God, I hadn’t seen Rafe for a total of two weeks. That was fourteen days. Fourteen days, three hours, and twenty-nine minutes, to be exact. I should be mad that he hadn’t returned my texts. I should be mad that he never came to follow up. I should be mad…but I wasn’t.
Disappointed, yes. Mad, no.
I knew when I took my clothes off for him and laid on that coffee table that what I was about to do would likely only be a one-time deal.
Did it stop me from doing it? Hell no.
Would it stop me from doing it again? Again, hell no.
Uncle Sam said a few words to Rafe, then grunted something and went to Jack’s office. Jack followed him out and went to the meeting room as Sam then went to Max’s office.
Max limped out.
His knee must be acting up today.
I frowned.
“Did you take your medication?” I questioned him.
Max scowled at me. “No.”
“The medication is an anti-inflammatory,” I told him. “It’ll help with the swelling, so it doesn’t hurt so bad.”
Max had just had knee surgery a few weeks ago, and he was doing exceptionally well. Though that likely had to do with the fact that he was in great shape for his age, and he worked his ass off to get back to where he was.
But, he was a stubborn ass, and he needed to take his meds.
I sat at my desk and pulled out my phone, texting Max’s wife to tell on him, at the same time I started to eat the sandwich I’d made before all of the excitement started.
Grinning at the response I got in return, I put the phone back down and went back to my report.
And, the entire time the meeting was taking place, I kept my eyes on Rafe through the partially open door.
I couldn’t help it.
I was trying not to make a fool of myself by throwing myself at him.
Then somebody cleared their throat, and I looked over to see my Uncle Sam frowning at me.
I flushed and went back to my report, but I couldn’t help but listen to their discussion.
The man, Dante, and the woman, Cobie, were here because of another guy, Drake, who was doing some not so good things.
Those not so good things turned out to be Dante suspecting Drake of killing one of our ‘birds.’ They were also discussing a few other things, such as the suspicion of that same man killing their infant son.
A bird, if I could remember right, that had willingly gone back to her husband. A first for us.
I’d actually looked into that one myself and had been watching over her from afar.
Though, every time I’d tried to get in contact with her, she’d be extremely evasive.
But, I couldn’t save her if she didn’t want to be saved.
I immediately started to pull up my old files.
I’d looked into the man, as well as the woman.
On the surface, though, everything seemed legit.
But I still printed them out, because I knew it was only going to take a few minutes for one of them to ask for the report I had.
That request came moments later when my Uncle Sam came to the partially closed door and looked at me.
“Janie?”
I grinned and picked up my pickle in the opposite hand of my sandwich.
“Yeah?” I questioned as I leaned forward to take a bite of my pickle.
It crunched noisily, and I looked sheepishly around the room, pausing only slightly on Rafe a little longer than the others, before returning my gaze to Sam.
“Can you do me a favor and bring me the report on a Drake Garwood?” he asked me. “Everything.”
I gave a chin tilt in answer and turned, not missing the way Rafe’s eyes slid over every single inch of my body.
I shivered as I returned to my previous activities, finished my pickle, and pulled my report off the printer.
I tried not to listen to the discussion—Uncle Sam hated it when I got too much into the particulars of cases without him vetting my safety—but it was hard not to hear.
Especially when the topic of conversation changed from the man, Drake Garwood, and moved to the child of Drake Garwood and Marianne Garwood—our bird. The child had been killed, and everyone suspected that the father was behind it.
My ears tuned into the conversation they were having as I finished what was left of my sandwich.
I became so engrossed in my food that I forgot I was listening to the men and woman speak in the other room.
What had enlightened me was the silence of the room beyond.
“Well,” Jack muttered. “I haven’t heard back from Winter yet. Once I do, I can give you the number on those boxes…do you mind if I keep this?”
I didn’t bother to say that I could find that information out.
Mostly because, again, they didn’t want me in the middle of a case that could possibly threaten my safety.
My father had made it clear the day I started to help them that under no circumstance was I allowed to do anything that could quite possibly put me in danger.
Therein lay my problem.
I was still being treated like a child at the age of twenty-three.
I was treated as though I couldn’t possibly know as much as I did know, and if I even tried to get into a conversation I wasn’t invited to, I was lectured non-stop.
Which was also why I hightailed it out of there when I did.
The look I got from Uncle Sam was one of anger. One that said if I stayed, I wouldn’t like the consequences…kind of like I didn’t like them last time.
See, my family was adamant that I wouldn’t get caught up in the dangerous side of the family business—and that was pretty much all of it but printing off notes and making myself useful for coffee runs.
Sam didn’t want my dad mad at him, and if that meant hurting my feelings, he’d do it.
What he would also do was give me the boot—which he’d threatened before.
Hence the reason I left.
