Eight Years Gone, page 9
The selfie was from their shoulders up. It was impossible to tell, but he knew they were naked as they lay in her bed.
Grace’s skin was dewy, and her lips were still swollen from his. They had just finished making love.
Grace grabbed his phone off her side table, holding it up so they were both in the frame. “Smile.”
He did as she snapped the picture. “Are you moving your photographic interests to porn?”
She chuckled as she put the phone back, then settled herself on top of him, resting her arms on his chest the way she always did. “You already know porn’s not really my thing.”
She kissed his forehead. “Since we’re heading back to school tomorrow, I thought you should have something to look at during your Econ class—something fun to think about so you don’t fall asleep.”
He grinned, sliding his hands up and down the sides of her waist as she kissed the tip of his nose. “So, sitting in class with a hard-on is better than dozing off?”
She laughed, reaching for the phone again. “I can erase it.”
He stopped her by rolling her to her back, ready to heat Grace up all over again. “No way.”
They both chuckled as the phone rang. Logan again.
Jagger sighed as Grace did. “I should probably get that since I didn’t answer the first two times.”
Jagger shook his head as his stomach grew sick, remembering how the rest of the night played out after that. It had haunted him for nearly a decade.
Ready to be done with the past, he pressed the home button, bringing himself back to the original screen.
He moved his thumb to power off the phone but stopped as he stared at the small red circle alerting him to a message on the phone icon.
He swallowed as he clenched his jaw, well aware of what was there—Grace’s call that had come in while he sat on the colonel’s guest bed moments before he left.
Earlier that morning, he’d erased all the rest without listening, knowing that if he’d heard her voice, he wouldn’t have been able to get on the bus for boot camp.
Torturing himself, he selected the last call Grace had made and forced himself to listen.
“Jagger?”
He closed his eyes as he fisted his empty hand, hearing the pain and misery in her one word.
She sniffled. “Where are you, Jagger? If you’re at Colonel Hinders’, please stay there. I’m on my way now. I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”
She sucked in a quaking breath. “He’s gone. Logan’s really gone, and I need you. I need you to hold me. I need us to hold each other until everything feels all right again because right now, I’m not so sure it ever will.”
He leaned back against the couch cushion, loathing himself for hurting the delicate woman on the other end of the phone. The only woman he’d ever wanted to protect was the one he’d destroyed.
“I know my dad said things to you. I imagine he was terrible, but none of it’s true. Wherever you are, please call me. Please come home. I love you so much, Jagger.”
Then she hung up and never called him again because she eventually found out that he’d left her for good.
“You’re a first-class fucker,” he murmured as he gained his feet, unsure of what to do now that another layer of truth had been piled onto the rest.
He couldn’t have handled things worse if he’d tried. Just a few days ago, he’d seen red when he thought Ben had used his hands on Grace, but he himself had left invisible scars that would most likely never go away.
Heading to the dresser, he grabbed a pair of jogging pants and his running shoes, putting them on, needing to run until he could think straight.
How did he fix a mess he’d made so long ago? How could he possibly make things right?
Shutting the door behind him, he took off into the night, knowing that Grace had deserved so much better than how he ended things.
Ten
Grace sat on her enormous blue-striped blanket, staring at her pink-painted toenails as she dipped them in and out of the warm sand.
She looked up, locking her arms tighter around her knees, smiling as Brennan used powerful kicks and his innertube to swim farther into the depths.
“That’s good, Brennan,” Christy hollered to her six-and-a-half-year-old. “I don’t want you going past your shoulders. The rocks are your stopping point.”
“Okay, Mom.” He waved, favoring his mother with his black hair, freckled nose, and hazel eyes. “Look at me, Aunt Grace.”
Grace lifted her arm high, giving him a thumbs-up. “Your swimming’s come a long way, buddy.”
“I’m going to make a cairn on the big rocks. That’s why I’m wearing my water shoes.”
“Be careful where you step so you don’t slip,” Christy yelled.
“I will.” Brennan swam under his tube to surface seconds later, closer to the grouping of rocks that kept boats away from this part of the lake. He waved to them again, then turned as he got busy with his project.
Christy sighed as she picked up her can of lemon seltzer water. “From dawn to dusk, that child keeps me busy.”
Grace chuckled, fixing the strap on her favorite black bikini as she settled back on her elbows while the sun peeked in and out of the increasingly cloudy skies.
Summer was back with high eighty-degree temperatures—a final blast of heat before autumn officially set in. “He’s a sweetie.”
Christy set her drink back down, watching her son like a hawk as he moved about in the waist-deep water. “So, how did things go with Ben when he walked you to your car last night?”
Grace groaned as she rolled her eyes under her sunglasses, thinking of their awkward goodbye.
Most of the night had been weird after Ben casually mentioned that he saw her talking to Jagger in the parking lot. “I thanked him for a nice evening. Then I kissed him on the cheek.”
Christy winced. “Ouch.”
