by Brenna Lyons
Fear at first then that was gone. Comfort, safety—
“What—” she stammered.
“Can I help you?”
Sarah closed her eyes, searching for the mind touching hers. It wasn’t Jonas or Evan, wasn’t any of her family.
Warmth, holding, safe—
She tried again to touch the mind, but the emotions were muddled sensations, muted, without form. Touching her baby had become a habit. Sarah did it as she considered what this connection meant.
“Are you all right, Miss?” the nurse asked.
A touch of warmth, happiness, safety, trust—
“No,” Sarah breathed. “Julian?”
“Do you need a doctor?”
Sarah snapped her eyes open, horrified at what she was doing. “No. Restroom. I don’t— I don’t feel well.”
“If you’re sure—”
“I am. Please.” She took a step back from the desk.
“You don’t look well.”
Discomfort.
“The restroom?” she gasped.
“Down that hall.”
Sarah turned and pushed back through the door, walking to the restroom on shaking legs. She couldn’t do this to a baby she could feel like this. Sarah couldn’t pretend that it meant nothing when it was a child she was communicating with. Still, Julian would never be safe.
There was nothing in her stomach to lose, but Sarah hunched next to the toilet in the handicapped stall, shaking and crying. When had everything gotten so complicated? Why was there never an easy answer?
She didn’t know how long she sat there before she heard the outer door open. Sarah looked at the stall door in disbelief as the lock snapped open, pushing herself into the corner and preparing to defend herself. The lock wasn’t opened with a coin or the edge of a key. Someone used a telekinetic push to do it, and no one would do that unless they knew who she was. It had started already.
The door swung in, and Jonas loomed in the doorway. Sarah sucked in her breath as his emotions assaulted her, a complicated mix of relief, pain, and fury. Then they were gone, hidden carefully behind his simulated E-shield.
He didn’t speak. Jonas scooped her into his arms and started walking. He wasn’t rough with her despite his fury. His hold was gentle, though Sarah had no doubt that it wouldn’t be if she fought him.
“You’re right about that,” he growled against her hair.
Sarah nodded and burrowed her damp cheek into his chest. If he was reading her, he knew. “I’m sorry, Jonas.”
“We’ll discuss that later.”
She grimaced at the cold edge to his voice and pulled her shield as tight as she could.
*
Jonas kept up a minimal shield. Most of his energy was poured into scanning for potential problems and keeping his anger in check.
He ground his teeth as Sarah put up that damned super-shield she constructed after fighting Baker. That was the cause of all of this, her hiding. It couldn’t continue. He couldn’t let it.
The way out of the hospital was uneventful. Jonas was thankful for that. His hold on himself was strained enough as it was. If someone had challenged him, Jonas was sure he would have renegaded without thinking twice. If Sarah had fought him, he wasn’t sure what he would have done.
Jonas breathed a sigh of relief as he unlocked his SUV by remote. He swung the door open and set Sarah in the seat. She didn’t shrink from him, but she didn’t speak to him or look at him, either. Jonas stifled a harsh curse as he placed her seatbelt in her hand.
Sarah nodded and fastened it carefully, placing the straps so they wouldn’t hurt the baby in a crash. Jonas watched her in amazement. This was the same woman who snuck out, intent on having an abortion? He shook his head as he slammed the door. He’d never understand women, Sarah least of all.
He slid into the driver’s side seat and put the key in, but Sarah placed her hand over his before he could start the engine. Jonas looked at her in irritation.
She blanched and turned her face away, pulling her hand back to her lap. “Seatbelt,” she reminded him in a whisper.
Jonas stared at her, trying desperately to make sense of her actions. He tried to untangle the web of her shield, but she had wound her strands tight, a knit that not even he would be able to unravel, the shield she had shut herself behind for the last week. He wondered if she dropped it to aid her in her plan. That was likely.
“Please, Jonas. I know you hate me, but humor me. I don’t—” She shook her head and leaned back in her seat, her face pale beneath the tear-streaks down her cheeks.
