by Amy Gamet
“Figures.” Jax sighed. “There's one more thing, Logan, and I need to keep this one under wraps. Even from the other guys."
"Of course."
Jax pursed his lips. Trusting Logan with his deepest concerns was like handing over the keys to the Porsche to a kid without a license. "I need you to find out everything you can about Jessa McConnell, widow of Ralph McConnell."
There was a pause on the line, so that Jax knew Logan was familiar with the name. "Yes, that Ralph. The one from HERO Force."
"What am I looking for?"
Jax leaned his head back against the headrest. That was the twenty-thousand-dollar question. What the hell were they looking for? Something so terrible Jessa would run away from her life. "Anything extreme. She paid money for a new identity, and I want to know why."
“You've got it."
"Thanks, Logan."
Jessa walked toward the car carrying two chocolate milks and two packs of peanut butter cups. She climbed in beside him and handed him one of each.
"Thanks for cooking dinner," he said.
“You're welcome. How long are you planning on driving tonight?"
"Four or five hours."
"Wake me up when we get there." She ate her peanut butter cups and curled up on her side, facing the window.
Jax drove along the interstate, thinking. He liked having her next to him in his truck, and he didn’t like anybody in his truck.
Just like my life.
He liked having her in it, even though she clearly didn’t want to be here. They’d be spending tonight at another hotel, then they’d be back in Georgia tomorrow. No doubt she’d exit his life at the first opportunity once they were home.
Unless he could convince her to stay between now and tomorrow afternoon.
Several hours into the drive, his phone rang on the Bluetooth in his ear.
"What did you find out?" he asked Logan.
“She quit her job in Atlanta with notice months before — she clearly planned on moving. She relocated to Savannah, where she’d lined up a nursing job, but for some reason she didn’t stay there long. There's only one thing that stands out as strange, but I don't know that it's a reason to take on a new identity. She's been seeing an oncologist, even going so far as to drive back to Atlanta for the appointments.”
The lights on the road seemed to blur and drag into streaks of color. "A cancer doctor?"
"That's right. Specializing in ovarian cancer. First, Jessa saw her every few months. Lately, it's been every few weeks."
Jax felt like he was looking at a fun-house mirror where his entire perception of reality had changed in the blink of an eye. He forced his voice past the spasm of his throat. “Anything else?”
“That’s all I’ve got right now.”
“Call me the moment you have more information." He disconnected the call.
Jax was a man who wore his armor proudly. He’d worked long and hard to keep his emotions separated from his interactions with the world. But this? His armor was useless against this.
He wanted to punch something, and his hand jabbed at the steering wheel of its own accord. If Jessa were not sleeping next to him, he didn't know what he might do. But she was, and he didn't want to wake her, didn't want to ask her the questions he knew he must ask.
Didn't want to hear those answers.
He drove by a mile-marker sign. The next exit was as good a place as any to stop for the night. He needed a drink.
He needed to explode.
The dotted line down the center of the road flashed like a metronome keeping time in the background. What must she be going through? And a better question yet was how long would he have to wait to find out what was wrong with her?
By the time he pulled into the hotel parking lot, he had himself more under control. At least on the outside. He woke her gently and checked in, again finding only one room with a king-sized bed. Just as she had the last time, Jessa almost immediately took a bath, leaving him by himself.
Ovarian cancer.
He was stunned. Still in shock. He pressed a hand to his stomach, his ulcer burning once more.
He thought back to Jessa in bed, not worried about protection. He remembered when she was carsick and not feeling well. How she didn't drink her coffee. Her dream about having another child. She was sick, possibly very sick, and he was sick not knowing what he might do without her.
Did she know she didn't have to go through this alone? Did she know he would be by her side in a heartbeat, and all she had to do was ask that he be there?
Of course not. How the hell would she know that? They'd spent one night together, and here he was wishing she would tell him what was inside her heart.
She came out of the bathroom and he sat up. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself.” She eyed him warily. “Why are you staring at me?"
“Logan called while you were sleeping in the truck.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know you've been seeing an oncologist."
She turned on him so quickly he jerked his head back in surprise. "How dare you investigate me?"
He stood up. "There has to be a reason. There has to be a reason why you would do all this, why you would leave everything you knew and take on a new identity. It doesn't make any sense, Jessa. I asked you about it, and you didn't tell me the truth. What the hell was I supposed to do?"
She crossed to him. "You know what you don't do? You don't send your dogs digging through my personal life to make yourself feel better. You don't violate my privacy as if you are some god who has the right." She poked her finger into his chest. "You don't do that to someone, Jax. You don't do that to me."
"I'm sorry, Jessa."
"Dr. Davis is an oncologist. She is also my personal physician. Not because I have cancer but because she's my friend. We worked together at the hospital."
