12. That Dragon Is Mine
THAT DRAGON IS MINE
EXTON
The beeping begins in earnest and the nurse pushes me aside, deftly taking my place.
“Miss Jayne, I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath.” He pauses, his hand at her wrist. “Again.” Another moment of silence followed by, “If Mr. Ranger gets you too worked up, I’ll have him removed.”
The panic in her eyes is real. I just can’t read if it’s about me or Blondie.
“Did she come in with me? Where is she?”
“I can’t say,” Weiss continues. “But I can ask. Again, HIPAA rules make it difficult, but I’ll check.”
“Please,” she says.
Her eyes swing to me. “Why are you here?”
“Do you want me to leave?” The question is cautious, and my voice is low.
“No. I meant… They said FBI. Why is the FBI asking about Jackie?” Her eyes flit to my brothers, pausing on each, and back to me. “Which one of you is FBI?”
“I am,” I confirm.
She sucks in a breath and averts her eyes. She looks at Braxton. “And you?”
He shakes his head. “Horse rancher.”
“And you?” she asks Layton.
“They would’ve never allowed a slacker like me into FBI training, much less kept me.” He winks and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets.
I clench my teeth at his wink and am sure that notch in my jaw protrudes.
When her hand taps on the bed near my thigh, I return my gaze to her face and release the tension in my mouth.
“Are you investigating Jackie? Did you use me to get to her?” Her words are quiet, disbelieving, but she lifts her chin a fraction of an inch in the neck brace, showing me her bravery. Defiance glitters in her eyes.
The words I might just start die on my lips because my brothers interrupt my questioning.
A whistle leaves one of them—probably Braxton, who is far less disciplined and tends to react instead of respond. “Damn. She’s a tough cookie. I’m impressed.”
Layton pipes in, “Formidable. I like her.”
“Look at me, Willa.”
“I am, Exton.” The sass that rolls out with my name pisses me off and turns me on. I’d love to hear her say that when I’m deep inside her.
I lean in to her, keeping her gaze. “I most certainly did not use you. I know about Jackie exactly what you saw when I was with you. You were there for every moment of my history with her. Aside from her social media presence, which I researched for roughly ten minutes before walking into this room, I have zero interest in Jackie James. I’ll pretend you didn’t insult me by suggesting I would fuck someone for information. ”
I move to exit the room, yank open the door, and walk out into the hall.
I approach the nurses’ station and flash my badge. “Don’t suppose you could tell me anything about Jacqueline James, if she were here.”
The lady, who tried to block my path to Willa’s room earlier, replies, “Don’t suppose I could.” She looks both ways, before returning her concentration to her monitor and goes back to typing.
My phone buzzes again.
Jon: Willa know anything about Jackie?
Me: Negative. You?
Jon: No. I was hoping you had intel.
Me: Nothing. We’re missing something.
Jon: Tell me when you’ve got something.
Me: Same.
I take a deep breath, remember myself, and push back into the room only to find Layton on the other side of Willa’s bed, examining the head of her dragon under the sleeve of her gown.
“What the fuck?”
Braxton looks to Layton from the hospital room sofa and says, “Told ya.” He swings his head to Willa. “Told you too.” He leans back into the cushions with his fingers laced behind his neck. His eyes meet mine, and the small grin that spreads across his face is like the cat that ate the canary.
I stand stock-still, hands on hips, and stare down Layton. “Want to explain why you’re touching her?”
Layton doesn’t even try to hide his grin. “Told you so,” he says to Willa and winks a-fucking-gain.
“A moment?” I ask, gesturing to the door, and he and Braxton move. I haul it open and when they’re through the casing, I shut it, locking it with them outside.
Willa looks at me like I’m a predator as I move to her bed. In this case, she’s right.
“Exton—”
I interrupt her with my mouth on hers, my hand, moving, unable to find a place to land until it rests right above her breasts.
When I release her, she holds my eyes, her gaze soft and dazzling.
“What was that for?” she asks.
“Just wanted to remind you, you’re mine. That dragon is mine. I don’t share and definitely not with my brother.”
“Are you asking me to be exclusive, Exton Ranger?”
“I was inside you less than twenty-four hours ago, woman,” I growl.
“You never answered my question,” she says.
“Which one?”
“Why are you here?”
My eyes go hard.
“You want me. I can see it. I can feel it. Yet you want me to leave? Do you think I’ll give up that easily?”
