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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

GARRET

My phone rings as I’m sitting at the stop light. I pick it up and see that it’s my dad.

“Hey, Dad. Shouldn’t you be on your plane by now?”

“The pilot got sick. It’s delayed. Where are you?”

“Driving home. Why?”

“I just talked to Jade and she’s—”

“You talked to Jade? Why were you talking to Jade?”

“It doesn’t matter. Listen to me. She said she’s six miles from your house. You need to go get her. She can’t be out there alone.”

“What do you mean six miles? What’s six miles away? Did she go to the store?”

“She’s on the beach. She went running and she thinks she’s about six miles from where you live. It sounds like it’s a very isolated area. She said there was nothing around and that she was the only one on the beach.”

“Shit!” I step on the gas as I round the corner. “I told her to stop running alone! I’ve told her that repeatedly!”

“Are you almost home? Maybe you could drive down to where she is.”

“I can’t. The road ends.” I turn onto the small dead-end street that leads to our beach house. Two kids walk out in front of me and I have to slam on the brakes. They take forever to cross. “Why are you freaking out about this?”

“Because I worry about her. I worry about both of you.”

“Why? Tell me.” The kids in the street finally move and I speed forward.

“I just have a feeling. I don’t know anything for sure.”

“A feeling? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I want you two to take some precautions. And Jade should never be running alone, at least not until we know she’s safe.”

“Why wouldn’t she be safe?”

“I don’t know. Again, it’s just a feeling I have. Maybe it’s nothing. Or maybe my father’s right and I’m being paranoid.”

“Does this have anything to do with Roth? Have you seen him lately?” I park the car and run inside to the bedroom. The clothes Jade had on earlier are scattered all over the floor.

“I’ve seen him, but we didn’t talk. Your grandfather attended a dinner party at his house last week. I was invited as well but I was out of town for work. Perhaps that’s why I’m paranoid. I couldn’t understand why Roth would invite me or my father to his estate. Everyone knows Roth isn’t happy with the Kensingtons after what happened with you last spring.”

“Maybe Grandfather knows something you don’t. Did you tell him what Roth told you last July?” I grab my running shoes and put them on. I don’t have time to change my clothes.

“Of course not. I was never supposed to ask Roth those questions. It’s not allowed. My father would be furious if he found out what I did. And he’d be even more furious if he knew I got Roth drunk that night so he’d talk. Listen, Garret. I may be worrying about nothing so don’t get too worked up about this. I just want you to be careful.”

I race back outside. “I’m on the beach now. I have to go.”

“Call Jade. And keep her on the phone until you see her.”

“I will.”

When I call her phone, it goes straight to voicemail. What the hell? She better have it turned on. It’s probably out of battery. She never charges the damn thing. I call her again and she answers.

“Garret, I’m out running but I’m heading back. Where are you?”

“I’m on the beach. I’m coming to get you. Why are you running alone? I told you not to run alone!”

“Why are you getting so angry? I’ll be home in a half hour.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just concerned.” I try to remain calm. I don’t want to start another fight. “Do you have any idea where you are?”

“No. There’s tall grass lining the edge of the beach. I can’t see over it but there’s an opening up ahead. I’ll check it out. Maybe it’s a parking lot. There’s a car there that—”

“No! Jade, don’t go over there!”

She doesn’t respond.

“Jade? Are you still there?” The phone is silent. “Jade?” I check my phone to make sure we’re still connected. We’re not. I call her again. I get her voicemail. What the hell’s wrong with her phone?

She said she saw a car, but a car should not be there. There’s no road where she is. It doesn’t go down that far.

What if the car she saw is the white car that was driving by our house? What if that guy is following her? Watching her? Planning to do something to her? Shit!

I’m trying to get to her as fast as possible but my feet keep sinking in the sand, slowing me down.

I call her phone, and again it goes to voicemail. Why isn’t she answering? I try to come up with an explanation that doesn’t involve Jade being attacked or kidnapped. Or worse. Fuck!

I run faster.

