Explosive (The Black Opals) (31 page)

“Mind if I ask why we don’t flush out the rat ourselves?”

Jayce frowned. “Because I know how to think like bombs, not like hired guns. You crack programs, codes, and manipulate artificial intelligence. This isn’t the game we’re trained to play.” His gaze strayed up the stairwell to Alyssa’s closed bedroom door. More quietly he added, “She’s safer if I’m alive.”

Kane’s grumble said he didn’t agree.
But Jayce knew better than to take the risk. Sure, they’d gone through marksmanship courses, passed all the training and intelligence testing. They could both probably recite entire litanies of field interrogation tactics and research gathering approaches and analysis mediums. When it came down to the wire, however, they specialized in non-human fields. While they could damned sure out shoot any regular street gun when it came to accuracy or protecting themselves, they weren’t trained to
think
one step ahead of a living, breathing threat.

He mounted the rest of the stairs and let himself inside Alyssa’s room.
Taking a seat on the edge of her bed, he gave her shoulder a gentle shake. “Baby doll, wake up.”

* * *

The sweetest, softest kiss lured Alyssa from sleep. She opened her eyes to find Jayce hovering over her, his lips still clinging to hers. He unclasped them and drew slowly away. “Hey, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”

“Better.
Calmer now.” She couldn’t help but smile as he playfully rumpled her hair. But the amusement that touched the corners of his mouth didn’t match the harrowed strain around his eyes. She lifted to her elbows, her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

He hesitated a moment, then answered slowly, but firmly.
“We need to leave.”

“Leave? Why?”

Again, he hesitated, his demeanor telling her she’d hit the mark—something wasn’t right. She pushed herself fully upright. “Jayce, what is it?”

He let out a heavy, reluctant sigh.
“It’s not safe here. You’re not safe here.”

“What?
This is my house. You’re here. I don’t want to go anywhere after today.”

“Right, but
I
have to leave. I’ve got commitments I can’t break.”

She tugged on his shirt, drawing him closer enough she could sample his firm mouth.
Raking her teeth across his lower lip, she whispered. “Come back after the dinner and we can make use of the tub.”

“Mm.”
His mouth caught hers, returning the teasing nibble. “No. We can’t. Not tonight.” He leaned away, his gaze resting on her mouth as if he craved more, before he lifted it to hers. “I talked to McTavish. He’s wrapped up in this, Alyssa. I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

Alyssa blinked.
Surely she had misheard. Brice wrapped up in Parker’s threats? The man in the car had mentioned Brice, but she hadn’t
really
believed. Not when she let the possibility sink into her mind. “You can’t be serious. That man had to be making up fantastic claims. Brice would never get involved with Parker. He’d never do anything to hurt me.”

Jayce rose to his feet, made his way to her closet, and began sifting through her hanging clothes.
“We can argue this in the truck. Trust me, I don’t want to believe it either. But it’s a little hard not to when someone just shot at me.” He pulled out a pale blue dress and held it out to her. “You’re not safe here. This should be perfect for the rehearsal dinner.”

Alyssa stared at the offered dress, one thought ricocheting in her head—
shot at me
. “What did you just say?”

Jayce’s mouth firmed with a frown.
“I said someone just fired a gun at me. Now, please, let’s discuss this in the truck. What else do you need?”

That was enough to snap Alyssa out of momentary stupor.
She jumped out of bed and hurried to her vanity. “Black heels. Bottom left corner.”

As she tossed her hairbrush and a handful of products inside a clear plastic tote, Jayce rummaged around on her closet floor.
He turned around, holding a pair of strappy black, three-inch heels. “These?”

She spared him only a glance.
“Yeah. Who shot at you?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here collecting you.
I’d be downstairs with the detectives.”

So calm—how did he stay so frighteningly collected?
Someone had
shot
at him, for God’s sake! He could be lying in a hospital right now. Or worse…

No, she wasn’t going to think about worse.
How had one day turned so horrible, so fast?

She shoved her hairbrush into the tote then zipped it closed.
Catching her appearance in the mirror, she stifled a groan. She was still wearing her running clothes, her hair resembled a squirrel’s nest, and tearstains streaked her cheeks. Rubbing at her face, she gave Jayce a pleading look. “At least let me change. I stink.”

He stepped away from her closet and gestured at the open door.
“Make it quick.”

Alyssa didn’t waste time by being selective with her wardrobe.
She grabbed the first pair of jeans she encountered and a casual sage green T-shirt with a deep ‘V’ at the neck. In five seconds flat she’d discarded her running clothes and donned the clean outfit. Five more, and she had deodorant applied and her feet tucked into a pair of flip-flop sandals. “Ready.”