“Let me ask a different question,” she begins, petting the dragon that’s rising inside me. “How are you here?”
I drop my lids shut and allow my shoulders to fall. Here I am a body language expert, and I got tripped up by the vocabulary.
“You didn’t answer my texts. It was hours. You don’t play games, Willa Jayne. This I know. So not responding isn’t your way. You’re too sincere to act coy and too genuine to ghost me. Something was wrong.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“You’re that authentic. It’s rare and, frankly, it does it for me. But so does the hair and the dragon and you watching me take your pussy.”
“Always back to sex with you,” she tries to kid, but I can see the pain on her face.
“With you, definitely. I’ll tell you more later. First, are you here overnight? And second, can you tell me anything about what happened to you?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the answer to every question anyone asks.” She recounts her day from coffee, brunch, and tats, to waking up on the sidewalk, and finally the emergency room. She’s hiding something, or a piece of something, but there’s no lie. She truly doesn’t know.
“Honestly, I think it was just random. Austin is having its share of challenges with all the growth and—” The look on my face must scare her because she stops abruptly. “What?”
“I don’t think it was random, baby.”
“Are you saying someone is after me?”
“Not necessarily. Jackie was with you?”
“Yes. Someone screamed. I thought it was her at the time, but I don’t know. What …. What time is it? Where is she? What’s going on, Exton?”
“Almost ten thirty.”
A light tap sounds from the door. “Hold that thought. I’m coming right back.”
I pull the door open to find Brax and Layton looking sheepish. “Visiting hours are over. They’re asking us to leave. Are we going without you?”
“Unless you want to stay.”
“A slumber party sounds great, but I have an early morning tomorrow with a buyer,” Brax says.
“I’m too delicate to sleep on anything less than a zero-gravity Tempur-pedic mattress. And the polyester blankets here would make my skin itch,” Layton says, owning his reputation as a spoiled brat. He’s not serious, but might as well be.
“We couldn’t have that. Get home to your goose down blankets and million thread-count sheets.” I give him a fist bump.
Turning to Brax, I add, “You get home to your hand.” A smile breaks across my face. “I’ll find you in the morning, and good luck with the buyer. I have my phone. I’m here if you need me. Thank you.” It’s sincere, and they know it.
They agree, and Layton props a hand on the doorframe and leans in. “Nice to meet you, Willa. Cool dragon.”
She nods, wincing with the movement, and gives a small wave. “You too, Layton. Braxton, same to you.”
“See you soon,” he replies, and they’re off.
I walk back to Willa and sit on the mattress at her hip. “What happened with Jackie?”
“She said she was called back and has an early flight tomorrow morning. I’m scared for her. This whole thing is wrong.”
“I went to your house.”
“Well, that’s a segue.”
“Her suitcase is still there. So are all of her toiletries. Nothing is packed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with her things.”
“Oh. Maybe she …” Her head whips to mine, and she cringes. The pain rolls over her in waves, and I can see it wrack her. “How did you get into my house?”
The door opens, and Michael walks in. “Visiting hours are over, Mr. Ranger.”
“Exton.”
“Visiting hours are over, Exton. Hospital policy. It’s time to leave.”
“I’m here for the night. At Miss Jayne’s request.”
“At my—” she begins, but quickly nods, sucking in breath as she does.
“I’m afraid that’s not her decision,” Michael retorts.
I pull my badge from my pocket and flash it just like they do in the movies. We don’t do shit like that, but Michael won’t know that. At least I hope he won’t. Besides, I need his reaction more than I need his agreement.
“I’m afraid that’s not yours either. I mean no disrespect to you, but I won’t be leaving.
” I hold his eyes until his body acquiesces to my authority in the room.
I slide my badge back into my pocket. “Miss Jayne is in pain and is hungry. I know there are protocols. What can we do to make her more comfortable without additional risk to her with her injuries?”
He ticks off next steps in Willa’s care and he orders dinner for her. He looks exasperated with me being there and he makes a point not to ask if I need anything. I don’t need anything. Willa is the only priority.
All in all we spend the next hour dealing with doctors, orderlies, dinner, and a bathroom break, for which Michael insists I wait on the sofa. Eventually the lights dim, and we’re alone again.
“I need to know what happened, but I’m… too tired to understand,” Willa says. “I need to call Jackie… Something’s not right. Grab my phone, would you?” Her speech slurred either from the injury, the exhaustion, or the meds.
