by Casey Hagen
Had he misread the signals? They hadn’t kissed, well, not in the traditional sense, but they’d become a unit.
Hadn’t they?
Maybe he’d made it all up in his head.
He took a step back when what he really wanted to do was pull her into his arms—something absolutely off limits. “Doesn’t affect me. Got it.”
Destiny reached for his arm. “I didn’t mean—”
“I said I’ve got it. Let’s get started,” Jake said, turning away from her.
She snagged his shirt, yanking him back. He hadn’t expected that she’d reach for him so the gesture worked and knocked him off-balance. “Don’t do that,” she said as he stumbled to get his footing.
“I’m not going to pressure you. You made it clear, and we don’t have the luxury of time to argue about it,” he said.
“For someone who doesn’t want to pressure me, you sure do know how to make me feel like shit,” she said, her lips twitching.
“How’s that?”
She dropped her hands to her waist and cocked a hip. “How easily you give up the argument. Like you’re afraid I’ll break. I’m not going to fall apart. Not anymore. Have you completely missed how much stronger I’ve become?”
She smiled more, stood straighter, and her laugh, God, her laugh became something free and sweet instead of strained as if she were forcing it at the right time, for the right reason.
“I’ve noticed plenty,” he said, his voice thick.
She glanced toward Josie, and a small smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “I’ll meet them. But this is my situation to handle my way. I’m not yielding on that,” she said.
“Fair enough.” For now.
“Josie said something about a party,” Cole called from the doorway.
Destiny jumped. Jake reached for her arm to steady her and turned her to face the door.
Nebraska, Harlow, Ashton—Harlow and Dylan’s teen daughter—and Blair filed in behind him, each carrying serving dishes and bags. Dylan arrived with a case of water, Evan with an industrial-sized trash can, and Slyder with a case of soda.
“I thought you said just your team,” Destiny said in a whisper as she leaned into him.
“I asked them to bring their wives in case it would make you more comfortable,” Jake said, memorizing the feel of her pressed against him.
“Introduce me?” she asked.
He glanced down at her, his gaze landing on the slim line of her exposed throat as she looked up at him, and swallowed hard. “Sure.”
Destiny tried to keep the names and relationships straight. Watching Cole and Josie, embarrassment coursed through her at the way she had thought that Josie and Jake—it didn’t matter.
Jake blossomed with his team around. He smiled more. Laughed freely.
They were his family. Only a part of her wondered if he knew that just yet with the way he held himself slightly away from Dylan, Slyder, Cole, and Evan who all seemed to gravitate toward one another like brothers.
The women doted on Jake, something that had a flare of undeserved jealousy course through her. She let the feeling bloom and then let it go.
After all, when this business was finished, she could rest easy knowing Jake had surrounded himself with good people who so obviously cared about him.
Harlow checked to make sure he was getting enough rest and eating enough.
Blair thrust a cookie into his mouth mid-sentence.
He accepted a planking challenge from Ashton and easily won.
Destiny respected the fact that he didn’t patronize her by letting her win just because she was a kid.
Jake was just good. Every fiber of his being honorable. He was the Lloyd Dobler of the real world walked right off the set of Say Anything. The guy who would take off his jacket and toss it over a pile of broken glass in the road to protect the woman he loved.
She didn’t know men like him really existed outside of fiction. If it had been any other time, any other place…
She sighed and turned way, her gaze landing right on Nebraska NightRaven. She’d been trying not to stare but God, she’d been obsessed with her movies for a decade and found that in person, she was an absolute badass. Sassy and strong.
Everything Destiny wished she could be.
The women thrust drinks and food at her, all of them whispering tidbits about Jake when they thought he wasn’t paying attention.
“He chaperoned Ashton’s school dance after she told him a troublemaking boy had been trying to look down her shirt for a month,” Harlow said with a wink. “He’s honorable like that.”
“I’m surprised your husband didn’t step in,” Destiny said.
“Oh, we didn’t know about it. Ashton was afraid her father would blow a gasket and embarrass her to the point where she’d have to change schools.”
“Jake dropped off a report for Evan and got roped into an hour-long conversation with our eighty-three-year-old neighbor about The Young and the Restless. I know for a fact he was invited to watch with her and did so at least three times,” Blair said.
“He’s practically a boy scout. You got yourself a good one, Destiny,” Nebraska said. “And he might be the cutest of the bunch to boot.”
“I heard that,” Slyder growled in Nebraska’s ear, snaking his arms around her waist.
“Oh, he and I aren’t—”
Josie’s eyes danced. “Uh, huh,” she said as she glanced away.
Destiny shot a look over to Jake who watched her with his hooded gaze and an expression she couldn’t read. He smiled and winked, the look vanishing with the gesture. “You ready to get started?” he called to her.
“Please,” she said with a laugh.
Fluorescent lights burned a good twenty feet overhead, their glow reflecting off the ten-foot windows lining each side of the building.
Steel beams and exposed duct work stretched out overhead, making them all seem insignificant in comparison.
