Luke again, I think, but I let it go. I’ve given up on her calling me Lucifer. Hell, she can call me whatever she wants. It won’t change what she thinks of me. “All of this is related to Kasey, Ana. The end. I’d risk my life on it, and as you remember, I already have. But the bottom line is, both of us might as well have pulled the trigger and killed Jake. Our dysfunctional relationship made you shoot me, and then I walked away rather than making sure the trouble died with your brother.”
“You mean I did this.”
“No. You didn’t make me walk away. I’m responsible for my own decisions. You didn’t do this. I didn’t do this. We did.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
ANA
We did this.
We killed Jake, or rather, we got him killed.
Together, Luke and I were the perfect storm of events that led us to a place of death and destruction. But ultimately, I started the storm, and the idea that I’m the reason Jake is dead, and his pregnant daughter no longer has a father and her unborn child a grandfather is almost too much for me to stomach.
Next to me, Luke tries to reach Adam and Savage again to no avail, trying to catch them when they can talk and we can as well, and cranking up the radio with country tunes in between attempts. He’s filling the empty space with anything but our words and I can’t say I blame him.
I almost killed him.
That entire week haunts me. I lost my brother. I blamed Luke when I’d never thought him capable of such a thing. Being with him again only drives that tormenting point home.
My mind goes back to that horrible, brutal night. Trevor had gotten to me first. I’d been at work when he’d called. “I need to see you now. Where are you?”
“I’m on duty. I won’t be home until late tonight.”
“I need to see you now. It’s urgent.”
There is evident panic in his voice, and Trevor isn’t a panicking kind of guy. “What’s wrong?”
“Just meet me at your house. Now, Ana. It needs to be now.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and block out the memory, I don’t want to remember, but I cannot escape it. But there is no denying that the right here and now circles back to that week. Unbidden, a mental image of Jake lying face down on his kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood tortures me. He was my godfather, the last of those I considered my family.
Inwardly, I shake myself and open my eyes only to realize we’re already inside Boulder’s city limits. My gaze goes to the rearview mirror.
“We’re clear,” Luke says, reading my intent. “And this is our drop-off spot.” He turns us into an office complex on a hilly incline, with heavy tree cover and a cluster of at least a dozen vehicles. Once we’re parked in the rear corner, with no other cars near us, he kills the engine.
“Do we even know who we’re meeting?” I ask, antsy that our present location could prove the perfect camouflage for us to hide or for someone else to kill us.
“We’re not meeting anyone. This guy is a driver and nothing more. He doesn’t know us, he won’t ever know us, and I like it that way.”
As if on cue, a black sedan pulls to the front of the building. It’s always a black sedan, and I always fear that with the desire to be nondescript and basic, we’re actually being quite noticeable.
“That’s our ride, sweetheart,” Luke says. “Stay here. Let me make sure I feel good about the driver.” He leaves the keys in the ignition and exits the vehicle.
Concerned he might need back-up, I open my door and exit as well. The morning is mild, the moment casual, if not for my awareness of my weapon in my holster and my two-day-old clothes. I’m dirty. I’m exhausted. I’m twisted in emotional knots. But as Kurt would have said, none of these are an excuse for letting down my guard.
I scan the area and then watch Luke approach the idling vehicle, his confident saunter and broad shoulders stirring a reaction in me that, putting history aside, should not even be possible for obvious reasons. But, then again, my reaction to all things Luke Remington has always been unexplainably, overwhelmingly present, and impossible to fight.
And that, it seems, has not changed.
I still feel a flutter in my belly every time he looks at me.
I still notice every time the dimple on his left cheek quirks in that sexy way it does when he’s amused or irritated.
I still feel his every little touch with such intensity that I might as well be naked and in his arms.
And when he kissed me—my God, when he kissed me—I melted. How could I not? He still kisses me like I’m the only thing he breathes for. Even after what I did to him.