Chapter 12

Of course Jessica is horrified. There is no way she could not be horrified. But her reaction is tempered by the knowledge that someone has killed for her, has taken a life so that she can live. Tempered by the night she spent helping Nathan Ingram carry dead bodies from car trunk to house, house to car trunk.

No, the horror is for John, not of him. For the man fraught with guilt as they'd sat in that hotel room in Puerto Vallarta, fixated on the television screen as the towers burned and fell in clouds of ash and dust, for the man who felt he'd quit his country in its time of need. Who'd told her days later, in a broken voice, that he had to reenlist, he was so sorry, but he had to.

All that man had ever wanted to do was serve his country, was keep people like her safe. And if his country — or the men who would use it as an excuse — had betrayed him, it was not his fault. She can't ignore that he is a changed man, now, a man who has looked people in the eye and then killed them. Not just once, like Nathan, but over and over and over again. But she can hear the loss in that change in his voice, and she can feel it when he speaks, and she does not want to give up on him.

"You can't blame yourself, John. You were following orders. You were doing what you thought was right."

"No, I was either following orders or I was doing what I thought was right. They were never the same thing. Maybe that's why they get people who are ex-military to do what I did. We're so used to following orders that we don't start thinking — really thinking — until we're in too deep."

"But you did start thinking. You got out."

"Not as quickly as I should have," he says. "I don't think you can understand what it's like, Jess, to regret most of what you've done for an entire decade."

I can understand, she thinks, I regret the emails I didn't send and walking away from you at the airport and marrying Peter even though I didn't love him. But all of these things seem too trivial compared to the things he regrets, and so she says nothing, just reaches out and touches his cheek with her free hand. And then before she can stop to think that this is a bad idea, that this is too soon, she is leaning in and kissing him, and he is kissing her back, and for a moment it is just like it was.

It's been a very long time since she's kissed anyone — Lisa Williams never dated, she considered it too dangerous — much less someone she cares this much about, and the way his mouth opens to hers makes her almost dizzy with sensation. But then he is shifting closer to her, caressing her neck. And despite her every effort to tell herself that this is John, that no matter what he's done, he would never hurt her, she still tenses, and he notices, breaks away. Removes his hand, to her relief.

"I'm so sorry, Jess, I never should have presumed — "

"No, it's not what you think — you couldn't have known." She takes a deep breath, comforts herself with the sensation of her lungs filling with air. "I can't stand anything touching my throat, even turtlenecks or short necklaces. Ever since that man tried to choke me to death."

He is silent for awhile, and then he tells her there was something he left out, earlier, when he was talking about his time in the CIA. He tells her about being in Islamabad, and learning of her death, of being devastated. Of being certain that it was somehow connected to the work he was doing, either retaliation for someone he'd killed, or someone at the Agency wanting to sever his last tie to his old life, remove the distraction she'd always been.

This stuns her, because by the time of her "death," she'd assumed she was nothing more than an occasional thought — if that — for him. Certainly not a distraction, and certainly not someone anyone would consider killing to get back at him. Eventually, her voice wobbling, she tells him this.

"Jess, I pushed you away, but I never stopped loving you," he says.

At this revelation, part of her wants to kiss him again, and part of her wants to scream at him, tell him he couldn't have loved her that much if he could just leave her without even saying goodbye. Eventually, she compromises, asks him why he pushed her away.

"I could feel the person I was turning into," he says, "and that wasn't a person who deserved someone like you. I thought it was better for you if I just let you go."

"Don't you think you should have let me make that decision?"

"I told you I regretted most of what I've done over the last decade, Jess."

He rises from the couch, squeezes her shoulder gently before walking back over to the window, leaving her to sit there with tears in her eyes. For years, she's wanted an explanation from him, she's wanted to berate him for leaving her, for hurting her. But this is enough, this simple statement; she has no desire to push him further, not when he's been through so much.

She wants to go to him, at the window, and tell him this, but she senses he needs the distance. Leaves him alone for awhile, as the late-afternoon sun shifts across the room, until finally hunger gets the better of her and she is the one to suggest maybe they should actually order some room service.

