Page 38 of Storm and Tempest

“Life never works out the way we think.”

“Kenna told me a while back that you had a moment with her mother.” Jax glanced over. “Things didn’t work out?”

“She’s not the kind of woman you pin down. But I guess that’s what makes it exciting.”

“And the lawyers at that firm?”

Bruce sighed. “Figured you’d get around to interrogating me. You know you could’ve called anytime the past two months. Just asked.”

“Sorry.” He navigated through downtown to the restaurant Andrette had sent him from Hadley’s calendar. “I should’ve worked closer with you guys.”

“Hasn’t been easy for any of us. You don’t wanna believe one person is the glue that holds all the others together, but some people are just like that.”

“You all became a family.” Because of Kenna.

“We needed it.”

Jax nodded. “So did I.” He found a break in the line of cars at the curb and pulled into a space.

“And it was the Bureau you found,” Bruce said. “But sometimes life surprises you, and you realize it’s time to make a different choice.”

“The reason I’m an agent is more complicated than that. It wasn’t just the first thing that came along. Being an agent has meant everything to me.” Because Special Agent Oliver Jaxton was the man he’d always thought he should be—the man his father could be proud of.

“Long as it’s not the only thing you are. Otherwise, when it gets taken away you have nothing left. You wind up rebuilding your life, like Kenna did.” Bruce glanced over. “She told me her story. Is that what you’re gonna be?”

“You think we won’t find her.” Jax gripped the wheel, squeezing it to get some of the tension out, not liking where this conversation was going.

“I want you to survive either way. To not lose yourself. She wouldn’t want that.” Bruce ran his fists down the knees of his tan jeans.

“No, I don’t suppose she would want that.”

Bruce let him think on that, and Jax drove in silence—his thoughts full of what Bruce had said, his heart aching for his wife.

Everything they were doing…all of it felt so much like wasting time. Spinning their wheels and never getting anywhere. Constantly believing this next thing they did would be the step that unlocked everything. That eventually they’d happen upon the answer.

Jax was more worried about who they would all become while wrestling with the question of whether Kenna was alive or dead. Wondering if they would find her or spend the rest of their lives looking. Each of them could so easily fall back into who they used to be.

He’d been made new by Jesus a long time ago. But right now, even that felt tenuous. As if he only had a weak grip on who he was in Christ.

The rest of them weren’t believers as far as he knew. Jax should take some time to tell them the story of why he’d chosen to believe. They could decide for themselves what they wanted to do with the information.

“Where’s our guy?” Bruce motioned out the windshield at the restaurant on the other side of the street.

“On the patio, the second umbrella from the right.” They even had cooling units out there, under the umbrellas, so people could enjoy their lunch alfresco.

Jax left the engine running for the sake of the air-conditioning, since it was over a hundred degrees outside right now. Kenna would’ve hated it even if she hadn’t complained all that much. She’d moved here so they could make a life together. Happily ever after wasn’t the time to get vocal about complaints, but it was a time to make the best of things and work through problems together.

He’d been planning to take her somewhere with snow over the winter, and they both knew they weren’t going to live in Arizona forever. With a powerful enemy in the world, they hadn’t made many plans for the future.

Now he wanted to have those conversations, but she wasn’t here. Talk about having kids. Move somewhere they could raise children in peace. He could even see them being the home base for a team of investigators who worked for Kenna. People like Bruce and Ramon, even Maizie.

It sounded like a good life.

“Waiting for someone.” Bruce shifted in his seat, getting antsy. “I could get closer.”

Jax nearly laughed that the two men were so different yet similar in a lot of ways. “Ramon wanted to do the same thing. He wound up getting thrown out the back door of a cop bar.”

Bruce chuckled. “He has all the fun.”