Page 85 of Timeless

I hung up from the last call I needed to make as I looked up and saw Amber’s clock tick after eight.

She had showed me her study, then I told her to go to bed. The boys were in here for a while but there was one thing not everyone knew about the Shields brothers. They didn’t function with no sleep. So, I sent them to bed, only being able to deal with an hour of their foul moods.

I slid open Amber’s study door. The house was quiet. I had a feeling as soon as they all woke back up, the boys would be in panic mode. Amber and Jack being on the list was going to cause each one of them to bark orders at me on what I should do.

Jack was on the road with the northern charter president and a full charter. No smart man, criminal or not, would make a move on a full charter running a protection run. The men were loaded and weren’t on a Sunday fucking joy ride. They knew my orders. They were treating moving Jack more serious than a gun run.

All their lives depended on him getting here safe and alive.

Not one scratch.

I walked up the stairs then frowned, turning back down. Something was different?

Maybe the lack of sleep was finally showing. My energy was at zero. My mind was so clouded. I needed to be alert and getting a plan together. Instead, the drama of the night I had just experienced was making me anxious.

I nearly lost Amber.

I paused at the top of the stairs.

What Tae had all said about her played through my head again. I had no right to just have assumed Amber was fine this whole time. I had no right to just assume she managed to have my child and bring him up with no scars of what I did to her.

I turned around the corner and walked up the hall. I glanced up and frowned. Why was her door open? Was she already up? Didn’t she hear me when I told her to rest?

Her door was slightly open and I didn’t know if I had a right to push it fully open. She could be asleep and just left it like this.

I went to leave and then I heard a noise. She was up.

I pushed the door open, standing in the doorframe. “Amber, what are you doing?”

Her head snapped up, and she dropped whatever she was holding in a brown box. Half a dozen boxes were in her room and my alarm bells went off.

“Are you packing?” I stepped into the room. Was she running?

“Yep.” She didn’t deny it. She frowned at me as my expression hardened. “Why are you looking at me like that, Jax?”

“Why do you think?” I snapped at her. “I’ve been downstairs organizing shit, starting to get a plan together to look after you and you are fucking running! From me! After everything I said! I told you I won’t hurt you. What do I have to do to prove to you I want to be in your life? Fuck, Amber, if you don’t love me anymore, that’s fine. I’ll just be your friend. Just don’t run from me. Don’t push me out of your life!”

She looked stunned and her eyes slightly widened. She opened her mouth and then closed it, inhaling sharply.

I knew it was too good to be true that she was going to trust me. That she was going to let me be in her life and Jack’s.

“I’m not leaving. I’m cleansing.” She ran her hand through her hair. “I have to get him out. Okay? I need him out of my house. Jack will be back today and I don’t want any trace of him being here.” She picked up one of the boxes on the bed and dropped it on the floor.

I had no idea what she was talking about. “Amber, I don’t know if it is the lack of sleep or what but you aren’t making sense. It looks to me like you are packing up your life.”

“I am.” She looked down at the box and picked up a marker, writing on it, and then sealed it. “I am packing up the life I had with Will.” She wouldn’t look at me. “I want no trace of Will in this house.”

She was packing up Will’s shit. I sighed. “I’m sorry, Amber.”

“Why?” She glanced up, and I saw she was keeping her emotions to herself. “I’m not.”

“Come on, you were with the dude for…” Well, I didn’t know how long they were together. Still. “He was a part of your life and Jack’s. I know you liked him.”

She chewed her bottom lip, normally a sign I was right.

I realized now what was different downstairs. The hallway. Pictures were missing. I sighed. She thought taking down his pictures would wipe him out of her life?

I walked into the room. “Amber, did you ever think that maybe Jack will still want Will in his life?”

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