Blood pools everywhere, and Jacob drags him to the spare bedroom where he can stay until the cops can come.
Jacob tosses me the tape, telling me to do the honors.
“I think you should shut this fucker up. Don't you?”
I grin to him. “You said I was the sexy one. But those words really turn me on.”
I pull a length of tape and I use my teeth to tear it off. And then I slap it on that asshole’s face with as much force as I can muster. I didn't shoot him dead, but I am going to make him suffer. Of course, I want to be alone with Jacob, but that's not going to happen until the police get here and this man is out of here once and for all.
Jacob has the idea to have me go shower and get cleaned up before the cops arrive.
I shower as quickly as possible. Truth is, I just want to be next to Jacob's side, holding him, touching him, my hands against his, his arms wrapped around mine. I hate being alone, without him.
After everything I've been through today, I can't believe I shot a man twice. I can't believe I got so lucky to be able to actually make that psychopath pay.
I wash my hair with Jacob’s soap, feeling more clean than I ever have before. My freshly scrubbed body is both raggedly raw and brand new.
And I'm thankful that Jacob has set out a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt for me. They're huge, of course, but I don't care. They smell like him – woodsy and clean and all man. I breathe them in. I comb my hair. I braid it too, thankful for the elastic on my wrist. I pull Jacob’s big, thick, wooly socks on my feet and I feel protected, cared for and like I am his baby. Just what he promised.
When I go back into the living room, I see Jacob has cleaned himself up too – washed his face and put on new clothes. My captor is moaning in agony in the spare room. I wish the police had arrived, but while we wait, Jacob has made us a cheese board with salami and crackers – God knows he had plenty of cheese after his shopping trip this morning, and I make us hot cocoa. It's actually the perfect meal, nourishing and simple and just sweet enough to make me feel like everything is going to be okay.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?” he asks. “Dinner? Baby, I'll make you dinner any night of the week.”
I smile. “I meant thank you for opening that gun safe and trusting me with your weapons. I mean, we just met.”
He shrugs. “I feel like I've known you forever.”
“So, what do you do up here?” I ask him, taking a bite of a sharp cheddar. “I mean, you live in the woods alone, and I have no idea what you do to occupy your time.”
He grins. “I'm a writer too, Juniper Jones.”
“What?!” I nearly choke on my slice of cheese. “What in the world do you write?”
“I write children’s books. A series about Patty Cake the P—"
“The Polar Bear?!? That is you? I love that series. But you write as Spencer Whitaker.” I shake my head, trying to catch on.
“I publish using my son’s name. They were his favorite animal, polar bears. And so, after he passed, I moved up here and started a series to deal with losing him.”
Tears spring to my eyes, and I get up from the table, moving to Jacob’s lap, climbing into it.
“Jacob, you are incredible,” I say, running my hands over his beard, staring into his eyes.
“Polar bears bought us both here.” Jacob kisses my wrists. “Fate.”
I nod. “Something like that.”
“Is it possible to fall in love in the space of a day?”
I smile back at him. “Of course it is, we're writers. We can do anything we want.”
“You know that I wish that guy would leave already,” Jacob says as Thomas moans loudly from the spare room. “I really want to be alone with you.”
Just then we hear tires crunch on the driveway. The police have arrived. “Thank God,” I say, “I did not want to go to bed with that man still here.”
“So you're planning on staying the night?” Jacob asks. “You don't want me to drive you back to the Icicle Inn?”
I laugh. “You'd have me go back to the Icicle Inn tonight?”
“Look, I'm not going to assume anything. You're your own woman. A bad-ass one at that. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
“Well, if I get to choose whatever the hell I want, I want you. Plain and simple. You are the hero of my story, Jacob Whitaker.”
11
JACOB
A week later, Juniper and I are at the polar bear sanctuary. Earlier today we did the crazy tradition of the “Polar Bear Plunge” where you jump into the local lake even though it’s freezing cold out. Many of the residents in town do the plunge to mark the beginning of something new in their lives… and we felt like it was only appropriate to do it ourselves considering our new relationship.