Author's Note: A million thank you's for all of the reviews! Please don't hate me!
Epilogue:
One year later...
Lisa sat at the counter of the dingy smoke filled bar, nursing her seabreeze and trying to rub the strain of the day from her temples with the tips of her manicured fingers. The place was a real dive. The counter top of the bar looked as though it hadn't been cleaned since the mid fifties and was caked in layers of dust, cigarette ashes, and the sticky remnants of spilled liquor. There was obnoxious music blaring so loudly that she could not even hear her own thoughts. It came from a jukebox that sat oh so conveniently beside the restrooms, which in and of themselves had to violate about ten different health code regulations. It was definitely not the type of place that Lisa normally matriculated but today most certainly constituted as special circumstances. It had been another interesting day filled with surprises that a lesser person than herself probably wouldn't have been able to handle. That wasn't her being conceited, it was just the truth. She had been there for about fifteen minutes when a handsome, tall blond man sidled up to her and slid onto the barstool next to her.
"You look like you need another." He said.
Lisa peered at him from the corner of her eye, "And apparently I look like I need you to tell me that."
"Rough day?" he asked.
"Is it obvious or are you just trying to impress me with you mind reading skills, because let me tell you...it's been done. Try a different approach."
"Who read your mind?"
Lisa took a long sip of her seabreeze before replying, "A guy predicted what my drink of choice was."
"Did he get it right?"
"He did."
"Clever guy."
Lisa laughed and rolled her eyes. Yes. Jackson certainly was a clever guy. It helped him out that he had been stalking her for eight weeks previous, but he was clever nonetheless. She'd been a damned fool for not trying to find him after that note, but she had been so angry. Who the hell did he think he was to just up and leave her in the middle of the night like that? The blond looked at her with a mischievous glint in his eye. He was certainly good looking in his sharp expensive designer suit, gelled blond locks, and big round brown eyes. How did she always manage to attract these guys? Did she have a stamp in her forehead that said, 'perfect for shallow egotistical pricks'? Jackson hadn't been shallow though. Jackson had connected with her on a deeper, sometimes scarier, level. He knew her better than anyone...and she was almost certain that she knew him just as well. Most people would say something like, how well can you really know a person like him? But, she did. She knew him.
"So, can I get you another drink or no?" the blond asked her, breaking her from her thoughts of Jackson.
Lisa chewed on her bottom lip in consideration and then nodded her head. What would the harm be in allowing him to buy her one seabreeze? He looked like he could afford it.
"Uh, bartender," he said, "She'll have another and I'll have a vodka martini. I'm Greg, by the way."
"Lisa." She responded, shaking his proffered hand.
"So, with the risk of sounding cliche', do you come here often?" he said, his smile big and cheesy.
Lisa laughed into the drink the bartender had just set in front of her, "Uh, no. No, I...this is my first time."
"Yeah. Mine too. Just in town for a little business."
"Oh? What do you do?"
"I'm a lawyer. You?"
"I'm in management." She smiled at her own joke that he didn't stand a chance in hell at understanding. "So, you're a lawyer, huh?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Can you help me with my parking tickets?"
"No. Sorry, I'm not that kind of lawyer."
"Then, I'm not impressed." Lisa grinned.
"Well, hell." Greg said, "What does it take to impress a girl like you?"
Lisa considered her answer for a long moment and she was just tipsy enough to be blunt. "A strong mouth." She said.
"Well, let's see if I make the cut." Greg smirked and without waiting for Lisa to give to him her permission, he leaned forward and took her mouth in his. To say that Lisa was taken aback would have been an understatement. Exactly who did this guy think he was? He had sat down beside her less than five minutes ago and he thought that he had the right to just invade her space in such a way! Lisa put both hands to his chest and shoved him away from her, mouth open in affront. But, her offended look soon melted away and was replaced by a wide, bright smile that made her gorgeous eyes light up for all the world to see.
"Well, Mr. Kilmore," she chirped, "by strong mouth I actually meant someone who was opinionated and unafraid to speak their mind and what you just did seemed unnecessary, but in all honesty it suited my purposes just fine."
Greg leaned back away from her, "How did you know my last..."
"I do have a question for you though. Does your wife know that you go around to bars when you're out of town on business trips and pick up women?"
"Hi, kids!" said an enthusiastic voice, drawing Greg's attention. "Name's Jackson, how you doin' friend?"
Jackson slid onto the stool on the other side of Lisa and kissed her cheek. She beamed up at him before they both turned in perfect synchronization to face Greg, who seemed more than a little put off by Jackson's sudden appearance.
"What's going on here?" Greg demanded.
"What's going on, Greg, my boy, is that I now have a digital camera in my pocket with a picture of you kissing my lovely wife here, which just for the record," his eyes traveled to Lisa, "in my opinion lasted a little too long."
Lisa shrugged and downed her drink just as the bartender set a scotch neat down in front of Jackson. "Awe, honey." he said.
"I knew you'd be along eventually." Lisa said, puckering her lips and waiting for her reward. Jackson leaned forward with a grin and kissed her then turned his focus back to Greg. He and Lisa switched stools, giving Jackson better access to their target.
"Now, as I was saying, what would your lovely wife, Linda say if she saw these pictures?" Jackson said, shaking his head.
"This is blackmail." Greg accused.
"I hate that word. It sounds so petty." Jackson said with a distasteful look on his face, like he had just taken a bite of something really rank.
"It really does." Lisa asgreed.
"We prefer to think of it as..." a wide grin spread across his full pretty lips, "negotiations."
