Reckless Faith

Jace watched the slow rise and fall of Elle’s chest. The way the morning light hit her skin so softly and the locks of her hair spread over the pillow.

He’d almost lost her yesterday. For a few agonizing seconds, he’d thought he had. It was the only reason his bullet into Boyd’s shoulder hadn’t been a kill shot. He never missed. But yesterday he had, because for a moment he’d thought the woman he loved had been taken from him.

It didn’t feel real. He didn’t know a world without Elle in it, and he didn’t want to. Even when he’d been in the military, so far from her and so disconnected, he’d still been able to function because he’d known that she was okay. That she was alive and safe, here in Misty Peak.

If he had to wake up and know she was no longer within reach…

No. He couldn’t do it. The idea hurt so much, he almost wanted to keel over.

He grazed a swath of hair from her cheek, slipping it behind her ear. Her soft hum slipped into his chest. The sound was everything. She was everything. How he’d stayed away for so long, he had no idea.

Never again. Never again would he deny that she was his. That by her side wasn’t exactly where he was meant to be.

Her eyes tightened before fluttering open. The air punched from his chest. Because those eyes…so gray they reminded him of the sky during a storm…they were his kryptonite.

“Hey.” Her single quiet word barely crossed the distance to him. “How long have you been watching me?”

“Not long enough.” But then, no amount of time would ever be enough.

The hint of a smile slipped from her lips. “Are you okay?”

She was asking him that? “I’m not the one who almost died yesterday.”

“But I didn’t die. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“No. I’m not okay.”

Her brows flickered and she rolled to her side, placing a hand on his chest. “Why?”

“I almost lost you yesterday.”

“But you didn’t.”

The memory of her going over that edge was so alive in his head, it replayed again and again.

He placed a hand over hers. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Running from this for so long. Costing us so much time.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t cost us time. You gave us each a chance to grow into the people we needed to become to be what the other needed.”

He smiled slightly. “That does sound better.”

Although, if he’d stopped fighting his feelings a long time ago, he could have saved them both a lot of unnecessary torment. She was being kind, because that was Elle. And he wouldn’t take her kindness for granted.

He lowered his mouth, hovered it over hers. “That’s why I need you in my life. You make everything better.”

He kissed her. Let the softness of her lips smooth out the sharp, jagged edges caused by yesterday’s terror.

She hummed against his lips, her fingers slipping into his hair, tugging and pulling. He slid the sheets off her and crawled over her body, careful to avoid her bruises before running his tongue across her lips. When they opened, he eased inside, tangling his tongue with hers.

God, she tasted good. And the feel of her body under his was almost enough to heal the trauma he’d felt yesterday. And it had been a trauma. Seeing her go over that ledge had been the worst fucking thing he’d ever experienced—and he’d gone through some heavy shit in his life.

He lifted his lips and touched his temple to hers, his breathing hard and fast. “You’re here. You’re safe. It’s something I need to keep reminding myself.”

She cupped his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“I can’t forget… I can’t get the image of you falling off the walk out of my head.”

“I’m here, Jace. With you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise me. Promise that you and I are forever.”

Her gaze shifted between his eyes. “Until our last breaths.”

He kissed her again. This kiss was harder. More desperate. He wanted to drown in her. Let her sweep him away and take him somewhere else entirely, where nothing else existed except the two of them.

It was only the ringing of her cell that had her pausing.

“Ignore it,” he said between reckless kisses.

She groaned and turned, reaching for her cell on the bedside table. “I can’t.”

He knew that. Even as a teenager, she hadn’t been able to let her calls go to voicemail.

As she answered the call, he kissed her cheek, then her neck.

“Aunt Jewel? What’s wrong?”

He tugged at the bottom of her shirt…well, his shirt. And he fucking loved her wearing it.

“How do you know what happened?” Elle asked.

He kissed up her stomach, ignoring the rage that pummeled his veins at the purple bruising. When he reached her chest, he took a nipple between his lips. She gasped and grabbed his head as he sucked.

“No, Jewel, I’m… Yes, but…”

He ran his tongue back and forth over the hard peak, and Elle arched into him, her fingers threading into his hair.

