“Jack—”
Jack ignored him and walked toward the Bronco. “I’ve got guest rooms. I’ll move my car out of the drive and you can park in the garage.”
Opening Layla’s door, he introduced himself and gestured at the house. She looked to Brian and he shrugged.
Their eyes held for a moment, a surge of emotion passing between them.
So little time left. He hated to share even a moment of it, but he needed a fellow deputy’s input and help, and Layla needed a place to decompress.
He held out his hand to her when she reached him. She linked her fingers with his and he led her into the house.
“How can I help?” Layla asked, watching as Rachel pulled the vegetables for a salad out of the fridge.
“Are you up for peeling a cucumber and chopping it up with some tomatoes?”
“Absolutely.”
After rinsing and prepping, Layla joined Rachel at the granitetop kitchen island. She smiled at the friendly blonde, whose short golden curls perfectly framed a lovely face and kind blue eyes.
“You have a lovely home,” Layla said, envying the other woman’s happy family.
“It’s not mine. Jack and I are still pretty new to each other. At least, in the romantic sense.”
“I never would have guessed.” Jack clearly doted on Rachel. In some ways, he reminded Layla of Brian. Both men were tough, no-nonsense guys ... who just happened to have a soft underbelly they exposed only to the women they loved. When Jack looked at Rachel, the tender heat was obvious.
“We’ve known each other for years. He was my late husband’s best friend and he’s my son’s godfather.”
“You and I have a lot in common,” Layla noted.
Rachel continued to shred a head of lettuce with her hands. “Jack gave me a brief rundown of why you’re here. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now, yet you’re so pulled together and brave. You’re amazing. Jack says you’re from a military family?”
“Jack seems to know a lot about me.”
“I said the same thing.” Rachel laughed. “Apparently Brian talks about you a lot. It must be a relief to have him with you now.”
“Huge.” Layla began to dice the tomatoes. “It’s ironic. We broke up, in large part, because of his job. And now I couldn’t be more grateful that he does what he does and that he’s helping me get through this.”
“Jack ’s job got in the way for us, too. He felt like it was too dangerous for Riley and me, and that I’d eventually regret how often he’s away.”
“I never minded the separation so much,” Layla said, thinking about it. “Maybe because I grew up living with it. My problem was—still is—his need to sign up for the most dangerous jobs, situations, whatever. I mean he couldn’t just be a deputy U.S. marshal, right? He couldn’t just be a sailor in the Navy. He had to go Special Forces all the way.”
“It’s scary when they’re gone, I know.”
“It’s scarier when they don’t come back.”
Rachel paused, her gaze trained downward at the counter.
Exhaling in a rush, Layla stopped chopping. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay.” Rachel left the counter and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. She held one up for Layla, but Layla shook her head. “I had to think long and hard about that very possibility before I pursued Jack. I had to be sure I was truly committed, because I was risking putting Riley through losing a stepfather as well as his own dad.”
Layla set the knife down. “What made up your mind for you?”
“Jack. He deserves to be loved. He deserves to have someone to come home to. With all that he does for everyone else, he deserves something of his own.” Rachel took a long pull on her beer, then set it down and got back to work. “Jack was raised in foster care. It took me a while to understand it, but the men he works with are his family, the only one he’s ever had. I realized I have to look at his job the same way I would an unpleasant mother-in-law—it comes with the territory. I have to take him the way he is.”
Gripping the counter, Layla forced herself to breathe in an even tempo while her heart lurched in her chest.
Dear God.
Families were supposed to be comprised of people who cared for you, people who would do anything for you . . . even die for you. She’d been blessed with that, but like Jack, Brian hadn’t been. His mother was engrossed in the men in her life, losers who used her and eventually left her when the novelty wore off. Brian had no idea who his father was and no siblings he knew of.
So he’d chosen fields and jobs that would give him the support system of a family. Careers that provided him with people he trusted with his life. And hers.
She’d demanded he give that up for her. Coming from a young woman he feared might leave him at any moment, it must have seemed like an impossible request. He’d already lost Jacob.
Layla understood now why he hadn’t been able to let the job go. It wasn’t the job itself; it was the ties the job gave him. And she hadn’t offered him a dependable alternative to that loss.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked softly.
“Sorry. I’m just wiped out.” Layla lifted her head. “I was already stressed about the trial. Then these last couple of days . . .”
“It’ll be over soon, won’t it?”
“It will never be over. Once I testify, I’ll go back into WITSEC and wait for the possibility that they might need me again.”
“Will Brian be with you?”
Layla shook her head. “He won’t even know where I am or what my last name is. Today and tomorrow is all we’ve got.”
“Then why the f**k are you in the kitchen with me?” Rachel asked without heat. “I’ve got dinner covered. Go spend some time with your man.”
“I think he’s talking with your man, actually.” Layla felt herself smiling despite herself. She liked Rachel. She wished this sort of life was possible—spending time with people who were important to Brian, grilling a meal on a lovely day, commiserating with fellow significant others who knew what it was like to wait and worry and hope for the best. The worst part was that she’d once had the life she was now coveting and she had thrown it away.
“Then take a shower and a nap instead. It’ll be a few hours yet before the food’s ready.”
“I’ll feel like a mooch if I don’t help.”
“You can help me clean up later, how’s that? I enjoy the prep part. It’s the mess I don’t much care for.” Rachel rounded the island. “Let me show you to your room. The house has two masters, so you have your own bathroom.”
“Thank you, Rachel.” Layla met the blonde’s blue-eyed gaze and tried to convey the depth of her gratitude. It meant so much to her that she and Brian had this brief respite with trusted friends in a home filled with love. It felt real and true, although she knew it was as much a moment out of time as the past two nights spent in rundown motels.
