Jason rounded the desk and stood beside her. “Myra told me.”
“When did you speak to her?”
“Last evening. I called the number on the brochure—”
“Stop.” Ava stood up straight and did her best to stare him down in spite of the six-inch height advantage he held over her. “Don’t call anyone else without consulting me first. You’ve probably upset Myra—”
“I didn’t. We had a very pleasant conversation. She wanted me to pass along her greetings and tell you she wishes you every happiness in the world.”
Ava pinched her face up tight, trying to hold back the tears. “Sweet Myra. I don’t feel guilty about leaving anyone else, but she had a good heart.”
“No one else you left had a good heart?” Jason raised an eyebrow. “I need to know about everyone you left behind. You should have told me about Dan Johnson—”
Ava felt as though she’d been punched, and gripped the table again. “Would you please stop saying his name? I don’t want to think about any of this.”
“I’m sorry, but you have to.” Jason kept his voice level, though in the past he’d always raised his volume to match Ava’s shouts. “I need to know what happened. If you think there’s any legitimate reason at all why D—this person—” Jason refrained from speaking his name at the last moment— “shouldn’t be considered a suspect, I would like to know that reason. Considering the circumstances and the timing of his arrival, he’s currently my top suspect.”
Ava felt her knees giving out under her. She clasped the tabletop desperately, but she felt as though she was being buried under an avalanche of awfulness. First her father, now the man she’d intended to marry? She wished she could forget her engagement had ever happened, but now Jason wanted her to tell him all the horrible details?
Her tears escaped in a flood, and her legs gave out completely at the very same moment. Ava fully expected to land on the floor with a thump, but instead gentle arms lifted her. She leaned on Jason against her better judgment. He perched on the edge of the desk and propped her up beside him, grabbing a handful of tissues from the box near his computer.
“Could Dan have been the man in the security image from the pedestrian gate Thursday night?” Jason asked.
Ava nodded. She didn’t even have to think about it. Not only did the man share Dan’s build, but he’d stood, spoken and walked like him. “But why would Dan want to kill me? I gave him everything. I walked away.”
“This information would make more sense if you’d tell me the whole story.” Jason shifted his arm as he spoke, and Ava buried her face against his shoulder. She felt foolish doing so, as though she’d admitted defeat, but what did it matter, really? The man had pulled her, blubbering, from his floor. He’d seen her at her worst and was about to hear her most painful secrets. She might as well find comfort where she could. And Jason had such a perfect shoulder for crying on.
“Dan was my fiancé,” she whispered once she’d found her breath. “We’d just become engaged before my mother died. He was my support through all of that. He was all I had, really, besides my business. Then I went to Lydia. When I returned, I found Dan—” Her throat swelled nearly shut.
Jason rubbed her back in that soothing manner she’d come to appreciate.
Ava continued, “He was cheating on me with my business partner, Tiffany. I left them both. I gave Dan back his ring and gave Tiffany Happily Ever After and I came here to stay.”
* * *
Jason closed his eyes as he held Ava tightly against him and wished he could erase all the awful experiences of her past. So much about the prickly wedding planner made sense now, including the reason why everyone he’d spoken to who’d known her before had called her sweet and kind. She’d changed, hadn’t she? Everyone she’d loved had hurt her so deeply she’d retreated inside a hard shell and refused to let anyone in.
Suddenly he realized the precious gift she’d given him, allowing him to witness her brokenness. He wrapped his arms more securely around her. No one was going to hurt her again, not if he had anything to say about it.
Another thought occurred to him. He posed the question as gently as he could. “Was that when you stopped trusting God?”
Ava stiffened and pulled back from him, wiping her eyes with the already-soaked tissues.
Jason pulled out a fresh tissue and wiped her eyes for her. “Ava,” he said softly, “I care about you.” It wasn’t until he’d spoken the words that he realized how much he meant them. He didn’t just care about her safety or her relationship with God, although of course he cared about those things.
He cared about her.
She met his eyes, and he watched the wariness and the anger war with the temptation to believe him.
“I want to see you smile again,” he told her honestly.
Instead of a smile or even the anger he might have expected, Ava’s face pinched with sadness. “I don’t know how I can ever smile again.” She looked him full in the face and admitted, “You’re right. That’s precisely when I stopped trusting God, and I don’t see how I could ever go back, not after all that’s happened. If God doesn’t love me, why should I love Him? And if God does love me, why would He let these awful things happen to me?”
Jason wasn’t sure if he should presume to answer, but he cleared his throat anyway. “Do you recall the body I told you I pulled off the island of Dorsi?”
“Yes—the former captain of the guard.”
“That’s right. He tried to take down the monarchy and nearly ruined the reputation of the royal guard in the process. When all the royals had fled and everything was in shambles and it looked as though evil would win, I asked a very similar question. Where was God? How could He let these things happen to the kingdom of Lydia, which has always been a Christian nation and only ever served Him?”
“Why would God allow all that to happen?” Ava asked adamantly.
