“Surgery seems too risky. I think they’ve ruled that out. But it’s beginning to affect his vision so he’s agreed to radiation therapy starting next week after his parents and Brooke leave. They’re arriving later today and they go back home on Sunday.”
“Yes, Char and I are having coffee. You should join us.”
“Hmm … I’ll see. Brooke and her family are staying with us. Jackson’s not too thrilled, so I may need to be there as a buffer.”
“He doesn’t like Brooke?” Lilith questioned.
“She has kids.”
“He doesn’t like kids?”
“Just his own.”
“He has kids?”
Jillian laughed. “Not yet, but he’s working on it.”
“Sounds like a story.”
“It probably will be, but it’s still in the prologue.”
“And yours and Luke’s?”
“It’s just getting good.” Jillian grinned.
*
Day
“How did killing Four make you feel?”
Luke was more determined than ever to work through Jessica’s past, lay it to rest, and begin their future. She liked the future part, but lacked motivation to deal with the past since the night they’d had sex. However, he knew it bothered her that they hadn’t had it again after that first time with her bound to her bed—that had been a month earlier. Luke found plenty of excuses and ways to distract her, the dog being the biggest one.
“Why can’t I move in with you?” She sat on his bed with Jones, who wasn’t supposed to be on his bed or any of the furniture.
“Because you’re a slob. Down.” He snapped his fingers at Jones and pointed to the floor.
Jones rested his head on Jessica’s leg in defiance.
“I’m not when I’m at your place.”
“You are.” He gave up on the stubborn—contumacious—dog and continued with his crossword puzzle, staying in the chair by the window. Luke wouldn’t go near her in his bed. It was a bad idea.
“Give me one example.”
“One of your shoes is right there on the floor and the other is in the middle of my hallway. You ‘clean’ my kitchen counter by wiping the crumbs onto the floor. You ‘organize’ your purse by emptying gum wrappers and toothpicks onto my coffee table and leaving them there. After you wash your hands in the bathroom you flick your fingers before grabbing the towel and leave water spots on my mirror. And you’re always taking books from my bookshelf and you never put them back.”
Jessica frowned while petting Jones. “Jeez, I just said one.”
He smirked at her pathetic attempt at pouting. She was the world’s worst pouter, and he’d told her as much so many times. Anyone trained to kill could not pout. Period.
“Answer my question.”
She flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “After I killed Four I felt different.”
“Different how?
“When he killed Claire it hardened me to the world. I had so much hate for the unfairness of it all. But when I killed him it hardened my feelings toward Jessica Day. She was trained in defense, not revenge. I was trained to think of it like that. We were defenders, like soldiers, not killers. We don’t call soldiers in the military killers, even if they kill.”
“So you were upset with yourself?”
“Disappointed. Separated. In denial. I don’t know, I just no longer knew who I was or who I was supposed to be. Jessica the defender has friends, drinks too much wine, and pursues her career. Jessica the killer just …”
“Just?”
“Waits.”
“Waits for what?”
“Trigger.”
“Who’s Trigger?”
“The one that got away.”
“Matthew Green?”
She nodded.
Luke had to push through his own emotions and leave them behind. Jessica’s lover didn’t want to know any more. He too wanted it to all just disappear. But Dr. Jones owed it to her and he owed it to Luke. He had to make things right.
“You want Matthew Green dead?”
She shook her head then looked over at him with tears in her eyes. He knew she hated those tears. Maybe someday she’d realize the strength in setting them free. Luke felt privileged that she trusted him with her vulnerability—with her tears. The need to go to her and wrap her in his arms pained him. Why? Why couldn’t love heal everything?
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered, her face scrunched with pain.
“I’ll never hate you.”
“I don’t just want him dead … I want to kill him because he didn’t save my friend.”
Luke couldn’t take that away. No one could take that away. Two voices resided inside her, and she needed that separation to keep a small shred of her sanity. He, however, couldn’t separate the two. He had to love both of them as one for her to have any chance of offering forgiveness and finding acceptance.
“I can see it…” she blinked, releasing the tears “…in your eyes. You wonder what’s wrong with you. You wonder how you could even consider loving someone as awful as me.”
Dr. Jones needed to stay focused and not let his emotions override the progress they were making. But that man—the one who loved her more than a clean mirror, or a tidy coffee table, or oxygen for that matter—told the good doctor to fuck off. Then he stood and went to her.