Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (69 page)

A Week Later

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

S A M A N T H A

S
he looked out
over the prairie, listening to the gentle rustle of maple leaves, the rising cacophony of crickets and cicadas singing their evening song as the sun began to dip low on the horizon, a flaming fire.

Her eyes were dry as she watched the hot orange shimmer in the distance. Sam had no more tears left to cry. She’d wept them all for her first great love when she’d held his cool hand to her face a week ago. She’d left her tears in his palm, on his blood-stained fingers.

And now, it was time to let him go.

Chris Fields stood by her side, Carey on the other, both stalwart and silent, lost in their own thoughts and remembrances. Wes had no people left, orphaned like her some years ago. He’d loved Chris like a brother, his partner, his best friend. And he’d loved her. That was all.

Sam held his urn in one hand, her dog tags in the other.

She stepped forward, twisting it open.

Sam flung his ashes up high, and they seemed suspended for a moment like a shimmering wave, before the wind took him.

“Rest,” she whispered, wondering if Wes could hear her in the breeze—if her prayer would reach him in the zephyr.

Chris gently took the urn from her. Sam looked down at her dog tags, rubbing her finger over the metal plates, feeling the raised letters that identified her in her youth. Back when she was his.

Sam lifted them to her lips, pressing a kiss to the memory. Telling him in her heart that she loved him… would always love him, even if it was just in some parallel universe.

She threw the glinting necklace into the air, letting him go.

*

May—Late Afternoon

Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois

R O X A N N E

She watched her
brother wash down his second hot dog with a cold beer, sun glinting off his sunglasses as he grinned, staring down at the field from the good seats. The Cubs were leading the Dodgers 5-4, with two outs in the ninth. The sun was warm but not too warm, and it was a beautiful day to be winning.

“Thanks,
manita
. This might be the best day ever,” he told her, hooking a long arm around her neck. He kissed the top of her baseball cap before he released her. Her smile felt bright and too big for her face under her sunglasses, but she loved it. She felt happy and carefree and light for the first time in ages.

Nothing to do; nowhere to be.

Just a day at the ballpark, her and her big brother.

“Sure you have to go back to Delta Force next week?” Rox asked, nudging him with her shoulder. “We could take in another game. Maybe even go down to Mexico.”

“Gotta head back,” Alejo replied, taking another sip of beer. “I only have a year left of service. It’ll be done in no time. Then maybe, I don’t know.” He shrugged one shoulder.

“What?” she asked, nudging him once again. “You finally going to take me up on my offer of early retirement? I’ve got a few mil in the bank. You could go anywhere you want. Do whatever you want.”

“That ain’t me,
manita
.” Alejo shrugged. “What would I do sitting on my ass all day? I’d go out of my fucking mind.”

Rox considered him. “You’ve got something going on. Want to tell me?”

“Sam offered me a gig,” he admitted after a moment, looking out at the field. “She wants me to come on board at Lennox Chase. Based here. Says I could run a division.”

Rox grinned. “No shit?”

He shrugged lightly, like it was nothing. “Maybe I’ll take it.”

“Don’t be a dumbass,
mano
—you know you want to.”

His smile glinted in the sun, there one moment, gone the next. “It’s good pay.”

She had no doubt. She knew first hand Sam treated her people well.

“What about you?”

Rox smirked up at him, leaning back against the seat. “What about me?”

“You still doing your, ah…” he seemed at a momentary loss. Alejandro didn’t really know how to categorize what she did. Sometimes she didn’t either. But it was always intriguing, she had to admit. Her life was definitely never boring.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m good.” She patted his leg. “I’m gonna hit the ladies before the line gets ridiculous. You want anything from the vendors?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m set.”

Rox moved through the cheering crowd, buzzing with excitement as they ate glorious ballpark junk food covered in salt, downing froth-topped beer from plastic cups. She smiled when she heard the thick, satisfying crack of a bat meeting the ball. She turned to watch as Pedro Strop slid into home plate.

“Yes!” She pumped her fist in the air, grinning.

“I had no idea you enjoyed baseball so much,
neshama
.”

She spun, shocked to hear Avi’s deep baritone right behind her. He looked so damn good standing there in jeans and a dark sweater, his chestnut hair tousled from the breeze.

He took in her Cubs cap, sunglasses, the Arrieta jersey, his hazel eyes bright with amusement.

“I like this disguise best of all,
neshama
,” he said to her, smiling. “You look like a young girl, a little sister,” he added, glancing over her shoulder at where she’d left Alejandro.

He knew
. She’d been careful around her brother in Houston. No one used her last name. Not even Sam. And they didn’t look like siblings anymore.

Rox slid off her sunglasses. “How’d you find me?”

“Simple.” Avi shrugged. “I wanted to.”

She cocked her head. “Neither of us got the bounty,” she pointed out, though she’d been more than handsomely compensated by Sam for her part.

“It was never about the money,
neshama
,” he chided, his voice lowering as he stepped closer. She caught notes of sandalwood and something spicy. Holy fuck, this man would be her undoing.

Avi slowly pulled off her baseball cap, giving her time to push back, but she didn’t. She wasn’t wearing any makeup today. And her hair—her real hair—slipped from the confines of the cap in a silky swirl.

“You’re beautiful, Roxanne de Soto,” he told her, a hitch in his breath as he stared at her, really looking, really seeing her as she was for the first time.