Jax bent at the waist. She wasn’t sick, wasn’t dying. Relief was like a physical loosening of his entire body. "Jesus. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Why? What does it matter to you?”
He stood up straight. "I care about you, Jessa. Is that so hard to understand? I see you struggling and I want to help."
"And I don't want your help."
"So you keep telling me. But that doesn't change anything."
She looked at him like he was crazy. "What the hell is wrong with you, Jax? It was one night. It didn't mean anything to either one of us."
He took a step toward her. “That’s not true.”
She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "It was one night of bad, lonely sex between two people who ought to know better.”
God, she was pushing his buttons. "It meant something to me, and you're lying. It wasn’t bad at all." His heart was racing, his will not equipped to stop him from doing what he was about to do. “It was incredible. Maybe I need to jog your memory."
He needed to kiss her, needed to feel her against him after believing for even an instant she might be ill. He couldn’t lose her, not to cancer, not to her own belligerence or her insistence she couldn’t trust him in her life.
He needed to kiss her, and nothing was going to stand in his way.
18
She instantly knew she had made a mistake.
He moved in and kissed her like he had every right to be kissing her, his lips at once firm and soft and demanding everything she didn’t want to give him.
A searing jolt of pure want shot through her body from the point where their mouths connected to the aching emptiness between her legs. She was helpless to control her reaction to this man, no matter how much she disliked him or how angry she had become. She’d seen more emotion from him in the last two days than in all the time she’d known him, and this side of Jax was much more difficult to ignore.
His lips came off of hers, a hair's breadth separating her from him, the sound of their breathing the only sound in her ears. “Tell me you remember," he said, nudging her forehead back with his own and taking her mouth again.
>
His arms came up around her sides, clenching the fabric at her back. He ground out against her mouth, “Tell me you remember how good it was between us, because I can't stop thinking about it."
She remembered everything.
Every touch, every noise, the rise and fall of their bodies together in the darkness. How she’d tried to make herself forget, willing the memories away as she justified her reaction to him.
She met his eyes, the gleam of knowing satisfaction in his, and she fought against the truth that her body was singing aloud, fought herself to keep her hands from his body. “No,” she whispered.
He pulled her against him roughly. "You are such a goddamn liar." He kissed her again, this time his mouth crushing hers, forcing her lips to open and take him inside. Then she was kissing him back, her hands snaking up to wrap around his neck and hold him tightly against her.
He felt so good, better even than that first night, if that was possible. Her body knew now what he could do for her, knew the fireworks they were capable of setting off, and her physical need for him was out of control. She wanted to feel that again. Needed to feel that connection to him.
He pushed her against the wall and growled against her mouth. “Tell me you remember what it felt like when I was inside you, when the whole world stopped moving until I made you come.”
He was kissing her neck and she was caught in a landslide, the earth pushing past her while she held on for dear life. “I remember,” she whispered. “I remember it all.”
He spun her around. Her legs hit the mattress and he followed her down, bracing himself above her as she opened her legs and took the weight of his lower body.
He was lifting her shirt up to her neck, pulling the cups of her bra down to expose her fully.
Would he notice the changes in her body, the fullness of her breasts, how sensitive she’d become?
“The light,” she said. “Please turn the light off.”
He took one peak into his mouth and sucked deeply.
She yelped in surprised pain.
He let go. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“I thought you liked that.”
Embarrassment was like ice in a hot drink, instantly cooling her down. She pulled her shirt down between them. “This was a mistake,” she said, pushing him off of her, and lowered her legs to the floor.
“Wait…”
She held out her arm to keep him away, suddenly fighting back tears. “No. We’re not going to do this again.”
His steely stare stayed on her. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t want a fuck buddy in my dead husband’s best friend.”
“Don’t play that card, Jessa. What’s between us has nothing to do with him.”
She wasn’t playing cards, she was grasping at straws. But the conversation was so ingrained in her memory, it was easy to pull out this particular straw. “You may have moved on with your life and forgotten Ralph, but I haven’t. I can’t. I don’t want to. And I can’t even look at you without seeing him.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t think of him at all when we were together. That’s why you feel guilty as hell. There were only two of us in that bed, Jessa. Not three, or I damn sure would have noticed. And it kills you that you forgot all about him because you only wanted me.”
The truth in his words was like the thinnest of daggers slicing quickly through muscle and digging solidly into bone.
“I hate you,” she snarled.
“Maybe you always wanted me, even when you were with him. Maybe that’s why you feel so bad.”
She reached up to slap him across the face, but he caught her wrist in midair. “Or maybe you didn’t. All I know is I was jealous as fuck of that man,” he said, “coming home to your warm bed after a mission.”
“I’ll never forgive you for taking him from me.”
