Page 7 of Now or Never
“You wanted to get back to work, but you don’t want to take any cases that have anything to do with them.”
“Exactly.”
Jax glanced at her. “How is that not denial?”
“They don’t get to define everything about me. They’ve taken enough from us—and from our lives.”
“We have to stop them.”
She shook her head. “That’s not a fight I want this child born into.” She laid her hands on her baby.Theirbaby. “They don’t get to control any more of my life. It’s time I decide for myself what I want to do every day, and it’s not going to be reacting to the last horrible thing we learned they’re doing. I’m done getting knocked back and trying to strike at them in response.”
He didn’t reach for her.
Hot tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t right now.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Neither do you, so don’t start with that either.” Everyone knew angry tears were better than sad ones. “None of this happened because of a failure on your part.” She shook her head because it was as ridiculous now as it had been the first time he’d voiced the idea aloud. She’d have laughed at his suggestion of culpability, but there wasn’t anything funny about any of this. “Let’s just work this case, then go home to Wyoming.”
“Knowing they’re still out there?”
“I’ve taken down so many of their players. You’ve taken out a handful yourself. Doing that almost cost us everyone we love.”
“It’s always a risk.”
“I’m supposed to accept it, and the cost, and just to do the right thing?” She shook her head, one of those hot tears rolling down her cheek. Regaining her sense of who she was helped her feel more like herself than she had in a long time, and taking a stand felt moreKennathan anything. Even if the stand she took was to do nothing that had anything to do with them. “I’m not willing to lose anyone. Not now, and not ever.”
“That’s what keeps me up at night, praying in the wee hours of the morning.” He cleared his throat. “Trying to figure out how we can get on with our lives knowing they’re out there.”
“It’s easy. We’re already doing it.”
“I thought we were being called to take them down,” he said, carefully. “Before you were captured, that was our ultimate goal. Then I got a taste of exactly what you’re talking about, wondering every minute of every day if you’d been killed or if I would ever find you.”
“You did.” She shifted in the seat and put her knee up, so she could face him. “It wasn’t anyone else who showed up on a speedboat to rescue me from that buoy. It was you.” She reached for him, and he met her halfway.
His forehead settled on her shoulder and he wrapped one arm around her back. He needed to cling to her, and she knewexactly what it felt like to be in that place where there was such a powerful need to hang on. Because she lived there.
Kenna held tight to her husband while he did the same with her.
So much between them went without saying, but it was possible she should have said more the past few weeks than she had.
Keeping her own counsel was necessary for her sanity, and for the sake of all of them, but she could give him something. “I need to feel like me.” Her voice sounded like gravel in the dark interior of the car. “Not like a pawn in their game.”
“I know.” He didn’t move, and she felt his breath brush against her neck. He pressed a kiss to her pulse. “Nothing about my life right now is what I thought it was supposed to be. It’s all a new kind of normal. But I’m not necessarily saying I want to change anything.”
He lifted his head then, and she nodded because she knew. He’d have told her if he wanted to do something different.
“But Kenna…I’m not dealing with what you’re dealing with. I don’t know what you know.”
“We’re on the same team. We both want our child born in safety.”
“It seems like that might be wishful thinking.” Again with the gentle tone. “We know what they do. Eventually they’ll come after us. They’ll come afterher.”
She stared at his hard-to-read expression and tried to find the words to explain what was wrong about that statement.
But the words wouldn’t come.
Chapter Four
