Secured Wishes (4 page)

She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m busy with my work, and I’m a bit scatterbrained when I have a project in the works. Most men think I’m a bit strange.”

“What kind of work do you do?” He asked, turning back to the task of fixing her something to eat.

“I’m an artist.”

“What kind of things do you do?” He was genuinely curious about this work that caused her thoughts to scatter.

“Etchings, paintings, and drawings, but my sketches make the most money.”

It didn’t take him long to finish making the toast and eggs, and he set her plate in front of her at the tiny table. He sat across from her, and they ate in silence until a beeping noise coming from beneath the bed disturbed their peace.

Jacob moved to the edge of the bed, pulled a metal case from underneath and flipped it open. Inside was a cache of weapons and a cell phone. The cell phone beeped once more, indicating an incoming text, which he read it silently before typing in a reply. He put the phone and case back and returned to the table. Gracie sat watching him, and he could tell that curiosity was eating her alive. Instead of asking about the text, she asked. “Is there a pen or pencil and paper anywhere in this place?”

They tore the room apart searching for what she needed, but in the end all they managed to find were two pens. There wasn’t a scrap of paper anywhere. Gracie tapped one of the pens against her thigh as she sat, legs crossed, on the bed next to Jacob. He was stretched out on his back, fingers linked behind his head, and she found herself staring at the wide expanse of his bare chest. His muscle-hard chest was smooth. Unthinking, she leaned over and began drawing directly beneath his collarbone. He jumped slightly in surprise, then a low rumble of laughter sounded from him. She froze, horrified with herself. She glanced up, meeting his eyes, and found they shined with laughter. He flashed a boyish grin. “Why did you stop?”

“Are you sure this is okay?”

“Will you help me wash it off later in the shower?”

A wicked smile spread across her face in answer, and she leaned down, going back to her task. He never complained but sucked in his breath a few times when she swiped her pen over different ticklish spots. When she leaned even closer to his stomach, trying to get some of the detail perfect, her hair fell forward, brushing across his skin. He groaned. “Just so you know,” he said, his voice husky. “That shower is going to be much later.”

She froze, once more meeting his eyes. “Much later,” she agreed. With her sketch complete, she signed her name at the bottom left-hand corner. “Now your chest is officially worth half a million,” she told him with a cheeky grin.

“It’s a lion,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Mm-hmm, he has your eyes, and he’s acting all protective just like you.”

He tilted his head in order to see the drawing better, and she held her breath, waiting for his reaction. “I find myself oddly turned on by your level of talent.”

“Why is it odd?”

“Because I didn’t think I could be more turned on by you,” He pulled her head down, lifting his to meet her half way. She melted into his kiss. She knew she could easily become addicted to this man—the man who had amber eyes that made her knees weak and a quick mind that kept her intrigued.

CHAPTER THREE

“As to be expected, there is no building on that street which housed a large community of terrorists. As it turns out they traveled here from Boca Raton.”

Jacob racked his brain for any information about that town and was only able to come up with the fact that it was home to organized crime. “So we are dealing with the mafia?”

“Yep. It seems as if we’ve been pissing a few people off.”

“What do we do now?”

“We’re going to the source. It should be safe for the girl. They haven’t shown any interest in finding her, but we still cleaned up any trail we could find of her being there that night. She should be glad to hear that since she’s pretty famous. I can’t imagine she would be too happy about having to restart her life somewhere.”

Famous? How was it that he didn’t know that earlier?
Now your chest is officially worth half a million
, Caleb’s voice broke through his musings. “Just to be on the safe side, we’re going to escort you out at nightfall.”

“We’re evac-ing?”

“No choice man. We got to get our asses down to Florida.”

“Alright. We’ll be ready.”

It was over, then. Their time was up. He could tell by the look on Gracie’s face that she knew it as well. “We’re leaving?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “At nightfall.”

“I hope you have something in that case of yours that will fit me better than this,” she said, indicating the baggy pants she wore. “I don’t really want my pants falling off around all your friends.”