She followed Jake to the other side of the room, trusting him to guide her through.
“So here’s what we’re going to work on. We’re going dark. I’m going to be right by your side the whole way, and we’re going to work on honing your hearing. Sound good?”
“By going dark—”
“Lights out. All the way out,” Jake said, taking her hand.
“Okay, I’ve got this,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze.
The crew stood along the back wall chattering, eating, and observing. Jake nodded and said, “Now.”
Josie headed for the door and in a matter of seconds, with a flick of her wrist, she plunged the room into darkness.
“Cool,” Ashton said, her words echoing through the building.
“Jake,” she whispered, reaching for his hand.
“Right here,” he said, raising her fingers to his mouth and brushing a kiss over her knuckles. “What do you feel, right now, standing here in the dark?”
“Exposed,” she said. “Afraid to move.”
“Tell me what your body is doing,” he said quietly.
“My fingers tingle. There’s a buzzing in my ears. My heart is racing,” Destiny said.
“And what do you see?”
A nervous laugh bubbled from her throat. “Same as you, nothing.”
“You sure about that? Look a little harder,” he said next to her.
She scanned the darkness. Certain areas looked blacker than others. Less like being in the dark and more like voids in the dark. Which didn’t make sense.
Worried she’d sound like a twit, she kept silent.
He bent down, his hair brushing hers. “I’m the only one here with you, the only one who can hear you right now. What do you see?” he asked as his breath brushed over her ear, setting off a whole different set of sensations.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Black on black. I can’t see the obstacles, but they’re there. They’re darker than the darkness if that makes any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.
“Ashton,” she called out. Her voice dodged and bobbed through the space and died with a faint echo.
“Right here,” Ashton called back, her voice doing the same thing, but in a different pattern.
“What is that?”
“It’s your voice bouncing off objects in the dark. We’re going to move through, calling out each step of the way, and you’re going to figure out how to move around things you can’t see by the way your voice travels through the objects.”
“But if I’m in the dark with Carter, won’t that mean I’ll have to keep talking the whole time?” she asked.
“Maybe, but that’s okay. It’s your chance to have your say. To leave nothing unsaid. Your last chance, one way or another. Right?”
“Yeah,” she said, wishing it didn’t sound so final. God, she really could lose her life in this. He might win. She trained for hours and hours, and he still might win.
“He won’t win,” Jake said from beside her as if he could read her mind. “Concentrate on the sensitivity of your skin, the way the air glides over you as you move, the buzzing in your ears is your hearing adjusting, trying to compensate for your lost sight.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Start walking…and don’t forget to talk,” he said.
“About what?” she said, taking a tentative step.
“Anything. Where did you grow up?” he asked, right there with her.
“Minnesota,” she said, taking a couple more small steps. She was pretty sure they had drifted off to the right, not that she could tell. The place was so dark, it was like it had been built in the middle of nowhere, a place even the dim light of the moon couldn’t reach.
“A country girl. Interesting,” he said, the unmistakable sound of restrained laughter in his voice.
She took another step. “Think charming, not hick.” Her words bounced and skipped, something about the way they traveled told her to throw her hands out in front of her.
Her palm caught a piece of padding at a weird angle and slid past it. “Shit.”
“No, that’s good. You knew it was there. Reach out, feel it, and navigate around it to the next,” he instructed.
The sound of whispers from where the group stood on the other side tickled her sensitive ears.
Another step.
And another.
And—thwack! She shot her arm out to her side. Her forearm made solid contact with more padding.
“That’s it. Just like that,” Jake said with a note of pride in his voice.
And she wanted to impress him. Oh, how she wanted that. Maybe as much as she wanted to see Carter brought to his knees.
His fingertips trailed over her arms, the tantalizing sensation almost too much here in the dark. “Keep going,” he said in her other ear. She’d swear his lip brushed over the shell. The hair stood up on her neck, but in a good way.
An awakening…of something, but she didn’t know what. She’d never been with anyone but Carter, and before the beatings, their lovemaking had been—efficient.
Maybe that wasn’t the word.
All she knew is that she hadn’t felt cherished. Not in the slightest. Not the way Jake made her feel when he wrapped her wounded hands and kissed her palms, the way he tucked her under his arm, or even in just one of his smiles, the ones saved just for her, as if the look was a secret between two halves of a whole.
She took more steps. And more. Two or three at a time, her arms shooting out at the obstacles around her. He praised her with every one, the excitement in his voice rising with every success, propelling her forward.
For the first time in what felt as though it had been forever, another lifetime even, she believed in her heart where she hadn’t dared to hope, that she might just win this battle.
“Lights!” Dylan shouted, breaking her concentration.
Destiny stumbled a second before the lights blasted to life overhead, taking a hit on her shin.
“What’s wrong?” Evan asked, pushing away from the wall.
Destiny winced and shielded her eyes.
“There’s an alert from Tex,” Dylan said, scrolling his phone.
