Unforeseen Danger (6 page)

He sighed.
 
Nikki buried her face in his soft flannel shirt, unwilling to let him go.
 
For reasons that she couldn’t understand, much less explain, she knew she was safe with Jake.
 
She’d known it since he wrote his name across the top of his hand to sooth her.
 
And as he reached to smooth her hair, something inside her turned.
 
This was a man she’d fallen in love with before and at that moment, she knew it would be easy to do it again.
 
Nikki wasn’t ready to let go of him yet, not when she didn’t even know what was tearing them apart.

***

Jake held her for a long time.
 
He tried to tell himself it was because Nikki needed it, but the truth was he needed it, too.
 
The tension of the past two weeks drained him, and he grew weary of the war they waged.
 
They had stumbled too far into a strange, dangerous place where even a simple word could have irreversible consequences.
 
He had loved her since the first time they met and, even as one part of him wanted to lash out and hurt her, another part wanted to sacrifice his pride – sacrifice anything – just to hold onto her.

A soft rap sounded on the door.
 
Jake released Nikki and sat up in the bed as his mother came in.
 
She looked surprised, but not altogether displeased to see him so close to Nikki.

“Hey,” he said, feeling like a high school boy caught making out in his bedroom.

Catherine shot Jake a worried glance when he had to reintroduce her to Nikki.
 
She pulled him aside as the nurse took Nikki’s vitals to ask him about it.

Jake turned his back toward Nikki’s bed so she couldn’t hear his whisper.
 
“It scares me, too, Mom.
 
Luke said that she might do that for a while.
 
She’s had to be reintroduced to him about five times already.”

“The poor thing,” Catherine murmured.
 
The nurse left and Catherine painted on a bright smile.
 
Jake could tell that Nikki was embarrassed at forgetting Catherine’s name, but, to her credit, Catherine soon put her at ease.
     

“Jake, go home,” his mother said.
 
“I’m staying with Nikki tonight.”

“That’s okay, Mom.
 
I’ll just go grab a shower and come back.”
 
He glanced at Nikki and she shook her head.

“Listen to your mother.
 
Go home and rest.”
 
Nikki gave him a gentle smile.
 
“You’ve been very kind to stay like you have, but you need a break from this place.
 
We’ll be fine.”

Jake reluctantly agreed.
 
He needed to get away from those sad eyes for just a little while.

But he couldn’t get away, not really.
 
All the way home, thoughts of Nikki plagued him.
 
What was he going to do now?
 
He wanted to hate her, but how could he when he had no idea how to stop loving her first?

Jake was glad to see his house.
 
He had loved this place at first sight, though Nikki had longed for something more modern.
 
It was an eighty-year-old Victorian, not very different from all the other houses in the
neighborhood
, but it seemed to have a character of its own.
 
He once had big plans for this house, and the family he’d hoped to fill it with.
 
After scooping up the paper on the welcome mat and unlocking the door, Jake walked through the foyer and into the den.
 
He sank into the plush green sofa, wanting to scan the paper before he got in the shower.

The twisted carnage of his Dodge Ram was on the front page.
 
Jake stared at it in shock.

How had Nikki gotten out of that?

The article was suitably vague, just reporting that an unidentified passenger of the vehicle driven by Mrs. Hawthorne had perished in the crash.
 
Nikki hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt, something he often chastised her for.
 
This time, he was glad she hadn’t.
 
She had been thrown from the truck as it made its murderous descent down the mountainside.
 
He wondered about the pickup’s brakes.
 
Was it really possible that someone had sabotaged them?
 
The idea seemed ridiculous.
 
Who would want to kill Nikki?

The thought struck him as he climbed the stairs.

Not Nikki, you.

Jake stopped cold, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

Maybe someone thought it would be easier if he were out of the way, without the mess of a divorce.
 
His thoughts troubled him as he showered and shaved.

Would someone kill to have Nikki?
 

Instantly, he knew the answer to that and shuddered.
 

Jake checked the answering machine and listened to what was mostly a barrage of phone calls from Nikki’s friends, although five calls were from his office.
 
He hoped nothing had gone wrong with the Stephens building.

Finally, with a resigned sigh, he picked up the phone to call Darcy.
 
Darcy Harrison had been Nikki’s best friend since seventh grade, when they sat around mooning over rock star posters and making prank phone calls.
 
Jake liked Darcy.
 
She was the only one of Nikki’s friends who didn’t treat him like the pool boy, even though she probably had more reason to dislike him than any of them.
 
Nikki had broken Darcy’s brother’s heart when she married him.
 

He and Nikki were from different worlds, and Jake had deluded himself into thinking that it didn’t matter.
 
To put it bluntly, Nikki had married down when she became his wife.
 
Jake made a respectable living, and he had inherited a little money when his father died, but it was a pittance compared to what Nikki had grown up with.
 
She was used to having butlers and maids, and she gave it all up for him.
 
Nikki told him that it didn’t matter, that she loved him, and for a time, he believed her.
 
Still, some part of him couldn’t help but wonder if she would’ve even approached him that day if she’d known the white Porsche he was leaning on had not belonged to him.

