“Yeah.” Jake grimaced, but then shrugged. “He’ll figure it out soon enough.
“You don’t think we should give him a heads-up?” Tomasso asked.
“I don’t think he’d appreciate it,” Jake said mildly, recalling his own resentment when they’d given him much the same message about his fiancée years ago. “Besides, how would you explain knowing?”
Dante and Tomasso both merely nodded, and then glanced past him and smiled.
Glancing over his shoulder, Jake found himself smiling as well. Nicole was coming down the stairs. She’d changed her clothes, put on some makeup, and her hair now flowed in soft golden waves around her shoulders. She was also carrying her purse.
“Where are we going?” he asked with a grin, moving to meet her at the foot of the stairs.
“I’m going shopping,” she answered lightly and then blushed and added, “For skirts and dresses.”
“Sounds great,” Jake said with a grin, and turned to lead the way to the coat closet. And it did sound great. The skirts and dresses had been his suggestion after all and he was thinking about how much easier things would be if she were wearing them instead of jeans. All he’d have to do was lift her skirt and—
“You don’t want to come with me,” Nicole protested as she followed him to the closet. “You’d be bored to tears.”
Pausing, Jake turned to face her and said quietly, “You can’t go alone, Nicole. Remember? Your—”
“Oh, right, right,” she said with annoyance. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”
Jake frowned. It seemed while she would now admit someone was out to kill her, Nicole still wouldn’t admit it was her soon to be ex-husband. Did that mean she still loved him? She’d claimed she didn’t, but then why was she so resistant to acknowledging that he was the only one who would benefit?
“Do you want us to come with you?” Dante asked. “Follow at a distance, maybe, reconnoiter the area and see if anyone follows the two of you?”
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Nicole said with frustration, turning to head for the stairs. “Never mind. I won’t go shopping.”
“No, wait.” Jake hurried after her, grabbing her arm to stop her at the foot of the stairs. “We’ll go, just the two of us. It’s fine. Besides, I want to help you pick them out … and change in and out of them,” he added, his voice deepening.
Nicole hesitated, but then smiled crookedly and shook her head. “You’re a pervert.”
“I am,” he acknowledged. “For you.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “And the sad thing is, I’m a pervert for you right now too.” Shaking her head, she moved past him and back toward the closet again.
Jake grinned at winning the mini battle, and then turned to Dante and Tomasso. Smile fading, he nodded solemnly.
Both men nodded back, equally solemnly, and Jake followed Nicole to the closet to get his coat. The twins would follow at a distance and keep an eye out while ensuring Nicole had no idea. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her … and might just save her life.
Fourteen
“Are you hungry?”
Nicole pulled her gaze from the passing lights going by outside the car window and glanced to Jake as she considered that question. She didn’t have to consider it long. Now that he’d asked, she was suddenly aware that her stomach seemed to be trying to eat itself. “Actually, I am.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jake murmured, his gaze on the road ahead. “We never did get to eat that chocolate cake.”
Nicole bit her lip and turned her head out the window again, trying to hide a blush as she recalled why they’d not eaten the cake. They’d had a snack at the food court when they’d first got there, so whether they’d eaten the cake was irrelevant. He’d only brought it up to tease her, she was sure, and she didn’t want to give him the reaction he was looking for and let him see she was blushing. With the average guy, Nicole wouldn’t have worried he could see her blush in the dark light of dusk, but Jake wasn’t your average guy. He’d said immortals had better night vision. How much better, she didn’t know.
“Want to order pizza when we get back?” Jake asked now and she could hear the smile in his voice and knew from that, that he was aware that he’d succeeded at making her blush.
“Yes, please,” Nicole said sweetly, and when he glanced to her, stuck her tongue out.
Jake burst out laughing at the childish action, and then took one hand off the steering wheel to reach over and squeeze her knee.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, as his fingers closed on naked skin. “Or we could eat out.”
