by Jodie Bailey
Jenna slowly turned the pottery wheel, inspecting each side of the mug she’d formed so deftly, seemingly without thought. “I don’t mark my pottery. Not anymore.”
“Because somebody could use it to find you.”
“I had to take a break from art in general for a while. The only person in town who knows I throw pottery is Christa.” She sliced a glance at him. “Long story how she found out about it all.”
“I’m listening.” His voice strained. Come on, Jenna. What’s the whole story? What is it you really want to say? He had to keep her talking. “So you thought a paint-your-own-canvas shop was enough distance from the real you? Pretty risky, if you’re trying to hide your passion for art.”
“Not so much.” She ghosted a smile as she smoothed an edge gently with her thumb, her focus on the mug. “I used to be a bit of a snob.” Her thumb hesitated and she lifted a slight smile before she resumed her work. “I told Logan frequently how I thought paint-your-own-pottery, or canvas, or whatever stores counted as pseudo art and wasn’t truly art at all. It was fake, not for real, gifted artists.” She’d finished the sentence with a semi-British accent then sniffed, her smile bitter. “Now that I’ve been running the shop for a while, I know... Everybody has an artistic fire inside of them, not just me. God created all of us, and creation is a joy to Him. I think He’s given everyone an innate desire to create beauty, but all of us have different talents for doing it. Painting is a fun way to bring it out, especially for our generation, who got to watch Bob Ross paint mountains and birds on PBS.”
Wyatt chuckled. “True.” Only Jenna would drop a pop-culture reference like the painter of “happy little trees” into a conversation like this.
“Letting others be creative while I stand aside has let me see art isn’t exclusive. It was horrible of me to think I had the lock on creativity and beauty, that I was somehow the gatekeeper of good taste. So the snob I used to be? Genevieve Brady? She kind of died along with the name.”
He couldn’t imagine Jenna thinking anything as arrogant as what she described. She seemed so...
Genevieve Brady.
She’d slipped it in under the radar, so he’d nearly missed it. The air in the room stilled, almost as though Jenna waited for him to react.
The truth was, he had no idea how to even think, let alone act. She’d trusted him with the key to who she was, the core of her identity... What was a man supposed to do with a treasure like the one she’d handed him?
He was supposed to turn everything he learned about her over to Chief Thompson immediately. “Do the Feds know your name?”
“Yes.”
Good, then he didn’t have to treat this like a clue. Instead, he could sit with this knowledge for a few minutes and treat it with the reverence it deserved.
Genevieve Brady. He let the name roll in his mind. Weighed it, played with it, wondered at it. Since the federal agents already knew, this wasn’t a piece of the mystery. This wasn’t a new clue to who was after her, or why her pursuers thought her sister was alive.
This was a piece of herself. Freely given. To him.
Part of him wanted to run out the door and hide under one of Christa’s prize rosebushes. It was almost too much. Instead, Wyatt cleared his throat. “Genevieve Brady? That’s your name?”
Jenna nodded, then lifted the thin disk her handleless coffee mug rested on and walked over to the far wall. A deep cabinet with a lattice door sat there, each shelf housing various drying pottery pieces at evenly spaced intervals.
Wyatt simply watched Jenna. Her movements were different in this place. She was comfortable here, even though she was technically underground hiding from the world. It showed in the gentle, practiced way she’d handled the clay. The way her eyes had half focused on what she was doing, almost as though an instinct from within drove her more than what she could capture with her senses.
“I know why you’re not saying anything. It’s a terrible name.” She scouted for a clear spot, then lifted the disk and the mug and set it on the third shelf, all without looking at him.
“It’s not.” The name fit. Somewhat fantastical, somewhat bold. It spoke of a woman who’d had the strength to do what most would find unthinkable. Even now, in the face of death, she held on, thought of others before herself, was willing to do whatever it took to bring to justice whoever wanted to see her—well, her sister—dead. “I think it’s exactly right. Where did it come from?”
