Jake (A Redemption Romance #2) (10 page)

“Jesus, baby,” he said, coming to sit on the bed. He moved the coffee cup from my hands and set it on the nightstand, wrapped both my hands inside his much larger ones and stared deep into my eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, the trepidation I was feeling coming through in my voice.

“You didn’t come home.” His voice was so soft, so sad, it hurt me just to hear him like that. “We argued yesterday and you didn’t come home last night.” Jake hung his head, resting it in his hands, but continued, his voice almost a whisper, “Fuck, baby, not seeing you in my bed last night killed me.”

Slowly, he lowered one hand back to hold mine and lifted his head to meet my gaze. I gasped at the starkness of his eyes. Mine were full of tears, instantly.

“I sent you a text, it was really late. I didn’t want to walk into the house at three in the morning alone.” I explained, softly.

“What? I didn’t see it. You were out until three?” He was obviously shocked, so much so, it was almost funny.

“I had an emergency at work, I had to leave dinner and go to the hospital.” The feelings of regret and sadness engulfed me once again and I felt a single tear slide down my cheek. Jake, of course, noticed it, he saw everything.

“What happened?” He asked, squeezing my hands slightly in comforting support.

“One of the girls at the shelter slit her wrists.” Tears flowed freely down my face now, he released my hands and pulled me into his arms, settling me on his lap to hold me tightly.

“Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.” He rocked me gently in his lap, my arms went around his waist and I buried my face in his shoulder and wept. He let me cry for a while, his lips were pressed to the top of my head and he held me a long time, he was just what I’d needed.

I pushed back from him and looked up into his face. He was so sweet and gentle like this, I had a hard time remembering the man that I had begun to question just yesterday. I couldn’t see it, the man who lost his temper, the man who said hurtful things without thought for others, I could only see the kind man who protected me. I could only see the man I was falling in love with.

“Do you have to work today?” I asked, unsure of his crazy schedule.

“No, not unless something jumps off.” He paused for several heartbeats before continuing, “Come home, baby. Let’s spend the day together.”

I nodded my agreement. I climbed out of his lap, put my clothes back on from the night before and Jake followed me back to his house.

We spent the day relaxing. Went for a nice long run, enjoying the coolness of mid-morning, ate breakfast that Jake prepared and made love in the shower again. Throwing on yoga pants and a tank for me and sweats and a tee for him, we lazed on the sofa, watching movies and napping for the rest of the day. After the stress from the night before, it was a wonderful way to spend the day.

We’d gone to bed early, made love again, then fell into a deep and much needed sleep. Hours later, I woke with a start to the sound of Jake’s phone and felt him knife off the bed when he’d answered it. Only hearing one side of the conversation, I had no idea what was going on. He didn’t explain, just got dressed quickly, kissed the top of my head and whispered for me to go back to sleep, the phone still pressed to his ear. Then, he was gone.

Jake

Getting called into work at two in the morning sucked, almost as much as working twenty-five hours straight with only a couple of hours to rest. I tried to sleep for a little while in the quiet room, but since it was situated right next to the locker room, it wasn’t very quiet.

Another agent and a good friend, Nick, was the one who got to call and wake my grumpy ass last night. There was movement on the sting we were working. The players involved were scrambling after one of the mid-level dealers was found dead in a field outside of Dallas.

We were watching and waiting to see what would happen next. Dallas PD was on point, working the investigation, we were only working in a surveillance capacity because it directly related to our case.

I was completely exhausted when I finally pulled up to my house and climbed into bed next to Hope the following night. Pulling her warm, soft body into mine calmed me and I fell asleep.

Two days passed before Hope and I had a chance to even talk on the phone again. I was glad that I’d gone to Luke’s and straightened shit out with her before work got crazy like this, and glad we had all day Sunday to spend together.

We’d been able to exchange a few texts, but every night when I came home, she was asleep; when she left for work, I was. There was no good time to connect with her. The only thing that calmed me was the knowledge that she was safe.

Thursday morning, before heading to work I swung by Hope’s place to check things out. I really needed to find a way to check this place more often. Since the evening when the brown Chevy truck followed Hope, no one had seen it. There had been the one note and flowers on her porch last week, and as far as I knew, nothing else had happened.

This guy had to screw up soon. Again, the house was clean, nothing new. I was so frustrated with the situation. I called Dan Dupree, just to check in.

“Hey Jake” Dan greeted.

“Hey, just checking in. Anything new?”

“Nothing, no sightings of the truck and the house has been quiet. Patrol officers roll by a few times a day. When I can, I stop and look around, but I haven’t seen a thing.” I knew that Dan did that, he was a good cop and I appreciated his help. I’d seen him more than once on the camera feeds.

“Thanks, I appreciate your help.”

“No problem. How’s Hope doing with all this?”

“She’s all right, she’s not fighting me on her security, at least.”

“Good, reading through that last report pissed me off. Christine was pissy for an entire day after she interviewed Hope, I couldn’t believe it, that woman never gets riled up.” I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, but no way I’d let on. Dan went on, “We seriously need to find this guy. Assuming it’s her ex, he’s done enough to her, fucking sadistic ass.” The last was muttered under his breath. I wasn’t sure he’d intended me to hear it.

“Send it over when you have a chance, yeah?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

I thanked him for his help again and we disconnected the call. I wondered for a long time what he meant. It seemed that there was more to this story than Hope had told me. I hadn’t pushed her for details, but I should have.

Work that night was slow, we were all stuck in undercover vehicles doing surveillance, but there wasn’t any significant activity.

When the report came in from Dan, I was able to scan it quickly and felt my blood begin to boil at what I read. I forced myself to set it aside, knowing that I couldn’t lose my shit now.