He pulled his seatbelt on, wondering at her statement. Sarah thought he hated her? Jonas certainly wasn’t feeling overwhelming love for her. He was angry, but he didn’t hate her, did he? He stifled the urge to ask Sarah if she read that in him or just assumed it. He decided that he didn’t want to know the answer to that, didn’t want to delve into the possibility that she had read something like that in his mind.
Jonas pulled out into traffic and headed for the parkway. He waited until he was out of the city proper before he pulled out his cell phone, not willing to chance Mac and his boys interfering with this before it was settled. He called Evan first.
“Got her?” Evan asked without any pleasantries. He had taken the news of Sarah’s disappearance almost as seriously as Jonas had himself.
“Yeah. Just as we thought.” After her complete disconnect with the world, Jonas had Evan check into any place Sarah could invoke the talent allowance and abort quickly and quietly. There was only one place she would go.
This move didn’t surprise Jonas. He saw it coming, but he wouldn’t let her do it this way. If Sarah ultimately decided not to have the baby, he would find a way to let it go. Jonas kept promising himself that he wouldn’t force this on her, but he wouldn’t let Sarah do it while she was in this condition, when she hadn’t made a rational decision, when she might regret it in a clearer frame of mind. If Sarah decided to do this, she’d have to prove to Jonas that she was reasoning and not reacting out of desperation. If Jonas could, he’d convince her not to do it at all.
Evan sighed in relief. “Good.”
“Which house?”
“The far side of the lake. I have a cover for the SUV, and no one is going to come looking. I liberated the keys. Since we’re still technically on the rolls—” Evan didn’t need to be more specific than that. This had been carefully planned days ago.
“Good. I’ll see you in an hour.”
Jonas met Sarah’s startled gaze head on as he disconnected. She looked out the window, searching for familiar landscape, as if the idea that they weren’t headed for her parents’ house was news to her. Was Sarah so lost in her own mind that the fact hadn’t registered with her until he mentioned it to Evan?
She didn’t ask where they were headed or argue it in any way. Sarah seemed resigned to whatever he intended to do. That worried Jonas. She couldn’t keep hiding from the world. She had to connect to someone somehow. Even Katie had her rock when she disconnected, one solid relationship that she held tight to.
He watched her as he drove. Sarah stared at the passing miles without locking her gaze on any particular thing. Her eyes drifted shut. She was exhausted. It was a miracle that she managed to pull this off at all.
Jonas flipped the phone out again. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Now came the hard part. “Randall home,” he ordered the auto-dialer.
He expected to hear Katie or Keith on the other end, but Steven picked up on the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?” he demanded, obviously using the caller ID next to the phone to make the determination.
“We’re going away for a few days to work this out.”
Jonas secretly wondered how long it took Steven to make it to his parents’ house after Jonas bolted out that morning. Katie hadn’t questioned his flight. She simply cleared the way toward the door and invited him to go. Sometimes, Katie did things that convinced Jonas that she knew a lot more than she let on abou
t what went on in her family’s lives.
“You can’t do this,” Steven thundered.
“Sarah needs a break. No more reporters. No pressure. Just time to heal and regroup.”
“No pressure from anyone but you, you mean.”
Jonas sighed. “No, that’s not what I mean. We are going to discuss this but not until she’s ready.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“She’s asleep.”
The seconds ticked away with no reply from Steven.
“She’s asleep, Steven. No stun spray. No drugs. I didn’t put her in a sleeper hold or the Vulcan neck pinch. I haven’t forced anything on her. Asleep. We’ll see you in a few days.”
“She’ll contact me. You can’t stop that.”
“I can, but I won’t. You have my word on that. Until Sarah regroups, she won’t contact anyone willingly. You know that. Hell, I’d be happy if she contacted you. It would mean she was acknowledging that someone else inhabited the Earth with her. I won’t interfere with her contacting you or anyone else.”
“I don’t like this, Jonas.”
