Shielded In The Shadows

“We continue to have a personal side to our relations and see where it goes.”

As in...see if it took them into a partnership that might not end? She had to know but was afraid to ask.

Didn’t want to push him. Or herself, either.

“We’ve worked well together, this past week and a half,” she said, thinking about all that they’d been through. Disagreeing about Bill. Her accident. Dinners and the greatest sex she’d ever had. He’d been a companion through much of it. Professional and otherwise.

“I like having you around,” she admitted.

His sideways glance at her contained a grin. Her body started to flame again. “I like being around,” he told her.

“So if we both keep liking it...say, for a long time, we’re agreeing to let that happen?”

He looked her way again. Nodded.

“And if, at some point, we want more, like to become a family of some sort? What then? I’m not talking about you fathering my child, or even being a dad, but more like an uncle...”

Still turned her way in the darkness, he leaned back and slightly away from her. “It’s not going to happen, Em. The family part. I’m never going to marry or be any kind of a father figure to any children. It’s a choice I’ve made. I thought you understood that.”

He didn’t speak with ease. She could hear the intensity behind his words. And the pain.

Reaching a hand up to his face, she broke all their rules at once. “Why?” Pushing. Wanting. Needing. She wasn’t sure what she’d want their bond to look like in the future. Wasn’t sure she’d ever trust life and love enough to marry again. But she knew she needed to know if there was a chance. “I need to know why, Jayden.”

He remained silent, let her touch him, but didn’t touch back.

“I want this—us—more than anything I can remember,” she said, unable to just give up. “We fit each other...” At least for now. Committed to their work like they were...anyone else would be hurt by the job coming first, but not Jayden. And not her. They understood the need. The drive.

“I just need to know why, Jayden. Please?”

When he shook his head, the disappointment was so crushing, she couldn’t get up at first. Her hand slid from his face, but she sat there, struggling. Not knowing what to do.

Afraid she was going to cry. And that was something she’d promised herself she’d never do again. Not over a man...

“I killed a boy.”

Emma had no idea what she’d been expecting, but it most definitely had not been that. Unmoving on the couch, she stared at the man with whom she was afraid she was falling in love. And his face was filled with a pain more severe than anything she’d ever known.

* * *

Jayden had never expected to hear those words, in his voice, outside his own head. Wasn’t even sure he’d said them aloud at first, as he sat there trying to make out Emma’s expression in the darkness.

“He was my friend. Or rather, a kid that worshipped me that I took for granted.” He wasn’t going to spare himself. Especially not with her.

Things were getting far too emotionally dangerous, threatening his life as it needed to be.

She wanted to open the door to signing on with him. Because she didn’t completely know him.

That was why he had to tell her.

“What happened?” She hadn’t pulled back. If anything, she’d leaned closer.

“I grew up an only child who could do no wrong, in a wealthy home with parents who adored me. I was entitled, self-centered, and sure I’d get my own way, whatever way I chose that to be. I worked hard, but things came easy to me, too. I was a B student because I didn’t need the A and didn’t want to spend time studying. I wanted to play sports, any and all of them. I chose football, was the quarterback of my high school team all four years, made state, and then chose not to play in college. Too many other things that I wanted to tackle.”

“Did you do drugs?” she asked.

“No.” His father wouldn’t have tolerated that. “But I could put away some beers. And I used a fake ID and went to a strip club for my sixteenth birthday.” He was giving her the stuff that mattered. The misdeeds that defined him.

“Did you ever get arrested?”