Jake clutched the phone a little tighter when he heard Darcy’s ‘hello’.
 
There had been an underlying tension between them lately, and also between her and Nikki.
 
She knew Nikki’s secrets and couldn’t tell him.
 
Now Nikki couldn’t either.

“Darcy?”

“Jake, I just saw it in the paper!
 
Why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t think,
Darce
,” he replied.
 
“It’s all so strange.
 
She doesn’t remember anything.”

“So I hear.
 
As soon as I saw the paper, I called the hospital.
 
I just got off the phone with Catherine.
 
She said she was staying with Nikki tonight.”
  

Jake could tell by her tone that she found the thought of those two together as unsettling as he first had.

He told Darcy everything he could about Nikki’s
condition,
then took a deep breath and asked her what he really wanted to know.

“Do you know who her passenger was, Darcy?
 
Was it him?”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“So you know,” she said finally.

“She admitted it the night before the accident, but she wouldn’t tell me who.”

“I swear to you, Jake, I don’t know.
 
I know he’s rich and powerful…and married.”
 

Great, another marriage ruined.
 

“She would never say his name, or even hint.
 
She grew furious when she realized that she was probably going to lose you and said that she wasn’t going to let him just sit by while she lost everything.
 
She was going to press him to leave his wife.”

Hot, bitter tears scalded his eyes.
 
Nikki hadn’t cared, not about him, not about their marriage.
 
She was just concerned about losing her precious possessions.

“Jake…for what it’s worth, I told Nikki she was crazy for cheating on you.
 
That big fight we had a couple of weeks ago, that’s what it was over.
 
I told her not to use me as an alibi anymore, that she should tell you the truth.”

“Thanks,
Darce
,” he said hoarsely and hung up the phone.
 
He held his face in his hands and cried.

Slowly, Jake came to the conclusion that this wasn’t doing him any good.
 
He went back upstairs and opened the door to Nikki’s room.
 
He could still smell her perfume in here and it made his heart ache anew.
 
Jake went to the closet and pulled out a small overnight bag.
 
He filled a cosmetic case and tried to pack a few items that he thought she’d want, like her brush and some hair clasps.
 
He pulled open her closet and picked out an outfit, on the off chance that she might be released from the hospital soon.
 

Jake felt emotionally drained, like he was more robot than man, until he opened her dresser drawer to find her nightgowns.
 
Nikki loved silky things,
favoring
their soft sheen over the roughness of lace.
 
As Jake plunged his hand into that drawer, the delicate fabric tormented him, taunting him with its whisper.
 
He pulled out the long red gown that she wore for him the last time they made love.
 
As he rubbed the polished fabric between his fingers, he could recall with painful clarity exactly how she looked in it.
 

She stood at the foot of the stairs when he came home from work that evening, waiting for him.
 
His heart nearly stopped when he saw her standing there, a seductive smile on her lips.
 
His beautiful, raven-haired enchantress.

Had she worn this same gown for her lover, too?

With a strangled cry, Jake tore at the fabric, feeling a vicious sense of satisfaction as he heard it rip.
 
He felt the same hatred surge in him as it had that night.
 
He had wanted to smash Nikki’s delicate porcelain face when she admitted the affair, right here in this room.
 
Even though he had known it, some part of him had desperately clung to the notion that he was wrong.

“Stop it, stop it,
stop
it!” Jake berated himself.
 
He picked up the bag and ran from the room, leaving the ruined gown lying on the bed and the dresser drawer hanging open.
 

Downstairs, Jake picked up the phone and called his general foreman.

“Jake!
 
Thank God,” Hank said.

The tension in Hank’s voice instantly snapped Jake out his fog.
 
“What is it?
 
Is it one of the men?”
 
Visions of a construction accident loomed in his head and Jake closed his eyes.
 
He ran a tight ship and knew all his workers.
 
They weren’t just employees; most of them were friends.

“No, Jake.
 
We’re all fine.
 
Nobody’s hurt,” Hank said, but his voice was funny, tight.
 
“It’s just – well, hell – something’s happened at the office and I think you need to see it.
 
I didn’t want to call you at the hospital.”

“What’s going on?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Hank said, “It’s not something I can talk about on the phone.
 
I locked everything up, so you just come out when you can.”
 
He hung up before Jake could say anything.

Troubled, Jake replaced the phone in the cradle.
 
It must be something major to get Hank Timmons upset.
 
He grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

The wind picked up, making Jake hunch his shoulders as he headed toward Nikki’s car.
 
Winters in middle
Tennessee
were
usually mild, but Jake wouldn’t be surprised if they saw the season’s first snow soon.

Jake was still shivering when he pulled onto the highway, so he stopped at a Burger Barn drive-thru to get a cup of coffee before he went to the office.
 
He had a feeling he was going to need it.
 
He hadn’t taken the first sip of it when a car pulled out in front of him, cutting him off.
 
Jake hit the brakes hard and sloshed a little of the hot brew down the front of his shirt.
 
Cursing, he reached into the glove box in search of napkins, but came away with something else.

He glanced at the real estate brochures with a mixture of anger and sadness.
 
Nikki had been house hunting.
 
Jake pulled into a convenience store parking lot and looked them over.