by Leslie North
Jack snagged her arm and escorted her out of the room, away from Max. She felt thankful to escape the line of fire, but she shot a desperate look back over her shoulder in Max’s direction. He made no attempt to follow; he was a statue, all but his eyes that followed her until her final glimpse.
In the hallway, Lola tugged against her brother’s determined pace. “Jack, wait.”
“Wait for what, Lola? I think you’ve been through enough.”
“I want to see Max.”
Jack sighed. He rerouted them to an empty corner of the hall, out of the way of energized reporters streaming the building to catch a sound bite for the evening news. Her chest felt bruised, but not from anything that had transpired in the courtroom. Twice, her eyes threatened to mist over—the shock, the after burn of fear, the goodbye she felt coming on like a parasite, worming its way around her heart, constricting the blood flow until it threatened to stop altogether. Mercifully, Jack said nothing.
Twenty minutes passed. Max threaded his way through the dwindling crowd of reporters. His gaze collided with Lola’s.
Her pulse stalled.
Max held his hand out to Jack. Jack gave it a reluctant shake.
Lola exhaled a tentative breath at the truce.
“The shooting wasn’t random,” said Max. “Freeman planned to take Baudin out as soon as he killed you and the Marshall. Why have two dead witnesses when you can knock out three? The prosecutor’s office will be calling you Monday about attempted murder charges.”
“What happens to Baudin?”
"He has agreed to testify, for real this time," said Max. "He's being transferred to a maximum security unit.”
Lola lost track of the action streaming around them as Max gazed down at her. Jack drifted away to give them privacy.
"You were right, Max. I was too naïve to see him for what he really was.”
“Not naïve, Lola. Hopeful.” He flashed her a sad smile. “I think being on the wrong end of an assassination attempt shook him up a bit. It’s possible he’ll find a higher purpose in prison. Chaplain or something. I wouldn't count on it too much, though. It's hard to fundamentally change people. At the end of the day, it's better to just accept the ones into your life that you know are a sure fit."
Lola's heart climbed into her throat and curled itself into a knot at his words. Was he saying what she thought he said? "I don't know if I believe that," she said slowly. "Max…"
"I'll get ahold of your brother. Have some paperwork sent over." His tone was security, all business. "It might be tedious. I apologize for that. I know you have a lot on your plate as it is."
"Yeah." Even as she agreed with him, her voice shook a little. She knew he was right, and that he tried to spare her more responsibility now by walking out of her life this way. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe as soon as she got home, she would forget all about Max Sterling, except to reflect on him with gratitude that he had made the ultimate decision for her.
She wondered if he would count her as one more loss.
The awkward silence stretched between them like a yawning chasm. Slowly, peripheral noise bled back into her awareness, and Lola remembered they stood in a public space and that people still swarmed around them.
Max cleared his throat and extended his hand to her, handshake-style.
“Goodbye, Lola.”
The gesture gutted her. Lola stared at its wide width, trying not to remember all the ways she had found herself in his touch. She pressed her lips together because she didn’t trust her voice would come when she needed it. She doubted she could ever utter goodbye, anyway.
She shook Max Sterling’s hand and plastered on a brave smile.
Lola made it all the way home before Eugenia’s extended arms pulled her close and the floodgates opened.
Chapter 12
Lola frantically prepped a science lesson involving tomato seeds, soil and Styrofoam cups before her class spilled back in from the playground. Most teachers used bean seeds because they were easiest to sprout. Lola thought of Devin. If she couldn’t be with him each day over the summer, at least he had a fighting chance of filling his belly each day.
Meg had taken recess duty this week. Everyone had been so nice to her. Her principal offered her as much time off as she wanted. She returned to work Monday. Her co-workers attributed her reserved nature to the ordeal she had been through. She told no one about Max. She gave enough of herself—Max taught her that. If he was relegated to a memory, Lola intended to be selfish about it.
The unmistakable swarm of fifty first-graders, even well-behaved and in orderly rows, had her checking the clock. Her moments with them dulled the pain, and she was grateful to have them all afternoon. Turns out she needed them as much as they needed her.
Kayleigh was first in the classroom. She held an individual white board Lola had made for each of her students from cardboard, special contact paper and fun duct tape. A rather shaky capital I filled the board.
“Kayleigh, why did you take your board to recess?”
The normally talkative girl smirked and pranced to a spot on the carpet where the line leader stood when they prepped to leave the room, proudly holding her board in front of her.
Devin was next. His board had a capital L. Backwards, of course. He stood to the right of Kayleigh.
