can’t stay long.” He pulled out one of the elegant chairs from around the table by the window. His big body in such a feminine chair made him look graceful and no less masculine.
Drea started right in, because she had a feeling he could—and would—disappear at will. “I want you to tell me what happened. Carolina’s filled me in a bit, but I thought—”
“You look beautiful.”
And he looked so serious when he said that. She blinked, and suddenly she was at ease for the first time in months. “Thanks.”
“Come on, sit down.” He pushed out another chair with a foot and she sat facing him.
Had he always looked that dangerous?
Probably, since that had apparently always been her weakness.
Jem kept his gaze steadily on her. “Do you have any whiskey?”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
“I meant for me.”
“Jeremiah, if you’d used the front door, I’d have offered you one there.” Carolina came through the half-open door and glanced at Drea. “Don’t worry, darling. I spotted him two blocks from the house.”
“Oh, come on, Carolina. Making me look bad in front of her.”
“Everyone could stand to up their game.” Carolina was carrying a tray with two highball glasses and a crystal tumbler of what appeared to be whiskey. She placed it on the table between them, told Jem, “Behave” and smiled at Drea before exiting.
Jem wore a grin that told Drea he planned on doing no such thing. He poured her a shot and slid it to her, then poured himself one and held up his glass for a toast. “To your memories.”
She couldn’t argue with that, clinked the heavy crystal of her glass to his and they both drank down their shot. The whiskey was familiar and good. “This is one of my favorites,” she said, staring at the empty glass in wonderment.
“You haven’t had any since you’ve been here?”
“The doctors said alcohol may confuse my memories, so I’ve been abstaining.”
Jem shook his head. “I never listen to the doctors. And from what I’ve heard, doctors never practice what they preach.”
God, it was so good to hear his voice. She couldn’t grasp an actual memory of him beyond the way he looked and moved, but this easy banter and her comfort level told her everything she needed to know. He was the missing piece of the puzzle. She leaned forward on the table and said, “I know that Danny’s no good. I understand why I’m here.”
He leaned forward on his elbows, mirroring her stance, one of his hands reaching out to grasp hers. “So tell me what you need from me.”
“I want to know … what was happening between us. How it started. I need to hear it from you.”
He nodded. Gave her a rueful grin. “I kind of kidnapped you.”
“Kind of?”
“I didn’t tie you up and throw you in my trunk. I belong to a group called Section 8.”
“Which was once code for discharged military crazies,” Drea added. “And pretty fitting, from what I hear.”
“No memory, but she’s got jokes.” Drea raised her brows and Jem cleared his throat. “S8’s a mercenary outfit. We help people.”
She tilted her head but stared directly at him. “You save people. That’s what Carolina said.”
His expression tightened noticeably when he said, “We try.”
*
Jem barely got the words out, and it was only years of grueling practice that allowed him to sit here when he really wanted to bolt.
As if Drea knew, she reached out quickly, took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “You did save me, Jem. I’m here.”
She sounded sincere, like she believed it. It would take him far longer to do so.
“You got in trouble because of us too.”
“You needed me to save Avery’s life. A pretty good reason, I’d say,” she added softly.
He wanted to tell her not to be so fucking nice to him, but he owed her enough, which meant he needed to let her be however nice she wanted to. “Right. Avery was bleeding out and you stitched her up after some fucked-up madman tried to kill her to get revenge on Gunner. You got mad at me. I think at first you thought that Gunner and I had done something to Avery, but she told you the truth. And then we talked and you weren’t that mad anymore. And then you asked if you could stay with us. Out of the blue.”
She frowned. “Because of Danny.”
“At the time, I didn’t know that, but yeah. You’d been under his control for a long time. I told you no, because I figured we were much worse for you than a controlling ex. And I was wrong.” He paused, stared into those striking amber eyes that reminded him of a fierce tiger’s. “When I let you go, I realized I got you in trouble with Danny, so I swung by your house and kept you with us.”
“You kidnapped me and I wanted to stay with you,” she said with a shake of her head, almost more to herself than to him.
“I told you—crazy. You fit right in.”
“Tell me how the FBI figures into all this,” she prompted.
“We didn’t know about any of that until you’d been with us for a while. I was in the process of making you a false ID. But that’s when I found out that the FBI was looking for you. We knew it had something to do with Danny, and even though they appeared to just want to question you, we knew turning you over would be the worst thing for you.”
“So you didn’t.”
