MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel Read online

  “Yes, Douglas. And thank you.”

  His mouth firmed. She knew him pretty well by now and she was really good friends with his wife. That tight-lipped expression meant he wasn’t saying what he thought. Which was that Jacko should be here.

  She was grateful. She’d defend Jacko. Whatever he did was just fine in her book, and anyone who wanted to criticize him would have to go through her first. But she hadn’t slept well and was feeling shaky and didn’t want her voice to tremble when she took Jacko’s side.

  Because, well…the truth was, he should be here.

  Douglas looked at her as if he could walk around inside her head, nodded and walked down the porch stairs and to his waiting SUV.

  Lauren sagged a little. Douglas, like most of the ASI men, carried a force field around him that bent gravity a little. When they left, there was a sort of black hole that took a while to fill.

  Lauren stood in the living room after he’d gone. She’d had breakfast, she’d showered, she’d made the bed. That seemed to be the extent of her planning abilities. She had work to do and ordinarily she was very self-disciplined, but today she was shaky. Had trouble getting going.

  Okay. Can’t stand around forever. So what if you feel shaky? There’s work to do. Your clients are expecting you to do your best for them.

  The little pep talk made her feel better. Today she’d finish the Iron Princess cover and send it off and she would start making sketches for a character in a video game. She had a feeling that would turn into another revenue generator.

  The doorbell went off.

  Jacko had installed a bristling array of sound and motion sensors around the house. It was a sign of her distress that she hadn’t noticed the alarms for Douglas, and hadn’t noticed the second person to ring her bell that morning.

  Though she suspected she knew who it would be.

  Either Metal O’Brien, Joe Harris, Jack Delvaux or the other ASI boss, John Huntington.

  Metal. Bingo.

  He was standing on her doorstep, looking fierce, holding a bag.

  “Danish,” he said, handing it to her. “Not as good as what Isabel makes but still.”

  “Thank you, Metal,” she said gently. Metal was closest to Jacko and he was taking this whole thing personally.

  “Anything need fixing? Anything I can do for you? Get for you?”

  Lauren almost wished she could ask him to do something for her, just to make him feel better. But she didn’t need anything but Jacko. And Metal couldn’t do anything about that.

  “Thanks, Metal. But I’m fine. Would you like a cup of coffee before going in to work?” Though it was Saturday, she knew he was going in to the office. He was working on a long-term project, something about having a place to bug out to when the zombie apocalypse hit.

  “No, but thanks. Felicity’s been in the office all night, working on something that came in yesterday and is time-sensitive. I need to get to her. I have more Danish in my truck.”

  Felicity’s sweet tooth was legendary. Lauren had no idea how she stayed so slim. Probably by working so hard.

  So she’d gone from Lauren’s house last night—where she had spent the evening trying to make Lauren feel better—to work, working all night to make up for looking after Lauren.

  Lauren felt ashamed. She was wallowing in her emotions.

  She put a hand on Metal’s hard shoulder and lifted up to kiss him on the cheek. Just like with the other ASI men, there was sweetness under that super-tough exterior.

  “Thanks for stopping by, Metal. Give Felicity my love.”

  “You’ll be seeing her soon.” He gave her one of those looks Douglas had given her—like a welder checking a solder to make sure there were no weak spots. “If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do for you—”

  “I’m sure,” she said gently. “Thanks.”

  He turned and met Joe Harris coming up the walkway. Joe was carrying a cooler. They stopped, exchanged a few words—Jacko was one of them—and Joe carried on up to the door where Lauren stood.

  Joe was as tall as Metal, but much thinner. He’d been badly wounded in battle and had only recently begun working. He’d insisted on starting work before he was ready and Lauren felt another stab of guilt.

  “Hey, Lauren,” he said, hefting the cooler. He was stronger than he looked. That sucker could weigh a hundred pounds, but you wouldn’t know it. “Got something for you. From Isabel. I really like you, so I didn’t snatch anything on the way over. Was hard, though.” He cracked the cover and amazing smells came out.

