She hurried to meet the petite nurse, eager for news of Jake. “I’m Paige.”
“Mr. McCall got out of surgery about an hour ago and is about to be moved to a private room. He’s awake and asking to see you.”
Relief made her knees tremble. “He’s all right? They stopped all the bleeding? Repaired all the damage?”
“He’ll have to take it easy for several weeks, but, yes. He’ll be just fine.”
Paige was so relieved to hear Jake was okay, she let the fact that no one had told her Jake had been out of surgery for an hour slide. A wide smile blossomed on her face. “Where is he?”
The nurse directed her down the corridor, and Paige ran down the hospital hall with her father at her heels. As they reached the recovery room, Jake was being wheeled out on a gurney on his way to a private room.
“Jake!” Paige shoved aside one of the nurses and wrapped her hand around Jake’s. His color was vastly better than it had been when they rushed him into surgery, and his eyes had the fire and vital intensity back that she’d grown to love. “The nurse said you were asking for me. I would have come sooner, but I only just now heard you were out of surgery.”
“I wanted to be sure you were okay.” Jake’s gaze traveled past her, over her shoulder. “Your father’s here.”
She nodded. “After Brent got out of his surgery yesterday—jeez, was it only yesterday?—he told Dad what was going on, where I was and how Bancroft Industries was involved. Dad arranged a corporate plane to fly over here this morning so he could find me.”
Jake’s gaze shifted back to Paige. “Good.” He lowered his eyes and angled his head away from her. “Then my work is done. You can go home with him…get back to your family, your job.”
Paige’s stomach quickened. A hollow, defeated quality permeated Jake’s tone. Squeezing his hand, she bent over him. “Not until you’re well enough to come with us.”
His dark eyes found hers, and the finality she read in their depths jolted her. Scared her.
“Our business together is finished, Paige. My doctor said he gave the ring to the cops. The bead is safe, and so are you. Go home.”
“But…” Paige fumbled, crushed by Jake’s rejection. “What if Steward has other operatives who come after me to exact revenge, or—”
“No. I just gave my statement to the FBI.” His gaze darkened when he mentioned the police, and compunction kicked her in the chest. “According to the guys I gave my statement to, Ralph Thurman, one of the guys at Gates’s, is rolling over to cut a deal. He’s given up names and details on the terrorist organization. Including people inside the Department of Defense. Those not in custody now, will be soon.”
“Who are these terrorists? Who funds them?” her father asked.
Jake shrugged. “The cop didn’t know.”
“I’ll have my people look into it,” her father said. “I’m sure we’ll hear more, once they’ve had time to dig further into the investigation.”
Neil extended his hand to Jake, and Jake slipped his fingers from Paige’s grasp to shake her father’s hand. “Son, thank you. You kept my girl safe, and I can never repay that.”
“Forget it.” Jake nodded to Neil but turned a penetrating gaze to Paige. “I was just doing the job I was hired to do.”
His words hit her like ice. Cold. Hard. Final.
There is no us. Not now, not when this is over. He’d said as much this morning, but she’d dared to hope he’d change his mind once they’d delivered the ring. Once they were safe.
Framing his face with her hands, she leaned close, whispering fiercely, “Don’t shut me out, Jake. I love you, and if you let me show you how much, I can—”
“Go home with your father, Paige.” He wrenched her hands from his cheeks and met her pleas with a stony stare. “You belong with your family. Not here.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, Paige.”
The nurse she’d shoved aside earlier now pushed Paige back from Jake’s side. “Excuse me. We need to take him upstairs now.”
As the nurses rolled Jake’s gurney toward the elevator, he wouldn’t even look at her.
And Paige felt her heart shatter.
Chapter 17
“Want to talk about it?”
When her father spoke, Paige turned from the view of billowing clouds out the small jet window. She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. Her dad wasn’t deaf or blind. He’d heard what she told Jake before Jake dismissed her so abruptly, and he’d seen the leak of tears she couldn’t contain as they’d left for the airport in a taxi.
She squared her shoulders and struggled to present a brave face. “I really don’t know what to say. So much has happened to me, so much has changed in a matter of days. I’m kind of…shell-shocked.”
Neil laid a warm hand on her knee. “I take it your feelings for Brent have changed. He told me you’d ended it with him.”
Paige sucked in a deep breath for courage. “Actually, my feelings for Brent are the same.” She paused, and her father arched an eyebrow in query. “The truth of the matter is, I never loved him.”
Now Neil frowned and shifted in his seat to face her more fully. “My goodness, Paige, what are you saying? You were about to marry him. I thought the two of you were ideal for each other.”
She nibbled her bottom lip and scrunched her nose, feeling like a little girl again under her father’s heavy stare. “That’s…why I accepted his proposal. I saw how happy you were, and logically, we should have been perfect for each other. We have a lot in common. But…”
Same equals boring. Her heart fluttered restlessly when Jake’s assessment flitted through her thoughts.
“I tried to love him, Dad, but he just didn’t…” make me burn the way Jake did.
Her face grew hot, and she turned back to the window briefly to gather her composure and hide the telltale flush in her cheeks.
“He didn’t make you happy.”
