Joseph (19 page)

He lowered her down to him and rolled her gently to his side. Joseph grabbed the sheet and threw it over both of them while still buried deep within her. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as they recovered from the earth shattering orgasms. Her exhausted body melted into the intense hard warmth of the man next to her.

The low rumble of his voice reverberated through the room. “I love you baby girl. I always have and I always will.”

The feel of sunshine from the windows heating her skin woke her from the exhausted slumber she had succumbed to last night. Her body ached from the very physical and extremely emotional love making. Joseph had ravaged her body, melted her heart and seared his love into the deepest parts of her soul.

A strong, callused hand cupped her ass and squeezed the sore muscle. A groan escaped her as she pushed back into Joey’s body.

“Good morning.” She could feel the rumble of his voice running through his chest.

“G’morning.” Ember pulled her hands up and rubbed her eyes willing her brain to kick into gear.

“You’re fuzzy when you wake up.”

“You laughing at me? Coffee. Coffee now.” Her mumbled reply did get a laugh.

“Nope, not right now. We need to have a discussion first.” He pulled her onto her back and anchored his weight on his elbow looking down at her.

“You want talk? I need coffee first. No coffee—no talky.” Ember closed her eyes and smiled at her little rhyme.

Joseph’s hand caressed her stomach and landed on her breast. She cracked an eye open and looked up at him. His eyes locked with hers as he pinched the nipple. Her back arched and her body flared. She was tender from last night. His touch bordered on painful.

“You don’t need to talk. You need to listen.” He released her breast but kept his hand on her ribs. Almost as if he were pinning her down. “Are you awake enough to listen now?”

Ember nodded, her gaze never leaving his emotion-filled eyes.

“I have been up front with you, Ember. Before I get on that plane later today, I need to make sure you understand. When I leave—this is over.”

If she could have, Ember would have bolted from the bed. The hand gripped her and held her down as if he had read her mind. She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to face a reality without Joey in it.

“Look at me.” At his commanding growl, she looked up into his eyes as he ordered.

“I am a violent and dangerous person with lethal enemies, enemies who would stop at nothing to hurt anyone even remotely important to me—assassins who would track me to the ends of the earth and kill me just to garner their nation’s gratitude or reap monetary reward. The world I live in has no happily ever after. I chose this path a long time ago and I knew what the price to live this life would be. It has severed all but the most superficial ties to my family. It has prevented any relationship I may have wanted to build. And it has cost me a life with you.”

Ember rolled into him and buried her head against his shoulder and neck. “We can go somewhere and hide. I trust you to take care of me. I’ll wait until you work things out. Please, Joey. Please say there is a way this works out. A way this isn’t goodbye forever.”

His hand caressed her back softly. The small act of gentleness seemed so at odds with the harsh, demanding man stretched out beside her. His soft touch sliced her heart open and laid her soul bare to him.

“Little girl, if I could make this right, I would. There is nothing on this earth I want more. But I have to live in reality. You and I can never have more than this time. We’ll never be together again.”

Her resolve not to cry melted. She had tried so hard not to accept that fact. “You said you loved me. Why won’t you fight for me?” The tears dripped from her fact to his arm.

She felt his long exhale against her shoulder. His husky whisper filled with emotion he rarely showed. “I do. God, I love you so much. I’m not leaving because I don’t love you, little one. I’m leaving because I love you more than life itself. I have to make this world safe for you. In order to do that I have to…go.”

Ember shook her head and burrowed deeper against him.
If she didn’t believe it…it couldn’t be true. Right?
She didn’t have to accept never seeing him again. Her world would be on hold until he came for her again. Because he would come back. He loved her.

“I’ll wait for you Joey. You know I will. Until it is safe for you to come back to me.” The words came between sobs.

He placed his hand under her chin and forced her away from her hiding place. “I won’t be coming back, little one. After this passes, the best thing you can do is find a good man. Have some beautiful babies and live your life. Live it for me, baby. Please.”

Ember wrapped her arms around him and emptied all the stored up pain she had been suppressing. She didn’t believe this was it. She couldn’t.

