Chapter 34
Adam
Friday marked day five of sharing my house with Jo.
I was handling it just fine. It hadn’t made me want things I’d long ago decided I’d never have. It hadn’t made me question every promise I’d made to myself concerning her. It hadn’t made me want to lock her inside and spend days satisfying her every desire as a way to distract us both.
What it had done? Made me a flaming liar.
The stalker was still on the loose, and this fact made clear he wasn’t an average John Doe. He’d used a stolen plate on the car he’d driven through town the day he’d ordered and placed flowers at Jo’s door. We’d canvassed the area asking people if they’d seen the guy after obtaining an artist’s rendering, but no dice.
So days later, Jo was living at my house in my guest room, our team rotated between Beast and Cookie and me guarding her, and we waited.
No new letters and no overtures in person, either.
By Friday night, all of us were ready for some down time. Jo was thrilled to get together with her girlfriends, and since the Saint Security routine coincided with her girls’ night, she had protection in place without drawing her friends’ attention to it.
Weirdly, I’d found it increasingly difficult to be away from her. Actually, no. It wasn’t weird. That reality was rooted in the worry I had for her, and getting used to having her close by at night and first thing in the morning. Sue me if having a beautiful woman occupy my usually rather empty house made my life a little better.
But tonight, the frustration from a week full of chasing rabbit trails paired with worry over how hard Ethan was working and how much Dorian was struggling and even the fact that Jess had taken off on a quickie remote assignment this week, so Jo still hadn’t told her about Josie Wade… all of it had added up.
When Beast sat a highball of whiskey down in front of me, I toasted his and we drank. Bruce eyed our glasses as he poured a round of beer for everyone else—Kenny, Tristan, and Cookie.
“Rough week there, Doc?” Cookie asked, his dark hair flopping over his forehead in a ridiculously charming way.
“You could say that,” I grumbled, then glanced to my right to catch sight of Jo.
My heart tripped, then did its best impression of splattering on the bottom of my rib cage. Graphic, and utterly nonsense physiologically. For the best, she was the author and I was the… what? No longer actually a medic. No longer a soldier. Personal security guy. Neat.
“You look like you’re spiraling a little,” Bruce said quietly as Kenny launched into a story about who knew what.
“Frustrated. And…” I glanced around again. It wasn’t the feeling of being watched. I knew that feeling and this wasn’t quite it. More so, it seemed like we were on display tonight. Going through the emotions when we should be at home. When Jo and I should be wrapped in each other and I wouldn’t have to share her with anyone.
But that’s not how this works—not now, not ever.
I grumbled at my own thought.
“Sounding like me,” Beast muttered under his breath as he nudged my glass toward me.
I took another drink.
“As soon as you’re ready, let’s schedule the first survival class. We’ll get you something to focus on.” Bruce patted my back like this news would cheer me.
It did on some level. “Sounds good.” Bruce’s statement was more reminder than news, but I appreciated the effort.
Tristan’s presence next to me was steady and calm, as usual. Oak had been aptly named years ago during his selection and assessment, just like we all had. But was Doc really much of a nickname? It said nothing about my character or who I was at my heart—nothing of who I am outside of the military.
“Calendar’s filling up for fall,” Kenny said, leaning on the table and drawing my eye. Barbie. He did have a Ken-doll smile.
“Business is booming. I’ll admit that when Julian Grenier told us he’d back us, I thought he was a fool. I never realized how many celebrities and high-profile clients would end up here.” Bruce raised his pint glass to the center of the table, and we all touched our glasses together.
Mine was empty. Odd. Had I guzzled it down while I drowned in my own sorry thoughts?
“Grenier’s a good man, for a billionaire,” Cookie said, his mistrust of wealth not a surprise. His most recent overseas assignment with a celebrity had drilled that home, from what he’d said.
“We couldn’t have gotten started without him, that’s for sure. And we wouldn’t be able to expand as quickly as we have either,” Bruce acknowledged.
“Yeah, but you and Wilder are still the Saint Daddies.” Kenny grinned, eyes sparkling, and he looked like he might start posing for photoshoots, he was so proud of his comment.
Bruce gave him his infamous Jaws look. “Call me Saint Daddy again, Barbie, and see what happens.”
Kenny fluttered his lashes, but Beast, shockingly enough, broke in. “Pretty sure that specific title belongs to Wilder—according to Pop.”
