Author's Note: Hi all! Another huge round of thank you's to all my reviewers! You guys are just absolutely wonderful! Also, I am painfully shy when it comes to writing anything that deals with kissing and so on, so please bear with me as I'm trying to break myself of this habit. Not that I'm upping the rating to an "M" but still, I know I lack some finesse when it comes to the more intimate scenes. I'm still learning...

Traveling Mercies

Chapter Six: Stillwell

Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home.

-From "Finding Alaska"

Lisa tried. She spent two months trying. Spending less time at work and more time with her Dad, trying to make friends and yes, even therapy. She tried so hard to be what she thought she should until she woke up one day and realized she didn't recognize the face that stared back at her in the mirror. She was trying to be normal which would have been fine, except she wasn't normal. Not anymore. She hadn't been normal since that day in the parking lot and it took Jackson Rippner to show her the fighter she had become. She had tried to return to the woman she was before the rape but that woman was gone forever. It was time to stop trying to get her back.

She fiddled with the new license that Remy had procured for her as well as the stub of her plane ticket to Oklahoma City. Remy had given her a new identity, complete with credit cards and some cash. She had left Miami without telling anyone, even her father. She had put in extra time with him these last two months and it pained her to keep this from him. He would worry but hopefully, in the end, he would understand. She had tied up enough loose ends for him to realize she left of her volition. She had also trained Cynthia, little by little in case she got suspicious, how to be a day manager at the Lux. The hotel was in good hands and that made leaving slightly easier.

It was when she was waiting outside the Oklahoma City Airport that she was having trouble rationalizing this impromptu trip. Of all places for her to run off to, she had to choose a horse ranch in some place called Stillwell, Oklahoma. Of all people for her to run to, it was Jackson Rippner. But it had to be Jackson and no one else. She had spent the last few weeks hashing it out in her mind every sleepless night and over ever plate of scrambled eggs that were eaten in the pre-dawn hours. The rape had broken her, Jackson had pulverized the pieces but she had picked up the pieces and put herself back together on the plane. Not only did she challenge him, she beat him. Ultimately, he had been the glue that sealed the splinters of her spirit back together. He was at once her destroyer and creator. Which meant only he held the answers about what she was to do with her life now that it no longer fit who she was.

"Well, you must be Lisa," someone shouted.

Lisa saw a woman climb out of a pick up truck and make her way over to her. She was slightly shorter than Lisa but thin and toned. She looked like the real deal cowgirl Remy had made her out to be, right down to the hat and belt buckle. "Kaylee?"

She flashed a wide grin. "You bet. I must say, you are prettier than your picture."

Lisa found that odd. "Did Remy send you a picture?"

"No, Jackson has one. I actually found it by accident so," she winked, "let's just keep that to ourselves."

Lisa tried to hide her uneasiness at the thought of what picture Jackson had in his possession. Did he keep a picture from her father's wallet or did he take one of his own? If he did the latter, she shuddered to think of what that picture just might be. He had eight weeks to take it without her knowing.

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry," Kaylee had already picked up Lisa's suitcase and tossed it into the back of the truck. "They're really nice pictures."

Pictures? It went from "picture" to "pictures." That really did not sit well with her. What was she doing here? What made her think that Jackson was the one to help her understand herself when a trained therapist couldn't do it? The absurdity of the situation hit her as she stared at the idling pick up truck and bright eyed cowgirl standing by it. Perhaps she wasn't as strong as she thought.

"What's the matter, Lisa?"

"I think I made a mistake in coming here." She reached into the truck bed and tried to grab her suitcase. She could turn around and get back on a plane to Miami and just say that she wasn't feeling well and no one would be the wiser.

"You came here for answers, didn't you?"

Lisa paused, her hand on the suitcase handle. "What kind of answers do I need, Kaylee?"

The other woman regarded Lisa with a very calculating look for a few moments. "I'm not the one with the questions. Only you know what brought you here."

Lisa shook her head. "No, I really don't."

Kaylee gave her a small smile. "Sure you do. So climb in, we've got about a two hour drive ahead of us!"

Lisa reluctantly let go of her suitcase and climbed into the truck, almost against her better judgment. She waited until they were on the highway, the airport safely behind them before Lisa asked a question that had been weighing on her mind the entire flight out to Oklahoma. "Does he know I'm here?"

