MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel (18 page)

It was time they knew.

He had to do this while the clouds were gone.

There was a number he could call. Jimenez had given it to him a long time ago. Pendleton hadn’t left the number with his successor because there was the reward floating in the air for any news regarding Jimenez. The man who became sheriff after him would have sold his best friend down the river for half a million dollars.

Constable, the one who came after his successor, was even worse. He would have sold his
mother
down the river for half a million dollars. Nobody could have the number he was about to call.

He still had it. A crumpled piece of paper Dante Jimenez had thrust into his hand at the last minute.
Call me any time you need something, man.

Pendleton had never needed to use that number. But now he did. He needed to help his old friend.

All these years, he thought he’d been protecting Jimenez. Villalongo was a monster. But Jimenez was smart and tough and his son looked like he could handle himself, too. It was a risk, but then life was a risk. And soon he wouldn’t be able to do this.

Let them sort it out.

The crumpled piece of paper was in his wallet, had been for over thirty years.

Time to tell the finest man he’d ever known that he had a son, and that Pendleton had kept that info from him.

His hands shook as he punched in the number. It was a secret number at the DEA, the number for the case officers directing undercover agents. Three generations would have passed through that office. Pendleton didn’t even know if Dante was retired. But everyone would know Dante. He was a legend.

“Hello,” he said when someone picked up the phone at the other end without identifying himself. Pendleton hated how his voice shook.
Onset of Parkinson’s
his doctor had said. “I have a message for Dante Jimenez. It’s urgent.”

Portland

As the sun set behind the oak trees lining her street, Lauren closed the door with a sigh, punched in the alarm codes and leaned her back against the wall.

The girls had come out in force and had spent lunch here, bless them. Felicity, Isabel and Summer. Metal, Joe and Jack were out of town for the day on ASI business and their women had come over for an extended brunch that lasted all afternoon. Isabel had brought a pasta casserole and a chocolate and pear cake, and Felicity and Summer, who didn’t cook, brought cheeses and grapes.

They’d eaten until the sun started sinking and then had broken out a bottle of Pinot Grigio Summer brought. Lauren refrained but had fun watching them. Isabel, Felicity and Summer had gotten a little sloshed and had laughed a lot.

Lauren’d had a good time but she was glad to be alone once more. The only person she wanted now was Jacko.

She’d put up a brave front but the truth was, she was worried.

Jacko hadn’t called in twenty-four hours. Those calls where he couldn’t talk? With hindsight they were reassuring. He was keeping in touch in his own way. But now it was like he’d disappeared off the map and the last tenuous tie she had with him had severed.

Felicity had gently taken Lauren aside and murmured once again that she could track Jacko, find out where he was. But that felt wrong. It felt like cheating, like admitting she didn’t trust Jacko. She did. She trusted Jacko with her heart and with her life.

So she’d said no and Felicity had simply nodded her head. “Okay, no tracking,” she whispered. If Felicity said she wouldn’t track, she wouldn’t.

For the first time, Lauren wondered whether she should just let Felicity do her thing. What would it hurt? Just to know where Jacko was, to reassure herself?

But then, what if she didn’t want to know the answer? What if—what if Jacko was gone? Really truly gone? What if he’d left her? A couple of days ago she would have sworn in blood that Jacko would never leave her. That he was hers for life. But that was before she’d seen his face when he’d discovered that she was pregnant.

That hadn’t been joy she saw in his face. He looked stricken, almost wounded. Jacko—the strongest man she’d ever seen—looked like he’d been brought to his knees by one blow.

Strength wasn’t always enough. Her Jacko wasn’t indestructible. Her Jacko had demons in him. When he’d said he knew peace for the first time with her, she’d believed him. But demons had a way of rearing up from nowhere.

What if his demons chased him away from her?

What then?

She was sitting on her kitchen chair, looking down at the pretty tablecloth. Felicity, Isabel and Summer had cleaned up, loaded the dishwasher, put things away, bless them. She should get up, turn the dishwasher on, put some music on, put some soup on for later. Look at the book cover design that was three days overdue and which she hadn’t touched. Go over her accounts for her business’s bookkeeper, way behind on that. Answer the emails of two families who wanted watercolors of their homes and were willing to pay premium rates.

So much to do. So little desire to do it.

Lauren felt drained of all energy. Maybe it was the baby. All the books said that the first trimester was the worst. She hadn’t had morning sickness but she was tired all the time. So sure, that must be it. The pregnancy.

No, that wasn’t it. The truth was—she missed Jacko and she was terrified that she had lost him.

Was he coming back?

Or was he gone?

The living room was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen. She was closed up in her cocoon, something she loved. She especially loved it when she was closed in the cocoon with Jacko. But he wasn’t here.

He’d never liked staying home, he told her once. Four walls made him feel trapped. Rather than stay home, he’d go out no matter what the weather. Go to some bar and drink and play pool. Go hiking. Take his bike out. Anything.

He didn’t say, but she understood that he hadn’t liked staying home as a child because he’d lived in a trailer that was a chaotic mess with a crazy drug addict mother. As an adult, he’d had no clue how to create a home. Man, his place had been a study in sensory deprivation. Huge bed, huge couch, huge TV. Stove and fridge and table and two chairs. That was about it. She’d never told him that she found his place profoundly depressing.

He never felt trapped in this house. It was super-feminine but he could do his things just fine. He tinkered with his bike in the garage, where he had a complete workshop with tools she’d never even seen before. The kitchen-dining room was big enough to contain his friends when it was their turn to host the poker parties where Jacko inevitably lost to Joe Harris.