“I’ll text Caleb and ask him to bring you something to change into. In the meantime, you need to take those clothes off. We’ve only got two hours left together, and I don’t plan on wasting a second of it.”

***

It was only a matter of time before it ended, but Gracie didn’t expect it to hurt so badly. When Caleb showed up, she felt a moment of shock over the similarities between the two men, especially when they stood side by side: except for the eyes. Caleb’s eyes were a striking green instead of the amber. They looked as if they were brothers instead of cousins, and it was unnerving. Caleb brought a second person with him. It was a woman, and Gracie wondered if she, too, had been present the night Mary was killed. She didn’t remember seeing any women, but they were dressed in a way that hid their identity, and the woman was easily six foot tall, making her fit right in with the men. Her hair was also a bright hot-pink, but she smiled brightly and handed Gracie a backpack. “You might have to roll up the legs, but these should fit fine otherwise.”

Gracie called her thanks as she carried it to bathroom, overjoyed at the sight of women’s clothes. That joy only lasted through the dressing process until she realized that it put her one-step closer to never seeing Jacob again, and she was forced to sit on the edge of the tub to keep from melting to the floor when her knees went weak. She would walk out of here with her head held high; no one would know that inside she was dying. Never again would she feel the way she did with Jacob, and that was okay. She didn’t need anyone else, but she would never forget. Finally she managed to stand and with one last loving look around the room, she straightened her shoulders and walked away with no regrets. After all, for a moment she had held the world.

***

Outside Gracie’s apartment building, Jacob glanced both ways to make sure no one was watching then placed his hand in the center of Gracie’s chest, pressing her back against the wall. Once he was sure all his men were out of sight, he put his hands on either side of her head on the wall, boxing her in with his arms, crowding her with his body. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

She smiled sadly. “You don’t have to lie to me to be my friend.”

He bent his head, capturing her lips. Placing his hand to the side of her face, he tilted her head, deepening their kiss. Her tongue brushed his, and his chest tightened with the love he felt for her while he choked down the words. He didn’t know how she would react to them, and the moment he was readying to leave town was a bad time to try and find out. All that he knew for sure was that he didn’t want this to end. He didn’t want to leave her. He wanted to stay like this forever, but he needed to go. Lifting his head, he held her gaze so she would see his earnestness, and he hardened his voice. “I
will
be seeing you again.”

“Then I’ll see you soon,” she told him, but he could tell she didn’t believe her own words, but that was okay. She would find out soon enough how serious he was.

The dreams/memories started up the very first time Jacob fell asleep without her by his side. He learned years ago to catch a nap when he could because there was no telling when he would get the chance again. Crossing his feet at the ankles, he tilted his hat over his eyes

Her knees straddled his sides and her hot core was pressed against the small of his back. With his head turned to the side, he could see her hair had fallen over one shoulder as she worked, but he could also feel it tickling his back. “You know I can’t see between my shoulder blades?”

“I know,” she answered. “This one is just for me.”

He twisted beneath her until he lay on his back, and she straddled his stomach. “If this one is just for you, then what do I get?”

She set the pen aside and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, what do you want?”

“How about a kiss?” he suggested.

“That’s it, just a kiss?” she asked, sounding incredulous.

“One kiss, from you is worth the world.”

A patch of turbulence jarred Jacob awake, and he blinked against his surroundings. For a moment it was as if Gracie was there, and it threw him off balance. The dream reminded him of a task, however, and he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

When Gracie fell asleep that night, he slipped into the bathroom, sneaking a peek at the drawing in the mirror. It turned out to be a set of words written in a foreign language surrounded by some designs. Unfortunately he didn’t speak any language other than English, and he couldn’t translate it. The words did look familiar, however he couldn’t remember where he had seen them before. He committed them to memory thinking he would look it up later, but had forgotten all about it until the dream reminded him. He typed the words into his phone’s search engine and waited for it to translate. He phone dinged, and he glanced down at the words in front of him in disbelief.
“Ti Amero` Per Sempre, is Italian for I’ll love you forever.”