My phone rings and I answer it mid-ring. “Jade?”

“Yeah.” I hear her voice and relief washes over me. “Sorry. We got disconnected.”

“Where are you?”

“I still don’t know. I checked and I couldn’t see any landmarks beyond that tall grass. There was just an open field and a car sitting there.”

“What did the car look like?” I stop running and hold the phone closer to my ear so I can hear her better.

“It was just a white car. It looked kind of old. Why?”

“Did it have a dent in the front end on the driver’s side?”

“Yeah, how’d you know that?”

Shit! I take off running again. “Was there anyone in the car?”

“Just a guy. He was on his phone.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. Dark hair. Maybe late twenties.”

It’s the same guy who was on our street the other day. I know it is.

“Jade, are you running?”

“No, I’m walking. I can’t run and talk.”

“Don’t hang up. Just hold on to your phone while you run. Start running right now.”

“What’s going on, Garret?”

“That guy in the white car is the same guy I saw the other day. The one I thought might be planning to rob us.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, and he could be dangerous. So run. Run as fast as you can.”

She doesn’t respond, but I hear the swishing of her shorts as she runs with the phone in her hand.

I wonder if that guy saw her. She was right there next to him. If he wanted to hurt her, he had his chance. So if he did see her, maybe he has no interest in her. Maybe he’s just a burglar and he’s casing the entire area. These beach houses are very expensive and most are owned by people who only live here in the summer. A lot of the houses are vacant now that summer’s over, so it’s the perfect time for a criminal to try to rob one or more of them.

“Garret?” I hear her voice again.

“Jade, are you okay?”

“I’m around some people now. There’s a family with some kids. So I’ll hang up and call you when I’m closer.”

“No! Don’t hang up.”

“Garret, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry. I’d just feel better if you didn’t hang up.”

We both keep running. I don’t know how she can run so far on this sand. I’m in great shape but I’m freaking dying here and I’ve only gone a mile, if that. My legs are burning so damn bad I want to stop, but I can’t. I have to get to her. Every few seconds I bring the phone back to my ear and listen for her swishing shorts.

I finally see her off in the distance. When I reach her, I hug her tightly against me. “Do NOT go that far ever again. Promise me, Jade.”

I feel her nod against my chest. “I won’t. I promise.”

I take a moment to catch my breath. “I’m sorry I left you like that. I need to stop doing that whenever we have a fight.”

“I ran away, too, so it’s not like you’re the only one.”

“I’m gonna work on it. I swear. You may have to tie me down the first few times but eventually I’ll stay there on my own.” I pull back and hold her face in my hands. “I love you. And I don’t care about the money. It’s not worth fighting over. We’ll talk it out and we’ll come up with something we both agree on.”

She nods, then looks at me, her face tired and sweaty. “Can we go home now?”

“Yes.” I hug her again because I need to feel her and make sure she’s okay. Because for just that brief moment, when she was miles away and I couldn’t hear her voice on the phone, a part of me thought something had happened to her. Something bad. And I’d blame myself for that.

Jade’s part of my world now. She’s so far in it she’ll never get out. And it’s not always a good world to be in.

My dad is right. As a Kensington, there will always be people after us. And not just my dad’s enemies, or the organization, but criminals. People trying to get our money. We’re never completely safe. I don’t have access to my dad’s money anymore, but criminals don’t know that, which means they’ll come after me. Or Jade.

I don’t know if that guy in the white car is watching us, planning to rob us, or do something else to us. But it doesn’t matter. Even if he isn’t, someone else might be. That’s why I have to protect Jade, and today, I didn’t do that.

We walk back, neither one of us speaking. I hold her hand the entire time and she keeps brushing against me, trying to get closer.

When we get home, she goes in the bedroom and I go in the kitchen and get us both some water. I bring it to her, then go turn the shower on to warm it up. I go back to the bedroom and help her take off her shoes and her clothes. She looks exhausted, which you would be after running 12 miles in the hot sun.

