Page 5 of Fighting For You
I embraced it.
Why fight? Why beg someone bound and determined to dislike you to do anything else?
So I’d spent the last few years of active duty avoiding her—easy enough since we were on different teams after things blew up with her ex. And here at Saint, for the most part, we’d stayed apart.
Until this assignment.
Yes, it’d be a test of sorts. Yes, a small red flag was waving in the back of my mind, suggesting this was a bad idea. But I had nothing to prove to anyone, and I needed the change of scene. And in some way, this was me, walking toward the horizon in the east, trusting that sometime soon, the sky would lighten and the sun would rise.
I’d never see it if I stayed buried in darkness by choice. So I was summoning all the will I possessed to move and make a different one.
So…
“Yep.”
He crossed his arms. “I know you’re particularly tight-lipped right now, and I can respect that.” His expression darkened, and he swallowed. “But I gotta have more from you. ‘Yep’ is not gonna cut it, and wearegoing to discuss how you’re not only going on your first out-of-town mission since arriving here but also, you’re going with she who shall not be named.”
I scoffed at the moniker. He’d started acting like I thought of Pop as Voldemort. He had no idea all of this had started because she’d started thinking ofmethat way and I’d surrendered to it.
The other part of his little speech… I couldn’t pretend I didn’t understand. I’d fallen into monosyllabic responses at best these last few months and I’d never been what anyone would call loquacious. That wasn’t me. The people who spent time with me, the people who were the family I’d chosen, they accepted me this way.
That said, for all his persistent cheeriness, he did love me. I knew that. And he had a point—if I wanted to climb out of this pit I’d been in, one small thing I could attempt would be upping my communication. It was facile and shouldn’t matter, but in my gut I knew.
Making the effort might matter.
So, I tried for more than a grunt.
“It’ll be good to get out. We may not get along personally but we’ll handle this professionally.”
His mouth stretched into a skeptical swoosh. “That easy?”
A grunt was all he’d get this time because I didn’t need to explain myself, nor did I need him winding me up about something that wasn’t going to change. Pop and me… we might’ve gotten along like sage brush and matches, but professionally, we were damn good operators. We could function the way we needed because I’d taken the job and she would nevereverback down from doing her best, especially when faced with a challenge.
“You know she tried to change it, right? She asked Wilder and Bruce to?—”
“Yeah. Tracking. And they said no. So here we are.”
I’d seen the wide-eyed look of disgust and even the tremble of her lips, the fury that’d knit her brow, and no doubt a sense of betrayal had struck her. It was nothing new when it came to how she reacted to me—my nearness, my manners, my existence.
But what was new was this thing in me… the only thing that’d made me feel alive in a while. It was the offer I’d made to take the assignment. It was the low-key feeling like something was waiting—in the night, after dark, long after the sun went down. It was the closest to anticipation I’d had in what felt like years, and so I wouldn’t worry about how much she didn’t want to work with me.
She’d rise to the occasion because her grit and sense of duty and unending need to stand firm againstmewouldn’t let her back down.
So for now, I’d just keep walking toward dawn and see what happened.
CHAPTER THREE
Jess
We drove the mountain pass in silence.
Truly shocking.
And by that, I meant I fully anticipated his broody silence radiating at me from his place at the wheel. The quiet had an almost gelatinous quality, like the summer humidity in the South, but this was justusin a small, enclosed space.
So. Neat.
He filled every millimeter of the luxury sedan’s driver’s side, his head only a few inches from the roof while I stretched out rather comfortably in the passenger seat next to him.
