Deadly Mountain Trap, page 27
“I know what’s missing.”
Jake and Judah both waited. Jake could feel the room grow even more still as they braced themselves for whatever she was about to say.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. She actually has some valuable books in this collection.”
“Cassie, which books?” Jake spoke up, hoping to keep her focused.
“She had a few self-published books about Raven Pass. Those are what’s missing.”
Books about the town?
“Let’s look through the rest of the house,” Judah suggested, clearly dismissing the idea that the missing books were relevant to the investigation.
None of the rooms past the library down the hall had been touched, which in Jake’s mind gave credence to Cassie’s idea that the books had been taken intentionally. Judah seemed baffled. He was a nice enough guy and Jake didn’t get the impression he disbelieved Cassie or anything. Just that her observations didn’t jibe with his assumptions about the case.
“When the officers tasked with the recovery come back to town, we will fingerprint the house and see if forensic evidence indicates anything,” Judah said as they all walked toward the front door. “And we will call you if we need anything else.”
“Okay.” Cassie nodded but seemed hesitant.
Jake reached for her hand and tugged her along with him onto the front porch. “Thanks, Officer Wicks. Keep us posted if you will.”
“As much as I can.” Judah nodded. Jake suspected a call to Levi would probably get him further with information, but he appreciated that the other man at least seemed to understand why they cared so much.
Cassie followed him to the car and they both climbed in. When he shut the door and reached for his keys, he turned sideways enough to see that Cassie’s eyes were flashing fire at him.
“Whoa, what’s the matter?”
“I wasn’t done talking to him and you pulled me out of there like I was yours to control.” She rubbed at her hand, at the spot that he’d held. Like doing so would wipe away all evidences of physical contact that had been between them.
He took a deep breath. “I know you weren’t done. I can tell.”
She opened her mouth but he shook his head and kept talking. “Cassie, stop. Trust me, okay? I know you had more questions, but Judah wasn’t the man to ask. He wasn’t impressed with the books being missing, and I don’t think he was going to listen to any more of your speculations. I, however, am happy to listen, and we’re going to go pick up our son, feed him some food, and then after he goes to sleep, you and I are going to discuss it and come up with our own plan of action, okay?”
“Our own plan...” Her eyebrows were raised, the look on her face slightly wary.
“I think we should look into it. The books, I mean. You know which ones they were?”
“I memorized the three titles on the list. The ones that are missing.”
“Well either your aunt hid something in one of those books, which is possible, though you’d think they’d have taken it and left the book itself—or there was something in one of the books they were interested in.”
“Something worth killing over? I wondered all of that too, that’s why I wanted to talk to Officer Wicks. But it doesn’t make sense. Why not get the books from the library? Surely they have them.”
“Did she make notes in her books?”
Cassie nodded, eyes wide.
“So there may have been notes.”
He saw the question asked again in her eyes, from earlier. Something worth killing over?
Very possibly. They were close. Jake could feel it. Her aunt’s death hadn’t been random or a crime of opportunity, not if the house had been gone through like this and things taken.
And Jake was confident that he and Cassie would be able to figure things out.
* * *
Cassie couldn’t remember ever being flooded with relief quite as much as right now, as her son ran to her open arms while Jake waited in the car for them.
“Did you have a good day?” she asked, bending to kiss his cheek and inhale the scent of his hair.
“It was so fun! They have a bunch of wooden swords and we fought bad guys all day.”
Relief was quickly replaced by alarm and Cassie felt her eyes widen as she looked up at Officer Thomas. “Bad guys?”
“Imagined only.” He shrugged. “Boys, you know?”
Especially a boy whose dad was a police officer, and a boy who had been shot at by some faceless villain the day before. Yes, it made sense to Cassie, even though she’d rather her little boy had been filled with thoughts of...she didn’t know, caterpillars, or worms or something. Maybe boys were supposed to know about bad guys and things like that at six. Cassie didn’t know, but yesterday still bothered her more than she could say. She should be thankful, she supposed, that he was processing his feelings well, acting the part of the hero in pretend play. The psychology classes she took in college would have said it was a good sign.
Still, her heart hurt.
