“Let’s get ice cream then.” He smiled back at her.

“I hope they have dipped cones.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the window.

“I’ll have a twist cone dipped in chocolate.” Her eyes beamed as if all her dreams just came true.

Who was this woman with the innocence of a young child dying to escape?

“Small vanilla in a cup.”

“What?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “What he means is a hot caramel sundae with pecans.”

“I do?” He looked down at her.

“You do.” She pressed a kiss to his arm as he handed the lady a twenty.

They took their cool treats to the picnic table.

“We should stay here for the winter. I bet Omaha sucks in the winter.”

“Can’t be any worse than New York.”

She paused with her dripping cone at her lips. A moment later she nodded. “True.”

“Hurricane season is over. We should head to the Gulf and find a little shack to rent.”

“Shack?”

“We don’t need much.”

He was looking at everything he needed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the laundry and dust the blinds.”

“You clean?” AJ couldn’t hold back his incredulous response.

“As needed. We might have to negotiate the definition of need. I have this feeling yours may be a bit more stringent than mine.”

He nodded, taking a small bite of his ice cream. “Were your parents wealthy?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Work seems to be an option for you, not a necessity. You live in a nice house, drive a brand new Harley, drop a couple thousand dollars on camping equipment, and for that first week I’m pretty sure you paid for all the gas and the hotel room expenses. Unless you stole my credit card from my wallet.”

Jillian licked her ice cream and chocolate covered lips. “Hmm … I never thought about stealing your wallet. Total oversight on my part.”

“I’m serious.” AJ pushed his half-eaten sundae toward the middle of the table. His appetite was still off.

“They weren’t wealthy, but they had money in savings, a house that was paid off, and pretty good life insurance.”

“Well you’re young and you should be putting that money in savings or investing it, not spending it on me.”

“So you quit your job. Where are you getting the money?”

“Savings … my house if it ever sells.”

“You don’t need to sell your house now.”

“Jillian …”

“What?” She shrugged, keeping her eyes on his ice cream that she decided to finish off.

“Look at me.” He took the cup from her and held both of her hands, squeezing them until she surrendered her gaze to him. “I can’t … I won’t pretend with you. I just want your now for as many days as I have. Because now—this moment—is all I have to give. It’s yours. I’m yours. Please just let it be enough.”

She looked at him without a single blink. Finally her head moved a fraction. It looked like a nod, a very small acquiescence. “You have ice cream on your nose.”

AJ wiped his nose then looked at his hand. “Did I get it?”

“Nope.”

He looked up just as a spoon filled with caramel and ice cream collided with his nose. Jillian’s shoulders bounced as she bit her lips together and snorted a laugh.

“Funny?” He narrowed his eyes.

Cupping a hand over her mouth, she nodded.

“Stop.” She tried to twist from his hold as he lunged over the table, locking her head between his hands while he rubbed his nose all over her face. She gave up the fight when his lips took hers.

Fate used his heart as a punching bag every time he touched her, a painful reminder that it could be the last touch, the last kiss.

“Aric James …” she whispered over his lips.

“Shh … now. Nothing else matters.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lady Gaga blared through the speakers about her Nebraska guy as Ryn gripped the ballet barre. Her leg muscles ignited into a fiery burn under Val’s drill sergeant orders. She welcomed the pain because her Nebraska guy was off. The. Charts.

“Coffee?” Val wiggled her brows at Ryn after the rest of the class left the building.

“I don’t know I—”

“Sorry. It sounded like a question didn’t it? I meant we’re going for coffee because you owe me the latest scoop. I’m in a dating funk right now. I need to know there’s life after divorce.”

“Sorry, I’m on a tight schedule today.”

“Just say it. You’re going to have hot sex with that boy because he likes the taste of your sweat.”

Ryn pushed on the front door and turned back. “Please don’t call him a boy. I’m drowning in enough insecurity.”

Val laughed. “Next week. I won’t take no for an answer.”

Ryn nodded and rushed out the door, digging through her purse for her keys as the cool fall breeze whipped her hair in her face.

“I love that my wife works hard to keep her figure.”

She froze, feeling nothing but fear pounding against her chest. Preston’s smug bastard face greeted her as she lifted her gaze. He wore his usual custom-tailored black suit, leaning against her car door with his ankles casually crossed as if he owned the world, as if he still owned her. Ryn held up her phone.

“You can’t be here, so leave before I have you arrested.”

“I want to apologize.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Apologize? This better be about Maddie. How dare you lie to her and make her think I was ever crazy and suicidal.”

He smirked. “I’m not apologizing for that. That’s between you and Maddie. I’m here to apologize for your birthday. The whole passing out thing.” He chuckled. “You know the funny thing about that … the last thing I remember is that thug you brought putting his hand around the back of my neck and squeezing. He say anything about that to you?”

Ryn shook her head.

“I did some looking into him. It’s like he didn’t exist before moving to Omaha. Where did he say he’s from?”

“He’s none of your business.” She reached for the door handle.

He didn’t move. Instead, he bent down and whispered in her ear, “He’s fucking what’s mine so that makes him my business.”

“I’m not yours.”

He pushed off the door and slid on his shades. “Semantics, sweetheart. I’m just telling you something’s not right about him so watch yourself.”

*

Mrs. Baker reeked of all kinds of wrong. Jackson followed her home after her last lesson. She lived in a small split-level house surrounded by a jungle of weeds in a run-down neighborhood. Children’s toys cluttered the front yard like she ran a daycare out of her home. Through his binoculars, he watched her get out of her car, go inside, and come back out fifteen minutes later wearing baggy ripped jeans and a flannel shirt—a fashion world away from the expensive clothes she wore to her lessons. But it wasn’t her clothes that made his blood run toxic through his veins, it was her red hair. Had she been wearing a wig? Certain that at least on some level she could be a liability, he decided to plan her removal.

Fate, however, granted Meredith Baker a stay of execution when she missed her lesson to visit a friend in the hospital. Knowing she could be plotting his death, or even Jillian’s, had him on edge the entire following week. Ryn fell victim to his nervous energy. All their lessons on self-defense turned into fuck fest on the mat. He fucked her hard and often, hoping the release would ease his impatience, but it didn’t. It just left the woman he felt certain defined love in a constant state of confusion and physically exhausted to the point of avoiding him for days in between.

All of that was about to change as he lined the back of Woody with plastic. Jillian hated knives, but Jackson found them to be quite effective. He didn’t enjoy the kill—that’s how he slept at night. There was never any sort of high or adrenaline rush. It was a job. Remove the threat.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Baker was more than a threat. There was no way she worked alone, which meant he would have to drag the information from her. That’s why he needed the knife. The quick neck snap was more his thing, but the threat of it rarely garnered much information. Evil people weren’t afraid to die, but they didn’t like pain.