Erika nodded and tried to smile. Jenna’s midsection turned mushy and a tear leaked from her own face.
“Stop it!” she berated herself, flicking the tear away, and then flicking her hair for good measure. She hadn’t made it through her shitty little life this long by breaking down when the going got tough.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jenna steeled herself. “Right, let’s get this organized. All I care about are the designers in this room. Ada is toast. She won’t bounce back anytime soon. Lewis is a douche, so to hell with him. Mike and Erika, I need you guys. I can’t do this building on my own, okay, so stay alive.”
Mike nodded absently. He looked spent. They all did.
“Right, Mike, are you going to try and get out tonight, or tomorrow?” Jenna continued. If she stopped now, she wouldn’t start back up again. Best to plough through until the work was done.
“Tonight. I need to shut off, and I can’t do that with a drill sergeant screaming in my ear.”
Jack, Josh, and Jenna all exchanged glances. “I’m not sure who you were insulting, Mike,” Jenna responded, “but do you want to look up flights?”
“I was insulting you, Miss I Can Take on the Mob Single-handedly, and I already did it from my phone. I figured Barney Fife could take me to the airport in an hour.”
“Okay, good work.” Jenna nodded in satisfaction. “Jack, is Erika going to your house?”
“I’ll take care of her, you take care of you,” Jack said.
“I’ll be fine, Jenna. You don’t need to worry about me.” Erika pouted.
“Erika,” Jenna said in exasperation, “I can’t function with you all weepy. Can you just…I don’t know, soldier on for a while and fall apart later?”
“Why? Afraid you’ll fall apart if I do?” Erika replied with a hint of sarcasm.
“Exactly. So please stop.” She watched Erika try to get herself back on line. If she thought Jenna knew best, she would stop at nothing to do whatever was needed of her. Right now, it was to keep herself in check so Jenna could continue to deal with this catastrophe.
“Okay…” Jenna sighed, willing her mind to keep turning. “Mike is going to the airport in an hour. Erika is taken care of, starting now. That leaves me.” She glanced at Josh, who was watching her calmly. “Are you still okay with toting me around like luggage?”
He nodded.
Silently she cursed him for his lack of expression. Even his eyes gave nothing away. She hoped he wasn’t so mad about her comment earlier that he was planning on withholding sex. That would make a bad situation worse. She needed to let go and forget about her life, and she could think of no better way.
She forced away that line of thought. It wasn’t helping.
“Okay.” She felt herself sway. Josh was there in an instant holding her upright. She pushed him away, or at least she tried. Pushing a wall of bricks took more strength than she had.
“You need to eat,” he said quietly. “And you need to let someone help you.”
“Yeah, right.” Mike barked a laugh as Erika said, “Fat chance.” They smiled at each other tiredly.
“I can do this. I’ve dealt with worse.” Jenna straightened her back, trying again to free herself from Josh’s grasp.
“You’ve dealt with worse than a man trying to gun you down?” Jack asked skeptically. It was clear he was trying to shock some sense into her so she would let the men handle it. If only.
“Much worse. Unfortunately,” Jenna mumbled. “Right. Eat. Yes. Good idea. We’ll eat—probably order in—then we’ll take Mike to the airport, then we’ll all go pass out. Or should I get some work done before I pass out?”
“You need sleep, Jenna. Leave the work until you can think straight,” Erika said over Josh’s and Jack’s protests about mentioning work at a time like this.
“Good point. I have a million things to do before they start demo, but I have a week, so… Okay, then. Eat. Oh, wait, first I need to take care of something. Jack, can I use your computer?”
“I think you need to slow down,” Jack stated, making no move to get out of his chair.
“I asked nicely. Just one thing, and then we’ll eat.”
Jack sought silent approval from Josh, got the confirmation, and moved. Jenna sank into the worn leather gratefully. She was bone-weary. She went to work on the computer.
“What are you doing?” Erika asked over her shoulder.
