“What are you thinking right now?”
“I plead the fifth.” I laugh and hurry forward to grab the journal.
He laughs low and sexy, and when I face him again, the look we share is scorching. “Careful, baby, or you might not get that coffee.”
I close the small space between us and push to my toes to kiss him. “For the record, I’m crazy about you, too, Jax North.”
He catches my lower back and molds me close. “Last night.”
“Last night?”
“Last night.” His voice is low, rough, affected.
Heat radiates between us, and we say nothing more. We laugh. We laugh together. It’s one of those moments with Jax where everything is just so right. He catches my hand and kisses it again. “Coffee, baby.”
“Yes, please.” And with that, and what feels like a deepening intimacy between us, we head to the kitchen. It’s one of those moments when Jax feels like the answer to every question in my life that has ever needed answered. And yet, that clawing foreboding sensation roars to life once again.
Maybe that’s about me and not Hunter.
Maybe I’ve lived as my father’s daughter for so long that anything that feels good must end. In fact, my father used to lecture us about not getting too comfortable. All good things, he’d say, end.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Emma
A few minutes later, Jax and I sit side-by-side at the island with cinnamon bean coffee in our steaming cups next to us and plates filled with pastries. The cinnamon coffee his father loved. “Are your brothers as sentimental about your father as you?” I ask, cringing with the realization that I’ve just spoken as if Hunter is still alive, but Jax takes it in stride.
“Hunter was,” he says. “Brody, no. Brody’s always been the rebel who didn’t want to be like dad, but he loved him. He loved the hell out of him. And my father respected Brody’s independence.”
I sip my coffee. “You were the same, right? At least for a while you were boxing?”
“Like any young man, I needed to find myself and where I fit in, but ultimately that pulled me back here. I still returned here to work with Hunter, under dad. Brody couldn’t take being in Hunter’s shadow, thus why he started opening his cigar and whiskey shops.”
“Did Hunter go through the same ‘find himself’ kind of thing?”
“No. Hunter, on the other hand, was always dad’s clone. He was the chip off the old block. That’s why this whole DNA test thing sideswiped me.”
“A test doesn’t change how he was raised and by who. He was your brother, Jax. Just like you’ve said many times.”
“A brother I didn’t know might merge with the Knight operation and not tell me in advance.”
“We both know my father was dirty. We both know he had a habit of blackmailing people.”
“I want to believe that was the case, but why not come to me?”
“It’s called blackmail for a reason. It controls the victim. Think about the DNA test. My father had it. What if he threatened to expose it?”
Jax lifts his cup to his lips, drinks, and then says, “It wouldn’t have changed anything. He would have retained his role as CEO. He was good at his job.”
“What if my father threatened to connect Hunter to York’s sex scandal or some other scandal that would destroy him? In that case, Hunter would have lost his role as CEO. He would have lost everything. And I’m sorry to say that my father was a man who would do such a thing.” My lips press together, and guilt for being my father’s daughter, while Hunter is gone and dead, slices through me. “But he was.” I try to turn away from him.
He catches my hand and I swear when this man touches me I feel him everywhere, inside and out. I’m crazy for him and we’re destined to crash and burn. “You are not your father,” he says.
“But I will always be a reminder of my father.”
“You are the only reason I didn’t become your father. You, Emma. You brought me back when I was walking over the revenge cliff. And because of you, I’m going to deal with your brother as your brother, not my enemy. I need you to trust me on that.”
“I have no reason not to trust you, Jax. You’ve been honest, brutally so, from the beginning but I’m not sure how you feel the same about me.”
“You haven’t lied to me.”
“But evil, or at least asshole, seems to be in my blood. Look at my brother. I thought he was honorable, but after last night, I don’t know anymore.” A thought hits me. “And speaking of jerks and last night, what happened with Sawyer and the whole groping Jill incident?”
“Let’s hope it didn’t make it to groping but he left before Savage’s people had time to pour the tray of drinks on him.” His lips quirk. “Too bad.”
I laugh. “Be kind to your potential client, unless he groped her. Then punch him or something. Will he be at the brunch?”
“I doubt it. Most of the brunch crowd will take a tour of the property and attend random samplings along the way. Staff will handle that, not me.”
“Then you don’t have to go to the brunch?”
“We need to stop by, and show our faces, but I have meetings most of the afternoon.”
We.
He says we often. And I like it. I’m also terrified about how much I’m coming to depend on this man considering Hunter’s blood might well be on my family’s hands. When one turn of a corner might lead to a Knight killing Hunter. I’m still not sure how we survive that if it turns out to be true.
He motions to the journal. “You haven’t touched it.”
“I’ve decided I can’t stomach more of his words this morning. And I can’t find the passage I was remembering anyway. And were right. I’ve read it about a hundred times. It isn’t going to miraculously solve anything.”
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Relief, I think. He really doesn’t want to talk about anything that leads to his mother as I’ve suggested that passage will.
“Instead of a morning run,” he says, “how about a walk?”
“Sure. Should I shower and change?”
