Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (8 page)

The door opened and Jack stepped inside. Cat took one look at his expression and gasped. He looked ten years older than when he’d left. “Jack, what’s wrong?”

He walked straight through the kitchen and into the great room without speaking. He headed straight toward the wet bar where he poured three fingers of scotch into a crystal tumbler. He tossed the drink back in one large gulp, then filled the glass again.

She had never seen him act this way before. “Jack. You’re scaring me. What happened?”

“Not now, Cat. Just leave it be. Leave
me
be.”

Another time, she might have been hurt, she might have pushed, but not now. Not when he was so terribly upset, so horribly raw. Shaken, she nodded once and returned to the kitchen where she took her seat, pretended to read the magazine, and listened for sounds coming from the other room.

Probably five minutes later, she heard a thunk and then a crash. Glass breaking. Not a window, though. His drink glass, most likely, smashing against the floor tile.

Next she heard the pounding of his shoes on the stairs followed by the slam of the master bedroom door. “Okay.” She blew out a breath. “What now?”

Obviously, something really bad had happened. In her experience, Jack never brought his work home. Why now? Had the situation changed, his job changed, or had Jack changed?

Even as she asked the question, she heard him descending the stairs. He went straight out the front door. She walked to a window and looked out. He’d changed into gym shorts and sneakers. The Eagle was going for a run.

Cat was worried about him, seriously worried. She
glanced down at her own clothes—shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers—and muttered, “What the heck.”

She followed him, running hard to catch up, though she didn’t question her ability to maintain pace with him. She had run cross-country in high school and college, and earlier this year she’d completed a half marathon. Why she felt compelled to accompany him on his run, what she thought she could accomplish, she couldn’t quite say. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to be alone.

He spared her one glance when she fell in beside him and then he picked up his pace. Stubborn fool. She kept up, and within minutes she could tell that he’d forgotten she was there. Jack appeared lost in his own thoughts, tortured and dangerous.

He ran and ran and ran, down the road, across the meadow, picking up his speed until finally he outpaced her and pulled away. Cat slowed to a cool-down jog, breathing heavily. She wondered if he intended to run all the way to town.

She had slowed to a walk when he looped around and turned back toward the house. He accelerated as if sprinting toward an unseen finish line until he lifted his face toward the sky and yelled. Screeched.
An eagle’s cry of pain
.

Oh, Jack
.

He bent over double, his hands on his knees. “Jack, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Go, Cat,” he ordered, his voice strained. “Just leave me alone. Please, just leave me alone.”

She heard the tiniest of cracks in his voice, and that’s what decided her. “If I leave now, will you talk to me later?”

“Sure.”

He said it too fast and she didn’t believe him. “You promise that you’ll tell me what this is about?”

This response took longer. “Yes.”

Now, she took him at his word. “All right, then. I’ll leave. If you need me, though, shout.”

He didn’t look up, simply nodded, so she blew out a breath and turned and walked away. Upon reaching the house, she decided to put off a shower for a time and she took up a position where she could watch Jack.

He lay on his back in a meadow of green grass and a rainbow of wildflowers. His arm was slung over his eyes. Cat’s teeth tugged at her bottom lip. She’d never seen him this way. It worried her. Foolish of her, maybe, considering their situation, but she’d feel that way about any person, or animal, who exhibited so much … torment.

Minutes dragged by and he lay still as death. Spying movement in the periphery of her vision, she glanced away from Jack long enough to see the eagle land high in the branches of a tree. The eagle no sooner found his perch than Jack rolled to his feet. He stood watching the bird, neither of them moving, and something about the sight before her had Cat holding her breath. Then, almost simultaneously, the bird took flight and Jack turned toward the house. He walked slowly, his head down, shoulders stooped as if they carried the weight of the world.

He entered through the front door and climbed the stairs to his bedroom, again without stopping or speaking. Once she heard his bedroom door shut with a definite snick, she retreated to her own room and took a shower in the connecting bathroom.

She didn’t hear so much as a peep out of the man for the rest of the afternoon. At suppertime, she made two chef salads and left one in the fridge with his name on it. She watched a movie in the theater room, then went to bed at eleven.

