“Just give me a date,” he whispered, sounding oddly…intense. “And I won’t mention it again until then.”
“You want to know when I’m going to tell him? You’re seriously asking me this now?” No amount of cautious whispering could soften my irritation. Marc was in the backseat!
“There will never be a good time to talk about this, Faythe,” Jace returned calmly, staring at the road. “We’re about to sneak into enemy territory, and as mad as it makes me that Calvin Malone owns everything that was once my father’s—” his wife, as well as the land “—it pisses Cal off worse to know my dad had it all first. He hates me for that, and if he finds us, he’ll kill me. And this may be petty of me, but I’d kind of like to know where we stand before I die, if that’s what’s in the cards.”
I sucked in a deep breath and held it, and when that wasn’t enough, I let it go slowly and pulled in one more. Jace wasn’t looking at me. He couldn’t. Or maybe he wouldn’t. I wasn’t being fair to either of them, and I damn well knew it. What I didn’t know was how to remedy that without hurting someone. Or—more likely—all of us.
In that moment, with Marc snoring softly behind us, and Jace staring at the road like nothing else existed while he waited for my reply, I wished I’d never let him kiss me. That I’d never kissed him back. I wished we’d been strong enough to deal with Ethan’s death without falling into each other physically. Without connecting on such a primal, emotional level.
If I’d never known what I was missing, surely this wouldn’t be so hard.
But that was a futile wish, worth less than every penny I’d wasted on fountains as a child. And even if I could undo what I’d done, I wasn’t convinced it would make any difference.
I didn’t feel something for Jace simply because I slept with him. The truth was that I slept with him because I felt something for him. Even if we’d had the willpower to resist physical comfort in such emotionally fragile states, I would still feel something for Jace. And eventually something else would happen to weaken our willpower, and the result would be the same.
Only it would be infinitely worse if it had happened after I’d married Marc.
“Faythe?” Jace practically breathed my name, and I heard the filament-thin edge of panic in his voice. He couldn’t interpret my silence and had assumed the worst-case scenario. “What are you thinking?”
I sighed, a fragile sound that was little more than the slide of air between my lips. “I’m thinking that I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“That makes two of us.”
I glanced at him in surprise, and he shot me a grin that was almost…shy. “What, you think I planned this?” I shrugged helplessly, and he turned back to the road. “Okay, maybe while you guys were broken up, I thought about it occasionally. Or more like constantly. But now? I like my teeth in my mouth and my face intact, thank you. I know what this means for me, and I know what it means for Marc. And I know what it means for the Pride.”
“Jace…” I started, but he shook his head.
“Let me finish.”
After a second of silence, I nodded hesitantly.
“If I love you more than you love me, I’m as good as dead. Yet I can’t make myself take it back. I can’t just walk away from you, because every time you pass by me without smiling, without touching my hand, or at least making eye contact, it feels like I’m dying inside. And I’m pretty sure that hurts worse than whatever Marc would do to me. Whatever your dad would do.
“Hell, Faythe, I’m pretty sure that never touching you again would hurt worse than the nastiest death Calvin could think up for me.”
Nineteen
We arrived at the Roswell airport with an hour to spare, and since we had no luggage to check, we made a quick trip into a gift shop for an extra T-shirt and toiletry essentials for me—the guys had what little they needed in their backpacks—then picked up a new cell phone for Jace at a kiosk near our gate. Our plane left on time, and after a short layover in Dallas, we settled in for a longer flight to Lexington.
The plane had a row of three seats on one side of the aisle, and two on the other. Jace and I had adjoining seats on the two-seat side, with Marc right in front of us. But when we boarded the plane, Marc took Jace’s window seat, and tossed an offhand gesture toward the one he’d passed over.
Jace scowled but took the seat in front of him without comment. For which I was endlessly grateful.
“So, what’s the plan from here on out?” Marc asked once we were in the air, as a pair of flight attendants began the beverage service at the front of the plane. “What kind of proof are we looking for?”
