Chapter 21

Faith

I’d never have thought I’d be the one to say this, but no matter what happens to you, one thing is always certain.

Life goes on.

Especially when you’re singlehandedly raising a little boy.

With the help of Lacey and the Brothers, I got set up in a nice house in the Hills, overlooking the valley. It was the kind of place I’d dreamed of as a little girl. It was a beautiful stone house on one of the older streets in Rio Secco’s expensive downtown. It had originally been built by a Spanish ship captain for his wife, and the colonial influence gave it such charm.

I felt it was an appropriate house for me because of what had happened to the Spanish sailor. After building the house, he’d brought his wife to California from the colonial capital in Mexico. From what I could find out at the records office, they’d had a happy life there together. At least for a time. They planted the trees that now shaded the mosaic swimming pool. They brought the red, clay tiles up from the coast that were now scattered in the driveway. And they’d had a son. A year after their son’s birth, the sailor was lost at sea and the wife raised the baby alone in the house.

Despite the tragedy, I took it as a good omen for what I was doing.

The time passed faster than I’d ever imagined possible. Before I knew it, I was in the hospital, giving birth. The pregnancy went smoothly. Lacey stayed with me during the labor. Grant, Forrester and Grady crowded into the delivery room as soon as the baby was born.

They were his uncles. All three were named godfathers. Lacey was my emergency contact. We lied and said she was my sister so she could stay with me throughout the procedure. At the christening, Grady told me to call the baby Sam, after Jackson’s father, and I did.

At first, when I’d finally come to terms with Jackson’s death, when I’d at last realized he was never coming back, I was grief-stricken. However, two months after Wolf’s death, a third Lobo was found dead in his bed. His throat was slit in the night and none of the guards heard a thing. That gave me my first glimpse of hope.

Maybe Jackson wasn’t dead.

Maybe he was finishing the job he’d started, and would come back to me when he was done.

On the day of Sam’s birth, I received a letter. It was only a few words.

* * *

I’m keeping my promise. When I’m done, I’ll come back to you.

* * *

I kept it to myself, but a few months later another Lobo turned up dead and I knew Jackson was keeping his promise. It was going to take him longer than he’d thought, but he was alive, and that’s all that mattered.

But the passing time was so difficult.

I was always painfully aware of his absence. My baby’s father was missing. He missed the first birthday, and the second, and the third. Every year I counted on my fingers the number of Lobos left alive, but it was always too many.

Every day that passed was only half the life it was supposed to be. Half the happiness.

I had Sam, but the other half, Jackson, wasn’t there.

And as the years stretched on, I eventually stopped counting the days until Jackson came back. I settled into my life, cherished the beautiful gift Jackson had given me, and put all my efforts into raising my son, giving him the best childhood possible, and making myself the best person I could.

I went back to school and learned all about wine. I learned how the grapes were grown, how the wine was made, and how the world’s best restaurants selected the wines to accompany the food they served.

I started my own business as a wine buyer, discovering the best local vintages from the farms in the valley and bringing them to the finest restaurants in San Francisco and along the coast where they could be discovered and enjoyed by the whole world.

On the night of the tenth anniversary of my meeting Jackson, I decided I’d waited long enough. I had no idea how may Lobos were still alive. So much time had passed that I no longer feared them coming to look for me. They must have known someone was hunting them down and killing them one by one, but they didn’t know who it was or why he was doing what he was doing.

They’d forgotten Wolf, and the night Jackson had started his blood feud, and so would I.

On that tenth anniversary, I got Lacey to babysit Sam, and went back to the motel on the highway near Reno. I borrowed Grant’s bike for the ride, and I rode out in the white dress I’d been wearing the night Jackson found me. I still had it.

On the way to the motel, it started raining and I couldn’t believe it. It never rained in those parts. The rain soaked me to the skin, and by the time I got to the motel my makeup was running down my face, just the way it had that night ten years before.

I walked into the bar and my eyes went immediately to the spot where Jackson had been sitting the first time I entered. The spot was vacant now, and it pained my heart to see it. Even though I hadn’t expected Jackson to be there, even though all logic told me there was no way on earth he’d be there, I somehow had held out a hope he might be waiting for me, like he had last time.

But of course he wasn’t.

One thing was the same though, the bartender.

“Bartender,” I said, “a beer.”

The bartender’s eyes widened when he saw me. “Miss, are you all right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You look—”

“What?” I said, my eye steady.

He shrugged, and got me a beer. When he came back with it he said, “Miss, this is going to sound very strange, but something about you makes me feel like I’m looking at a ghost.”

I smiled at him. “I get that feeling all the time,” I said. “Every time I look in the mirror.”

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

I looked him in the eye. “In another lifetime.”

He left me to serve another customer, shaking his head as he left. I finished my beer and when I was done, I asked him if he rented the rooms. He said he did and I asked if room three was available. It was and I took it.

I held my breath as I entered the room. It was as if I was walking back into a night from my own past, ten years earlier. Everything that had happened between me and Jackson was as fresh in my mind as if it had just happened the day before. We’d had such a short time together that I could account for literally every second.

Our first meeting in the bar in Reno, when I’d been a bitch.

Our second meeting at the bar at the motel. The sex we’d had in the very motel room I was now in, probably the very bed I was lying on.

The bike ride in the desert.

The painful conversation in the diner.

And then the sex in the desert safe house. Oh my God, that sex. I could remember every single sensation, every emotion, every taste, every spasm of ecstasy.

I lay back on the bed and put my hand inside my dress and touched myself.

The night in the safe house had burned me to the very core of my being. Even ten years later, the thought of it made my pussy wet. I let my finger slide over my clit as I thought about the orgasm Jackson had inside me. He’d insisted on going skin to skin. No condom. He wanted his semen inside me. He knew it would lead to a son. And he was right.

My finger slid back and forth over my clit.

I thought about Jackson’s cock in my mouth. He’d slid it to the back of my throat. When he came, the throbbing terrified me. I thought he was going to explode. He’d poured so much of himself into my throat I was afraid I’d choke, but I didn’t. I loved it. I’ll admit it. The sticky, metallic, hot mess he poured into my mouth was a gift. I swallowed every drop, and what I wouldn’t give to have the chance to do it again.

My finger slid inside my pussy and I began slipping it back and forth.

Then, to really make sure he owned me completely, to make sure that even if he disappeared from the face of the earth, which he did, I’d never forget him, he took me in the most shocking way of all. His plan had worked. It worked too well. I’d never be able to get past him. I still couldn’t imagine another man touching me.

I let my thumb touch my anus.

He’d put himself in there. It had terrified me, and it had overcome me so utterly that I’d never be able to be anyone’s woman but his.

I pictured his face in my mind. I pictured the firm muscles of his chest, his powerful arms, his rock hard torso, his monstrous penis.

As my finger slid back and forth, in and out of my pussy, my thumb pressed against the tight muscle of my anus.

I cried out his name as I came.

“Jackson.”

“Jackson.”

“Jackson.”