by Gina Kincade
“They show you their dead bodies?” The idea flashed to her in a blaze. Of course! They must lead him away. He didn’t just know – they showed him.
He nodded, his jaw clenched. He looked at her, and she saw the naked fear in his eyes. He was afraid of what she’d think of him, as if she might believe he could be a freak or a ghoul.
“Do you think your ability has anything to do with your Native American blood? Some sort of ancestral connection to the spirit world?” she asked curiously, and his shoulders began to shake. His whole body convulsed as silent laughter tore through him, contorting his mouth and looking as though it made it hard for him to breathe.
“This is funny? My question is funny?” Self-conscious shame crawled over her, making her first hot, then cold. Was he laughing at her?
He sobered at once and released her hand so he could cradle her face between his palms. “No.” He shook his head. “No, Rosie. I have a feeling my grandfather is going to love you. You’re so intuitive. Apparently there have been many Great Eagles in the past who were spirit guides like I am. I’m laughing because you’re so earnest. You didn’t blink an eye when I told you I could see ghosts. You just asked if I thought it might be connected to my heritage.” His chest shook with laughter he tried to suppress.
“Goddamn,” he said, kissing her. “I could fall hard for you if you let me.”
Her heart seemed to stop beating, and the world dimmed and brightened. His words made her feel like she did when she healed someone. Giddy and dizzy and full of incredible clarity and joy. Fall for her?
“Same thing goes for me, Great Eagle,” she whispered, kissing him back.
“Really?” He smiled against her mouth and slid his fingers through her hair. “You really think you could?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?” Was he deaf? She forgot to wonder when he deepened the kiss, sending skyrockets of joy pin wheeling through her system.
He carefully avoided touching her throat. He held her as if she were made of the finest spun glass. As if she were precious.
“You don’t think I’m a freak, do you?” she asked as he carefully lowered her to the mattress so he could move on top of her.
“What?” He lifted his head from her bare breast to stare incredulously at her.
“My hands,” she said, gulping back tears. Where the hell had all her joy gone? Fear, wild and irrational, engulfed her like an out-of-control fire spreading throughout her nervous system. Jesus, was she going to cry? “Do you think I’m a freak because of my hands?”
He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized had spilled from her eyes.
“Is that what everyone else you’ve ever told has thought?” His voice was so gentle she wanted to wrap it around herself like a warm blanket.
“Except for Cap.” She gulped back tears as best she could. Stop falling apart on him. She was coming apart at the seams, but she’d told him hours and hours ago. Why was she imploding now? “He thinks I’m an asset.” She could barely get the words out her throat hurt so much. “I make him shine.”
“Were you there this afternoon when he was threatening to kick my ass if I mistreated you in any way?” Jack asked. “He called you special, Rosie. You don’t call assets special. Not with that kind of glint in your eye. You say that about someone you care about. Like a friend. Or a daughter.”
Cap thinking of her as a daughter? Now she’d heard every damn thing.
“You don’t understand. You think you do, but you don’t. You have a father who cares about you. Mine doesn’t give a shit. The day I turned eighteen, he told me to get the hell out of his house. I didn’t come back here because I couldn’t wait to get back. I came here because I had nowhere else to go, and this was the only place that had ever felt like home. But it’s not. Nobody gives a damn about me. Not really. You’re crazy if you think Cap cares. Crazy!” She burst into loud, ugly tears.
“Hey!” He pulled her up into his arms, hugging her so tight she had trouble breathing. “Hey. I’m not crazy. And neither are you. And you’re not a freak either. You’re special. Just like Cap said.” Jack held her away from him so he could stare her in the eyes.
She looked down in shame, gulping to get her breath back. Oh, God, she hurt so bad inside. In a place she hadn’t let herself acknowledge until tonight. Until Jack. He’d ripped down her barriers and left her bare against the world. What if he went away? What the hell would she do then? She would break into a thousand pieces and never come together again.