With a short nod, Jayce draped her dress over his arm and settled his hand in the small of her back.
He guided her out the door, down the stairs, to the hall. As they passed the kitchen, Alyssa spied Brice sitting at the small breakfast table. Kane stood in the doorway, looking for all intents and purposes like an intimidating guard.

Jayce didn’t give her time to ask questions.
Steady pressure at the base of her spine urged her past the kitchen, down the remainder of the hall, and out onto her front porch. His pace quickened outside, and she had to double her steps to match his stride.

“In,” he instructed as he jerked open the passenger’s door.

Alyssa ordered herself to not look around and ducked into the truck. The door slammed the instant she pulled her feet inside. As she buckled in, Jayce dashed around the hood and climbed behind the steering wheel. He didn’t bother with the seatbelt. Instead, he jammed his foot into the gas, and the truck sped backward out of her drive.

“What did Brice say?” she asked once they’d rounded the block and were heading toward the main thoroughfare.
To her shame, a note of disbelief clung to her question. On hearing the brittle quality, heat touched her cheeks.

Jayce evidently heard the tone as well.
He made a harassed noise. “He claims it’s some government initiative. Up until someone shot at me, I was willing to believe maybe he’d been duped. But any agent working something here would have already checked me out and no way in hell would they fire on me. I may not have my credentials—” Jayce stopped abruptly, then smacked the ball of his hand on the steering wheel. “Shit! I should have thought of that already.”

“Of what?”

“My credentials were stolen. Someone’s probably using them to convince McTavish they’re working for the government.”

Alyssa pressed her fingertips to her temples.
“You’re making my head hurt. What do they want with
me?
Why would Brice do something that would put me in danger?”

“I don’t know,” Jayce answered, then repeated more quietly, “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Jayce, he was your best friend once. Do you really think he’d do something like that?”

“No.
And I don’t
want
to think he would. But facts are hard to deny, particularly when
he
declared his guilt. He knows he put you in harm’s way. He knows exactly what’s going on.”

Brice involved with Parker.
No matter how many ways Alyssa turned the possibility around in her mind, she couldn’t accept it. It was as surreal as learning Santa didn’t exist; the same desire to denounce the truth and cling to the illusion clouded her mind. “I can’t deal with this right now.” She leaned back on the headrest with a quiet groan.

It was too much; the whole damn day was too much.
Just when she’d finally found the courage to confront her fears, fate seemed determined to throw her back into cowardice. Worse, she still needed to have the discussion she’d planned for after the rehearsal dinner. At the rate things were going, disaster seemed imminent.

T h i r t y – f o u r

S
eeing Jayce in a tux, while standing in a showroom filled with expensive wedding gowns, erased all concerns for her safety and tortured Alyssa far more than she could have imagined was possible. She found herself thrust back in time, surrounded by memories of thumbing through bridal magazines and ferreting away her paychecks from her part-time job to make the initial deposit on the dress she’d wear when she became his wife. It was agonizing to ignore those draping white gowns with their delicate lace and dainty seed pearl accents. Heartbreaking to be asked her opinion on how he looked. He looked like a fairytale prince—and she wasn’t the princess waiting to be rescued by a kiss.

When she finally escaped into his pickup, she’d fallen into silence, too afraid that if she opened her mouth to say anything at all she’d blurt everything out and break down in the middle of the bridal shop.
She watched the world pass by beyond the passenger’s window, knowing she should be more concerned about the danger surrounding her, but unable to focus on anything but the desperate desire to reclaim the dreams she’d let slip through her fingers.

What Parker might do, she couldn’t influence.
And Jayce had only confirmed her suspicion that the only way Parker could have known she turned over the files was if Marston were tied in with him—which nullified her options even further. On the other hand, she could control reclaiming her happiness. And the outing to the bridal shop only made her more convinced to talk to him tonight.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Jayce commented as he slid behind the truck.

“About?”

“Parker.”

Her stomach balled. “Oh.” She pulled herself out of the past and forced her attention on the dire matters at hand. Twisting in the seat to face him, she asked, “And?”

“Tomorrow night is Jasmine’s wedding.
Tomorrow night is when Brice said this would all be over. I’m not satisfied with just waiting to see what happens, and let’s say he is telling the truth, that he’s involved in something governmental.”

“Okay,” she agreed thoughtfully.

“If he’s an asset or a source, and he’s been discovered, he’s smoking serious crack if he thinks Parker’s just going to give up at a set date and time. They’re going to hunt him.”

And me.
Jayce didn’t need to say it, but she heard the unspoken implication in his tone. A chill slid down her shoulders. She really needed to be focused on this situation, not wrapped up in the frivolous matters of her heart. Her heart meant nothing if she wasn’t alive. She nodded absently.