Without me there, he couldn’t yell at me.
Maybe by the time he did find me, he might have calmed down.
I grimaced as I hurried out of the building, then hurried toward my place.
Once I collected my dogs, I further decided to leave altogether.
Choosing a walk over an angry lecture, I headed down the driveway without picking up my head so as not to make eye contact with anyone, thereby ensuring that I wouldn’t have to talk to any of them, either. Because most of them would surely find out that I was upset, and that would be a longer conversation than I wanted to have at this moment in time.
The dogs stayed at my feet as I hurried out of the gate and took a left. Immediately my feet took me on my familiar trail, and I was walking partially shaded by the woods on the side of the road, easily hidden from approaching cars—or bikes.
At least, I thought I was.
And I was thinking I was alone, too, until I felt someone yank on my arm from a tree I’d just passed, causing me to gasp.
And then I felt myself being pressed against a familiar, hard chest.
Oh, and my dogs going absolutely wild.
“Call ‘em off, honey,” Rafe’s velvety soft voice said in my ear.
I shivered, then turned and ‘called them off.’
“Kimber and Glock, sit.”
Both dogs sat, but they didn’t look happy to be doing so.
“Good dogs,” he said.
I blinked then turned.
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “They were aware I was here the entire time, trailing you. You should pay more attention to their cues, though. They can’t talk, so you’ll have to glance at them every once in a while. But, they didn’t move or do anything until after I’d grabbed you. I’m guessing they knew I wasn’t a threat, or at least they thought I wasn’t. Then, they weren’t so sure, so they started to bark.”
I blinked.
“Well,” I hesitated. “Th
at’s kind of awesome, isn’t it?”
He winked. “You bet.”
I frowned. “What are you doing here?”
He opened his mouth, then immediately closed it.
“Something I shouldn’t be doin’,” he finally settled on.
“And what would that be…” I questioned, my heart starting to pound. “Because I haven’t the slightest idea.”
And I really didn’t.
He hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted. Hell, I hadn’t even gotten a smoke signal—something I knew that he was likely more than capable of giving me.
I was literally sitting on my hands, waiting for something to happen.
Something I really, really wanted to happen.
I wanted him to make that move.
I wanted to do a lot of things more than what I’d done with him—such as actually hold a conversation that didn’t have him running the other way when my family came into the room. Or involve us only talking with our bodies. Not that I was complaining about that last bit.
I could go for more of that.
In fact, the more I thought about how he felt pressed up against me, the more my mind continued to spiral out of control until I couldn’t even hide what I was feeling anymore.
“Janie,” Rafe growled.
I shivered at the sound of his voice.
“Yeah?” I licked my lips, staring into his eyes as I did.
Those eyes of his darkened impossibly further, and I swear I felt that straight to my soul.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he ordered.
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know if I can help it.”
He leaned forward so close that I felt his beard against my lips as he spoke. “I have so many things wrong right now that being here with you is the only thing right…but I can’t do that with your father able to walk up on us at any moment.”
I swallowed.
“What my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” I informed my torturer.
“There are game trails all along this stretch of woods,” he said softly, tucking a few stray hairs that’d escaped my messy bun behind my ear as he spoke. “Not to mention that they have live feed. I like you, darlin’. But I also like my face.”
I grinned, and then took a step back. “Well, I can’t be that close to you then.”
He smiled, but that smile quickly fell.
“I have some things I’d like to discuss with you…but then that came up.”
“What?” I questioned.
“That with Dante and Cobie. I’ve meant to call you for a while now, but my life…” he sighed. “My life is complicated. I don’t have time to even go see my sister. I just don’t want you to think that I forgot about you.”
I swallowed, touched that he’d even take the time to say anything to me at all, let alone explain his actions.
Rafe didn’t seem the type to explain.
He seemed the type to tell a person how it was, and then expect to be obeyed.
My hand rose, and my fingers started to curl around the stray hair he’d tucked behind my ear as I said, “I think I can wait for you to uncomplicate it.”
His grin was bright.
And with a wink, he was gone, disappearing into the woods almost as fast as he’d appeared.
Unfortunately, I had no idea that by promising that, I’d be waiting far longer than I ever intended.
Chapter 7
I hate it when I say I hate everyone, and then the one person I hate the most laughs and says, ‘not me, right?’ No, bitch. I especially hate you.
-Conversation between Rafe to Janie
Rafe
Eight weeks later
Nobody ever prepares for a grenade.
Nobody.
Sure, you might think about how you’d react if a grenade was thrown in your direction, but until you’ve actually had a live one thrown at you without warning, you have no fuckin’ clue how you’ll react.
There I was, texting Trace about my new “friend” Layton Trammell and his daughter, who wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone no matter how hard I tried to avoid her, while simultaneously watching over Cobie and Dante’s daughter, Mary, when it happened.