“Not necessary. This will be fast. Echo is on my mind. He lives down the beach. Savage’s people have been there looking around and they say everything is in order, but I want to see for myself.”
“That’s a great idea.” I take a sip of coffee and scoot off the stool, flashing back to my last encounter with Echo as I do. He’d shoved me against the castle wall and I swear I’m suddenly right there in that hallway, with him standing in front of me;
“This path you’re on, if you walk in the wrong direction with Jax, I will make you and everyone you love pay. Understand?”
“I don’t know what that means. I don’t know.”
“You know. We both know that you know. Do not test me. This is your one and only warning.”
With those words, he had pushed off the wall and walked away.
“Emma?”
I blink Jax back into view. “Just thinking of Echo. It wasn’t him. He didn’t leave me that note for me, Jax.”
“You can’t know that, Emma.”
“I’m not the humanizer to him you claimed I might be. He threatened me. He told me if I took the wrong path with you that he’d make me and those I love pay. He was protecting you. That man would not have accused you of killing Hunter.”
“Then why leave?”
My stomach knots. “We both know he wouldn’t. Something happened to him. Something not good.”
“I wish I didn’t agree,” Jax says grimly. “That’s exactly why I want to go by his place.”
I nod, feeling the urgency of doing just that.
***
A few minutes later, we’ve bundled up in jackets, and we’re walking the beach on a beautiful morning with clear blue skies, the ocean crashing into the shore, seagulls flying overhead. “It’s beautiful here,” I say. “Why would we want to live anywhere else?”
He stops walking and turns to face me, his hands settling under my jacke
t, on my waist; his touch warming me against the chill in the air. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
I stare up into beautiful blue eyes filled with hope, hope I put there, hope he would only experience if I mattered to him, the way he’s come to matter to me. I catch a strand of his blond hair blowing in the wind. How could I not want to be with this man every day of my life?
“Emma?” he prods.”
“I want to move in with you, Jax. Honestly, I can’t imagine going back to San Francisco and not being with you here, but I’m afraid of getting here, moved in and getting cozy, just to have the world explodes around us. I want us to find Echo and find a few answers to what happened to Hunter first.”
He catches my hand and laces our fingers together. “We may never know what happened to Hunter.”
“Someone knows. My family knows.”
“Or, they’re just afraid of what they think I know, baby. Move in with me. Whatever else happens, we’ll figure it out. Two together, remember?”
“Yes, but my brother—”
“Will come around.”
“He threatened to come after you.”
“I’ve got some ideas on how to handle that we can talk about tonight after the Harvest events.” He glances at his watch. “We need to get going now or we won’t have time to look around at Echo’s place.”
“Yes, of course,” I say but he doesn’t start walking.
He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Are you moving in with me?”
“Can we talk about it tonight?”
“That’s not a no. I’ll take it for now.” His hands come down on my shoulders and he drags me to him. “I’m crazy about you, woman.”
“Show me tonight.”
“With pleasure,” he promises, sliding his arm around me as we start walking again.
In what turns out to be a good mile of travel down the beach, I try to remember that entry in the journal, certain it was something like: She didn’t tell me. Did she think I wouldn’t find out? And it’s hard not to wonder if that is a reference to Hunter.
I glance up at Jax who is just as deep in thought as me. “My father came to the Harvest events, right?”
“He came to at least one that I know of, but back when we were kids, before the Harvest started, my father hosting elite weekends for his top clients. Invitations were highly sought after. There were top chefs flown in from around the world to prepare meals to complement our whiskey. I’m sure he was probably at those.” He glances over at me. “He stopped doing them after my mother left.”
“That feels connected, not random.”
“It does. And yes, I’m sure that’s how he met my mother.”
“I wonder how well they all knew each other,” I say, thinking of the hourglass from one of our shops that I’d found in his father’s old office. “I’m going to call my mother and ask, but maybe we can just go see her in Europe. I think I might get more out of her that way.”
“She might not want to talk if I’m present,” he says, and then points at a cute little cottage with a blue shingled roof just off the water. “We’re here. This is where Echo lives.”
“It’s adorable. Does he own it?”
“My father gifted it to him years ago.”
“That’s a generous gift,” I say. “A property on the water like this one would likely be a million dollars or more.”
“My father was a generous man.” He glances over at me. “And a forgiving man. Something I almost forgot to be myself.” He catches my hand. “Come on. Let’s go take a look.”
We start a climb up a long set of wooden steps that travel a path over rocks, and I swear that clawing, foreboding feeling is back. It feels like I’m about to enter a dead man’s house.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Emma
The climb up the stairs leading to Echo’s house is rather steep and high, the wind chilly, but we eventually reach the house and a porch, much like the one at Jax’s place, but smaller and less grand. It’s crazy but all kind of nerves attack my belly as we walk up yet another set of steps to the porch, and then cross to the front door. Jax rings the bell, and while he is as always, cool and calm, a man in control, I sense the urgency now beneath his surface. He’s worried and not just a little bit either. This knowledge accelerates my heartbeat as does Jax knocking on the door with a heavy, firm rap.