“You are the strongest, most amazing woman I ever met.” Jack sounded like he really meant it, too. Oh, God, it hurt to breathe. It hurt to exist.
“I don’t want to be a freak,” she grated out. “I want to use my powers to help people. I try so hard. And everyone pushes me away.”
“You push us away,” Jack said. “Because you’re afraid to let us in. You’re not a freak, okay? You’re not. If you are, then I am too, and, goddamn it, I’m no freak.” He gave her a little shake.
“Maybe my power was handed down to me from my blood family,” she whispered, afraid to look at his blazing eyes. She forced herself to look up. “You think?”
“Maybe,” he agreed, and he smiled at her. “Want me to help you find out someday?”
“I’d like that.” Understatement of the history of mankind.
“Told you we made a great team.” Jack took her chin between his fingers. “Tell me you think we make a great team.”
“We make a great team,” she repeated.
A sly grin curled the corners of Jack’s mouth. “Rosie D’Angelo, say it like you mean it.”
“We make a great team!” She all but shouted the words, as much as she could shout with her damn throat in such bad shape.
“Now say ‘We make a great team – in bed,’” Jack coached.
She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. Jesus Christ, her emotions were bouncing around like giant ping-pong balls. If she didn’t watch it, she’d end up hanging upside down from the ceiling fan screaming ‘Wheeee!’ as she rotated around and around.
“I guess we’re going to need some practice,” he decided, lowering her to the mattress before claiming her mouth with his.
“Lots of it,” she agreed, winding her arms around his neck.
They descended into hazy exquisite oblivion. Jack went slow, kissing her from head to toe and back up again to settle between her thighs.
She clutched at his shoulders as he licked and sucked her until she writhed beneath him. Every breath tore at her raw throat, but she reveled in the pain. She was alive and with Jack. Rico had not killed them and erased their light from the world. They could still shine, and she intended to beam as bright as a star, to dazzle like the blue-white fire within her as fiercely as she knew how.
Jack rolled her over on top of him – positioning her above his thrusting cock. She slid down his shaft slowly, letting her head fall back so her long hair brushed his kneecaps.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he told her, holding her hips to try and control their deliberate, rhythmic pace.
She leaned down to take his lower lip between her teeth and give it a tug. “Fast is the only way to fuck.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me.” He grinned, then squeezed his eyes shut as she moved faster and faster atop him until their breath ran ragged.
She saw stars when she came – blue-white ones that shot across the center of her vision and exploded into fireworks of pleasure.
Afterward, sweaty and sated, they lay together, legs entwined. He reached over to turn off the light while she drew more circles on his chest with her finger.
“Jack,” she said into the darkness. “You’re right. I’m not a freak, and we make a hell of a good team.”
“In bed,” he added, and they both dissolved into laughter.
Chapter ELEVEN
Rosie watched Andy Masters approach from across the cemetery. She and Jack sat on a shaded bench beneath a willow tre
e. Her dress didn’t quite swim on her thanks to Jack’s ministrations and food enough for a hungry football team after a long game, but it remained uncomfortably loose.
Andy had on pants and a sport coat. As he advanced across the green grass, carefully sidestepping graves, he tugged at his dark tie as if unused to wearing such things.
“I’m going to go wait in the Jeep.” Jack brushed a kiss across her cheek and headed for the Wrangler parked around a corner of the winding cemetery road. He wore black well. He wore everything well. God, would she ever get enough of him? The depth of her need scared as well as exhilarated her.
They started day shift tomorrow – the first time they’d be back to work in a week. In the meantime, they’d had meetings with the police, a psychologist, and reporters. Rosie couldn’t wait to return to her job of helping people. Being under the spotlight made her nervous as a freaking cat. Jack was a natural, though. The whole town buzzed about how he’d saved her from Rico. He’d become a hero.
Darlene and Rico’s two kids had been whisked away to grandparents in L.A. – that would be a hell of a culture shock for them. Luckily they were small – six and four – so maybe it wouldn’t be too much of an added trauma. Losing both parents was enough.