The entire room exploded.
My ears rang.
My body was thrown backward, and somewhere in the confusion, I was able to right myself.
The lights were too bright, and the air around me had a funny smell to it.
I couldn’t quite focus, and I was fairly sure that my head was fucked up.
I couldn’t feel it, or any part of my body, really.
I blinked and blinked some more until I could semi-focus, and saw a man dressed in black hurrying into the room.
I swallowed down the bile when the man hooked his arm around Cobie’s limp form, followed shortly by Mary’s.
And I realized rather quickly that what was happening shouldn’t be happening. The man dressed in black, Drake Garwood, shouldn’t be here.
I also should be moving, yet I couldn’t get my limbs to cooperate.
I clenched my hand and felt my fingers close around something—my phone.
Yet, still, I couldn’t get my fingers to execute my mind’s commands.
I couldn’t get anything to work. Not my hands, not my legs, and definitely not my brain.
Which had to be why I watched him walk out the door without so much as a single protest from me.
And I realized then that I’d spread myself too thin.
I thought I could help. I thought I could be there to protect them—like I should’ve protected my sister all those years ago—but I didn’t.
I started to crawl, ordering myself harshly under my breath to go.
Go, go, go.
And somehow, I went.
It was sometime later when my brain started to slowly come back online.
A stun grenade.
He’d thrown a stun grenade—Drake had.
He’d thrown it through the window, and when it went off, I’d reacted exactly like he had expected I would—for the most part.
I was fairly sure he hadn’t expected me to be coherent enough to actually follow.
Which had to be why he didn’t once look in his rearview mirror.
Blood was running freely from the wound on my scalp. It was running in my eyes, down my cheeks, around my nose to disappear into my chin. Only, it came right back out to run down my neck.
I was fairly sure I had a broken collarbone, as well as a concussion.
But I’d managed to drive behind Cobie and Mary’s captor—Drake.
I’d also been able to stay hidden.
I’d called for help, and I’d forced my body to stay where it was.
I wasn’t fooling anyone—not even myself.
The moment I got out of this car, I knew that I’d collapse to my knees.
I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my legs would give out, and I’d crumple to the ground like a useless heap of trash.
Did that stop me from getting out of the car, though?
Hell no.
It sure the fuck didn’t.
It also didn’t stop me from running—or maybe limping, I wasn’t quite sure—toward the guardrail where Drake had just pushed Cobie’s car over the bridge.
It hit the water below with a huge splash, and vaguely I watched as Cobie came to consciousness as the jolt of the car hitting the water jarred her awake.
I’d just reached the bridge when I heard, rather than saw, a large truck heading toward us.
Just when I made the decision to jump, I saw a truck pass—a car on a chain directly behind it—headed straight for Drake who was now laughing.
He’d seen me. He’d seen the state he’d left me in. And he knew, as well as I did, that I was about to make the last decision I’d ever have to make.
I had enough in me to get them out. I knew it.
I’d make it happen.
&nb
sp; I would.
And then I hit the water feet first.
The cool water, a huge contrast from the humid air, surrounded me. Revived me.
I swam toward the car, which was sinking nose first.
I didn’t go to Cobie’s seat. I went to the back seat and started to yank on the door.
“The locks! Unlock it!”
Cobie’s head turned, and she hit the locks.
The moment the door was unlocked, I yanked at the handle, pulling with everything I had to get the door open.
It didn’t so much as budge.
I braced both feet on either side of the door and pulled hard, but it didn’t help.
The door wasn’t going to open, and it was sinking too fast for me to do a damn thing about it.
“Move,” Dante growled.
I did and felt myself weaken even further.
Then, before I could do anything more, I sank into oblivion.
Chapter 8
Apparently when the salesperson asked if I needed help finding anything, the correct answer was not ‘my soulmate and cheap liquor.’
Who knew?
Janie
“Hello?” I answered, looking at my phone at the same time I took a bite of my pickle.
I liked pickles. Sue me.
“Janie,” Kayla whispered. “I think you need to get down to the command center…something’s happened.”
I got up, taking my pickle with me, and headed for the front door, not bothering to change.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I reached for the doorknob.
“There’s something going on with Rafe.”
And that was the last coherent thought I had for the next eight hours.
***
I rubbed my fingers along the space between my eyebrows and tried not to throw up.
“Daddy,” I pleaded. “His phone is about six miles downstream. I swear to God, he’s there.”
My father looked at me with pity-filled eyes.
“They’ve already swept that area, Janie. He’s not there.”
“He has to be there,” I replied stubbornly. “His phone would be in the water. It’s not in the water. It’s on the bank!”
“They’ve already done all the searching they’re going to do tonight,” he whispered so that only I could hear. “Baby, you need to calm down.”
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