Why? she asked again, about the whole situation. Again, no answers.
“Thank you for letting him stay here.”
“No problem,” Officer Thomas said. “He’s welcome here tomorrow too.”
Cassie nodded slowly. She wanted him with her, but...he’d been safe today, while she’d been at risk on more than one occasion. Either she stepped out of the investigation, even the informal one she and Jake seemed to be conducting on the side, or she trusted someone else to provide some of Will’s care.
“We’ll have him here about the same time. Thank you.” She hoped her words conveyed all the gratefulness she felt.
Officer Thomas nodded.
Will hurried off to the car. Cassie followed him.
He talked all the way home—or rather, back to Jake’s house. Jake Stone’s house was not home and never would be.
“So can I?” Will asked her, clearly for the second time.
“Can you what?” Cassie tried to focus.
“Can I have a wooden sword?”
She opened her mouth to say no, a knee-jerk response she wasn’t proud of but wasn’t going to deny either. “Maybe so, bud. Ask me again when we’re home, okay?”
Now she felt Jake’s eyes on her, despite the fact that he was supposed to be driving and, you know, paying attention to the road. Cassie stared out the passenger-side window, his unasked questions boring through her like his gaze. What did he expect? That because she’d told him the truth about Will she’d just...pick up her whole life and stay here?
She did have a job. Not the perfect one, but a job. Same with their apartment. Will’s school was good though, one of the best in their part of Florida, hence the reason she’d chosen the apartment in the first place.
Raven Pass offered what? Bad memories piled on top of other bad memories?
Not all bad, Cassie knew. But she didn’t want to think about those right now.
Instead she went on some kind of autopilot mode and fixed Will dinner at Jake’s house again. Over dinner, she asked if he remembered how she’d told him he had a dad somewhere. Jake had gone out of the room; where, Cassie didn’t know.
“I remember. You said he loved me a lot but he didn’t know me.”
A slight embellishment on Cassie’s part. She’d known Jake would love him, if he knew about him, and it was important to her that Will knew he had two parents who cared about him.
“Right. He didn’t know you and it was my fault. I didn’t want to share you.”
Will frowned. “You’re supposed to share.”
“I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry. I’m...ready...” she was not ready, not even close, but she knew it was past time, so she kept going “...to share you with him now, okay?”
“So I can meet him?” Will’s eyes widened.
“You have, baby... It’s Jake.”
Cassie braced herself, waited for the fallout she certainly deserved.
“Really? This is awesome! I’ll bet he knows how to make wooden swords!” And Will jumped up from the table and went in search of the dad he’d just discovered.
Cassie was left alone, her stomach churning with questions about whether she’d handled this right, or could have done a better job of damage control for her past choice to leave Jake out of Will’s life.
You told him? Jake mouthed in her direction when he came in a few minutes later, Will attached to his side like a koala.
Cassie nodded.
A shadow flickered across Jake’s face but he nodded too.
“Can we play a game? All three of us?” Will was practically beaming, and Cassie wondered when she should finish explaining things to him. Like the part where even though he had a dad, Cassie was only planning on Will seeing him a few times a year.
How on earth was she supposed to do this?
Instead she said nothing for now, just kept running over options and scenarios in her mind. She and Jake played a few card games with Will until it felt like they’d all settled in enough that he should be able to get some sleep. After the last hand Cassie leaned back and took a deep breath, ready to wage the war for bedtime that seemed to be happening more often the older Will got. He sometimes seemed to think that because he “wasn’t sleepy” he might not have to listen to the rules about what time he was supposed to be in bed with the lights out. The past few nights had been exceptions. He’d been so exhausted that he’d conked out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
“Time for bed, Will,” Jake said before Cassie got around to it and she almost stopped him. Why, because she was Will’s mom? Jake was his dad.
This was much more complicated than she’d ever really thought through, even in her most anxious moments.
Instead of fighting when she had little fight left, she sat still, kissed her son on his forehead when he came over to her with arms outstretched.
“Dad is going to tuck me in.” Will smiled up at him, skipped off and left Cassie behind.
With her heartbreak, regrets and an overwhelming feeling of being alone.