“Joey, please. Just…please make love to me. One last time.” Her body shook as the cries of anguish tore through her body. His hard body moved against her. For the last time.

Joey loved her. They had made love and held each other tight knowing with the passing of time their world would shatter. And it came too soon for Ember. Joey put several shirts in his pack and walked back to the dresser. Her voice cracked “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but I can’t stop myself. I know you believe we can never be together. Isn’t there a way? I mean nobody knows that you’re that guy…Fury, right? If Fury just stopped working, vanished, wouldn’t that be enough?”

She saw him straighten and give a long exhale of breath before he turned with several pair of jeans. “It wouldn’t matter the name I choose to live under. Facial recognition programs, fingerprints, retinal scans, dental records…the intelligence community would demand some evidence to validate my death. Honestly, the only way to lose Fury is for me to die.”

“Can you pretend to die?” Her voice sounded high and strained even to her own ears.

His brows pulled together furrowing before he spoke. “Baby, that’s Hollywood clouding your mind. Look at it realistically. There are too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. No baby girl, the safest thing for
both
of us is for me to walk away and for you to forget I exist.”

The tightness gripping her chest cinched further. “It’s not fair. How can I lose you now? Joey? Why can’t we just go? Find a little corner of the world away from everyone and live together until we grow old and wrinkled?”

Joseph walked over to her and grabbed her around the waist lifting her to the middle of the bed. He rolled on top of her. His hard muscles and heavy weight pinned her down and his eyes drilled into hers. “Stop. With everything I am I promise, if it existed, I would find a way to come back to you. But you must face the reality of my life. What we are together can never survive because of what I am. Maybe this is karma kicking my ass, or fate bitch slapping me for the lives I’ve taken. I don’t know. I’m sorry my past has ruined our future. This is it, baby girl, this is our goodbye.”

This morning, the pain of her heart being ripped from her chest intensified with each step they took towards the runway. By the time they reached the tarmac of the ranch’s runway she could barely keep it together.
Be strong. Be strong for him. Don’t let his last memory of you be this way. Let him see how much you love him
.

In the bright glow of the morning sun, he kissed her hard and held her for the last time. “If there were any chance of a normal life for us, Ember, I’d marry you in a second. I love you. Be my good girl and promise me you’ll take care of yourself even if that means one day finding someone else to love you.”

She felt the tears run down her cheeks. Looking into his beautiful green-blue eyes, she spoke the truth in her heart. “No. There has never been anyone but you. There can never be anyone but you. I love you. Only you.”

He placed a feather soft kiss on her forehead, lingering there, holding her just as softly. His whispered, “Goodbye, baby girl,” echoed in the empty cavern that used to hold her heart. He turned, picked up his backpack and walked away. His broad back remained ram-rod straight as he climbed the stairs to the waiting jet. He ducked through the door and boarded the plane. He never looked back.

Ember couldn’t hold back the tears blurring her vision. The shiny black G6 taxied to the end of the long runway. Joey was onboard. When the plane took off, he was gone. Forever. Standing in the hot July sun, she shaded her eyes and watched as the aircraft held at the end of the runway. The ten days he had spent with her at the ranch seemed to evaporate like the jet trail following an aircraft. How could time slip by so quickly?

With a revving roar of jet engines, the G6 released its brakes and catapulted down the runway, lifting off the ground and up into the air. The reflection of the sun on the aircraft momentarily blinded her, a brilliant flash of light before the plane pulled higher into the cloudless blue sky.

“How you holding up?”

Ember looked over her shoulder. Adam and the Delicious Duo of Dixon and Drake stood behind her, her Guardian appointed protectors for the foreseeable future. Snuffling and wiping her cheeks she drew a deep stuttering breath. “I really don’t know right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now that Joey’s gone.”

Adam put an arm around her shoulder. “Well, Thing One and Thing Two have a plan, Dr. Harris. And unfortunately for you, you’re the key to this ill-conceived and poorly thought out effort.”

Ember sniffed and looked back at the twins. Both had what Frank Marshall called their shit-eating grins plastered across their faces.

