Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) (9 page)

***

Of course, Nina wasn’t able to claw any information out of Jack.  She had been tossing enough questions across the table at him to land her a seat on 60 Minutes, and Jack had yet to give her a real answer.  He just watched her with his eyebrows raised high, as if he were wondering when she’d have the sense to throw in the towel.

His phone buzzed on the table between them.

“And your phone is ringing,” Nina said.  “
Again.” 
When Jack didn’t even look up from his drink she brought the phone’s display closer, her eyebrows lifted.  “Surprisingly enough, it is
not
Kelly, or Chase—the two people that call you the most obsessively—whoever they are…”

Jack still didn’t look up, moving from one plate of food to the next.

Nina’s eyebrows pulled as the caller ID kicked in.  “Don’t tell me you work for Jones Day Law Firm?”

This time, Jack’s head did shoot up, and his big eyes met hers.

Nina’s eyes grew larger, as well, in direct response to the shock on his face.  “Well, well… looks who’s suddenly at full attention—” Her mouth fell open when Jack snatched the phone from her hand, dropped his fork, and left the table completely.

As she watched him cross the restaurant and blast through the front door, she still couldn’t clap her mouth closed.

“What just happened?” she asked, looking around in awe.

***

“Stop calling me,” Jack spat into the phone once he’d made it outside.  He paced back and forth on the dirt road, the dust making a quick mess of his leather shoes as he scowled into the distance.  “Stop goddamn calling me, Kyle.”

“We just thought you’d want an update.”

“The hell you did.”

A long pause followed, and then Kyle’s voice went high, confirming Jack was right.  “We just need you on the stand one time, Jack.  Just one.  That’s it, and it will
seal
this win for us.”

“Us, us, us.  What aren’t you understanding, Kyle? I don’t work for you animals anymore.” Jack lowered his voice as a passerby scuttled past, waiting until they’d entered the restaurant to resume. “I’m not interested in updates, and I’m sure as hell not interested in sitting on a stand and talking about what a wonderful guy that man was when we both know that’s a goddamn lie.  I’ve…” Jack swept his hand through the air, turning back toward the restaurant.  He stalled when he saw Nina watching him pointedly through the window of their booth, squinting with her chin cradled in her hand.  “I’ve wiped my hands of this.  I don’t want anything to do with it.  I just want to be left alone.  I want to be alone
. 
Why the hell can’t anyone
accept
that?”  He spat those words at Nina as if she could hear him through the glass, and her squint deepened.  She even threw in a confused tilt of her head, which made Jack turn his back to her, walking further down the dirt road.

“You want to be left alone in the brownstone that will be seized?  Left alone with an inheritance that’ll be drained bone dry?  You will lose every penny you have if you don’t testify, Jack, and so will Chase.”

Jack froze in mid-step and breathed in, eyes flying shut.  “The prosecution is only after half the estate, and I fully intend to have every penny siphoned from my half, not his.  Try again.”

“And what happens when they decide to come after you for the lawyer fees? Where does the money come from then?”

Jack gnawed his teeth.

“Maybe if I give Chase a call he’ll have a different idea,” Kyle said.

Jack laughed.  “If you want to seal your
loss
, go ahead and put Chase on the stand.  I might’ve been willing to lie for that son of a bitch, but I promise you my brother will not.”

A long silence passed down the other line, telling Jack that Kyle already knew, very well, that going to Chase was a waste of time.

“He was your father, Jack.” Kyle gave it one last-ditch effort.  “Six years ago, you defended this case tooth and nail.  What changed?”

Jack took a deep breath, shaking his head when he saw Nina had all but jammed her forehead and her lips onto the dirty glass, watching him with wide, curious eyes, as if pressing her entire face against that glass would help her hear through it.

“I woke up,” Jack answered.

He ended the call before Kyle could respond.

***

When Jack sat down across the booth from her and resumed his breakfast like nothing was out of the ordinary, Nina only made it about half a minute before she was leaning forward on her elbows while tapping her boots anxiously onto the checked tile floor.

“Are you really just going to sit back down and act like that wasn’t the most alive you’ve ever been in your life out there?”

Jack shoved a forkful of scrambled eggs passed his lips, chewed languidly, and then raised his hooded eyes to hers.

Unmoved by his annoyed gaze, Nina clasped her hands together.  “Pacing, frowning, looking at anyone who walked passed you suspiciously—like you were on the phone with the Secretary of Defense or something.  You still can’t work the frown off your face, even now.  Who’s this angry at breakfast?  You are, Jack.”

Jack sighed, shaking his head as he resumed his meal.

“The question is…” She tapped her chin.  “Why?  And what is it about Jones Day Law Firm that’s got you so incredibly riled up?”

“You know, life is so much easier, Nina.”  He lifted his eyes to hers.  “When you mind your own damn business.  You should try it sometime.”

“Whether or not either of us likes it, we’re in each other’s lives.  We have shared something together that we will never share with another human being for as long as we live.  I know that you’re a lawyer, so spirituality of any kind escapes you… but it doesn’t escape me.”

“Good orange juice,” Jack mumbled holding up his glass as if she didn’t have a half-chugged glass of her own.  “What do you think? Sunny D?”

“We were meant to meet, you and I.  We were meant to be in each other’s lives.  The universe is working overtime to keep us all tangled up in one another.”  She laughed.  “So we might as well stop fighting the universe… and just tell each other stuff.  Maybe once we stop fighting it, the universe will get bored of us and release us from this web.”