“Go to sleep, dragon slayer. I’ll be here when you wake.” I kiss her gently and then watch as she succumbs to sleep.
I spend the next hour researching what I can on my phone about Jackie James and Willa Jayne.
Willa’s social media presence and public info is as I expected…
minimal, relatable, and fairly innocuous.
She doesn’t overindulge on personal details.
Her pictures aren’t flashy or show too much flesh.
With the exception of her clients’ tattoos and her artwork, she’s a shadow online of her true self.
I’d almost call her a tease. Her info begs you to dig deeper, to search harder, to find out more.
She’s there, but there are so few bread crumbs to follow that it’s almost as if she doesn’t want to be found.
Blondie, on the other hand, is all about showing and telling the whole story. If I wanted to, I could trace her steps on any given day. Her coffee shop, her salon, where she gets her nails done, where she gets her fillers and Botox. I know her apartment, her sponsors, her gym, her spa.
Kill me now.
If Willa is a bared shoulder, making you beg to see more, Jackie might as well be porn, leaving nothing to the imagination.
The only good thing about it, when I refresh her feed, after being sucked down the rabbit hole of shoes, lip glosses, and serums—whatever the fuck those are—is that her posts are incessant.
And a new one is timestamped from fifteen minutes ago.
The sign shows a lit emergency sign, though it’s been altered in some artful, filtered way, and the caption stops me in my tracks.
More personal than I usually post, but my bestie is at the hospital after an attack-Send good juju for her please-I’m scared.
The location tag shows she’s here.
There are sixteen hundred comments, and I can only assume her DMs are full of men trying to score. It’ll be easier to find her in person than connect on a social platform. I leave Willa’s room, mention to the night nurse I’m going to grab a bite and return, and then search for Jackie.
It takes less than ten minutes. She’s in the second waiting room I walk into.
“Exton?” The surprise in her voice is unmistakable. She jumps out of her chair and rushes to me. “How’s Willa? How did you know where to find me?”
I look to the phone in her hand, and she lifts it on the shrug of her shoulder. “Well, it was good I posted then.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, more curious about what her behavior will say than her verbal response.
She shrugs again, but her face falls. But that’s not what I’m focused on. Her tells are all wrong. Her pulse is flitting at her neck. She’s licking her lips. Her eyes are darting to the door and back again. Her body reads panic, while her mouth says, “Yeah, just worried about Willa.”
I don’t trust her. I don’t need to have known her since childhood to know something is not right. But I want more time to watch and see.
“She’s in a room. Want to come in? Or would you rather stay out here?”
“I want to see her.” The words rush out of her, and she follows as I lead our way back to Willa.
Once we’re settled back in the room, I move to the chair by Willa’s bed and give Jackie the couch.
“What happened today?”
She gives me a similar version of the day’s events, replete with details I care little about.
What I’m coming to discover about Jackie are two things.
She can’t escape her phone and her business reeks of desperation.
She wants people to think she’s got it all together, is a power influencer—whatever the fuck that means—but she’s struggling to make that happen. Desperation makes for bad decisions.
It also clues me in to Willa’s character as well.
She didn’t grab her phone the whole time we were together.
Granted, I spent a good amount of time wrapped up in her body, but she didn’t grab her phone in the restaurant or the car or while we were all together. Hell, it’s not on her bedside even now.
Jackie twirls hers in her hand, stopping every few seconds to touch the screen and tap out something for large blocks of time. “I wanted to get to talk to her, to see her more.” Jackie stares between the floor and her phone, talking in Willa’s general direction, but apparently to me.
“I hate that I have to go. I wanted to change my flight, but I can’t make that happen. Tell her I love her. Have her call me in the morning?” She turns to me, shrinking in to herself, looking at me tentatively.
I nod once and hold her gaze until she breaks and looks away. “When’s your flight?”
“Five. I need to get going if I’m going to grab my things and make it to the airport in time.”
I nod again. She’s not lying. But she’s not being wholly truthful either. “Do you have a key to Willa’s place?”
She nods again, not holding my eyes.
“Use the back entrance. Police are watching the front.”
Her head springs up and her eyes hold panic. “What? Why? And—”
I can’t stop myself. I need to know her reaction. “Front door was kicked in. I wouldn’t suggest going, except if you think you have to.”
Her eyes are wide in fear, her pupils dilate as the pulse jumps in her neck. She backs up a step or two and bumps into Willa’s bed, spinning wildly.
I watch the whole scene while she unravels. What the fuck am I missing?