“Yes,” she said, breathless. “Okay. I’ll come. Yes, now.”

He lifted his head. “Now?”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “See you soon, Jewel.” She hung up. “What are you doing?”

He took hold of her wrist and kissed her palm. “Kissing you.”

“No. You had your lips around my nipple while I was talking to my aunt.”

“Hmm, I like hearing you say nipple. It makes me want to taste it again.”

He was about to lower his head and do just that, but she grabbed his hair. “I have to see my aunt.”

“Why?”

“Because she heard about yesterday. How, exactly, I’m still not sure. Freaking small town.”

“You could have said we’d be over later.”

“Uh, yeah, I could have, but someone was distracting me and I could barely think.” The smile dropped from her lips. “We also need to visit Molly, check in on how she’s doing.”

Something hard lodged in his chest. He hated that someone else had gotten hurt. “Okay. Your aunt, then Molly. But first I need to finish what I started.”

She opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, he dove, this time taking her other nipple between his lips and sucking hard as she writhed beneath him.

Elle stared through the window as Jace pulled up in front of her aunt’s house. She didn’t get out right away, instead examining the red trim and the yard that was crowded with plants. It was the house she’d grown up in since she was eight.

When a few seconds passed and she still didn’t move, Jace touched her thigh. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just…sometimes when I come here, it reminds me of being eight years old and getting dropped off by my dad, not realizing I’d never see him again.”

Her mother had left her and her father when Elle was five, because she’d met some guy and her new life didn’t have room for kids. Or at least, that’s what her father had told her. Her dad tried to do the single-parent thing for a while, but when she was eight, he just gave up, dropping her at his sister’s house without looking back. She’d never heard from him again.

Asshole.

Jace squeezed her thigh. “Worst mistake he ever made. You were a huge loss, Tink.”

She gave him a small smile. “I’m so grateful that Jewel took me in. She looked after me when I had no one else and she did the best she could, considering she was pretty young. I just felt so abandoned by the two people who were supposed to love me the most. I think that’s where this idea that I wasn’t good enough first stemmed from. Good enough. Pretty enough. Outgoing enough.”

“You are more than enough. And Jewel loved you. She still does.”

One side of Elle’s mouth lifted, and she turned her gaze away from the house to look at him. “She loved you more.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh yes, it is. I bet you the second we step in there, she’ll say a quick hello to me and be all over you. I’ll be forgotten.”

He leaned over and hovered his lips over hers. “Not gonna happen.”

She grinned as she kissed him, because he was about to eat a slice of humble pie.

They climbed out, and her door had barely closed before Jace was at her side. He’d been noticeably different this morning. He was always attentive, but his gaze had been lingering on her longer than usual. His hands always on her or close.

Yesterday had clearly shaken him, maybe even more than her.

She leaned into him as they climbed the stairs to her aunt’s front door. She lifted her hand, but her fist hadn’t even hit wood before it was tugged open and Jewel stood in front of them.

She gasped. “Elle! You’re okay!” She tugged Elle into her arms. “I’m so glad. I was so worried when Marie told me what had happened.”

Elle hugged her aunt back. “And how did Marie know?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. She heard it from Fred, who heard it from someone else.”

Crazy. This town was crazy.

When her aunt pulled back, her gaze immediately shifted to Jace. “Jace Walker. The son I never had.” She pulled him into a hug. “It is so nice to see you.”

Jace hugged her back, his gaze moving to Elle as she mouthed, “I told you so.”

One side of his mouth lifted, and even after her aunt pulled away, she grabbed Jace’s hand and tugged him into the house. “Come. Eat with me.”

Elle swallowed a laugh as she followed them in, pushing the door closed after her.

“I made cucumber sandwiches and carrot sticks,” Jewel said as she stopped at the table.

Oh, Lord. She remembered those cucumber sandwiches. They were awful. God-awful. Cucumber, pickled onion and butter…that was it. How her aunt ever thought of those fillings as a good combination, Elle didn’t know.

She opened her mouth to tell Jewel she’d just eaten, but Jace got in first. “I’d love one.”

Suck up. “Not for me, thanks, Jewel.”

