Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(16)

And thank God for that. He’d been in controlled airplane crashes. He’d parachuted from shitty planes with even shittier parachutes into enemy territory. Crawled miles with a broken leg. He’d repeat any of those experiences—heck, all of them together, in a blink of an eye—if that meant deleting the one he’d had today.

“The grandmas from the Eternal Sun called, saying that some Terminator-looking guy had come to pick Elle up and was escorting her back to Boston. I figured it was you. What gives?” James asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Nothing.”

James didn’t believe him. Not even for a second. Jack knew him well enough to read his friend’s silence.

“Elle with you?” James asked.

“I left her at her house to rest a bit. Now I’m going to her.” He’d had to pick up some of his stuff and Elle had told him she needed to sleep. She’d been running on fumes, so he’d driven her home and ordered her to wait for him and open to no one.

She hadn’t seemed to be too happy about it, but she’d saluted him mockingly and hadn’t challenged him.

James’s tone was concerned. “How much trouble is she in?”

“She saw something she shouldn’t have seen while doing some dumb shit she shouldn’t have been doing. Nothing you should worry about. I’m on it.” James wanted answers, but Jack couldn’t give them to him. The Bowens would freak out, get in Elle’s face, and try forcing her into hiding…which was actually what Jack thought she should do, but she’d trusted him. He knew how important it was for her to stay and do right by her sister and the restaurant, and for some unfathomable reason, he wanted to give that to her.

“What the hell is going on?” James asked as Jack parked in front of her place and got out of the car. “You’ve been running away from Elle since ever. What do you mean you’re ‘on it’?”

He walked to the door and rang the doorbell, but there was no answer.

“James, I have to go.” As he rang the bell again, he disconnected the call.

Nothing.

Shit, f*ck. After glancing discreetly around, he picked the lock.

The place was totally silent. And empty.

Not even twenty-four hours and she’d ditched him already.





Chapter Five


“Thanks for the ride, sweetie,” Elle told Barney while she jumped off the pushback and blew him a kiss. She got into her car, drove as fast as she could to the office, left all the documents from her last flight, and rushed on foot to the check-in counters. It was at moments like this she missed her sneakers the most. Who said airline agents had to wear pencil skirts and heels? Someone who had never worked at an airport, obviously.

“Here you are,” Louise called when Elle approached the counter. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it on time.”

“Please, girlie. I haven’t missed him even once in the last year,” she answered and started typing on their reservation system. “Not going to start now.”

Elle had managed to switch her flight-coordinating duties for supervising the check-in for this intercontinental, so all was good.

She still couldn’t believe that Jack had fallen for the old I’m-tired-going-to-sleep trick. Maybe the trauma of being puked on by Eve had had something to do with it.

“You sure there won’t be any trace?” Louise asked, watching over Elle’s shoulder.

“No trace. You don’t work around these programs for ten years without picking up a few cheats of your own.”

Elle did her magic and then helped Louise with check-in procedures, making fast work of the line.

Suddenly, she noticed Louise had stilled and was gulping. “Umm, Elle?”

Following Louise’s scared eyes, Elle turned around and saw Jack, looking frigging pissed off, his bulging arms crossed over his broad chest. Fuming.

Damn, that was the risk of being at the counter. Open access to the public.

That would have never happened on the tarmac. And there she had other means of escaping.

Before she could get a single word out, he grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

“You’ve been bugging the shit out of me for over half a year with inconsequential e-mails, and when you find yourself in trouble you decide to ditch me?” he growled.

“How did you find me?”

“Check your purse.”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God. You put a bug in my purse? Do you know what kind of privacy invasion that is?”

Apparently he didn’t consider it such a big deal, because he snorted.

He dragged her to a far corner, and then he got in her face, his expression menacing. “What the f*ck were you thinking? Is it all a big f*cking joke to you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what the hell are you doing? What part of ‘stay home until I get back’ didn’t you get?” he snarled.

“I had to go to work. I have a life, you know?”

He obviously didn’t think so. “You had to stay home, sleeping like we agreed. Or what do you think, that I don’t have anything else to do than chase you around Boston? You unhappy with this arrangement? Because I’m not bouncing from happiness either. There are a million places I’d rather be than here, stuck with you.”