Everyone chuckled and Bruce patted his shoulder. “Thank you. Exactly. Wilder is the official Saint Daddy forever.”
For his part, Beast looked pleased with the response as he emptied his glass. Interesting. Saving Kenny and dropping a reference to his enemy number one. Hard to believe a few sips of whiskey in that giant body could shake his rigidity loose, but he’d been under a fair amount of stress lately, so maybe he was trying.
Done with the attention, Beast disappeared for a few minutes while everyone else chatted—about the fall and how busy it would be rolling into the high season of celebrity appearances during the ski season, about travel assignments and leave plans people had, and all the while I stayed quiet, nursing my drink.
Beast had evidently slid a fresh one in front of me and I’d been brooding. I wasn’t a brooder, nor was I particularly a lover of whiskey, but by the time Jo and Winnie came to the table and Winnie led Tristan away, I was feeling it.
“You ready?” Jo asked, a soft smile and tired eyes greeting me.
Beautiful.Damn but she was so completely beautiful.
“If you are. But I shouldn’t drive.” I knew that much.
“I’ll drop you both. Nik and Kiley are doing a movie night since Kiley’s sick.” Bruce waved his keys and Jo accepted, looping her arm through mine.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve eaten, or slowed down, or both.” I never did this—never got to where I couldn’t drive and certainly not when I was supposed to be responsible for someone else. When I was tasked with keeping her safe.
She waved me off and Bruce got us home a few minutes later. We’d work out cars tomorrow. For now, I focused on not running my hand over Jo’s bare knee next to me in Bruce’s back seat. I begged my mind to clear enough so I didn’t do or say any of the things that felt so close to the surface in the dark, as we watched Bruce reverse out of the driveway while we walked inside together.
What if this was it—just us, like this, indefinitely? What if you had her for good?
I locked the dead bolt and double-checked it, then turned and ran into Jo, whose hands came to my shoulders.
“What’s going on in that head?”
Her voice was soft and a little rough like it sometimes got after a night out. I’d noticed it once months ago as we all left Craic after hours of laughing and talking together with the Saint staff and her friends.
“I’m sorry.”
She ran a hand up my neck and scratched at the hair at my nape. “Stop that. You’re allowed to blow off some steam. No one is hurt. Nothing is wrong here. I’m not upset, and you don’t owe me an apology.”
I shook my head, marveling at her. So many things flooded to the forefront of my mind—how often my ex had been angry at me and how often I’d acted like I didn’t care. How infrequently I’d apologized and how rarely she’d accepted if I did, much less told me there was no need.
It’d been years, but there they were, those memories, a direct counter to this moment.
“What is it?” she asked, pleading in the huskiness of her tone.
I took her in.
I want you so much I can’t find words for it.
My pulse hammered in my neck just inches from where her fingers toyed with the too-long hair at the back of my head.
I think I might love you and the fact that I’m not sure shows just how broken I am.
I swallowed hard, drinking in the concern in her eyes, the intention with which she watched me.
All I know is I belong with you and I wish you belonged with me. I don’t know how I’ll handle this when it’s over.
She jolted. “When it’s over?”
On a sharp exhale, I dropped my forehead to hers and just breathed, waiting for my thundering heart to find a way to explain—to make up for what I’d said aloud apparently. For everything I’d messed up between us already and the fact that I had no intention of ending it here and now even though I should. I’d just admitted I expected an ending, hadn’t I? But here I was, clinging to her instead of letting her go.
“Adam, I need you to use words now,” she said, her voice edged with an unbending will I’d rarely heard directed toward me.
I pulled back and steadied myself. “I don’t know how to go forward, but I don’t think I can stop with you. I don’t want this to stop.”
She gripped my forearms firmly, as though grounding us together in the moment. “Then let’s keep going forward. See what happens. Be brave.”
She sounded so clear and certain that was an option. She had so much faith in us, I felt it seep into me through her fingers and her palms against my skin.
“Okay.”
And for the first time, I could feel in myself a genuine desire to be open—to let things between us unfold in a way that could actually mean forever, where one day becomes two, then three, then it merges and blends into an endless streak of days… That’s how forever happened, didn’t it?
I’d never imagined being in a place to want a future with someone again, but this miraculous woman had shown me how wonderful being with someone could be.
Jo made me not only want to try, but made me believe I could.
And so together, we’d be brave.