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Jackson stood under the spray of water. The streams flowed from his head in all directions, sliding down his body, and he stayed that way as he listened.

“He missed my sixth birthday, but he came home two days after. He brought me the best presents. A new softball glove, a princess dress up kit, a painter’s easel with all the supplies I could want, a stuffed dog as big as I was — I named him Pluto, like the Disney character but also an homage to my dad the astronaut. He took us to my favorite restaurant, and they brought me a big piece of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. We shared it, and I remember laughing so hard. I don’t remember what was funny, but it was the best time of my life.”

She had a gift for storytelling, which explained why she was a good writer. The fact that this story was real made his heart squeeze in his chest. He wanted her to continue talking, but he wanted this story to stop. There was a reason she was telling him this, and his gut churned as he waited for her to say what it was.

“The next day, I woke up early, all excited about what we were going to do. I had school, but I was sure he was going to let me skip so we could go fishing. I mean, our time together was so rare we couldn’t let school interfere, you know? I sneaked into my parents’ bedroom wanting to surprise them, but English was already gone. I shouldn’t have been surprised because he was in and out of my life so much that I had come to expect it. But I could feel something was different this time. And not a good different.”

The water cooled, and Jackson shut off the shower. He reached for a fluffy black towel to dry off before wrapping the terry cloth around his waist where it rested low on his hips. With a swipe of his hand across the glass, he cleared the steam from the mirror to see his reflection. But he wasn’t seeing it, not when his mind’s eye pictured a sweet little six-year-old afraid for something she didn’t understand.

“My mom told me he left for good. I didn’t believe her. I was so mean to her. I was too young to realize she was as sad as I was, probably more so. The more she insisted English wasn’t coming back, the more I denied what I was hearing. I never saw English again. Not until I came to the hospital.”

Jackson had not brought clothes to change into after his shower, so he stepped from the bathroom in only his towel. His gaze fell to Reagan where she leaned against the wall to his right, one leg folded with her foot resting against the wall. Her head was downcast, her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor directly in front of her. Her cheeks were stained with a rosy tint, so he knew she watched him out of the corner of her eye. His state of undress made her uncomfortable, but she was doing her damnedest not to show it.

Jackson wasn’t sure why he started to speak, but once the words fell from his mouth, he didn’t bother to stop them. “My dad was always around. When he could find some sucker to hire him, he would work long enough to earn liquor money, but he’d do something stupid like show up to work drunk. He’d get fired. He’d come home and yell and beat my mom. She would be strung out on whatever drug she could get for selling out her body. She would either pass out during the beating, or she’d go crazy and fight back. Eventually, they’d get tired of beating each other and start beating me. If they could find me, that is.”

A tear dripped from her eye and slipped down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m glad you were able to find a safe place with English. It’s hard for me to think of him as a protector of children when he abandoned me.”

“He wasn’t. A protector of children. Not then. He was cold and angry. But he never took it out on me. I was a pain in his ass, but I had nowhere else to go. He never wanted me or my brothers, or so he made us believe.”

Her head snapped up, her eyes too wide in her face and too shiny with unshed tears. “Why are you so loyal to him? Why continue to work for him after you grew up?”

He was startled to realize how easy it would be to tell her. The truth hovered on the tip of his tongue, but years of holding on to a secret formed a habit he couldn’t break.

Stomping away from her, he pulled a pair of jeans from the closet and slid them on under his towel. Once they were buttoned and zipped, he whipped off the towel and dropped it on the floor. He was aware of her eyes on him, studying his every move as if the answers she sought would reveal themselves.

“We stayed because English taught us how to survive. He taught us that we had the skills to keep others from living lives similar to the ones we escaped. I don’t blame you for wanting to know why English left you. The problem is that English’s story is not mine to tell.”

“Only he can’t tell me. He may never be able to tell me if he doesn’t wake from his coma. He could die on the operating table, and I would never have answers. Whoever beat him may kill me, and I will never know the truth. How is that fair? How can I have a glimpse into his life but never understand what I’m seeing? I can ask the other boys, but they won’t help me. They’ll take their cue from you. You are it, Jackson. You’re the only one who can put me out of my misery, and if you refuse to tell me the truth, you’re not the good man people keep telling me you are.”

