Is he sleeping?He spent the night in a tree! I should smack him. He worried everyone sick after his phone lost contact—just like Jax. Men are despicable.
Ariel returned to pacing the front porch in hopes someone would miraculously appear.
Mitch Isa Turtle poked his head from his house, and she fed him the turtle food she’d special ordered online. She paced some more. Sick to her stomach from helplessness, she returned inside.
Had Roark cracked his head on the tile? No, he’d collapsed first. He was still breathing. In fact, he was practically snoring. Relieved that he was still alive, she escaped to her computer. What did she search on? Collapsed man?
Not finding anything in search engines, she went back to check again. Still breathing. For how long? It had been over an hour. She paced back to the porch. Was that dust rising down the road?
Relieved, terrified, overwhelmed, she retreated to the shadows of the porch as the van arrived with a speeding Harley close behind—help, at last. Sliding down the wall to sit on the porch planks, she tucked her knees to her chest and hugged her shins. She rocked silently while the men turned off their engines at the perimeter she’d set.
No people! No people, no people.
She rocked to soothe herself as they slowly approached.Jax, Jax, Jax, okay.She rocked harder as the tall Black man climbed out of the van and followed her brother.Reuben.She recognized Dr. Reuben Thompson, but she didn’tknowknow him. She repeated his name to calm her overworked senses.
He’s Roark’s friend. He’s Jax’s friend.She rocked harder, banging her head against the siding.
“In the kitchen?” Jax asked, keeping his question simple, as the therapist had taught him.
Ariel nodded quickly, briefly. Her stomach knotted. She needed to go to her darkened room and close the door.
She’d almost killed Roark. Would she go to jail like Stephen, their adoptive father?
Now that someone was here to take charge, she texted Evie. Evie’s family was weird like her. They’d understand. They’d make Roark better.
With the message sent, Ariel slipped into her computer-filled front room. She swallowed hard when she saw the men lifting Roark’s lifeless length from the kitchen floor. She pointed down the hall to her tiny library office, then, like the coward she was, she retreated to her bedroom and closed the door.
A four-room cottage was much too small for this many people. Frantically glancing around, she grabbed her pillow and blanket. Opening her closet, she removed her spare pair of shoes and sank to the floor, closing the closet after her.Better.
Three
Respecting Ariel’s privacy,Jax led Reuben to the front yard. Evie had arrived on her bike after his sister’s summons. She was inside now with Iddy, her veterinarian cousin, examining Roark in hopes he didn’t need a medical professional.
Ariel wouldn’t emerge from her hiding place until everyone was gone.
While waiting to hear the verdict, Jax inspected the contents of the duffle they’d retrieved from the pine tree. Nothing in it gave away what the Cajun had been doing these past months. Of course, Roark was well trained in military intelligence and knew better than to carry anything that would identify him or anything he worked on. “He wouldn’t have come here if he’d felt safe going to a hospital. What do we do if he needs a doctor?”
“Man won’t go to no hospital, no way.” Dedicated computer nerd and doctor of engineering, Reuben pulled a stylus out of his man bun and poked at the phone to Ariel’s game cameras, the ones she’d apparently set up without anyone’s knowledge.
Jax’s sister was a fruit basket, but a damned smart one. She had a complete life out here in the woods that none of them knew about. She’d hate them trespassing on her privacy. Jax snatched the phone from his friend and tossed it inside to one of the computer tables.
“He was setting up a command post, man. I’m gonna figure out why.” Reuben retreated to the utility van containing his endless inventory of computerized equipment—including satellite internet.
Jax didn’t think Roark would leave a trace for Reuben to find, but he was welcome to try. He paced impatiently. Both Reuben and Roark had been under Jax’s command when all the crap had come down that obliterated their careers. The Cajun computer hacker was a damned good man, just a little messed up. Jax had no idea why Roark had vanished so hastily, or where he’d been these last months, but knowing Roark’s abilities—Jax hoped he’d not left witnesses.
Evie emerged from the cottage with fresh water for the turtle. “Iddy says she thinks the leg wound was from a bullet, but it seems to be healing without infection. She’s hoping his collapse was from exhaustion and maybe hunger, but she’s no physician. Ariel doesn’t keep much food on hand, but I’ve found some frozen bean soup and ham and set them on the counter. Once he wakes, maybe one of them will get a clue.”
Jax knew the veterinarian was more normal than most of Evie’s family. He’d just have to rely on her judgment for the moment.
“I should probably stay out here and wait for him to wake up. At least Ariel isn’t afraid of me,” Jax said in resignation.
“Ariel isn’t afraid of anyone,” Evie retorted. “If she’d had a real gun instead of a water gun, she could have blown Roark to heck. Your sister has a social anxiety disorder, not a yellow streak down her back. And given her intelligence levels, she has good reason to be anxious.”
“You’re not her therapist.” Jax still had difficulty with Evie’s confidence in her aura reading. He’d like to believe her, so he had an excuse to go into the office and file that case on his desk.
When his neurodivergent sister and a ten-year-old ward had suddenly been thrust into his care, he’d realized how much he had wrapped his life around work. Finding a balance between his career and family still didn’t come easily even after all these months.
“You can’t know she’s not terrified,” he argued.