by Zoey Parker
Watching him, I thought about the hell he’d put Ellie and Peter—and me, and all the rest of us—through in the last thirty hours.
Fuck that. The man had murdered my brother. He stole that life from us. From Peter. From me. I fucking hated this motherfucker. I needed to get some payback.
“Grath!” I called out.
“’Sup?” he asked
“Make sure she does not see this.” Grath followed my eyes to McAfee, and he nodded. “On it.”
I made my way over to him, leaned low to get in his face, and said, “You remember me?”
“Yessssssss.” He was still capable of some attitude, then. Good. Gave me more to work with.
“You remember my brother?”
“Yo’…who?”
“My brother, dickwad. Big guy, bigger than you. Little smaller than me. Was friends with Ellie at that bar last year. Took you down one night, I heard. My brother.”
“That was…” And he started laughing, in that horrible nasty way that bloody fucked-up faces laugh, like death was knocking at the village gate.
“That. Was. My. Brother.”
“Yeah, well, took care of him, did’n I?” He was still laughing.
“Thought that was you. Know it for sure now.”
“Yeah. Tha’ was a fun nigh’.”
I breathed in through my nose, keeping it together. “Where’s the gun?”
“You’d like to know, huh?”
“Gotta be here, huh, McAfee? In your tent? I’ll find it. But first, I got some gifts for you.” And I laid in.
I might have kicked the man a few—many—times when he was down. He fucking had it coming.
My attention over the next few minutes was all on McAfee, making sure he was feeling more pain, and that he was aware it was me giving it to him. Target’s second shot had got him in his lower right ribs—he probably had a cracked rib and a punctured lung, but it wasn’t a death shot.
Some of the guys eventually pulled me away, and they took over tying his ass up, and letting some more steam off on him when they felt it necessary.
I called out to Bull, told him to check the tent for the gun that killed Keith. He was all over that shit, made sure the guys breaking down camp were catching everything they could as evidence. Smartphones were out in force, photos and videos were taken, the works.
Grath had called Steph, who was coming out with his own team, but they’d be awhile on the road. Still, I was reassured that everything was being done right to take this motherfucker off the streets for the better part of the rest of his life, if not all of it. He was going down, long and hard.
By the time I made it back to Ellie’s side, she was looking relieved and—something else, but I couldn’t read it. One thing was clear: she was ready to go, as she finished tying up the huge long scarf she used to carry Peter around in, making a massive X across her chest.
“How’s he doing?” I asked, putting my hand lightly against his back, trying to feel his breathing, desperate to touch him and see for myself that the kid was okay. Damn, thirty-so hours was a long fucking time. It was really just hitting me now, how scared I had been—and how scared Ellie must have been.
I’d been working: on the road, searching, hunting, making calls, doing sweeps. Active. I hadn’t allowed myself time to stop and think much. But Ellie, she had been at home, just waiting for a call with news or …
But now that we had Peter back, secure, alive—now I felt it. And the fear, and the relief—I got something in my eyes again. Shit.
“He’s okay. He ate—poor little guy was hungry. I think he’s gotta be dehydrated. I don’t think he ate the whole time he was gone. He was crying so hard, but it was so weak…”
“We gotta get him checked out, Ellie. ASAP.”
“Yeah, I know. We have to go. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t care what happens with Brian—I don’t want to wait around to find out. I need to get Petey out of here. Like, now, Jack.”
I nodded, completely in agreement. “Hold on, let me get Patch. He’s got a sidecar on his bike, brought that one for a reason. You climb in there, and we’re out of here. You sure you want to be the one to carry the baby on the trail? We can wrap him on me, might be easier for you.”
She thought about it for a second, but shook her head. “No, thanks. He’s mine. He needs me. I’ll be okay. I just want to go.”
I looked at her a second, knowing there was more to her rejection than the surface intention, but not clear on what it really meant. Still, she was the mama, she got to make that call.
“Be right back.” I then hailed Patch to join us—he would, after all, be a hero of the day—and we were off, following the cheese puff trail.
It didn’t take that long for us to get back to the trailhead—I carried all our bags except for her water-pack, which I had unloaded of all other non-essentials.
We got back to the main parking lot in record time. As I got her and Peter settled back in the truck, I asked her, “You sure you’re okay to drive? I could leave my bike here, come back for it tomorrow or something. No need for you to drive unless you want to. You’ve been through a lot, baby.”
“No, I’m okay. I can make the drive. Peter’s exhausted, he’s just gonna sleep. He’s fed, he’ll be fine. I just need to go now, Jack. I just need to go.” Her eyes were pleading.
The woman was on a mission, and I nodded my assent. So I played escort on my bike, and we headed straight back to Tucson.