The soft knock sounded on her door at eleven-fifteen.
Cat sat up, switched on the bedside lamp, licked her suddenly dry lips, then said, “Come in, Jack.”

He didn’t know why he was standing here in Cat’s bedroom.

All he knew for certain was that one minute he’d been lying in bed, desperate to go back to sleep, and the next he had pulled on shorts and headed down the hallway. One minute he needed to be alone, the next he couldn’t bear the thought of being by himself another instant.

His gaze stole over her form. She had the sheet clutched against her chest. He wasn’t surprised to see that she still slept in satin nightshirts. She had always liked the sensation of satin against her skin. The one she wore tonight was midnight blue, and it looked great against her creamy complexion and fire-streaked hair. He cleared his throat. “You still want to talk?”

“I do.”

Jack advanced into the room. “First, let me apologize for being a jackass.”

Her mouth quirked in a droll smile. “Which time?”

He relaxed just a little and managed a shaky grin back at her. She gestured toward the foot of her bed. “Have a seat, Davenport.”

He glanced toward the guest bedroom’s easy chair and saw that it was piled high with books, papers, and her laptop. He sat on the end of her mattress. Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to say.

He couldn’t jump into the events that had happened in Texas. He might not tell her at all, never mind that he’d given his word. Instead, he asked, “What did you do while I was gone?”

She gave him a measured look. “I spent quite a bit of time in town. Nic introduced me to her friends. They’re nice women. It’s a nice town.”

“That’s … nice. Did they find Sarah’s mom?”

“Yes. She had driven to her and her husband’s special spot—a place called Spirit Cave. A couple of guys had car trouble or ran out of gas or something and stole the car. She was confused, hungry, and thirsty, but she was okay.”

“Good.”

As silence fell, Cat settled back against her pillows and her sleep shirt slid off one shoulder. Jack made himself look away and grasped for something to say.

“Talk to me, Jack.”

He closed his eyes and his thoughts drifted back to those times during their marriage when he would come home from a long, stressful day at work and climb into bed and cuddle with his wife. He would ask her how her day had gone and she would rattle on about this person and that story and another task. He’d only halfway listen to her, because he’d been filling his senses with the scent of her, the sound of her, the touch of her skin against his. Just by being there, she had soothed him. She’d been his port in the storm. His soft place to fall. And if she’d resented his lack of sharing, she’d kept it to herself. At least, until their decision to have a baby had changed the tenor of those peaceful moments.

Cat yanked his thoughts back to the present by asking, “Did you lose someone?”

Out of the blue, Jack felt tears sting his eyes. What the hell? He didn’t cry. He never cried. Nevertheless, a lump the size of Murphy Mountain lodged in his throat. “Tony. We lost Tony.”

She reached out and touched his hand. “Tell me about Tony.”

Jack flipped his hand around and took hold of hers, lacing their fingers. He opened his mouth, but at first he couldn’t speak. When she squeezed his fingers, the words poured forth. “He was a good guy. A really good guy.”

“What was his last name?”

“Martinez.” He filled his lungs, then blew out a heavy breath. “I recruited him. We worked together. He saved my butt on an extraction in Mexico a few years ago. I was seen going in. I was pinned down. Tony got the shooter. The man could be a ghost when he wanted.”

Cat’s eyes went round. “I think I’m really glad that you never talked about work when we were married.”

“Home was an oasis, Cat.”

She rose up on her knees and scooted closer to Jack. Her gaze locked on to his, her big green eyes filled with compassion and concern. It was a look he recognized from a long time ago, though one she hadn’t given him in years. Seeing it again, he ached anew for all that they had lost.

“Tony was your friend,” she stated.

“He was my partner. That’s more than simply being a friend.”

“Yes, I can see how that would be.”

She might think she could understand, but she couldn’t possibly. Nobody could, unless they lived it.

“What happened, Jack? Was Tony lost on a mission?”

“He killed himself. I might as well have put the gun in his hand myself.”