The anger and hurt marring her lovely face mirrored his own raging emotions. English lied to him too. He never spoke of the daughter he abandoned. Jackson thought he knew all there was to know about English’s past, but in the last twenty-four hours, his belief had shattered. He wanted answers as much as Reagan did. So why did telling her the truth feel just as wrong as it did right?

“Shit!” Jackson slid his hands down his face before catching her gaze again. Damn, those eyes were hypnotic. He’d never had a problem resisting a woman before, but Reagan had a way about her which drew him in even when she outwardly pushed him away. She was a walking contradiction, and he was too tired to try and figure her out anymore.

“What happens when I tell you the truth and you don’t believe me? You’ll probably think I’m lying to you to shut you up.”

She pushed off the wall and closed the distance between them. Stopping directly in front of him, she tilted her head back to stare at him. Her scent wafted around him in a feminine, sexy cloud.

“I’ll know if you’re lying.”

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that with his training, no one could figure out when he was lying, not even English and his brothers. She believed she’d played him. She tore at his heartstrings, so she could manipulate him. It was the oldest trick in the book when it came to the games women played with him. Usually, he never indulged them. This time, he wanted her to see her ploy backfire.

“Your father is a former CIA operative known as Legend. I believe he left you and your mother to protect you both from his life with the Agency, and I think someone from his former life is using you and your mother to seek revenge against him. When I met him, he’d already left the CIA, but he continued to contract his services to people who found themselves in trouble with no way out. When my brothers and I were old enough to understand, he trained us to take up his work as the new Legends. We help those who can’t help themselves.”

He didn’t wait to see her reaction. He’d reached his limit of what he could endure from this day. Turning on his heel, he left a slack-jawed Reagan alone in his bedroom while he hurried to the kitchen for the cold beer waiting for him in the refrigerator.

Chapter Eleven

He was messing with her.

Reagan couldn’t prove it, but with the tall tale he had spun, she didn’t need evidence. He played her, but it backfired. Oh, he did shut her up, which she suspected was his ulterior motive, but he didn’t deter her. She was more convinced than ever that English had a reason for keeping her in the dark, and Jackson knew exactly what the reason was and why someone was using it to justify coming after her.

This is why she couldn’t bring herself to trust them with what she saw at the bar. If Jackson had leveled with her, she would have shared what she knew. But instead, she was on her own until her mother and stepfather arrived. But they wouldn’t arrive until morning.

After Jackson stormed out of the room, she seethed and stormed into one of the guest bedrooms. She hadn’t come out since. Sleep eluded her, but she forced herself to crawl under the covers and rest even if her eyes wouldn’t close. The mattress molded to her frame like a cushioned cocoon, and the pillow formed the perfect contour to support her neck and cradle her head. Her foot, however, rotated back and forth, bunching the covers around her legs. The nervous twitch was the only outward indication of the jumble of thoughts which refused to let her be.

Her stomach rumbled. She rolled her eyes and turned to her side. The growl sounded again from deep in her gut, telling her it would not be ignored. She reached over to where her phone rested on the side table and tapped the screen, stifling a groan as the digital numbers announced it was 3:30 in the morning. Too late for dinner. Too early for breakfast. Too close to either for a snack. But the rumbling wouldn’t be quieted. She needed to eat.

She hadn’t heard Jackson moving around in a while, so maybe she could sneak a bite from the kitchen and avoid him altogether. As she slipped from beneath the covers, she stopped long enough to dress before venturing out into the dark house. She bumped into the wall twice trying to navigate her unfamiliar surroundings in the dark, and she wished she had brought her cell phone to use for illumination. Fortunately, an eerie light streamed through the slats of the blinds covering the living room windows. The light held too much of a bluish glow to be from the moon or stars…security lights, maybe. It didn’t matter. Once she stepped into the room, the light lit her path and allowed her to catch the movement of a shadowy figure at one of the windows.