“I’m not giving you a choice. Let me try to salvage this. It’s all I have left. It’s all I’ve lived for the whole time she was gone. I can’t walk away until I know this is what she really wants. Let me have that.”
“Three days. After that—”
Jonas managed a strained smile. “You’ll be tracking me as a renegade. I know. Goodbye, Steven.”
He hung up and stared at the phone for a moment before destroying its internal circuitry. There’d be no tracing him that easily. Jonas tossed the useless phone on the rear seat next to the gym bag.
Sarah slept through, as Jonas pulled into the treeline next to the cabin and passed the gym bag off to Evan to stash inside for him. He settled Sarah in bed and stripped her down to his T-shirt and her underwear. Evan put his hand out for the keys to the SUV and left without a word.
Jonas settled in the bed with her, knowing Evan would cover the SUV and check it carefully for tags before he left. In a real emergency, Jonas could hot-wire the vehicle. Other than that, they were stranded here until he called for Evan. They’d arranged plans for every eventuality.
Sarah lay curled in on herself, tense even in sleep, her shield as impenetrable as steel beneath bare hands. No wonder she was so exhausted. She never relaxed, not even when she should be recharging. Jonas sighed, wishing Sarah would migrate to him in her sleep as she had before she was taken, sprawled against him with the silk of her hair draped over his chest.
*
Sarah curled further under the blankets, reveling in the silence. There were no unguarded reporters’ emotions tumbling over each other until her mind felt like a pinball in a confusing maze of bumpers and lights. She stretched, then stilled as she encountered something hard and smooth. Her eyes snapped open, and Sarah followed the expanse of cotton-covered chest up to Jonas’ face. His expression was unreadable, though she could feel his muscles tense under her hand.
Jonas— Sarah groaned and closed her eyes. He took her from the hospital. He knew what she intended to do. He must hate her for it. For one mad moment, Sarah considered opening a crack in her shield and trying to read Jonas then decided that she couldn’t survive it if she found what she feared most in him.
“Are you hungry?” His voice was as emotionless as his face.
Sarah moved further away, unwilling to look him in the eye and see what he thought printed there—or worse, the same cold disinterest she saw in the car.
“I’m going to cook lunch. There’s a bathroom through the far door. Come out to the kitchen when you’re ready.”
She nodded, waiting for Jonas to close the door behind him before she moved from the bed. Sarah considered crawling back in after she washed up, but her stomach protested that idea. She headed out to the table, resigned to facing Jonas.
He didn’t face her. Sarah ran her eyes over his back, straining against the T-shirt as he cooked, and the muscles of his thighs under his worn jeans. Sarah lowered her eyes and stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Remembering what his body felt like was torture. He’d never want to touch her again.
Jonas lowered a bowl of beef stew in front of her. “Eat,” he ordered.
Sarah nodded and forced down the first spoonful. A glass of milk slid in next to her, followed by a croissant. “Thanks,” she managed.
She cringed inwardly as she forced down another bite. Of course, Jonas was feeding her well. He’d do that much for the baby. If anything, he probably expected Sarah to starve herself.
They ate in silence. Sarah choked down most of her meal, determined to prove that she wanted this. But, her mind was a damper on her appetite. Why would Jonas believe that she’d had a change of heart? He had no reason to. Her meager hunger appeased, Sarah tried to escape to the bedroom.
Jonas locked his hand on her wrist. “Sit with me.” His voice brooked no argument.
Sarah sank to the chair. “I won’t—”
“I know. Just sit with me. Is that so terrible?”
“No.” She hazarded a look at his eyes. They were emotionless. That was almost worse than seeing his anger or hate. At least, she’d know he felt something. Sarah looked away, swallowing a sob.
He released her wrist. “Why can’t you look at me?” he asked.
“You know why.”
“No. I don’t. Tell me.”
“You know what I almost did.” She glanced at Jonas then away as the fury in his eyes made her stomach rebel. Okay, that’s not better. “That’s why.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Sarah took a shuddering breath then shrugged. “I couldn’t. He trusts me. I can’t—” She buried her head in her hands, at a loss to explain how feeling their son changed everything.