“I told you my mother thought of herself as a princess in a fairy tale, searching for a prince? Reality was not her friend.” Jenna adjusted the coffee mug, then backed away from the cabinet. “Looks like Christa’s making someone a matched set of tableware. It’s all drying, waiting to be fired.” She was quiet for a long time, studying the shelves.
Wyatt let her be. He still needed a minute to absorb the way she’d gifted him with her identity.
She’d trusted him with it, and he had considered betraying her trust by handing it over to authorities higher than himself. The fact they already knew had saved him from having to make the call, but he was still trapped between emotions and duty. It tightened his muscles, left him paralyzed between his job and his honor.
Jenna ran a thumb along a plate. “Anyone in town getting married any time soon?”
“Besides Erin and Jason? I have no idea.” Wyatt cleared his throat, trying to get rid of whatever had stuck there. Could be admiration. Could be guilt. “Could be for them.”
“Could be.” When Jenna turned from the shelves, she kept her eyes on the door. “I’m fairly certain my mom felt like her name was too normal. Constance Brady. Doesn’t have a very regal quality to it, at least it never did to her. I’m not sure where she came up with Genevieve, but she always said it sounded like a fairy princess.”
“It kind of does.”
Flaring her nostrils, Jenna rolled her eyes to the ceiling, the effect pretty comical, considering the circumstances. “This girl is so not a fairy princess. It was a good day if I came home without a new hole in my clothes from climbing trees or roughhousing with the neighborhood kids.”
“Somehow, you being a tomboy doesn’t surprise me. How did Amy get off so easy?”
Jenna snorted and returned to the wheel. She dropped onto the stool and rested her fingers, coated gray with a thin dust of dried clay, on the edge of the wheel. Her expression held amusement, and it lit the dark room. “Amy’s birth name was Amaryllis.” Her smile was in full force when she lifted her head.
Wyatt grinned at her. How could he not? Her spark was contagious.
“When she turned eighteen, she had it legally changed to Amy. Said Amaryllis was too old-fashioned and no one would ever take her seriously as a personal trainer.”
“And you kept Genevieve.”
“I did. Nobody but my mother called me that, and sometimes Amy would when she was trying to push my buttons. Everybody called me Eve.”
“Eve doesn’t fit you at all.”
“It really doesn’t.”
“It’s a little too...quiet.”
“You’re calling me loud? Obnoxious, maybe?” She asked the question with a raised eyebrow and a spark of challenge.
The look shot straight to his heart in a bolt of lightning that almost knocked him off his seat. She was utterly gorgeous and undeniably sassy. Wyatt wrapped his fingers around the rungs of the chair and held on tight. If he didn’t, he was going to lean across the clay-dusted pottery wheel and kiss her.
Whoa. Kiss Jenna Clark? Wyatt held on to the idea. The thought was brand-new yet not shocking. Somewhere at his core, he had to admit it wasn’t the first time he’d ever thought it, though it was the first time he’d ever acknowledged the inclination. He shoved out of the chair and turned away from her, crossing the tiny space to the wall of shelves she’d recently abandoned.
Kissing her was out of the question. It was dangerous no
t only to her safety, since he was her sole protector, but also to his own sanity. They’d never work. She’d proven adept at keeping secrets and he’d never be able to know for certain if she was telling him the truth. He wouldn’t risk being a fool again.
“No, Eve is definitely not me. Not now.” Jenna’s tone had shifted from playful to determined, causing Wyatt to turn toward her.
She shifted the wheel from side to side beneath her fingers. “I used to be a lot quieter. A lot less willing to fight for myself and for the people I loved. I guess Jenna Clark is a little different than Eve Brady.”
Cutter. She was talking about the way Logan Cutter had treated her.
