by Taylor Hart
Mr. Stetson scoffed, but put holstered his gun again. He flicked his hand toward the guys. "Give us a minute, will you?”
John looked concerned. “I am instructed to take these two to a safe house because there might be dangerous people looking for them.”
“Just a second.” Mr. Stetson still waved the warriors to the door.
They reluctantly stepped out.
Mr. Stetson turned to face Jaycee and Duke. “You kids need to make a decision. Do you want to try to use this information to leverage your father and the organization? To have normal, free lives? Or do you want to …”
“We have to expose him,” Duke said. His expression was sullen, and he wiped beneath his eyes. “Jaycee, what Dad has done and the kind of power he’ll get is …”
Jaycee knew the right answer. “Yes, I'm with Duke, we have to expose our father." She took Duke’s hand. “For Mama.”
Mr. Stetson nodded, his face etched with clear concern. “Okay, then let’s get you kids all set.” He whipped out another folder. “This folder contains everything we’ve been going through. Take it. Share it with Captain Jack. I’ll keep another copy, because you always need insurance in stuff like this. You never want them to think they have all the copies.” He got a backpack out of his desk and started filling it with the files. He winked at them, and his eyes got misty. “I really did love your mother something fierce. That’s probably not what you kids want to hear, but I did. Everything that happened to her hurt me. I will put some feelers out. I’ll stay in touch, and we’ll get this worked out.”
Moments later, as Jaycee and Duke piled into a Hummer SUV parked in front of Mr. Stetson's office, the soldiers drove them far out of town.
Jaycee asked, “Where are we going?”
John turned to face them. “It appears your friend Shay has pretty good contacts, too. Texas Waters has a ranch out here, and he’s told the Summervilles that they are welcome to stay and hunker down as long as they need to.”
“Texas Waters.” Jaycee remembered how, when she and Shay had been together, Shay had often tried to call Texas Waters about music. She smiled and felt her heart rate calm down. It would be okay. It had too.
Now, as they went through a tall gate and the soldiers typed in some codes, she was overwhelmed by the beautiful ranch, populated by a herd of horses. It reminded her of the Summerville ranch, just on a larger scale.
When Jaycee and Duke stepped out of the car, John hung back with them; the other two were all commando SEAL, moving ahead to scour the place for security risks.
John still held his machine gun ready. “We’re blocking all coms. Your cell phones actually won’t work here now." He held up a satellite phone. "We have a couple of these that only link to each other so we'll stay in touch with Jack that way."
"What about Shay?" she asked.
John focused on her. "I think Shay is coming, too."
She nodded.
John lead she and Duke up to the garage of the huge house, and the door opened at the push of a button. “I have access to everything through Texas Water's security right now. He’s out of town, but he said to make ourselves at home. There are plenty of guest rooms to rest in.”
It felt weird to be walking into Texas Waters’s home. It felt just as weird to have Duke at her side. Everything she’d thought she knew about her life had been proven false.
Duke held the backpack with the files against his chest. “Should I give you these,” he asked John, “so you can look them over before everyone all get here?”
“Please put it on the table.” John gestured to the table that was next to the kitchen. He headed deeper into the house. "I need to make sure all of the electronics that were connected to the outside are shut off."
Jaycee pulled out her cell phone, but there was no service. She put it on the table, then sat.
Duke sat with her, pulling everything out of the backpack.
For a few minutes both of them went through the files, arranging them and rearranging them.
She was shocked to see all of the blatant times, in the minutes of the document, there was some type of extermination order of a person or family.
After a while, she stood, walking over to the window, wrapping her arms around herself, not wanting to be here. Not wanting to see anymore horrible things her father was part of.
Duke suddenly appeared at her side.
She turned to him and saw tears running down his face.
"Duke," she said, lightly putting her hand on his shoulder.
He opened his arms.
She fell into them.
For a long moment they just held each other. And it was like all the layers of anger between them over the years just dissipated in an instant.
"I can't believe I never understood the kind of monster he was," Duke whispered as he held her. "I'm so sorry."
She held to him, her own tears mixing with his. "It's okay." Forgiving her brother really wasn't hard for her.
He pulled back. "Can you really forgive me Jaycee? For … for being his henchman this past year, keeping you in that facility?" More tears brushed down his cheeks. "I honestly thought you were crazy…" his voice trailed. "Like mom. And I thought I was protecting you and … protecting all of us." the shame was clear on his face.
"I forgive you," she breathed out, feeling a huge weight being lifted from her as she said the words.
Duke nodded. "Thank you." He pulled her in for another hug.
Chapter 17
Shay got off the helicopter, which had met them at the airstrip in Jackson and brought them out to Texas’s ranch. It was almost midnight, but his blood was pumping. He’d chafed at his inability to contact Jaycee the past four hours. It had been brutal, even though Jack had been in contact with the guys there, but Shay needed Jaycee.
Shay walked into the back of the house with his brother and met some other SEALS he didn't know, then saw Duke sitting haggardly at the table, documents spread around him. "Hey."
