by Iris Abbott
“I’m going to talk to the manager. These keys may be quaint, but if you ask me they’re a security hazard. Anybody familiar with the town would know exactly what hotel and room to find you in with just a glance.” Lucian slid the key into the lock, but before he turned it he glanced down both ends of the hall. It was empty, so he turned back to Jessica. “Stay here while I check your room.”
“This is silly,” she protested. “I’m capable of doing that myself. You really didn’t have to come up here.” She wasn’t just fighting Lucian. She was fighting herself. The fact that he had gone out of his way to help her all evening was making her warm and tingly inside. She couldn’t afford warm and tingly with a man right now.
Lucian just ignored her. He turned the key, pushed open the door, and stepped inside. The room was neat, everything in place. It was another piece to the puzzle that was Jessica. She was meticulous and detail oriented. He was convinced she was an engineer or more than likely an architect.
He had heightened senses including: sight, smell, and hearing. Her room appeared to be empty and in order. He opened the door wider and finally allowed her inside. “It’s safe, come on in.”
Jessica pushed past him closing the door at the same time. She tried to be nonchalant about the situation. “I wasn’t expecting trouble, were you?” Lucian didn’t answer. She let out an irritated sigh. Had she really expected him to?
“Would you like a drink? I haven’t looked, but I’m sure there’s something in the mini-bar if you want it.”
“Whatever you’re having is fine.” He wasn’t in the mood for cheap alcohol, but he wanted more time with Jessica. He was still trying to figure her out and he could be quite single-minded when he wanted to get to the bottom of something.
He sat down on the small sofa closest to the door and waited for her to join him. He watched her take out two small glass bottles from the mini fridge. She disappeared into a room he assumed was the bathroom. She returned with two small glasses. “I’ve got rum and there’s a cola in the refrigerator. How does coke and rum sound?”
Lucian nodded. She grabbed the can of soda, pulled the tab, and split the dark fizzy liquid between the two glasses. She sat one glass down on the table and handed the other one to Lucian. Then she offered him the small bottle of amber liquid. “I’ll let you pour the alcohol yourself.”
Lucian screwed open the top and poured about half of the tiny bottle into the soda. He waited until Jessica had done the same. Then he settled back into the sofa cushions and tried to get comfortable.
Jessica swirled the glass trying to get the two different liquids to mix. Lucian looked like he was settling in for the long haul. The possibility sent little jolts of desire zinging through her body. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. His presence was really making it hard for her to get comfortable.
In an attempt to soothe a bad case of nervous energy, Jessica gulped her drink. It went down the wrong way and she started coughing. When she finally caught her breath, she gave Lucian a horrified look. “Sorry about that.”
This was a good opportunity. He might as well take advantage of it. “You seem unusually skittish. Why is that, Jessica?”
She tried to deflect him. “I don’t normally invite strangers into my hotel room. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Let’s call it a night.”
Lucian slid to the edge of the couch and turned toward Jessica. “No, I’ve been observing you all evening. I don’t think this has anything to do with me.”
“Then you underestimate the effect you have on women.”
“On the contrary, but I know there is something else going on with you and I’m not leaving until I know what it is.”
Jessica’s back went ramrod straight and she crossed her arms in front of her. “Is that a threat?” She abruptly stood and moved to the other side of the room. It was imperative she put more space between them. She couldn’t think when she got too close to that man!
“No, but keeping Enigma safe is my job. If you’ve got trouble breathing down your neck, I need to know about it and the sooner the better.”
Oh she should have known. She berated herself and cursed her rotten luck. Leave it to her to attach herself to someone in law enforcement. Was the United States Marshals Service looking for her? “I haven’t broken the law if that’s what you want to know. It’s been a long day and I really want you to leave now.” She started walking toward the door.
Lucian noted she was careful to keep furniture between them the whole time. It bothered him that she was even more wary of him now. He thought he’d fish a little and see if she’d bite. He made no move to get up, but continued to sit on the edge of the couch watching Jessica’s every move. “I know you’re on the run. They’re looking for you. Now I want to know why.”
Jessica panicked. She started pacing back and forth in the small area by the door. She continuously twisted her fingers together. Finally she stopped to face Lucian. “Look I promise to leave town first thing in the morning, but I am not going back into witness protection. I nearly got killed last time. Why do you think I struck out on my own? You can’t send me back!” Her eyes begged him to understand. This was her life and she had to do whatever she could to protect it.
Lucian couldn’t stand it anymore. He went to her and wrapped his arms around her trembling body. “Here in Enigma we protect our own.” He squeezed her as hard as he dared without crushing her. If he could transfer some of his strength to her he would. The overwhelming need he felt to protect her was more than the duty he upheld to protect all around him. It was much more. He was going to have to mark her soon or his cat was going to go feral.
He led her to the couch. He sat down and pulled her into his lap. He was pleased when she didn’t resist him. Instead she buried her face in the side of his neck. That caused another problem. His body reacted to the nearness of hers. Her curvy backside pushed against his groin and his erection was steadily growing. He had never had trouble focusing before, but she was making things mighty difficult for him right now.
