Forever Freed

by Kathleen Brooks

  Eventually Jackson slumped against the shower and was able to calm himself a bit.

  “Well, it’s not red anymore and it’s very clean,” Evie said with a big smile and a whole lot of false bravado.

  * * *

  Both he and Evie were wrapped in towels with their hair still dripping water as they walked into the kitchen and he retrieved the key from underneath the mixing bowl. “That wasn’t how I imagined the night going,” Jackson told Evie as he unlocked the handcuffs.

  “I am so sorry,” Evie apologized again. She’d been apologizing since the burning finally stopped in the shower.

  Jackson’s shoulders started to shake as he laughed to himself and soon Evie was giggling. Finally, Jackson gave in to the laughter. “You were very hot, though,” Jackson said as Evie’s giggles turned into laughing so hard tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “You only think that because you were on fire,” Evie said between laughter. “And the hopping!” Evie imitated him and the laughter started all over again before she stopped and her eyes went wide as she jabbed her pointed finger at him. “Don’t you dare tell another soul about this!”

  Jackson tried to stop laughing, but couldn’t. “Hey, guys, my girlfriend is so hot she made my dick burn.” Jackson shook his head as he imagined it. “If I told Jace that, he’d come after me with a shot of penicillin.”

  Jackson reached out and pulled Evie to him. She looked up at him and he felt his heart swell with feeling. He was falling in love with her. There was something about her that made him feel complete.

  “Want to try that again?” Evie asked.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  This time it wasn’t rushed when Jackson kissed her. He wanted to savor it. And when he made it back to the bedroom the first thing he did wasn’t to strip the towel from her body but to throw the oil far across the room. Then he tore the towel from her body and showed her exactly what he meant by learning every sound she made.

  21

  Evie awoke in Jackson’s arms to a sound. She didn’t know what it was, but it was something out of place. When she looked into his face she saw that his eyes were open and that he had heard it too.

  Her heart began to beat hard when he lifted his finger to his lips and slid nude from the bed with a gun suddenly in his hand. Evie looked around because she hadn’t seen the gun at all the night before. Jackson crept out of the room and Evie’s fear of being left alone outweighed her fear of not knowing what the sound had been.

  Evie grabbed Jackson’s shirt and slid it over her head. It reached her mid-thigh as she hurried out of the room and caught up to Jackson in the hallway. She kept back enough to not distract Jackson as he cleared the living room, but when she entered the kitchen, she couldn’t stop the scream.

  “What the hell?” Jackson jumped back at the stream of spiders coming in from under the door. There had to be forty of them scurrying around. “Evie?”

  Jackson grabbed her, and it was only when he stepped in front of her and she couldn’t see the spiders she realized she was still screaming. “H-h-hate s-spiders,” she managed to stutter, her whole body frozen with fear.

  “Come on. I’ll take care of it.” Jackson swung her into his arms and carried her back to the bedroom. Her teeth were chattering as he set her on the bed and pulled the comforter around her.

  Evie didn’t see him for a second, but then he appeared dressed and stopped in front of her. “I have bug spray in the kitchen. I’ll take care of it, okay?”

  Evie didn’t answer and Jackson didn’t wait for one. Instead, she kept her eyes trained to the floor by the door. She waited to see the first one, but it never came. She heard stomping and even saw Jackson spray a line of insecticide by the bedroom door, and still she didn’t move until she heard the door open.

  Slowly she felt the knots of tension loosen enough for her to stand. Her hands shook and she felt lightheaded, but she managed to pull on her jeans and shove her feet into her shoes before slowly making her way toward the living room. Images of spiders crawling over everything almost prevented her from moving the rest of the way into the living room, but as she looked around, she didn’t see anything moving.

  She clutched the sofa and looked into the kitchen. The door was open and a potted plant was knocked over at the door. Jackson was bent over cleaning it up. “What is it?”

  Jackson turned and saw her white-knuckling the couch. “Looks like Mom’s mum was knocked over and there was a nest of spiders underneath it or in it. Anyway, I think I got them all. I just need to vacuum.”

  Evie saw the line of dead spiders in the kitchen and nodded as her throat closed up in fear.

  “Go take a shower and by the time you’re dressed, there won’t be a spider in sight. Okay?” Jackson asked as he tossed the broken pot into a trash bag.

  Evie nodded and then had to pry her own fingers from the couch. The farther from the kitchen she got, the more her body loosened up. The shower and usual morning routine did the trick, and when she left the bedroom fully dressed and ready for the day, the whole apartment was spotless. Not only was the man amazing in bed, he cleaned. Like, really cleaned. The couch even had vacuum marks on it.

  “Wow, the place looks brand new.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable. You told me you didn’t like spiders before but that was different.”

  “I might have understated my dislike of them. I have a horrible fear of spiders and clowns,” Evie admitted.

  “Are you feeling better now?”

  “Yes. Thank you for rescuing me.”

  Jackson chuckled as he approached her. “I told you I’d keep you safe.”

  “I actually wanted to talk to you about that. I want to keep myself safe too. I want to throw the axe some more today. It sounds strange, but it brought me comfort and made me feel confident. Do we have time for that?”