Duke looked up at him. "I'm sorry."
Shay paused, unsure of what to say.
Duke ran a hand through his hair and stared up at him with bloodshot eyes. "I know it'll never be enough for my involvement in keeping my sister away from you, but I am so sorry."
Shay moved to his side and lightly picked up one of the documents, unsure what he was reading about.
"My father is a monster," Duke said lightly. "All of this proves it. It proves so many cover ups and evil things. It proves … the organization he was involved had my mother killed."
Shay's heart raced and he put the paper down and looked for Jaycee.
As if sensing his mind, Duke pointed down a hallway. “That way. Second door on the right.”
When Shay got to the door, he opened it quietly to reveal a suite of rooms. The blinds were open, and moonlight was streaming in. It reminded him of the other night when Shay had seen Jaycee, again, on the cliffs, how lovely her skin had looked, and how soft her lips were.
Jaycee was lying on the bed, her eyes closed. She was gorgeous, beautiful, everything he’d been dreaming about for the past year. Her red hair was splayed across the pillow. Her face was so serene.
Unable to stop himself, he climbed onto the bed next to her.
Her eyes opened, and she woozily tried to sit up. “Shay, you’re here?”
He pulled her back down with him. “Of course I’m here.” He tucked her into him.
She turned in his arms. Even though she was underneath the covers and he was on top, he longed to be underneath with her, holding her closer.
"Are you okay?"
She snuggled into him. "Now that you're here I'm okay."
For a bit he just held her, stroked her hair and thought about how much being with her just soothed him.
She leaned up, pressing her lips to his.
Once again, as he kissed her he felt lost. In everything that symbolized Jaycee. His mind went back to kissing her for the first time, that day she asked him if he wanted to
have fun.
He deepened the kiss and longed to be closer to her. To do so much more with her. He needed every part of her, wanted her unlike he'd ever wanted another.
“What?” she asked.
He trailed kisses down her neck, inhaling her sweet strawberry scent. “I need you. I want you. I must have you." He'd kind of turned his voice a bit draculish to lighten the moment.
She giggled. “What?”
He reared up. "I want to suck your blood." He put his mouth on her neck.
She giggled again, but then the kissing turned back to serious kissing.
After a bit, he pulled back, telling himself to cool down. “Are you seeing fire?”
She sniffled and traced his face. "I don't see it anymore." She blinked and smiled at him. "I only feel it inside of me now, Shay."
He kissed her head and held her tighter.
She grunted and pushed against him. “I want you close to me. Get inside."
He hesitated, then got beneath the covers.
She fell against him, resting her head on his chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“And I love you,” he said softly.
They were suspended in time. This was what he needed: to never leave this moment with this woman.
He wound his fingers through her hair. “I worried about you all day.”
“The SEAL guy, John, showed us the clip from my engagement party, the clip where you sang the freedom song.”
He grunted, kissing the edge of her jawline. “You know, hearing you call it your engagement party just feels wrong."
She sighed. "I know." She shook her head. "But my father seemed to like it."
Shay searched her eyes, thinking about everything she was going through. It’d been a lot for him to process; Jack had told him some of the highlights of what they found on the helicopter. “Are you okay?”
She still traced his eyebrows and down to his mouth. “Now that I’m with you, I’m perfect. I’m not going to lie, it’s been rough, but nothing was harder on me than being without you this past year. Nothing was harder than thinking that last year was somehow not real.” A stray tear leaked down her face, and she shivered. “That was the hardest part, thinking I imagined you and me."
Being without Jaycee had been the most painful experience of Shay’s life. He could only imagine how much worse it would’ve been if he’d also been dealing with shock therapy, medication, and people lying to him and telling him it wasn’t real. Familiar anger toward her father rose inside of him, but he smothered it. That anger wasn’t for here and now. “It’ll be okay, princess. I promise.”
Her lips twitched up. “So you’ve decided ‘princess’ is my nickname, have you?”
He leaned in, rubbing his nose against hers and wrapping his arm around her. “It can just be between us.”
“Hmm,” she said, pecking his lips. “I don’t think your siblings will ever let me live the nickname down.”
This made him smile, and he kissed her back. “You’re right.”
She deepened the kiss, and he wasn’t sure how long they laid there and just made out, but he didn’t care. She was here in his arms. Safe.
The world had been off for the past year and the past week, and it had felt like he’d never be safe with her. Now that he was with her, he realized that this was all he would ever want. He pulled back. “Marry me.”
Her eyebrows cocked up.
“You don’t know how many times I wished I would have just run away with you. Before the fire. I wish I would have just packed up what we could find, loaded up my truck, and taken off. We could have gotten a wedding license in the next town or just driven to Vegas.”
She let out a little laugh. “I've wished that, too.”
"I never should have left you in the hospital by yourself. I never—"
"Don't," she said. "Please don't make us live through it all again right now."
“Don’t cry,” he said, running a hand down her hair. "Hush."
