When I say the words, a calmness floods through me, a certainty that everything has led me to this.
FIFTEEN
JACKAL
Sea otters hold hands when they’re sleeping so they don’t drift apart.
I take the car to the farmhouse myself, slipping out before Selfish can catch me. Yvonne was easy: cash for silence.
By the time I pull the car into the barn, it’s raining. There is a fog crawling from the valley, whorls of white barreling through the trees. I jog to the house, getting soaked, and expecting to find Phoenix in the kitchen.
“You’re dripping,” she says when she lets me in the back door. She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I eye her legs as she tosses me a towel.
“How’d it go?” I ask.
“You came all the way out here to ask me that? You’ve been rather busy today with that stunt you pulled.” Her eyes bore into me with razor sharp edges.
I swallow hard and my smile is tentative. “Trying to do my part?” Her eyes are unforgiving, but I trudge forward anyway. “I came over tonight because I thought you’d be alone. I‘m going to do things to you and you’re going to make a lot of noise.” My thumb sweeps across her cheek and rubs across her bottom lip. “I want you all to myself.”
She moves until she’s standing in front of me.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispers.
“What?”
“When I saw you on the bridge...” She shakes her head, unable to finish. “I watched you jump and—” Her voice catches. “Anyway...today sucked…”
“You didn’t know what I was doing?” I ask, stunned.
“How would I?” she snaps.
I’m all over her before she can blink, my hands on her waist, in her hair, pulling it back until her face is lifted to mine, inches from my mouth…
She touches her lips to mine, carefully, slowly, and my chest jolts.
I grab the sides of her face, and her lips and tongue destroy all of my willpower. She leans up on her tiptoes and I reach beneath her cheeks to lift her the rest of the way, wrapping her legs around my waist.
I kiss her hard and then lean back one more time. “And I wanted to make sure Gwen got across okay.”
“She didn’t…” I freeze at the sound of Gwen’s voice.
Phoenix drops her feet to the floor and scuttles away, cheeks flaming. Gwen walks into the kitchen, biting her lip in amusement at the sight in front of her, and I close my eyes at the anger I’m feeling.
“Tell me I’m seeing things, Phoenix, that Gwen isnotstill here!”
“Calm down, Jackal,” Gwen says dryly.
“Why the hell didn’t you leave with them?” I yell.
Gwen doesn’t flinch. She purses her lips and eyes me like I’m a child as she sits down at the table.
“I’m going to get my son back.”
“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”
Gwen looks at Phoenix, and I start shaking my head right away.
“She steals jewelry, Gwen. No. You can’t expect her to—”