  “God.” Knowing Isabel, there’d be enough food for an army. Or at least an ASI poker game, which might be coming up. The guys had an ongoing poker game where Joe regularly beat them. Jacko hated that, hated losing. They might organize one at her house, and the women would gather in the kitchen. They weren’t going to leave her alone while Jacko was AWOL.

  Tears suddenly gleamed in her eyes and Lauren panicked. She looked the other way and wiped her eyes. “Got a cold,” she mumbled.

  Joe shifted from foot to foot, a little embarrassed, a little angry at Jacko.

  “Thank Isabel for me,” she said, reaching out for the cooler. “I’ll take that, unless you want a cup of coffee.”

  “No, I’ll carry it in for you, but then I have to get going. I’ll take a rain check on the coffee, thanks.”

  He put the cooler on the kitchen counter, bent to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek and an awkward pat on the back, and left.

  Isabel looked at the cooler. Inside would be amazing things Isabel had prepared with love, but right now, Lauren’s stomach was closed up tight. Though the smells were delicious, her stomach had lurched out there on the porch.

  Not morning sickness. Worry.

  She loved Jacko, she trusted Jacko. But the question was—did he trust himself? For him to behave like this, he had to be pushed by powerful emotions, and not good ones. Even the best of people could get pushed in bad directions by bad feelings.

  Jacko would come back to her. She believed that with every fiber of her being.

  But…she had to think for two people now. She was utterly and completely responsible for a new life. If the very worst happened, and Jacko found himself incapable of being a father, it was all on her.

  It wouldn’t happen, but she couldn’t afford to not think of it, not with a child depending on her.

  Okay. She faced her fears squarely. If worse came to worst, she could do this. She could raise a child on her own. She owned her home and she had part of her mother’s estate. Her design business was booming. She lived in a crowd of people who would help her in any way they could. The ASI crowd was not fair weather friends. Every single person had known tragedy and had shown themselves to be people you could count on for the long haul.

  She’d be okay on her own. Jacko was coming back, but if somehow his demons were too big for him to face, she could do it, she could raise their child on her own.

  Feeling more settled, she ate a croissant packed in the cooler—excellent, Isabel really was special—and had a cup of tea and went into her study.

  She got absolutely nothing done that day.

  John Huntington, founder of ASI, stopped by with his wife Suzanne—on their way to the Lloyd Center, though the Lloyd Center was in the opposite direction—to see if she needed anything.

  She’d barely closed the door behind them when Jack Delvaux showed up with a case of beer, self-inviting the poker group to meet at her house that evening and by the way, if she needed anything done in the house, to draw up a list.

  Then Joe showed up with another cooler of food for the poker game, and by that time, it was dusk and she had to start setting up the poker table.

  Everyone had kept her so busy today she’d barely had time to think of Jacko.

  The sky was dark gray and the poker guys and their ladies started arriving, couple by couple. Soon the house was filled with noise and laughter.

  Lauren had popped into the bedroom to grab her iPa
d to show Summer something when her cell rang.

  Jacko.

  Lauren sat on the pretty nursing chair in her bedroom—in their bedroom—because her legs shook.

  “Jacko?”

  Silence.

  She drew in a deep breath. “Poker night is at our house tonight,” she said gently into the silence. “Metal, Joe and Jack. And Felicity, Isabel and Summer. Isabel sent Joe over this afternoon with enough food to keep a prepper family happy for a year. I think Joe is missing you the most. He’s going to miss taking money off you and he’s going to miss your grumpy face when you lose. Everyone else is a graceful loser, you know.”

  She could hear breathing over the line. He was there, but he couldn’t speak. Her heart cracked just a little. She knew how terrible she felt. How lonely and unsettled. Just imagine Jacko, she thought. His feelings must be overwhelming if he couldn’t even talk to her.

  She settled into the chair, tucking her feet under her. Lowering her voice, as if he were in the room with her, right next to her, so close she could feel his body heat. The way they sat when they listened to music together or watched TV together.