Kaylee let out a short laugh. "Hell no, sweetie. I'm not suicidal!"

Lisa turned her eyes back to the surroundings that were passing by her. She could still hear Jackson saying the same words on the red eye flight right before everything fell apart and he changed from that charming, sweet guy she shared a drink with into the person he really was. And for the hundredth time that day, she asked herself why she came.

There were only a handful of people that Jackson didn't mind being around all the time. Remy was one of them and Kaylee was the other. But when Kaylee announced that she would be gone for the better part of the day, running an "errand," he couldn't help but feel a sense of relief. Finally, some alone time. He had tried reading, watching TV and just wandering around the large farm house that he was calling his temporary home, but nothing caught his attention. Finally, he ended up out in the barn and faced the memories that building held for him. He was hopeful those memories would block out the ones that were haunting him every waking hour and even in his sleep at times.

He had heard that Kaylee's mother, Anna, had passed away a few years ago but he was pleasantly surprised to hear that Kaylee was now running Anna's horse farm. She had semi-followed in her mother's footsteps and took in transit children that the Agency was moving around and needed a place to stay for a few weeks before their new "home" opened up. Thankfully, there were no kids on the farm at the present time but she never knew when she would get a call about one coming. When she did, he would have to move on and find someplace else to hide out. Kaylee wasn't that involved with the Agency but she had already said they had stopped out at the farm before he came and searched the premises so he would be safe for another month or two.

He was slightly surprised that most of the stalls were occupied with a range of horses: appaloosas, pintos, thoroughbreds and even a palomino. He went into the feed room and started rummaging through the tack boxes and shelves until he found a bag of apples. As he turned to leave, his eye caught the feed bin and he had to smile. There was still a large crack running down the center of the wooden lid and for the first time in a very long time a pleasant memory came to mind.

He and Kaylee had been sixteen at the time, spring was making its appearance and with it that sense of bold daring. They were feeding the horses that evening and Kaylee was talking about this boy she had a crush on in her class who had asked her out to the movies next week. She was confiding in him, as she had come to do for the last year, about how she didn't know what to do if this kid wanted to kiss her. Jackson, being the gentleman that he was, asked her if she wanted to practice on him so she wouldn't be so nervous for her movie date. The truth of the matter was, he had never kissed a girl before and with what happened with Julia, he wasn't sure if he ever would. But Kaylee was safe, she would keep it to herself and wouldn't make a big deal about it. So, she agreed.

After a couple nose bumps and figuring out where to put their hands, they fell into place. He figured she was thinking of this boy and he was imagining it being Julia. Kaylee wasn't pulling away and he was unprepared for the rush of feeling someone that close to him. Believing that everything done in movies was a mirror of what happened in real life, he picked her up by the waist and set her down on top of feed bin, amazingly enough still keeping their lips connected. A second later there was a loud crack and Kaylee was sitting in the half full bin, a look of shock on her flushed face.

He couldn't stop laughing as he tried to pull her out but she had failed to see the humor in the situation. She had picked up the disregarded feed buckets and marched out of the feed room, saying that it felt like she was kissing her brother. But now, fifteen years later, the crack still remained on the feed bin which only meant the memory was just as treasured to her as it surprisingly was to him. He did have to agree with her though, she always felt more like a sister to him than a potential love interest. She and Remy were the closest thing to siblings he would ever have in this life. Hell, they were the closest thing to family he would ever have.

He fed the palomino horse the apple and walked up and down the aisle of the barn a few times, stopping to look at certain horses. He wondered briefly if Kaylee had kept his saddle. It had been over ten years since he last rode a horse but he remembered the peaceful feelings that went along with it. However, he wasn't about to just pick a horse and go off on his own. His throat was starting to feel normal, his breathing was becoming stronger and he wasn't ready to risk picking the wrong horse, ending up with broken bones and more recovery time. Instead, he went over to a couple hay bales that were stacked up against a stall and sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him. He was only going to close his eyes for a minute but sleep had been an ever present friend these last few months.