Lola smiled and bit her lip. They had all been so sweet to her. Missed you cards. Flowers. She settled into her rocking chair at the reader’s circle to enjoy the rest of the message.
One by one, her class assembled in a straighter line she had seen in quite some time.
O-V-E-Y-O-U-.-M-A-
Someone had given the Nelek twins the Rs. The boys had perpetual ants in their pants. The rollicking of R-R had her stomach churning.
Y-M-
That was it.
Somewhere near a very sneezy Caleb Elkin, she had lost the message.
Meg ushered in the final child and ducked behind them, straightening boards and reminding them to rest the letters against their tummies so Miss Reyes could read them.
Avery’s board held a dot. More like a booger, really.
Lola didn’t get it.
Meg moved a few tiny bodies here and there to group them into words.
I.
Love.
You.
Marry
M—
A rush of lightness swooped down and caused her stomach to take flight. Devin giggled. Lola brought her hands up to cover her mouth that had dropped open far enough to swallow all the flies they had brought with them from recess. Her gaze drifted to the classroom door.
Max crowded the doorway, breathtakingly handsome in a dark suit and tie, the final white board in hand.
An E.
A grin tugged at his mouth. He flipped his board. Across the back, he’d written: I quit.
Lola stumbled to her feet, unsure if her legs would hold her. She tottered on the edge of the alphabet rug. In a flash, Max was there to steady her.
He lowered himself on one knee and took her hands in his.
Twenty-three six year olds and a handful of teachers on her hall went ballistic.
Tears washed her vision.
A chorus of shhh!s reached a crescendo in the room. Lola giggled. The room gradually quieted again.
“It’s time for a different duty. Husband.”
Two seconds ticked by before Devin shouted, “Well?”
More snickers.
Lola looked into Max’s hopeful face and saw her future.
She reached for the blackboard tray beside her, picked up a stick of chalk and wrote Y-E-S on the board.
Max scooped her off her feet and kissed her.
The room’s high-pitched cheers turned to one scandalous first-grade, cootie kind of note: “OOOOOOOhhhh!”
Epilogue
Lola didn’t come back down to earth until a beautiful September day over the rolling hills of Virginia. Tied by her suit to a jumpmaster at thirteen-thousand feet, Max beside her in his own pa
ck, the King Air twin-engine plane’s bay door ushered in two-hundred knot winds and a lot of sky.
A lot.
Max squeezed her hand.
Everything he said was true. Cold wind rushed her face and ears in a cacophony of noise that make communication nearly impossible. Time crawled. She thought she might want to just stay here forever but for the fact that she was inescapably attached to someone not her husband. Gus. From Germany.
She adjusted her thick, cumbersome goggles, but she had never seen things more clearly. Max had come into her life for less than forty-eight hours then stayed, just as her grandfather had stayed for Nona. Max still had his hands in protecting people with his own security firm, but mostly he had left the dangerous part of his life in the past and was supremely committed to duties of a more domestic kind.
Namely, making her happy.
“Like mind-blowing sex?” she shouted at Max.
A huge, pearly-white grin broke out under Max’s goggles.
“Close,” he yelled back.
Gus’s eyes shifted uncomfortably between them.
Max kissed her hand and released it.
“Ready?” said Gus in her ear.
Lola nodded.
“On three. One…”
Gus tipped her forward. Time stopped.
“Two…”
She smiled at Max. He mouthed I love you.
“Three.”
Those first few seconds of free fall? Sensory overload.
A lot like falling in love.
Completion of Safe and Sound
Book Three of The Safe House Unit Series.
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Gage Jackelson decided he’d rather be in the middle of a fire fight on open water than standing in the front of a green screen in nothing more than his jeans, feeling like a hunk of meat on a slab.
What looked like a Gothic fairy—heavy on the black eye-liner and dyed hair and complete with what looked a pink tutu trimmed in more black—flitted about him, dusting powder on him and muttering about cheekbones.
This was ridiculous. He stood, arms folded, wondering how he could get out of this. But he couldn’t. He had to start thinking of this like a mission. So he let the fairy fuss.
The elevator pinged, and he hoped the photographer had finally arrived and he could wrap up this charade, get the intel they needed, and get his shirt back on. The things he’d do for a friend—even a dead one.
Hearing steps, he glanced over and watched a young woman walk into the studio—okay, warehouse was a better name for it. A loft with more ceiling space than floor space, white walls and photos hung on them. Dirt glazed the windows, but he had enough light on him that he kept breaking a light sweat.