* * *
“You should have waited for me to be there.” When he was done tucking Will in bed and came back downstairs, Jake wasted no time telling Cassie what had been on his mind. He’d been working in his study earlier, detailing some of the search notes for the last few days, when he’d been attacked by a six-year-old boy who’d excitedly declared that Jake was his dad.
He was elated Will knew and happy he didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore. He hated secrets.
But she still should have waited for him. He tried to be understanding and not overreact about the entire situation, but the frustration was all building over this one issue. He could feel it, identify it logically, and still it was hard to deal with.
“Couldn’t you have let me be part of that one thing, Cassie? I’ve missed everything. And you had the chance to share this with me because I was right here in the same house and you still couldn’t do it?”
The hurt flickering in her eyes wasn’t lost on him.
But what was he supposed to do?
God, how are we ever supposed to work this out?
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, but something in her tone made him meet her eyes. She wasn’t self-abasing or being manipulative with her apology to elicit sympathy. She was really just that sorry.
Jake nodded. “Thanks.” Focusing on something else for now might be a better idea, he realized, and moved to sit in his favorite chair. Probably he should have sat down before having that last conversation at all. Two people sitting always made for more equal ground in discussions, whereas one standing made it feel unbalanced from the get-go.
“So about those books,” he started.
Were those tears she was blinking back? He thought they might be, but didn’t know if they were for her aunt or the way they’d both handled things with Will.
Maybe both.
“What about them?”
“Do you think the library has them?” Jake couldn’t say he’d ever searched the library for books about the town. He’d been born in Anchorage and then brought back to his parents’ home in Raven Pass at just a couple of days old, so town history was something he’d assumed he knew.
If someone was stealing books for information and potentially killing over it, he suspected he didn’t know everything there was to know about the town.
“I would think so.” Cassie shrugged. “Which means stealing my aunt’s was worthless unless she had written things down in them.”
“Did your aunt know any town secrets?”
Jake was mostly joking, but Cassie looked lost in thought.
“Cassie?” He called her name, but she still didn’t respond. He waited.
“I would have said no.” She shook her head. “But... I don’t know... She was so strange about that office, Jake. Why did she make me write down books I checked out like a real library? Was she really that obsessive? Or did she not want me to read certain books?”
“You never read the ones about Raven Pass?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who did, or anyone she might have shared them with?”
“No. She kept them to herself, as far as I know.”
Jake was out of questions for now. “We need to go to the library and check out those books.”
“Tomorrow after we drop Will off?” she asked, so casually that it felt as if they’d always been like this, a real couple, discussing their kid.
Of course they were a real couple doing just that. Only he’d missed six years of these types of discussions.
“Sounds good.”
She caught his eyes, whether on purpose or not, he wasn’t sure. It was like there was something she wanted to say but she was hesitating.
“Cassie...” He trailed off, memories of six years ago, of the kiss today, of the way he’d tried to tell her they were just friends all swirled together.
Along with guilt. Because surely she’d left for a reason. He’d tried to tell himself for years that if he’d done anything wrong, he would have fixed it if she’d asked, but was it true? Or had he driven her away somehow?
They’d had plans. Dreams. They’d finished high school and had been accepted to a college in Washington, but they’d both decided to do one year of general education courses in Anchorage first. They’d been halfway through that year when they got engaged. They’d just finished it when she left.
“What else?” Jake asked.
“What else, what? About the books?” Her expression said she knew what he meant, but that she was still afraid to go down this road again. It hurt to relive—he got that. But maybe if he understood, they’d finally have some kind of closure and could figure out how to work well together parenting Will, from however far apart they lived.
“About when you left. Please tell me why. The whole truth.”
She opened her mouth to talk when Jake heard the first noise that sounded out of place. Then he heard a creak, a scratch against the siding of the house. Something he wouldn’t have noticed before this week, but that now sent alarm bells off in his head.
“Get upstairs.”
Cassie was already on her way. A feeling of déjà vu swept over him.
