by Debra Doxer
I sucked in a quick breath. I hadn’t wanted anyone to know that. “Theo doesn’t know. Don’t say anything, okay?”
“I won’t. Don’t worry. She tells me it’s working.”
I smiled; I couldn’t help it. “Yeah, it seems to be.”
His hand landed on my arm, making me jump in surprise. Grinning at me, he squeezed, and I saw the same look in his eyes that was there when he first found out I was trying to help Theo. Proud. He was proud of me, and the knowledge made my whole body feel flushed.
I glanced away again as hope bloomed inside me. Maybe he still had some feelings left for me.
“So, our folks,” he said, changing the subject, his tone getting lighter. “They’re officially a couple, I guess.”
I laughed and shrugged at the same time. “I know. It was weird living with the two of them at first, but now I’m used to it.”
“Did you ever think that if they got married, you’d be my—”
“Yes,” I blurted so he wouldn’t say it. I’d be his stepsister. “If we were still together, we’d be an overused plot device from a romance novel.”
He gave me a sidelong glance. “If we were still together?”
His words hung in the air as he brought the Jeep to a stop in front of a well-kept three-story home.
“This is my apartment,” he said. “I wanted you to know where it was. I rent the top floor.”
I looked up at the yellow house with its white trim and small balconies on each level. “It’s nice,” I said grudgingly, wishing he’d told us sooner he was back.
Jonah turned off the engine and shifted to face me, but then he said nothing. He just stared at me with a heavy, crestfallen expression I hadn’t seen before and didn’t understand.
“So you’re really doing okay?” I asked, needing to fill the silence and the growing tension building between us.
Without answering, Jonah took my hands and pulled off my gloves. My fingers automatically curled into my palms as I gave him a curious look.
“Let me see,” he said, quietly but firmly.
I realized Heather probably told him about my surgery too. Sighing, I opened my hands and held them out to him.
Jonah gently took my fingers in his. I didn’t want to look at the nasty red divots, so I looked at him instead. My gaze followed the strong line of his jaw, and I caught a hint of the aftershave he wore, mixed with the clean scent of soap.
His focus sharpened as he turned my hands over. Suddenly I felt self-conscious, and pulled them back toward me again. “I know they look awful, but they don’t hurt.”
He wouldn’t release me. “They don’t look awful. They tell the story of what you’ve been through.” Gently, he rubbed his thumbs over the top of my hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you when you were going through this. I want you to know that I don’t blame you for how you feel about me. I understand.”
“How I feel about you?” I barely knew how I felt, so how could he?
His eyes closed briefly. “I walked away without a word. I’m sure you think I deserted you, because I did. When I walked back into your life tonight, I was hoping we’d see each other and the connection we’ve always had would still be there. But that’s not what happened. You just stood there when you saw me, keeping your distance and giving me a wary look that made my chest feel like it had been cracked open and my heart ripped out. It took so long to gain your trust, and I’ve lost it again. I don’t expect you to give me any more chances, Candy. I know that’s asking too much.”
His words washed over me, carrying away my doubts and insecurities. We’d misunderstood each other from the very start tonight.
“You don’t know anything,” I told him. “You didn’t lose my trust. You didn’t lose anything of mine you once had, and you have no idea how I feel.”
His forehead creased, and I could tell he was wondering if he’d heard me right.
“You’ve been gone for eighty-two days, Jonah, and I missed you every one of those days. The only reason I didn’t come running to you the moment I saw you tonight was because I had no idea how you felt. I thought you might be blaming me for what happened.”
He turned toward me. “I never blamed you.”
The way he said that, I knew he blamed someone, either my father or himself maybe, and his expression told me he was reluctant to say more. But I deserved an explanation. We all did.
“Why did you leave and stay away so long? Didn’t you realize how worried we’d all be?”
He sighed as if he’d anticipated the question and had been waiting for it. “I’m sorry I worried everyone.” Swallowing, he flexed his jaw. “I’m sorry I walked away from you, but you had your father back and I knew he’d take care of you. All I seemed to do was hurt you or get you hurt.”
“It wasn’t—”
“My fault,” he blurted, holding up his hand to quiet me. “Thank you for saying that, but my father’s gone, and I have to live with how it all went down.”
He thought it was his fault, and I wished I could say something to make him understand that no one blamed him other than himself.
“Why did you come back?”
He turned and looked at me again. “You. I missed you. And if you missed me half as much, then I knew I was still hurting you. I don’t want to cause you any more pain, Candy.”
Jonah looked at me with so much uncertainty that my eyes filled with tears.
“I think I missed you twice as much. I love you, Jonah.”
His gaze held mine. “Still?”
“Always.”
