Breathe (34 page)

yell. I was just worried.” He released her and wiped the tears from her face.

“You worry too much,” Nancy said.

“I wasn"t sick at all today.” Jessica"s brown eyes widened. She bobbed her

head.

He smiled at her as the tension left him.

She returned the smile with a giggle. “Oh.” She did a wiggle and reached into

her jacket pocket. “Here.”

A typed envelope with his name on the front.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was in my backpack.”

He tore open the envelope.

Leave Jay, or you’ll know what it is to grieve.

Lincoln rose and said, “Get the kids inside and stay there until I get back.” He

started toward his truck.

“Where are you going?” Nancy called after him.

“To the cops.”

He didn"t give a fuck whose mom she was. This ended. Tonight.

He stormed past the truck and kept on going down the sidewalk. First he had

to talk to Jay. The man deserved to know what he was doing. Lincoln just hoped Jay

wouldn"t blame him. Or worse.

* * *

porch for ten minutes. Might as well wait inside. He had no idea where Jay was or

what time he"d be home, but Lincoln wasn"t leaving until he talked to Jay. Then the

police.

He wandered around the house and found the back door unlocked. He walked

through the laundry room to an office. He"d never been in this part of Jay"s house

before.

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177

The office was small with a fiberboard writing desk, computer, and bulky

monitor that looked so old it might not display in color. Next to the desk were a file

drawer and a plant stand that held a printer. Several planters sat on the file

cabinet and more hung from hooks by the window. Each container held only long

brown vines, and scattered along the baseboard were piles of dried leaves, the

remnants of houseplants long dead.

Lincoln felt the need to do a cleanup. And he hated doing housework.

Maybe it was the day for putting things to rights.

What would Jay think if he came home and found Lincoln sweeping and

dusting his house? Lincoln smirked as he stepped closer to the window to peek

inside a planter with mold growing up the interior walls.

If he moved in there, they"d definitely need to do some cleaning. He couldn"t

have Jessica over with the house the way it was.

Wait.

He plopped into the chair at the desk.

Move in?

Was he ready for that?

Best not to evaluate that line of thinking. Not before he had a chance to tell

Jay what he was about to do. Not until they could stop Jay"s mom from hurting his

family.

Lincoln straightened a pile of envelopes that looked like they"d been thrown on

the desk whenever Jay got the mail over the past six months. Junk mail. Pizza

coupons. Utility bills. The latter all several months overdue. Where had all the

money from the settlement gone? Lincoln never could bring himself to ask.

He tossed the bills onto the pile, and cleaned up more of the desk. Tape,

pencils, an empty checkbook register, and an old datebook. The book was two years

old. He laughed at that. Jay really hadn"t cleaned his house in forever, probably

since…

He flipped open the datebook. The month-at-a-glance entries didn"t have much

written in them. A few scribbled lines in the neat swoops of a female"s handwriting.

Lincoln ran his index finger over the words.

Drop the car off for repair at 8.

Pick up Jay from school tonight.

Mom and Dad’s anniversary.

Jay’s final exams.

Lincoln turned to the beginning of the book and stared at the month of

January. The date one year to the day before the accident was marked with a single

line.

Jay’s 20th birthday.

Under that, in a more masculine scrawl:

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Sloan Parker

Don’t forget the ice cream.

Lincoln dropped the book. “No.”
She died on his birthday
. An ache built in

Lincoln"s chest. Jay lived with so much pain and never talked about it. At least not

to Lincoln. Not as much as Jay needed to. Did he have anyone else to share his

thoughts with, his feelings, his pain? Lincoln wanted to be that person. But could

Jay talk to him like that?

A piece of paper sticking out of the bottom drawer of the desk caught Lincoln"s

attention. Fancier than the loose papers piled on top of the desk. And also too

familiar for his taste. He threw open the drawer and lifted the pages.

Same stationery.

Same watermark.

The room around him blurred, the cream-colored pages the only point of his

focus, all that mattered to him right then. His hands shook, rattling the papers. The

coming change loomed as inevitable as…well, death. The phrase “no turning back”

ridiculed him.

He jumped with the hum of the refrigerator kicking on behind the wall in front

of the desk. He snapped out of the trance, stood, and rifled through the stack of

mail. He had no idea what he looked for. Confirmation? Explanation?

He found nothing.

He clutched the blank pages and marched into the kitchen. The room had been

cleaned. No dirty dishes in the sink, no empty pizza boxes stacked beside the trash,

no burger wrappers wadded up on the counter. Lincoln didn"t want to face what it

meant that Jay had cleaned. He went into the living room. The side table next to

the couch had a drawer. He sank to his knees and opened it. Newspapers, pens, and

a pad of paper with the words
history teaches us the mistakes of the past and how to

make them again with more style
printed across the top of each blank page. And at

the front of the drawer—a strip of condoms and a bottle of lube. New additions to

the junk drawer?

He scoffed and slammed the drawer shut. He moved to the second table on the

far end of the couch. More junk. TV remote, deck of cards, rubber bands, two picture

frames tucked in the back of the drawer, a large manila envelope, and a plastic bag.

He pulled out the bag and sank to his heels. Jessica"s inhalers.

He gripped the bag to his chest and reached for the envelope and frames.

Inside the envelope were photos. Him. Nancy. Jessica. Davy. Walking outside.

Inside the house. He threw the photos on the table. He didn"t want to see any more,

but he had to look. He flipped over one of the frames.

The red hair caught his eye first. Same hair. Same smile. Same beautiful eyes

as the woman in the picture he carried in his wallet.

