you still get to carry a gun.”
Jessica laughed. “And I still get to carry a gun. I’m so used to it that it’s become a part of me. In fact, I carry it with me all the time.”
“Lucky for all of us,” Jamie said. “It was nice meeting you, Jessica.”
“Nice meeting you, too, Jamie.”
Then she turned and walked toward the door, her words about working with people whom she loved and admired still ringing in Ryan’s ears. Her meaning hadn’t been lost on him. She hadn’t loved him or even held him in very high regard. He pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything as he watched her go.
When she’d disappeared out the door, he turned back to his brother, who was staring at him with a slight smile curling his lips.
“I don’t know what happened between you two,” Jamie said, “but it must have been bad. There was enough heat in her voice to singe the hairs on my arms. What did you do to her anyway?”
“Nothing,” Ryan muttered.
“Nothing? I know women can be hard to understand at times, but I didn’t have any trouble getting her message. She doesn’t like you at all. You must have done something to make her feel that way.”
Ryan reached over and pounded his fist against the countertop. The officers talking to the clerk whirled at the sound and stared at him.
“Spencer, are you okay?” one of the men asked.
He rubbed his hand across his eyes. “I’m fine. Still a little rattled over how close my brother came to dying.”
They nodded and went back to their questioning.
Jamie stared at Ryan and frowned. “I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing. I just thought Jessica seemed like such a nice person.”
“She is a nice person. We had a disagreement, and it’s never been solved.”
Jamie narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I see. Then maybe it’s time you did something about that. From the way she reacted to that robber and took control of the entire situation, I’d say there aren’t many women around like her.”
“You’re right about that. There aren’t many like her.”
Jamie stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Do you remember when I first came to live with you after Mom and Dad were killed and I had so many problems adjusting?”
Ryan chuckled. “How could I forget? You nearly drove me crazy for two years.”
“Yeah, I gave you a lot of trouble. But you didn’t give up on me. And when I’d come home telling you about how everybody was against me, you always made me face up to my own mistakes. You didn’t make excuses for me and wouldn’t let me make them for myself. Maybe it’s time you quit making excuses for whatever you did to Jessica and try to make it right.”
Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know if I can or not.”
Jamie punched him on the shoulder and grinned. “You’ll never know unless you try. What have you got to lose? The worst thing that can happen is that she’ll hate you more than she already does.”
Ryan stared at his brother in surprise. “When did you get so smart?”
Jamie laughed and shrugged. “I always have been. I just didn’t want you to know it. Now, do as I say and get things straightened out with Jessica.”
He thought for a moment about what his brother had said, then turned to him and smiled. “Maybe I will. Maybe I will.”
Turning away from Jamie, he walked to the front door and stared out at Jessica as she climbed into her car, which was parked to the left of the entrance. She sat behind the steering wheel for a moment as if deep in thought before she finally started the ignition and backed out of her parking space.
As he watched her car disappear down the street, he thought of how he’d wrestled for the past four years with the decision of whether or not to try one more time to mend his relationship with Jessica. She’d been the best friend he’d ever had, and he missed her. But there was no getting around the fact that she didn’t miss him.
Did he dare try again to explain his side of their misunderstanding?
After a moment, he inhaled and muttered to himself, “It’s time to set the past straight. And this time, Jessica Knight, I’m not taking no for an answer. You are going to listen to me.”
Jessica pulled into her parking space behind the apartment complex where she lived, turned off the ignition and stared at the walkway that led through what she supposed some people might call a backyard. Not her, though. To her a backyard was a wide-open lawn with flower beds in the spring and shade trees to sit underneath in the summer. But the crowning touch would be a child’s swing set and a grill for barbecues.
She lay back against the headrest and closed her eyes as she let her imagination fly to the life she wanted to have one day. Right now, though, it seemed as if her dreams would never come true. She was twenty-eight years old, almost twenty-nine, and she hadn’t had a serious boyfriend since high school. The guy she’d dated in college didn’t count because he didn’t like her brothers, and that was a deal breaker for her.
Her parents had worried when she became a police officer. Even more so when she joined the Knight Agency as a bounty hunter. They feared what might happen to her. And it almost had today. That bullet had come way too close.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she recalled the rush of air across her face and the smell of barbecued potato chips when the bullet struck the rack beside her. Her body began to shake as the scene in the store replayed in her mind. Why was she suddenly reacting this way?
Post-traumatic shock, she told herself. That was what it was. She’d studied it when she was a police officer and knew it was likely to happen after suffering an event where a person felt intense fear or horror. She also knew that it occurred more in women than in men.
But was that really what was wrong with her? She’d faced dangerous situations before and had never had this feeling of powerlessness. Maybe she was just tired and needed some rest.
Or maybe it was something else. Something she didn’t want to recognize.
Shaking her head in denial, she stepped from the car and headed down the short flagstone walkway that led toward the back door of her apartment. As she stepped onto the porch, she looked over her shoulder at the small grassy area the complex owners advertised as a yard. It wasn’t what she envisioned as a garden area, but it was okay for now. Maybe it was time to start looking for a new place with a backyard big enough for her to putter around in when she wasn’t working.
With a sigh she slipped the key in the lock and was about to walk through the back door when she heard the sound of a car engine. She glanced over her shoulder and stared at the black SUV that drove slowly past the parked cars behind the complex. It stopped when it reached near where her car was parked and sat there, its engine idling.
Jessica squinted