We say nothing. Not one word. And the room remains quiet as I lead her to the shower and open the door for her to walk in. I kick off my shoes and rip my sweaty clothes off and join her. I pull her into me and let the hot water fall over us as we stand there in silence.

It’s one of those times when we don’t need to say anything to know what the other person is thinking. Right now, we’re both saying we’re sorry. She can tell by the way I hold her. When I’m sorry, I hold her head against my chest, keeping it there until I feel like she’s forgiven me.

I can tell when Jade’s sorry by the way she puts her arms around me, tighter and higher up on my back, and by the way she tucks her head down against my chest. It’s different than her other hugs and I’m the only person in the world who knows that about her.

It’s these little things we share, the way we touch, the unspoken language we have, that prove to me time and time again that we’re meant to be together. That fights like we had today will never break us apart.

Jade will test that theory in the months ahead, maybe even the years ahead. She already has many times and I’m prepared for her to do it again. Her tendency is to run. To hide her feelings. To push people away. Those were the skills she learned growing up in a home with a mom who abused her. And one year with me isn’t going to erase the 15 years she had with her mom. I knew that when I fell in love with Jade.

She has so much pain that I haven’t even begun to address with her. I’m trying to take it slow and let her heal on her own timeline. But I get the feeling she’s going to need a little push to get past some of the stuff she’s dealing with. This running thing she’s doing really concerns me. I feel like we’re going back to last year, when she ran every time something bad happened.

And today was bad. It was a bad fight and I could’ve handled it better. But Jade needs to learn to handle things better, too. She can’t run every time I get mad at her.

I can’t run either. I shouldn’t have left in the middle of our fight. But I did because I was afraid if I stayed, I’d say something I didn’t mean. I needed to calm down. I can’t be around Jade when I’m that angry. When we fight I feel like I have to censor every word so she doesn’t think I don’t love her anymore. Because that’s where her mind goes. Every damn time. If I raise my voice, if I curse, if I storm out of the room, she thinks I don’t love her anymore. And when we argue, she’s not good at fighting back. She shuts down and turns off all emotion and then gets quiet. Or she runs.

The hot water is raining over us, steam hovering in the air. We haven’t moved. I’m still holding Jade against my body. Her eyes are closed and her ear is pressed over my heart, which is still thumping hard in my chest.

I take my hand off her back and reach for the pink soap she uses. It’s the same soap she used when we first showered together back in my room in Connecticut. I don’t even know where it came from. Maybe the maid put it in there. Anyway, it was pink, girly soap that didn’t seem like something Jade would like, but she used it because she didn’t want to use my guy soap. That was the first time we had shower sex and I was surprised how much she liked it. I mean, she really, really liked it.

The next week, as a joke, I went to the store and bought her five bottles of that soap, so that every time she showered in the dorm she’d think of the shower sex we had. And ever since then, she only uses that pink soap.

I pour the soap in my hand and put it on her warm skin, starting with her back and working my way down her arms. I see her smile, her face still plastered against my chest, her arms now dropped to her sides. When I’m done with the back of her, I peel her off me and turn her around and wash the front of her. It’s totally turning me on, but I don’t want this to be about sex. I want it to be about us getting past this fight and getting back to the place we were before we moved here, because for some reason, things have seemed off between us ever since we arrived.

Jade grabs my bottle of soap and pours some in her hand, then flips around and does to me what I just did to her.

Okay, so maybe the no-sex thing isn’t going to work because this is killing me. To distract myself from what she’s doing to me, I take her shampoo and wash her hair. It doesn’t help. I’m even more turned on as she continues to slide her hands up and down my body. She stops and tips her head back, rinsing the suds from her hair. Then she pulls me under the water, rinsing the soap off me.

She’s hurrying this up. She wants to do it, but she doesn’t want to do it here. Once again, I know what she wants without us even talking. I shut the water off and grab towels for each of us. After we’re dried off, I pick her up and she wraps her legs around me. When our eyes meet, I can tell she’s as desperate to be with me as I am to be with her.

I throw her on the bed. And we have our best makeup sex yet.