He set the frame on the table and turned over the second. Her again. And

standing next to her was Jay. Lincoln held up the picture for a better look. Jay was

smiling. As happy and alive as he"d been when he last lay in Lincoln"s arms.

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179

With the image of that young, in-love couple, Lincoln accepted the truth. Even

if it hurt like hell to admit it, he and Jay Miller were through.

The front door crashed open, and before Lincoln turned, a jolt of pain and fire

ripped through his upper arm.

Only then did he hear the bang—like the backfire of a car.

Weren"t you supposed to hear the gunshot first?

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Sloan Parker

Chapter Twenty-six

Lincoln plunged forward with the force of the blow to his arm. The table lamp

crashed to the floor, and the picture frame in his hand broke as it connected with

the corner of the table. He landed sprawled over the end table, and a shard of glass

punctured his lower abdomen. That hurt like a bitch. Almost worse than his arm.

Almost.

He slumped to the floor, warm blood pooling over his stomach, more running

down his arm inside the leather jacket. Every instinct in him told him to pull the

piece of glass out, but that didn"t sound right. He rolled to his back and looked up at

Jay"s dingy living room ceiling. A crack ran the length. Was the ceiling about to split

apart and the whole building crash down around him? Maybe.

Funny how we never bother to notice the broken parts of our lives. Was it

because we didn"t see them, or because we didn"t
want
to see them?

Lincoln didn"t need to see his arm, though, to know he"d been shot. Just below

the shoulder. Damn close to his wolf. He almost laughed at that. Silly to laugh when

the person who wanted you dead would, at any moment, finish the job.

He waited.

He needed to get his ass off the floor and get out of the house, but he didn"t

hold much faith he could get up, what with his legs made of jelly and the dizziness.

Was there anything he could use for a weapon? He couldn"t reach far.

Something under the couch? The end table? The paper of choice for sending threats

and the broken picture frame with a young smiling couple stared back at Lincoln.

He had to get up. Had to get his cell phone out of his pocket. The shooter would

certainly fire again before long. Too much time had already passed. Or maybe

Lincoln had lost all sense of time. Maybe blood loss slowed the world around you. Or

maybe not. Katie Miller had lost a lot of blood, and time had simply stopped for her.

Lincoln forced himself to sit, pulling himself up with the help of the couch and

his uninjured arm. The front door of the house was open, but no one else was in the

room. He strained to hear any movement. Nothing except an occasional car passing

by the house. Had anyone heard the shot? This was small-town America. Gunshots

weren"t commonplace unless you were on hunting grounds. Jay"s property wasn"t

zoned for hunting. Apparently, someone didn"t care.

Blood kept seeping out around the glass still protruding from his stomach,

soaking his T-shirt. But his arm worried him more. He hefted his hand into his lap

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181

and worked on stripping his jacket off that side. A hole was torn in the T-shirt,

directly over his tattoo.

Blood had dripped out from under the cuff of the shirt and formed deep red

lines like veins running the length of his arm, but the blood flow from the wound

seemed to have slowed. A good thing?

He had to lie back in order to get to the phone in his jacket pocket with his

uninjured arm. He lowered himself to the floor.

“Lincoln!”

Jay.

Lincoln squeezed his eyes shut at the threat of tears and pain that had nothing

to do with the injuries.

“Linc!” Jay"s voice increased in volume as he came in close and shook Lincoln

by the shoulders. “Lincoln, wake up.”

He tried to open his eyes, but the moving around he"d done had worn him out.

And the blood he"d seen had made him queasy.

Jay"s hands disappeared.

“I need help… He"s been hurt… Hurry. There"s a lot of blood.” Jay"s voice

hitched as he spoke. Fear? Concern? “Please, hurry.”

Something landed with a
thud
beside Lincoln"s head, and then Jay tightened

his hands over the wound on his arm.

Jay"s hands. His Jay.

No.

Not his. Katie Miller"s Jay. Her husband. First and foremost.

Lincoln gave up on opening his eyes. The darkness felt safe, peaceful. But the

press of warm lips to his neck kept him from falling further away.

The words whispered in his ear startled him even more. “Stay. Please. I love

you.”

Too bad they were a lie.

Too bad it had all been a lie.

Jay fought off the tears, but he could do nothing about the fear.

Blood spread across the part of Lincoln"s tattoo not covered by Jay"s hand. A

bullet wound. Jay was certain of that. The entrance wound had ripped through the

face of the wolf.

The stomach wound worried Jay just as much. So much blood. Where had the

protruding glass come from? How deep was the cut?

Focusing on anything was becoming difficult. Someone had shot Lincoln. In

Jay"s own home. He pressed harder against the injured arm and waited for the

sirens.

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Sloan Parker

He had never heard the sirens for Katie. He hadn"t seen the blood either. By

the time he saw her, they had cleaned her up, stitched closed the wounds.

This wasn"t ending the same way. No one was taking Lincoln from him. No

matter whom he had to go up against. Even if it was his own mother.

“I"m sorry.”

Lincoln"s face was pale, his breathing rapid, his chest rising and falling with

each ragged breath. Jay stared at that movement, clinging to it, willing Lincoln to

keep breathing. To stay alive.

Sirens screeched in the distance. Not an ambulance. An ice-cream truck.

Playful music enticing children to run for a sweet treat. Jay wanted to vomit. He

swallowed it down. What was taking them so long?

Louder sirens blasted through the open door, drowning out the tinny music of

the ice-cream truck.

“Please, Linc. Stay with me.”