Shattered (LOST #3)(69)

“Sonofabitch,” Wade snapped.

Gabe smiled. “I’m sure Jax is well accustomed to danger.” His head inclined. “But I’m not accustomed to abandoning my team when the shit hits the fan.”

“Gabe—”

“When you get back, I’ll be eager to learn what your father had to say.”

Wade was pacing now. “This is such a bad idea.” He pointed at Gabe. “You thought it was a bad idea five minutes ago, too. Only now you’re changing your mind. What? Is everyone going crazy? Everyone but me?”

“If her father knows who this man is, then she has to see him.” Gabe closed the distance between them. As he gazed down at Sarah, his expression softened. “But be careful, and whatever you do, don’t let that asshole get into your mind again.”

Sarah nodded. She’d try. The goal, this time, was for her to get into the mind of her dear old, twisted dad.

“Be safe,” Gabe told her.

Wade stopped his pacing. “Jax, you guard her with your life, understand?”

“Wade, he doesn’t—” Sarah began.

“No one will hurt her,” Jax promised. “Not without going through me.” His words were flat and cold and scary. Sarah knew that he believed exactly what he’d just said, and, from the grudging nod that Wade gave, she knew that he believed Jax, too.

Jax Fontaine was a powerful, dangerous man.

He was also an enemy that you didn’t want to have.

THE ONLY MOTEL close to Biton Penitentiary was little more than a truck stop. Small and old, the place was not exactly where Jax would have preferred to spend the night with Sarah.

But their plane had landed so late that they couldn’t get in the prison then. It was nearing midnight, and this no-tell motel was their only option.

“Oh, look,” Sarah said. “I think the bed vibrates.”

He heard a squeak and a bounce, and he looked over to see Sarah on the bed. She’d just pushed a button and that bed was seriously moving.

“It does,” Sarah said as she shook.

He dropped their bags and just watched her. Sarah was smiling up at the ceiling and she was . . . humming softly. He frowned because he thought he knew that song.

Jax walked closer to her. “Sarah, what are you humming?”

She immediately stopped. “I don’t hum.”

Uh, yeah. She had been. She’d been humming a tune. And it sounded so familiar to him. Like something he’d heard when he was a kid.

She turned off the bed. Lay still. Her smile was gone. Her whole expression was just . . . empty. Like a light had been switched off inside her.

“Sarah . . .”

She sat up. Stared at him. Only she didn’t look quite like his Sarah. She was different. Cold. And when she looked at him, Jax could have sworn that he saw calculation in her gaze. “I know you want something from me,” she said.

Did he now? “And what’s that?”

“I haven’t figured it out, not exactly. But I mean, why else would you come all this way? Why take these risks? It’s not as if you took one look at me and fell in love.”

He stalked closer. “You seem very sure about that.”

“You’re not the type of man to fall in love. Not at first sight and, well . . . after what happened between you and Emma, maybe not at all.”

He sat on the bed next to her. It immediately sagged beneath his weight. “I care for Emma.”

“Caring and loving aren’t the same.”

He put his hands on either side of Sarah, caging her in place. “And you and Emma aren’t the same, either.”

“Why did you let her go?”

“Because she didn’t really want the man I was. She was looking for a way out.” They’d both been kids on the street, desperate. For a time, they’d clung to each other. “She found her way out.” She’d fought for her freedom from the past. But Jax knew, every time she looked at him, she just saw darkness and pain. She remembered what it was like to have nothing.

To want everything.

“What will you do . . .” Sarah asked and her face was still too emotionless. “When you find your family? Are you going to talk with them? Or are you going—”

“To just keep living my life?” Because that was an option. Doing nothing. “I just want to know who they are.”

Her gaze fell. “Maybe you’re better off not knowing, did you ever think of that?”

Now it was his turn to laugh, and that laughter was bitter. “I grew up with an abuser. He spent his days hitting Charlene, because she’d get between him and me. He took me . . . he was a fucking kidnapper, and in the end, he got exactly what he deserved.”

Death.

“You did it,” Sarah said.

He leaned in closer to her. “You don’t really want me to confess, do you? Because then you might have to tell someone about what I did.”

She didn’t pull away. Her hand lifted and touched his cheek. “No, I won’t tell anyone. Haven’t you realized it yet?” She leaned forward and kissed him. “Your secrets are safe with me.” The kiss was slow, sensual. So soft. Her lips feathered over his and her tongue lightly teased him.

“And you,” he growled back against her delectable mouth, “will always be safe with me.”