Bourne to Love Emma (RED-Stone Operatives Book 1) (11 page)

~Emma~

I could feel my face turn scarlet red
when I opened the door for Jason to come inside.  I still couldn’t believe I
did that last night.

Jason reached for me as soon as he
stepped inside but pulled back when Mia comes running at him squealing.  He
smiled wryly at me before he bent to pick her up.  He kissed Mia’s cheek and
then leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to my mouth.

I followed as he carried Mia back to
her blocks and cars.  She’d been trying to rebuild the ramp since she got up
this morning. 

“I’m about to start lunch.  Do you
want to stay and eat with us?”

“Sure.  That would be great.  I
actually need to talk to you about some stuff if you have some time.”

I turned back toward him to gauge his
expression and just how serious this talk is supposed to be.  I’m not sure what
my own expression looked like, but he added, “it’s about Dan.”

“Oh.  Okay.  Well, let’s eat and I’ll
see if I can get Mia down for her nap and we can talk.”

I pulled the chicken from the
marinade and stuck it in the oven.  Fresh green beans were thrown into a pan to
sauté with garlic and butter.  As a nod to Mia, I boiled some pasta to make mac
and cheese.  That girl could eat it at every meal and still want more. 

An hour later, I got Mia into her bed
with only a little fussing.  Jason was cleaning the kitchen when I walked back
in and started helping.  He was already done with everything that goes in the
dishwasher and was filling the sink with soapy water for the pans.

“I’ll wash if you dry,” I offered.

“Deal.”  He grinned at me and I couldn’t
help but lean up and brush my mouth over his.  He shut the water off and pulled
me in for another kiss.  I groaned when his tongue swiped over the seam of my
lips and I opened my mouth to him.  It only takes a moment for the heat to get
out of control with him.  It’s like nothing I’ve experienced before.  He pulled
my bottom lip between his teeth and tugged as he leaned away, releasing it and
smiled down at me as I opened my eyes. 

“Dishes.”

I sighed.  “Fine.”

As I started scrubbing the first pan,
he began telling me about the costumes he saw in the window of a shop downtown
for toddlers.  I figured we would probably wait another year to do the whole
Halloween thing – she doesn’t understand it anyway and by this time next year,
she’ll have an opinion on what she wants to be.

I drained the sink while he dried the
last pan, wishing I had more dishes to wash so I could put off this discussion
until later.  I almost gave into the temptation to distract him by just taking off
my shirt and attacking him…but he’d probably know exactly what I was doing and
that would take a lot of the fun out of it.  I’m a big girl.  Suck it up,
buttercup.  Time to face the music.

~Emma~

“So…you want to talk about Dan….”  I
was not looking forward to this.  Jason motioned me to the table and we both sat
down. 

“I’m still waiting on a lot of his
stuff to come back, but the financial records came in yesterday.  He was
involved in some pretty shady stuff, Em.  My first thought is that he has been
helping someone launder money, but I would need to dig into where the money was
going before I could be sure.  He either quit his job or got fired about eight
months ago – he stopped getting paid, anyway.  Bottom line out of all of that
is that he is broke.  Completely.”

“Wow.  That’s all crazy.  He dealt
with some shady people in the music business but I never would have thought
he’d get involved in anything illegal.  But money has always been important to
him – probably the most important thing to him, actually.” 

“I had a feeling that was the case. 
What I really wondered about, though, was what happened with your divorce. 
When I pulled the decree, there wasn’t anything in there about Mia.  No custody
arrangement, no child support agreement, nothing.  How is that even legal? 
What happened when –“   

“You pulled my divorce decree?  You
went digging through my stuff to check on him?  How did you even – don’t you
need permission to do that?!”

“Emma, hold up.  I’m trying to help
here.  When he attacked you –“

“When he attacked me, you never asked
if you could rifle through my life!  You didn’t tell me you were going to go
dig through everything I’ve ever done.  You didn’t ASK ME if any of that was
okay!  Why didn’t you ASK me if you had questions?  Did you pull MY credit
report?  Run a background check on ME?  Did you??”

His face gave him away.  Oh, my
gosh.  He did.  I jumped up and started pacing around the apartment.  How in
the heck do you trust someone who just digs into your life like that?  I don’t
even have secrets, but what if I did?  They’re MINE.  Mine to keep or mine to
tell. 

“Emma.”

“No!  No.  Just…give me a minute
here.  I mean – you invaded my privacy on a level I can’t even comprehend. 
What did you read?  What do you know about me now that I never told you?  Why
would you even do that?” 