Wyatt balled his fists. Cutter had taken a perfectly amazing woman and tried to crush her, to beat her into submission. His jaw tightened until his head ached. If he could, he’d find a way to go back in time to El Paso before she met Logan and steer her clear. He’d—
The radio at his hip hissed static. “Movement on the south perimeter. Owens, come in from the east. Stephens, stay at your location.”
Jenna was on her feet, a flicker of panic in her expression. “What’s happening?”
He lifted the radio. “Ten four.” Shoving it into place on his belt, he slipped his pistol from its holster and headed for the heavy door that kept Jenna safe from the outside world, but unfortunately kept him from seeing if anyone approached.
“Wyatt?”
He kept his ear tuned to the door, unwilling to look at Jenna. Unwilling to tell her the truth... Despite their best efforts, someone had found her.
* * *
Jenna breathed in, out... Too fast. Too shallow. Her body tensed as she rested her palm on the pottery wheel, seeking something solid to give her balance.
Carved out of the side of the mountain, this room had always felt cool, sheltered and safe.
Now, the walls closed in. She couldn’t see out. Couldn’t see if anyone approached, or how many people approached. Didn’t know if it was light or dark.
She was trapped. If someone burst through the door there was nowhere to run.
Nothing stood between her and death. Nothing.
Except Wyatt.
Heart pounding, lungs screaming, legs watery, Jenna fought to control her darting gaze and forced it to rest on Wyatt.
He stood near the door, his eyes on the handle, his head cocked toward the thick wood as though he was listening for telltale sounds outside. The lines of his face were tense, his jaw tight. The expression had to be paining his raw, bruised cheek. He’d removed his pistol from his holster and held it in both hands, low before him, ready to defend her.
To defend...her. Once again, Wyatt Stephens stood between Jenna and danger. Once again, he was willing to be her first and last line of defense.
To die for her if the moment called for such a terrible, drastic choice.
Spots danced before her eyes, and Jenna sank onto the stool she’d vacated, leaning her head forward onto the pottery wheel. She had to regulate her breathing, had to get control of herself or she’d sprawl to the floor, a fainting specimen of a woman who’d done nothing but add to the burden Wyatt already carried on her behalf.
On behalf of a woman who meant nothing.
Inhale. Exhale. One. Two. Her body slowly relaxed but her ears tensed, listening for something, anything outside the door. Footsteps. Shouts. Gunshots.
More voices crackled from the radio but Jenna couldn’t make them out. They were garbled and low, as though Wyatt had turned down the volume.
“Jenna?” His voice hissed into her mind, low and insistent. “Jenna, look at me.”
She tried, but her muscles wouldn’t obey her brain’s command.
“Now, Jenna!” The quiet order held all of the force of a shout.
Inhaling deeply, she pressed her hands against the cool metal wheel and forced herself upright.
Wyatt was watching her, his eyes capturing hers across the small space. “Are you okay?”
Swallowing hard, Jenna tried again to breathe normally. “Tell me what’s happening.” She needed to know. Nothing could be as bad as her imagination, which had painted an army of machine-gun-wielding super soldiers singularly focused on taking her out of this world.
He regarded her for a second, then divided his attention between her and the door. “Two men. One coming in from the south. He’s the diversion. Another on the north side. They didn’t count on us spotting them both, or on us having men in the woods watching for exactly this maneuver.” He shot her a reassuring—if grim—smile. “This will be over any second.”
When he tilted his head toward the door, Jenna shook her head. No. This would not be over any second. Wyatt, the Mountain Springs Police Department and federal agents had taken her to the outskirts of town, to a bomb shelter in the side of a mountain. And still she’d been found. Her final safe place had been destroyed. Christa’s mountain retreat was no longer a sanctuary.
“Christa!” She cried out the name then clamped her hand over her mouth. With wide eyes, she tried to communicate the silent question to Wyatt. If they were safe in the bomb shelter turned art studio, where was Christa?
“She’s safe,” Wyatt whispered. “The minute we spotted movement, Early left the perimeter and entered the house. He moved her to an interior room.”
