Secured Wishes (7 page)

“I wished for a real piece of cake,” she answered as she tried to salvage what was left of the snack cake. He put his hand out, stopping the motion, and forced her to meet his eyes. “No, really. What did you wish for?”

She leaned over, touching her lips to his gently before answering. “I wished there was enough cake for you too because I’m going to eat this one.”

He tugged on her hair, and she giggled like a little girl with a secret. “I wished for unlimited wishes,” she climbed over onto his lap. “And a dune buggy.”

“A dune buggy?” he asked, laughing.

“Um-hmm, and for every single one of your kisses,” she kissed him deeply, making him groan. At the sound, she pulled away, but she kept her arms around his neck. “I wished I could keep you,” she told him, almost whispering, and he knew this time she spoke the truth.

Shannon came through the door and broke his thoughts. “How was my girl today?” he asked, as he lifted Jade into his arms.

“She pulled my hair, bit me on the arm, and did something horrible in her diaper.”

Shannon cooed. “That’s my girl. Uncle Jacob needs to be broken-in right.”

“I just got off the phone with Genie checking in. She tried to lie to me about what she was eating, but her friend called her out on it.”

“Ah, good ole Gracie. She won’t let her get away with a thing,” Shannon said smiling.

“Gracie,” Jacob repeated absently. He knew there was probably thousands of Gracies in the world, but hearing that name so close on the heels of thinking about her was strange.

“Oh. I forgot you haven’t met her. She’s great. Genie met her while she was out shopping one day, and they’ve been spending almost every day together since. Usually she takes Jade with her, but since you’re back in town, she thought you might like to spend some time with her.”

Jacob enjoyed his time with Jade. When he came over to Shannon and Genie’s house earlier in the day, intent on spending the day with both Genie and Jade, she informed him she already had plans, and then suggested he spend the day with Jade instead. Since Jade was still so young, and he hadn’t been home in three months, he opted to stay at their house so she would be in familiar surroundings and hopefully wouldn’t freak out at being left with what must seem like a stranger to her. In the end she didn’t even bat an eye. Jade threw herself out of her mother’s arms and into his, and hadn’t stopped going until a few minutes before Shannon got home.

“It’s been a fun day,” he told Shannon honestly. “I wish Genie would have been free to spend some time with me as well though.”

“Technically she was working today. She needed to hammer out a few more details about our next job with Gracie,” he waved a hand for Jacob to follow him. “You should see this.”

Jacob fell in behind Shannon, following him down the hall. “What do I have to see?”

Shannon opened the door to Genie’s office and gestured to a drawing above her desk. “This. We’re handling Gracie’s next big art exhibition.”

Jacob’s heart froze in his chest as he looked at the drawing. It was the alleyway from that fateful night, but there was nothing there. It was dark and empty, but the emptiness could practically be felt. You sensed something bad had happened there, but it was hidden just out of sight, and he couldn’t believe that a simple drawing could be so powerful. Despite all of that, the thing that caught and held his attention was the signature scribbled in the bottom left hand corner: Gracie St. John.

***

Stacks of boxes sat in the corner of Gracie’s office, and several drawings threatened to spill off her desk. It couldn’t be easy for Gracie, getting ready for a show by herself while dealing with the angst of pregnancy, Genie thought.

“Do you want some help sorting through this stuff?” she asked, moving some of Gracie’s drawings around. Her heart skipped a beat when a familiar face popped out at her from some of the pages, and she lifted them up for a better view. In the first drawing, his fingers wrapped around the gun that was resting against his bare stomach as he sat half reclined. His eyes were watchful as he gazed at something in the distance, and the lines of his face were hard. In the second drawing, his face transformed, softening with affection. His dark hair fell over one eye and a half smile played across his lips. Genie stared awestruck at the sketches held between her fingers. “How did you get these?”

Gracie froze at the sight of the drawings. She stared at them for a moment with a closed expression then looked away. In the second before she averted her gaze, Genie saw something heartbreaking in her eyes. “I drew them.”

