The Secret Son

Glancing back as they entered the hotel, Jack wasn’t pleased to see the man still leaning there, still watching them.

It was odd, the way he’d been leaning against that wall all week. Was he a threat to Erica? And if so, why?

“I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d just let me see you safely up to your room.”

Erica looked at him uncertainly, lightly chewing her lower lip, and he knew it wasn’t just the man loitering outside that was troubling her. With every moment they prolonged this goodbye, they were giving temptation the edge, challenging a strength that might not be able to sustain them.

She nodded, silently leading the way.

Not another word was said as they rode the deserted elevator up to the twelfth floor. She paused outside a double door about halfway down the hall.

A suite. At least Jefferson Cooley kept her in style.

She slid her electronic entry card into the slot above the door handle. “I can’t do this,” she said suddenly, resting her head against the door.

Jack reached for the card with shaking fingers. “Here, let me.”

But the green light was already on. She’d unlocked the door.

Erica turned, her eyes bright with unshed tears as she looked up at him. “I can’t just go in there and leave you when I still have another six hours before I have to be at the airport….”

“What are you saying?”

“I just wish we could go somewhere and talk.”

He had to work tomorrow. Lives were at stake. He had to be sharp, decisive, alert to every nuance.

But he’d have a long plane ride to recover from a sleepless night….

“It does seem criminal to waste six perfectly good hours,” he said.

“We could go to that place we passed a few blocks back, the one with the yellow and green lights,” she said.

Jack thought of the man hanging around outside. “I’d rather you didn’t leave the hotel again, not while that guy’s still down there. He’s probably harmless, but just in case…”

Erica frowned, her dark-brown eyes filled with so many conflicting emotions he couldn’t decipher. “Nothing in the hotel will be open this late.”

Temptation battled resolve with no clear victor.

Jack took a steadying breath. At the agency, they called him a man of steel. They joked that his middle name was self-control. And it was true. A hostage negotiator had to be cool under pressure.

He reached around her to open the door of her suite. “I’ll bet you have a fully stocked bar in here,” he guessed, “and a perfectly good table and chairs we can use.”

He glanced around the corner of the entryway. He’d been right. The bar was along the far wall. The table was glass, with four chairs around it and a big bowl of fresh fruit in the center.

“We’ll pretend we’re in the bar down the street, the one with the yellow and green lights, but I’ll know you’re safe.”

She looked as though she was going to refuse. As though she had to refuse. And then she smiled at him.

“Okay,” she said, hesitation in every line of her body. She stood there, tall, model-slim, arms tight against her sides. And he realized that if this was a risk for him, it was a greater one for her. “We’re in a bar. And we have the whole night ahead of us….”

Jack wasn’t sure how many shots of whiskey he consumed over the next couple of hours. He only knew that he was ahead of her and her glasses of wine probably two to one. And that it still wasn’t enough.

On his last trip back from the bathroom, he couldn’t make himself return to that hard wicker chair, squeezing his long legs under the ridiculous glass table. He’d been afraid something was going to break every time he set his drink down.

He wasn’t sure why he’d thought staying in her suite had been such a good idea, either.

He’d miscalculated the danger. It wasn’t the man outside she had to worry about but the one sitting here in her room.

She’d gone to the second bathroom in the suite, and while she was gone, Jack poured fresh drinks for both of them and took his over to the long beige sectional in the living area. The square coffee table in front of the couch was glass, too.

Jack set his glass down, anyway.

And thought of Erica.

Every time she laughed, every time she moved, every time she spoke, every time those dark-brown eyes met his, every time he remembered that he was going to tell her goodbye and never see her again, Jack felt as if he’d been punched. He’d never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted Erica Cooley.

And yet, when he considered chucking it all, giving up the crusade to save others where he hadn’t been able to save his own, he knew he couldn’t do it. When he thought about changing his life, his goals, his mind filled with visions of that tiny body, that small casket and he realized he couldn’t turn his back on all the lives he could save.

He couldn’t risk committing himself that completely again, either.

He laid his head back, eyes closed, waiting for her. Trying to predict whether she’d join him on the couch. Or make the smart choice and stay over at the table.

He tried to figure out what he hoped she’d do.

She joined him on the couch—a full cushion away. He still hadn’t decided if he wanted her there, or across the room where he wouldn’t have to be so strong.

He’d had a lot to drink.

Jack leaned forward, grabbed his glass from the table and took a full sip. He didn’t look at her.

“What are you thinking about?” The soft words touched him, seemed so intimate.

“When Melissa and Courtney were killed, something inside me changed. Shut down.”

It still felt odd, talking about that part of his life. He never had before tonight. And yet, strangely, it felt right. The environment was safe, somehow.

He wanted Erica to know.

His arm lay along the back of the couch and she reached out with her hand, laying it on his.

“How could it not?” she asked gently. “They were a big part of you.”

“Far more than I’d realized,” he admitted. “If I’d allowed myself to acknowledge how important they were to me, I’d never have been able to do the job I’d chosen, risking my life every day.”

“You didn’t work in an FBI office?”

He shook his head, remembering some of the more dangerous situations he’d somehow managed to get through unscathed. “I was a field agent. Drug trafficking.” He’d slammed into more than one hovel filled with greasy, violent, conscienceless men, who’d pull their guns without the least provocation.