Last time Jake had sent her up there, the man had come inside hunting them, or at least Cassie, when Jake was outside trying to find him. And Jake was putting them all in play the same way. The guy after her was smart, Jake realized, as he moved to a window to see if he could see anything outside. He saw nothing out of place, just dim, hazy midnight sun. The culprit probably expected his noises to draw Jake outside, away from Cassie’s side, as they had before.
This time he might get to Cassie. And Jake wasn’t going to let that happen. He grabbed his cell phone off the side table by the chair and took the stairs two at a time. Barely winded because adrenaline was coursing through his veins, he made it upstairs just as Cassie was starting to shut the door.
“I’m coming with you.” He kept his voice low but saw Will stir on the bed anyway, a shadow in the dim room. His blackout curtains darkened it well. He walked into the room, picked Will up.
“Get his pillows,” he told Cassie and opened the closet door with his foot.
“What are you doing?” she whispered after she’d slid the pillow into the closet where Jake was heading with Will and he’d settled their son down on the floor in the back corner. He was glad he kept this closet fairly empty.
“Keeping us safe,” he answered as he dialed the police department and described the situation. Five minutes, they told him, and they’d be there.
Jake hoped the guy hung around for five minutes. Then maybe this could all be over, and they could get on with their lives. His breath caught in his throat when he realized that once the danger passed, Cassie would leave again. But at least she’d be safe. Maybe even happy. And that was what Jake wanted.
“Shouldn’t you go out there?”
“And let them get to you? No. I’m staying here.”
Jake felt his heart pounding in his chest. From fear? Or proximity to the only woman he’d ever loved? Cassie leaned closer and he felt the pace of it quicken even more. That answered that question.
“I’m scared, Jake.”
Her voice was low, quavering. He didn’t think she’d admitted that this entire time, though she’d already been in enough situations where it would have been appropriate to admit that it was the truth. Without thinking, he reached for her and tugged her close, right up against him in the darkness.
“It’s okay. The police will be here any minute.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Jake frowned, loosed his arms a little, but when she snuggled closer—something he wouldn’t have thought possible—he tightened them again. God, please help me understand why she feels so good in my arms if she’s not supposed to be here. Am I supposed to be getting over her? Or asking for another chance?
Jake and Judah both waited. Jake could feel the room grow even more still as they braced themselves for whatever she was about to say.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. She actually has some valuable books in this collection.”
“Cassie, which books?” Jake spoke up, hoping to keep her focused.
“She had a few self-published books about Raven Pass. Those are what’s missing.”
Books about the town?
“Let’s look through the rest of the house,” Judah suggested, clearly dismissing the idea that the missing books were relevant to the investigation.
None of the rooms past the library down the hall had been touched, which in Jake’s mind gave credence to Cassie’s idea that the books had been taken intentionally. Judah seemed baffled. He was a nice enough guy and Jake didn’t get the impression he disbelieved Cassie or anything. Just that her observations didn’t jibe with his assumptions about the case.
“When the officers tasked with the recovery come back to town, we will fingerprint the house and see if forensic evidence indicates anything,” Judah said as they all walked toward the front door. “And we will call you if we need anything else.”
“Okay.” Cassie nodded but seemed hesitant.
Jake reached for her hand and tugged her along with him onto the front porch. “Thanks, Officer Wicks. Keep us posted if you will.”
“As much as I can.” Judah nodded. Jake suspected a call to Levi would probably get him further with information, but he appreciated that the other man at least seemed to understand why they cared so much.
Cassie followed him to the car and they both climbed in. When he shut the door and reached for his keys, he turned sideways enough to see that Cassie’s eyes were flashing fire at him.
“Whoa, what’s the matter?”
“I wasn’t done talking to him and you pulled me out of there like I was yours to control.” She rubbed at her hand, at the spot that he’d held. Like doing so would wipe away all evidences of physical contact that had been between them.
He took a deep breath. “I know you weren’t done. I can tell.”
She opened her mouth but he shook his head and kept talking. “Cassie, stop. Trust me, okay? I know you had more questions, but Judah wasn’t the man to ask. He wasn’t impressed with the books being missing, and I don’t think he was going to listen to any more of your speculations. I, however, am happy to listen, and we’re going to go pick up our son, feed him some food, and then after he goes to sleep, you and I are going to discuss it and come up with our own plan of action, okay?”
