Whoever it was could wait for the two minutes I needed to call Jacob and tell him Rosalinda’s was up after we picked out our Rottie. The puppy could stay in Persephone while we got takeout.

My thumb was hovering over Jacob’s name on my screen when my door smashed open.

My head flew to it and I saw Jacob standing there wearing an expression I’d seen before on two faces I loved.

My heart stopped beating.

At the look on his face, it took effort but I pushed out of my chair, opening my mouth to speak, but I got nothing out.

This was because Jacob rushed me. I got myself together to take a step back but it wasn’t fast enough. Jacob was on me and I was crushed in his arms so tight I couldn’t breathe.

I’d felt that before too.

“What’s happening?” I wheezed.

Jacob heard my wheeze, pulled back but clamped a hand on either side of my head, bending deep so his face was in mine, his eyes scanning my features.

That look in his eyes. That look I knew.

I swallowed.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

“You been here all day, baby?” he whispered back, his voice gruff with emotion.

“Yeah, except I went to lunch at the café with Zara like I told you I was gonna do,” I answered.

His eyes closed slowly.

Then one of his hands slid to the back of my head and he yanked my face into his chest. He held me there as his other hand went to his back pocket and he pulled out his phone.

“Jacob, is everything okay?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Yeah, baby, it’s okay.” Jacob’s voice was still gruff. “It’s all good.” Then he wasn’t talking to me when he said, “Chace. Not Emme. She’s at her office. Don’t know who he’s got but it’s not Emme.”

I felt my body go solid.

What was he talking about?

Jacob kept talking.

“Yeah, I probably should have given her a call,” Jacob said, his voice weird. This weirdness being that it seemed he was admitting to doing something stupid, something he never did, so the tone was unpracticed and didn’t sound right in his voice. “Gotta go, man. Emme heard that. Gotta explain then I’ll be back on the hunt.”

The hunt?

“Right. Later,” Jacob finished.

I planted my hands in his chest and pulled away as he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

I looked up at him. “Please tell me what’s happening.”

Both his hands settled on my neck and he bent again so our faces were close.

“For some reason, the ringleader of McFarland’s crew came back to town and lost his shit. Seein’ as McFarland’s hung up on you, when I got word that he took a woman, I made assumptions and thought it was you.” His fingers squeezed my neck. “It wasn’t you, baby, so I gotta get out there and help them find out who it is.”

I nodded, not knowing how to feel about the dire news of yet another woman being kidnapped in the county. I just knew the phantom of fear that he still held in his eyes I didn’t like all that much.

“I’m fine,” I whispered the obvious in an effort to get that look out of his eyes. “Go find whatever girl he’s got.”

He nodded but didn’t move.

“Don’t leave here until I come get you,” he ordered.

It was then I nodded. Someone was out there kidnapping people. I was totally down with that.

“Okay, honey,” I also agreed verbally.

“It gets later, you keep a man here with you until I can get to you or I’ll call Max or Ty to come get you.”

“Okay.”

He held my eyes.

“I’m fine,” I repeated softly.

“Scared as f**kin’ shit they had you,” he replied.

This man was such a good man.

And he was my man.

On this thought, I gave him a reassuring smile and pressed my hands into his chest for good measure.

“They didn’t.”

His eyes continued to hold mine.

Then he asked, “You okay with this shit?”

Weirdly, I was. Then again, obviously, I wasn’t.

“I’m safe. I have you,” I explained the former. “But I’d really like it if you went out and helped them find whoever the bad man has.”

Again, he held my eyes.

Then he nodded, pulled me in, kissed my forehead, pushed me back, gave me a small grin and strode to the door.

After he opened it, he stopped and turned back.

“Last hour proved what I told you today was true,” he stated.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re everything to me, Emme.”

As tears hit the backs of my eyes, I swallowed as I saw in his eyes that phantom was gone but the words he just spoke were true.

Unable to say more, I said, “Right back at you, honey. Now, please go save the day.”

He jerked up his chin then said, “Love you.”

I smiled at him. “Love you too.”

I caught Jacob’s return smile before the door closed behind him and I heard quick footfalls on the wooden stairs.

I pulled in a breath and scanned my emotions, searching for fear or the urge to retreat.

All I found was hope that Jacob and the men out looking for her found the girl who was missing so she would no longer be missing and therefore feeling the things I knew she was feeling.

And also that he did it in time for us to get our puppy and pick up burritos.

Epilogue

Doing It for Free

Seven and a half hours later…

“Babe, seriously,” Jacob said, and I looked at him.

“She’s just a puppy,” I told him something he knew.

“Yeah, but she’s just a Rottweiler puppy,” he returned. “You don’t let puppies chew your fingers. Rotties, you don’t give any indication at any time it’s okay to sink their teeth in flesh.”

He had a point.

I extracted my fingers from Josephine’s jaws and gave her head a rub.

She looked at me, went for the fingers I’d pulled away, gave up quickly, bounced up Jacob’s chest and attacked his jaw.

It was after puppy adoption, burrito pickup and consumption, and a weird day that started great, went wonky and ended fabulously.

We were lying on the couch in Jacob’s great room. Jacob was on his back, me tucked to his side, Buford on the floor by the couch, our new rambunctious puppy frolicking on Jacob’s massive chest.

Once his jaw was attacked, Jacob moved. Josephine and I were forced to move with him, Josephine mostly because he picked her up and put her on the floor.

Undeterred, she attacked Buford’s floppy ear.

Buford turned beleaguered eyes to Jacob, eyes that turned beleaguered about a nanosecond after Josephine was introduced and had stayed that way.

I fought back a grin.

Jacob gently pushed Josephine off his hound. Demonstrating she might have puppy ADHD, she instantly lost interest in Buford and attacked the rug.

I started giggling.

Jacob lay back on a sigh and curled me into him.

“So, okay,” I began, and Jacob stopped watching our new puppy growling and attempting to find purchase with her teeth on the edge of his rug and looked at me. “Sock it to me,” I invited.

Needless to say, since we got a puppy and I got my burritos, the girl had been saved and the bad guys were behind bars. But I had yet to get the full story.

“Fuckin’ nuts, but now knowin’ the whole story, it isn’t that interesting,” Jacob told me.

“For mysterious crimefighters, maybe not,” I replied, “For average citizens like me, I’m thinking it’ll be all kinds of interesting.”

Jacob grinned, curled me closer, pulling me partially over his chest and his hand dipped under my sweater to make lazy circles on my skin.

That felt really nice.

He started talking. “Jon Prosky’s Mom has chronic progressive MS.”

I stopped thinking how nice his fingers felt at my back and whispered, “Oh my God, that sucks.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sucks more, she doesn’t have any insurance or a husband. When she started gettin’ bad, he couldn’t deal. He took off a couple of years ago. What she did have was a son who loved her way too f**kin’ much.”

“Uh-oh,” I mumbled, guessing what would come next.

“Yeah,” Jacob again agreed. “He loved her, a lot of people loved her, but only he got desperate. But then, with the dad gone and no siblings, he was up. He’s also, if you can believe this shit, a seemingly nice guy who did desperate shit that was also illegal shit and convinced himself along the way it was for a cause that was just. Made matters worse he convinced a pack of high school kids the same thing.”

I knew something about nice people being moved by extreme circumstances to do extreme things but I wisely kept my mouth shut on that score and asked, “How did he do that?”

Jacob rolled to his side, wrapped his other arm around me and tangled his legs with mine.

That felt nice too.

“Bills started piling up,” he explained. “Avenues for payin’ them started dryin’ up, and Prosky knew two things. One, he needed money. And two, he needed to be free to take care of his mom as things progressed.”