Today she’d attended the funerals of Hank, Carolyn, and Susan Masters. Most of the town had turned out, which made Rosie’s back teeth ache. Nobody had cared for the family before this, but apparently when a father killed his wife and daughter, everyone wanted to watch them lowered into the ground. Creeps.
Rosie and Jack had kept to the back, trying to be unobtrusive, but Andy had spotted them halfway through the graveside service. Rosie had braced herself for him to look daggers at her, but he’d stared at her with such a strange expression, Rosie couldn’t figure out what he thought.
Now he approached her, determination in every step, and Jack had left her to face him alone.
She straightened on the bench, smoothing the fabric of her dress across her knees.
Andy, hands stuffed into his pants pockets, came to stand in front of her with a half defiant, half begging expression.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Rosie nodded and patted the empty space beside her. The bruises on her throat had markedly faded, but it still hurt to speak, so she conserved her voice as much as possible.
Andy slumped onto the bench and stuck his legs out in front of him. He stared out across the cemetery. In profile he seemed older than his twenty years, but when he turned to look at her, he seemed all of fifteen. Awkward and scared, but determined to speak his mind.
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to thank you for helping so much with the funeral expenses.”
“That was Station Nine. We took up a collection.”
“Yeah.” He sucked in a deep breath. “But it was your idea. And you put in more money than anyone else. They didn’t tell me that, but I know you did. I know why too.”
Rosie shifted on the bench. Damn this dress and the way it swam on her. She felt like a little kid in her mom’s clothes.
“You’re guilty because you think you killed my dad.” Andy turned his head, presenting her with his profile again. His mouth twisted. “Am I right?”
“Maybe,” Rosie said. Somewhere above them in the willow branches a squirrel let loose with a volley of chatter, bitching out another squirrel or a bird maybe.
“When you came out after Daddy beat the shit out of Susan and my mom, that last time when Susan was hurt really bad, Timmy hid in the closet.” Andy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “He saw what you did. With your hands.”
Fuck. Rosie squeezed her eyes shut tight. This shouldn’t have been a shock. Why else would Andy have screamed at her the way he had in the Mayflower that night? God, that night seemed a hundred years ago, but it had only been a week.
“Said they turned blue and this weird light went down into Susan’s arm where Daddy broke it. We all knew he broke it. We heard the snap. You know what bone sounds like when it breaks? Like a wet stick.” Andy shook himself, visibly upset by the memory.
Rosie bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted blood. She wiped her mouth with her fingers, and they came away streaked with red. She fumbled in her purse for a tissue.
“Her arm was broken.” Andy insisted. “Yet after you left, she could move it and bend it like nothing happened.” He turned to face her again. “You did that. When Timmy told me what he saw you do, I wanted to think he was full of shit because who the hell can shoot blue light out of their hands, but Susan’s arm wasn’t broken anymore. So I had to believe, didn’t I?”
Rosie jerked her head in agreement. How could she lie her way out of this one? Damn it. She’d only healed Susan’s arm because Hank said if either Carolyn or Susan took their asses to a hospital, someone would get punished in their place. Like that little boy she’d seen run out of the room. Only he hadn’t run out of the room. He’d hidden in the damn closet.
But what else could she have done? She had the means to help them and keep someone from being hurt. It was her obligation to assist them. Her heart told her that even as her head lectured abusers like Hank Masters always found something to be mad about.
If Susan had gone to the hospital, maybe CPS or the police would have had the means to intervene. And everyone in the family would still be alive today. Including that scumbag Hank Masters.
“It’s so hard to figure out what to do sometimes,” she whispered. “Which is the right course of action and which is the wrong one.” Her mouth trembled. “I chose wrong, Andy, when I healed Susan. I should have let her go to the hospital and be safe. Maybe people would have come to help your family if I’d done that.” She licked her lip and tasted blood. “And I chose wrong when I didn’t help your dad. I’m sorry. I know that’s fucking inadequate, and you have every right to hate my guts, but I don’t know what else to do or say.”