Genie mentally rolled her eyes at the evasion. “I figured out that much for myself. What I meant was do you know him?” Genie realized it was a dumb question as soon as the words left her lips. She obviously did know him. How else would she have come to draw him, and in such a personal way? He looked so … dangerous. Gracie continued to stare off into space, looking lost, before finally answering. “That’s Jacob.” And even though Genie knew that, she was still blown away. Not only did Gracie know him, she also loved him. There was no other explanation for the way she said his name and the way he looked in her sketches. They were so different from the image she held of her brother, as the carefree man who was always good for a laugh.

“I know,” she told Gracie. “He’s my brother.”

That pronouncement got Gracie’s attention. Her head snapped around, her eyes locking with Genie’s. A myriad of emotion crossed over her face before she managed to smooth them away.

Gracie smiled a little sadly. “He said you were one of his closest friends and that you were married to a great guy. He also said your daughter means the world to him. He said his family was wonderful. I see now how true his words were.”

She moved to Genie’s side, removing the charcoal drawings from her hands before flipping them over and hiding them from sight once more, as if she could no longer stand for Genie to be holding them.

“How do you know Jacob?” Genie asked. “I’m sorry if it seems as if I’m prying. I’m just shocked.”

Gracie smoothed the stack of sketches with her hands. “Your brother saved my life once,” she said, staring down at her hands, and then it hit Genie, the thing she should have seen all along. Jacob was Gracie’s knight-in-shining armor, and she was having his baby.

CHAPTER SIX

Gracie felt the world collapsing around her as tears slipped past her lids. “I sometimes feel like the day I was created God laid his hand on me and said ‘you will walk this world alone’. You have to understand that I don’t regret a single moment I spent with Jacob,” she wanted so badly for Genie to understand, but she needed to start at the beginning. “When you are raised in an orphanage, it’s a very lonely life, but really it was only preparing me for real life, because there has never been anyone. I met Mary and she was a lot like your husband is. You know when Shannon is around, people smile with no idea as to why, and Mary, she was the same way. I didn’t have any intentions of being her friend but I couldn’t help myself, and then she died,” Gracie was forced to take a few deep breaths before she could continue. “But Jacob, he saved me in more ways than one, and I didn’t mean to, but I fell in love, and I swear that I’m not angry, but he walked away,” she gulped air, trying to control her tears. “He told me that he’d see me again, and God help me, I tried not to hope, but….” her voice broke and she couldn’t go on.

“But you did,” Genie finished for her, and Gracie nodded.

Once she was able to breathe again, she said. “And now I’m going to lose you too, because you are going to be forced to choose sides, and I refuse to let you pick me. No one knows better how important family is than someone who has never been a part of one, and you have to stand with yours.”

Genie shook her head. “No. You don’t get to choose for me. You are pregnant with my brother’s child, and that makes you family too. If you think that you’re going to screw me out of getting to be the doting, meddling aunt, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

It didn’t occur to her until she said the words that Genie would indeed be related to her child. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said quietly to herself. She met and held Genie’s gaze. They were both crying, but smiled at the same time as Gracie whispered. “We’re having a baby.”

They hugged as if they had created this baby without the help of a man.

***

The drive home passed in a blur of fury for Genie. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she felt so much anger, and she knew it never once was directed at Jacob. Gracie felt like she was to blame for throwing herself at him but Genie saw things differently. Her brother was a trained professional, and he understood the complex emotions that cropped up after a battle. Maybe Gracie did fling her naked body upon him, but he was clearheaded at the time; she was not. She couldn’t believe Jacob would take advantage of someone like that, and then tell her he would see her again. He was a dead man.

When she came through the door, Shannon met her with Jade in his arms, and she kissed them both, but she locked eyes with Jacob, and what little bit of anger that dissipated after kissing her family roared back to life at the sight of him. She swept her arm out across Shannon’s chest. “Shannon, would you please take Jade to play in the other room? I don’t want our daughter to witness me killing Uncle Jacob.”