He stared at her long and hard, then let go of her wrist. “I’m going to the bar,” he said, then turned and was gone.
Jessa stared at the door as the tears came, great gasping sobs for everything she’d done, everything she’d lost, and what she’d been about to do.
God help me.
She had to get out of here. She’d come with Jax because she was in danger, but their stalker was dead now and she no longer had to worry about her safety. It was time to get away from Jax, once and for all.
19
Jax sat at the bar and drank whiskey.
Jessa's words were swirling through his mind as the alcohol swirled in his stomach.
I'll never forgive you for taking him from me.
He took another sip of his drink, but it didn't erase the taste of her from his mouth or wipe clean his memory of her reaction to him. He'd been torturing himself, wondering if everything he remembered about their night together had been exaggerated. Now he was tortured by the fact that it had not.
Yet she hated him.
He’d laid it all on the line, told her how much that night had meant to him, how much he wanted to repeat it, and all she wanted was to forget.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
His cell phone rang and he saw it was Logan. "What's up?"
"I was able to access Jessa's medical records directly."
Jax’s stomach clenched. "Go on."
“It’s good news. There is nothing about cancer in these files," said Logan. "These records are just for basic checkups, as if she were seeing a general physician."
Relief flooded through Jax. She’d been telling the truth, and he couldn't have been more grateful. Jessa did not have cancer. She was going to be okay.
Thank God.
"Except for one thing," said Logan. "I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but since you asked me to look in her files, it seems like maybe it’s something I should—”
“What is it, Logan?”
“She's pregnant."
Jax slammed his drink down on the bar. "What?"
“Pregnant. You know, she’s having a baby.”
“I know what the hell pregnant means, you idiot. When is she due?”
“Uh, let me see… looks like March eighteenth.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “That was three months ago, Logan.”
“Oh no, wait. Sorry. That’s the date of her last period. What was that, like two and a half months ago?"
Jax’s senses reeled as his mind flew through the calendar. He needed to get off this phone. Needed to get out of this bar. Somehow he managed to make his voice work. "Anything else?"
"That's all I found."
"Okay, thanks." Jax ended the call with shaking fingers and got to his feet. Any alcoholic haze he'd managed to attain had already evaporated from his mind. He threw money on the bar, not waiting for change, and headed back upstairs to the room.
A baby.
He was going to be a father.
It didn’t matter how it happened, didn’t matter they hadn’t intended to create a new life. He was going to be a father, and Jessa was the mother of his child.
Awe spread its wings wide inside his spirit and he smiled a wobbling smile.
Why hadn’t she told him? Didn’t she know he’d be happy?
He walked down the corridor, not feeling the floor beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, his life had changed. He was having a baby with Jessa.
Jesus.
He laughed an awkward laugh that sounded a bit like a sob as he waited for the elevator. He was going to be a father.
He reached their hotel room and inserted his key. She stood beside the bed and straightened when he walked in. He let his eyes feast on her face. What would their child look like? Would he have her black hair, the sharpened features of her Cherokee face?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“What?”
His eyes dropped from hers and took in her breasts, her belly, and back up again. He remembered how she’
d flinched in pain when he suckled her breast. How she’d ignored the coffee and wine he’d bought for her. Her apparent sickness in the truck. He felt for what she was already going through, the changes that were taking place in her body. “About the baby."
Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened.
“Logan got your medical records. I know you’re pregnant.” His lips pressed together as he smiled. “I know you’re carrying my child.” He walked toward her and opened his arms.
She pushed him away. “You had no right to go through my medical records!”
“I was worried about you. We can do this, Jessa. Everything will be okay. I’ll support you and the baby. We’ll raise the baby together—”
“No! You had no right to go through my medical records. You just think you can do anything, that nobody’s in charge of you. And you don’t care who gets hurt in the process.”
“I needed to know why you bought a new identity, what you’re running away from. We’ve been looking at everything. Financial, medical. I need to understand why you ran away, and you weren’t helping me…”
A horrible understanding polarized his brain, and for a long moment he simply stared at her while the pieces slipped quietly into place. “Wait a second.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You knew you were pregnant and you didn’t tell me. You weren’t going to tell me.”
The look on her face was full of such hatred he was taken aback.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “You were running from me.”
She took a step backwards and he advanced on her. “You were running from me!” He shook his head, disbelief attempting to derail what was clearly the truth. “You were running from me so I wouldn’t know about the baby!”
No visitation.
Anger burst forth from him like hot lava into the sky. He turned and smashed his fist through the wall, pleased when Jessa jumped.
“My baby,” she whispered.
“Ours!” he yelled. “You weren’t going to tell me. You're carrying my child, and you weren't even going to fucking tell me! That's why you wanted a new identity, so I couldn't find you. So I couldn't find you and my own child.”