“You already did,” Nicole said, grabbing his hand and removing it when it started to slide up her leg. Damn, just that little touch had fire traveling through her veins. She really shouldn’t have agreed to changing into one of the new skirts when he’d suggested it at the mall. They were never going to make it home without stopping at the side of the road at this rate.
“Ms. Phillips!”
She glanced around with surprise at his scandalized tone. “What?”
“Did you just say what you said?” Jake asked, eyes wide and laughing as he glanced from the road to her.
Nicole frowned, not getting it. She— “Oh!” Her eyes widened incredulously as she suddenly understood his play on words. Flushing a brilliant red now, she protested, “I meant at the food court! You ate out at the food court when we first got there.” Adding a frustrated “Ohhh,” she smacked his arm.
Jake chuckled. “You should have seen your face when you caught on.”
“Yeah?” Nicole asked, eyes narrowing. He really was enjoying this, which made her decide that since he so enjoyed tormenting her, she could do a little tormenting of her own. Smiling, she announced, “Well, I think I want dinner out after all.”
Jake’s eyebrows rose at her change of heart.
“It’s probably the only way to ensure I’ll get fed within the next several hours,” she added dryly.
“Yeah, it is,” Jake admitted, mouth spreading wide in an unapologetic smile. He then shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t seem to help myself. Every time I touch, smell, or—hell, just look at you—I want to do things that would make a prostitute blush.”
Nicole was trying to sort out what those things might be when he asked, “Is there anywhere special you want to go?”
Nicole immediately named a restaurant that she knew had good food, low lighting … and booths.
“Okay,” Jake turned down the next road to head for Highway 417 and take it across town.
They’d shopped at Bayshore Shopping Centre, a good twenty-minute drive from the restaurant. The drive would give her time to plot her attack. Nicole intended to use the low lighting and privacy of the restaurant booth to drive the man wild, in public, where he couldn’t do a thing about it. She suspected it would mean she’d find out what it was like to have sex in the backseat of a car on a dark country road on the way home. But heck, that was an experience she’d missed as a teenager, and new experiences were a good thing. Right?
They’d only been on the highway for a couple of minutes when Nicole was distracted from her plotting by a low curse from Jake. She glanced curiously toward him and then had to grab the overhead grip to steady herself as he suddenly swerved sharply into the outside lane to avoid rear-ending the car in front of them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, noting the frown on his face.
“The brakes aren’t working,” Jake said through his teeth, hands tightening on the steering wheel.
“Are you sure?” Nicole asked, and then realized how stupid that sounded. Of course, he must be sure. It wasn’t like he could be wrong about something like that. Besides, one glance down showed her that he was pumping his foot on the brake, but they weren’t slowing at all.
“Yes, honey, I’m sure,” he said grimly.
“Sorry, it was a stupid question,” she muttered, glancing toward the road ahead. It was clear for a bit, but she could see rear lights in all three lanes about a half mile ahead
. “I had the car in for its winterization last week. They checked everything then, including the brakes, and said it was fine.”
“Yeah, well they aren’t fine now,” Jake said quietly. “Worse yet, I’ve had my foot off the gas pedal for a full minute now and we aren’t slowing down.”
“Oh, that really isn’t good,” Nicole said faintly, her eyes shifting back to the road ahead again.
Jake didn’t comment. His full attention was apparently on driving … or perhaps he was trying to decide what he could do. Sensing movement beside her, she glanced over just in time to see him try the emergency brakes. Nicole instinctively braced herself for an abrupt halt, but nothing happened. Jake didn’t look terribly surprised. In fact, he seemed incredibly calm, if extremely grim. Meanwhile, she was having a major panic attack inside.
“What are we going to do?” she asked nervously.
“Downshift,” Jake answered, and did just that before hitting the hazard lights.
Nicole bit her lip and glanced out the front window again. They were coming up on the cars quickly and it didn’t seem to her that downshifting had worked. Her head swiveled to the window beside her when it started to roll down.