“I love you, Shay. I want to marry you. Of course I do."
Again, he kissed her, pouring every part of himself into the kiss. “So that’s a yes?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Then she smothered his whole face with kisses.
Shay wished they were already married, but he calmed himself. He knew how important it was to both of them to wait until marriage.
She kissed his jawline, then his lips again. To his surprise, she sang out. “Vegas. It’s where we should have gone. To—”
“Vegas,” he cut in, slipping into the lyrics. “I was oh so wrong. It should have been—”
“Vegas,” they sang together, harmonizing.
Shay was lost and found right here, right with this woman. Maybe they were uncertain of the future, and maybe he was seriously freaked out about everything his brother was telling him about how deep this cover-up went, but his whole world was right here, and he would take it. “Vegas …” he sang before she smothered him with a kiss.
In a burst of inspiration, he realized that the lyrics were already written in his heart.
Chapter 18
Jaycee awoke to the sound of her own scream. The memory of the fire still lingered.
Shay’s arm was around her. “Shh.” He held her closer.
She snuggled back into his chest, hating that she still had those nightmares. “I wish they would stop. You don’t know how many pills I was on to make them stop.”
He kissed the back of her ear. “Shh, it’s okay.” He cuddled her closer to him.
They lay like that for a while. The neon clock read six fifteen. The sun was coming up, and she stared out at the property she found so beautiful. “What will today bring?” She didn’t want to give up this moment.
“I don’t know,” Shay said, taking her hand and linking his fingers through hers. “But we’ll face it together.”
She turned in his arms, struck by the sudden memory of his proposal. “We’re getting married.”
A huge grin lit up his face. “If you think you can stand seeing me every morning.”
Desire pulsed through her. She leaned in and kissed the stubble on his cheek. “I’m pretty sure now most of America wants to see your face every morning.”
He grunted.
She traced a line from his forehead around his eyes, down his nose, and across his lips. “You got famous. That’s what you wanted.”
“Actually, I did want that, but after getting it, I found that all I really wanted was you.” His eyes locked with hers.
They started kissing again.
He pulled back, grinning at her. “We’d better get up, Jaycee, or there will be no more boundaries between us.”
She swiped a kiss, then sat up. “Agreed.”
An hour later, they sat at the table in Texas Waters’s kitchen. The place was ginormous, and Jack's team was cooking some breakfast and appeared to be analyzing all of the papers from the files. There were three computers sat up on the table, all appearing to have different information displayed.
One was the news.
The words “Missing Presidential Candidate’s Daughter” flashed across the screen, and the news anchor began the story. “Last night, it is reported that Jaycee McCade, daughter of presidential candidate Senator McCade, came up missing at her own engagement party.”
The channel showed footage of the Summervilles playing in her backyard at the manor. “Freedom!” the on-screen Shay called out.
Jaycee glanced at Shay, who was sitting beside her at the table. He frowned and took her hand.
The reporter continued. “I’m told this band is going to be on tour with him for the presidential campaign this summer.”
“What?” Jaycee’s mouth fell open.
Shay shrugged. “We had to make it good.”
Her heart sped up. That was insane. On the screen, her father was actually smiling and patting Shay’s shoulder. Liam stood at his other side, and her father had an arm around each of them.
The footage turne
d to Kurt coming out of the house. “I can’t find her,” Kurt was saying. “I don’t know where Jaycee is.”
The camera woman came back on the screen. “At first glance, police aren’t sure if the daughter was taken or left of her own volition.”
Tauni’s tearful face popped onto the screen. “I’m her best friend and I thought she was sick, but when we couldn't find her I was … lost."
Jaycee couldn’t help but giggle at Tauni’s dramatics.
Shay let out a light laugh. “She’s good.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Jack was staring intently at the television. “Not to mention smoking hot,” he added.
“Oh gosh,” Shay said and rolled his eyes at his brother.
Jaycee was shocked at the way Jack still gazed at Tauni’s image on the screen. "I need to talk to Tauni," she said, hoping her friend was okay.
Jack turned to her. "She's fine. She's just playing the Senator's games right now. I don't think you should call her now. Later, I'll let you borrow my phone and call her on a burner phone I gave her."
Jaycee nodded.
Jack cleared his throat. “Okay, it’s going to take us a couple of days to sort through all these cover-ups that this organization has been a part of, so we’re going to need you guys to hang tight.”
Duke joined them. “What are you guys going to do?”
“We’re still unsure. I’m working with a sect of the government that exclusively deals with stuff like this. Top secret.”
“My father’s organization will know. They have people in all parts of it,” Duke objected.
At second glance, Jaycee noted that Duke looked rough. Of course he was still in his same clothes from yesterday, as they all were, but he looked harried and his eyes were haggard.
Duke pointed to the papers. “I was reading all of this most of the night, and it’s evil. It’s so evil.” Tears formed in his eyes, and he blinked rapidly. “My father and the men in this organization need to burn for what they did to my mother. For what they tried to do to Jaycee.”