Dawn of Forever (Jack & Jill #3) (7 page)

His whole body deflated with relief.

“Ryn?”

“Hmm?” She rested her hands on the back of his neck and leaned forward, kissing his forehead.

“It’s … nothing”

*

Jackson plotted a
four-step, fool-proof process.

Step One: Confess the mercy killing first.

Step Two: Wait for Ryn to acclimate to Jackson’s ability to take another’s life.

Step Three: Make her fall so deep in love with him that not even the assassin confession could drive her away.

Step Four: Be prepared to gently hold her in captivity until she snaps out of her inevitable conniption fit because realistically there is no way Step Three would ever fly.

“Done.” Ryn sighed, tying the last trash bag.

Jackson nodded from the seat of Black Beauty, where she put him in timeout when he tried to help her clean up the disaster she made hours earlier.

“You can come out of timeout now.” She smiled, tilting her head to the side, much like Gunner.

Jackson continued to play a Bach piece, looking only at her. “I’m good. I rather like watching you work, especially when you’re on your hands and knees, scrubbing my kitchen floor.” He twisted his lips to the side, making a quick downward glance as his hands made a transition. “Does that make me a pervert or an attentive boss?”

Ryn narrowed her eyes. “A pervert since you fired me, therefore you’re no longer my boss.” She picked up both bags, lugging them toward the back door. “Nice knowing ya, Mr. Knight. Thanks for the opportunity. Sorry it didn’t work out.”

Jackson grinned. “I’d like to rehire you, but just to dust the pedals of my piano, in a low-cut shirt—sans bra. And maybe to do a little spit shining of something else while you’re under there.”

The door slammed shut. He chuckled to himself. A few moments later she returned, hands on her hips that swayed gently as she walked toward him with a newfound confidence. Or maybe she’d always had it, he just brought it out of her again.

“I need to go take Gunner for a walk before it gets too late.”

Jackson nodded as he kept playing. “Show me your tits one more time before you go.”

She walked behind him, draping her arms over his shoulders. Her teeth tugged at his earlobe. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that because I’m forty, you’re thirty, and we need to meet at a thirty-five age level of maturity if this is going to work. I don’t know too many thirty-five-year-old men that say ‘show me your tits.’”

“Clearly you don’t know too many thirty-five-year-old men. Or really any men for that matter. We come out of the womb in search of a woman’s tits. That desire never goes away. Our use for them simply changes as we age. I guarantee you every man that you encounter thinks, at least subconsciously, ‘show me your tits, Ryn.’”

“So every woman you encounter, you want to see her breasts.”

“Tits. And yes. It’s genetic, sweetheart. So you can’t be pissed. Well … I stand corrected. There are a few women in this particular development whose ‘breasts’ best stay hidden.”

“I bet Greta would go all Mardi Gras on you in a heartbeat.”

“No! No. No. No. That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t say that.”

Ryn laughed. “Goodnight, Jackson,” she whispered in his ear.

He stopped playing and flipped his legs over the bench to face her. “Goodnight? You’re not coming back?” Hooking an arm around her waist, he yanked her onto his lap.

“I don’t live here. Besides, I’m exhausted. Physically and emotionally it’s been the most draining day ever. Anyway, I need a shower.”

“I like showers.” He bit back his grin, wondering if she would remember the last time he said that.

Her eye roll and soft laugh confirmed her memory was still intact. “When is Jillian coming home? I heard you tell Greta she’s taking some time for herself. Did she stay in Portland with AJ’s family?”

Good question.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, have you talked to her since the funeral?”

“No. She left her phone here. Symbolically, it’s the biggest fuck off she’s ever given me.”

Ryn brushed her lips against his a few times before kissing the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t love AJ and I flipped out. You’re going to have to give her time and space to grieve, not only AJ’s death but also the trust she had in you.”

Jackson wasn’t sure if Jillian would ever forgive him. She left having hit a new level of rock-bottom in her life. He had to believe a spark of life would eventually resurrect her. He used to be that spark, but he was no longer.

His hands slid up the back of her shirt. “Don’t go.”

“I have to.”

He let her wriggle out of his hold, righting her shirt when she stood. It was for the best. He needed an outlet and if she stayed, her body would’ve been that outlet. It took considerable strength to not bend her over Black Beauty and fuck her into another dimension. But he knew that would not sate him. He would physically break her before his own body reached the exhaustion it needed to calm his nerves and numb his worries.

“Drive safely.”

“You okay?” She cupped the side of his neck. Her fingers played with the hair at his nape. “Your pulse is racing?”

Jackson swallowed then cleared his throat. “You’re touching me. My dick is hard with a racing pulse as well. You’ve got ten seconds to get your sexy ass out of here before I have you face-down ass-up on my piano.” He gave her a cocky grin to hide the dim reality of his true intentions.

Ryn’s eyes widened a fraction before settling into their own smile that matched lips he imagined wrapped around the aforementioned pulsing erection. She needed to leave. Stat.

“We’ll do face-down ass-up another day.” She winked, blowing him a kiss as she headed toward the door.

Jackson forced out a hard breath after the door clicked shut. He needed to run ten miles, burn out every muscle group, and figure out a way to tell Ryn
everything
.

Jones

O
nly one thing
remained for Luke to do in his lifetime: find Jessica. Even if it took a hundred lifetimes, he would never stop looking for her.