“Wind resistance,” Jake shouted over the sudden roar of air rushing into the SUV. “It might help a little.”
Nicole nodded, noting that he’d opened all the windows … and it was damned cold. But better cold than crashed she supposed, doing up her coat. This really hadn’t been the best time to wear a skirt, she decided, regretting changing out of her jeans at the mall.
“I’m going to use the center barrier to try to slow us down,” Jake yelled.
Nicole nodded, but didn’t bother trying to talk over the wind. Nothing seemed to be working yet. At least, it didn’t appear to her that they’d slowed any, but she kept that opinion to herself and let him do what he had to do. Nicole was extremely grateful that Jake was driving though. She’d have tried the emergency brakes, but wouldn’t have thought of downshifting, or windows … or scraping the car up against the center barrier to try to slow the vehicle. She added that last thought as the tires hit the bottom of the pear-shaped barrier. Nicole had expected the driver’s side door to scrape along the concrete, but it was just the tires … for now.
She started to bite her lip, and then quickly stopped doing that, afraid that if they crashed, she’d bite it off. Instead, she tightened her hold on the overhead grip and grabbed for the car seat with her other hand and waited.
Nicole was sure what followed only took seconds or a minute or two at the most, but it seemed much longer to her. In fact, the wait seemed interminable, and then they were mere feet behind the three lanes of cars with nowhere to go.
Jake tried hitting the horn repeatedly, but the car in front of them had nowhere to go. There were cars in front of and beside it as well. When the driver of the car beside them apparently saw what was happening and hit the brakes, slowing out of the way and forcing those behind him to do so as well, Jake took a chance and swerved into the middle lane, honking the horn the whole way. Much to Nicole’s relief the car in the next lane did the same as the center car had done and slowed quickly.
With a choice between hitting the car in front or veering to the side, Jake was moving into the lane before the car was even fully out of the way. They made it, but barely, and were now in danger of hitting the car in front of them in that lane.
Nicole was panting like a woman in labor as they slid into the opening. If Jake had been a lesser driver, they never would have made it. There was literally a finger’s width between them and the car behind them. But they did make it. However, even as he slid fully into the lane, Jake warned, “Hang on,” and continued steering to the side, sending the car off the highway altogether.
Nicole held on. She also closed her eyes and began to pray so never saw exactly what happened. She felt it though. The vehicle swerved back toward the highway as if Jake was trying to avoid something and, caught by surprise, Nicole slammed into the side window, her temple bouncing off of it just seconds before they crashed into something. The air bags exploded and the vehicle began to roll even as Nicole lost her hold on consciousness.
Jake tore the empty blood bag from his mouth, and struggled to sit up. “I’m going in.”
“No,” Tomasso boomed, and forced him back to the van floor with one hand on his shoulder. “You’re not ready. Two more bags of blood and fifteen minutes and then you should be okay to go into the hospital.”
“I want to see Nicole,” Jake growled.
“Dante is with her. She’s fine. You need more blood,” Tomasso insisted, picking up a full bag. When Jake opened his mouth to argue, he popped the bag on Jake’s still extended fangs.
Jake scowled at the large man over the bag at his mouth. It had been seven hours since the accident and he had spent most of that time stuck here in the back of the van, in the hospital parking lot, being fed blood and healing.
Jake hadn’t come out of the accident in good shape, although he hadn’t known that right away. He’d passed out when the front driver’s side had caved in around him, crushing and damned near amputating his left leg. He’d only woken up as Dante and Tomasso were tearing the buckled car door off to get him out of what would have been a metal casket had he been mortal. They’d already got Nicole out and had assured him that other than a head wound she seemed fine. She was lying unconscious in the snow while they worked on getting him out of the crumpled driver’s side.
