“Yeah,” I called, my eyes still on Mace as I tried to figure out why I was so reluctant to walk away from him. There was no answer to be found in his eyes because while I was having trouble taking mine off of him, he wasn’t suffering from the same condition. “Coming,” I said loudly and then handed the supplies in my hands to Mace before hurrying up front.
I didn’t recognize the man standing in the middle of the gallery. I guessed him to be around 6’3 or so and in his late twenties or early thirties. His black hair was closely cropped and even from where I stood, his stunning blue eyes stood out. But it wasn’t just the unique, almost sapphire shade that had caught my attention – it was that they were shrouded with something so deep and so harsh that I felt an immediate kinship with him. He had the stance of someone inuniform - my guess was military or law enforcement – but he wore civilian clothes, jeans and a white button down shirt.
“Hi, can I help you?” I asked as I closed the distance between myself and him. His eyes shifted past me for a moment and I knew that Mace must have followed me.
“Are you Jonas Davenport?”
The stranger’s eyes weren’t on me when he asked, but I knew he was talking to me. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that Mace was only a few feet behind me, his jaw drawn tight, his lips pulled into a frown and his eyes narrowed.
“I am,” I said as I turned my attention back on the stranger. I automatically extended my hand.
He shook it as he said, “I’m Cole Bridgerton.”
The name didn’t mean anything to me but I felt his hand tighten on mine just before he added, “I’m Carrie’s brother.”
Chapter 5
COLE
The instantI said Carrie’s name, all the blood from the young man’s face drained and his mouth opened in surprise. He let out a small whoosh of air that had the man behind him taking a few steps forward and I wondered at their relationship. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it because Jonas’s free hand came up to cover his mouth. He had yet to release my hand.
“I…I…”
The combination of Jonas’s starts and stops as well as the pain that flooded his eyes had me second guessing my decision to come here, but his discomfort was a casualty of me needing answers more than needing to spare him any painful memories my presence would stir up.
“I was hoping we could talk. In private,” I added as my eyes shifted to the man behind Jonas. There was something about his hard eyes that had me instantly on alert. Jonas’s throat was working overtime as he tried to swallow and another rush of guilt went through me.
“Of course,” he said. I didn’t miss the tremor in his hand as he finally let go of mine and then turned to the man shadowing him. “Um, I’ll be back in a little bit, okay?”
The man gave him a barely-there nod but his eyes stayed on me. I didn’t miss the warning look in his gaze as his eyes raked over me. A strange sensation passed through me at the perusal but I didn’t have time to dwell on it because Jonas said, “There’s a coffee shop down the street if that’s okay.”
I nodded and followed him towards the door. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I felt the gaze burning into me from behind. It was the kind of feeling that would have had me reaching for my rifle if we’d been anywhere else.
Jonas led me down the block towards the coffee shop but didn’t speak. I remained silent as I tried to adjust to the noise and chaos of the city. I’d only been discharged a little over a week earlier and I’d been warned on more than one occasion that returning to civilian life would be a challenge. The Navy shrink I’d been forced to meet with before I walked out of Naval Base Coronado in San Diego had gone over all the signs and symptoms of PTSD with me, and encouraged me to seek help if I felt I needed it. Who would have guessed that I would have happily chosen the debilitating disorder over the devastation I would have to face a mere seven days later?
Jonas kept his hands tucked in his pockets as we walked and he never once looked at me. In fact, his eyes never even left the ground and on more than one occasion, people coming towards us were forced to walk around him because he didn’t notice them. I was tempted to reach out and draw him closer to me so that we wouldn’t be taking up so much of the sidewalk but my gut was telling me he’d freak out even more if I touched him so I just kept pace with him. When we got to the coffee shop, he seemed to be on autopilot as he ordered a latte and when I went to pay for it, he didn’t even seem to notice. I’d already figured that my appearance in his life would be a shock, but his behavior was making me wonder if I was really prepared to hear whatever it was that he was going to tell me about my sister.
We found a quiet booth in the corner of the small shop. The awkward silence between us stretched as I tried to get a read on him. He was younger than I thought he’d be. My contact in the Chicago Police Department hadn’t had much information to go onother than a name but it had been enough of a starting point to lead me to his studio in a quiet area of Brooklyn. I’d expected someone closer to Carrie’s age…or rather, the age she would have been had her life not been cut short.
“How’d you find me?” Jonas suddenly asked and I looked up from my own drink to see that he was watching me.
“A guy I served with works for CPD. He was able to look up Carrie’s case for me and that’s when your name came up.”
“You’re in the military?”
“I was. Navy. I finished my last tour ten days ago.”
Jonas began chewing on his lower lip. “I’m sorry, she never told me her last name. I wasn’t even sure if Carrie was her real first name…it wasn’t unusual for kids like her – us - to use different names.”
With that one sentence, Jonas had confirmed what I already knew, but hearing it from his lips suddenly made it all the more real and I found myself struggling to find words.
“We didn’t know she was dead until a few days ago,” I blurted out.
Jonas’s eyes snapped up from where they’d been studying the lid on his cup. “What?”
Shit, this was not going the way I’d planned. I could feel my stomach rolling and I pushed my cup away from me and reached up to run my hands through my hair. It was already starting to grow longer than I normally wore it, and I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of one more little thing to get used to in a life that had changed overnight.
“They never told you?” Jonas whispered.
