Page 7 of SEAL's Sky
Me: I will, I promise. I’ll text you when I know what time the Norfolk train gets in.
Mom:Are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up?
Me:I’ll just grab a taxi. You have enough with the bar.
Mom:I can’t wait to see you.
Me:Me too. Oh and I kind of changed my hair a little bit.
Mom:Because of Kurt?
Me:Yeah, it’s kind of colorful now. It’s a surprise.
It sure was a surprise. Her mom would probably shit when she saw her. But it’d be even harder to explain why she had to pretend to be someone else.
Mom:Okay. Keep me updated. I can’t stop worrying now. And I can’t wait to hug you.
Me:Just a few more hours. Love you.
Mom:I love you.
The train wouldn’t arrive in D.C. for about another hour. As exhausted as she was, Jen couldn’t sleep surrounded by strangers. Her skin crawled with worry that Kurt would find her and drag her back to his apartment. Sleep would have to wait until she got home. Instead, she packed her journal into her tote bag and pulled out one of the books she’d purchased at the bookstore when she’d worked there.
It had been a perfect job, she loved reading and writing and hoped one day to have the time to write a book. But Kurt made her quit when he didn’t trust she wasn’t flirting with the other customers. It had been an awful scene. Jen had been dressed and putting her coat on when he asked her where she was going.
“To work, like always. I’ll be home around five-thirty, I think.”
I don’t think so,” Kurt snapped.
“You don’t think so what? I don’t understand.”
“I make plenty of money to support you. You don’t need to work anymore.”
“But I like working in the bookstore. And Lila is a great boss.”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s done. I called her while you were in the shower and told her you wouldn’t be coming in anymore.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” It was the first time Jen raised her voice at him, but she was livid. She’d moved into his place a month ago and had been wondering if she’d made a mistake. Who the fuck was he to tell her what she could and couldn’t do?
“Watch your tone, Jennifer. I told you that I’d be taking care of you. I meant it. Now go put on some casual clothing and we’ll have breakfast together.”
At first, she stood plastered to the floor, dumbfounded by what happened, but snapped out of it when he took a step toward her with menace hardening his blue eyes into hard rocks.
“Okay.” She stammered the word more than spoke it and ran into the master bedroom and burst into tears of fear and frustration. It was the first time she’d been afraid of him, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Concentration eluded her as she sightlessly flipped through the pages of her favorite book. Jen sat up in her seat and looked around. No one new entered the car during the trip at least. They’d be in D.C. soon, time for her to change into something new.
At the used clothing store she’d also bought a couple of wigs. With the bright pink and blue hair, she’d stand out in a crowd on video if anyone checked. To try to throw him off the track if he was looking, the black-haired pixie wig and a new t-shirt should help.
Changing in the bathroom wasn’t easy with the jarring of the tracking and the dim light but she managed and returned to her seat looking like a new woman. None of the other riders paid any attention and when they pulled into Union Station. She got off the train and headed to the main concourse to buy her ticket to Norfolk. Excitement sizzled along her nerve endings. In another four or five hours, Jen would walk straight into her mother’s arms and not let go as she inhaled her familiar scent of gardenia. How she’d managed that working in a bar all day was one of her best-kept secrets. Maybe now that she was grown up, her mom would finally tell her.
Chapter 4
The Norfolk train had to be moving in slow motion. There was no way they were going seventy miles per hour. Now that Jen was so close to home she could almost reach out and touch it. But she couldn’t. Three and a half hours. That’s how much longer she had to wait. She didn’t know whether she was more excited or nervous about finally getting there.
There had been a two-hour wait for the train before she could leave D.C. after the almost three-hour train ride. It would have been so much easier and faster if she’d rented a car, but too much of a trail to leave for Kurt. Maybe she was overreacting to the whole thing, but after seeing her face plastered on TV, she didn’t think so.
It was the last leg of the trip, soon she’d be home. But she’d also have to explain almost everything to her mom. Especially that she had to call her Sky and not Jen.
