"What I understand is that he's a leech."
She knew Jase was right but didn't want to fully embrace the truth. "He's insecure."
"He's a prick."
"Who might be in some trouble," she pointed out angrily.
He let out a deep breath. "Who might be in some trouble," he finally concurred.
Janey looked out the window. Frustrated. Exhausted. Done in. "Okay, this is going to stop sometime, right?" An overwhelming sense of helplessness coupled with fatigue and threatened to overtake her. "I'm going to wake up in the morning and all of this is going to be like some Ex-induced dream and I'll be back in charge of my life again."
Didn't matter that she'd never done drugs and never would; she had to figure that this was what it must feel like to live through a bad trip.
"I mean... it's too much. On top of everything else, this is just too much."
"Yeah," he agreed softly, then surprised her by reaching out and covering her hand with his. "It's way too much."
"And so," he added with a meaningful squeeze, "are you. You were really something ... you saved my sorry hide in that cave."
Yeah. She had. And she was still amazed that she'd kept it together, because when she thought about it she came damn close to falling apart.
"I... I can still see him... standing over you. He ... he was going to shoot you."
"Hey—don't think about it, okay? It's over. And so is his little reign of terror. There was a trail of blood leading out of that cave. Too much blood to have come from your ankle. You got him, babe. Put him in a world of hurt."
She knew it had been a shoot-or-be-shot situation, but still the idea of hurting another human being—even an animal like Grimm—well, it was hard to think about.
"Nolan notified all the police departments involved. There's a nationwide APB out for Grimm now. Sooner or later, he's got to come up for air—he's probably already on his way to an ER somewhere. And if not now, he'll show up in one soon. Then they'll get him. And this will all be over."
Over. Yeah. More than anything in the world, she wanted this to be over. She wished she could believe he was right. Just like she wished she was right about Neal. That he'd show up soon.
Somehow, though, she had a feeling that maybe she'd gotten all the wishes she'd been allotted for one life. Wishes
and
prayers, both of which had been answered when Baby Blue had opened his eyes in that cave—a little battered, a lot bruised, but alive.
Near sundown, same day, outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming
"Who did you say this place belonged to?" Janey asked as they pulled up to the mountain retreat a few miles north of Jackson Hole.
"No's wife, Jillian. It's her parents'. Guess the Kincaids rarely use it," Jase said as he got out of the rented SUV. "Man. I'd be here fifty-three weeks a year if I owned a place like this."
Which he never would, he reminded himself as he opened the rear door of the SUV and lifted out their duffels. Just one more reason to remember that wealth on the scale of publishing moguls like Jillian's father, Darin Kincaid, and rock stars like Sweet Baby Jane separated them from the working class.
Of which he was a card-carrying lifetime member.
"Wow. This is gorgeous." Janey stepped out of the SUV and joined him on the path of natural stone that led to the massive house constructed of log, stone, and glass. The house appeared to be one with its surroundings of aspen and evergreen and rock.
"It's damn remote," Jase said, knowing from his field experience that the location could be a good or a bad thing from a defensive standpoint.
Good because anyone looking for them was going to have a damn hard time finding them out here. Bad because if they were found, there wasn't a cavalry in the world that could charge in here in time to save the day. And while he'd tried to whitewash the Grimm situation for Janey—Lord knew she needed a little relief from it— he wasn't taking any chances. The bastard kept showing up when there was no way in hell he should have found them.
If he turned up here, Jase was going to be ready.
Dusk was fast approaching and a low-hanging sun glinted off a twenty-foot wall of windows. As they walked toward the house, Jase realized that the past twenty-four hours were catching up with him. They'd caught a 4:45 a.m. flight out of Chicago to Atlanta. In an attempt to throw Grimm off their trail, they'd hopped on a last-minute flight from Atlanta to Minneapolis, then on to Salt Lake City before connecting with their final flight to Jackson Hole. Damn near twelve hours in the air or at an airport.
Try and find us now, you sick fuck.
Frankly, Jase would like nothing better than to make a stand, call Grimm out, and get Janey out from under his reign of terror. He wanted to be the one to take Grimm down—especially after last night. He touched a hand to the lump on his temple. Grimm had some payback coming.
If it were a case of mano a mano, that would be Jase's choice. A one-on-one showdown. Let the bastard come. He'd enjoy the hell out of taking him down.
But that wasn't the case. Janey's life was still on the line. And then there was the trail of dead bodies from Illinois to Florida to add to the mix. He still couldn't figure tagging Grimm for those deaths. And that left one more level of threat to deal with and figure out.
"Come on." Once they'd cleared the steps leading to a massive porch that ran the width of the house. He hitched his chin in the direction of a double front door. "Let's get inside."