  “You know,” she said, “I was thinking about the night we—we got together, for want of a better term. Do you remember? Yes, of course you do.”

  He’d told her once his life started that night.

  Her heart beat just a little faster and she wiped her eyes.

  That night was imprinted on her, as well.

  She’d been on the run for two years from a psychopath. She’d settled happily in Portland, making friends almost against her will with Suzanne. Jacko had somehow attached himself to her, always somehow there. He never made a move, actively avoided touching her, but he was always there just the same.

  That night, she had reason to believe her new identity had been compromised and she knew she had to run. One last night in Portland, in the life she loved, was all she could allow herself.

  She was going to seduce Jacko and leave the next morning. One last night of heat and sex before hitting the cold, lonely road.

  “All the time you were driving me home, I was scheming how to get you to kiss me. To take me to bed. I was mapping the whole thing in my head. I was thinking—invite you in for coffee or a drink. Sit down next to you on the couch, maybe brush your hand with mine.” She wiped away a tear. “I wanted that so much. I wanted you so much. Just one night with you, to take away a good memory before I went on the run again.”

  Lauren could almost feel the intensity at the other end of the line. He was listening to her with everything in him.

  “But—but I was also telling myself I didn’t stand a chance. You had a rep, you know? Suzanne and Allegra talked about you all the time. The guys did too. Nobody knew what to be more impressed by—the number of women you’d had sex with or your shooting scores.” She gave a little laugh, watery and sad.

  Silence.

  Where was he? He was on the road, but where? Where was his quest taking him?

  “So, I was scared out of my mind you wouldn’t want me. They said you were a real player and you liked your women young and sexy—biker chicks. And I knew I wasn’t sexy at all.”

  Though as it turned out, she turned Jacko on—a lot.

  “Do you remember how hard my hands shook when you walked me to my door? I was planning on seducing you but I couldn’t figure out how. I was so scared you’d take a drink, just to be polite, then leave and go to a bar and pick some chick up. I was having a panic attack. I couldn’t feel my hands. Remember? I fumbled the keys and couldn’t open the door, so you had to take the key and open it for me.”

  And the next thing she knew, she was plastered against the wall and Jacko was kissing her senseless.

  He’d been thinking about it, just as she had. It was the beginning of their love affair and it had changed her world and his, forever.

  “Do you remember, Jacko? Darling?”

  Silence.

  Lauren wiped away another tear, then swiped her thumb across the screen and closed the connection, following the sounds of laughter to where the poker game had started and Joe Harris was winning hand after hand.

  In the kitchen, Felicity, Isabel and Summer were unpacking another cooler of delicious food. Isabel had already put a platter of thinly sliced pot roast in the oven to keep warm. Summer and Felicity had pulled out her dining room table and set seven places.

  Lauren’s heart thumped hard when she saw the missing place. She knew Jacko would want to be here. He hated losing, which he did on a regular basis because apparently Joe had some special connection to the Poker Gods. But Jacko loved being around his buddies and the animus disappeared once the poker game stopped.

  Don’t be sad, she told herself.

  Jacko wasn’t here because he couldn’t be. There was something in him that was forcing him on the road. But she was here.

  This was her tribe. Her child—their child—would grow up surrounded by these good, strong people, who would stand by her no matter what.

  Jacko was alone with his demons. She had her tribe around her. She plastered a smile on her face as she sent a silent prayer for the man she loved. That he would complete his quest and find his way back home.

  Jacko put his cell down on the tray in the dashboard and pulled out from the wayside stop. He’d popped into a diner for quick fuel and a caffeine drink, the kind of thing Lauren would never let him eat. He couldn’t even remember what he’d eaten. It tasted like cardboard.

  Nothing on the road could beat Isabel’s cooking anyway—it was world class. Right now the people he loved most were at his house, having a good time. It was true that Joe was taking money off Metal and Jack, but as compensation they’d have a great dinner afterward. Share a few beers, a few laughs.

  They were there with Lauren, looking after her.