“Fulfilling my promises. I would hate for people to think I’m not a woman of my word. He so deserves this!”
“To who?” Erika leaned on her heavily.
“Lewis.”
Josh stiffened, but he didn’t turn back around.
“She told him she would ruin him,” Jack muttered to Josh.
“Don’t you think the guy has been through enough?” Josh asked.
“I was going to play nice until he pissed me off.” Jenna’s fingers flew over the keys as she signed into her work database and found the file she was looking for.
Josh gave her a flat look. She said, “I was going to just get him fired so he’d bugger off, and let that be it, but then he started talking a load of trash, so I feel like he deserves the full weight of my threat.”
“He told her she was slummin’ it with you, man.” Jack laughed and clapped Josh on the back. Apparently Jack found that idea preposterous.
“Jenna does not tolerate insults to people she cares about,” Erika said with a smug nod.
Jenna hissed at her to shut up. Even if that were true, it wasn’t the kind of thing she needed muddying the waters. She had one goal—getting that building made. That meant survival. Survival meant her undivided attention. Nothing else mattered.
“Maybe everything,” Jack murmured.
“I don’t know which would be worse, Jenna hating you, or Jenna loving you,” Mike said sardonically to the room.
“Mike, would you like to see what happens to people on the hated end of the spectrum? Just check your work email.” Jenna sat back and rubbed her eyes. She did actually hate that it had come to this, but Erika was right. Of all the people to speak of negatively, Josh was the last one. He’d done nothing but help her from day one. He didn’t deserve Lewis’s disgusting slander.
Mike bent his head to his phone. Everyone waited for his reaction. He did not disappoint. “Oh shit!”
“What?” Erika crossed the room in a wobble, shadowed by an overprotective sergeant.
“Is this true, Jenna?” Mike asked.
“What?” Erika asked, trying to look at his small smart phone screen.
“This document implies that Lewis is committing forgery in order to skim off the company. Who else is involved in this? You?”
Jenna flinched in surprise. “Absolutely not! There are three other people, but so far they haven’t caused me any harm, so I won’t cause them any harm.”
“But…you can’t just not tell anyone,” Mike declared incredulously.
“Of course I can. It isn’t my job to police. If our company doesn’t keep the proper checks and balances, then they’ve brought this on themselves.”
“But this isn’t from your email…” Erika said.
“I absolutely do not want my name anywhere near this. I have Lewis’s email passwords. I sent it from his account to a few people. Which brings me to you, Mike. If I were you, I wouldn’t mention this.”
“Why? What could you possibly have on me?”
Jenna’s lips pulled into a thin line.
“Believe her, Mike,” Erika warned. “Lewis had no idea she knew. She even has stuff on Don, but she won’t tell me what.”
“I have stuff on the whole company, actually. I do my research well and I know disreputable people.”
“Intel,” Jack said, staring at Jenna with singular focus. Even Josh had turned to survey her with his calculating stare. Both boys looked like they were meeting Jenna for the first time, and she fascinated them.
She rolled her eyes. She wished she hadn’t had to get so savvy
with information collection and manipulating people, but everyone survived life in their own ways. “Sometimes you need to be scary as a means to an end.” She logged out of Jack’s computer and fell back tiredly. “Right, strike Lewis off the list, that pig. What’s next? Food?”
“Here, I have menus.” Jack ducked behind the desk and pulled open a drawer. Jenna moved to get up and give him back his seat.
“No, you’re fine. Hang out.” Jack dropped the stack of menus in front of her.
Josh set a glass of water next to them. She hadn’t even seen him leave the room.
“Thanks.” The cool liquid soothed her parched throat, but she was still thirsty, not to mention hungry. And forlorn. She wanted to be held by Josh again.
Life sucked.
Josh waited until Jenna’s eyes started to droop. She was already so tired that the sleeping pill took effect immediately.
He put his hands on her back and felt her lean into his touch. Without waiting, he picked her up and carried her from the room.