Lifting an eyebrow she asked, “What are you up to?”

Dixon hit Drake and started, “Well now, Dr. Harris, we have this team member who’s been a royal pain in our ass.”

Drake chimed in, “He’s this massive guy who used a boo-boo to get out of any and all physical training over the last what…well, damn, it’s been about two years hasn’t it Dixon?”

“Yep. See, we think he is malingering. Has a psychotic issue that is preventing his muscular development and thereby impeding his mental capacity.”

Drake turned to his brother and put his hands on his hips. “Well, there you go again, pulling out the flipping forty dollar words. Why couldn’t you just say Doc has been a lazy son of a bitch and not doing his self any favors by forgoing his physical training?”

“But I did say that! Exactly that!”

Doc laughed and pulled Ember back towards the house leaving the twins to catch up after they realized they were alone.

Taking in the panoramic view of the majestic pine covered mountains beyond the green pastures, she released a shuttering breath.
So, this is home…for now. No, that’s not right. Without Joey this is just another stopping point, not a place to make a home.

Doc’s voice hit her from behind. “As senior medic on staff, my day consists of addressing the rehab of Guardian’s personnel injured in the line of duty. But as Thing One and Thing Two explained poorly, as part of my own rehabilitation, I want to start working out again and I plan on continuing my appointments with Doctor Wheeler. In order for me to do that, Guardian will need to hire another doctor. I suggested to Gabriel that you do it since you’re here anyway. What do you think about working with us for the foreseeable future?”

Ember glanced back to the vast sky and sighed. She felt…empty. “I think perhaps you’re only doing this because of Joey.”

“Ha! Not true! Look, I’ve been stuck in a clinical depression for a while now. I knew the symptoms, but I just couldn’t bring myself to give a damn. Wheeler verbally knocked me on my ass the other day and gave me some mild anti-depressants. I honestly need the space and time away from the clinic to start to heal physically. Dixon and Drake will drag my ass through the PT but in order to participate I need to be able to be away. If you don't take the job, I’ll put out for resumes. What do you think?”

Ember stopped and looked at Adam. “I think that is the most you’ve spoken to me since I’ve been here. You didn’t stutter or pause once.”

Adam blushed a brilliant red and a small smile spread across his face. “Yeah, the speech impediment may have been a stress-related issue. The harder I tried to speak the more stressed I became and the more problems I had. The more problems I had, the more stress I felt and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“And since you refused to get help with the stress, you lived in a little hell of your own making.”

“Until I started taking the anti-depressants.” Doc nodded almost to himself and looked away. She got it. He was embarrassed.

“Hey, don’t feel like you have the copywrite to living in a hell you’ve created. I’ve lived in my own little corner of Hades for too many years. I made a change. Or I was going to before Morales forced this one on me.” Ember smiled and shrugged before she turned back to the house. “Alright, Doctor Cassidy, I’ll take the job. But not today. Today I’m going to throw myself a pity party and cry until I have no more tears, and then I’m going to get drunk. Right there.” She pointed to the main ranch house. “Out on that porch swing with Keelee.”

“Sounds like a plan Doctor Harris. I’ll see you tomorrow then?” He stopped at the crossroads between the Guardian complex and the ranch.

“How about you stop by tonight and have a drink with us?” Ember couldn’t resist playing matchmaker. If she couldn’t have a happily ever after, maybe Keelee could.

“Sorry, can’t mix alcohol with the script I’m on right now.”

“Have you seen Keelee lately?” Ember absentmindedly drew a circle in the gravel with the toe of her boot.

“No, not since we reintroduced ourselves. I think I want to work on me a little bit. I guess I hurt her pretty bad a couple years ago. I don’t know how or why. Sometimes there is a wisp of a memory, but when I try to grasp it…nothing.”

Ember put her hand on his forearm. “It will come back, Adam. And if it doesn’t? Well then, I guess you need to make some new memories with her. Let’s try for happy ones this time, okay?”

Adam smiled and his dimples made a glorious appearance. “Yeah, I think I’d like a happy memory or two.”