It's over this lunch that's nearly late enough to be dinner that she broaches the subject of Harold again. She makes no mention of Nathan this time, just asks what John's connection is to Harold. This much, at least, she feels she deserves to know, given how much Harold knows about her.

He hesitates for a moment, but then he tells her that he works with Harold — for Harold, really, since Harold is funding everything. And then he explains what everything is, that they help people, people whose lives are in danger. People like me, she says with a faint smile, and takes a sip of her wine, glad he thought to order it. It adds to the lingering strangeness of everything, to be sitting down to a nice meal with John, drinking wine after everything that's happened in the last few days, but it seems to be draining the last lingering tension from his face.

Yes, people like you, he confirms. But when she asks him how they know who to help, thinking — and he must know she's thinking of it — of how Nathan appeared mysteriously in her house at just the right time, he freezes up again.

"I need for you to accept that there are some things it's not my place to tell you, Jess."

She nods; after everything he's told her today — after he's opened up far more than she ever would have expected — it seems fair to allow him this secret, although she can't help but wonder why he is either unwilling or unable to tell her about this particular thing.

After they've eaten, after he's deposited the tray in the hallway with his gun tucked under his belt, hidden by his suit — all that caution just to open the door — she realizes that she very much wants to kiss him again. Some of this is the half-bottle of wine she's consumed, but mostly it is the sense of how much she's missed him, rushing up and overwhelming her. The sense that they are in a comfortable place, that although there will be new little details they will share over the next few days, all of the important things have been said.

She's trying to decide how to tell him this when his phone rings, he answers, and delves into what sounds like an argument with Harold about how now is not really a good time. It seems Harold wins the argument, though, because John turns to her and tells her he needs to take this call; it may be awhile.

Jessica can sense he wants privacy, and considers retreating to the bedroom with one of the books. She decides it's better to shower instead, the hot water beating down on her shoulders, drowning out whatever John is talking about with Harold. She dries herself quickly after she steps out of the shower, pulls on the hotel bathrobe, and turns on the hair dryer, something else to mask the conversation outside.

It's not enough to mask the sound of John shouting, though, out-and-out shouting, and when she hears this she punches the off button on the hair dryer and bursts out of the bathroom. Not the greatest plan, she realizes in hindsight — if he was shouting at someone who'd come into the room, it would have been best for her to stay hidden. There's not much she's going to be able to add to a fight.

But no, he's shouting into his phone: " — and I'm done talking about it!" And then pressing end, looking for a moment like he's going to throw the phone down before he calms slightly, places it back in his suit pocket.

"Is everything okay, John?"

"It's fine, just Harold being a pain in the ass."

She watches as his agitation ebbs, and then it comes to her, and although she's afraid to ask, she does anyway:

"It's not another person, is it? Another person who needs your help?"

"No, although that may happen, and we'll have to decide how to deal with it if it does." He glances down at her hand, still holding her brush, and smirks. "If there was really something happening out here, were you going to beat people off with your hairbrush?"

"Hey, my brush skills have gotten pretty good in the last few years," she smiles back, and it's lovely, this moment of lightness, but then she can feel his gaze grow serious. And she can feel it, the way he wants her, can see it in his eyes, and it's reassuring that after all of these years, at least this one thing has not changed. Still, she approaches slowly, stops just in front of him.

"I should have told you earlier — I never stopped loving you, either," she whispers. "And I missed you, so much."

He moves first, this time, kissing her with a fervor that makes her drop the brush in surprise. It hits her foot before the floor, but she doesn't care, because this, this, is what she's thought about every time he's crossed her mind, this is what she's longed for, and it is so much better than she's remembered.

She can tell he's being careful to avoid her neck, her throat, but she can feel his hands everywhere else. Hands that have killed so many people, but she tries not to think of that right now, pushes it to the far corners of her mind, focuses instead on the hard muscle of his shoulders beneath her own hands. And maybe things are moving too fast, she thinks, but then again maybe they are many years behind, and this is catching up.

His mouth hot on hers, and one of his hands is reaching for her thigh, now, pushing through the folds of her robe, stroking her bare skin. For the woman who has been lonely Lisa Williams for the last four years, this is almost too much, but she pulls him closer anyway.