I shake my head. This is nuts, I think. That note pinned to my fridge is two years old, and what does it have to do with the butterfly? My mind flashes to the Christmas card that had read: Jewel, it’s our time, or something like that. Why am I even going there though? That card was internal; a member of law enforcement gave it to me. It wasn’t connected to this note, and yet—it feels connected. I need to go by the office before court. I need to see that card.
I leave the note behind, keeping it here and safe, and then turn, only to run smack into Jacob. My hands landing on the hard wall of his chest, while his big hands catch my arms. “What the hell is going on?” he demands.
“I had a nightmare and now I need to get ready for court. Let go of me.”
“Do you have nightmares like that often?”
My defenses flare. “Why is that your business?”
“You were screaming,” he bites out, his jaw shadowed, in need of a shave. “I pulled my weapon and I don’t pull my weapon unless I intend to kill someone.”
He’s got a point. He pulled his gun and he did so to protect me. He deserves an answer. “I process my cases in my sleep,” I say, my fingers closing around his T-shirt. “I wake up with answers. I didn’t—I don’t know if I screamed out. I don’t remember doing that.”
He studies me a moment and then flicks a look at the note on the fridge, before his attention returns to me. “What does that mean to you?”
“Unlike you,” I say, “who feels being cocky is a necessity to winning, my uncle told me that the minute I think I’m ready, I’m too cocky, and I’m not.”
“I’m confident, not cocky. And no disrespect to what your uncle meant, but if you think you’re not ready, you aren’t. In other words, I’m releasing but not letting you go. Because you’re afraid, even if you won’t admit it. I know fear is making you spin out of control and that’s why you’re pushing against my control. Stop pushing back and tell me what I need to know.”
“So you can bulldoze the problem and spook the slayer into killing someone?”
“Don’t make me the enemy,” he bites out. “I would take a bullet for you, woman.”
“I’m not making you the enemy.”
“You are, and it can’t continue, because whatever this is, whoever is behind it, I’m standing between you and it. And that should earn me trust and communication,” He releases me, and turns away, walking toward the living room.
Angry.
Oh yes.
So very angry.
I don’t immediately follow, because, damn it, when no one knows how to hit my nerves, he has done so yet again. He’s uncovered my fear of being too confident, that at times creates insecurity in me. He’s found my doubt in my uncle’s words that I don’t want to feel. I inhale and glance to my right to discover Jacob headed towards my bedroom, with his bag in his hand. “Hey!” I round the island and head that direction. “What are you doing?”
He turns to stand in my doorway. “There’s one shower,” he says. “I’m using it first because I’m not giving you a chance to take off while I’m in it later.”
He turns and heads into the bedroom. I stop in my doorway, where he was a moment before, and I don’t like this push and pull anymore. I think about the butterfly, the note, the nightmare that is telling me this is bigger than a protestor trying to freak out my father. And Jacob who has just opened up the shell I’m living in, and seen so much, so fast. But he also, stayed here with me. He pulled a gun to protect me. No one protects me. I protect them.
But he did.
Damn it.
I enter the bedroom door as the shower turns on, but I don’t care. I cross and enter the open door. Jacob is standing in the center of the room, his shirt off, his jeans unbuttoned. Gorgeous. Really, gorgeous with 12-pack abs that only come from hard work and dedication, but I don’t let that distract me. It can’t. This is bigger than the two of us. It’s about my father. It’s about other innocent people that could get caught in the crossfire of whatever this is, and this feels dangerous.
“You’re right,” I say.
“What does that mean?” he asks, caution in his tone, which is progress beyond the monotone, unreadable questions, he usually directs my way.
“You deserve communication,” I say, “but we have to come up with working rules that you respect.”
“I can live with that but those working rules, have to apply in reverse.”
“I can live with that as well,” I agree. “But that means you don’t charge at this investigation alone or with your people, without my input. We act as a team.”
“Team,” he repeats. “All right. We’re a team. Tell me what I need to know.”
“All I have right now,” I reply, “is a weird hunch and even if I had time to talk about it now, I wouldn’t do it when you’re half-naked. I shouldn’t have come in here now.” I turn and walk toward the door and I don’t know why but I pause at the archway, and look back at him to find that he’s given me his back.
“You staying or going, detective?” he asks, obviously aware I’m still here.
It’s a taunt or maybe it’s an invitation that he follows up by reaching for his pants. Whatever his intent, staying would be a mistake we’d both have to live with and I don’t like mistakes. Staying would make me need him in a far too personal way. And he’ll see soon that I don’t do need.
And so, I leave, but not without my vivid imagination trying to figure out what the ass that goes with those abs looks like, and the certainty that we need a new rule. I’m just not sure any that I come up with at this very moment would protect either of us. But I don’t give it much consideration because my feet have taken me back to the kitchen and I’m standing in front of the fridge reading those damning words on the note: You’re not ready yet.