“And that’s when you volunteered to help us on a dangerous assignment. I tried to talk you out of it. You were supposed to be safe, but things went wrong …” He took his hand away and poured himself another drink, downed it before continuing. “By the time we found you, you’d gone into shock. I don’t know what happened to you when they held you, Drea. They’d roughed you up. Scared you. Gunner and the other doctors we brought you to said you were hypothermic and you were probably panicking, and just one of those would be enough to bring on shock, never mind the combination.”
He eyed the bottle but pushed it away before he downed the whole damned thing. Drea remained stoic, simply stating, “You didn’t want to hand me over to the FBI.”
“Tell me what the FBI wants with me. This is where Carolina’s version of things is … sketchy, to say the least.”
Jem managed a brief smile. “I asked her not to tell you too much. Not until …”
“I remembered?” she asked ruefully. “Guess again.”
His throat went tight again. He waited a beat, then said, “Look, Danny will do anything to get you back. He’s under investigation by the feds for a RICO case. And the feds told him that if he turned evidence against some of the other MCs, especially the head guys, they’d grant him some leeway. So Danny grabbed at it, and used this as an opportunity to have the FBI help to hunt you down when you disappeared with us. He told the feds you gave them the drugs they were selling.”
“I never did that,” she said dully. “Why would they believe him, of all people?”
“It’s not so much that they believe him, Drea—it’s more that they’re looking for anyone associated with Danny with an insider’s point of view who could help to take the OA down.”
“But you said they’re working with Danny—that they’re helping him.”
He spread his arms wide. “Welcome to the wonderful world of agency politics. It’s all about who they think they’d rather give the deal to. If you were able to help them more than Danny, anything they were holding over your head could magically disappear.”
“And if I didn’t want to say anything against him, for my own safety?”
He shrugged. “You’d be in the same boat. They claim they’ve got solid evidence against you, based on more than Danny’s testimony. They’ve got doctors and nurses who will testify they saw you stealing … and that you threatened them with the OA. So even if you turn witness against him …”
“I’m still in over my head.” She circled her fingers around her empty glass, then pointed to the nearly full bottle. “Part of me wants to drink the entire bottle to forget all this. And yes, I realize how crazy that sounds, when I’ve been doing nothing but pushing to remember.”
“I don’t think it sounds crazy.”
She glanced away from the bottle at him. “From what I’ve heard, you might not be the best judge of crazy.” The light banter was back in her tone.
He relaxed slightly. “In this case, you should believe everything you’ve heard.”
“Jem, did we … ?”
She motioned between her and Jem with her brows raised. He smiled regretfully and said, “No, sweetheart, we didn’t.”
She stood and pulled her T-shirt over her head. “Then maybe it’s time we did.”
*
Part of her really wanted to get naked with Jem. Sex was the best way to learn how someone operated, for lack of a better word, and she’d been trying to get into Jem’s head—into her own damned head—for the better part of a year.
Sometimes the trip inside her own mind was successful, but mainly it was a bit of a blur that would threaten clarity but never make good on its promise.
None of that was anything Jem could fix, though, and she wasn’t sure what she’d expected Jem to do when she started stripping.
Instead of stepping back and being a gentleman, he did the opposite. Before she could stop him, tell him she’d never expected this, he had her nipple in his mouth. He suckled and she gasped, wound herself around him as if she’d never let go.
He smelled like the beach, a happy memory of hot breezy summer days that held the promise of more behind it. He was everything outdoors.
He was freedom … dressed in leather. And definitely dangerous.
Outlaws had always been her weakness.
Finally, Jem murmured, “Carolina’s coming.”
She flushed, and only then did he let go of her hips, allowing her to climb down off him.
He snagged her T-shirt from the chair, handed it to her, telling her, “Don’t start something you’re not ready for me to finish. Because I will.”
“You didn’t—not all the time we spent together. You said so yourself.”
“Right. So don’t you think I’m just about at the end of my rope, babe?” he growled. “Show me your tits and what do you expect to happen? We’re not in New Orleans and I don’t have any goddamn beads.”
God, he was an asshole … and she still wanted him. “Were you always a jerk, or is this new?”
“Always,” he said firmly.
“Never,” Carolina would tell her later when they were alone. “He’s trying to make you hate him so you don’t get hurt again.”
*
Jem hadn’t wanted to stop, wanted to take Drea into bed, the way he’d never been able to do when she was staying with him and actually knew who he was and why he was in her life. But if he’d held out then, because he still felt that she was in far too vulnerable a place to make that kind of decision, he would certainly hold out now.