"What do you want?" Greg asked, "Money?"
"Do I look that shallow?" Jackson asked, then turned to Lisa, "Are we that shallow?"
"Don't know. How much does he have?" Lisa responded.
Jackson turned back to Greg, "Good point, how much do you have? Nah, wait, no. That's not what we're here for. Sorry about that, she distracts me so easily. Women, right."
"Yeah." Greg said unenthusiastically.
"All I need you to do...is call up your friend Jonathan Brickman and change that account number, you know the one I'm referring to, from 39745284 to 48503958. Understand?"
"Yes." Greg said and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. As he started mumbling into his phone, Jackson turned his attention to Lisa.
"So, for dinner, I'm thinking Greek." He said.
"You want me to make hummus again?" Lisa groaned.
"You make it so well." Jackson smiled and kissed her, "It's your fault, you know. You spoil me."
"I wanted to call out for Thai and rent a movie." Lisa whined.
"There's nothing good out."
"So, we'll get an old movie."
They had attracted Greg's interest and Jackson motioned for him to keep talking before continuing his conversation with his wife. "I am not sitting through Breakfast at Tiffany's again." He said.
"Holly Golightly is the greatest female character in the history of cinema."
"I desperately want to shove you into a room filled with Gone With the Wind fans. I think it'd be a real blood bath."
"What do you want to watch, then?"
"How about Collateral?"
"They're not going to change the ending, you know. He's still going to lose. Every time."
"Pessimist."
"Realist." Lisa corrected.
"He was bad at planning."
"You'd have done it differently." Lisa said, smiling as though she were talking to a little boy rather than a grown man.
"You know how I would have done it." Jackson quipped, tickling her side.
"Okay, okay! Why don't we just get Jaws or something?" Lisa offered once she had managed to stop giggling.
"Jaws is good." Jackson said just as Greg hung up his phone, "There now, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
"Whatever. Can I have the pictures now?" Greg asked.
"Well, you see, they're still on my camera. But you have my word that I will erase them as soon as I get the word from my higher ups that the job had really been done."
"That isn't fair." Greg said sounding no older than five.
"Neither is life." Jackson said, downing his drink and standing. He offered his arm to Lisa. "Leese?"
Lisa smiled sweetly at Greg as she stood and took her husband's arm. "Bye, Greg." she cooed and the two of them strolled happily out of the bar.
Lisa's life finally felt whole again. She never would have guessed that the emptiness that she had been feeling had been the lack of...well, her husband. The brutally honest, damned clever, quick witted, and incredibly dangerous, not to mention gorgeous, Jackson Rippner. It had taken her a while to adjust to the lifestyle, but he was well worth it. The night that he had made his returned into her life was burned into her memory. She had been walking out of the hotel having just gotten off of work and there he had been, leaning casually against her car, that devil-may-care grin on his face. She remebered the way her stomach had flip-flopped at just the mere sight of him. He'd been twirling a single daisy between his fingers, which he looked down at, then he had looked at her from the tops of his eyes as he said, "You never answered my question." And just like that she had been in his arms. She hadn't even realized at the time that she had moved, but she had run to him and embraced him and attacked his mouth with her own. He had taken her keys from her and driven her back to her apartment where he had followed her in. He had had some fresh scars on his body, she had discovered. But she never asked about them and he never offered the information. It was as if they had both known that it would only succeed in upsetting Lisa, and neither of them wanted to ruin their reunion with unpleasant thoughts like that. When Lisa woke up the next morning, he had been there. He had been awake, looking down at her with the amazing eyes of his and a ready smirk. "That sure as hell wasn't a quickie." he had said and she had laughed. She remembered how well she had liked it when she woke up beside him.
Jackson locked his arm around the slim waist of his wife. His wife. He loved that word. The entire time that he had been ducking contract killers and F.B.I agents, she had been the only thing that had been on his mind. Where was she? How was she? When would he be able to get back to her? He had finally managed a deal with the former employers who wanted him dead that he would work for them twice at a fraction of his usual cost, satisfaction garanteed. Once he was no longer concernced for his life, his first order of business had been to get back to Lisa. When she had come from work to him there at her car that night, she wasn't shocked, she wasn't scared, she had just stared at him for a moment, tired and beautiful. Then, she had rushed over to him and thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. That was when he had known that that was where he belonged for the rest of his life. With Lisa. He had married her no more than two months later. Her father, one of the few people who knew who he really was and where she had actually met him, had not been happy about their union...but in the end all that he wanted was for Lisa to be happy. Jackson had convinced himself that the old man would come around. He liked Joe and Lisa refused to not have him in her life. Jackson and Lisa went great together. They fought like cats and dogs and neither one of them was willing to give an inch, but oddly enough that was half of what made their relationship work. There wasn't anything they wouldn't do for each other. Jackson knew that having someone like her in his life was a liability in his line of work and logically, he should have put as much distance between her and himself as he could. But, in all honesty, they made a damn good team and let's face it, when it came to Lisa, all of his male driven logic didn't really apply.
"I've got a secret for you." Lisa said.
"Oh, yeah? What is it?"
"Nothing." she said with a sly smile, "Let me rent Breakfast at Tiffany's and I'll do that thing you like with the handcuffs."
"You know, Holly Golightly is the greatest female character in the history of cinema." Jackson said with a grin, inhaling the scent of Lisa's hair as she laid her head on his shoulder with a feminine little giggle that Jackson adored. Nope. No logic whatsoever.
The End
Author's Note: All stories have an ending, and this is this one's. However, I do have an idea for a sequel...so if you think I should continue...let me know!