“I can’t speak for God, but I do know that Lydia is a stronger nation now than we were before. The royal guard is stronger now, though we still have to prove ourselves and earn back our reputation. You wouldn’t have any weddings to plan if it hadn’t been for the insurgent attacks, because those couples wouldn’t have met. Sometimes I think God allows something good to be destroyed so that something better can grow in its place.”
Ava closed her eyes as she listened. The sorrow lines eased from her face, and she looked calmer. She opened her eyes and spoke softly. “If I’d kept my business, I wouldn’t have relocated here. I enjoy this kingdom and the royal family.”
“Is it better than what you had before?”
Ava met his eyes for a long moment. Finally she said softly, “My work is more enjoyable, certainly more prestigious. But the rest of my life?” Her gaze flickered across his face, from his eyes to his lips. Then she turned away. “I’m not sure.”
Jason didn’t know what to say. He felt attraction stirring inside him, chasing through his veins like a potent drug. Ava had been engaged before she’d left home. Presumably she’d been in love. What would it take for her to find something better here?
He was tempted to pull her back into his arms, to kiss her and insist she was better off with him, but his feelings for her were so new and unfamiliar he didn’t dare. She’d been hurt before. If he declared something he wasn’t sure of only to discover later he’d been mistaken, he’d hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt her, even if he wasn’t necessarily in love with her...yet.
Instead he decided to focus on the pressing investigation. Prince Alexander’s wedding was a mere week away. They had to catch whoever was after Ava before that event. The safety of everyone attending the wedding was at stake.
“Do you have any pictures of your ex we could circulate? If he’s in Lydia, I want to bring him in.”
“I can get you pictures.” Ava straightened and t
ook another step away from him. “But I have trouble believing it’s the same Dan Johnson. That’s a common name. It could be just a coincidence. After I broke things off with Dan, he apologized. He sent me flowers. He told me he’d never meant to hurt me, so why would he do something like this?”
“I can’t say. The man hurt you once before, and that was a surprise, wasn’t it?”
Ava closed her eyes and nodded her head slowly. “I see your point. I’ll get you the pictures.” She turned toward the door, then glanced back at him. “Do I look all right? I don’t want your men to see me—”
Jason grabbed another tissue and gently wiped away a smudge of eye makeup that had crept down her cheek with her tears. “You look beautiful,” he said and meant it.
A tiny smile played at her lips, and she sighed. “If someone I once loved is trying to kill me, guess I’d rather it be Dan than my father.” She opened the door and exited quickly.
Jason watched her go, still unsure how or why his feelings for her had changed so quickly, or—far more pressing—what he was going to do about it.
* * *
Ava no longer had any pictures of Dan, but she was able to go online and find a few decent shots. Rather than email them to Jason, she decided to print them off. Fortunately Jason’s men had hooked up her computer and peripherals, and her photo-quality printer quickly spat out the images. Ava checked the time. She had a few extra minutes before her meeting with the florists.
She slid the pictures into a manila envelope. There was time—she could walk them by Jason’s office. Email would have been faster, but, she admitted reluctantly to herself, she wanted to see the captain again. Her heart had been so full of emotions when she’d left, and everything between them had changed so quickly. If anything, she wanted to look him full in the face and try to identify what it was she saw there that helped her feel secure in spite of the many threats against her life.
Hurrying up the sidewalk to the royal-guard headquarters building, she stepped through the front door, crossed the foyer to the steel door that led to the hallway to Jason’s office, tugged on the door handle and nearly slammed into the door itself when it didn’t budge.
“Can I help you?” a voice asked behind her. Was it only her imagination, or was there a hint of amusement underneath the man’s words?
Ava turned to the bulletproof-glass panel. Ah, yes, the dispatcher would have to deactivate the lock on the door to let her through. When she’d come through before with Jason, the man must have recognized his captain and let him pass without a word.
“I need to give these to Captain Selini.” Ava waved the envelope at the man behind the glass, adding, “He asked for them.”
“The captain is in an important meeting right now. I can pass along the envelope to him.”
Of course, Ava realized, feeling foolish for assuming she’d be able to monopolize Jason’s time. He’d already shoved aside his regular duties to attend to her. She carried the pictures to the window, where a narrow opening at the base provided just enough room for her to slip the envelope through. “Could you ask him to please call me when he gets these? My name is—”
“I know who you are, Ms. Wright.” The man behind the tinted glass smiled at her, and Ava realized she’d seen him on various occasions when she visited the royal-guard headquarters, usually to grill the captain on the security details for the weddings and other events she’d planned.
But she didn’t know his name, so she simply thanked him and headed back out the front door and across the lawn to the palace for her meeting with the florists, surprised by the disappointment she felt at not being able to see Jason again.
It was silly, of course. She didn’t need to see him.
Still, her heart fluttered when her phone rang later, and she saw he was calling her. Her meeting with the florists had just ended, and she was on her way back across the palace lawn toward the palace-wall apartments. She answered the call quickly.