He gritted his teeth. He had to find out why Jessica was in danger. He used a finger to lift her chin and looked right into her sapphire blue eyes. “I need to know what I’m dealing with here, Jessica. Who are you running from and why?”
Mad at herself for walking into his verbal trap, Jessica just crossed her arms and tightened her lips.
“I’m not leaving until I have an answer.” He waited. Still there was no response from Jessica. “I can sit here all night. What about you?”
Jessica uncrossed her arms and scooted off his lap and to the far end of the sofa. She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. “The least you know the better off you’ll be.” She lowered her head and looked at the hands resting in her lap. She didn’t want to leave Enigma, but she would if she had to. “I’ll pack my things tonight, and I promise I’ll be on the next bus out of town.” Now she did look at him. She grabbed both of his hands in her own and squeezed them as tight as she could. She wanted to make sure she had his attention. “Please don’t tell anyone I was here, no matter who asks. That’s for your safety as well as mine.”
Unless all the demons of hell had escaped and were hot on her trail, Lucian could handle anything or anyone that came his way. “Not acceptable. Trust me when I say your days of running are over. You’re making a stand here and it will not be your last. Now why don’t you tell me exactly what we’re up against, so we can plan the best strategy?”
Jessica jumped up from the sofa and paced back and forth in front of Lucian. Why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone? “Death is what you’re facing. Mine and possibly your own if you don’t let me go and forget you ever saw me.”
“I doubt it.”
She paced faster. His blasé attitude was almost the last straw. Why did she get stuck with the one man who thought he was invincible? Maybe she should tell him the whole horrific tale and see how far and fast he ran then. She took a deep breath, walked over to the sofa, and sat
back down.
“I came by my fascination with the Russo castle honestly. I am an architect or at least I used to be.” Lucian reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder. She soaked up the soothing contact. It gave her the courage to continue. “Almost two years ago I started my first job with an architectural firm outside of Houston.” She closed her eyes lost in thought. Lucian didn’t interrupt her and she kept talking. “I was so excited. I’d been working toward this one goal for years. I love planning, designing, building, and anything else about creating a building from start to finish. I thought my dreams were about to come true, instead I walked into a nightmare worse than anything you could imagine.”
Lucian doubted that. He’d seen a lot that she wouldn’t even be able to comprehend. He slid closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She was trembling and he pulled her into his body. She didn’t resist so he continued to lightly rub little circles on her shoulder and arm.
Jessica was thankful for Lucian’s quiet support. She sucked in a deep breath of air and continued. “The first couple of months went smoothly. I finished employee orientation and began working on a project with one of the firm’s newest partners. The project was in the last phase, the building phase of a large business park. I was overworked and getting by on about five hours of sleep a night, but I was having the time of my life. I was trying to learn as much as I could. I was already working toward my next goals. Eventually I wanted to head my own projects and I wanted a partnership with the firm.”
Lucian turned sideways and pulled Jessica firmly in front of him. Her back snuggled into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her. “I bet you were great at your job.” He hadn’t needed his heightened senses to tell that her interest and enthusiasm for the castle had been real. She had hung on every word Julie said about the place.
“I don’t know about that. I wasn’t really there long enough to move out of the gopher phase.” She pressed into the solid comfort of Lucian’s body. Her memories were coming hard and fast now. She tried to find words, but nothing came. A shudder ripped through her body.
Lucian could feel the terror invading her mind. He knew she needed to tell this story her way and in her own time. He was anxious to hear what had happened to Jessica, but he wasn’t going to rush her. He lifted her hair and placed a light kiss right where neck and shoulder meet. “We’ve got all night. Take as much time as you need.”
Jessica took a deep breath and then another. Lucian managed to surround her with warmth and light that helped fight the fear and darkness bubbling inside. She hadn’t talked about this since the trial had ended months ago. It had been festering inside her and she needed to get it out. She needed to talk to someone about what had happened to her, instead of being grilled for information. Even though she’d just met him, her intuition was telling her that Lucian was important to her, and deep down she knew she could trust him.
“About three months into the job, I was working late as usual. I noticed that the head architect had forgotten a set of blueprints that were due to the general contractor first thing in the morning.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Silly me, I just couldn’t help myself. Instead of calling it a night and going home as I should have done, I drove out to the construction site for the business park.”
She gave a delicate little shrug that belied the inner turmoil of her emotions. “I thought I was being so smart. I thought I could just slip into the trailer the contractor used as an office and leave the blueprints. We had a key at the firm,” she explained. “It was supposed to be a quick in and out. I had it all figured out.”
Jessica was shivering from head to toe, but she continued. “I got a bad feeling as soon as I drove into the gravel parking lot. Ambition outweighed common sense, and I got out anyway. At first I thought the place was deserted. My car was the only one in the lot.” She shuddered and then grabbed Lucian’s hand for extra support. “But when I started paying attention to my surroundings, I heard the low rumble of machinery. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. At first I thought it might be someone testing or repairing a piece of equipment in preparation for the next day of work. This contractor had an excellent reputation of finishing on time, you see.”
