TWENTY-NINE

Seal The Deal

I'd had to disconnect my call to Jack. Charlie had finished at the pump and was making his way to the driver’s door. Remembering how I got here, I wanted to scream at myself.

Charlie had told me he knew a short cut out of the Mayor’s house, so I’d stupidly followed him since the coatroom was by the front door and we were in the back. He’d taken me down a hall, and as we came to a door at the back, he opened it and gestured me through. As I walked out the door, I felt a sharp pain in my neck as Charlie wrapped an arm around my waist. I felt the night sky start to spin and my eyelids get heavy. I tried to speak, but my tongue felt thick. When I tried to take one step to move away, the lights went out.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in the back of this car and tried to work out where I was. Charlie had been behind the wheel driving, humming, and I’d panicked at first, not knowing how long I’d been out. I could feel my phone tucked into the back of my tight shorts and knew I’d have to stay calm and wait for the opportunity to use it. We’d driven a while longer when Charlie pulled off the highway and into this truck stop, mumbling about being better prepared.

That brought us to now. Charlie was back in the car, and I’d made my call to Jack and he'd said to stall him, so I had to think of something in order to do just that. Charlie turned to check on me and was surprised when he saw I was awake.

“Charlie, I have to use the bathroom.”

He looked out the window of the car and surveyed the area, then looked back at me and said, “I wasn’t going to put this on you until we got home, but if you need to use the bathroom, I need to know you won’t run.” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Put what on me?

Charlie got out of the car, went to the trunk and opened it. A few minutes later, he crawled in the back seat with me. I tried to move back from him, but my arms and legs were still sluggish. He looked over my body, Bailey's ridiculous stripper costume showing entirely too much of everything, and I felt dirty, like his eyes were touching me in private places they shouldn’t. I held back a shudder and tried to remain calm, but after Gerry and his knife attack, I’d long since passed being able to stay calm. The memory of it was too strong, so my tears started to fall and my breath accelerated. Charlie reached out, grabbed my foot and pulled it across his lap. I squeaked at the sudden movement. Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a black ring with a blinking red light and opened it like a bracelet. It hit me what it was, and I tried to pull back my foot, but he grabbed hold and wrapped the cuff, used for keeping track of inmates, around my ankle and locked it. Then he pulled out a remote and flipped a switch. The red light on the bracelet went green, and then he turned to me and without any remorse said, “I’ve wired this bracelet with C4. If you run, I’ll blow you up.” Oh, shit, oh, my God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.

“Why, why are you doing this, Charlie?”

“Because I love you.”

He smiled at me as if he'd just given me flowers, not an ankle bracelet armed with explosives. My heart was beating out of my chest, and I didn’t know what to do. Jack said stall; Jack would know how to handle this, Jack would kick his ass for me.

Holding on to that thought, I took a deep breath and said again, “I need to go to the bathroom, Charlie.”

He nodded at my request and opened the door, put his hand out to me and pulled me out of the car. I stumbled a little on my feet, so he put the remote in his pocket and then picked me up like a bride on her wedding day and carried me across the parking lot. He went into the truck stop and didn’t stop until he got to the ladies’ room. He knocked on the door, and when we got no answer, he opened it and carried me inside.

“I can take it from here,” I told him. I did need to pee and I wasn’t about to do it in front of him.

He put me down, cupped my face with his hands and then leaned in and tried to kiss me. My head snapped back, trying to avoid the kiss, but he just pulled me harder to him and slammed his mouth down on mine. I pushed back hard against him and stepped back, wiping my mouth.

He leered at me and hissed, “You’ll learn to accept me, Jennifer. You’ll learn to love me just like I love you.”

“Charlie, I don’t understand why you’re doing this? I don’t even know you other than having a drink at the Nickel.”

“Like father like son. Gerry fell in love with you and I did, too.”

“Gerry’s your father?” I whispered in shock. The look on Charlie’s face turned to one of disgust.

“That man may have fathered me, but he wasn’t my father. He abandoned me thirty-three years ago to live with my grandparents. I was raised with the back of a hand by an angry old man who hated me.”

For a moment in time, I saw that little boy who’d been abandoned, crying for his mother who was dead. Crying for the father who couldn’t cope with the loss and finding no comfort, only pain.

The mother in me reached out. I put my hand on his shoulder and softly tried to reason with him. “Charlie, forcing me to love you and taking me away from my daughter isn’t the answer to your pain. I would have listened if you needed to talk. I’m your friend.”

Sadness filled his eyes, and he whispered, “I just want someone to love me.” I nodded my understanding. Didn’t we all want to be loved?

“I’ll be your friend, Charlie, and I’ll help you find someone to talk to, but you have to let me go. You’ll only make this worse for yourself if you don’t.”

He looked like he was battling with his sense of right and wrong when I heard a noise outside in the store, and then angry voices shouted, “Down, down, everyone down!”