The woman stepped in front of him, head cocked, and stared at him. He could feel his skin warm. He’d been on the other side of that kind of assessment—had been eyeing the girls just last week with Scotty making his usual crude remarks, and Spencer sipping his tequila. This woman would have rated a second look and one of Scotty’s terrible pick-up lines.
Eyes blue as the Mediterranean Sea fixed on him. Tight jeans encased long legs—he’d always been a leg man—and a white silk blouse said she had money enough to afford good clothes. Golden hair had been pulled back from a heart-shaped face. She didn’t wear much makeup that he could see, and he caught a flash of gold earrings. But those eyes kept pulling him back for another look. Who the hell was she? The photographer’s girlfriend?
Turning, she walked over to the camera—not a digital, but something big and old and also expensive-looking. She stared through the lens and then looked up at him. “Gage Jackelson,” she said the name as if she was thinking of something else. She propped a fist on one hip. “I keep wondering why’d a Navy SEAL agree to a cover shoot.” A guy could feel quite warm wrapped up in her sultry tone.
He lifted an eyebrow. “And you are?”
She stepped up and reached out to shake his hand. “Anna Middleton.”
Gage nodded. The photos on the walls all had Middleton signed to them. He was going to guess not the photographer’s wife—no ring on her finger. He fought the urge to hold her hand longer than he should, but he caught a flush of color in her cheeks. She tilted her head up to look at him and he could swear he caught a flash of surprise in those sea-blue eyes.
Pulling her hand back, he watched as she tucked it behind her back before turning to grab the camera off its stand.
“Did Linda explain how this works?”
Linda—the Gothic fairy—flashed a smile at him. She trailed a finger down his forearm. “You’ll do great. He’s set, Anna.” She ducked away.
Gage glanced at Anna and her camera. “How hard is it to smile for the camera?” Gage drawled. His fingers stopped tingling since he touched her, and he was itching to do so again. Or possibly run his fingers through that soft cloud of hair.
“You’d be surprised.” Her wide mouth twitched at the corners. “We’ll start without props, but Linda will bring a few in later.”
“Props?” Gage lifted both eyebrows.
Anna took a couple of shots, the camera clicking. “We use a green screen so we can drop in any background, but it’s easier to use anything that you will be touching in the actual photos.” Stepping back to the tripod, Anna set the camera on it. She looked through the camera lens, paused and looked back up at him. “Um, you’re looking a little stiff.”
Linda gave a snort of amusement, tried to hide it with a cough. Gage smiled, and Anna gave Linda a dirty look before turning back to Gage. “Any chance you can relax? Loosen up? Look less like you’re standing in front of a camera?”
Gage forced a smile. He was going to kill Scotty and Spencer fo
r talking him into being the one to come to Coran Williams Publishing. This is for Nick, he told himself again. And they had damn little to go on right now—an encrypted flash drive and one personal photo that had been of Nick and Natalie. They hadn’t even found Nick’s awards and honors for service. But the photo had led them here.
“Mr. Jackelson?”
Gage shook himself out of his mood—he’d been starting to frown. He had to watch that. They’d talked it over and all had agreed that busting in here with questions might not get them far. They needed intel, meaning they needed to get inside this place and poke around. Which was why he was here. With his shirt off.
“It’s Lieutenant.” The correction came out automatically but quiet. Not like he was in uniform so she’d know. “Lieutenant Jackelson or Gage.”
She nodded, but the smile looked forced now. “Lieutenant, it would be nice if you seemed a bit less—”
“Stiff?” Gage offered a smile.
“Uncomfortable. Why don’t you tell us a story or describe something in detail?”
“Like a first date?” He was enjoying watching her blush.
That wide mouth of hers tightened. “How about instructions for changing a tire? Or talk about SEAL training. The point is to stop thinking about what you’re doing.”
And how my shirt’s missing. Gage realized that she was right. He needed to get out of his head. He needed to stop thinking about why he was really there. He wasn’t going to search the place any time soon, but he had a great view to check security and access for later.
He already knew Nick’s Natalie was linked to the place.
Natalie hadn’t shown up for Nick’s funeral or his wake. They were still trying to track her down in the hopes that she might know more about why Nick was dead. A photo on the cover of a book had led them here—and Gage lost the toss of the draw for the initial recon.
As soon as he’d walked in the door, he’d been mistaken for a cover model—and that was too good an opportunity to turn down. He’d played it that he could use the extra cash, but now he wondered if he should have just broken in after hours.