On his way to meet Gabe for a jog, he ran into Charlie in the lobby of his building. The timing could not have been worse. His list of fires to extinguish included a sincere apology to her, just not at that exact moment.

“Luke, hi.” The forgiveness in Charlie’s smile twisted the growing knot of guilt in his stomach.

Charlie was kind and genuine, a real catch for any man. Luke wasn’t any man. He belonged to Jessica and she belonged to him. Not even death could change something as certain as that.

“Charlie, this … God, this is the worst time for me, but—”

“Are you okay?” The touch of her hand on his arm continued to feed the guilt monster. “My God, I was so worried about you.”

There was no easy way to tell her he didn’t have time for more than a five-second explanation of his behavior that seemed to be carefully monitored by people willing to kill to keep their identities protected. The I-was-abducted-by-aliens explanation seemed like a bad choice, but it really was as close to the truth as he could get.

“I owe you an apology the size of the state in which I abandoned you, but I’m meeting someone in a few minutes.”

Her shoulders turned inward as she looked at her feet.

“There’s nothing I can say to make what happened okay. I can’t even explain it myself. I just …”

“You got cold feet.” She looked up at him with blue eyes and long dark lashes that matched the color of her chin-length hair.

He had to be an asshole, but not by choice. Honesty put too many lives at risk. Had he not seen Jessica, Luke would have taken the next step with Charlie, an enormous step away from his past and the woman who should have been his wife.

“Yes. I got cold feet. My past won’t let me go. I’m so sorry. If you hate me, I wouldn’t blame you.”

Charlie blinked away her tears. “If she was as wonderful as you remember, she’d want you to move on.”

Luke returned a slow nod as Charlie leaned up and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. Every instinct told him to pull back, but it was a goodbye and she deserved that.

“I hope she lets you live your life someday.” Charlie walked out of his building and his life.

Taking time to sort out his feelings about her and what he could have said differently was not a luxury he had with Gabe waiting. He jogged to Pier Three where Gabe stood with a what-took-you-so-long look distorting his face.

“Heard you went MIA.” Gabe met Luke’s pace.

“I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

Luke picked up the speed, making sure they weren’t being followed. “The kind that could get me killed if anyone finds out.”

Gabe laughed. Luke did not.

“Shit. You’re serious?”

“I need you to go to Texas for me.”

“Luke, you’re not making any sense—” Gabe rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder.

“Keep jogging. If we stop, someone could hear us.”

“What are you talking about?”

He sounded crazy. That couldn’t be helped. Gabe was his only choice. The only person he could trust.

“Jess is alive.”

“Luke, buddy … what’s going on with you? She died. We were all at the funeral.”

“I saw her in Houston.”

“Sometimes we see people or things we want to see. You, better than anyone, know how the mind works.”

“It was her. Blond hair. Too thin. But it was her. She saw me too, for all of ten seconds before I was hauled off, injected with a sedative, and interrogated by some psycho.”

“What the fuck?”

“It’s a long story, and I don’t know half of it, but she’s alive, Gabe. These people, they’re watching me and they’ve threatened to kill me and my family if I try to find her or tell anyone. But for Christ’s sake … I saw her. I can’t pretend she’s dead.”

“So you want me to go to Texas to find her?”

“I need you to get a flight to someplace within driving distance. I don’t want you to fly directly to Houston. It would be a red flag. The hotel I stayed at in Houston … you need to do whatever it takes to see security footage of when I saw Jessica. You’ll see me in a line at the concierge’s desk around seven-thirty in the morning. Jessica was the second person in front of me. Blond hair in a bun. Make them retrace the footage to see what room she was in. Find out what name was on the room and any other contact information.”

“What if they won’t show me?”

“They will. Everyone has a price. Figure out what it is and I’ll pay it.” Luke stopped, his breath too labored to say much more. Hunched over, he rested his hands on his knees. “You can’t say a word to anyone, not even Kelly. Just make up some business trip excuse.”

“What if they don’t have footage of her coming out of her room?”

Luke shook his head, not wanting to think about that real possibility. “I don’t know, but it’s all I have right now.”

*

Two days and
two burner phones later, Luke went back to work while Gabe flew to Dallas then made the two-and-a-half hour drive to Houston. Dr. Jones had a full schedule and not a brain cell left to devote to his patients. Only Jessica.

Finding her without anyone dying in the process required Dr. Jones to get back to work, giving the appearance of resuming his normal life. Jones got his usual walk with Luke around Fort Funston, and Lake came over for dinner.

“I talked to Charlie today. She said you ended it. What the hell, Luke?”

He set two bowls of lobster bisque on the table and sat down across from her, draping his napkin over his right leg. “I shouldn’t have stood her up in Houston.”

“No, you shouldn’t have dumped her in the lobby. Please tell me this isn’t about Jessica.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated? How can it be complicated? I get it. Jessica was the love of your life and what happened was tragic, but it’s time to let go.”

“How’s your love life?”

With an eye roll, Lake smirked. “Nice diversion. It’s not the same thing. You lost your fiancée, I lost my boyfriend and my leg. I have yet to find a guy that thinks my bionic leg is sexy. I’ll probably die a virgin.”

Luke narrowed his eyes. “Mom caught you having sex in one of the guest rooms.”