I’d thought it over during my long walk from the thunderbirds’ nest, but had yet to hit upon a stroke of brilliance. Or even sufficiency. “Um…I was thinking we could find the feathers Brett was going to bring.”
“Why would Malone keep them?”
“I’m kind of hoping he never found them. Brett said he had them hidden, and right now Kaci’s life is riding on the hope that Brett died before he could retrieve them.”
As Marc thought, his expression cycled through doubt, skepticism and raw fear. For Kaci, most likely. I’d never seen him afraid for himself, because Marc was truly, completely selfless. Except where our relationship was concerned.Finally he faced me, leaning with his temple against the back of his seat. “Do you have any idea where he hid them?”
“I was hoping Jace might have a little insight to share with us.”
“How ’bout it, Hammond?” Marc kicked the back of Jace’s chair. Jace dropped his seat back as far as it would go, wedging it against Marc’s knees. “Damn it!” Marc shoved Jace’s headrest, but Jace only grinned at me through the now-wide crack between his seat and the vacant one next to him.
“I don’t know. Under his mattress? That’s where he used to hide stuff he didn’t want Mom to find. If you want anything more creative than that, I’ll have to think about it. After my nap.” With that, he winked at me and leaned against the window, out of sight, without raising his seat.
“What the hell is his problem?” Marc shoved Jace’s chair one more time, then twisted to face me more fully, obviously uncomfortable in his newly tight quarters. “I swear, if he wasn’t a damn good fighter, I’d send him home and ask for Vic instead.”
Several minutes later, after the flight attendant had made another round, I leaned in to Marc.
“You think Jace fights better than Vic?” I hesitated to ask, because Jace wasn’t sleeping yet. I could tell by the rhythm of his breathing. But my curiosity got the better of me.
Marc shrugged. “He put up a pretty good effort yesterday.”
“You fought Jace yesterday?” Why had neither of them told me?
“We were just sparring. We had to do something while we waited to hear from you and Kaci, and we both had energy to burn. It was either spar or fight over the motel television’s remote.”
I hesitated, glancing through the crack between the seats again at what little I could see of Jace. He’d gone completely still. Listening. “And he was good?”
Marc nodded. “Put me flat on the ground twice. He’s different since Ethan died. He takes everything more seriously. He’s out for Malone’s blood, and I’d bet my canines he’ll get it.”
I nodded thoughtfully, and Jace relaxed. No doubt Marc was right on all counts—he was attributing the obvious changes to Ethan’s death and Malone’s power play. So far, he was only missing one piece of the puzzle that Jace had become: me.
“So, why did my dad send Jace instead of Vic?” Vic and Marc had been partners for years, and even if Marc didn’t know the details, he knew that Jace’s feelings for me went beyond friendship.
“Because Kaci responds best to him. I think she has a crush on him.”
“Yeah.” I smiled a little at that, and couldn’t help missing—just for a moment—the days when a girl’s innocent crush was as complicated as my own personal life ever got. “But she’s not really thinking along those lines right now. Because of Ethan.” And because of everything else that had gone wrong.
By then, Jace’s breathing had evened out, and his hand had gone slack on his own thigh. Finally I could relax with Marc, confident we weren’t being overheard. Not by Jace, anyway.
I leaned on Marc’s shoulder, and he curled his fingers around mine where they stuck out from my cast. He stared at my left hand, and I knew he was picturing his ring there. But I’d never actually worn it on my finger. It was on a silver chain in an envelope in the top drawer of my dresser.
“I was half-afraid they’d taken you both straight to Malone,” Marc whispered, leaning his head against mine. “I thought we’d have to execute a full-scale rescue.”
“You think it’d be that easy?”
Marc thought as the flight attendants pushed the cart closer. The metallic rattle and the hiss of soda being opened almost drowned out his words. “I think taking you would be the biggest mistake he’s ever made. Possibly his first real tactical error.”