“Do you have a moment this afternoon when you could come by headquarters?”
“I’m free right now.” Ava turned around on the sidewalk and headed for the branch that would lead her to the royal-guard building. “If it’s not too soon.”
“The sooner the better.”
To Ava’s relief, this time when she entered the foyer, Jason was there to meet her.
“Do you have your schedule for the coming week with you?” He held open the door to the hallway.
“Of course.” She stepped through, then waited for Jason, unsure where they were headed.
He stopped in his office first as she called up the full-week overview on her tablet.
“It seems you’re only truly safe when you’re inside the palace walls,” Jason observed. “I’d like to keep you here at all times. How difficult will that be?”
“I can change the location of most of my meetings so that I don’t have to leave the palace grounds.” Ava looked over her schedule as she spoke, checking for anything that might require her to leave. “Of course, next Friday I’ll have to go in person to the Sardis Cathedral for the final check of the wedding decor, and then the rehearsal. And Saturday is the wedding itself.”
“If there’s anything you need before then, we can send a palace staff member to get it for you. Under no circumstances do I want you leaving without a full guard detail.”
“Full detail?” Ava clarified.
“At least three guards. If you have more people with you, the proportion of guards will change, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
Ava swallowed. She knew she ought to feel protected, but instead his words made her feel threatened. “Your guards don’t like me,” she reminded him.
“That’s not my fault.” His expression, which up until that moment had been compassionate, now hardened.
“Isn’t it?” she challenged him. After all, he was the only member of the guard she’d worked closely with. It seemed to her his men had picked up on his attitude.
“Ava,” he snapped, “I’m trying to help you.”
Ava stared at Jason as she debated how to respond to his claim. Should she apologize or stand her ground? Her words had been completely honest, so she saw no reason to take them back. She didn’t want his men anywhere near her, but at the same time, she knew the threat against her life was real. And though she couldn’t deny her increasing affection toward Jason, her instincts told her to push him away before she was hurt any worse.
But before she could make up her mind to say anything, Jason spoke again. “As long as you’re not planning to leave the palace grounds before Friday, it won’t be an issue. I’ve circulated the photographs you passed along to me. Hopefully, we won’t have anything to worry about by Friday.”
“Good.” Ava put her schedule away and turned toward the door. She glanced back for just a moment, unsure if she should thank him or fight with him or give in to what she really wanted and throw herself into his arms.
Jason nodded curtly.
Ava nodded back and left in silence. She wasn’t sure what they had going on between them. They could either be enemies or something quite the opposite, but Ava had far too much going on to allow herself the indulgence of wasting time trying to sort out whatever it was between her and the captain.
Until they caught whoever was trying to kill her, she didn’t figure there was any way she’d be able to examine the question with a clear head anyway.
ELEVEN
By Tuesday, Jason was ready to pull his hair out in frustration. They had no new leads, no new developments, no sign of the American Daniel Johnson, and each day when Jason called the church in Seattle, a different secretary told him Ava’s father wasn’t there. None of them would tell him where the pastor was or how Jason might reach him. The royal-wedding date was quickly approaching, and with it, the certainty that Ava would have to
leave the safety of the palace walls.
Most frustrating of all, Ava had turned cold toward him again. Or perhaps cold wasn’t quite the word. She hadn’t gone back to her argumentative ways completely, but she watched him warily, as though unsure whether he could be trusted.
As if Jason didn’t have enough on his mind, he found himself constantly stewing over just what was going on between him and Ava. They had a distinct chemistry between them, he knew that much. It had always been there, he realized now, but for the longest time they’d merely screamed at each other because of it. He didn’t want to argue with her anymore. Somehow he had to convince the hurt girl under the armor that it was safe to lower her defenses.
But as long as a killer was after her, it wouldn’t be safe for her to lower her defenses, not really.
When Jason’s phone rang in the early afternoon on Tuesday, he recognized her number and answered quickly, though at that moment he stood in front of a roomful of transfers from the Lydian army, explaining to them in detail the differences between life in the army and life in the royal guard.
“I have an hour,” Ava said without preamble. “Can I meet with you?”
“Right now?” Jason had one foot up on the table, demonstrating a proper shoe-polish shine to the new recruits.
“This is the only block of time I have free before ten o’clock tonight. It’s rather urgent.”
Jason couldn’t help wondering what qualified as urgent. Had she learned something new, recalled an old, forgotten death threat? He couldn’t put off meeting with her, not if it meant a possible break in the case. “I’ll meet you in the foyer.” He dismissed the men, instructing them to return promptly in one hour.
Ava didn’t speak until Jason closed his office door after her. Then she met his eyes and said bluntly, “I can’t do this.”
For one light-headed instant, Jason thought perhaps she was going to confess her feelings for him, reach across the desk and kiss him. But she glared at him rigidly from the other side of his desk, so clearly a kiss was the furthest thing from her mind.
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