Jonah stared at me as my heart beat for him, and I could sense some of the weight lifting from his shoulders before his hand came up to caress my cheek. It was something he did before he kissed me, and my chest warmed with anticipation. His eyes were no longer clouded with doubt, and when his lips touched mine, my whole world tilted, changing once again.
My eyes closed as I concentrated on his touch. The fact that he still wanted me seemed too good to be true. I’d dreamed it so many times, only to wake up disappointed. But my dreams never felt like this. Even though Jonah still had a lot to work through, I intended to help him because I loved him. We’d help each other.
“Do you want to come up and see my new place?” he murmured near my ear as he trailed kisses along the side of my neck.
I nodded, unable to answer, too swept up in the sensation of his hands on me. Those warm hands were everywhere, beneath my coat and up my sweater, smoothing over my sensitive skin. My heart was so full, I hardly recognized the sensation, but I wanted to give myself over to it. I wanted to fall into this happiness and stay there forever.
For so long, I’d dwelled on the things I’d lost, taking the constant ache I felt out on anyone who hurt me. But taking revenge never eased that ache, not completely. The cure came from the very last place I expected, from the people in my life who loved me. There were more of those people now than ever before. The loneliness that once hollowed my heart was becoming a memory, one that I wouldn’t forget because I wanted to appreciate what I had and never take it for granted.
Like a wish come true, Jonah and I were together. Wasn’t together the very opposite of alone?
Together.
I liked that word.
***
Two months later
I ran up the steps to Jonah’s apartment and banged on the door.
“Come on,” I muttered, bouncing restlessly on the balls on my feet.
The lock clicked, and the door opened a moment later. I pushed past him to rush inside, and nudged him out of the way so I could close the door and lock it behind me.
“What the hell?” He blinked in the darkness. “It’s after midnight. Is everything okay?”
“Define okay.”
Jonah shot me an exasperated look.
He looked adorably rumpled in sweats and a T-shirt, so I couldn’t help but grin, even though my heart was racing out of control from what I’d just done. Without thinking, I rubbed m
y sore hand, drawing his attention to it without meaning to.
Jonah closed the distance and took my hand to examine it. “Why are your knuckles raw? Did you deck someone tonight?”
When he moved to turn on the light to get a better look, I cried out, “Stop!”
Freezing, he eyed me sharply. “This has something to do with the training program, doesn’t it?”
After a hesitation, I nodded, knowing he would disapprove. When I thought of what happened tonight, I could still smell the man’s stale breath and picture the tribal tattoos that circled his biceps.
“Talk, Seaborne,” Jonah said, folding his arms over his chest. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Nerves bounced around inside me. “Sure, I’ll tell you. I’m just going to get a glass of water first.”
Turning away, I walked through his shadowy apartment into the tiny alcove kitchen. Too bad it had happened so close to Jonah’s place. If I’d had anywhere else to go, I would have.
Jonah eyed me warily, resting his arms on the bar that separated the kitchen from the main room.
“So, what was the assignment?” he asked. “For my first training exercise, they had me follow some Russian ex-pat who was planning a bank robbery to fund his terrorist activities in Chechnya, or so they thought. Turned out, he was only trying to cash a hefty check a relative sent him. Back in Russia, when you cashed checks that big, the government would lock you up on some bogus charge and confiscate your money.”
“How did you figure that out?” I asked, as the knowledge that I’d botched my first training assignment sank like a rock to the bottom of my stomach.
Jonah shrugged. “After a couple of days, I got bored and just asked him what he was up to.”
I burst out laughing. “Seriously?”
He nodded with a reluctant smile.
Sipping from my water glass, I wished I had Jonah’s laid-back attitude. He had an easy confidence about him that came naturally. My brand of confidence was a lot more abrasive, or so I’d been told.
“Following people is still how they start trainees off,” I explained. “They’ve got me watching the owner of that bowling alley downtown, Living on a Spare. I have no idea why I’m watching him, but he’s seriously creepy.”
“Is that who you decked?”
Biting my lip, I nodded. “He spotted me. Somehow he got behind me in the alley next to the building and surprised me.”
Jonah’s eyes narrowed. “Did he touch you?”
“He didn’t get a chance.” I grinned a little smugly. I was learning self-defense too. Tonight was the first chance I’d had to use it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, startling me.
Giving Jonah a desperate look, I glanced at the screen and saw it was exactly who I’d feared. My father. He had to have found out what happened by now. As much as I wanted to avoid his disappointment, I had no choice but to answer it.
“Hi, Dad.” I turned away from Jonah to talk, which made no sense because he could still hear me just fine.
“Are you okay?” My father’s voice sounded steady and calm, revealing no hint of his mood yet.