Her aunt frowned. “Don’t be silly. You just went through a trauma—you need to eat.”

Once Jace was seated, Jewel grabbed Elle’s shoulder and guided her into the chair beside him. Jace smirked. Okay, here was the Jace she remembered. He knew she hated these sandwiches. In fact, he’d often brought two sandwiches to school so she didn’t have to eat the one her aunt had packed for her.

Of course, she’d told her aunt a million times growing up that she didn’t like them. She’d also insisted on making her own lunch. Neither of those strategies had worked with Jewel. But it wasn’t out of spite. Her aunt genuinely thought she was doing Elle a favor by making her lunch.

Jace leaned over. “Maybe this is why I’m the favorite.”

She thumped his shoulder as Jewel set plates and coffees in front of them.

“Now,” she said, sitting opposite. “Tell me everything, including whether or not you’re safe and what I can do to help.”

Jace’s muscles visibly tensed.

She reached under the table and put a hand on his thigh as she told her aunt everything that had happened, including her run-ins with Boyd before yesterday. Jace was quiet the entire time, and even when Jewel directed questions his way, Elle would often answer them.

To be fair, Jewel had a lot of questions.

By the end of the conversation, her aunt was leaning back in her seat, hand to her chest. “God. I’m so sorry. You should have told me about this Boyd fellow earlier. I’m so glad you were there, Jace.”

“Me too,” he said, voice quiet but hard.

Elle squeezed his thigh before rising from the table. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”

She rose and moved from the table. When she was done, she stepped back into the hall, only to pause at the photos on the wall. They were the same photos that had been on the wall since she was a kid. Some of her and Jewel. Some of the dog they’d had while she was growing up.

Her gaze shifted to the last photo in the line. It was of her and Jace. When Jewel had first put it up, Elle had argued for weeks that it needed to come down. That there was no way she wanted Jace to see it.

She hadn’t taken it down. And at some point, Elle had found a comfort in it being there.

They were young, maybe sixteen. They’d just been to the river, and both of them had wet hair, damp clothes, and the biggest smiles on their faces.

God, she’d loved him so much. Even then.

She was still staring at it when two strong arms wrapped around her waist. She smiled and leaned back into Jace’s familiar body.

He kissed her cheek. “You looking at us?”

“Always.”

“I love that photo. I still remember that day.”

“Me too. Although, the old me used to look at it and mainly see my body, and what I didn’t like about it.”

Jace’s muscles tensed around her. “And now?”

“I just see how happy I was to be by your side.” It was exactly where she’d wanted to be. Where she’d always wanted to be. She turned in his arms. “We should go visit Molly.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to leave Jewel’s cucumber sandwiches and all her doting yet.”

Elle laughed. “Your ego is big enough. It doesn’t need any more doting. And you can take some sandwiches in a doggy bag. Come on.”

They said a quick goodbye to Jewel—who did give them some cucumber sandwiches in a container—before climbing back into the car. Jace seemed more at ease as they made their way to Molly’s house. Elle had texted her that morning. Thank God she just had a mild concussion and nothing more serious.

They were halfway there when a traffic commotion up ahead had Elle straightening in her seat. She gasped at the sight of a crashed Toyota. The entire front of the vehicle was compressed against a large tree.

A few deputy cars and an ambulance were also scattered around the site.

“Oh, God!” Elle gasped. “I hope no one was hurt.” But even as she said it, she knew there was no way the driver of the car had gotten out totally unscathed. The car must have been moving at a high rate of speed before hitting the tree.

“Eastern’s there,” Jace said quietly as he pulled over to the side of the road. “I’m just going to check in with him.”

Jace climbed out, and Elle immediately followed. Eastern saw them, an emotion she couldn’t place passing over his features before he headed their way.

Jace’s arm slipped around her waist. “Is everything okay?” he asked as his brother stopped in front of them.

Eastern’s gaze flicked her way before returning to Jace, and for some reason, her belly twisted. She could already tell—everything was not okay.

“The driver died on impact,” Eastern finally said.

Jace’s arm tightened around her. “Anyone we know?”

There was a beat of silence before Eastern answered. “It was Darcy Boyd.”