“Me and Kate are getting married,” Andy said. “We can get legal guardianship over Timmy. And someday we’re gonna have a kid. Maybe two. And I am not going to be like my dad.” His chest hitched. “I’m not!”
Rosie squeezed her eyes shut, but it was too late. Tears streamed down her cheeks and plopped onto her dress. She wiped her face with the bloody tissue.
“I’m guilty too,” Andy whispered. His voice cracked, and he bowed his head as a giant sob ripped through him. “I couldn’t save them either.”
Rosie put her arms around him, and he collapsed against her.
“I won’t tell,” he gasped out between debilitating sobs. “I won’t tell anyone what you can do. Neither will Timmy. I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong. You tried to help. Most people pretended they didn’t know what was going on with us.” He shuddered against her. “I don’t hate you. I came over here to thank you. And tell you to fuck feeling guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
More tears spurted down Rosie’s cheeks. God, her throat hurt, but not half as much as her heart.
“I gotta go.” Andy pulled away from her and got to his feet, swiping at his eyes. She fumbled another tissue out of her purse and held it out to him. He snatched it from her fingers.
“See you around,” he said, and walked, head down, along the cemetery lane.
Chapter TWELVE
Before entering Captain Tremaine’s office, Jack made sure his shirt was tucked in and his jacket hung straight. Being summoned without any sort of explanation set his nerves on edge. What had he done? Maybe all the newspaper notoriety had stuck in Cap’s craw. Rico had been a respected firefighter working for Station Nine for almost eight years. Jack was some idiot paramedic who couldn’t keep a job anywhere and had only worked for the station two weeks. Maybe even after he swore to take care of Rosie, he was still going to get fired.
Well, if so, face it head on. Maybe he could work somewhere else. In another town close enough to Fairhaven that he could spend his days off with Rosie here. That was one way to take things slow, right? No cloud without a silver lining. But fuck that.
They were way past slow at this point. Heading straight for lifetime commitment. Goddamn. Maybe he shouldn’t have given so many interviews. Checked with Cap first. Fuuuuck.
Cap didn’t like people knocking, so after taking a huge breath, Jack pushed open the office door.
Captain Tremaine sat behind his desk apparently absorbed in a report on his monitor. He ignored Jack for ten excruciatingly slow seconds before gesturing to the chair in the corner. All without looking away from his monitor.
Jack sat. Okay. So this wasn’t good. This was going to be bad. Breathe, Jack. Fucking breathe. You’ve been fired before. You could gold medal in the Getting Fired Olympics.
He catalogued his belongings. After unpacking, he’d thrown away the damn boxes. He’d need boxes to pack his shit in. Maybe Rosie had boxes. Oh, fuck the boxes!
His lease. Yeah, going month to month at first had been the smart idea. He’d only be out this month’s rent. Too bad though, his apartment was pretty fucking awesome. He’d never gotten to use the fireplace. He’d pictured cold winter nights in front of a blazing fire as he sketched. That wouldn’t happen now. Jesus. Whatever. Lots of apartments had fireplaces. He did not have to mourn the fireplace.
“So you’ve been on the payroll how long? Three weeks now?” Cap tapped the mouse button and the report window minimized. Behind it – another report.
“Yeah,” Jack said tersely. Oh, Jesus, draw it out. Way to be a sadistic bastard about it. Great.
“In that time you’ve discovered – what? Three dead bodies?” Cap clicked a few keys, filled in a field, moved across the screen to the next one.
Jack’s lungs ached. Christ, he’d forgotten to breathe. “Uh, four actually, Cap.”
Ghost Bob, the mother and daughter in the fridge, and Rico’s ex-wife. Four.
“Four in three weeks. That’s – interesting.” Cap backspaced and typed a few words. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Sure.” Oh, get it the fuck over with. Jack resisted the urge to drum his fingers against the chair. He did let himself squeeze the arms though. Tight.