“I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
I exhaled heavily. “I honestly don’t know. One minute, the guy is sitting in his office at the bowling alley. The next, he gets up and pulls the shade down for the first time ever, completely blocking my view of the place. So I go around the building to try to see him from another angle and, bam, there he is. He came at me out of nowhere.”
“So you punched his lights out and ran?” He chuckled.
I tensed, not liking that my father was laughing at me. “Yeah, pretty much. I’m sorry I messed up. It won’t happen again.”
“Following him wasn’t the point, Candy. The exercise was to see how you reacted when Pete confronted you. The idea was for you to get yourself out of the situation using the cover story we gave you.” He laughed again. “Good thing the organization offers a dental plan.”
My mouth fell open. “You mean he knew I was following him the whole time?”
“Yes, and he was very vocal about how menial it was for him to participate in your training exercise. He was looking forward to scaring the living daylights out of you. I can’t say I mind that things didn’t go down that way, but you can’t resort to violence in every situation. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure,” I replied distractedly as my mood lifted. “But I did get out of the situation, so I didn’t fail.”
“No,” my father answered with clear amusement in his tone. “You didn’t fail.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Jonah and he smiled at me.
“So Pete isn’t coming after me?”
“Not until the laughing gas wears off.”
Ha! Take that, Pete. Maybe a good dental visit would help him with his hideous breath too.
“Tell Jonah hello for me, and have him drive you home now. It’s a school night.”
“Okay.” I grinned at the phone, counting down the days until graduation. Only fourteen left, and then I’d have the whole summer to spend with Jonah before starting college and continuing my training. I’d grudgingly agreed to go to college, but I was staying local, going to the same school as Jonah.
He was completely out of the organization now, taking graduate classes and thinking about applying to law school eventually, which sounded pretty boring. He’d probably be good at it, though, because he won at least half of our arguments, and no one usually won against me.
“Did you know?” I asked after ending the call.
He nodded, trying not to grin. “It’s the only way I’d agree to stop talking you out of going into the organization. Your dad had to keep me in the loop.”
After everything that happened with Victor, at first I was completely turned off to it myself. But my father stayed in, and so did Heather. She was training now too. When Heather and her parents so willingly used their connections to help the people I loved, my thinking began to change. There were good people and bad people in every walk of life. I couldn’t let one bad person prevent me from having the career I’d wanted for as long as I could remember.
Even though I still wanted to be in the organization, I knew I couldn’t kill people like my father did. The cold-blooded person he became when he shot Victor that night was not a person who lived inside me. That wasn’t who I was, but I could do other things. I could still work for them and live a life that was exciting and fulfilling. I could find my own place within the organization the same way I was finding my own place in the world.
“My dad says you have to take me home now,” I said, not moving.
“Uh-huh.” Jonah came around the bar and walked toward me. “He knows that it takes ten minutes to get from here to your house if I drive the speed limit. If I drive like a maniac, I can do it in five. That gives us five.”
“Who knew you were such a math whiz?”
He grinned wolfishly. “I’m a whiz at lots of things.” Picking me up by the waist, Jonah sat me down on top of the bar. Then he settled between my legs and loosely wrapped his arms around me.
“What time do you have class tomorrow?” I asked.
“I’ve got ethics at ten,” he said, resting his forehead against mine.
I rolled my eyes the way I always did when he mentioned his ethics class. Talk about irony. What would his ethics professor think if he knew what his girlfriend’s father did for a living?
“Can I just say that I hate the fact you were in a situation where you had to deck someone tonight?” he asked.
My chest swelled at the way he worried about me. “I know, but I totally nailed that training exercise.”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Nailed it, huh? I could have sworn that was you sweating it out pretty good a few minutes ago.”
“Well, maybe I didn’t nail it, but I passed.”
“Yeah, kind of proud of you, actually, but I’ll deny it later if you ask me.”
“H
a, ha.”
Leaning back, I took my index finger and traced the curve of his lips. Jonah had such soft, full lips. They were beautiful, just like everything else about him.
When I angled my head up, he leaned down and we met in the middle, our lips molding together, paired in an intimate way we both knew by heart.
“You sure this is what you want?” he asked, his lips moving against mine as he spoke.
“Yes,” I murmured, although I wasn’t sure what he meant exactly—the organization, him, or something else?
I only knew that for the first time in my memory, I had everything I wanted, and I intended to keep it.
***
Thank you, Pam. I am so lucky to have you in my corner.
***
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Books by Debra Doxer
Like Candy (Candy #1)
Sweet Liar (Candy #2)
Play of Light
Keep You from Harm (Remedy #1)
To Have and to Harm (Remedy #2)
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