“Yeah,” Jayden said. “He’s one of my teammates. It was just coincidence he was here in the club.”
Selena felt that little twitch in her stomach and decided her boyfriend was definitely keeping something from her. She didn’t call him on it, though. There was probably a good reason to keep the truth from her and Becca. Something that probably had to do with those men who’d broken out of Coffield.
They talked for a few minutes before Zane mentioned he needed to get back to the SWAT compound so he could check on their visitors. Selena couldn’t imagine why there’d be people there at this time of night but didn’t say anything. Then it hit her. Crap, maybe it had something to do with the prison break. She really wanted to ask but resisted the urge.
Jayden pulled Zane aside before he left, and Selena heard him tell his teammate to be careful. “I don’t think they’d come after us, but watch yourself all the same.”
Selena glanced at Becca, but her friend didn’t look like she’d heard any of that. Okay, this was starting to get freaky.
“You want to hang out with Jayden and me?” Selena asked Becca as she waited for Jayden and Zane to finish up. “We can get something to eat if you want.”
Becca shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but it’s late, and unlike you, I have class to teach tomorrow. Besides, I need to get to the hospital if I’m going have any chance of seeing Scott tonight. After what we talked about, I feel like I need to talk to him. I want to let him know I’d like to see him again. You okay catching a ride with Jayden?”
Selena nodded and gave her friend a hug. “Definitely. Tell Scott I hope he feels better soon.”
“I will,” Becca promised, giving Jayden a wave as she left.
“Did I hear you saying something about food?” Jayden asked as walked over to join Selena.
She shook her head as she stepped closer to Jayden, breathing in his scent and realizing how glad she was she’d decided to wait for him to get done doing his police stuff. She wasn’t ready for this night to end. Even if it was late as hell. “I just asked that for Becca’s benefit. Truthfully, I’m not very hungry.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I make a mean late-night PB&J with the crusts cut off.”
She couldn’t help laughing at that. It wasn’t the line she’d expected. But she was already starting to realize Jayden wasn’t the type to do the expected. “Well, if you’re making them, maybe I’m hungrier than I thought.”
He grinned. “Then let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 12
“You live in a warehouse?” Selena asked in disbelief as Jayden steered his classic Chevy pickup truck into a small parking lot behind a metal-and-brick building with no windows and a distinctly industrial look.
“It’s not a warehouse,” Jayden said with a laugh that seemed to indicate lots of people asked the exact same question. “It was an electronics repair shop about ten or twelve years ago.”
He shut off the engine, then got out and walked around to open her door, lending a hand to help her slide out of the high truck. His gaze immediately went to the length of thigh she exposed slipping off the seat. Okay, maybe she’d done that on purpose.
“Of course, nobody gets electronics repaired anymore,” Jayden continued, dragging his eyes back up to her face as they walked toward the building. “They just replace them. Throw in the fact that this whole area got rezoned into a residential area about the same time, and the owner was sort of screwed. The place couldn’t be used as a business anymore, and no one was interested in buying it for residential purposes, because the lot is too small. It went into tax foreclosure, and I ended up getting it for next to nothing. I got it into livable condition for barely over twenty thousand.”
Selena tried to take that all in as Jayden led her to the back door. The tiny lot surrounding the building was well maintained, with more grass and hedges than one would expect from an industrial building. But still, it was obvious the place wasn’t a normal house. Then again, Jayden wasn’t a normal guy, so she wasn’t surprised.
He unlocked the big metal door, then reached inside to flip on the light switch. Stepping back, he held the door open for her.
Selena stepped inside, steeling herself. She had visions of cinder block coffee tables, yard sale couches, and rust-covered walls. She was so ready to be underwhelmed that when she walked through the short entryway hall and into the big open space of the central room, she gasped. This was so not what she’d been expecting. She handed Jayden her coat and purse, barely paying attention as he hung them on a coat rack by the door, then tossed his keys on the shelf above it.
The main room had to be over a thousand square feet. There was still a very industrial feel to the place, with lots of concrete, brick, metal rafters, exposed lights, electrical conduits, and air vents. But the space was put together in such a way that it seemed like it was meant to look industrial instead of left that way by accident.
The concrete floor had been stained different colors as part of the effort to subdivide the big space into different functional areas. It was a creamy terra-cotta off to one side where the kitchen was and a relaxing caramel along the back wall where she saw a king-size bed, dressers, and wall units. The entire middle section, encompassing the living room and a sweet home gym, was a deep, glossy slate blue.
There was a huge TV mounted on the wall near the matching sectional sofas, with the rest of the wall space taken up with football memorabilia and pictures of cop-related activities. She had no doubt that most of those pictures would be of his SWAT teammates or, as he called them, his pack. There were big potted trees positioned here and there around the space, and at first, she was sure they were fake. But then she saw the skylights in the roof and thought maybe they were real.
Besides the one they’d just come in, there were only two other doors in the entire place, one that looked like a second exit and the other leading into a walled-off corner area, the bathroom most likely.
“This place is amazing,” she said, turning to face him. “If you tell me you decorated the entire thing on your own, I’m going to cry, because that would mean there isn’t a single thing in the world you aren’t perfect at.”
Jayden chuckled. “No need to cry. My mom helped with a lot of it, but also some of the guys on the team. Zane is really good at decorating, though he’ll deny it if you ever suggest it. How about we head for the kitchen and those PB&J sandwiches before I give you the fifty-cent tour?”
Selena nodded eagerly and followed him through the living room and gym to the kitchen, getting a good part of the promised tour on the way. This place was awesome. She couldn’t wait to spend the night here. She immediately blushed a little at the audacity of that thought but then pushed the silly concern aside. Something told her she was going to be staying here a lot.
It wasn’t until they walked behind the granite counter in the kitchen space that Selena saw the first thing that seemed completely out of place—two doggy bowls on the floor. She looked around, thinking she’d smelled a familiar odor when she first walked in, though she hadn’t placed it as dog’s scent until now. It was very faint.