His fingers trailed down her face, the tender skin, soft and bare under his calloused fingertips. Up close, the scarring was more visible, fine lines, like the cracked Celadon porcelain of the Song Dynasty, forged in fire, the kiln of her past. She let him touch her, with his fingers and his eyes. He didn’t want to hurt her—she could see it in his eyes. Avi just wanted to know her, and she suspected he wanted her to know him.

How do two people who live a life of secrecy and shrouds stand in front of each other as they are?

Maybe like this. In a public place, a safe place, intimate strangers in a crowd of people flowing around them, moving like a current.

“I leave for New York in a few hours,” Avi murmured, a flash of regret crossing his face. “Then back to Israel.”

“You going to see your daughter?” she asked.

He laughed softly, cradling her cheek in his palm. “You know everything.”

Rox pressed a kiss into his palm. “Not everything. Just the important things.” She met his warm gaze. “What do you know?”

“Not everything. Just the important things,” he mimicked, eyes lit with humor.

She nodded, stepped back.

He let her.

“I never really figured it out. Do you work for Sam or Mossad?” she asked quizzically.

Avi smiled, pushing his ruffled hair back. God, she loved that move. “Do you work for Sam or yourself?”

She laughed at that. They were more alike than he probably realized. “We live somewhere in between, don’t we?”

“I’ll see you again,
neshama,
” Avi promised, reaching out to run his thumb across her bottom lip.

“I sure hope so.” Rox nipped the tip, making him laugh before she turned, walking away. A few yards in, she couldn’t resist a glimpse back.

He was already gone.

“Slick bastard.” She shook her head, grinning.

May—Afternoon

The Loop, Chicago

J A C K

L
ike deja vu,
Jack found himself staring moodily out the window of Dr. Carmichael’s office in the Loop, watching the “L” train sway its way around downtown.

“So Samantha asked you to trust her—but do you?” Dr. Carmichael asked from his arm chair.

“Would it be strange to admit I trust her with my life, but I’m still working on everything else?” Jack asked candidly. “I see how much she loves her family, how well she takes care of her people—but I still don’t feel all-the-way-safe with her, you know?”

“Probably because you’re not,” Carmichael told him astutely. “None of us are one-hundred-percent safe with the ones we love. We just have to make the best choices we can, put in the effort, and trust others to do the same.”

He thought about the letter. Jack had to believe she’d come back to him. He couldn’t begin to imagine an alternative.

“I’ve got another question,” Carmichael said, interrupting his reverie.

Jack smirked. “Of course you do.”

Carmichael leaned back in his chair. “Can she trust you?”

Jack shot him a dark look. “You know she can.”

“I do?” Carmichael raised a brow. “Prove it.”

A retort popped up to his lips but never made it out.
How could he prove it?

“It takes time, Jack. That’s my point.” Carmichael told him. “My prescription for you is to do all the normal things you two never really got to do together for any meaningful amount of time. Get to know each other. Go on dates. Take the afternoon off for no other reason than to just enjoy some time together where no one is trying to kill you or rob you blind.”

“I don’t think we’d even know where to begin that,” Jack responded with a crooked grin.

“Start first with just being kind to her,” Carmichael recommended. “Take care of her with the little things. Not everything needs to feel like high drama. That’s unsustainable anyway. It can’t all be kidnappings and shoot-outs all the time.” He smiled ruefully. “If you want to have a healthy relationship with her, then start by having a normal one. Just do the work. Take it day by day.”

“She has to come back first.”

“She said she will, Jack.” Carmichael shrugged. “Give her time to figure it out.”

“What if—” he paused, uncertain. Carmichael waited patiently for him to go on. “What if she can’t forgive herself? For her past, Wes, all of it? She carries this unbelievably heavy burden. I’ve never met anyone so hard on themselves. It’s—exhausting,” he admitted.

“That also takes time,” Carmichael replied frankly.

Jack sighed, rubbing his brow.

“Maybe as the person who loves her, you can begin to show her how.”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Show her how you see her,” Carmichael suggested. “Maybe if Samantha learns to look at herself from other people’s eyes, she’ll be a little less hard on herself for the flaws she’s magnified. It’s not unusual for us to be our own harshest critics. That said, telling her to do something won’t help fix the problem. She has to see herself differently—from another perspective.”

An idea sparked. Jack grabbed his jacket and stood. “Doc, I’ve got to cut our time short.”

Carmichael nodded. “We’ll recoup it next week.”

“You’re on.”

Jack called Hannah in the lobby of Dr. Carmichael’s office.

“Jack, what a nice surprise!” she told him warmly. “Thanks for emailing me that lasagna recipe. Grant will be thrilled.”

“Anything you need, Hannah. Just ask and it’s yours.” Jack replied. “Listen, I was wondering—did Wes’s photographs ever get auctioned?”

Hannah sighed. “Sadly, no. We hadn’t made it to that lot yet when the bomb threat happened. It’s such a shame too. I know they would have brought in a pretty penny for the Foundation.”

“How much are you short?”

“You mean from what we were projecting?” Hannah clarified.

“Sure. Ballpark.”

“Around seven million. We’ll cover it though—it’s just we were hoping to match the final amount to give to the Texas Children’s Hospital and the VA—”

“How about I buy Wes’s photographs for ten million?” Jack offered.