Nothing Left to Lose (79 page)

I nodded and
smiled gratefully, watching as he closed his eyes for a second or
two and then let his arms drop from my side before he stalked off
to a tree that was about fifty yards from Jack’s grave. He pulled
his gun from the leg of his pants and stood perfectly still,
scanning the area over and over. A little chuckle escaped my lips
because he took his job so seriously. It was terribly cute.

Getting back to
the matter in hand, I turned back to Jack’s marble headstone and
sprinkled my dandelions over the top before setting my lilies down
next to the fresh flowers and the unopened birthday card that had
his mother’s handwriting on the front. I sat on the grass and
pushed my hand into my sweater pocket, pulling out the card that I
had made for Jack. I’d drawn it myself. It was him playing football
and it was from the last game that he played. He’d just scored the
winning touchdown and had kissed his hand and thrown it to me. It
was sweet, a typical Jack moment, and one of the many happy
memories I had of him. It had taken me a long time to draw the
card. It was harder than I thought, but I’d gotten through it. In
almost four years, this was the first picture I had ever drawn of
him that wasn’t of that night or him covered in blood.

I swallowed
around the lump in my throat. “Hi. Happy birthday,” I whispered.
“You would have been twenty today. No longer a teenager. I don’t
know what we would have done for your birthday, maybe a party or
something. Tomorrow my dad will be the President so, to be honest,
we probably could have done anything that you wanted in the world,”
I smiled weakly. “My life is pretty crazy right now; I have a lot
of stuff going on. I’m not sure if you can see me from where you
are or if you know what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling, but I have
some things I need to talk to you about.” This was even harder than
I thought it would be.

“I, er, have
someone in my life that I didn’t expect to ever have. His name’s
Ashton Taylor. I brought him with me when I came here last time.” I
glanced up to see Ashton shifting from one foot to the other,
nervously scanning the area. “He’s right over there. He’s a little
crazy. Look at him, waiting for someone to hurt me in the middle of
an empty cemetery.” I shook my head at his overprotective
nature.

“Anyway, he’s a
really good guy, Jack. We’ve become close. He’s the only one I can
be myself with, I trust him and… I’m so sorry, but I’ve fallen in
love with him.” Tears pooled in my eyes. “I never meant for it to
happen, I swear. He just kind of snuck behind my defences and
wormed his way in.” I never stood a chance against his charm
really. I thought back to the first time that I’d walked into my
father’s office and saw him. I thought then he was the most
beautiful boy in the world, and I had shaken his hand.

I sighed sadly.
“Everyone’s always telling me that you would want me to be happy.
They say that you wouldn’t want me to go through life on my own and
that you would want me to move on. I’m praying that it’s true,
because he makes me so happy. I feel incredibly guilty about it. I
don’t think I should be allowed to be happy if you can’t be,” I
frowned. “But I know that if I’d died, I couldn’t bear the thought
of you being unhappy, and I would want someone else to make you
happy,” I said honestly. I wouldn’t want him to suffer; I’d just
never been able to apply the same concept to myself.

“I will always
love you, Jack, always. And I’ll never forgive myself for what
happened to you.” If I hadn’t suggested we went out to the club
that night, if I hadn’t worn that short dress, if I’d just gotten
some help, then he would still be here. “I’m so sorry. This
shouldn’t have happened to you. You were such a good guy and had
everything going for you, and you would have been a brilliant
doctor.” Jack had been terrific at whatever he put his mind to. “It
should have been me who died that night, not you. I wish I could
take it back and change it around, but I can’t.” A tear fell down
my cheek so I wiped it away quickly. “I really hope that you can
forgive me, even though I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

I glanced over
at Ashton again, seeing that he was watching an old couple who were
sitting at a grave about a hundred yards away from me. He was
glaring at them murderously as if he would shoot them if they made
one move in my direction. I smiled weakly, knowing that I’d put him
through enough. I’d said my piece, hopefully now that it was off my
chest, some of the guilt would fade over time.