Patch, whose old lady had a habit of getting pregnant—thus the sidecar—had made excellent use of his cell phone in the park’s main Visitors Center parking lot, where Ellie had parked my truck. His woman made an emergency call to her baby doctor and then got me word of which hospital to take Ellie and Peter to immediately upon arrival in town, so we were able to get the baby checked out first.
Throughout the whole rest of the day and night, at the hospital while they were putting the baby through a slew of tests—an echocardiogram, chem levels, other stuff I didn’t know what—Ellie would not look at me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. I tried to hold her hand once, but she pulled away from that, too.
I knew she was stressed out. I knew her emotions must have been overwhelming. I knew she was exhausted and probably dehydrated. I tried not to take it personally. But it was feeling personal. And it did not sit well.
I stayed pretty silent. I got her water, juice, milk, food, magazines, a pillow and a blanket—anything and everything I could think of to make her more comfortable.
And I got nothing back from her. She accepted the gifts with nods. She really wasn’t even speaking to me.
It was starting to freak me out, but I figured the hospital where her baby was being tested and poked and prodded was neither the time nor the place to have a come-to discussion.
I had no idea what she thought I had done wrong, so along with the rejection, I was starting to get pissed off. We were supposed to be pulling together by this point. What the hell was wrong with her?
Finally, after long hours, Peter was pronounced well enough to go home. He had been severely dehydrated, but nothing else came up to show that he was otherwise any the worse for wear from the whole damned ordeal.
I escorted them back home, she showered and changed into her pajamas, and I paced. When she emerged from the bathroom, she aimed directly for her bedroom, but I was standing in the arch that led from the living room to the bedroom hallway, my arms braced above me on the frame, waiting to get her attention.
She knew it. She knew she owed me an explanation of whatever it was that was going on in her head. So she stopped and looked at me. Her face looked like death.
I took a step toward her, wanting nothing more than to hold her in my arms, to smell her clean scent, to comfort her with my body, to breathe her in.
But she took a step back and wouldn’t look at me.
She didn’t speak for a minute. We both waited it out.
“I almost lost him. I almost lost him, Jack, because
I wasn’t focused on him. I can’t allow that to happen again. I have one job, and I failed. So—I’m sorry, Jack, but I really need to—I can’t allow myself to be distracted. Not by…I…”
I knew what was coming, now. I got it.
“Me.”
She looked up at me sadly. “Yeah.”
We stared into each other’s eyes for several seconds, and I felt like the wind had been punched out of my gut. But I understood.
“I need to do this, Jack. I need to learn how to do this on my own, with and for Peter. I can’t allow… I just need to know that I can be enough, and do this on my own. I know we need your help, that there’s still a long time to go to get the trust. But…” Again, she didn’t want to put it all in words.
“I get it, Ellie. You want me out of the picture.”
She didn’t respond, still didn’t look at me. But she closed her eyes, her head turned away.
Fuck. I hadn’t seen this coming.
I was gutted, but needed to get us through this, figure it out. I didn’t want her to see how her decision affected me. Here I’d been thinking…well. Obviously, I was wrong. I spun out our next moves, to make this easier for both of us.
“So, here’s how we play this. I’ll move into an apartment ’til the six months are up, you and Peter stay in the house. It’s easier for you here. When you get the money, we can get you settled wherever you want. I don’t want to make this hard for you. But I want you to remember: I am and will always be a part of Peter’s life, and by extension, a part of yours. I’m not going away like that. You got me?”
She turned her back on me and moved to her bedroom door, nodded briefly, and shut me out.
Chapter 24
Ellie
It had been three weeks. Three long, miserable weeks.
As promised, Jack had moved out the very next day. I didn’t know where he was staying; I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell me.
He came over every few days, wanting to spend time with Peter. He always called beforehand, to make sure we were home, and I think to give me warning. When he came, I left. I’d go grocery shopping, or to the library, or to a park—anywhere, so as not to be in his way.
He’d told me I didn’t need to clear out, but for my own sanity, I really did. I couldn’t be around him without regretting my decision, without showing him how much I craved his company, his presence, his body, his attention.
I knew this whole thing was on me, but in the long run, I also thought he would thank me for it. Our marriage was not real—it had never been real, it never could be real, right? We had married out of financial necessity, for Peter. That was the whole point of the arrangement, to make it easier for us to end it once the money came in.
He didn’t love me, and I didn’t love him.
Except…I was beginning to think that I did love him. That I had grown to love him. And that killed me, because I was also the one who had pushed him away.
