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She watched him head down the hallway. “Wait a minute. Where are you going now?”

He stopped with his back to her. “To bed. It’s been a long day. Don’t worry. Everything’s clear outside. The security system’s activated. My room is at the end of the hall. You can settle in any of the other ones. You should have everything you need.”

“Oh, no. I’m not going to bed now, and neither are you. We’re not done talking.”

He turned around on his heel. “We are done talking. It’s late. It’s been a long day. We both need sleep.”

Reagan didn’t realize her mouth gaped until after she heard him stomp down the hallway and close a door behind him. She snapped her mouth closed, her fury skyrocketing. Of all the rude, inconsiderate moves, he walked away as if she didn’t matter. She figured he resented the fact he had to protect her, but it wasn’t her fault or her choice. He had no right to disrespect her.

If he thought retreating to the bedroom meant he’d have an uninterrupted night of slumber, he had another think coming. Because no way was she going to let that happen.

Chapter Ten

As fatigue weighed heavy on his limbs, his tumultuous thoughts pressed on his mind. Jackson shed his boots, socks, and shirt as soon as the bedroom door closed behind him. He padded on bare feet to the adjoining bathroom and started a steaming spray of water in the shower. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he noted the dark circles and deepened lines around his eyes. Dark stubble appeared along his jaw and darkened his upper lip.

He was used to working long days, either at the bar or on a mission. Today, though, had felt even longer. A familiar tightening in his chest had him rubbing a fist along his sternum. He hadn’t felt anxiety much as an adult, but he had never forgotten it. It was a mixture of fear and dread that built when he knew his parents were on a rampage. They would accuse him of something ridiculous, and they used the made-up offence as an excuse to take out their misery on him. He’d been locked in closets, beaten with belts, burned with cigarettes, slapped with the backs of hands, punched with hard fists, and suffered broken bones, black eyes, and bruised ribs.

When he was a kid, he believed he actually was at fault, and no matter how much he tried to behave and meet their unrealistic standards, he’d always failed to escape their wrath.

The older he got, the more he realized his parents were broken and evil. That’s when he started to plot ways to disappear when they were at their worst. He would make his way to the mall or to a park or to a treehouse tucked high up a sturdy tree on the outskirts of his neighbor’s property. If they had figured out he camped there, they never said a word.

He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, ready to shuck them and his underwear off in one quick maneuver, when the pounding on his bedroom door had his body stiffening. He wanted to ignore the intrusion, the warmth of the shower calling to him like a siren luring a sailor. The incessant knocking was grinding his nerves until he readjusted his jeans and stomped over to throw open the door.

“We’re not done.” Reagan stormed passed him, her silky hair fanning out to brush against his chest.

He rubbed his sternum again, this time because of the tingle he felt on his skin instead of any anxiousness building inside him.

Jackson’s hands landed on his hips as he regarded Reagan. Her cheeks were flushed with her fury, and her eyes had turned a fathomless black. Her clothes hung on her slender frame, and he figured if she didn’t calm down soon, her pants might actually slide down her trim hips.

He would likely get a view of her long legs before she realized. She would bend down to retrieve them, giving him a look at her firm ass. She wasn’t his type, but even he could appreciate a round, squeezable ass.

“I know it’s late. I know we’re tired. It’s been a long day, but tomorrow we’re going to be bombarded with people. Plans have to be made to identify the threat against English and me and to protect us and my parents. Before we do any of it, I need the truth. I need to know English as the man he is now and not the one who walked out on me and my mom. You’re the only one I can ask. So you’re going to have to hold out a little longer because I need answers.”

She finally stopped pacing and turned to face him. From the shock radiating her expression, she hadn’t expected him to be half-dressed. Her gaze flitted to the bathroom, where the shower water beat against the tile stall, and a deep blush tinted her cheeks and snaked down to her neck.

The instant color fascinated him, and he wondered how deep the blush went. If she undressed, would other parts of her body be the same shade of red?

“Oh, um, I didn’t…I mean…I, um, I can…Oh, um…”

Jackson couldn’t stop his grin at how disconcerted she was . It was the first time all day he found a reason to be amused. He closed the distance between them and enjoyed watching her eyes widen. He lowered his head until his lips hovered near the shell of her ear.

“I am going to take a shower and go to bed. You’re welcome to join me. Otherwise, your questions will have to wait until tomorrow.”

He strode to the bathroom without waiting for her response. Purposely leaving the door open, he shucked the rest of his clothes and tossed them into the other room to tease her. He stepped under the spray of the shower, the pulse and heat of the water easing the tension of his muscles.

“I thought they were happy — English and my mom.”

Reagan’s voice reached him with enough clarity to make him think she’d followed him into the bathroom. When he looked through the clouded glass of the shower stall, he saw he was alone. She must have stood just outside the bathroom, out of his line of sight. He half-expected her to retreat after what he’d said, but he was quickly learning she wasn’t one to give up easily.

“He was gone a lot, but I believed my mom when she said he was gone for work. I never knew what he did, and it never occurred to me to ask. Whenever it was me and my mom, we stayed busy with dance and tee ball and whatever else I was active in. When he came home, we always did special things, like going to the zoo or hiking in the woods or spending all day at the fair. I was too young to understand none of it was normal for a traditional family.”

He added shampoo to his hair from the bottle that stayed in the shower. His motions were automatic because his attention was fixed on her. Or on her voice, rather. The husky lilt spoken in a low tone was soothing. Her story was hard to hear, but her voice was something else altogether.

His tension melted away more from her than the hot water. He wanted to enfold her in his arms to feel the timbre of her voice reverberate against his chest. He imagined falling asleep to the sound. The words wouldn’t matter as long as her tone was like this — soft, sweet, unguarded.

He shouldn’t find her voice so calming, not with the pain lingering below the surface. English had hurt her. She wanted Jackson to know that, and all he could think of was the comfort and calm he felt listening to her.

“Of course, my friends asked me all the time where my dad was. I told them he was an astronaut. He was exploring space to find places where people could live other than Earth. I saw it once on a cartoon, and it made perfect sense to me. I mean if he was in space, he couldn’t exactly pop back to Earth in time for my recitals. It explained why we did so many special things when he was around, because we had to make the most of our time together in case he had to stay in space permanently.”