As little as Janey was, she made way too big of a target for someone with a rifle and a scope. And Jase had a damn bad feeling that no matter how well they'd covered their tracks, they were going to have company of the badass variety.
He punched the security code No had given him into the keypad and let them inside.
"Fridge is full," he announced after checking out the kitchen. No had told him the Kincaids' caretaker, who lived in Jackson Hole, would stock the place for them, then make himself scarce.
"Your boss came through."
"No always comes through," Jase said, then stopped long enough to look at her.
She looked beat. And in spite of that, she looked beautiful. Damn, she looked beautiful. Too beautiful for him to be tucked away with her in a remote mountain retreat. She was also about ready to drop.
"You need to catch some sleep."
"And you should have seen a doctor for your arm and your head."
"I told you, I'm fine. And I need to do a little recon." He went in search of the gun cabinet No had told him was hidden in a closet down the hall off the kitchen.
"Jackpot," he murmured when he found it. While he'd have preferred an M4 or an Ml6, the .300 Weatherbee bolt-action rifle would do. He shouldered the weapon, sighted through the scope. "Nice."
So was the Ruger Magnum. Shoving the handgun into the waistband of his jeans, he grabbed ammo for both pieces and headed back to the main living area.
And found Janey sound asleep on the sofa.
As he stood there, armed to the teeth with enough firepower to incite a minor coup, he felt a tenderness that damn near took him to his knees.
God, look at her. For the first time in his life, he understood why men had fought over and fought for their women since the dawn of time.
It wasn't about testosterone. It wasn't about possession. It was about knowing, deep down inside on a level buried under pride and posturing and the need to provide, that without woman, without
the
woman, man was nothing. And life was not complete.
Talk about your life-altering moments.
Jase set the rifle aside and carefully covered her with a colorful woven throw he tugged from the back of the sofa.
Talk about your moments of truth.
He understood something else now, too. He finally understood what had been confusing him from the first time he'd set eyes on Janey Perkins. He had loved Sara, yes. Because she'd needed him. Because he was a giver and she'd filled his need to give.
But he loved Janey for an entirely different reason. He loved Janey because
he
needed
her.
It didn't get more simple than that.
"Why do you have to make this so hard?"
He could still see the frustration and hurt in her brown eyes last night at the sand pit. After they'd made love. After he'd been determined to make her understand that since hell hadn't frozen over and the sky hadn't fallen he didn't see the two of them making things work together as happening, either.
"And why, exactly, is that?" he asked himself as, still watching her, he sank down in a plump, overstuffed leather side chair.
He propped his elbow on the arm of the chair, stroked his chin, and tried to dredge up all those damn good reasons why it wouldn't work.
And they didn't seem so damn good anymore.
"When this is over," he whispered, watching this woman who had so changed his life sleep, "we'll see. We'll see what happens."
But first, he had to get her through this. He stood, then had to wait for his head to quit spinning because he'd moved too fast. Marginally level again, he stretched out the kinks and, grabbing the rifle, headed outside to take a look around.
He could sleep later. Right now, he needed to scout the lay of the land and check in with No.
"Jesus," he said after he'd hung up half an hour later; his mind reeled with Dallas Garrett's latest update. "Jesus. What in the hell is going on?"
Chapter 21
It was dark when Janey woke up. She stretched and rolled to her back, opening her eyes to the soft glow of the table lamp at the end of the sofa and to the wonderful scent of something cooking.
Yawning hugely, she sat for a moment, waited for the fog of sleep to dissipate, then rose and walked barefoot toward the kitchen. The delicious scents that greeted her sent her stomach growling.
"Wilson?" she said softly when she didn't find him in the kitchen area of the open and spacious house constructed of interior log walls, open beamed ceilings, a huge stone fireplace, and acres of glass.
She flicked on a light switch. Honey-gold wood flooring shined beneath her feet. Unable to resist, she peeked inside the oven; it was filled with crisp bacon and a fluffy cheese omelet.
"And he cooks," she said with a smile, and, because she was suddenly ravenous, helped herself to a piece of bacon.
"Thought we'd already established that," a dark voice said from behind her.
She turned around, more stunned by his words than by surprise when she saw him standing just inside the back door, a rifle cradled in his arms.
She wasn't sure which affected her the most. His obvious decision that he needed to carry that much firepower or what he'd said. And the way he'd said it.
"Thought we'd already established that."
Flirting? Was he actually flirting? Maybe his head injury was worse than she'd thought.
"We absolutely have," she agreed when she found his eyes were clear and alert.
She was intrigued all over again by the sudden flush that stained his cheeks, a flush that told her they were both thinking about the cookin' they'd done together in a little pool of water and on a tiny sand beach back in Iowa.
God. Had that really been just last night?
"There's fruit in the fridge," he said, breaking eye contact. He walked across the kitchen and set the rifle in the corner within easy reach of the table.