“Have you dealt with the Lilith issue?” Jackson asked, not bothering to open his eyes as the sun kissed his body.
“It’s a non-issue.”
“So did you go with accidental drug overdose or will she be labeled ‘missing’ indefinitely under the unsolved mysteries file?”
“You really lost your scruples along the way, didn’t you?”
“We’re trained in survival, sister-dearest, not in baring our souls over tea and cookies.”
“She’s not going to say anything.”
“You willing to bet your life on it?”
“Yes.” She headed toward the front door.
“You willing to bet my life on it?”
She stopped. The stab hurt, it always did. Jackson carried around this I-love-you-more-than-you-love-me attitude and trying to prove him wrong was exhausting. Declaring it a lost cause, she continued inside. As she kicked off her shoes, her phone buzzed with a text. She pulled it from her back pocket.
Mark 13:32-33
“What the hell?” she whispered to herself.
The sender was unknown. No name. No number. No further explanation.
The door opened behind her. “Ike Turner just pulled in his drive,” Jackson jabbed.
“How are your testicles today?”
He squeezed by her, covering his junk.
“That’s what I thought, so just shut it about AJ.”
He tugged on his shirt. “You look confused.”
She nodded. “Mark 13:32-33?”
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.”
Jackson never missed a Sunday. As long as God turned a blind eye to his sexual indiscretions, it was possible her brother was worthy of the cross he wore on his arm.
“Did you see an unusual clearing in the clouds?” He laughed.
She shook her head and held up her phone.
“What’s that?”
“A text?”
“From whom?”
She stared at him and shrugged. He grabbed her phone, clicking from one screen to the next.
“Everything’s traceable.”
“What do you think it means?”
His brow furrowed deeper with frustration at her phone. “Biblically speaking?”
“I don’t think it’s a reminder text from our childhood pastor. So no, not biblically speaking.”
“Then I don’t know. Dammit! Fucking phone.” He tossed her phone back to her. “I’ll call Knox. They’re monitoring our phones.”
“Great. Just what I need, another big brother butting in on my business.”
“Don’t forget, Sis, how hard your big brothers work to keep you alive.”
“You know what I mean.” She walked toward the bedroom. “I’m going for a ride.”
“Super … great. I’ll just be here doing what I do best. Keeping you alive.”
Jillian changed into her jeans and black boots then grabbed her leather jacket. “Did you reach Knox?”
“I did.” His fingers tapped over the keyboard to his computer.
“And?”
“And he said he’d look into it.”
She zipped up her coat. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
He looked up at her. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“No, not nothing. Tell me.”
He blew out a long breath. “You’re just messed-up.”
“Agreed. Is that it?” She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets.
“It’s not that I don’t get it. We were trained to deal with a lot and nobody could have predicted that you’d watch your friend die the way she did. Every fucked-up part of your brain is completely justified in my opinion. But lately I question your decisions: AJ, your reckless trip to Portland, sharing information with Lilith that you weren’t supposed to tell anyone ever again, and now this text that honestly scares the shit out of me. Yet you don’t want to worry about it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know … just be careful. Okay?”
“I will,” she answered in a small voice. Moving behind him she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
He squeezed her arm.
*
Jillian needed the wind and miles of open road to let her thoughts fall away into oblivion. She pulled on her helmet and threw a leg over her Harley.
“Want some company?”
She turned. “Aric James.” Her eyes smiled more than her lips.
“Rough day?”
“What makes you ask that?”
He moved to the front of her Harley, resting his hands on the handle bars. “You call me Aric James when you’re feeling vulnerable.”
“Vulnerable?” She was vulnerable—vulnerable to his earlier questioning about Trigger, Matthew Green.
“Yes. It’s usually when I’m inside you.” His gaze moved over her body and for a brief moment she could feel him inside her. “But sometimes you say it like a prayer, and I think it’s when your emotions begin to consume all your strength.”
Like in that exact moment. It was in her mind, all coincidence. AJ read the paper every day, of course he would mention Trigger’s death at the same rest stop. It didn’t mean anything more. How could it?
“Get on.”
“Scoot back.”
“My bike. I’m driving.”
“I’m not riding bitch behind you.”
“You are.” She shoved his hands away and gripped the handle bars.
“If I’m on the back now, you’re on bottom later.”