“On the other hand, if he’s not a source, and he’s mixed in deeper than he thinks, he’s not just washing it off his hands like mud.
It’s going to follow him.”

“So what are you getting at?”

“I want to make a few calls when we get to Jordan’s and see if I can get someone out here.” His gaze slid to hers. “But I want you to get out of town for a little while.”

“Okay,” she agreed quietly.
She could take the most important client files with her; taxes could be figured from anywhere her cell phone worked. It would be hectic, but she wasn’t about to argue.

Jayce rushed on as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I know it’s not ideal. I know you’ve got work to do. I know you have people depending on you. I still don’t like the idea of you being in the line of fire. Hell, I’ll go with you, if you want.”

“Jayce.”
She reached across the console to set her hand on his thigh. “I said okay.”

He blinked, tipped his head, and gave her a grin.
“That was easy.”

Alyssa shrugged.
“Sometimes it’s not worth the fight. Neither you or I have any idea exactly what is going on. Parker is in jail. Who knows where his contacts are coming from? My house isn’t safe. Brice…” She trailed off on a sigh, then ran her hand down Jayce’s muscular leg to his knee. “I could go away with you for a while.”

His hand covered hers, and his fingers squeezed.

Taking advantage of the truce she’d just agreed to, Alyssa blurted out, “Jayce, I really don’t want to go to this rehearsal dinner tonight. Do you think I could stay at Jordan’s? If she has a computer I could use, I’ve got a hell of a pile of work to catch up on.”

His immediate frown told her he didn’t care for the idea, and she braced for an argument.
He turned a corner and passed two blocks before he answered. “The point in your leaving your house is so I’m with you. What’s so terrible about going to a dinner with my family?”

Before Alyssa could stop her tongue, her bottled-up feelings came rushing out.
“Do I have to spell it out for you, Jayce? Jesus. It’s not a dinner. It’s a
wedding
dinner! And all it does is remind me of what I
don’t
have. What I did to
us.
I don’t know what I’m doing right now, someone wants to kill me, and you want me to go sit while everyone celebrates and pretend everything is okay. It’s not okay!
I’m
not okay. I want— ” Stunned by her lack of control, she abruptly stopped.
I want it all back.

Jayce rolled his fingers around the steering wheel, his upper body tense as he stared at the road in front of them.
He eased through a traffic light and turned down a residential street. Quietly, without looking at her, he asked, “You want what?”

“Nothing,” she mumbled, crossing her arms over her breasts and once again shifting to face the passenger window.

“No. Finish it. You want me to leave? You want it to all go away? You want to forget our past?” His voice hardened as he turned into the driveway of a stucco grey and white townhouse. “You want
what
, Alyssa?”

“I want it back,” she answered so quietly even she had to strain to hear her words.

The truck stopped. Jayce sat motionless. Silence descended on them, uncomfortable and shaming Alyssa for letting her emotions get the better of her. What a way to confess. She might want it back, but she couldn’t have it back. Not the way it once had been. Innocence was lost to them. She’d hurt him too much, and the scars she suffered ran too deep.

Needing to escape the oppressive confines of the truck, she fumbled for the door handle.

Jayce’s fingers wrapped around her upper arm, halting her escape. Slowly, Alyssa turned to face him. He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “I can’t give you that, when you’re hiding from me.”

“I know,” she whispered.
She cleared her throat to rid herself of rising emotion. “Can we talk after the dinner?”

A faint, tender smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
“I’d like that a lot.” He chuckled softly. “Hell, I’d skip the dinner, but there might not be much left of me to talk to if I did.”

His attempt at humor lightened her spirits enough she could return his quiet laugh.
“You always said Jasmine was bossy.”

“And she doesn’t fight fair.”

Alyssa’s grin broadened.

His fingers slid into her hair, and he drew her forward to brush his lips across hers.
“You’ll like Jordan. I’m sure she won’t mind if you stay and use her computer while we go to the dinner. You’ve got your cell phone on you, don’t you? You won’t get ticked if I check in?”

Shaking her head, Alyssa pulled away.
She’d won the battle, but knowing his disappointment, didn’t feel so victorious. “I’ll go, if you want me to. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

He stroked the side of her face with the pad of his thumb.
“Are you sure, baby doll? I don’t want to make you miserable.”

She nodded with more conviction.
“It’s probably smarter to go. Parker might be watching me now.”

“Well, let’s get cleaned up then.
We’ve got about an hour before we have to leave.”

Alyssa couldn’t resist teasing.
“Can I share the shower with you?”