She swallowed hard and screwed up the nerve to face her father’s disappointment. “No. I’m sorry, Dad. I know you liked him, and—”
Neil snorted. “Why should my opinion matter?”
She turned her palm up. “Because you’re my dad. I’ve always wanted to make you proud and have your approval.”
His scowl deepened. “And you thought I’d approve of your tying yourself to a man you didn’t love?”
“I…well, I thought I’d learn to love him. When I analyzed our relationship, I didn’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have a successful marriage. On paper, we were perfectly matched. And Brent was your choice to take over the company, so logically—”
“Paige Michelle, you have a gift for logic and analysis, but logic and analysis have no place in deciding matters of the heart.”
“But—”
He raised a hand to cut her off. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said in the deep timbre that had commanded boardrooms for forty years. “I am happy about your choice of spouse only if you are happy. Where did you get the idea that I would want you to settle for a husband you didn’t love?”
She gaped like a fish, but she was speechless.
Zoey had said almost the same thing to her months ago, before she stormed out of the house the last time. Paige scrunched her nose.
“If you believe that, then explain to me why you were so angry with Zoey about her relationship with Derek.”
Neil stiffened. “Angry? I was never angry with Zoey. I want Zoey to be happy, to be safe, same as I do you. She’s the one who lost her temper when I tried to reason with her.”
Paige rolled her eyes. She didn’t want to argue semantics with her dad. Considering she shared her father’s opinion of Derek, playing devil’s advocate on Zoey’s behalf felt odd enough. But her father’s answer meant a great deal to Paige. “Zoey says she loves Derek. She says he makes her happy. So why can’t you accept her choice of husband and be happy for her?”
Her father’s expression darkened, his brow creasing with worry
lines. “I believe she does love Derek, and that’s what bothers me. Because he doesn’t love her. I’d stake my life on that.” He poked the armrest for emphasis. “He hasn’t married her. Instead, he’s dragged her around the country, spending her money to play poker wherever he can find a game.” Neil’s jaw tightened. “The guy’s a con. He’s using her for her money, and when he tires of her or once he’s emptied her accounts, he’ll dump her and break her heart. How can I support her in something I know is going to bring her trouble and heartache down the road?”
“I hope you’re wrong about Derek, but…I’m afraid you’re right.” Paige’s belly rolled with concern for her sister’s well-being. She missed Zoey, missed her sister’s bright smiles and exuberance. Her zest for life. Her friendship.
“Now…” Her father readjusted his suit coat, tugging at the sleeves, his nonverbal cue that he considered the matter closed and was moving on. “About this Jake McCall. You told him you love him. But does he make you truly happy, or are your feelings for him something you engineered through critical analysis and statistics based on your shared traits?”
Neil cut a side glance and lifted the corner of his mouth.
Paige blinked, startled to realize her father was teasing her. They hadn’t teased each other in years. Not since she graduated college and joined the family business. She hadn’t wanted anyone to think she had an inside track at the company because of her personal relationship with her dad. She had kept their relationship at Bancroft strictly professional, all business.
Looking back, she now saw how that formality had spilled over into their private relationship. The spontaneous jokes and hugs had dwindled, replaced with shop talk and professional politeness. Had that lack of familial warmth in recent years contributed to her feeling that she had to earn his approval by marrying Brent?
Setting that issue aside for the moment, she focused on his question. Did she love Jake?
She curled her fingers into the plush leather armrest. “My feelings for Jake are a moot point at best, considering he wants no part of a relationship with me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Paige jerked her gaze up to meet her father’s. “He said as much. More than once.” Leaning her head back, she angled her head toward the puffy clouds out her window. “The thing is…he grew up in foster homes and never felt he had a stable home or real love. Then he lost the family he adopted when he became a SEAL because he was forced off the team after an injury. And because several close SEAL friends died, both in the line of duty and once back home. He’s been burned too often, had his trust betrayed—” Her heart throbbed painfully with guilt. “—and so he won’t give his heart to a relationship again.” She sighed and glanced back at her father. “I tried to show him how much I love him. Tried to prove to him that my love was real and wouldn’t change, but—”
“Hold it right there, young lady.” Her father aimed a finger at her, his tone stern.
Her heart pounded the way it did when she’d been scolded as a child.
“At the hospital, you said something about proving your trust as well, and I didn’t get a chance to address it then. But I can’t let it pass again.” He took her hand in hers and squeezed, his green gaze softening. “Paige, love and trust and loyalty, all the building blocks of a solid relationship, aren’t something you should have to prove or earn or work for. Either they are there, or they aren’t. Love you have to earn isn’t real love. Trust you have to prove isn’t authentic. Love isn’t meant to be analyzed or fit into a schedule. How do you explain the fact that in a matter of days you’ve lost your heart to a man so different from you?”
Her pulse slowed, and she held her breath. “I can’t explain it. It’s crazy. It just…happened.”
“Love defies the odds. Love doesn’t follow criteria.” His eyes brightened with an intensity that speared to her core. “Paige, honey, real love is unconditional.”