Jack was so good to us. He was amazing with Peter. Throughout and after the kidnapping and Chiricahua crisis, he was nothing but generous and supportive, totally engaged, and totally dedicated to fixing it. And I knew, deep in my heart, that he absolutely did love my son—that was easy to see.
In the short time that we had lived all together, Jack had learned how to do the daily stuff—how to warm up a bottle, how to burp Peter and change his diapers, how to hold him, engage his interest, and shower him with love, just like any other daddy—just as I imagined Keith would have done.
Jack was daddy material, through and through—which probably would have shocked the heck out of him, had anyone suggested such a thing, even just a month or two ago.
Beyond that, Jack was good to me. Even after I told him I needed him to go.
He continued to check on me regularly, to see if I needed anything. He brought gifts to the house for me almost every time he came over. Baby stuff, or bath products for me, or take-out so I didn’t have to cook. He never came over empty-handed.
He kept on fixing up the house and cleaning up spaces that had previously been piled with man-junk. The guy was constantly making improvements so that I would be more comfortable.
I had thought, three weeks ago, that I would do much better without Jack in my life, distracting me. But the truth was becoming clear now: not having Jack more in my life was distracting me, and I didn’t like it at all.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him, missing him. I missed his voice, his laugh, his phenomenal scent. I missed his body, his size, his strength. I missed his eyes, his arms, his presence. I just missed him.
I’d gone and fallen in love with the guy. Brilliant. Just what I had promised myself I would not do.
Was there any chance…any hope…that—just maybe—Jack might have it in him to come to love me, too?
Could we make this work?
I didn’t know if he’d even want me, now that I had pushed him away so hard. But I was starting to think that I owed it to myself, and to Peter, to lay it on the line.
I had no idea what Jack thought or felt about me at this point. Sure, he’d been super generous and nice, doing all these great things for me in the past three weeks—scratch that. Jack had been doing great things for me since the very first day I met him.
He came off like a big tough badass biker dude—and yeah, he was that, for sure. But he was also supremely generous, and big-hearted, and caring, in his own way. He had some macho issues, but they paled in comparison with his goodness.
And I could call him out on them, and even as he would defend his Neanderthal ways, he would also see my point and laugh at both of us in our opposite corners of the ring.
Yeah. I needed to talk to him again. I needed to be real. I needed to allow myself—and us—to see if what we had could possibly be something more than I had ever allowed myself to hope for before.
My biggest fear now was that he really didn’t want me. But I had to ask. I had to know.
# # #
I had dropped Peter off at Holly and Bull’s house—she had quickly established herself as Grandma Holly, despite the lack of blood relation, and she awesomely offered to take Peter when I had called a few hours ago, even before I had the chance to ask her to do just that.
I had given myself a spa-shower, going the whole nine yards with the shaving, salt and oil rub, eyebrow fixing, blow-dry, et cetera. Then I dressed in my favorite sexy sundress and shoes. I was on a mission, and I wanted to be looking and smelling and feeling my very best.
I was freaking nervous.
I knew he was at work—I had actually called to verify this with Trini and asked her not to let on that I had called to check. She looked me up and down when I entered the shop, then smirked at me hard and gave me a double thumbs-up. Super subtle.
But I wasn’t here to be subtle. I figured, go all-in or go home. I was going all-in.
So, in response to Trini, I gave her a small smile, and headed straight back to Jack’s office. His door was mostly shut, but I could hear him talking. I just kept up my pace. Nothing was going to side-track me now.
I knocked lightly on the door as I opened it wider, and found him on the phone. He’d been facing his computer monitor and talking numbers, but as soon as I entered his eyes were on me, and he said, “Listen, I’m gonna have to call you back.” And he hung up the phone.
I closed the door behind my back and, with both hands behind me, leaned against the door, letting his eyes take their fill.
“Something on your mind?” he asked, his voice coming out a little lower than normal, a little growly.
“Yeah.” Wow. My voice had dropped, too.
I was so aware of him—how beautiful he was to me, his eyes, his scent, his very presence—that for the moment, I couldn’t think beyond that.
He gave me several seconds, but when I said nothing more, he prompted, “What is it, Ellie?”
Whereas when I had first entered, his eyes had been warm, surprised, welcoming. But now, he looked guarded, colder. Crap, I was scre
wing this up already.
“I made a huge mistake.”
“Yeah, you made that clear several weeks ago.” He was turning his attention back to the stuff on his desk.
“No, you don’t understand…Jack, I really fucked up. I didn’t know…I… Would you just please stop that and look at me?” I was starting to panic. I needed his eyes. I needed him to be open to hearing what I had to say.
He gave it to me immediately. “You want my attention? You got it for two minutes. Then, I got work to do.”
Okay, that was a little harsh, but fair.