They’d barely managed to get him into their van before the police and ambulance had arrived and had to leave him there while they handled the emergency responders and the gawkers who had stopped. Apparently, they’d smeared some of Jake’s blood on Dante’s forehead and a little on his clothes and claimed Dante was driving the car, but was fine other than a couple cuts and bruises. Obviously, they’d performed some mind control and memory altering to ensure that tale was believed, because one look at the driver’s side of the car would have immediately brought that story into question.
The twins probably would have just wiped memories and sent everybody on their way were it not for the fact that this was obviously another attempt on Nicole’s life and they wanted to be sure the police knew about it. She was mortal, and so was her ex-husband. It was better in this instance for the mortal legal system to handle the situation than to step in and take care of it themselves.
Once the police had been seen to, and Nicole was in an ambulance and on her way to the hospital, Dante and Tomasso had returned to their van and followed the ambulance to the hospital. Dante had driven while Tomasso knelt in the back, feeding Jake bag after bag of blood from the van cooler.
At the hospital, Dante had left Tomasso to tend to Jake and went in to answer more police questions and keep tabs on Nicole and how she was doing. She’d hit her head on the side window when Jake had swerved to avoid a head-on collision with a tree. However, his swerving to avoid the one tree had steered the driver’s side into another. Jake was okay with that. Better he take the brunt of it than Nicole. But he’d been going so fast the SUV had crumpled on that side, the back end had swung to the right where the land suddenly sloped, and they’d begun to roll just before he passed out from the leg wound.
“That’s good enough,” Jake said, tearing the latest empty bag away and sitting up. “I want to check on Nicole.”
“Dante texted less than ten minutes ago and said she was still resting comfortably,” Tomasso pointed out, but didn’t force him back to the floor as he had the first time. Instead, he simply reached for another bag.
“But she hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” Jake said worriedly. “It’s been seven hours. I want to see her, make sure she’s all right.”
“There’s nothing you can do for her,” Tomasso said with a shrug and held out another bag. When Jake merely scowled at it, Tomasso gave a long-suffering sigh, and then bargained, “One more bag and you can go in.”
Jake took the bag and popped it on his fangs, waiting im
patiently for it to empty. It didn’t take long, but felt like forever to him.
“You can’t go like that,” Tomasso said as Jake ripped the bag from his mouth and started to scoot along the floor toward the back doors.
Jake glanced down and grimaced at the state of his clothes. The left leg of his jeans was sliced through and hanging from the inside seam, and they were now black all the way through with his blood. His shirt was pretty bloody as well, although Jake suspected that was just transference. The air bags had cocooned his upper body from serious injury.
“Here.” Tomasso pulled a shopping bag from the front of the van. “Dante and I did some shopping while we followed you around the mall. There are joggers in there you can borrow.”
Jake accepted the bag with relief and quickly sorted through the contents until he found a jogging suit. The twins were built like linebackers and he had no doubt he would be swimming in them, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
He’d thought the worst of his healing was over, but as Jake stripped his jeans and pulled on the jogging pants, it became clear that wasn’t the case. While his leg had reknitted where it had been almost amputated, and there was a large healing scab no doubt most of the way around his upper leg, it hurt like the devil to move it. The muscles and tendons and bones were no doubt still reknitting inside the leg. But Jake merely ground his teeth together and kept moving. He had to see Nicole. She should have regained consciousness by now.
The leg buckled under him when Jake opened the van’s back door and started to get out. Fortunately, Tomasso immediately grabbed his arm to support him, keeping him from falling. He kept that hold on his arm as he got out behind him, and closed the van door. He then walked him into the hospital, half holding him up. Once inside, Tomasso grabbed a wheelchair, urged Jake into it and wheeled him into the elevators and up to Nicole’s room.
Dante was seated in a chair next to the hospital bed when Tomasso wheeled Jake in. Since Dante’s chair was on the side closest to the door, Tomasso wheeled Jake around to the far side so that he could get him as close to Nicole’s face as possible.
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