“What did he say?” Jake asked.
“Who’s Tex?” Destiny asked.
“He’s a friend. We’ve had him investigating Carter,” Jake said beside her.
“You what?” Destiny growled, whirling on him. She stared at him, waiting for him to explain himself, but he just stood there, his mouth set, his shoulders back.
Dylan stepped up to them and looked Destiny straight in the eye. “It wasn’t Jake’s call. It was mine, and it’s standard procedure in cases where time is a factor or when there is military involved.”
“And the only reason you knew he was military is because Jake told you,” she said, backing away.
“I had to tell them, Destiny. My helping you puts the team at risk. I have no right doing that without making sure they’re on board. They have families they have to protect, too.”
“You should have told me,” she said, her voice catching. They all knew. It had been hard enough laying it all bare for one man, but this whole night, through the food, the laughter, all of it, they had all known what a stupid mistake she had made by marrying Carter.
And it was just one more way Jake was trying to take care of everybody, making it almost impossible to stay mad.
It’s what Jake did. What he would continue to do.
She may have been the one to benefit most of all from his sense of responsibility and honor.
“We have bigger problems right now. Carter took leave two days ago. No new bank transactions. We have no way of knowing where he is,” Dylan said.
“Flight records?” Blair asked.
“Not necessarily if he chartered a fight. Depends on how good pilots for hire are with their recordkeeping. For enough cash, most would overlook protocol,” Slyder said.
“Destiny goes nowhere alone,” Cole said.
“Now, wait a minute…” Destiny began.
“Nowhere alone,” Jake said quietly. “You’re still training. This buys you time.”
Leave it to Jake to come up with an argument she couldn’t dispute. “Fine, but this is my situation. I handle Carter, no matter what.”
Eyes narrowed, jaws clenched, hands balled into fists, but they nodded their agreement under the piercing stares of their women.
All but Jake. He had fire in his eyes and looked to be spoiling for a fight.
With their close proximity for the indefinite future, he might just get one.
Chapter 9
Destiny stepped into the room and tried not to feel self-conscious about Jake following along right behind.
“Pricey place,” Jake said quietly as if they were going to just make small talk after everything that just happened.
“My attorney set me up here,” Destiny said.
“That’s one hell of an attorney,” Jake said, glancing around.
Destiny shrugged and slapped the Dodgers hat down on the table. “He’s also a friend.”
“He?” Jake said, raising a brow. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention him.”
He had to be fucking kidding. “Well, you didn’t mention that you had invited your team out tonight, and you definitely didn’t mention that your team had been digging into my personal life.” She resisted the unusual urge to snarl, something she never could have done with Carter, but she knew for sure she could do with Jake. If, of course, that didn’t make them break down and laugh.
She wasn’t ready to laugh just yet.
He tucked his hands in his pockets and cocked a hip against the chair. “I had to tell my team. You know that.”
“But they didn’t have to dig into my business. You could have just said no to helping me,” Destiny said.
“Is that what you wanted? For me to just say no,” he said.
“I’m just wondering why your need to help me outweighs my right to privacy. What’s really driving you to see this through, Jake?” Because something told her this wasn’t about just her. There was something else, someone else, he cared about just as much, or maybe more, steering his course.
He stayed rigidly silent, his nostrils flaring the only sign of what it cost him to do so.
“You can tell me, or you can leave,” she said on a whoosh of panicked air. She delivered the ultimatum without thought and now, as the words hovered between them, she wished she could smash them right back down her throat. She didn’t want a guard, but once the idea of him staying at the hotel with her took hold, she wanted something else.
One more thing that would make her ready to lay it all on the line.
“My mother died at my father’s hand. I was twelve—and too scared, too weak to do anything to stop it,” he said. His voice shook with anguish, something she had never heard from him before, and never wanted to hear from him again.
She stepped up into his space and marveled at the way it didn’t panic her like it did just a week earlier. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” he rasped.
“Not yours either,” she said. “Sean is a childhood friend. Our moms are good friends. Actually, he,” she shook her head “…it doesn’t matter.” Bringing up her mother’s illness seemed selfish when Jake had just confessed his mother had been murdered by his own father.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing, just some news from home. Nothing to be worried about just now,” she said, giving him a smile.
“One thing I’ve noticed about you, Destiny, everything that comes out of your mouth matters. What is it?” Jake asked.
“Sean said my mother is sick,” she admitted.
“She didn’t tell you?” Jake asked.
Her cheeks flamed with shame. That girl had been a blind idiot, so damn green and just unwilling to hear anyone’s warnings, especially her mother’s. “We haven’t spoken since I ran off with Carter.”
“And the hourglass speeds up just a bit more,” he said. “We can put in more hours. If you’re okay with it, the team can help. We can have you ready in a week.”
She nodded, knowing damn well they didn’t have a week. Carter was close. She had no doubt about it. She didn’t know how he always managed to find her, but he did. She could wait for him to surprise her, or she could draw him out. “I’d appreciate it.”
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