There was a moment of silence. “You want to.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Julian trusts me,” she whispered.
“Why did you want to?”
“I didn’t want him to live this way.” Sarah glanced at his shocked expression then closed her eyes again.
“What way?”
“Hunted, scared. I can’t— I don’t want to kill, to have to kill again. I can’t protect him from physical attack. He’ll never be safe.”
Jonas pulled her to his chest. Sarah hadn’t heard him move. He was just there, around her, with her silently.
“You think I’d allow that?” he asked gruffly.
“You can’t always be there.”
“Yes, I can.” He carried her back to the bed, crawling in behind her again.
Sarah started to pull away, but Jonas locked her to his chest.
“No more hiding. You have three days to work this out with me. You’re not leaving my side. You stay with me, or I will cuff you. It’s your choice.”
She nodded. “No cuffs.”
“Good. I’d rather see you catch up on your sleep comfortably.”
Sarah closed her eyes. As Jonas’ scent teased her senses, she wondered whether or not the cuffs would be kinder.
Chapter Fifteen
September 19th
Jonas pushed up on his elbow, watching Sarah as she slept. The food and sleep were helping her physical state. Her eyes lost the dark, haunted circles she had three days earlier. Her appetite was good, though Jonas was sure that a healthy portion of what she ate was feeding the shield that she still maintained, even in sleep.
Her mental state was another issue altogether. They talked but only when he initiated conversations. The only words Sarah volunteered were thanks when they were appropriate. Jonas had let her set the pace for two days. He was running out of time. He had to know if there was any chance before the end of the day. If the sun rose on the next day and he hadn’t returned her to Steven, Jonas would officially be reported for kidnapping or renegade, whatever Steven felt in the mood to throw at him.
Sarah snuggled to him in her sleep. She had reverted to that the first night, firing hi
s hope that sheer proximity might snap her out of her cocoon, but it hadn’t worked that way. Jonas wondered if Sarah would open to him if she were unguarded. Could it be any worse? Probably, but he had to chance it.
Jonas ran a hand up her leg, cupping Sarah to him and nuzzling her jawline. Sarah groaned and turned further into him, her lips seeking his in the semi-darkness. She was passionate, and Jonas hardened in light of her reaction. He pulled her against the ridge forming in his jeans, his mouth urgent on hers, nibbling and possessing alternately.
Sarah wound her hands in his hair, pulling Jonas over her as her tongue sparred with his. Jonas held himself up on his arms, meeting her hungrily mouth to mouth while he allowed the barest contact of his abdomen to hers, cautious of the weight he could place on their son.
“Sarah?” he breathed, needing to know that she was making a conscious choice to accept him.
She shook her head. “Please don’t. Don’t talk now.”
Jonas stilled, bringing his head up to look at her. “Why?”
Sarah searched his face then dropped her gaze, curling her hands back to her chest.
“Sarah?”
“Why do you want this?” she whispered.
“What?” Sarah wasn’t making sense. Why wouldn’t he want this? He loved her. He spent the last four and a half months doing nothing but dreaming of this.
“What do you want from me, Jonas? I’ll do it. I swear. I know you have no reason to believe me—”
“Is that what this is?” he asked in disbelief. “You’re just going to have sex with me because you think that’s what I want?”
She shook her head, seeming lost and confused.
“Why did you kiss me, Sarah?” he asked more gently.
Sarah wiped away a tear. “I—” She searched his face then took a ragged breath and looked away.
“Do you want me or not?”
“You know I do.”
“No. I don’t. How would I know? You won’t look at me. You don’t touch me. You don’t tell me. You won’t let down that damn shield even a crack.”
“You could—”
“No. I won’t force you to open up to me. You have to want to.” Jonas didn’t add that he couldn’t force her, if she were unwilling. Sarah could stop him and often did, whether she realized it or not. Number one in the world? No. Sarah had him beat in this department. “Do you want to?”