“I’d better go.
Ashton’s going to have a heart attack if I stay away from him for
much longer.” I pushed myself up to standing and brushed the grass
off of the rear of my jeans. I smiled at Ashton and waved him over.
Relief washed over his face as he jogged towards me. Kissing my
fingertips, I traced the letters of Jack’s name. “G’bye. I’ll come
back soon and see you. Sleep tight.”

Ashton stopped
at my side and smiled down at me sympathetically as he touched the
small of my back. “Okay?”

I nodded.
“Yeah. I’m ready to go.” I took one last look down at the
gravestone as I slipped my hand into Ashton’s. “Bye, Jack.”

As we walked
back towards the parking lot, I nodded down at the gun that was
still gripped in Ashton’s other hand. “You can put that away now,
Pretty Boy, that old couple aren’t here to kill me,” I joked.

He laughed
sheepishly. “Well you never know, those wrinkles could have been a
disguise,” he teased, as he stopped and pushed his gun back into
his ankle holster. I rolled my eyes at him. “So, are you okay?” he
asked, squeezing my hand tightly.

I nodded.
“Actually, I am. Thank you for letting me have some time, I really
appreciate it. I know that was hard for you.”

He sighed.
“Yeah, I don’t like to not be able to do things for you, but I
can’t do that again, especially with your dad being sworn in to
office tomorrow. I need to be close to you out in the open like
this. We’ve already lost the far guard for the day; I can’t push
the boundaries too far.”

I blew out a
big breath, resisting the urge to make a sarcastic comment about
him being an overprotective control freak just like my father. I
hated the whole guard situation, but I’d never really had a say in
it. “Come on, we have a few hours before we have to be at the
airport, why don’t we go down to the lake or something,” I
suggested, changing the subject. I’d love to go back there, where
I’d first started getting to know him. It seemed weird that it was
just over four months ago that he’d waltzed into my life, blown
everything up in the air and made me re-evaluate the way I lived my
life.

Ashton nodded
enthusiastically. He seemed almost as happy as me to be going back
to the place where we’d had our ‘first date’.

Our time at the
Lake House had ended all too soon. We’d barely had time to hang out
before we had to make the trip to the airport so that we could fly
to Washington, ready to watch her father be sworn into office. Anna
had been quieter than usual, but that was probably down to it being
Jack’s birthday.

By the time we
arrived at the hotel we were staying at, we didn’t even get time to
change our clothes or freshen up before a little man in a penguin
suit and too much gel in his hair ushered us into the private
dining room, where her parents and a few close family and friends
were gathered.

We were the
last to enter, and everyone else was already seated and dressed
impeccably in smart suits and evening dresses. I couldn’t have felt
more out of place in my jeans and T-shirt if I’d tried. Anna’s dad
stood as we entered, smiling warmly. “You made it. I’m afraid we
had to start without you, so you’ve already missed the chicken
liver pâté.” A shudder tickled down my spine at how disgusting that
sounded.

“Thank God,”
Anna whispered, not even bothering to disguise her distaste. I
chuckled, poking my finger into her ribs in reprimand.

Her dad grinned
and walked over, and I noticed that the rest of the room had gone
silent and were watching the exchange. “How was today?”

Anna’s body
tensed as she raised her chin. Her hard exterior was back again,
she never seemed to like anyone getting behind her defences.
Thankfully, she had been allowing me to lately. “Fine.”

Her dad nodded,
obviously catching on that she didn’t want to talk about it to him.
“Good. I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming.”

She shrugged,
finally now letting a beautiful smile creep onto her lips. “Of
course, I wouldn’t miss it. Shall we sit and get on with dinner,
Ashton hasn’t eaten for two hours, he’ll be passing out soon,” she
joked, grinning up at me.

“Two and a
half,” I corrected, winking at her playfully. Her dad chuckled at
my side, so I turned to him. “It’s nice to see you again, sir.
Thank you for allowing me to crash your family dinner.”

“Anytime, son,
anytime.”

Dinner was…
small. Even after five courses, my stomach was still trying to eat
itself. How upper class people survived eating a tiny piece of fish
drizzled in oil and laid on a bed of asparagus, I would never
understand. Thankfully though, Anna had said the same thing once
the evening was over and we were finally dismissed. To make up for
it, I’d followed her to the family floor and her suite, and we’d
ordered Sloppy Joes.