“Our own plan...” Her eyebrows were raised, the look on her face slightly wary.
“I think we should look into it. The books, I mean. You know which ones they were?”
“I memorized the three titles on the list. The ones that are missing.”
“Well either your aunt hid something in one of those books, which is possible, though you’d think they’d have taken it and left the book itself—or there was something in one of the books they were interested in.”
“Something worth killing over? I wondered all of that too, that’s why I wanted to talk to Officer Wicks. But it doesn’t make sense. Why not get the books from the library? Surely they have them.”
“Did she make notes in her books?”
Cassie nodded, eyes wide.
“So there may have been notes.”
He saw the question asked again in her eyes, from earlier. Something worth killing over?
Very possibly. They were close. Jake could feel it. Her aunt’s death hadn’t been random or a crime of opportunity, not if the house had been gone through like this and things taken.
And Jake was confident that he and Cassie would be able to figure things out.
* * *
Cassie couldn’t remember ever being flooded with relief quite as much as right now, as her son ran to her open arms while Jake waited in the car for them.
“Did you have a good day?” she asked, bending to kiss his cheek and inhale the scent of his hair.
“It was so fun! They have a bunch of wooden swords and we fought bad guys all day.”
Relief was quickly replaced by alarm and Cassie felt her eyes widen as she looked up at Officer Thomas. “Bad guys?”
“Imagined only.” He shrugged. “Boys, you know?”
Especially a boy whose dad was a police officer, and a boy who had been shot at by some faceless villain the day before. Yes, it made sense to Cassie, even though she’d rather her little boy had been filled with thoughts of...she didn’t know, caterpillars, or worms or something. Maybe boys were supposed to know about bad guys and things like that at six. Cassie didn’t know, but yesterday still bothered her more than she could say. She should be thankful, she supposed, that he was processing his feelings well, acting the part of the hero in pretend play. The psychology classes she took in college would have said it was a good sign.
Still, her heart hurt.
Why? she asked again, about the whole situation. Again, no answers.
“Thank you for letting him stay here.”
“No problem,” Officer Thomas said. “He’s welcome here tomorrow too.”
Cassie nodded slowly. She wanted him with her, but...he’d been safe today, while she’d been at risk on more than one occasion. Either she stepped out of the investigation, even the informal one she and Jake seemed to be conducting on the side, or she trusted someone else to provide some of Will’s care.
“We’ll have him here about the same time. Thank you.” She hoped her words conveyed all the gratefulness she felt.
Officer Thomas nodded.
Will hurried off to the car. Cassie followed him.
He talked all the way home—or rather, back to Jake’s house. Jake Stone’s house was not home and never would be.
“So can I?” Will asked her, clearly for the second time.
“Can you what?” Cassie tried to focus.
“Can I have a wooden sword?”
She opened her mouth to say no, a knee-jerk response she wasn’t proud of but wasn’t going to deny either. “Maybe so, bud. Ask me again when we’re home, okay?”
Now she felt Jake’s eyes on her, despite the fact that he was supposed to be driving and, you know, paying attention to the road. Cassie stared out the passenger-side window, his unasked questions boring through her like his gaze. What did he expect? That because she’d told him the truth about Will she’d just...pick up her whole life and stay here?
She did have a job. Not the perfect one, but a job. Same with their apartment. Will’s school was good though, one of the best in their part of Florida, hence the reason she’d chosen the apartment in the first place.
Raven Pass offered what? Bad memories piled on top of other bad memories?
Not all bad, Cassie knew. But she didn’t want to think about those right now.
Instead she went on some kind of autopilot mode and fixed Will dinner at Jake’s house again. Over dinner, she asked if he remembered how she’d told him he had a dad somewhere. Jake had gone out of the room; where, Cassie didn’t know.
“I remember. You said he loved me a lot but he didn’t know me.”
A slight embellishment on Cassie’s part. She’d known Jake would love him, if he knew about him, and it was important to her that Will knew he had two parents who cared about him.
“Right. He didn’t know you and it was my fault. I didn’t want to share you.”