Rachel grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Anytime.”
“You weren’t fully briefed before you got there?” Jack asked.
“I was a last-minute replacement—” Brian’s voice faded when Layla walked by the den’s open double doors. The slump of her shoulders and low-hanging head told him so much about her mood.
Heaving out his breath, he leaned heavily into the front of Jack ’s desk. The other deputy stood with his back to the hallway, but he turned his head to follow Brian’s gaze.
“What are you going to do about her?” Jack asked quietly.
“What wouldn’t I do?” Brian shoved a hand through his hair. “She’s blaming herself for us breaking up in the first place.”
“Wasn’t it her fault? She left you.”
“We’re both equally at fault,” he said gruffly, feeling the need to protect Layla from censure. “We both needed something from each other that we couldn’t vocalize at the time.”
Jack grimaced in sympathy. “I’ve been there.”
“None of which matters now. I can’t even think about living without her again. It makes me insane.” Brian forced his thoughts back to the most pressing issue at hand—keeping Layla safe. “I was brought in at the last minute because one of the deputies who was supposed to be on Layla’s detail called in. I need you to find out who that person was.”
“I’m sure they’re working that angle, too, and if the deputy’s involved, he or she has likely planned for that contingency, but I’ll see what I can dig up.” Jack crossed his arms. “The DEA has a big stake in this. This is personal for them.”
Brian understood what Jack was saying. This was interagency business—reputations were on the line and the media attention was fierce. Every precaution would’ve been taken, most especially assigning only the most trustworthy, heavily vetted deputies. For one agency to have to admit to another that one of their own had gone rogue and betrayed the service was both embarrassing and the opening of a huge can of worms. “With any other situation I’d be betting on the witness f**king it up somehow. But not Layla. She knows better and she values the lives of others too much to jeopardize anyone needlessly. Someone had a price.”
“What else can I do to help?”
Brian’s mouth curved in a rueful half smile. “You’re doing enough already. Layla’s tired and scared and worried about things we can’t change. She needed a safe haven that wasn’t a dingy, by-the-hour dump.”
“You’ll stay the night.” It wasn’t a question.
“We’ll be heading out before oh three hundred. I want to get her into San Diego prior to close of business so she can have at least a couple hours with the AUSA before she has to testify the next day.”
Jack nodded.
“I could use new wheels,” Brian said. “I was pushing my luck getting this far with Jim’s Bronco. Could you help me get a rental with some teeth to it?”
“Take my truck.”
“I can’t do that. You’re doing too much as it is.”
“You and I both know a rental is unreliable and more likely to attract attention.” Jack crossed his arms. “Take the truck.”
Brian straightened. “I owe you.”
“Big-time. Don’t think I’m being completely selfless here. I’m coming out ahead by holding a favor from you in my pocket.” Jack turned toward the door. “I’m going to spend some time with my woman. You do the same.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
His friend paused on the threshold. “Anytime.”
Entering the bedroom, Brian heard the shower running and started to undress. Once he was stripped, he pushed the partly closed bathroom door open and stepped inside the steamy room. Layla stood with one hand on the tiles in front of her and her head bowed beneath the spray of the showerhead. Her long, dark hair hung heavily around her face.
Her pose was one of such pain and dejection Brian couldn’t bear it. Opening the glass door, he stepped inside and turned her to face him, clasping her heaving body close. She was sobbing violently and his heart ached at her misery.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, running his hands up and down her back. “I can’t stand it when you cry.”
She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest.
He held her, whispering softly, offering what little comfort he could. Eventually, she quieted to hiccupping sobs and he took care of her as he should have been doing the last five years. He washed her hair and body, then bundled her up in a towel and carried her to the bed. They curled together beneath the blankets, falling wearily to sleep.
Chapter 9
He walked in with my brother Jacob and I fell head over heels.”
Layla leaned back in her chair, enjoying the cool evening breeze that sifted through her hair. “I was sixteen. He was twenty-two and breathtaking. Gorgeous really, with a body built for sin. He had such intense sex appeal that it was like a match to my teenage hormones. He was the hottest man I’d ever seen.”
Rachel laughed softly. “Sexual chemistry.”
“To say the least. Totally ruined me for the guys in high school. They were fumbling little boys in comparison.” Layla’s fingertip circled the lip of her water glass. “But he only saw me as his best friend ’s annoying kid sister.”
“If only,” Brian interjected, coming up behind her and pressing a quick hard kiss to her temple. “She had me feeling like a lecher. Totally f**ked me up. I wanted her more than I’ve ever wanted a woman before or since, and I couldn’t have her until she grew up.”
“Ha! Don’t let him fool you, Rachel,” Layla said, shooting him a glance. “He was no saint in the interim.”
“Neither were you.” He pulled out the Adirondack chair next to her and caught her hand in his. “You knew you were turning me inside out. You did it on purpose.”
“You needed it. With the number of chicks falling all over you, you were getting full of yourself.”
Jack returned from the kitchen with a fresh bottle of beer for Rachel. The look the other couple passed to each other was both loving and intimate.
Layla turned away, her gaze finding Brian with his head back and his eyes closed. He appeared relaxed, but she knew he was far from it. Neither of them had eaten much for dinner. They were both too worked up to fully enjoy Jack ’s skill at the grill.
“Want to crash?” she asked softly, knowing he was running on fumes despite their earlier nap.
He inhaled deeply and nodded. “We should. We’ll be heading out in a few hours.”
She looked at Rachel and Jack, who made such a striking couple. Rachel’s short blond curls were a lovely contrast to Jack ’s dark good looks. “Thank you for dinner and for harboring fugitives in your home.”