Maggie Price - Jackson's Woman

Claire closed the door behind her friend, then engaged the dead bolt. From behind her came the rattle of the mop bucket.

It took a moment, a carefully indrawn breath, a steady exhale, before she turned. Her gaze tracked Jackson as he rolled the bucket containing a mop around the counter toward the spot where Silas had died.

“So, you have a theory about the break-in and murder,” she began. “Is the reason you’re here anything to do with what happened to Silas?”

Jackson positioned the bucket near the bloodstain, then leaned the mop’s handle against the nearby whitewashed pine armoire. “It’s possible.” He glanced again at the floor and frowned. “Not probable, but possible.”

She took in the hard set of his jaw, his rigid shoulders. He hunted terrorists for a living. Was it possible Silas Smith’s murder was an act of terrorism? The question might seem unbelievable if Reunion Square wasn’t a short walk from the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. Like everyone else in the city, Claire had long ago abandoned the it-can’t-happen-here mindset.

For the first time she noticed the shadows of fatigue under Jackson’s eyes and the small, pronounced lines at the corners of his mouth.

“Where were you when you woke up this morning?” she asked.

From somewhere blocks away came the shriek of a siren. Jackson turned his head, his gaze sweeping across the mullioned window that spanned the entire front of the shop. When he remet Claire’s gaze, his eyes were intent, unnervingly watchful.

“I was in Spain.”

“Did you travel most of today specifically to get here? Not just to Oklahoma City, but here?”

“Yes.” He glanced at his watch. “I hopped a nonstop military transport. Taking the time change into consideration, I logged nearly eleven hours in the air.”

She moved from the door, skirting several tables and displays before pausing a few feet from him. Beneath the shop’s bright lights, the gash that slashed his left eyebrow looked even rawer. Claire didn’t let herself try to imagine how he’d been injured. Or if he’d been in mortal danger at the time. She’d spent too many hours alone in various foreign countries while he was away on assignment, waiting for him to call, fearing he hadn’t because he was lying dead in some place with a name she couldn’t even pronounce.

“Are you saying you flew all those hours to get here because you suspected someone wanted to kill my handyman? Some homegrown terrorist? Someone like that?”

Jackson stepped toward her, halting when only inches separated them. His gaze narrowed, seemed to penetrate her.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I traveled today with the sole intention of getting here, to you, as soon as I could. But it wasn’t because I thought someone planned to slit your handyman’s throat.”

“Then why? Jackson, why are you here?”

“Because someone wants to kill you .”

Chapter 2

Jackson watched Claire’s face go pale and fear grow in her eyes. He gripped her upper arms. “It’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.”

Beneath his hands, she swayed like a sheet in the wind. “Let’s get you off your feet.”

He hooked a foot around the leg of a chair and dragged it away from a table loaded with china and heavy silver. With a gentle push, he nudged her into the chair.

Dammit, he hadn’t meant to tell her that way—after finding her handyman with his throat slit, the last thing she needed tonight was another shock. Someone wants to kill you . Smooth move, Castle.

When it came to his work, he was never at a loss. Didn’t allow himself to get distracted from his focus. But seeing Claire again had shaken him far more than he’d ever thought possible.

He ordered himself to snap back into control. Now . He couldn’t have her. Logically he knew that. Shouldn’t still want her. Didn’t want to want her. He bit back on frustration. Too much was at stake for him to let the emotional baggage he’d dragged around since she’d walked out get in the way. Right now, Claire Munroe was a job—that’s all she was. All she could be. Ryker had seen to that.

When she clutched the arms of the chair, Jackson crouched, putting them at eye-level. “Do you want some water? Something stronger?”

“I want an explanation.” She let out a long breath, but it didn’t steady her voice. “Who wants to kill me?”

He had found out less than twenty-four hours ago that she was in danger from a man he’d once considered his closest friend. He was still trying to come to grips with that. And everything else.

“Frank Ryker.”

“I don’t know him. Why would someone I don’t know…” Her forehead furrowed. “ Ryker . Isn’t that your partner’s last name? The man you consider your mentor?”

“Frank Ryker’s my ex-partner, as of a little over a month ago.”

“A federal cop, your partner , wants to kill me?” There was dismay in her voice now and color was returning to her cheeks. The tight grip she had on the arms of the chair had turned her knuckles white.

“Ex-partner, yes.”

“Why?”

Because of me . His gut twisting, Jackson rose. After Claire had left him, he’d tried to put her out of his mind, and sometimes succeeded. But then he would come off an assignment and let go of the tight control necessary to survival on the job. It was at those times when he eased back his focus that thoughts of her closed in. They hovered around him like ghosts, whispering to him, brushing against him during the night until he thought he might go mad with wanting her.

Those tormenting thoughts had prompted his occasional casual mention of her to Ryker. Although Jackson would like to use the excuse that it was natural for personal feelings to spill out when two friends decompressed after a life-and-death assignment, he was realistic enough to admit he had never dealt with Claire walking away. Hadn’t wanted to. Still didn’t want to. Knowing she’d moved on, was planning to marry a man who could give her the life he never could, had been sufficient reason to stay away.

But Ryker had put Claire’s life on the line, which left him no choice but to face her. And the emotions he’d refused to deal with. Head-on.

He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “It’d be best if I lay out what happened from the beginning.”

“Fine.” Claire rose sharply. “You talk, I’ll listen.”

He watched as she tugged open a door on the pine armoire. She wore a soft denim shirt tied at the waist and slim jeans that molded tightly to her hips and legs. He knew what it felt like to have those legs part for him, wrap around him.

Two years of missing her, of wanting her with him, hit him like a ton of bricks.

Get a grip . He fought to repress the hungry, possessive storm inside him while watching her retrieve a rag and a bottle of cleaning solvent. Knowing he would waste his breath, he bit back the urge to suggest she wait until she felt steadier to clean up the dusting of fingerprint powder the cops had left on numerous items. Whenever she got nervous or upset, Claire was on the move. The night she’d told him goodbye, her pacing had almost worn a path in the carpet of their Cairo hotel room.

He retrieved the mop out of the bucket he’d filled with water and pine-scented disinfectant, then went to work on the bloodstain.

“A little over a month ago,” he began, “terrorists kidnapped an American attaché in Singapore. We got intel he was being held in a warehouse, so Ryker and I set up surveillance until a team from our Mobile Security Division—the equivalent of SWAT—arrived. MSD went in first, then Ryker and myself. Or so I thought until I hit the doorway and realized he’d hung back. A second later, the warehouse exploded.”