Cat made a little sound of shock, and rather than look at her, Jack lay back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Weariness tugged at his soul. He wanted to quit right there and say nothing more, but the poison was flowing and he sensed that letting it out might be the only thing to ease the wrenching in his gut. “He got hurt that day saving my ass, and the recovery was a bitch. He got hooked on painkillers.”

“Oh, no.”

“He fought it. He hid it.” Jack sucked in a lungful of air. “He got married. Had a kid.”

That little girl. That precious little baby. Moisture seeped from beneath his closed eyelids, and Jack hoped
like hell that Cat wasn’t looking closely enough to notice. “He started using illegal stuff—buying drugs from those same asses who hurt him to begin with. Whatever he got hold of this time made him crazy.”

Ah, Tony. Dammit, man
. Tony had been alive when Jack showed up. Alive, and high as a kite. Saying wild-ass things.

Waving his gun.

Jack couldn’t bear to describe the events that had happened next. Neither could he banish them from his mind.

Tony with that baby in his arms. The bright yellow bow in her hair and the green stuffed turtle clasped tightly to her chest. The little girl’s cries. Denise Martinez’s scream. Tony’s paranoid rambling.

Then the shot.

The blood.

The streak of crimson across the terrified toddler’s face.

“He shot himself, Cat. Right in front of me. Right in front of his wife and that sweet little baby.”

She clasped his hand hard and he squeezed hers back. He had a mountain on his chest and the pressure at the back of his eyes threatened real tears—something he hadn’t experienced in years. “I couldn’t save him. He was mine, and I couldn’t save him. I was right there and I couldn’t save him.”

“Oh, Jack.”

He heard an ocean of compassion in her voice, and mentally he reached for the comfort it offered. Her next words changed everything.

“I know the feeling,” she said softly, hollowly. “I understand. I couldn’t save our baby.”

Jack’s heart wrenched as if ripped in two and he trembled, quaked like an aspen leaf in autumn, but at least he didn’t cry. Bitter memories and keen regret washed
through him, and he breathed as if he’d run a marathon. At some point he heard Cat’s soothing murmurs, sensed her comforting touch as she stroked his head, his face. She pressed a gentle kiss against his brow and Jack lifted his mouth, seeking hers. Searching for an escape from the pain, if only for a little while. Their lips met and he finally found the comfort he needed.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. He kissed her as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe it always had. Hadn’t he sensed as much the moment he first laid eyes on her? Hadn’t he known better than to fall for the boss’s daughter? Hadn’t he been unable to stay away?

She’d been right for him. She completed him. Life had been good, so good, until he’d lost her.

Nothing had seemed right since.

He needed something right in his life right now. She didn’t fight him, which was good, because he honestly couldn’t say if he would have stopped. He was desperate, aching and devastated. In that moment, he needed Cat as he had never needed another human being. So he took her, fast and furious and hard, until he lay spent. Empty.

Well and truly broken.

Ashamed.

He rolled off her, onto his back, his eyes closed, panting as if he’d run a thousand miles. He couldn’t look at her, he didn’t dare. Finally, he spoke from the bottom of his heart. “I’m sorry, Cat. I’m so damned sorry.”

Without another word, he rose and left the room.

Cat lay dazed and aching both physically and emotionally. What the heck had just happened?

That was a stupid question to ask herself. Obviously, the answer was that she had just had sex. With Jack. Sex with Jack. Wham-bam-I’m-sorry-ma’am sex with Jack.

Holy crap.

The jerk.

You idiot. You didn’t try to stop him. Have you lost your mind?

Maybe. His appearance and actions upon his arrival home following his mysterious trip had concerned her. Caring for wounded animals was part of her nature, so it was only natural that she’d reach out to him. Frankly, she’d been worried about him. Joining him on his run had been a show of support.

When she’d asked for his promise to talk to her, she hadn’t believed that he’d actually follow through. She had thought that she had added an arrow to her quiver of arguments that she could pull out when she needed a weapon against him. When he’d knocked on her door, she’d been shocked.

When he actually started talking, she’d gone from shocked to flabbergasted to … sad. So sad. All she’d tried to do was to offer him a comforting hand.