Desire flashed in Jayce’s eyes, a bright gleam that set off tingles of exhilaration beneath Alyssa’s skin.
When he answered, his voice held a husky scrape. “I think that’s mandatory. Time constraints and all.”

“Mm-hm.”
Chuckling, Alyssa let herself out of the truck and waited on the front walk for Jayce.

When he joined her, the flutters of anticipation in her belly gave way to apprehensive tightness.
After ten years she’d finally meet the sister Jayce would move mountains for. What would Jordan think? Would she look like Jayce?

She followed Jayce up the walk to the door, where he let out a quiet oath.
Alyssa gave him a puzzled look.

“Left so fast this morning I forgot the key.”
He rapped on the door. “She’s home. We parked beside her car.”

They had?
Alyssa turned over her shoulder to look at the truck. Sure enough, a bright red Cavalier sat beside Jayce’s bright red truck. Down to the same paint color—she laughed inwardly. She must have been too distracted by their conversation to notice when they pulled in.

From the within the townhouse, a chain rattled.
Then the knob turned and the door swung inward. “Forgot the key, huh?”

Jayce stepped back and ushered Alyssa forward.
“Jordan, this is Alyssa.”

Alyssa’s anticipatory smile vanished as her heart and stomach violently exchanged places.
Wide turquoise eyes stared back at her in silent, horrified recognition. A memory flashed through Alyssa’s mind, those same wide eyes laughing over the brim of a plastic cup of beer. The same mahogany hair dancing in the nighttime, mountain breeze.

And then the sound of the girl’s screams,
Jordan Honeycutt’s screams
, ricocheted through Alyssa’s mind.

* * *

Jayce caught Alyssa as she wobbled unsteadily into the doorframe. Her hand locked on the door jamb, keeping her from falling, but the shudder that rolled through her body vibrated into Jayce. His protective instincts surged to the surface, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her further. “Alyssa? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, my God. It’s you,”
Jordan whispered.

He realized then that Alyssa wasn’t the only woman standing in stunned stupor.
His sister stood riveted in place, the same mix of recognition and horrified shock etched into her features. In a flash instant of time, ten years of his life rewound through his mind. The message on his answering machine two days after his sister snuck off to go to the senior graduation party. Twenty-four hours after, Jayce’s mother told him Jordan had been raped. She’d been with another girl, who she didn’t know, who never came forward. Alyssa disappeared.
Jayce, there is no more baby.
My parents blamed me.

Fuck!

Understanding crashed over his shoulders, weakening his own knees. He’d been so wrapped up in his own grief, so plagued by guilt over not being able to prevent Jordan’s attack, he never stopped to consider his fiancé might have been the girl Jordan couldn’t remember. Then he’d run, immersed himself in the Opals.

Jordan
recovered first. She threw her arms around Alyssa and hugged her tight. Hesitantly, gradually, Alyssa pried her hand off the doorframe and embraced her. Still struggling for air, Jayce let himself inside the house. He needed to sit down. Before the moving earth beneath his feet knocked him on his ass. Alyssa raped. Now the name Michael made sense. Michael Barker, the star quarterback who had always wanted Alyssa. The same Michael who Jordan pressed charges against, along with Vince McCaffrey and Justin Flanders. The same Michael who had gotten off scott-free, along with the rest of them.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck!

Jayce ran his hands through his hair, aware he needed to suck it up and be strong for Alyssa.
What she was going through right now had to be ten times greater than what he was. But he…couldn’t. Ten years of not knowing, of trying on every possibility, of analyzing how he’d screwed up and lost her. He’d never imagined this. Never dreamt the woman he loved more than life itself could have suffered so much and hadn’t confided in him.

“Why?” he barked, unable to stop the thunderous question in his head.

Alyssa extracted herself from Jordan’s embrace, and Jordan led her to a chair. She shook off the offering and chose to remain standing, her hands twining knots at her midsection.

“Jayce,”
Jordan warned. “Maybe now’s not—”

“Now’s just fine.” All the anguish he’d suffered for a decade rose up to choke him, his heart focusing on one unavoidable fact.
She hadn’t told him. She hadn’t come
to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he choked out, pushing down the pain and letting anger control it. Another question jammed into his head. It spilled free without his permission. “Did you know Jordan was there?”

“No.”
Alyssa shook her head, her hands working more severely around each other. She began to pace along the far wall. “I didn’t know. We didn’t introduce ourselves. I was at the beer keg with Megan, who ran off with Mark. She came up and asked if I’d go with her to pee.” Alyssa’s words came out in a furious rush as her agitation pushed her into a faster pace. “I didn’t…know.” Her voice broke on the last word, and her entire face scrunched with an agonized grimace.