We wait for an answer that doesn’t come.
Jax knocks again and then scrubs his hand through his hair. “Why am I knocking? Walker Security would have told me if he was home.”
Not so cool and calm on the outside now, and the fact that he lets me see this when I don’t believe he would someone else, matters to me. It’s trust. It’s a part of our bond, our connection. “How did Walker get inside?” I ask.
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a key. “Same way we’re about to get in.”
I don’t ask how he has a key. People leave backup keys in safe places. The castle would certainly be Echo’s second home and safe place. I hug myself and watch Jax reach for the lock only to catch his hand with a thought. “The Walker team is shadowing us right now, right?”
“Yes. And they’re watching the house. I told Savage we were headed over here.”
Relief washes over me, and I let go of his hand. He leans over and kisses me. “Relax, baby. We aren’t going to find Echo or anything dangerous inside. Walker has been here. I’m just hoping I find a clue to tell us where he went that they wouldn’t understand.”
I nod and he unlocks the door, pushing it open. “I’ll go in first,” he says, stepping inside to look around. All must appear well, because about thirty seconds later, he leans out of the door, catches my hand and pulls me inside. Jax shuts the door behind us and I find myself scanning a basic room with white tile, and furnished with brown couches. The kitchen is to my left, with nothing but a white tile island separating the two rooms.
“I’m going to walk around and see what I can find,” Jax announces.
I nod, and he heads down a hallway. I stay put and walk the living area and kitchen, checking empty drawers for travel plans but for the most part, they’re empty. There really isn’t much to see. The one thing that catches my attention is an antique grandfather clock that is rather out of place with the décor, it’s ticking a sharp, hard bite through the near silence that creeps me out. Shivering, I quickly follow Jax down the hallway. I catch a glimpse of him exiting one room and disappearing into another and when I would join him, I glance left to find an office. I step inside and literally gasp at a giant portrait of a woman in red behind the desk, her back to the viewer, the dress blowing in the wind with the castle in the background.
Jax, obviously responding to my reaction, rushes into the room. “What happened?”
I motion to the painting. “That.”
“That was done by my father decades ago, before I was even born. At the time, the staff was buzzing with sightings of the woman in red and much like my mother and her red dress, he embraced her as part of the castle. There are several in random places in the castle. He contracted an artist to do them.”
I glance over at him. “This ghost is a real thing?”
“Yes.” That’s all he says. He walks to one of the two bookshelves framing the desk.
“You’ve seen her?”
He glances over at me. “I have actually.”
“Really?”
“Believe it, baby. That’s why my mom wore that red dress.”
“When did you see her? Where?”
“Random places in the castle over the years. Eventually you will, too. Does that scare you?”
“Maybe. Do you know who she is?”
“My mother tried to find out but never figured out the mystery.”
He runs a hand over a row of photo albums. “I remember these. Echo is an amateur photographer and me and Hunter fancied ourselves the same. He gave us both cameras and we’d take photos and then come here to view the developed results. We each had
our own albums.”
“A photographer, a boxer, and a brilliant businessman. You are an interesting man, Jax North.” I don’t give him time to be humble and object. “Are there photos of you as a kid in any of those?”
“Yes. And you want to see, I assume?”
“Of course.” I walk to stand next to him and grab an album from the shelf . “Now I’m dying to see but—are we invading Echo’s privacy?”
“Not with these albums. I know what’s inside. Have at it. Take a look. I’ll check his desk for any signs of where he is now.” He kisses me and walks to the desk. I take the album and sit down in a leather chair, excited to see what’s inside. I’m eager to see a young Jax, but a part of me secretly also craves a look at Hunter. Did he look like Chance when he was a child? I flip open the photo album and instead of Jax or Hunter, I find a photo of a beautiful woman with long light brown hair standing on the beach. Turning to the page, there is a collage of the same woman in all kinds of poses.
“Nothing,” Jax says. “The man keeps nothing in his damn desk. It’s like he’s not even human. He must keep it all on his laptop, which isn’t here; Walker looked for that as well.”
“Have they checked his digital footprint?”
“Yes, and that’s what worries me. He hasn’t logged onto his email or used his phone in days.”
“Oh,” I say. “You didn’t tell me that. No wonder you’re worried. That’s not good.”
“No. It’s not. I feel like it’s time to call the police. Walker says the resources for these types of cases are limited. They’ll still have to run the investigation but to appease me, they’re going to file a report.”
My mind goes back to that encounter with him again: “You know. We both know that you know. Do not test me. This is your one and only warning.”
He knows more than we know about what happened between Hunter and my father, maybe even more about what happened to Hunter than he’s let on. My gut knots with the idea that he’s gone because he knew what he thought I knew. Because he knows too much. But who knew that? Who would want him gone? I sigh and I look down at the woman in the photos, wondering if she might know something, too. Clearly she’s spent a lot of time with Echo. “Who is this woman, Jax?”
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