Thankfully, we called it quits early and I pulled into my driveway just before eleven. The lights were still on inside the house, which was good. Hope and I had some serious shit to talk about.

“Hey honey, you’re home early.” Hope’s melodic voice rang as I walked through the door. She was walking down the hall toward me. The sight of her luscious body wearing only her tight-as-hell sleep shorts and a little tank top was almost enough to derail my mission. Her smile was wide and bright as she came to greet me.

“Hope, we need to talk.” At the harsh tone of my voice, I watched as she stopped short, her face paled and she looked up at me quizzically.

“Okay,” she replied, dragging out the word.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me about your ex?” My tone was accusatory and extremely angry. Once I’d gotten back to the office, I was able to take the time and read over the entire report. Hope had told Christine a hell of a lot more than she’d ever told me.

Her eyes narrowed in confusion and I stood there, staring at her and waiting.

“I did tell you. I haven’t kept anything from you.” She finally responded, hesitantly.

“Oh, really? You told me that he hit you and you left. Are you telling me that’s what happened?” I could hear the paper crinkle in my hand, I’d printed the report before leaving my office. I’d been so pissed, I walked out without speaking to anyone.

“Yes, he hit me. I left him. That is what happened. I don’t know what you want to know. I told you that I filed a report and when they tried to serve him with the protection order, he was gone. I’m not hiding anything from you.”

Anger boiled in me, I was so pissed. I couldn’t fucking believe she would boil down years of abuse into that statement. He hit her and she left him. He fucking abused her for years and one night it was so bad she finally fucking left him.

“You purposely led me to believe that he hit you
one-fucking-time
and you left him. You acted like it was once.” I was yelling by that point; I was lucky the neighbors hadn’t called the local police.

“I did not.” She exclaimed back, just as angry, but thankfully, not quite as loud.

I slammed the report down onto the table next to her. “Oh, really? Well, this shit says you did.”

“It says I did what? How does the report know what I said to
you
?”

“No, it says that he hit you a fuck-of-a-lot more than you led me to believe.” Hope actually rolled her eyes to the ceiling as if her deliverance were there then turned and picked up the report. Sitting down in the nearest chair, she took her time reading. That was the moment I realized my mistake.

I watched as her entire body tightened. She read the section talking about the note and flowers from last Friday three times before she took in a deep breath and turned to look at me.

The look on her face was so angry and hurt, I actually took a step back in shock.

“Would you like to talk to me about keeping things secret?” I could see her body vibrating with rage, I’d never seen her like this, never
this
angry.

She began whispering, coldly, sending shivers of dread down my spine. “You are angry with me, so much, that you’d storm in here and accuse me of, I don’t know what, because I didn’t give you every detail of my sorted past. But, right here,” she says, cold and calm, pointing down stabbing her index finger on the page, “is a complete secret. Were you ever going to tell me that there was another threat?”

Not knowing how to respond, I stayed quiet. I knew the risk when I decided not to tell her, but it didn’t look like she was going to slip back into that scared shell again. It looked more like she was going to rip my dick off in my sleep.

“Well?” She asked, the coldness in her voice chilling me.

“Last week, there was another note and flowers on the porch.” My matter-of-fact response obviously wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“I can see that; why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t anything new, there wasn’t any need to worry you.”

“Even after some creep followed me to the police station, after I gave my report to the officers, you decided to keep it from me?”

“Look, Hope, you’ve been so-”

“Stop.” She cut me off, using the same command on me that I’d used with her. She stared at me like she’d never seen me before. “We talked about it in the beginning of all this. You agreed that knowledge is power. I need control of my life. You promised that you wouldn’t keep things about my safety, about my life, a secret. Not only that, but you’ve lost control with me, yelling at me twice in a week. I asked you for time, I told you that I needed to work it out in my head. You decided not to respect me and barged into Aurora’s house and forced the issue before I was ready.” She took a shaky breath, obviously trying to control her emotions.

Listening to her, realizing what I’ve done, I felt like shit. She was right, but there was no fucking way that I would let her sleep at someone else’s house. She belonged here, with me.

“Hope, you’re right, I lost it tonight. I should have come home and spoken to you civilly. I should have asked for more detail; I should have pushed you to tell me everything. I’m so out of my depth here, I feel fucking helpless, like anytime I turn my back something bad is going to happen to you. I can’t stand it, I need to deal with this and fix it. I need to find this guy, to protect you.”

“No, Jake, right there is the problem. You shouldn’t have
pushed
me. You should have asked me and respected me enough to be honest. If you needed more information, you should have told me that. You didn’t. You got angry with me, berated me, accused me of – whatever – because I didn’t give you my entire history when you didn’t even ask. I’m going to bed, Jake. I’m exhausted. There isn’t anything we’re going to say to each other tonight that will be helpful. I’ve had a really bad week and I need space.” She stood and walked down the hall. I heard the bedroom door close softly.

Sinking into the couch, I hung my head and considered all the ways I’d fucked this up. I was shit at expressing myself. I lost it and took my anger and frustration out on everyone around me.

Relaxing back into the couch, I remembered the words Nolan wrote in his letter to me. I fucked up with that too. It hadn’t been Nolan’s fault that Dylan died, but it sure as hell might be my fault that Nolan did.

If he truly believed that I blamed him, that I never forgave him, was that the catalyst for his suicide? If I’d shown him that I didn’t hold him responsible, would he have been able to let go of the guilt?

One thing was for sure, I had to find a way to treat people better. I’d yelled at Hope, I’d yelled at Aurora at the bar-b-cue, I’d fought with Luke, I’d fought with Reed, none of them were responsible for my feelings. None of them deserved the shit I gave them.

With those troubling thoughts, I closed my eyes and fell into a restless sleep on the couch.