The dinner
conversation had been a little too high brow for me, and I’d
struggled not to show my boredom. It was nice though, being
included in Anna’s family. And it wasn’t even Anna that had
requested my presence; it was her father that had asked for me to
attend with his daughter. After the ‘hands on ass plastered all
over the tabloids’ mistake of our vacation, I had been worried that
he would have had a problem with me, or told me to keep my mind on
the job, but it hadn’t even been mentioned at all.

After two
Sloppy Joes, I was finally satiated, but it was now almost
midnight. “I should really go and let you get some sleep, we have
an early morning call tomorrow,” I begrudgingly said, pushing
myself off her sofa and wiping my hands on a napkin.

She frowned,
and her eyes flicked to the door. Just like when we’d attended her
father’s birthday party, I’d been booked a room that was three
floors down with the other agents, and the Spencer family and other
close-knit members of her father’s cabinet had this floor booked
out to themselves.

“I don’t want
you to go,” she whispered, pouting.

“I could stay
if you want, but I’m not sure how we’d explain it to anyone that
asks why I spent the night in your room,” I shrugged. I didn’t want
to leave either, especially not after everything that she’d been
through. No doubt she would be suffering tonight.

She stood.
“Stay then. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. I don’t
want to be on my own, not tonight.” She took my hand and nodded
back towards the four poster bed behind us in the large room. My
heart leapt in my chest because she clearly didn’t care about the
subsequent rumours it would generate. When we got to the bedroom
part of her suite, she picked up her pyjamas from the bed and
smiled at me tentatively before silently turning and waltzing into
the bathroom.

Watching the
door for her return, I slipped out of my clothes, laying my gun and
holster on the bedside unit before climbing into her bed. She came
out a few moments later, dressed in a killer red silk negligée that
made every male part of me wake up and jump for joy.

A small smile
graced her lips as she slid into the bed next to me and scooted up
close to my side. As I wrapped my arms around her, I sighed
contentedly. She felt so incredibly right in my arms. Every inch of
her silk-covered body pressed against me as she just looked up into
my eyes. The way she gazed at me made me feel like the most
important man in the world. It was almost as if I was the only
thing that she could see, and, in that moment, I knew we were meant
to be together forever.

Her hand
tangled into the back of my hair as the weightless feeling consumed
me. “Ashton, can I talk to you about something?” she asked quietly.
I nodded. She took a deep breath before she spoke. “It’s something
I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and because you asked me to
open up to you more, I figured that maybe I should talk to you
about it.”

I smiled
encouragingly and reached out, brushing my fingers across her
cheek. “You can talk to me about anything.”

Her eyes
fluttered closed as she dipped her head and pressed her face into
the side of my neck. “Carter’s trial starts in just over three
weeks,” she mumbled against my skin.

Anger boiled
inside me, the same as it always did when I thought of him. “Yeah,”
I managed to force out.

“I know the
lawyer guy said that I probably won’t get called to give evidence
again, but I was wondering,” she gulped, “if I
do
have to go
to court, would you come with me? Maybe you could sit somewhere
where I can see you?”

I bent my head
and kissed her hair. It actually hurt a little that she felt she
needed to ask. “Of course I will.”

Her small body
relaxed against mine as she pulled her head back and smiled up at
me gratefully. “Yeah? Thanks. I think that’ll really help me if I
can see you.”

Her comment
made me feel a hundred feet tall. “Whatever you need, Baby Girl.
Though I’m pretty sure you won’t get called.”

She nodded in
agreement. In her eyes, I could see the love burning and swirling
as she stroked the back of my neck with one finger. I desperately
wanted to lean in and kiss her, but I forced myself to remain
still. After a few minutes she moved forward and snuggled into my
neck again. Her leg tangled in with mine the way it always did when
she wanted to go to sleep, so I knew the conversation was over. The
next three weeks before the trial were obviously going to be a
distressing time for her, but hopefully she’d allow me to help her
in any way I could and not close herself off from me like she did
everyone else.