  “We have all day. Lucas and Talon will arrive at dinnertime so your wish is my command. I can even teach you some self-defense.”

  “I’d like that. A lot, actually. I tried to take care of everything for everybody my whole life, but I never felt so helpless as I have since seeing Jon in Shadows Landing. I don’t like feeling this way.”

  “Then let me change. By tonight you’ll feel anything but helpless.”

  “You were great,” Jackson told her a couple of hours later. Her arms were sore, but she’d learned not only how to throw the small axe, but how to use it in combat. “We’ll hit the training center next to borrow the self-defense equipment.”

  “Training center?”

  “Yeah, my uncles run a military and law enforcement training center. I can get some work in there too, if they have any other Tier One operators there, like Walker. If not, we can head over to Desert Sun Farm and I can work out with Nash or Ahmed.”

  “Okay,“ Evie said, feeling silly for not knowing what a Tier One operator was. Jackson had told her to embrace everything so instead of feeling silly or hiding her ignorance she decided to learn. “What’s a Tier One operator?”

  “Tier One is the highest level of special missions units, like DEVGRU and Delta Force. The FBI Hostage Rescue Team is the only civilian Tier One operator. We report to the president and the FBI director but FBI is part of the Department of Justice and we are not part of the military.”

  “I guess I should have known that.”

  “No reason why. We don’t broadcast it. But we train with DEVGRU and Delta Force so we have similar tactics and that’s why I want to work out with one of them today. As much as I love Matt . . . you remember the sheriff? He wouldn’t be able to keep up with me.”

  “Cocky much?” Evie teased as Jackson opened the car door for her and then hurried around to the driver’s side.

  “No. I just have to know my strengths and weaknesses to be the best operator I can be. The center isn’t that far away.”

  “Um, Jackson. There’s an elderly woman waving you down.”

  Jackson stopped the car and rolle
d down his window. The old woman at the farmhouse they drove by to get to the range must be the grandmother she’d heard about.

  “Hello, sweetie!”

  “Hi, Grandma Marcy. Can I help you with something?”

  “Oh no. I just wanted to invite your special friend to family dinner Thursday night.”

  “Oh no,” Evie whispered. “I’ve heard about those. Don’t I have to, like, fight your cousins or something?”

  Jackson smiled at her and shook his head. “Nah, I think you’re good.” He leaned out the window and blew a kiss to his grandma. “She’d love to. See you then!”

  * * *

  When they pulled up to the training center, Evie saw there were people everywhere. It appeared to be going very well. One thing the uncles had insisted on was when at the training center, all men and women wore the same thing. Rank and units were never discussed. Jackson would have to ask Uncle Miles if there were any teams he could train with today after he taught some basics to Evie.

  But it wasn’t Uncle Miles who met their car as he and Evie stepped out. It was a woman. “Hey, Jackson. Hi, you must Evie. I’m Bridget.”

  Bridget might be in her late fifties, but you’d be foolish to underestimate her. She was still in top athletic shape and her long, light red hair was pulled into a high ponytail. Her black-on-black outfit was also covered in dog hair. Bridget trained all the police and military dogs.

  “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard about the special dogs you train.”

  Bridget smiled kindly at her before turning back to Jackson. “Looking for a training session to jump in on?”

  “After I teach Evie some self-defense.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes. “No way. You know way too much to be able to trim it down into a lesson she’ll easily remember. All you elite operators are like that. Your basics are most everyone else’s most advanced moves. I’ll teach her. You go join Bravo team on the north side. You can change in the locker room.”

  “Who are they?” Jackson asked, eager to get with a group.

  Bridget smiled sweetly. “You’ll have to find out.”

  “Evie, are you okay with Bridget teaching you some moves?” Jackson asked.

  “Yes. I’d love it actually.”

  * * *

  “Just like a boy on Christmas morning,” Bridget said with a shake of her head as they watched Jackson take off for the locker room. “Now, tell me everything about what you’re up against.”

  Evie began her recitation. She was finding that the more she repeated it and the more she heard it reported to officials, the more clinical it became and easier for her to handle.

  “So, you’re up against either your brother or the fake doctor most likely?”

  Evie’s brow knitted as she thought about it. “Those are the two who were at the police station and in Shadows Landing. Harper identified the bomber as the fake doctor.”

  “My guess is the others are putting whatever plans your stepbrother has into action while he and his number two try to take you out first. I also think he’s doing this because you actually know their plans.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “I bet you do. Otherwise he wouldn’t be after you. He has to know you’ve told the FBI and police about him. Even if he thinks they still believe you’re crazy, he would be focusing on the main event he planned unless there’s more to you than just naming him,” Bridget explained.

  Evie stood for a minute watching some men and two women running an evil-looking obstacle course off in the distance. “They were actively recruiting on social media, so you’re right. He couldn’t be worried about his identity becoming known.”

  “Right, but if you knew his target, you could ruin everything he has planned.”

  “But I don’t know it,” Evie cried as she turned to Bridget. “I swear I never heard him say it.”

