Lucky Break (Lucky 3)

“It’s always been there. Ever since the committee refused my appeal…when I realized that nobody would ever believe in me again. I just never let you see it.” He stared out the window into the dark night. “Hell, I try not to see it myself.”

Lauren stood and crossed the room, raising her hand to his face. “Jason, you have always been the most honest, determined, goal-

oriented man I’ve ever met. I’d trust you with my life. How can you not believe in yourself?”

Instead of comforting him, her words only served to remind him of his failures. His current lack of a goal, a dream.

“I don’t believe in myself because I allowed my goals to be taken away from me. And I haven’t replaced them with anything meaningful since.” He turned and walked out of the room.

TWO DAYS of tense silence passed. Two days of nonstop work on the house to fill the time while waiting for news on Beth. The insurance adjuster came and went. He took photographs to submit to the company and promised to get back to them. Meanwhile, Lauren felt brittle, yet somehow she kept moving, thoughts of Paris keeping her going. She had to focus on her upcoming debut, because nothing here in Perkins made sense.

Since their conversation the day of her sister’s escape, Jason had withdrawn. They slept in the same bed but he made no overtures toward her, and when she rolled on top of him in her sleep, he pulled away. She ought to be grateful he was giving her the distance she’d been asking for.

She wasn’t.

He’d become a man filled with his own demons. Demons she believed he’d suppressed beneath a brave facade until his father’s comment shattered the illusion he’d created for himself.

She ached for him, surprised he couldn’t see that his father’s perception of him was dead-on.

And she was angry at herself for being so emotionally invested in Jason, since it was going to be that much harder to leave him behind.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Jason placed Trouble’s food bowl on the kitchen floor and the cat dove for his meal. The feline devoured the canned food while Jason wondered how even a cat could eat such foul-smelling stuff. “Better you than me,” he muttered.

He called his crew together and gave them assignments for the day while he could look forward to haggling with the insurance adjuster. The sooner they agreed on a settlement, the sooner he could begin work on the area damaged in the fire. If they finished in time for closing, Lauren would accomplish her goal, sell the house and walk out of his life. The end was near.

He was finished deluding himself and he had his father and Lauren to thank for opening his eyes. “You’re in good hands,” his father had told her.

“He’s proud of you,” Lauren had said.

They’d inadvertently brought him face-to-face with the past he’d been trying to outrun. He wasn’t over it yet, much as he’d tried to lose himself in Lauren and pretend otherwise. And when she was gone, he’d have plenty of time on his hands to figure it all out.

In the meantime, he’d been giving her what she wanted-the emotional distance that would make it easier to leave later. He’d taken a lesson from Lauren and put up his own walls to protect himself, even though he knew it wouldn’t make losing her hurt any less.

“Jason!” Lauren called from across the house. “Jason!” He started for the bedroom but she came running, meeting him in the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?”

“Beth’s doctor just called on my cell and you’ll never guess who came to the prison not long before the fire and Beth’s escape?” Her cheeks were pink, her words rushed.

Only one name came to mind. “Brody Pittman?”

She nodded. “He said he left his tools, and because he’d had clearance before, they let him in. But nobody had turned in any tools after the construction work finished. And within half an hour, my sister had escaped.”

“So there is some connection between them.”

“Looks that way. The police have an APB out on them both.”

Jason tried to follow the logic in his brain and couldn’t. “Let’s talk this through. So your sister and Brody meet up at the prison. We don’t know how long ago. In the meantime, you come to the house and find it’s been vandalized, right?”

Eyes wide, Lauren nodded. “Go on.”

“Then one day, Pittman gets himself hired at JR Plumbing, the only plumber in town, so he can end up here when your hot water heater breaks.”

“Or was tampered with?” she asked.

“I knew you were smart.” He grinned. “Okay, what reason would your sister have for sending Brody Pittman here to screw with the house?”

Lauren hazarded a guess. “She didn’t want me to sell it?”