Lucian knew whatever she was getting ready to reveal was not going to be pretty. He leaned over and picked up the glass of rum and soda and placed it in front of her. “Here take a sip of this. I think it will calm your nerves.”
Jessica cradled the glass in her hand before taking a sip. “Thanks for that.” She handed the glass back to him. “I picked my way through the site. I still had every intention of dropping off the blueprints and leaving before anyone saw me. Fate had other plans however. The glint of metal under the lights caught my attention.” She turned into Lucian and rested her head against his chest. The strong steady beat of his heart beneath her ear was more comforting than all the rum in the world.
“A man screamed and then I heard a loud popping sound! I immediately knew it was gunfire and I slipped behind a stack of construction materials. There was another scream and another bang, and then another. I peeked around my hiding place. I saw a well-dressed man I didn’t recognize, the owner of the construction company, the general contractor, and a couple of well-muscled men. The men with all the muscles were the ones holding the guns, hired thugs I guessed. I saw them roll the three men that had been shot into a pit. Then someone tilted the drum of a cement mixer, and covered the bodies with wet cement.”
She took a deep breath. “I was so scared. I knew if they saw me I was dead too. I waited a few seconds. The suits went into the contractor’s office and the thugs stayed with the cement mixer. Their backs were to me, so I made a run for my car. I jog a lot, so it only took me a minute or two to reach the safety of my car. After that I didn’t care if they knew I was there or not. I started the engine and raced out of that parking lot. Gravel was flying behind me, but I didn’t care. I just had to get out of there. I kept glancing in my rearview mirror expecting to see headlights coming up behind me, but there was nothing. I think the cement mixer must have drowned out the sound of my car.”
“Thank the gods for that,” Lucian whispered into her ear. Lucian had almost seen it all in his lifetime, and he’d fought too many battles to count. But this was the first time he’d ever felt helpless. Knowing that the flame of the woman he now held in his arms could have been cruelly and carelessly extinguished without them ever having met was enough to bring him to his knees if he’d been standing.
“So you are running from these murderers?”
“Something like that,” she agreed. “It’s a little more complicated. “I joined traffic on the highway and thought about going back home. In the end I didn’t dare in case they had followed me after all. I really wanted someone to talk to, but I didn’t know who I could trust at work and I didn’t want to endanger any of my friends.”
“What about your family?” Lucian asked this question hoping for some insight on whether she could be Brianna’s long lost great niece.
Jessica shrugged. “I don’t have any family, at least none that I’m aware of.” She sniffed and a lone tear fell onto Lucian’s shirt. “When I was little I used to dream I had a family out there waiting for me, but that was a long time ago.”
Lucian wanted to tell her about Brianna and Brittany, but didn’t dare. First of all he didn’t have proof. He didn’t believe in raising false hopes. Jessica had been through enough. Secondly, no matter how much he wanted to be the one to share the good news, it should be Brianna who got the honor.
“What happened to your family?” He rubbed comforting circles on her back and waited for her answer. She stiffened against him, but didn’t move away. Several minutes ticked by. Lucian continued to hold her and waited. He hated waiting, but really what else could he do.
Finally Jessica cleared her throat. “I don’t know. I was found in the desert near Sedona, Arizona. My parents couldn’t be located and no one came forward to claim me. I was put in the foster care system
. The couple that found me petitioned the state and later adopted me. They were killed in a house fire when I was eight. I was put back in the system. No one wanted me on a permanent basis.”
She sniffed again. “I excelled at school even with the moving and the turmoil. I decided early on that I wanted to be an architect. I set my sites on the University of Texas. I worked my butt off to earn a scholarship, because I knew I couldn’t afford the out of state tuition. I succeeded and left Arizona without a backward glance.”
There were several witches living in and around Sedona. It could be a coincidence, but Lucian didn’t really believe in those. He was pretty sure Brianna was going to get a match when the DNA results came back. “I’m sorry your childhood was so traumatic.”
“Me too, but so far my childhood was a piece of cake compared to the reality of my adulthood.” She leaned up and jutted out her chin in a determined angle. “I don’t want you to think I’m a coward, Luc.”
He squeezed her tight and for the first time he brushed his lips across the luscious, pink, petal soft lips of the woman in his lap. She tasted like strawberries sprinkled with the tart sweetness of magic. He wanted to deepen the kiss, but reluctantly pulled away. “I would never consider you to be anything but a fiery redheaded enchantress. Now tell me the rest.”
Jessica entwined her fingers in the soft cotton of his tee. “I thought about pretending I’d never been there for just a second. Deep down I knew I couldn’t do that. Instead of going home, I drove to the closest police station. I demanded to see whoever was in charge. Luckily for me I got a captain who wasn’t in the pocket of the invading drug cartel or local drug dealers. He took several men to the construction site and they found the bodies exactly where I said they would be. They swept me away to a safe house under protective custody. Then they arrested the owner of the construction company and the general contractor. Faced with a detailed description of how the murders had occurred and the existence of an eyewitness, they made a deal with prosecutors and agreed to testify against the leader of a drug cartel trying to establish itself on this side of the border.”