She blinked, stared at him as she processed what he was saying. Intellectually, she already knew everything he was saying, but a small voice inside her whispered that somewhere along the line, her brain and her heart had gotten their wires crossed.
“You didn’t need to marry Brent to make me happy or earn my approval or my love, sweetie. You have it. Always. Forever. No matter what. No strings attached.”
She gripped her father’s hand with both of hers. “And you have mine, Daddy.”
He squeezed her hands tighter, underlining his next point. “If you love Jake, you shouldn’t have to prove it to him, either. He may have a hard time accepting it, letting it past his protective shields, but if your love is real, he’ll know it, deep down. He’ll feel it. Real love shines through every word, every action, every look and touch.”
Paige chewed her bottom lip, mulling over her father’s ad monition.
“Sweetie, I know control is important to you, but you can’t make someone love you. Just like you have no control over who you fall in love with.”
Paige’s pulse scampered. No control…
Was that why her feelings for Jake scared her so much?
“Real love is deep, abiding…and has no qualifiers. Can you say that about your feelings for Jake?”
A sob rose in her chest, tears puddling in her eyes. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Her father sat back and drew a deep, thoughtful breath. “And yet…you are here with me, instead of at his bedside.”
The air whooshed from her lungs. “But…” She rasped and had to stop to find the breath to speak. “You heard him! He sent me away. He didn’t want me there!”
“I also saw the look in his eyes when you turned and walked away. Paige, that man loves you. I’m betting he pushed you away because he didn’t want to risk rejection. Or he believed he was sparing you some kind of pain or disappointment.”
Her heart was a rock beneath her ribs. Cold, hard, heavy.
“And I played right into his fears of loss by leaving.” Her gut pitched. What had she done?
“We’re almost home now, and your mother and Holly are frantic to see you and assure themselves that you are safe. But whenever you’re ready to return to Atlanta, I’ll make sure you get priority on the flight schedule.”
Tears spilled from her eyelashes as she threw her arms around her father’s neck. “Thank you, Dad. I love you.”
Jake tossed down his fork and shoved the plate of mystery meat aside. He wasn’t hungry.
Throwing back the blanket on the hospital bed, he slid his legs to the floor. He wasn’t tired, either. He was restless, sick of being cooped up in this hospital room.
Three days post-op, his pain was well under control, and he could walk without feeling his gut was going to split open. He should have been released yesterday, but because his blood pressure had been slightly elevated since his surgery, he’d been kept an extra night. For observation.
But Jake didn’t need medical professionals to tell him why his blood pressure was up. He knew the reason.
He’d screwed up with Paige. Let her walk away. Lost the best thing that ever happened to him.
He’d had nothing but time to think as he lay in his bed and stared at the acoustic tile ceiling. Time to realize what he’d lost. Time to look at why he’d pushed her away. Time to recall his SEAL team CO grating, “Fear is inevitable in this job. You can either make fear your friend, use it to sharpen your senses and push you to achieve more. Or you can allow fear to be your enemy, let it lead you to failure.
He’d failed with Paige because his fear still stood sentinel over his heart. He knew why.
He squeezed the bedsheets in his fists and gritted his teeth. At first he’d been hurt that she hadn’t believed in him, hadn’t trusted him to handle the situation at Gates’s and had called the authorities. Then he’d been disgusted with himself, ashamed that his arrogant pride and determination to finish the assignment without outside help had nearly gotten Paige and other innocent civilians killed. He admitted, belatedly, that she’d made the right call.
The number of unexpected variables that cropped up, from Steward learning of the transfer at Gates’s to Gates’s wife and daughters returning early, had quickly spiraled the situation out of control. He’d needed a contingency plan after all. Thank God Paige had arranged one.
Finally, this morning, after a sleepless night of self-recrimination, he’d moved past his pointless should-haves and if-onlys and realized an important truth. It didn’t matter who did what or how the crisis had ended.
It was over.
The virus sample was safe. Paige was safe. And according to the FBI agents who’d questioned him multiple times over the past several days, the men behind the raid on Paige’s wedding and the attempts to steal the virus had been rounded up in a nationwide sweep. The homegrown terrorist cell had been on the Homeland Security radar for years. The men inside the Department of Defense whom Brent had believed to be traitors were, in fact, investigating Brent’s communications with the cell. All Jake had to do now was be available to testify at the terrorists’ trial.
And figure out what to do about Paige, how to move past his debilitating fear of loss.
His doctor had promised he could be released today, but so far, no one had been by to sign the papers that would spring him. Pressing a hand to the stitches just below his ribs, Jake hobbled restlessly toward the small window to look out. The hazy Atlanta skyline sprawled across the horizon. He stared without really seeing until a knock at his door brought him around.
“Jake?”
He recognized Holly immediately, though her resemblance to Paige had his pulse thumping and his blood pressure, no doubt, spiking again. He hoped the nurse didn’t come by now to check his vitals or he’d be stuck here another night.
“Holly, what are you doing here?” He glanced past her to the hall, hoping maybe she hadn’t come alone.
“Paige isn’t with me,” she said, obviously reading the hope in his expression. “Matt, the kids and I were driving through Atlanta on our way back to our home in North Carolina, and I thought I should stop to see you.”
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