“I still have stuff to do,” she said lethargically, tucking into his hold and resting her face in the crook of his neck.
The station wasn’t large, with only a few rooms, so he settled her on the couch in the witness holding room. She was so tired that she wouldn’t notice the rogue springs digging into her back or the duct tape keeping the stuffing from showing. Not a lot of money was spent on the finer things in this department. But at least they got a paycheck.
“Here, bro.” Jax stepped into the room and handed Josh some sweats and a T-shirt. “She going to be okay with you putting them on her?”
“I’ve seen it before. She won’t mind if I see it again. Making her sleep before she was ready, though…”
Jax looked troubled. He loitered in the doorway for a moment. “They’ve landed in some serious trouble. She’s a powerhouse, I’ll give her that, but she’s in way over her head here.” Jax’s nostrils flared as he half turned and looked away down the hall. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. That guy could be anywhere right now. This isn’t over.”
“Not by a long shot.” Josh knelt beside the beauty. “I’ll handle it.”
“That’s kind of what I’m afraid of. This isn’t an anything goes kind of situation. I’m a police officer, Josh. I have to color within the lines. And so do you.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Jax stared at him for a beat, his hesitation plain. Finally he stepped out completely and closed the door behind him.
Josh kept his mind professionally blank as he cleaned Jenna up and put the sweats on. He’d wiped away most of the blood after the event, but now he removed the rest. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help the pounding erection that made his mind buzz.
After an agonizing few minutes of cleaning and dressing her, he returned to Jax’s office. Jax was grabbing his car keys. “I’m going to take Mike to the airport. He’s eager to be out of our company. I put Erika in Andy’s office.”
Josh nodded and got on Jax’s computer, checking the emails he had missed in the couple of days he had been away. Since he didn’t communicate with many people, it was done quickly; he only needed to answer messages from his sisters. Next he spent some time researching the building Jenna was working on. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to find. There was one story about the trouble getting it through appropriations, whatever that was, and a sketch of what it was supposed to look like when it was finished. From the sketch it looked like a normal high-rise to him.
He was so engrossed that when Jax came through the door and settled in a chair opposite him, he started. “That was quick.” Josh clicked out of the screen.
Jax wasn’t one of those territorial men. At least not with Josh. Some cops would want Josh to evacuate their chairs immediately, but Jax was completely unconcerned as he sat in his own visitor’s chair.
“There and back. He didn’t talk much. He seems to have a grudging respect for your woman.”
“Not my woman.”
“Not yet. She’s hardheaded, but you haven’t quite met your match in the stubborn department. But she likes you. That’s fairly obvious.”
“You think so?”
Jax crossed an ankle over a knee. “Yeah. I don’t know if she’ll act on it, though.”
“Already has.”
“Not what I meant.”
The chair squeaked as Josh shifted. “I know, but she already has. She’s opened up. I don’t get the feeling she does that often. Or to many. I have my foot in.”
“Does she know much about you?”
Josh paused. He knew what Jax was asking. “She knows some about me, things I don’t generally discuss, but she doesn’t know some of the more…sensitive matters.”
Jax nodded. Josh could tell he expected that. They both knew that some things were better left until after you had the woman firmly on the hook. Even then, some stories didn’t need to be told.
“She’s tough, man.” Jax let a smile climb up his face. “I have to admit, I was skeptical. I mean, she’s a pain in the ass, sure, and she can push her weight around, yeah. But holy cow, man, she even has her boss firmly in hand. Did you hear the way she changed her tone for him? And what she did to that guy that cheated on her? How does she even get that information, let alone keep it secret? She’s tough. Not one to mess with. You might be in over your head with this one.”
Josh laughed. “Me? In over my head? She’s like grappling with a live wire, I’ll give you that. It’s keeping me entertained.”
Jax ran his hand over his hair. A curl sprang out. “She’s as tough as her friend is sweet.”