“Fine.” Jack slammed down his orange juice, motioning across the table.  “Why are you divorcing your husband? Better yet, which one of you was the first to draw up the papers?  Who got served?  Who got blindsided?”

The air left Nina’s lungs.  She straightened.  When her eyes filled with tears, she crossed her arms tight and looked away from him.

“Ah.”  Jack motioned to her with his fork, waiting for her to shoot a teary, hate-filled look at him from the corner of her eye.  He held that hate-filled gaze while throwing her a false smile that, in its falsity, fell in an instant.  “Mind your own damn business.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself to mind your own damn business, so be it.”

“You must fit right in at Jones Day.”

“Sounds personal.  Is Jones Day representing your husband?”

“Mind your own
damn
business.” She tightened her crossed arms while leaning over the table, wagging her neck as she threw his words right back at him.

“There it is, doll.”  He smirked.  “You’re a quick study.”

She pushed her hair out of her eye, averting her angry gaze.

The moment she did, Jack cursed under his breath.  The smirk on his face vanished.

Nina snuck a look.  “Don’t try to apologize now.  You’ve been telling me what a jerk you are from day one, and I officially believe you, okay?  So let’s just get to the train and go our separate ways already.”

“No.” Jack motioned to his eye with two fingers, the frown on his face deepening.

Nina mirrored him, bringing her hand to her eye and brushing it with the beds of her fingers.  She winced when pain shot through her, and then pushed her hair back over it.  “Yeah, man…” she whispered.  “You got me pretty good after we fell off that train.  Right in the eye.”

“Goddamn it.”  Jack bent deep into the table on one arm and reached across with the other, pushing her hair away from her eye again.  Without a word, he pulled his hand away, seeing her curls plop back over her eye.

He held both of his hands up as if surrendering, his eyes jamming shut as he shook his head.

“I’m fine,” she laughed when he covered his face with his hands.

“I kicked you in the face.”

“We, literally, went careening over the edge of a train.  It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

Jack fell back against the booth.  “It’s going to be the size of a golf ball by tomorrow.”

“I’ll consider it a fun souvenir.  Something to remember you by, once we go our separate ways.”

“I can’t believe I kicked a woman in the face.  You know I would never do that purposely right?”  He motioned across the table, eyes still lowered.  “I would never hurt a woman…”

“Aries… I have known you for two days, and we’ve already shared a bed.  If I didn’t know you were a good man, that never would have happened okay?”

He lifted his eyes to hers.  “You don’t have the first clue what kind of man I am.”

She blinked, stunned.

His eyes went over her shoulder, and he motioned to someone, mouthing a request.

She grinned at him.  “I know you just asked the waitress to bring a bag of ice for my eye.”

He fell back in his seat.

“So, yes, I do have
some
idea what kind of man you are, Runaway, and I know you’re not a bad one.”

***

Moments after the waitress dropped the Ziploc back of ice down in front of Jack; he moved to Nina’s side of the booth, sliding in next to her.

Her spine tightened as the booth became warmer, sending a layer of moisture collecting on every part of her body that responded to one glance from this man in an instant.  As she snuck a look at him, it occurred to Nina that this was the closest they’d ever been to each other without a near death experience being the cause.

From far away, his brown eyes looked black, but close up they were a warm copper.  A bronze that could bypass gold without even trying.

“I’m fine, Aries.”  She barely heard the words leave her own mouth.

Those bronze eyes vanished as his thick lashes lowered.  He studied the thick mountain of curls shading her eye, reached up and moved it away.

His face curled the moment he got a good look at the shiner up close.

“Is it really that bad?  Or are you this big a wuss—”  She hissed around the gentle sting of the ice when he pressed it against her eye.

He winced with her.  “Easy,” he purred.

She took a deep breath, and the unbearable chill grew less and less painful.  Maybe it was her body becoming accustomed to the cold, or pacified by the gentle feel of his other hand caressing her chin.

“Easy,” he said, more softly this time.

Nina’s eyes fluttered shut, and she turned her head to his fingers. He slid them up and down her cheek, so slowly she could feel his touch on every pore as he moved them under her chin, down her throat.

She swallowed.

In the distance, the bell over the diner door chimed to life, but Nina couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes to see who’d arrived.  How could she, when Jack’s warm touch was retracing its path, back up her neck, along her chin and into her hair, where they got tangled up in her curls.

She felt him tugging her in and let her eyes flutter open, unable to stop a coy smile when she found his own eyes gently shut, those thick lashes tickling his strong cheeks.

She took a deep breath in, and her eyes flew over his shoulder at the sound of a snicker.  Four bikers had just taken up residence at the table across from them.

“Nigger lover.”

The words were whispered, hardly discernible to the naked ear, but somehow, seemed like they’d been spoken over a loud speaker.

Not only did Jack’s eyes open, but they
flew
open, and he craned his neck to shoot a look over his shoulder.

Watching the side of his jaw muscles rolling under his skin, Nina’s heartbeat picked up.  She clutched Jack’s arm, immediately appreciating the strength she had to put in as he tried to turn toward the four men.

“It’s not worth it,” she said.  “Jack…”

Jack lowered the ice, the condensation from the bag dripping down his golden forearm.  He removed his hand from Nina’s hair, clutching it in a fist the moment it was free.

“What was that?” Jack asked, turning toward the bikers.

Nina’s wide eyes flew from the back of Jack’s head to the table.

The bikers, all pasty-skinned and drowning in black leather, chortled under their breath.  Three of them had the good sense to avoid eye contact.  The one in the seat closest to Jack, however, with a long blond ponytail and an even longer beard, matched Jack’s gaze, leaning forward between the tables.