Huffing out a breath, Grace sat up again. “I didn’t know what else to do. I like him. He’s a great guy, but I don’t want to lead him on when I’m completely confused.”
“What’s going on with you and Jagger?”
“Nothing.”
Christy took her eyes off the water long enough to tip down her sunglasses at Grace. “Give me a break. The chemistry oozes between you guys when you’re together.”
Grace exhaled a quiet breath because her friend spoke nothing but the truth. “That was a long time ago.”
“Chemistry like that doesn’t just vanish.” Christy focused on her son again. “What did you guys talk about in the parking lot?”
Grace shrugged. “Mostly that he’s leaving in a couple of weeks.”
“That’s it?”
She jerked her shoulders again as another dark cloud covered the sun. “He said he came to Preston Valley because he needed to know I was okay. He needed to know that I was happy.”
“That’s—”
“Mom. Aunt Grace, look at my cairn,” Brennan interrupted as he settled another rock on the stack he’d created.
“Super awesome!” Grace yelled.
“Nice job,” Christy hollered at the same time.
“I’m going to make another one.” Brennan got back to work, moving to a new grouping of rocks slightly deeper out.
“So, the guy you haven’t stopped thinking about for the last eight years has been thinking about you, too?”
Grace shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters. Especially if you’re still in love with him.”
She focused on her toes again instead of responding.
“Do you love him, Grace?”
She blinked as her eyes filled. “I don’t want to love him. I’ve waited so long for him—”
“He’s here, honey.”
She adamantly shook her head this time. “And now that he is, I know I can’t do it again. The way he hurt me… I can’t let myself go there.”
“Well, speak of the devil,” Christy murmured.
Grace frowned. “Huh?”
“The really sexy running god at your twelve o’clock.”
Grace turned her head, staring at Jagger’s powerful body as he jogged out of the woods on one of the lake’s numerous nature trails—glistening, glorious pecs and washboard abs dripping with perspiration.
At some point, he’d taken off his shirt, tucking the end in the elastic of his sweat-soaked gray shorts.
“How is that even legal,” Christy said under her breath.
Grace swatted at her friend’s leg, then lifted her hand in a wave.
Jagger waved back before he disappeared into the forest again.
“That was Master Jagger from the taekwondo place,” Brennan yelled. “He’s so cool!”
Christy looked at Grace, wiggling her brow as the wind picked up, lifting the blanket’s edges. “Half-naked and hot. That’s not fair.”
Grace forced a small smile when she knew Christy was trying to keep the mood light. But it was impossible to recalibrate when Jagger kept popping up in unexpected places. “No, it’s not.”
“He’s here,” Christy said again as the sun vanished behind the dark clouds for good.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What if you guys sit down for a cup of coffee and just talk?”
“That sounds so simple.”
“Can’t it be?”
Grace shook her head again. “Nothing’s simple with Jagger. Nothing’s the way it used to be. I don’t know how to be around him anymore.”
A low roll of thunder rumbled in the distance, cutting off Christy’s next comment.
“Mom!” Brennan yelled, scrambling off the rocks, hurrying toward his tube in the choppy water.
“Swim back,” Christy encouraged as she stood, moving to the shore when the next rumble echoed closer.
Grace gathered up the blanket, folding it, then grabbed Brennan’s towel as the panicked first grader made it back to the beach.
Brennan wrapped himself in the soft cotton Grace handed him, jumping up and down. “We have to hurry! We’re going to get struck by lightning!”
Fat drops of rain started falling in torrents, instantly soaking them.
“Crap,” Grace squealed, snagging her beach bag and blanket as Christy grabbed her soda can and the picnic lunch they never got around to eating.
All three of them ran, heading for the makeshift parking lot.
“I’ll call you later,” Christy shouted as she got in her car after Brennan shut his door.
“Drive safely,” Grace called, getting behind the wheel, dripping all over her seat.
“Well, this is great.” Taking off her sunglasses, she pulled her towel from her bag, drying off. Then she fastened her seat belt, turning over the engine as lightning flashed in the sky, and Christy drove off.
“This should be interesting,” she murmured as she turned the wipers on full blast, then started down the long lane to the main road, looking forward to getting home and getting lost in her work—to stop thinking about Jagger for a while.
But then she gasped, slamming on her brakes when he ran toward her car, flagging her down in the storm. Pulling over next to him, she rolled down the passenger side window a crack. “Get in.”
He wasted no time complying, soaking her seat as he sat down. “I was hoping I hadn’t missed you. I ran like hell to get back over this way.”
She reached for the towel in the back, handing it to him. “Here.”
“Thanks,” he said, burying his face in the cotton, then went after his soaked hair before he dried his chest and arms as the wind knocked against her Kia.
“Are you all set?”
“Yeah,” he said as he fastened his safety belt. “Thanks again for stopping.”
She nodded, forcing herself to relax her shoulders. “Of course.”
Pulling back onto the road in the deluge, she kept her speed low as the trees swayed with the next nasty gust. “You ran out here from town?”