It was probably due to where he had fallen asleep and the memories that were just going through his mind that created the dream. He was back in the feed room, kissing a woman again. He wasn't fifteen and neither was she and it defiantly wasn't Kaylee. The build was slightly similar, the body just as toned but the feelings behind the fervent kisses was completely different. There was tingling down his spine, like a low electric current. There was a passion, a drive behind every kiss and touch that he hadn't felt…ever. Sure, there had been some women that evoked those feelings but there wasn't that desperate need that ran beneath the want.

Want and need…something between want and need. When had he been thinking about that, who had he been thinking about? With an enormous effort, he pulled back from the clinging woman, and opened his eyes. Her name came out as a hiss of pain and shock.

"Leese."

And he woke up with a jerk to the sound of the pick up truck coming down the gravel driveway. Groaning, he sat up and brushed the hay off of his clothes. His lips still tingled and it left him edgy, unnerved. It wasn't the first dream he had had of Lisa. They started when he was in the hospital, recovering from the pen in the throat and bullet wounds. The dreams had started with him killing her, slowly and with much bloodshed but then they began to change. The bloodlust faded to just plain lust. It would disappear in time, he tried to convince himself as he stood up and ran a hand through his hair. Lust he could deal with, he had dealt with much worse over the years.

Someone was walking out to the barn and Jackson hoped Kaylee was in a good mood. He couldn't take her bad mood right now, not with him being in one himself. But the footsteps sounded different than Kaylee's. They were less sure of the footing, hesitant almost. Instinct took over and he ducked into one of the stalls that was being used to store hay and stray. Wedging himself between the bales and the dark, back corner, he could see out of the slats of the stall wall. The stranger had come into the barn but it couldn't have been anyone from the Agency. They were too timid and too noisy.

"Well, aren't you pretty?"

Jackson almost choked and had to literally bite his tongue to keep quiet. He would have recognized that voice anywhere. Lisa. Once in control of himself, he peered out from the stall and he could see her stroking the palomino's neck. Of course, he thought with a wry grin, she had to pick the horse he liked. Well, he had to give her credit, she did know a good thing when she saw it. She had, after all, taken him up on his offer for a drink in the airport.

Then he heard Kaylee's surefooted sprint that came to a skidding halt at the other end of the barn. Lisa's head whipped around to face the entrance of the barn and Kaylee caught her breath.

"You alright, Lisa?"

Lisa's eyes roved over the barn, not once resting on his hiding place. "Yeah. Why?"

"Oh," Kaylee's voice held a slight note of surprise. Jackson wondered if Lisa heard it or if that was just something that he would pick up on since he knew her so well. "It's just…no worries."

Lisa backed away from the horse and really started to study her surroundings. It was fascinating to watch for Jackson. No longer was she fearful and jerky. She wasn't looking without seeing this time. She had changed in the last two months. She was more sure of herself, more aware. He wondered if she had taken self defense classes or gone through some successful therapy to warrant the change. If it came down to tousle with her now, she just might be a worthy opponent. For some reason, he took a deep sense of pride in this new and improved Lisa. It would be interesting to see just how deep this change went.

"He's not in the house, is he?" Lisa's voice held a tinge of worry but determination. He would most certainly have to watch his back now.

"He really could be anywhere," Kaylee was saying. "It's a very large piece of property. I'll show you around the house and you can get settled in. I can pretty much guarantee he'll show up for dinner. They always do."

Jackson held back a snort of disgust. Nice, Kaylee. Lisa only gave half a smile before patting the horse once more and leaving the barn. Jackson waited until he heard the door of the house slam shut before emerging from his hiding place. He would have to really think about how to play this now. He hadn't expected Lisa to show up here. Remy must have told her where he was. Well, he would deal with Remy later. He was going to wait until he was fully recovered and had an iron proof plan before taking Lisa out but once again, she got one step ahead of him. This was getting to be a dance that she was leading and he would put a stop to it immediately.

All thoughts and feelings tied to the dream he had were gone. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he slowly ambled his way up to the farm house. He would be the picture of cool, collected assassin that he had been on the plane. He would scare her until she lost her footing, trip her up and make her realize she was no match for a master like himself. Perhaps now he could get those damned dreams to go away, using his anger and resentment to ward off the disturbing ethereal feelings of her skin under his fingers and her lips on his.

Are you ready for round two, Leese?