He could listen to all the heavy metal he wanted with his headset. The back room was fitted out to be a gym and he spent hours in there. Preferred it now, he’d said more than once, to the gym he used to go to.

They had their own little world in this house and it was like a kingdom for just the two of them.

How could she stand it if their kingdom was lost, shattered? In such a short time, Jacko had filled her life. How could she live without him? How could she raise their child without him?

Something wet splashed on her hand and she looked down. It was too dark to see what it was but she knew anyway. It was a tear, followed by another one.

God, she’d cried plenty when she was on the run. She’d spent those two horrible years in a succession of cheap motels and rented rooms. Until Felicity made her rock-solid IDs, she never stayed where she had to show ID. So she’d spent days and nights in cheap, depressing places, lonely as hell. Sometimes not speaking to anyone for days, feeling like the only human left alive on earth.

That could never happen now, because she was going to have a child. The only human related by blood to her on earth. It would be Jacko’s only blood relation, too.

Had he thought of that? Of this child being
his
flesh and blood? Neither of them had any family. They were each other’s family. And now they would be linked by blood.

Unless Jacko couldn’t bear it.

Unless Jacko was gone.

His ASI buddies wouldn’t let him disappear. They’d track him down wherever he went and would go after him, but Lauren didn’t want that. She didn’t want a resentful partner who’d been dragged back to her.

She wanted her loving Jacko back, the one who said he’d rather be with her than with anyone else in the world.

Another tear dropped on her hand.

Maybe that Jacko was gone forever.

She dropped her head in her hands, tears trickling through her fingers. This was breaking her heart.

“Don’t cry, honey,” a deep voice said. The kind of voice that was so deep it reverberated in her diaphragm. The voice that reverberated in her heart.

Lauren lifted her head, saw a dark, broad shape. Her heart thumped hard in her chest.

“God.” Jacko sat down beside her, pulled her into his arms. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it. Don’t cry honey, please.”

It was like opening floodgates. Lauren’s chest contracted as if someone had punched her and she couldn’t breathe. Another sharp pulse in her chest. All her pain and desolation and—yes—fury came boiling up from deep inside her. Tears sprang from her eyes and she trembled and shook as sobs overcame her.

Jacko folded her into him, rested his cheek against the top of her head and held her through the storm.

He was here. Jacko had come back to her. Everything she had repressed—all the anguish and fear—came bubbling out in sobs that racked her body, shook her bones. There was no controlling it; she could barely breathe as she cried her terror out. Jacko didn’t say a word, simply held her tightly, one big arm around her waist, one big hand holding the back of her head.

The storm finally passed, leaving Lauren limp in his arms. He was still dressed for the outside; she could smell the cold air and rain on him. Her tears wet his leather jacket, mixing with the raindrops.

She lay against him, spent. Oh God, she’d forgotten how broad he was, how strong. How leaning against him felt like leaning against a mountain, something immovable and forever. She shuddered at the thought that if he hadn’t come back, she’d never hold him again. When Jacko felt her shudder, he tightened his hold.

Lauren’s head was against his massive shoulder. She turned her head slightly and kissed his neck gently. Her eyes were closed. If this was a mirage, she didn’t want to know.

“I was so afraid you weren’t coming back,” she whispered against his skin.

“I know.” His voice was so deep, she felt the vibrations more than heard the words.

“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come back,” she confessed. In college, she and her girlfriends had always played it cool. They had rules and they stuck by them. Never
ever
let the guy know you cared. She used to go out of her way to avoid talking to someone she slept with, and be unavailable for a few days. Showing your emotions was vastly uncool and Lauren—who was Anne Lowell back then—was never uncool. She knew how to play the game.

But Jacko—there were no games to be played with Jacko. She didn’t want to lie to him or hide what was in her heart, ever.

“I know,” he said again, and that huge chest lifted on a sigh.

“Are you going to stay?” Lauren’s voice came out small.

“Fuck yeah.” Now she
knew
he was deeply emotional. Jacko made a real effort to clean his language up in her presence. The f-bomb sometimes escaped but not often. “Forever. You can count on that. I’m going to stay forever. As they say—till death do us part.”

Her lips curved in a smile against his chest.

“Speaking of which…” Jacko pulled back and held her away from him. His hands were firm on her shoulders.

“Yeah?”

“Speaking of which, now that you’re pregnant, I hope you’re finally going to make an honest man out of me.”

She stared at him blankly.

“I’ve had this for a long time now. Waiting for the right moment.” He reached into his pocket and brought a box out, offering it to her on his big palm. It was a jewelry box. She knew what was in it. She placed her hand on the top but didn’t take it, didn’t open it.

Jacko looked at their hands, with the jewelry box between them, then looked deeply into her eyes.

“Lauren Dare, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

She took in a deep breath and he held a finger up.

“And just to make it complete—Anne Lowell, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

That earned him a small smile. “I thought we already settled this.”

“No,” Jacko said, shaking his head while holding her gaze. “We haven’t. I’ve asked before, or at least tried to.”

“I didn’t say no.”

“You didn’t say yes, either. Not saying yes is a ‘no’ in my book.”

She was silent, watching his eyes. She wanted to understand what was going on with him. Jacko had the reputation of being inscrutable and in the beginning, before they became lovers, she thought he was a complete enigma. His dark features never betrayed what he was thinking, feeling. He could have come from the moon for all she understood of him.

And then she fell in love with him and now she could read him, inside out.

She knew his entire personality was based on three elements, two old, one new. Loyalty. He was incredibly loyal to his colleagues, to his company. Duty. Jacko was stoic and had duty built into his DNA. If he thought he had to do it, he did it, no matter the cost.