He stood up from the table and walked
out the front door.  I stopped and just stared at the door.  He just walked
out.  What?  I was still standing there, perfectly still, when he walked back
in and closed the door.  He walked over to me and handed me a folder.  After a
minute, I sat down on the couch and opened it.

My birth certificate, high school
diploma, medical records – seriously!? – a list of known associates for each
part of my life, my marriage license, credit report, college transcripts, Mia’s
birth certificate, divorce decree….

I leaned back and just stared at my
life on paper.  It was almost impossible to wrap my head around it.  He knows
where I was born, went to school, when I started birth control, the classes I
took in college….  Those are things we should have discussed.  Part of getting
to know someone is talking about these kinds of things.

Jason was still standing by the
door.  Waiting.  He blurred when I looked at him and I realized I was crying. 
It’s so unfair.  I love him.  Oh God.  I
love
him. 

He took three steps and pulled me
into his arms.  I cried into his chest and he rocked me and murmured senseless
words into my hair.  “We should have talked about it.”  I threw out what I
could between sobs.  “Why couldn’t you just ask?”  He whispered ‘I’m sorry’
over and over.  “I tru-trusted you.”  He stopped rocking me.

“Emma.  God.  Maybe this is worse. 
I.  Emma.  I ran that report on you the first day I met you.  I didn’t even
know you yet.”  He was so still, I think he was holding his breath.

“Why?  Why would you do that?”  I whispered
this against his chest where he was still holding me.  For some reason,
everything seemed to hinge on this moment.

He let out a huge sigh and rubbed a
hand over his face and mouth before wrapping his arm back around me and rubbing
me from the back of my neck to my waist.  Up and down.  Up and down. 

“Honestly, it’s a habit.  Finding the
pitfalls before I hit them is habit.  In the military and out.  Working for
John or not.  What comes up in those reports lets me make the right choices –
lets me see the risks before I take them.  It’s just who I am, I guess.”

I tried to wrap my mind around that
idea.  At the end of the day, it’s…sad.  To never be able to have faith in
other people, to never be able to trust someone and just take their word for
something…is sad.

“You shouldn’t do that to people,
Jason.  It…hurts them.  And I think it hurts you, too.”

We stood there for a long moment, me
sniffling into his shirt and him stroking my back. 

“You’re right, Emma.  I’m really
sorry I did that to you.”  He pulled back and his hands cupped my face as he
looked into my eyes.  “I promise I will never do anything like this again
without talking to you first.  Unless you’re in danger.”  He winced when he
added the last part.  Like being honest about that actually hurt him.

“I think I’m okay with you doing
something like that if I’m in danger.  But I hate that you did it without
talking to me about it.  I hate that you learned all these things about me
without hearing it from ME.  Because my life is MINE.  It wasn’t fair for you
to do it, that’s all.”

He hugged me close again.  Finally, I
stepped back and pushed all the papers back into the folder and handed it to
him.  He took it gingerly and his expression was nervous.

“I don’t need it Jason – I already
know all of that stuff and you do, too.  So…keep it if you need to or …burn it
or something.”  I sat down on the couch, emotionally exhausted. 

“Now.  Tell me what you need to know
about Dan.”

“Why did you change Mia’s birth
certificate?”

I flinched. 

“Mia was 8 months old when he told me
he wanted a divorce.  He never wanted kids and was…upset… that I said no to an
abortion.  After she was born, I think he thought things would go back to how
they were before we had her, but I refused to let a nanny raise my daughter.  I
was waiting tables and taking classes to get my degree when we met and, after
we got married, he paid the bills so I could finish school.  In hindsight, I
think that was more so I would have my evenings free to go to work functions
with him….”

Jason’s jaw was clenched and the
muscle in his cheek was ticking.  I looked away from him and moved on.

“When he walked out on us, he warned
me not to expect help from him.  When his attorneys sat down with me, they
were…convincing.  He helped me get into my field.  He had enough contacts to be
sure I never worked in it again.  I didn’t have enough experience to risk that
at the time.  He wanted nothing to do with Mia – or me – and there was only one
way to make it so that he had no legal ties to either of us.  His attorneys
drew up a fake paternity test that showed Dan wasn’t the father.  We both got
what we wanted that way:  I got sole custody of Mia, he had no financial
responsibility toward either of us.”

Jason stood up from his chair and
paced around the living room.  He ran his hands through his hair several times,
clenching his jaw and then shaking out his hands and arms.  He almost made me
nervous.

“Emma.  I don’t even have words for
that bullshit.  How could he just walk away from his kid?  How could he just
basically kick you out and leave you to make it on your own?  What an asshole! 
I’m not going to let him get away with this.  I’m not –”

His phone rang, interrupting his
rant. 