  Bridget shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t say it. Maybe you know it another way. Maybe he planned on you never making it out alive whether you had come home early or not.”

  Evie gulped at the thought. Did she really hold the key to protecting his largest target?

  “Now that you’ve told me about the two men, I can teach you the best techniques to handle them. Come on, this will be fun. I’m going to call my friend Annie. She’ll love this.”

  * * *

  Sweat poured off Evie’s face and down the black shirt she borrowed from the training center. Between Bridget and Annie, who was now a grandmother, Evie was exhausted.

  “Come on! Take him down!” Annie yelled at her.

  “Babe,” Cade, Annie’s husband, said with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t get too excited seeing Evie beat me up or I’ll get my feelings hurt.”

  Annie and Bridget had worked with Evie for what felt like hours—everything from hand-to-hand combat to throwing knives and axes. Then Annie had called her husband in because he was close to the same height as the fake doctor. Annie had recruited some poor DEA agent to be the stand-in for Jonathan. Apparently, she was, or still was, with the DEA. Her active status wasn’t made very clear to Evie.

  “It won’t work if you’re being nice. Come on, Cade. Man up,” Annie yelled at her husband.

  “It’s okay,” Evie said as they circled each other. “I can only learn through practice.”

  Cade nodded and lunged. Evie evaded. She was evading well until Bridget tripped her. Down Evie went and then Cade had her pinned. Through Annie yelling and spectators cheering as they left their lunch break to watch her work out, there was Bridget’s calm voice. “You know what to do. Slow it down. Breathe. Recognize you have the knowledge to break free. Use your brain and analyze the situation, then make your move. Don’t second-guess yourself. Just do it.”

  Evie slowed her breathing and refused to let the panic set in. Then she moved. An elbow strike to the head, a twist of her hips, and a knee to the stomach sent Cade rolling from her. Then she was up and running to the other side of the room to demonstrate her escape.

  The room cleared out as she took some deep breaths and walked over to her coaches. Bridget, Annie, and Cade were smiling and Evie felt accomplished for the first time in what felt like forever.

  “Great job, Evie!” Evie looked up at the track that ran around the room in the open second story to see Jackson clapping.

  “Tomorrow ask him to show you how to kill someone easily,” Annie told her. Bridget nodded next to her.

  “Kill someone? I’m not going to kill someone.”

  “I didn’t say you would. I said you need to know how to do it in case you’re left with no other option. We taught you enough for you to defend yourself a little and then escape. But sometimes your only escape is to kill the attacker. Don’t fear it. Just learn it and have the knowledge in case you need it as a last resort,” Annie explained as Jackson disappeared from sight and it was once again just Evie and the two women.

  “I don’t like it, but I understand,” Evie admitted even though the idea of taking a life made her feel sick. The door opened and in came a smiling Jackson.

  “Jackson,” Annie called out.

  “Yes, Aunt Annie?”

  “Tomorrow teach Evie a couple of simple kill strikes.”

  Jackson’s gait slowed for just a half second before he gave his aunt a nod. “Will do. Ready to head back to the apartment for a late lunch? I got word that the guys will be here around dinner time.”

  “And then we plan?” Evie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You all can’t plan at your small apartment. Everyone can’t fit,” Bridget told him.

  “Everyone? There’s only Lucas, Talon, and Ryan,” Jackson told her.

  Evie just shook her head, as did Bridget and Annie. She’s only been in Keeneston a short time but even she knew there would be way more people there than that.

  “I can have people at our house,” Bridget told them. “See you there at seven?”

  “Sounds good. Thank you both for today,” Evie told Annie and Bridget.

 
“You’re welcome. If you want, we can meet every day this week. I have lessons in the morning, but I’m available after lunch.”

  Evie felt the smile come to her face. “I would love that. See you tonight.”

  Jackson slipped his hand over hers as they walked from the training center. He told her all about his training, and as they drove home, Evie was excited to tell him about what she’d learned. Annie and Bridget were teaching her to respect her fear and not let it control her actions.

  As they entered the apartment, Evie was feeling more and more determined to help take Jon down. After all, she knew him best and maybe she was the key to solving the location of his target and catching the members of American Rebellion.

  22

  Jackson enjoyed every moment with Evie, whether they were fixing lunch together, talking, making love, or just lying in the quiet apartment, holding each other. There was something inexplicable about the connection he felt with her. It was a connection that tugged on his heart and made it impossible for him to think of her as anything other than the woman he was falling in love with.

  The trouble was the timing. This wasn’t about him right now. This was about Evie, Jonathan, and American Rebellion. Instead of talking about a future he hoped he’d have with Evie, he held her in his arms as she talked about her life with Jonathan. She believed she could figure out the location of the bombing AR had planned and they needed any lead they could get.

  “I can’t think of any place big enough and far enough away from Seattle that he would bomb,” Evie said with frustration. “He’s never been out of the city, never mind the state.”

  Jackson wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll all figure it out together. I know it will—”

  “Did you hear that?” Evie asked quietly as they both froze. Only Jackson wasn’t frozen for long. He was off the couch and had a gun in hand within seconds of hearing something outside.