Rogue's Passion(71)

Asher shifted in the passenger seat and took a deep breath. It was time to tell her about Jenny.
“Olivia, there’s something you need to know.”
She glanced over at him. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“I…met this girl,” he began slowly, “on my first trip through the portal. She was dancing at a small club up north where I’d stopped for something to eat and drink after the mission was complete. I’d never seen anyone dance like that. Or heard that kind of music before. As I watched her, the sound seemed to be coming straight through the walls and into my skin. I kept looking for the musicians, thinking they were in another room, but of course, I never found them.”
Olivia laughed. “That must’ve been strange.”
“We got together that night and every time I came back through the portal. She wanted me to move to Las Vegas with her. She’d had a dance audition and got a callback. If that didn’t work out, she said there would be other opportunities. I had no choice but to tell her who I was and why I couldn’t go.”
“And how did she react to that news?”
“She knew all along that I wasn’t from the area, but she had no idea I was from Cascadia. It was shortly afterward that she found out she was pregnant.”
Olivia inhaled sharply. “Oh, Ash,” she said softly.
“The thought of being a father both terrified and thrilled me, as I’m sure it does all men when they learn that their seed has helped to create a new life.” A dull throbbing began to hammer at the back of his eyeballs, but he continued. “She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to keep working. I told her I’d take care of her. One of my suggestions was for us to move to the other side of the portal. At least temporarily.”
“And what did she say?”
“Though she was scared, she was willing to consider it, but we never got that chance. The wind had been blowing in from Elliott Bay that night, cold and wet. The Montlake Bridge was up and everyone was waiting in their vehicles for it to close. What we’d thought was a routine bridge closure to allow a sailboat to pass turned out to be an army roadblock. Using spotlights and a megaphone, we were ordered out of our cars and told that a Cascadian assassin was among us. People panicked and started running. Jenny screamed at me and gave me a hard shove, saying either “go turn yourself in” or “don’t turn yourself in.” But before I could do anything or ask what she said, another shot rang out and…she was dead.”
At some point, Olivia had pulled the car to the side of the road and grasped his hand. Her touch now was cool and comforting.#p#分页标题#e#
He told her how the rest of the night passed in a blur—running through back alleys, hiding out in the University district, falling down a steep embankment—until he woke up deep in a forest far away from the city, covered in dirt, dried sweat, and tears.
“If the army hadn’t been following me, Jenny and the baby would still be alive.” Guilt rushed over him again. He was stupid to have stayed with Jenny and not go back to Cascadia alone. It would’ve been more honorable to make sure they had lived, than to have stayed just to let the baby know him as the father. 
Olivia reached over the console and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Ash. So very sorry.”
Immense sadness engulfed him. He hadn’t allowed himself to dig this deep emotionally in a long time, because when he did, the horror of what he’d caused was almost unbearable.
Olivia rubbed his back and stroked his head. “Shhhh, baby, it’s not your fault.” She kept saying the words over and over, the sound vibrating comfortingly against the side of his face. And when he tried to protest, she simply hushed him again,never letting go of him.
He wiped at his eyes a few minutes later. “So you see why I worry about being with you? Who I am and what I do is dangerous not only for me, but for those around me that I care about. I couldn’t bear it if the same thing happened to you.”
“What about the guys here at Reckless? You care about them, don’t you?”
“That’s different.” He sat back in his seat and noticed that the headache was gone. “You healed me, didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “I can’t stand to see you hurting, so I did what I could. Now, back to the guys at Reckless.”
“Aren’t you the least bit tired?” He remembered how she’d healed his portal sickness, then followed it up with a marathon roll in the sack. “You healed me this morning and again just now.”
“Normally it does take a lot out of me when I use my Talent, but I’ve noticed that doesn’t seem to be the case when I use it on you.”