Of course, part of that was also holding her at arm’s length, which was most definitely something he’d perfected over the years.
“You’re beating yourself up again.” Carolina had come outside to stand next to him.
Once she’d come upstairs, he made a quick exit, muttering something about needing to get back to work. And then he’d stood outside the front door for the past half hour, knowing that Carolina would kill him if he left without talking to her. Bad enough he’d pulled away from Drea like that. “I don’t know what to do for her. I made her a goddamned prisoner,” he told Carolina now.
“Jeremiah, you did what you had to. You’re doing right by her now. You have enough burdens of guilt, wouldn’t you say?”
“Don’t pull your logic bullshit with me.”
Carolina had known him from his earliest days with the agency. She’d been the one to recruit him after a joint mission with the military. She’d been sleeping with the director, who’d been married. She liked to refer to that time as the good old days, before the fucking bureaucrats cut their balls off.
No one could cut Carolina’s balls off. First of all, no one could get close enough and second, they were motherfucking titanium. She was probably the greatest partner for someone like Jem. For anyone else, no. She wasn’t into teaching. She expected you to know your shit and learn as you went. To always be ready to jump into the fire.
He was always ready to do that.
“Which is why you kept ending up in the psych ward,” Carolina would often remind him, and Jem would correct her, saying, “I prefer to think of it as recharging my batteries.”
“Yeah, they recharged you all right.”
He’d had electroshock therapy several times. Didn’t change anything. If anything, that made him crazier than ever. And that crazy ran through his family like a tornado, taking everything in its path and mixing it up.
His brother, Key, escaped all that. He was normal. And now they were finally working together. Doing things that mattered.
Jem could only be happier if Drea remembered him. “As far as I know, the feds are still planning to tighten the screws on her if she surfaces. I haven’t made a lot of inquires—don’t want them to get suspicious.”
Carolina nodded. “Same here. From what little I did glean, Danny’s got hard evidence against Drea. He obviously made sure drugs were stolen from the hospitals and clinics she worked at, so the entire time he was planning for something like this. He also threatened medical staff, and they’re all willing to testify that they saw Drea taking the drugs, that they’d been threatened by her.”
Jem blew out a frustrated breath. “Danny’s a fucking scumbag. Tell me why I can’t just kill him.”
“I never said you couldn’t, Jeremiah. But you have a team to worry about. Eventually, this would trace back to S8.”
“Not if I used a sniper.”
“I considered that myself, but in the long run, that might cause more harm to Drea. Best to clear her completely and then take care of Dann
y.”
“I know you’re right, but fuck,” Jem fumed, helplessly, knowing Carolina understood and equally despising that feeling.
“Let’s let her remember. Give her the choice,” she said gently. “Don’t do anything she’ll hate you for.”
“I hope it’s not too late for that already,” Jem admitted.
*
Drea stood on the balcony, listening to Jem’s and Carolina’s voices rise to her in the dark. She couldn’t hear everything they said, but it didn’t matter—she knew the bulk of it.
She was screwed. And not in the good way.
She took a sip of the small amount of alcohol she’d poured herself. At this point, her memories weren’t as important. She knew the brick wall she was up against. And while she didn’t doubt the doctors and nurses prepared to testify against her were threatened, she knew it was by the OA themselves, and at Danny’s orders.
Since those doctors and nurses were no doubt more scared of Danny than of her, she had little recourse. The fact that she’d disappeared and gone completely off the grid only added credibility to Danny’s story.
Several minutes later, Carolina stepped out onto the balcony and leaned on the railing next to her.
“Do you think the OA know what Danny’s doing?” Drea asked her.
“It’s a definite possibility. But Danny’s doing it to save his MC. So they’ll think he’s a big hero.” Carolina’s voice was heavily laced with sarcasm on that last part. “I know Jem told you that Danny’s not a credible witness in the FBI’s eyes. He’s the best of the worst.”
“That’s awful,” Drea muttered. “They should just throw his ass in jail, and the agents who believe him too.”
Carolina agreed. “Part of this business is learning to work with criminals. You realize that S8 are considered criminals. That is, until they save an agency’s ass, and then they’re heroes for a moment. And then the cycle begins all over again.”
Drea finished the whiskey, and it burned down to her belly. “Something’s not right.”
“What’s that?”
“After everything I’ve learned, and having no memory of it, I should be pretty freaked-out. Instead I’m intrigued and I feel oddly safe and in control, which clearly means I’m delusional.”
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