He shrugged. “It’s only five miles.”
“Only?”
He jerked his shoulders again. “I’ve certainly run farther. Ten miles here and back isn’t all that much.”
“Huh,” she said, focusing on the road instead of the fact that Jagger’s eyelashes were still wet and webby, accentuating his fantastic dark-blue eyes.
“You still listen to your nineties stuff?” He gestured to the radio.
She hadn’t been paying attention to the music—to The Sundays “Wild Horses” playing through the speakers.
She quickly slapped at the button, turning it off, remembering the day she and Jagger had ended up on her bedroom floor while the song played in the background.
She slid a glance his way as he looked at her, knowing he remembered too.
God, why wouldn’t the rain stop so she could drive faster? “Uh, taekwondo,” she said almost desperately. “How are things going with that?”
He nodded. “Good.”
“Good.”
He got more comfortable in his seat, locking his hands behind the headrest in the way he’d done more times than she could count. “Uh, I stopped by Aunt Mag’s last night. She gave me that box she’d been holding on to.”
Grace sat up straighter, tightening her hands on the wheel, well aware of the box Jagger spoke of. “Oh.”
“I thought all of that stuff would have gotten thrown away.”
She shook her head. “I took it with me when I left Wakeview.”
“Do you ever go back?”
She looked both ways, then pulled onto the main road, heading toward town. “Not since the night I left.”
“How’s Bea?”
“She’s good—getting older. She lives closer to her son—about twenty minutes outside Philly. We get together for lunch a couple of times a year.”
“What about your dad? How’s he?”
“I have no idea.”
“You don’t talk to him?”
She shook her head again.
“Not at all?”
“I haven’t seen him since Logan’s funeral.”
The car got quiet again. The swish of the wipers and battering rain on the windshield were the only sounds.
Dropping his hands, Jagger turned his body closer to her. “Listen, Grace—”
She adamantly shook her head, having a good idea of where this was going. “I don’t want to talk about the past. Let’s talk about now. Just now. Tell me about what you’ve been doing all these years.”
He scratched at his jaw in the way that he did when he was frustrated. “I’ve been in the service.”
“I know. Where?”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
She shrugged, even as she grew slightly irritated. He’d vanished from her life, and he couldn’t talk about it. “Fine.”
“I’m not being evasive.”
Her shoulders jerked again. “Your life is your own.”
“I was a soldier in Delta Force. I did a lot of clandestine and covert operations—a lot of black ops.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Everything was off the books. When I was in the field, I was a ghost. That’s all I can tell you.”
Talking like this was much better than the silence—twenty questions. Plus, she was curious about the life he’d lived. “And that’s where you got the scar on your arm?”
His brow furrowed as he glanced toward his tricep. “No. I got that a few weeks ago. I’ve been doing private contracting for the past couple of years.”
“That’s top secret, too?”
He shook his head. “It’s not top secret, but I sign NDAs—nondisclosure agreements.”
“Why?”
“Because the clients I work for are either government entities or ultra-wealthy private citizens who like to keep what they do to themselves.”
She frowned this time. “It’s illegal?”
He shook his head. “I think we operate in a gray area sometimes, but I don’t take jobs that I know are shady. My last assignment got a little sketchy, but we were already on the ground when I figured that out.”
Why did she love the sound of his voice so much—the sound she’d craved to hear again for so long? “Oh. Where do you do these jobs?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Africa and the Middle East. I do a lot of reconnaissance work.”
She slowed for the stoplight as they entered Preston Valley’s downtown. “You’ll have to explain again.”
“Basically, it’s research. I accept a contract. Then I go to the areas where my clients will do their business. I plan routes and find things that could potentially pose a danger. Then I get the people who pay me in and out of the location before we get ourselves kidnapped or killed.”
She swallowed, hating the idea of his work. “So, it’s always dangerous, then?”
He nodded. “The people who hire me do so because of my training and skill sets. The odds are better that I’ll be able to get them out.”
She took a left onto Todd’s road, spotting Jagger’s car parked on the street. “And you’ll keep doing that when you go back?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going back.”
She pulled up in front of Todd’s driveway, refusing to believe him. “This looks like your stop.”
He didn’t move to take off his seat belt, holding her gaze. “I’m not going back, Grace.”
“Don’t forget that Aunt Maggie and Asa are picking up that large order at the warehouse Friday morning. I’ll be there early to help with the processing.”
“Grace—”
“She’s stressed out about this wedding,” she rushed on, refusing to start the conversation Jagger wanted to have.
He sighed as he unfastened his belt. “I’ll be there to help.” Opening the door, he got out. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome.”
He shut the door and then hurried toward the apartment steps in the steady rain.
Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax her fingers on the steering wheel as she accelerated. “Work,” she whispered. That’s all she planned to focus on for the next several hours.
Four and a half hours later, the sun shined again as Jagger walked down Main Street. He had dinner on his mind and Grace—always Grace.