“Bourne.”  I guessed it was work
related since he answered it that way.

“Son of a bitch!  I’ll be in as soon
as I can.  Do me a favor – call John Winters and ask if he can meet me there. 
Thanks.”  He shoved his phone back in his pocket.

“I’ll be right back.”  He turned and
rushed out the door but left the door open.  A minute later, he came back in. 

“I have to go to the office.  We’ve
got a lead I need to follow up on…on Dan.”  He paused and pulled me to my feet
and walked me to the door.  Before he opened the door, he pulled a gun out of
the waistband of his jeans and handed it to me butt first.  I shrunk away from
it just a little – more out of surprise than fear of the gun itself.  I’ve
handled a gun before…but I was never completely comfortable with it.

“I’m really worried about what Dan is
up to, Emma.  I have a really bad feeling in my gut.  I have reason to believe
he’s been watching you – sitting outside the building and waiting for you to
leave.”

“Sitting outside….  Oh, God.  The car
I saw.  It was Dan following me?  Watching me?  I thought I was crazy!”  I felt
like I was going to vomit.

“Em – you thought someone was
watching you but you didn’t say anything?!  What the hell?!”

“I thought I was just being
paranoid.  Why would anyone watch me?”  My hands were shaking when he pushed
the gun into them.

“Dammit, Emma.  You need to trust me
with that kind of thing.”  He pulled me close and brushed his lips over mine
once, twice.  Then he pressed his mouth to my temple for a moment.

“I have to go to the office and see
if we can piece this together and get a few more guys on it.  I had a GPS
tracking unit on that car, but it hasn’t moved in 24 hours, so it’s doubtful
he’s still driving it.  The building has tight security.  You should be safe
here.  But I will feel better if I know you can protect yourself.  Have you
shot a gun before?”

“Yes.  It’s been a while, but I think
it will come back to me if I need it to…”

“Okay.  I’ve got my phone, babe.  If
anything – ANYTHING – feels wrong, trust your gut and call me.  Lock up behind
me.”  And he stepped out the door.  I threw the bolts home and pressed my palms
against the door. 

I stared at the door for a minute
before I whisper “I love you.”  I should have told him.

~Jason~

           
I hated leaving her like that.  She was still upset with me. 
It leaves me feeling…unsettled.  Sasha – one of the techs at the office who
keeps an eye on our supercomputers and sends out alerts when something comes
back that needs immediate attention – called to let me know they got a hit off
the commonality program I installed last year.

            The program looks for data patterns across all
the reports being run and data being entered for every case we’re working at
any given time.  I got John to start using it so we had fewer instances where
we discovered that two teams had essentially been working one case – the whole
‘left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing’ thing.  This way, if one
team is pulling reports on a possible criminal contact and that person has
already been flagged by another team working another case, the two teams know
they need to start talking.

            Today, the program notified her that the car I’d
noticed outside our building multiple times belonged to the same mechanic that
Emma’s ex-husband had paid for auto services according to the financial records
I pulled.  Could it be a coincidence?  Yes.  But the odds were astronomical. 
In my world, that means no way.  No fucking way does this not tie in somehow,
some way.

            My drive to the office was faster than it
probably should have been, but John beat me there.  When I saw him getting out
of his truck, I parked my SUV and walked toward him.  We talked on our way to
John’s office where we could pull everything up on our secure servers and put
our heads together.  After we looked at what had come through on the rest of
the reports, we made a list of phone calls we needed to make and split them up.

            I went to the office I shared with a few of the
other guys who spent time in the office instead of being strictly in the
field.  My first call was to his previous employer, Entity Recording.  It took
me talking to three different people before I got someone who had the authority
to talk to me.  Even that was tricky.  But once I told him that Dan had
attacked his ex-wife and we were working for her as personal security and
attempting to assess the threat, he talked.  He talked more than I expected,
but what he had to say was enlightening and proved that we were right to worry
that Dan had cracked.

            Apparently, once Dan left Emma, he started
bringing a string of questionable women with him to company functions.  The
manager I was talking to made sure to let me know how much they had all enjoyed
Emma and how she was always the highlight of company gatherings.  The
management had told him in the past that they value stability in their
employees as it tends to overflow into the workplace.  Less drama away from the
office meant more focus on work and less focus on personal issues.  After a few
warnings, Dan stopped bringing a date with him.  Then he was caught doing a
line of coke at a party for an up and coming rap singer.  He threatened the
employee who saw him do it, but that person turned him in anyway – he was more
worried about what would happen if he screwed up something for the company than
he was about what Dan would do to him.