He tucked the phone back into his pocket crossing his feet. He tilted his hat down once more, hiding his eyes and his smile.
“I love you too Gracie,”
he thought, as he fell back asleep.

November

It turned out to be easy to break her lease after the violence that took place in the alleyway outside the studio. She wasn’t even been forced to pay a penalty since her landlord was equally horrified by Mary’s murder. She would have gladly paid any price though to be free of that of building. She never wanted to set eyes on it again. Not wanting to ever have another tenant again, she didn’t need such a large space. After moving into a nice place on Murfreesboro’s town square, her business picked up due to all the daily foot traffic. Even though she suffered from terrible nightmares, she slept more than ever before, and it didn’t take her long after her move to discover why.

At first she thought it was only the stress that caused her to be late for her monthly cycle, but one day she was forced to go home in the middle of the day to take a nap, something she never experienced before, and she woke with an epiphany; she was pregnant.

After her thoughts were confirmed, she spent several days pacing the floor and wondering if she should seek Jacob out, but his words kept floating through her head. “
You can’t Bing me. I don’t exist.
” She knew she’d never be able to find him. It was better this way, since she was guilty of throwing herself at him. He couldn’t have expected anything permanent, and his lifestyle probably wouldn’t allow this kind of commitment. He was a good man, and she didn’t want him to feel in any way obligated to her. He did so much for her in that one short week, more than he would ever know, and this baby was like an extra gift to her. It renewed her hope, and gave her a reason to carry on, not mention she would always have a piece of Jacob, and she loved him more than anyone, so it wasn’t a bad bargain.

***

It was a simple drawing that captured her attention. For days on end, she pictured it in her mind and was sometimes unable to sleep at night for thinking of it. It wasn’t like Genie to have a care for art, but there was just something about it. She caught sight of it through the window of an art gallery as she walked past on the way to Smith Security Services one day. It was sort of dark and edgy, and it called to something inside of her that she couldn’t explain. Since the bombing, a year and a half ago, where her partner and friend died, she had changed inside, where no one could see. It didn’t affect her marriage or her ability to be a good parent. She just suffered black moods that couldn’t be wished away, and she tried, but that drawing captured exactly the way she felt, and she was captivated by it. Finally, after five long days of avoiding the inevitable, she found herself once again standing outside the gallery looking in. She didn’t have any idea how long she stood there, but the sky seemed lighter than when she arrived.

“I’m sorry but I can’t take the suspense any longer,” a woman’s voice penetrated her thoughts. “Can I help you with something?”

Genie glanced over at the woman who was sticking her head out of the gallery’s front door. “I’m trying to decide what this drawing depicts,” Genie answered before she went back to staring at it. “It looks so familiar,” she added more to herself.

When the woman didn’t answer right away, Genie looked back over to find her watching curiously. Genie decided to return the favor and looked closer at her. She was truly one of the most beautiful women Genie could ever remember seeing. Her long, dark hair boasted just the right amount of curl, and her body was shaped perfectly. She was the proud owner of an hourglass figure that probably drove the men wild, but there was something about her, something familiar, and then somehow she knew. She just knew this was the artist responsible for drawing this picture. She held the same exact look in her eyes as Genie sometimes did when she looked at herself in the mirror. “I’m Genie Smith,” she said.

“I’m Gracie St. John. This is my studio,” she motioned towards the window. “It’s called
Loss.
It is one my creations. Would you like to come in and take a closer look?”

Genie nodded. “
Loss
” that’s exactly what it was. That’s why it looked so familiar. She knew all about that.

***

Gracie took the picture down from the display, holding it between her hands. As she stared down at it, the words came out without her permission. “My friend Mary and I were walking out to my car one night, and she was gunned down in a drive-by shooting,” Gracie paused, swallowing past the lump that formed after vocalizing, for the first time, Mary’s story. “I watched as the light left her eyes. It’s affected me in a way that I can’t put into words, but it’s here on this page.” Gracie knew it sounded crazy, but her art was her outlet.