“Erika is not always sweet. She’s just in way over her head too. They are yin and yang, and they take turns wearing the different sides.”
“Huh. Well, I have a hard time keeping my hands to myself. I need to keep my distance. ”
“I started out saying that, too.”
“And look how that turned out.”
“Jenna wrapped around my little pinky. I know.”
Jax snorted.
Josh sobered. “You were right, though. They are in some real trouble. That shooter wasn’t a sniper, but this probably isn’t his first hit. They’re up against some serious thugs. Apparently thugs with money and influence. That is a bad combination.”
Jax sobered as well, which was not customary for him. He was rarely serious these days. “I sent guys to the shooting site. We have prints, and now we have a face. He’s definitely no greenie. He’s been to prison for manslaughter. He’s currently out on bail and has a warrant out for his arrest for attempted rape, robbery with a loaded weapon, and a couple other things. He’s bad stock.”
“Think you’ll find him?”
“Nope. Not before he tries to take another shot. The guys around here work hard, but they aren’t NYPD. They aren’t used to this kind of thing.”
Josh ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, let’s get some food. I’m starving.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jenna woke up with a stiff neck on an uncomfortable couch in an unfamiliar room with something like a hangover. She heard three men talking somewhere close, but not in the same room.
She sat up slowly, her head feeling like it weighed a ton but was stuffed with feathers. The last thing she remembered was drinking water. Drinking water and then talking about what kind of food they would eat. That was it. After that, black.
Maybe she’d fainted. Maybe Josh was right—she wasn’t eating enough.
She walked unsteadily toward the voices. She was wearing a large T-shirt with a police insignia and sweats that were eight hundred sizes too big. She had to hold them up as she walked in bare feet across the worn laminated floor.
Her brain was so mushy she couldn’t understand the words she was hearing. She could understand the smell of food, though. Her stomach rumbled.
She found Erika in the break room in front of a takeout Chinese buffet. Josh and Jack sat around the table with dirty but emp
ty plates. When Erika saw Jenna, she gave a squeal and got up to hug her. The two of them almost went down. With Josh’s help, and pushing, they took their seats.
“Did they tell you that I was the one that drugged you?” Erika asked in an upbeat voice.
“No…” Jenna gave Erika a stern look. “You drugged me— The water. You rat!”
“Heh! I knew you wouldn’t settle down on your own. Serves you right for trying to organize everyone’s life but your own.”
“I call foul play.” Jenna laughed, ruining her mock outrage.
“Here.” Erika pushed her picked-over plate at Jenna.
“What’s wrong with this?” Erika had a few bites of each item still left on her plate.
“It’s in my way.” She grabbed a fresh plate and loaded it up.
Jenna rolled her eyes and picked at it. This was always the way of it. Erika would eat a crap-load of food, and give her dregs to Jenna to pick at. Jenna would take it, because she enjoyed the pretense of eating, and generally just finished whatever small portions were there. They had an odd relationship.
Josh noticed Jenna’s fight to contain her hunger as Erika animatedly told the rattlesnake story to Jax. He had to hand it to Erika: when it came to manipulating Jenna into eating, she was a pro. Randomly throughout her story, she would put small scoops onto Jenna’s plate and make a comment about that item tasting like one restaurant or other. Jenna would try it just to prove her wrong, and by the time Erika’s story was finished and everyone was laughing, Jenna had eaten the same amount she would’ve if Josh had heaped a plateful for her.
It was a lot of work to get a girl to eat some dinner. Erika had it down to a science.
Josh was a little distracted by the fact that he was mentally taking notes. He wanted her, yes, but the level of intimacy Jenna and Erika had was a step beyond anything Josh had ever experienced with a woman.
Despite being a handful, she had class and talent and a good head on her shoulders, and she could stand up to him. There wasn’t one in a million like her. But was that enough to go all in?
Unexpected Hero (Skyline Trilogy Book 1) Page 24