Jenna lowered her hand, but she didn’t relax. What if it wasn’t enough? Once again, someone innocent was in danger because of her.
Maybe she was wrong to stay close to Mountain Springs. Maybe it really was time to pack her bags and flee. Staying was selfish. It was for her.
It was going to get someone else killed.
The radio came to life again, and Jenna shot to her feet, ready to move.
Wyatt listened, flicked a glance toward Jenna, spoke into the device before he listened again, then hooked it onto his belt and holstered his pistol. “They’re in custody. It’s safe.”
For now. The words weren’t spoken, but they hung in the air louder than if they had been.
“What now?” The answer would be to run again. She had no doubt, but she needed to hear him say it or the truth wouldn’t register as reality. She’d plod on in her denial until her world was forcibly jerked out from under her. Jenna’s knees wobbled.
Wyatt crossed the small space to her and his hands sought her elbows, his fingers wrapping around her arms, warm and firm. “You okay?”
Jenna kept her eyes on the shirt buttons at his chest. The way he held her arms left her hands nowhere to rest but against his sides, right above his hips. He was solid. Safe.
She needed something safe right now.
She needed something constant.
She needed that something to be Wyatt.
Her heart hammered so loudly he had to be able to hear it. For the umpteenth time today, he’d stood between her and danger. He’d been willing to die rather than let someone get to her. He’d protected her at the possible expense of his own safety, of his own life.
No one had ever done anything even remotely like that for her before. No one had ever thought of her as valuable.
She raised her head and found him looking at her, his expression guarded. When her eyes locked in on his, something shifted in his expression. His fingers flinched at her elbows, tightening briefly. He scanned her face, then dropped his gaze to her lips, hesitating there before his eyes lifted, intense, asking a question Jenna wasn’t sure she could answer.
He drew her the barest inch closer, then dipped his chin as though seeking her permission.
Permission she gave with a lift of her own chin and a tightening of her hands at his waist.
“Stephens, stay in place until we double-check the perimeter.” Arch Thompson’s voice squawked through the radio, slicing between them like a waterfall.
Jenna gasped, and Wyatt inhaled quickly as though something had scared him out of a
deep sleep. Keeping one hand on her elbow, he reached for the radio and lifted it from his belt, his eyes never leaving hers. “Ten four.”
When he reset the radio into place, he dropped his other hand and let his gaze graze her forehead, a rueful smile tipping one corner of his mouth. “You have...” He lifted his hand and ran a thumb along her forehead, the motion leaving behind a scrape of grit. His gaze shifted, and rested higher on her forehead, then he brushed her hairline.
Her scar.
Jenna dropped her hands from his waist and pulled away, her thigh colliding with the stool. He couldn’t ask about the scar. She touched her forehead where his fingers had first landed, and dried clay from where she’d rested her forehead on the pottery wheel flaked off and slid down her nose. The distraction would have to work. “Well, that’s not embarrassing.” Sarcasm. She needed it. Because kissing him would have been a thousand times more embarrassing and a million times more painful than a smudge on her skin.
She grabbed a rag from a side table and turned away, scrubbing at the spot. Maybe he hadn’t noticed she’d been about to cave in and kiss him. Maybe she’d read everything wrong and he was simply helping her stay on her feet.
Maybe she was overwrought and suffering some sort of psychological connection to a man who was willing to protect her. There was nothing else to it. There couldn’t be. She was historically bad at reading cues from men, at knowing whom to trust and whom not to trust.
She was Wyatt’s assignment. Nothing more. His job was the sole reason she had any value to him. He’d protect anyone the way he was protecting her. She needed to remember the truth. She also needed to remember who she was.
A loner. On her own.
Even if he thought he cared about her, it wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, he’d realize she had nothing to offer and he’d find someone who could love him the way he deserved to be loved. That person wasn’t her. It had never been her. It would never be her.