  That was his job. Looking after Lauren, making sure she was safe and happy—that was what he was supposed to be doing, instead of being on the road, a thousand miles from home, on some half-assed quest to—to what?

  As Metal put it—the fuck was he doing?

  Jacko rarely got tired but all of a sudden he was swamped with fatigue. Something more than physical tiredness, something that was dangerous on the road.

  He’d been driving for ten hours straight and had another seven hours at least before he got to Rancho San Diego.

  A blinking sign by the side of the road showed a motel with vacancies. Jacko swerved and ten minutes later he had the keys to a room. He was too wound up to sleep but at least he could rest his eyes for a few hours.

  The room was disgusting. Maybe a year ago he wouldn’t even have noticed. He was used to living rough as a kid and as a SEAL on mission. Being dry and on something softer than the ground was already better than many ops he’d been on.

  But now, after living with Lauren, it was a form of punishment being in this room. The smell assaulted him as soon as he turned the key in the lock in the plywood door a blind man could have picked in under a minute.

  There were NO SMOKING signs everywhere in the motel but someone had recently smoked in the room, leaving that nauseating smell of stale cigarette smoke. Layered on that was the smell of filthy carpet and dusty curtains.

  The bed sagged visibly. The bathroom door was open. Inside was a cracked yellowed sink. He checked the bathroom out, pulling back the ancient shower curtain to see some pubes on the shower stall floor.

  It was okay. This was punishment he deserved. This crappy place was right for someone who at this very moment could be sleeping beside the most beautiful woman in the world—a woman who loved him—on a lavishly comfortable bed that smelled clean and fresh.

  Jacko didn’t even take his boots off. He just lay down on the dirty bedspread, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling, waiting for dawn.

  Thinking of Lauren.

  Lauren, so very soft. Lauren, whose pale skin was a magnet for his hands, for his eyes, for his mouth. Lauren, who loved him.

  If s
he were here right now, he’d be touching her all over, feeling where her body was already starting to change. He’d felt that the night he arrived home, without understanding. Minute changes invisible to someone who hadn’t made a study of every inch of Lauren’s body his lifelong mission.

  The face just a little fuller, breasts a touch larger, nipples a little darker, not that pale pink he loved but a deep rose color he loved even more.

  He’d put his hand over her belly without realizing what lay beneath it. If he had, he’d have freaked even earlier.

  Goddamn.

  Before his eyes, Lauren started changing shape. She was smiling at him while her body transformed. The breasts grew even larger, her belly swelled, rippled. Something inside her, fighting to get out.

  The skin of her belly moved, bulging in odd places. It became like a beach ball, the skin shiny and taut, growing and growing. Jacko couldn’t believe that Lauren kept smiling at him while her body was undergoing such a massive transformation. Her belly grew monstrously huge. Something kept moving under the skin, undulating like a snake under water.

  Jacko put his hands on her belly, as if to contain it. Under the skin of his palms, he could feel something inside, moving. Something kicked against his hand, hard, like something fighting to get out. He pressed harder, to keep it inside.

  Lauren kept smiling at him but tears started running down her cheeks. He frowned, wiped his thumb across her cheek. Not tears. Blood.

  Her breasts, too. The nipples were…bleeding, thin trickles of blood from the nipples running down the underside of her breasts. Under his hand, what was in her belly poked at him hard, something sharp.

  Lauren, bleeding tears but still smiling at him, sighed heavily as if suddenly tired. Her belly was rippling. She pulled her knees up, spread her legs, and Jacko saw that there was a lake of blood under her. He glanced sharply at her face and saw how pale she was, the trickle of blood from her eyes very dark against her shockingly white skin.

  “Lauren?” Her eyes turned to him but they were cloudy. She was having trouble focusing. “Lauren, honey? Look at me.” Jack made his voice sharp, to catch her attention. He was never sharp with Lauren but she seemed to be moving further and further away from him, though she wasn’t moving from the bed. Her eyes drifted shut. “Focus! Damn it, Lauren, look at me!”