“You’re a good man, Jack. The best I’ve ever known. And I know you to your core—who you are deep down inside. I’ve seen you tested and tempted. So I can say with certainty that those feelings are fleeting. And human. Though I will say the woman in me is very flattered at the thought of you ripping him apart in my honor. It’s very caveman of you.”
He grunted in response, making me laugh.
Lightning split the sky outside, turning the room white for an instant. In that flash I saw his face without the armor—raw, open, his.
“Come here,” he said.
I went, and his hands found me in the half dark the way they always found me. One at the curve of my waist, the other sliding into my hair, tilting my face up toward his. He kissed me slow. It was a kiss that had nothing to do with patience and everything to do with intent, like he was memorizing the shape of my mouth, the taste of my skin, the sound I made when his thumb traced the line of my jaw and his lips followed.
The rain hammered the windows. The thunder rolled through the walls. And somewhere between one kiss and the next, the weight of the day went quiet, replaced by the only thing that had ever been strong enough to drown it out.
Jack.
His hands. His mouth. The way he whispered my name against the hollow of my throat like a prayer he’d been holding back all day. The solid, certain warmth of him pulling me under like a current, and me going willingly, gratefully, the way I always went. Because this was where the noise stopped. This was where the world got small enough to hold.
Afterward. The dark. His heartbeat under my ear becoming deep and even. His hand tracing the length of my spine in long, absent strokes that made my eyelids heavy and my bones feel like they’d finally remembered what it meant to rest. The rain had softened outside—not gone, but gentled, the fury spent, the thunder moving east in low rumbles that faded across the flatlands like the last words of an argument nobody had the energy to finish.
I pressed my cheek against his chest and breathed him in—soap and woodsmoke from the grill, and something underneath both of those that was just Jack, warm and steady and mine. His arm tightened around me.
Tomorrow the warrants would come through. Tomorrow Jack would handpick his team and tell them nothing until the last possible moment. Tomorrow we’d go underground and drag into the light whatever was hiding in those tunnels.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight there was only the rain, the solid rhythm of Jack’s heart beneath my ear, and the small life growing inside me that neither of us had told the world about yet.
And sleep pulled me under, steady and sure.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I woke to an empty bed and the faint smell of coffee drifting up from somewhere far below.
Six twelve. Jack’s side of the sheets was cold, which in the language of our marriage meant the work had started without me.
I showered fast, pulled on dark jeans and a black sleeveless top, and followed the coffee smell downstairs with my hair still damp. Jack was at the kitchen table with his laptop open, phone at his ear, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He’d been up long enough to make a full pot and drink most of it.
He caught my eye as I came in and held up one finger.
“Yes ma’am. We’ll be ready.” He hung up and set the phone down. “Judge Aldridge signed everything. All four warrants, no modifications.”
I poured coffee and leaned against the counter. “Fast.”
“Pissed. She read the supporting documentation and used the word ‘cancer.’ That’s a direct quote.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Clean warrants. Clean judge. No handhold for a defense attorney.”
“Heritage Federal closes early on Saturday,” I said.
“I’ve already talked to the bank manager. She’s expecting us.”
Doug appeared in the doorway in basketball shorts, bare feet, and bed head. He had Margot under his arm and the wired, hollow-eyed look of someone who’d been up all night.
“Coffee,” he said, eyeing the pot. “I could use about a gallon of that.”
“I’ll make a fresh pot,” I said, heading back to Jack’s fancy coffee maker. I saw him wince out of the corner of my eye. Jack didn’t like my coffee. I tended to make it strong enough to stand up and walk away by itself, but some days called for a little kick in my opinion.
“Margot has been busy,” Doug said. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“We need to get to the bank,” Jack said. “It needs to be quick.”
“Then put on your seat belt,” Doug said.