A look of shock passed over Shannon’s face, but she must have looked every bit as angry as she was because he did as she asked, without argument. Jacob stayed sitting as she stormed over to hover above him. She stared down at him wondering where to start. He raised an eyebrow and she said. “Gracie St. John, Jacob.”

“You knew her name when you left here this morning, and you weren’t pissed then.”

“That’s because I didn’t know about you this morning. Every time we ever discussed you I referred to you only as my brother, so neither one of us realized until today that you were her knight-in-shining-armor.”

“She called me that?” he asked smiling, and she must have blacked out for a moment because the next thing she knew she was pressed nose to nose with him. “It is just a fucking job, Jacob,” she told him, stretching out each word. “It’s an important job, but it’s still only a job. You come home from it at night, you take a day off when you’re sick, and you pass on an assignment when you need to be somewhere else.”

“I needed to be in Boca Raton where I could do what needed to be done in order to keep Gracie safe,” he retorted in anger.

Genie slammed her hand down on the arm of the leather chair and it rang out like a gun shot. “Is she just another woman to you? Be honest, because if she is, I’ll never mention her name in your presence again.”

He shook his head. “She’s everything to me, Genie,” his softly spoken words caused her shoulders to sag, and she gentled her voice.

“She’s not an island Jacob. As much as she’d like to believe that she needs nothing or no one, we both know that’s not true. Everyone needs someone else. People weren’t meant to be alone. She needed you, but you walked away.”

“Not for good. I was coming back, and I tried to go see her yesterday, but she’s moved from her apartment and studio. I didn’t know how to find her.”

“For three months, you needed to go away for three months without a single word?” without waiting for an answer, she added. “Bullshit. She needed you here, and now I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to fix it.”

***

Her studio was less than a block from Smith Security Services, and he took a minute to look around the front room before going in search of Gracie. No bell jingled as he walked through the door so no one came running at his entrance, buying him a few minutes. Every single piece that was on display reminded him of a different side of her personality, and he suffered an overwhelming urge to buy every one. Since it would cost more money than he could earn in a lifetime, he moved towards the back room. He caught sight of Bob, and at first glance he thought he was naked, but then he realized he was wearing a pair of shorts. Bob looked over, spotting him as well, and Jacob flicked a glance at him before his eyes settled on Gracie’s back. Her head bent over her sketchpad, she didn’t turn at his approach even though Bob was openly watching him. Jacob leaned his arm against the doorframe and tilted his head where he could see the drawing over her shoulder. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was chewing her bottom lip the way she always did when she worked. “I said I would see you again.”

Her shoulders stiffened at his words, but she kept her back to him. “You said a lot of things, but I don’t remember you actually
telling
me a thing. You said your family was wonderful, but you didn’t tell me why. You said you were protecting me, but you didn’t tell me from whom. You said you’d see me again, but you didn’t tell me when.”

She finally turned in her seat, meeting his eyes, and he nearly fell to his knees at the sight of her green eyes. She would never know how much he missed her, or how he thought of her every minute of the day, but her next words broke his heart as he realized the depth of her hurt. “You also said that you didn’t want to fall asleep because you couldn’t keep my nightmares away in your sleep. What did you think would happen when you went away and there was no one here?”

They needed to hash this out, but it would never happen with Bob in the room. Jacob switched his attention to the half-dressed man. “Do you mind?”

Bob sunk more deeply into his chair, settling in with a cocky smile that Jacob thought he might be forced to kill him for. “I’m not going anywhere until Gracie asks me to leave. You and I both know you wouldn’t even be here right now if Genie hadn’t told you about the baby. You’ve had three months to come back, but you chose to stay away.”

“Baby?” Jacob asked confused.

“Look, Jacob, I’m not mad at you. I just can’t deal with you disappearing for months at a time, and I need to be living a steady life now. I don’t want to get hurt again the way I did when I realized you weren’t coming back.”

“What baby?” he asked again.

“The one we are having in about six months,” she answered slowly, as if he were a step behind everyone else in the conversation, which apparently he was. She was having his baby? She was having his baby? Genie knew about it, and Bob did too, but he was still posing half nude for
his
woman?