Charlie’s moment of reflection disappeared immediately. He grabbed my arm, spun me around, and then pulled out the remote.

He moved to the door and opened it a crack, then closed it and put the remote in my face and growled, “Not a fucking word out of your mouth or I’ll blow the whole place up.”

I didn’t have time to respond before he opened the door and pulled me through it and further down the hall. He found a door that led to a storeroom, moved us inside, locked the door, and then pulled me to the window. He was looking around for something before he moved to a shovel, came back to the window and smashed it. I could hear the voices getting closer and just as the knob on the door was jiggled and banging started, Charlie grabbed my waist, picked me up and pushed me through the window, then followed after me as I heard the door behind us burst open.

“Jenn!” I heard Jack shout as Charlie yanked my arm and started running toward a row of semi-trucks lined up for fueling. He kept running until we’d made our way to the other side and out of sight from the building. Charlie stopped, looked around and saw a truck pulling to a stop, waiting on the traffic to pull out and ran toward it.

The truck was the size of a dump truck, but the back was open. Charlie lifted me inside and then pulled himself over the back just as the truck pulled out onto the highway. As I felt the truck pick up speed, he shoved his body over mine to keep me still.

So close… Jack had been so close to helping me, and now we were on the move again. I didn’t know if Jack knew I was gone, saw what happened and was right this moment following us, and since I didn’t know and was scared to death, I lost my ability to think clearly and started struggling to get free. If I were going to die, I’d die trying to get back to my daughter.

“Don’t move,” Charlie growled, but I ignored him. I reached up and clawed his face, causing him to pull back in pain. I struggled under him to break free and got to my knees. I tried to crawl forward so that I could bang on the window of the cab, hoping the driver would stop. I got up in a crouch, but the truck hit a bump, and I fell back into Charlie, causing the remote that he'd been holding to fly across the truck bed. Charlie was on his back, I was lying on his stomach, back to his front, so I brought my arm up and slammed my elbow into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

With all the movement in the back, the truck started to slow and then I heard them: the sirens from behind us. A spark of energy hit me. I rolled off Charlie and tried to stand up and move toward the remote. I got within a foot of it when the truck slammed on its brakes, and I went flying forward, slamming into the back window and falling on my ass. I heard cars screech and looked down to see the remote in front of me. I grabbed it, then turned to Charlie and saw him stand up; he bent down and picked up a pipe, raised it over his head and moved toward me.

Paralyzed with fear, I didn’t move, and as his arms came down, aiming the pipe at my head, I screamed, “JACK!” I didn’t hear the word leave my mouth because the sound of a gun being fired filled the air. Charlie looked shocked when the bullets hit him in the back. He looked down with a questioning look and then dropped the pipe, crumbled to his knees and fell on top of me.

“JENN!” I heard Jack shout, but I couldn’t move because of Charlie’s dead weight.

“Jack, get him off!” I shrieked, closing my eyes to his dead ones staring back at me. I felt his weight move from me and opened my eyes to look up at Jack’s worried ones, giving me a once-over.

“I’ve got you, baby,” Jack whispered as he picked me up and drew me into his arms, holding me tight. I buried my head in his neck and sobbed great, ugly tears as he rocked me back and forth.

“Jack,” I whispered, “there’s a bomb on my ankle.”

Jack’s head snapped back, and he replied, “What the fuck?”

“Charlie put C4 in an ankle bracelet to keep me from running. I’d really, really like for you to get it off me right about now,” I whined.

Jack looked down at my leg, and I handed him the remote. He studied it for a moment then looked back at my ankle. He moved his hand up my leg to the top of my boot and unbuckled the straps, then, just as calm as if he was saying “pass the salt, please”, he said, “Pull your foot out, baby.”

I looked at the boot then wanted to kick myself for not thinking of that first. I wiggled my foot until it came loose, and I pulled my leg from it.

Jack stood with the boot and handed it off to a highway patrolman, instructing him to be careful and to call in the bomb squad. Jack turned back and helped me stand, I pulled off the other boot so I could walk.

I noticed Jack was looking me up and down and he barked, “Barry, find me a fucking blanket or coat.”

I’d forgotten about the stripper costume, but Jack, clearly, had not. I leaned into him on weak legs, and without a moment’s hesitation, he picked me up and carried me to the back of the truck. He jumped down, landing on two feet, and without breaking step, moved to his truck, put me in the cab, and climbed in, turned to me and pulled me back into his arms.

“Jack, Charlie was Gerry’s son.”

“I know.”

“How’d you know?”

“Bailey took a picture at the party and he was in it. Called Ben, and he recognized him from the Nickel. Called the Nickel and got his name, then ran a check on him.”

I burrowed deeper into his body and said, “He thought he was in love with me. He needed help, Jack…his grandfather beat him the whole time he lived with him.”

“Seems everyone who meets you falls in love.”