Will frowned. “You’re supposed to share.”
“I know, sweetie, and I’m sorry. I’m...ready...” she was not ready, not even close, but she knew it was past time, so she kept going “...to share you with him now, okay?”
“So I can meet him?” Will’s eyes widened.
“You have, baby... It’s Jake.”
Cassie braced herself, waited for the fallout she certainly deserved.
“Really? This is awesome! I’ll bet he knows how to make wooden swords!” And Will jumped up from the table and went in search of the dad he’d just discovered.
Cassie was left alone, her stomach churning with questions about whether she’d handled this right, or could have done a better job of damage control for her past choice to leave Jake out of Will’s life.
You told him? Jake mouthed in her direction when he came in a few minutes later, Will attached to his side like a koala.
Cassie nodded.
A shadow flickered across Jake’s face but he nodded too.
“Can we play a game? All three of us?” Will was practically beaming, and Cassie wondered when she should finish explaining things to him. Like the part where even though he had a dad, Cassie was only planning on Will seeing him a few times a year.
How on earth was she supposed to do this?
Instead she said nothing for now, just kept running over options and scenarios in her mind. She and Jake played a few card games with Will until it felt like they’d all settled in enough that he should be able to get some sleep. After the last hand Cassie leaned back and took a deep breath, ready to wage the war for bedtime that seemed to be happening more often the older Will got. He sometimes seemed to think that because he “wasn’t sleepy” he might not have to listen to the rules about what time he was supposed to be in bed with the lights out. The past few nights had been exceptions. He’d been so exhausted that he’d conked out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
“Time for bed, Will,” Jake said before Cassie got around to it and she almost stopped him. Why, because she was Will’s mom? Jake was his dad.
This was much more complicated than she’d ever really thought through, even in her most anxious moments.
Instead of fighting when she had little fight left, she sat still, kissed her son on his forehead when he came over to her with arms outstretched.
“Dad is going to tuck me in.” Will smiled up at him, skipped off and left Cassie behind.
With her heartbreak, regrets and an overwhelming feeling of being alone.
* * *
“You should have waited for me to be there.” When he was done tucking Will in bed and came back downstairs, Jake wasted no time telling Cassie what had been on his mind. He’d been working in his study earlier, detailing some of the search notes for the last few days, when he’d been attacked by a six-year-old boy who’d excitedly declared that Jake was his dad.
He was elated Will knew and happy he didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore. He hated secrets.
But she still should have waited for him. He tried to be understanding and not overreact about the entire situation, but the frustration was all building over this one issue. He could feel it, identify it logically, and still it was hard to deal with.
“Couldn’t you have let me be part of that one thing, Cassie? I’ve missed everything. And you had the chance to share this with me because I was right here in the same house and you still couldn’t do it?”
The hurt flickering in her eyes wasn’t lost on him.
But what was he supposed to do?
God, how are we ever supposed to work this out?
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, but something in her tone made him meet her eyes. She wasn’t self-abasing or being manipulative with her apology to elicit sympathy. She was really just that sorry.
Jake nodded. “Thanks.” Focusing on something else for now might be a better idea, he realized, and moved to sit in his favorite chair. Probably he should have sat down before having that last conversation at all. Two people sitting always made for more equal ground in discussions, whereas one standing made it feel unbalanced from the get-go.
“So about those books,” he started.
Were those tears she was blinking back? He thought they might be, but didn’t know if they were for her aunt or the way they’d both handled things with Will.
Maybe both.
“What about them?”
“Do you think the library has them?” Jake couldn’t say he’d ever searched the library for books about the town. He’d been born in Anchorage and then brought back to his parents’ home in Raven Pass at just a couple of days old, so town history was something he’d assumed he knew.
If someone was stealing books for information and potentially killing over it, he suspected he didn’t know everything there was to know about the town.
“I would think so.” Cassie shrugged. “Which means stealing my aunt’s was worthless unless she had written things down in them.”
“Did your aunt know any town secrets?”
Jake was mostly joking, but Cassie looked lost in thought.
“Cassie?” He called her name, but she still didn’t respond. He waited.
