Behind the Lies (Montgomery Justice #2)(24)

He jumped off the bed, and Zach closed the curtain. “I’m not moving from this spot. Call if you need me.”

There was silence. Sam stood waiting, and Zach listened. A clatter sounded.

Zach threw open the curtain. Jenna stood in a pair of underwear, her shirt halfway on. Her long legs went on forever, though one was lined with a crisscross of barely healing cuts. Zach studied the injury before the truth slapped him. Cuts from the glass on the top of the wall surrounding his home.

She let out a puff as she struggled with her shirt. She’d tangled the material around her. At the flash of her full breasts, Zach held his breath and walked across the room. He shoved her hands aside and righted the material.

A blush rose up her cheeks.

The awareness between them crackled like the latest Colorado wildfire. Zach shoved the feelings aside. He didn’t get involved with married women. Period.

It was the one line he didn’t cross. She tempted him, though. Boy did she. He snagged her jeans from the chair and held them out.

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” he said.

She hesitated.

He met her gaze. “It’s either this or your ass stays in the hospital tonight,” he said under his breath, sending a sidelong look at Sam, who had poked his head around the curtain.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” Jenna whispered. “No one does. Not anymore.”

She jerked the jeans away from him and shuffled over to a chair. She sat down and slid the denim on. When she pulled them over her knees she stood up, braced herself, then lifted them over the scrap of lace she called underwear.

Zach hovered near her while she glared at him, motioning to her son. She grasped Sam’s hand. “We’re leaving, baby.”

Sam stared up at her. “You’re hurt, Mommy. You need the Dark Avenger.”

Jenna took a shuddering breath. She placed her hands on her knees. “We can make it, Junior Avenger. This is our adventure.”

He crossed his arms.

Stubborn little guy with a good head on his shoulders. Zach stepped in. “Buddy, I think you should come with me. Your mommy needs someone to watch her tonight. Is it all right if I take care of her?”

Sam looked from his mom to Zach. He nodded his head.

Jenna glared at Zach, but he just shrugged. If he let her out of his sight, she’d keel over.

Her flitting focus measured the distance to the door. Zach narrowed his gaze at her. He bent down, his mouth near her ear. “Don’t try it. Not until you can stand for five minutes without falling over. If not for you, for Sam.”

Her confidence wavered.

“Look, stay with me tonight. Doc said you should be much better tomorrow.”

Jenna rose, her legs still shaky. Zach steadied her, but she shrugged his touch away. Stubborn woman.

“You don’t know what you’re getting involved with.”

Zach shook his head and chuckled. “Honey, I could say the same thing.” He tilted her chin up. “I’ll make you a deal. Come home with me. Tomorrow, I’ll spot you the cash you need to go wherever you want.”

She stared up at him, her expression stunned…and suspicious. “Why would you do that?”

“Let’s just say Brad isn’t on the top of my favorites list.” Zach glanced pointedly to Sam.

Jenna let out a long sigh. “I need to regroup,” she admitted. “Just for tonight.” She clutched his arm. “You won’t tell anyone where we are?”

“No one for me to tell.”

She nodded, then winced, pressing her hand against her forehead. “Just for tonight. Then you can forget you ever saw me or Sam.”

Zach pushed her dark hair away from the white bandage on her forehead. “I doubt I’ll forget this day anytime soon, Jenna Walters,” he said, his voice soft.

Taking Sam’s hand, slowly, steadily, she walked out of the room, refusing the wheelchair the nurse brought in.

Zach hovered near her. He admired her grit. And her stubbornness. She’d be fine. Zach could counter Brad Walters’s money advantage. And before she left, Zach could make certain Jenna could defend herself. He refused to leave her without the skills to make a new life. If he could strong-arm a friend or two—given he still had them—Brad Walters might conveniently lose his job jockeying computers and be forced to leave Jenna alone.

Still, the sooner he got her and Sam on their way, the better. It wouldn’t be long before his enemies caught up with him. They had more tools at their disposal than he did. He couldn’t let Jenna and Sam be caught in the middle.

She swayed, and Zach wrapped his arm around her waist, unable to ignore the soft curves pressed against him. Not silicone, not fake. A real, live woman with a heart and soul and strength.

She might have made a wrong choice, but she possessed the courage to change things. It couldn’t have been easy.

Another time, another place, Jenna might have been a woman to tempt him to settle down.

Too bad by the time she and Sam started their new life, Zach would probably be dead.




Jenna didn’t want to lean on Zach Montgomery. She didn’t want to rely on anyone. Not again. She had to find the scrappy kid she’d hidden away when Brad had found her. The girl who could pick a pocket without her target having a clue; the girl who could hot-wire a car in thirty seconds, not the minute it had taken her to start Zach’s truck; the girl who’d survived on her own for two years, carelessly overseen by an uncle whose best friends were paid to break kneecaps. Until he’d vanished, leaving her homeless and hungry.