I looked up at him and saw his face was warm, a small smile on his lips. Then he made my heart skip a beat when he continued, “I know I fell the moment you opened your mouth.”

“Jack,” I mouthed since I had no voice. My heart was pounding, and a lump had formed in my throat.

“Love you, Jennifer. Don’t know what I’d have done if something happened to you.”

I shook my head to stop the tears from falling, then lunged into him and buried my face in his neck. Too many emotions were coursing through me. I wasn't looking for love when I moved here, but I sure as hell found it, and after kind, gentle and sweet Doug, I knew what I felt for him was just a shadow of what I felt for Jack.

Jack completed me, made me whole, and sparked a desire in me that I didn't know existed. So with no voice to express my own love, I moved to his ear and whispered, “I love you too, Jack.”

Jack’s hand came up to the side of my head and cupped my face, tilting it back. His eyes had gone dark, his breathing deeper. He leaned in and brushed my lips, his tongue tasting them. I opened for him, and he deepened the kiss, pulling me harder into his body.

Time stood still while I poured the love I had for this man into the kiss, trying to express the depth of my emotions. The kiss went hot and wild, my hands moving up the back of his shirt, clawing his back lightly with my nails. Jack moaned into my mouth, then broke the kiss and put his forehead to mine.

“Jesus,” Jack choked out and buried my head in his neck, holding me tight.

Someone knocked on the window, and we pulled apart to see Barry standing there with a blanket. Jack rolled it down, grabbed the blanket from Barry, and I leaned over to the window.

“Thanks, Barry.”

“Glad you’re safe, Jennifer.”

“Thanks for coming to the rescue.”

Jack interrupted by growling, “For Christ sake, cover yourself before I shoot Barry too.”

Barry chuckled at Jack’s possessiveness then moved off to talk with the highway patrol.

I hadn’t known for sure who’d shot Charlie, but now I did. I searched Jack’s eyes to see if he was hiding any pain from killing the man, but only saw the irritation caused by my outfit.

I leaned in and asked, “You okay?”

Jack’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“About shooting Charlie. If you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

His face warmed, and he kissed my lips quickly then answered, “He drugged you, stole you from me, scared you, scared Bailey, threatened to blow you up, was going to kill you with a pipe, and I have no doubt got an eyeful of you in that outfit… So, yeah, I’m fine. I’d shoot him again if I could, but that’s frowned upon in a law man. Apparently, sheriffs aren’t allowed to overkill.”

I didn’t know if he was serious or joking to lighten the mood of a shitty night, so I kept my mouth shut by biting my lip. Jack saw it and stared, then looked at me and smiled. I’m thinking he was serious.

I was just about to say something when his radio crackled to life.

“Gunnison, this is Base, come in.”

Jack grabbed his handheld and answered, “Base, this is Gunnison.”

“Jack, Bailey wants to know if you have her?”

I was so caught up in everything I'd forgotten to have Jack call Bailey. Damn.

I grabbed the handheld from Jack and replied, “I’m here; I’m fine. Tell Bailey she still has to go back to school tomorrow, and that we’ll be home in a few hours. Oh, and tell Bailey I’m picking my own costume next Halloween.”

I turned to Jack and smiled. He threw his head back and laughed. Then he pulled me to him.

“I’m picking your costume next year,” he demanded. I looked at his smiling face and thought about his possessiveness. Deciding it was sexy just like his bossy, I shrugged and answered him, “Ok, Jack.”

“How do you feel about going as a pregnant woman?”

“I’d prefer going as something scary.”

“I’ll rephrase that. How do you feel about being a pregnant woman next year?”

I considered his words, understood the change in his sentence and froze.

I looked up and asked, “You want me to be pregnant, not dress up as a pregnant woman?”

Jack smiled at me and said, “She finally gets it.”

I started breathing hard, a little freaked out to be honest, and then I thought about being a mother again. The thought of having Jack’s baby made me feel warm and happy and I started to smile.

Jack saw my face change and whispered, “The thought of you carrying my child is sexy as hell, and it’d beat that costume you’re wearing right now by a mile.”

Staring at his smiling face, I envisioned a little boy who looked like Jack running around my house, dark hair, blue eyes, following Jack around, wanting to be just like his daddy, and I knew my answer.

“Ok, Jack.” Just like that, no doubt in my mind.

How we’d ended up talking about having kids after I’d been kidnapped only weeks after having been attacked and put in a coma, was beyond me, but nothing since we’d met had been traditional or normal, so why not?

“Ok?” he questioned.

“Ok, but under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want to be an unmarried woman when I get pregnant again.”

“You asking me to marry you?” he smiled.

“No, I’m telling you to marry me,” I explained.

“Look who’s bossy now?” he whispered as his mouth came to mine. Right before he kissed me, he whispered again, “Marry me, baby?”

“Ok, Jack.”

“That's my girl. Now kiss me and seal the deal.”

So damn bossy.