“I would have said no.” She shook her head. “But... I don’t know... She was so strange about that office, Jake. Why did she make me write down books I checked out like a real library? Was she really that obsessive? Or did she not want me to read certain books?”
“You never read the ones about Raven Pass?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who did, or anyone she might have shared them with?”
“No. She kept them to herself, as far as I know.”
Jake was out of questions for now. “We need to go to the library and check out those books.”
“Tomorrow after we drop Will off?” she asked, so casually that it felt as if they’d always been like this, a real couple, discussing their kid.
Of course they were a real couple doing just that. Only he’d missed six years of these types of discussions.
“Sounds good.”
She caught his eyes, whether on purpose or not, he wasn’t sure. It was like there was something she wanted to say but she was hesitating.
“Cassie...” He trailed off, memories of six years ago, of the kiss today, of the way he’d tried to tell her they were just friends all swirled together.
Along with guilt. Because surely she’d left for a reason. He’d tried to tell himself for years that if he’d done anything wrong, he would have fixed it if she’d asked, but was it true? Or had he driven her away somehow?
They’d had plans. Dreams. They’d finished high school and had been accepted to a college in Washington, but they’d both decided to do one year of general education courses in Anchorage first. They’d been halfway through that year when they got engaged. They’d just finished it when she left.
“What else?” Jake asked.
“What else, what? About the books?” Her expression said she knew what he meant, but that she was still afraid to go down this road again. It hurt to relive—he got that. But maybe if he understood, they’d finally have some kind of closure and could figure out how to work well together parenting Will, from however far apart they lived.
“About when you left. Please tell me why. The whole truth.”
She opened her mouth to talk when Jake heard the first noise that sounded out of place. Then he heard a creak, a scratch against the siding of the house. Something he wouldn’t have noticed before this week, but that now sent alarm bells off in his head.
“Get upstairs.”
Cassie was already on her way. A feeling of déjà vu swept over him.
Last time Jake had sent her up there, the man had come inside hunting them, or at least Cassie, when Jake was outside trying to find him. And Jake was putting them all in play the same way. The guy after her was smart, Jake realized, as he moved to a window to see if he could see anything outside. He saw nothing out of place, just dim, hazy midnight sun. The culprit probably expected his noises to draw Jake outside, away from Cassie’s side, as they had before.
This time he might get to Cassie. And Jake wasn’t going to let that happen. He grabbed his cell phone off the side table by the chair and took the stairs two at a time. Barely winded because adrenaline was coursing through his veins, he made it upstairs just as Cassie was starting to shut the door.
“I’m coming with you.” He kept his voice low but saw Will stir on the bed anyway, a shadow in the dim room. His blackout curtains darkened it well. He walked into the room, picked Will up.
“Get his pillows,” he told Cassie and opened the closet door with his foot.
“What are you doing?” she whispered after she’d slid the pillow into the closet where Jake was heading with Will and he’d settled their son down on the floor in the back corner. He was glad he kept this closet fairly empty.
“Keeping us safe,” he answered as he dialed the police department and described the situation. Five minutes, they told him, and they’d be there.
Jake hoped the guy hung around for five minutes. Then maybe this could all be over, and they could get on with their lives. His breath caught in his throat when he realized that once the danger passed, Cassie would leave again. But at least she’d be safe. Maybe even happy. And that was what Jake wanted.
“Shouldn’t you go out there?”
“And let them get to you? No. I’m staying here.”
Jake felt his heart pounding in his chest. From fear? Or proximity to the only woman he’d ever loved? Cassie leaned closer and he felt the pace of it quicken even more. That answered that question.
“I’m scared, Jake.”
Her voice was low, quavering. He didn’t think she’d admitted that this entire time, though she’d already been in enough situations where it would have been appropriate to admit that it was the truth. Without thinking, he reached for her and tugged her close, right up against him in the darkness.
“It’s okay. The police will be here any minute.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Jake frowned, loosed his arms a little, but when she snuggled closer—something he wouldn’t have thought possible—he tightened them again. God, please help me understand why she feels so good in my arms if she’s not supposed to be here. Am I supposed to be getting over her? Or asking for another chance?
