Chapter Thirteen
On Thursday, in between seeing patients, Jackie explained to her co-workers that she had a family emergency and would be flying to Virginia in the morning. She had her assistant, Tiffany, call and reschedule her patients for next week. Then Jackie contacted Henry Wiggins who, while concerned for the aforementioned “emergency”, sounded delighted to come in for a couple of days. Close-knit as they all were, everyone’s concern made Jackie cringe with guilt. She couldn’t tell them the truth, that she was bait to draw out a drug-dealing, silver bullet shooting, big game hunter away from town to avoid a shifter massacre. That would only create massive panic and fear for everyone’s safety.
But nothing galled her more than hearing from one of her afternoon patients how sweet Zan was to accompany Jackie to Virginia while she went through this difficult time. Jackie swore she was going to kick his ass when she next saw him. The man managed to push every single one of her buttons, good and bad, and he wasn’t even present. She hadn’t felt this physically violent—and yes aroused—since she’d been a teenager going through puberty.
When he’d had the bad luck to call her at work right after that particular patient left, Jackie was still in a furious snit. When he told her he just wanted to hear her voice, the only thing preventing Jackie from telling Zan where he could shove his fake adoration was Tiffany’s keen interest and more prudent, her keener hearing. Though Jackie did inquire—without the sharp guilt from this morning—about Zan’s eye, referring to an incident that occurred late last night.
It seemed that tagging skills came in handy for a variety of scenarios. Joe had managed to place a tracker on Shider’s vehicle when it had slowed past Kaylie’s and Dean’s driveway last night. Utilizing the electronic bug and the GPS program linked into their phones, Joe and Scott left to keep tabs on Shider while Zan followed Jackie home to keep an eye on her.
By the provocative gleam in his eyes, it was clear he wanted them specifically on her naked body, and while Jackie felt the same urge—to rip off his clothes and take him hard and fast actually—she informed Zan that her bedroom was off-limits. Then she’d slammed the door in his face.
But that’s not when he received the black eye. Oh no. That happened hours later when Jackie woke from one of those stupid dreams where she was being chased, and while she was running as fast as she could, she wasn’t moving a damn inch. Still tangled in her dream, she’d reacted to the dark figure looming over her by planting her fist in the vicinity of the shadow’s face. Unfortunately, it’d been Zan who’d heard her cry out in her dream and had come to check on her.
Oops.
Now, as she parked in her driveway, she glanced at her purse on the passenger seat, and had a deja vue moment. She never did take the sleeping pills last night, too afraid that Shider would somehow sneak past Joe and Scott, break into her house and kill Zan while she slept oblivious in her bedroom. To add to her stress, every time she passed a window in the clinic, she would glance out, searching for men sitting in cars, watching her.
Hey. Just because she was paranoid didn’t mean they weren’t out to get her. She just didn’t know whom they were. The names, yeah, but as she had no idea what Shider looked like, he or one of his men could walk up and plant a big wet one on her lips and she’d have no clue.
Finally home, the muscles in her shoulders and neck tight with stress, she unlocked her front door, stepping inside and muttering, “That will need to be rectified.”
“What will?”
Jackie let out an abbreviated shriek. “God! You have got to stop doing that!”
Zan grinned at her from the archway leading into the kitchen. “Stop doing what?”
“Breaking into my house!” She glared at him, seeing the bruise that surrounded his left eye already beginning to fade. And while a black eye might detract from the looks of most men, it only made Zan appear tougher, more masculine. Like he’d been through a battle and come out the victor, especially if that smirk had anything to do with it. Speaking of which...
“I didn’t break in. I have a key.”
“A key? What key?” She paused and then brushed past him to pull open her junk drawer. “You took my spare key?”
“Figured I’d need it. Now don’t go all She-Ra on me again. The boys will be here in thirty minutes. And while I know how I’d like to spend that time,” the glowing heat in his eyes was a near physical caress as they traveled slowly over her body, as if remembering every inch he’d once revealed and wanted to discover anew. “I promised myself next time I would take you slow and easy, and I don’t break my promises.”