I’m so sorry. Did I wake you?”
“I was awake. Be glad I was.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“It’s risky, okay?”
“What? To touch you? I didn’t touch you.”
“The blanket did. Just don’t do it. For your own sake.”
“All right.”
“Have you slept?” he asked.
“Mostly, yes.”
“Even though you’re in a new place with a man you barely know and are about to give birth?”
“I’ve had nightmares for months. Tonight I didn’t.” She gave a little wave and left.
Nightmares. Were hers anything like his? Did she wake up swinging?
Unable to fall asleep, he turned on the television again, settling on a rerun of Friends. He must’ve slept a little, but as soon as the sky lightened, he grabbed his car keys and left the house, needing to get out where he could breathe. Needing not to talk to Keri until he’d given more thought to their situation, wanting to reconcile his memory of her and how he’d clung to it all this time, with the facts before him—that she was here in his hometown. And pregnant.
Primal, protective instincts were overtaking him. He needed to think more logically about everything. Which meant not making small talk first thing this morning.
He drove without a destination, then ended up at Joe’s place. Donovan would be bunking with their youngest brother.
Jake pulled up beside the house, one Joe had shared with Dixie for the better part of ten years, on and off. Off again now, though. Jake didn’t mind waking Joe up, but he would’ve thought twice about dropping in so early had Dixie still cohabited.
Joe was already up, however, walking through his garden, a mug of coffee in hand as he deadheaded flowers. His job as a landscaper started early each day.
“Got some more of that?” Jake asked, indicating the mug.
“Donny’s here. What do you think?”
Which meant there was always a pot being brewed.
Jake followed his brother into the house, then into the kitchen. “The place looks good. You painted the outside.”
“Yeah. Group project.”
“Family project.”
Joe nodded, a slight, aggrieved smile on his face. He took a mug from the cupboard, poured Jake a cup then they both leaned against the counter and sipped.
“Looks like you’re doing most of the gardens in town, Joe. It’s all photo worthy.”
“I have a crew of twenty now. We’re busy all the time. Not just residential but quite a few commercial accounts. It’s steady and profitable.”
Jake wondered at Joe’s low-key responses and tone. He used to be the liveliest brother, the most outgoing and talkative. He looked the same—his shower-wet brown hair was tied back in the ponytail he’d had since he was fourteen, and he wore a T-shirt, shorts and work boots, as usual—but something had changed.
“Think Dixie would cut my hair?” Jake asked.
“I’m sure of it, but are you sure you want her to? She’ll ask questions.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to answer them.”
Joe shifted slightly. “Thanks for having Donny tell me what was going on. I worried less. Sort of,” he added with a small smile.
“I figure Donny’s in risky situations often enough, too. I wanted more than just him to know what was happening. Who to contact. You’re the only one who came to mind. I know a lot of extra responsibility has been put on you, Joe, since Dad died.”
“I can handle it.”
“I know that, too. I just wanted you to know I appreciate it.”
“Me, too,” Donovan said, coming into the kitchen and heading straight for the coffeepot. “I don’t say it often enough.”
“True.” Turning to Jake, Joe said, “Speaking of extra responsibility and what you’ve been doing these past months, I don’t know how Keri fits in. Where she fits in.”
Jake hoped by talking about it, some of the memories would fade. He was tired of living with them all the time. “Keri and I were kidnapped together, along with the man she’d been private nurse to for several months.”
“Kidnapped? And this is the first I’m hearing about it?”
“I’m telling you now, Joe. Hidalgo Escobar, Keri’s patient, had been on the waiting list for a liver transplant for months.”
“In Venezuela?”
“Yes. I was on an assignment there and had come across intelligence that Escobar was a target of a hardcore kidnapping group, one that makes a living off ransoming people. I tracked down Escobar and warned him—and Keri, too, since she was always with him. They were supposed to wait for a helicopter to take them to the hospital when they got the call that a liver had been found for him. The helicopter never showed, so they headed to the hospital, a two-hour drive from Caracas.”
He and Keri had argued that first time he’d met her, but that wasn’t something he would tell Joe. In the end, she hadn’t taken his advice, had specifically gone against it, in fact, because she felt she had to, that Escobar’s survival depended on it.
“She didn’t call you?” Joe asked.
“They hadn’t hired me, but when the copter didn’t show, she did call me.” He’d told her to stay put, but she’d insisted the transplant team wouldn’t wait long before contacting the next person on the list. “What was I supposed to do? Let her take Escobar alone? Unfortunately, for medical reasons, she refused to wait. I met them on the road to Caracas, but it was too late. We were accosted by armed men, forced into their van, blindfolded and taken to a location miles away.”
Jake dumped his coffee down the drain, the taste suddenly bitter. “It was an inside job, involving someone at the hospital who knew all the details—Escobar’s address and when he would be on his way. The helicopter was prevented from taking off. My presence was a surprise, but everything else was according to plan. They knew they could get a lot of money for Escobar anytime, but especially right at that moment, when his life depended on it.”
Joe joined him at the sink. “So he was ransomed?”
“Within hours.”
“But not you?”
“Or Keri.” The leader of the gang, a loose cannon named Marco, had taken a fancy to her. They’d decided to demand a ransom for Jake but keep Keri for a while. Jake wouldn’t give them a contact for himself. He wouldn’t leave Keri alone, period.
“What
