“I’m glad we got the chance to say goodbye, where we can talk properly,” Jenn went on, arranging our hands such that our fingers twisted together and swung back and forth gently between us.
“Me too, baby,” I said, staring deeply into her eyes, memorizing her face until I could see her again. It wasn’t like I could bring a picture of her with me. Etching these last few moments on my memory would have to do. “I’m so sorry I’ll miss your wedding.” Just the thought made me sick to my stomach, missing my own daughter’s wedding.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” She shrugged, the side of her mouth curving upward. “Knowing you’re safe, off with someone who cares about you deeply, traveling the world and having adventures—that’ll keep me smiling.”
“You’re too good, Jennifer.” I cupped her jaw, breathing in as much as the tightness around my chest would allow. “You are an angel. Make sure that man of yours treats you like one.”
“He will.” A small, secretive smile hovered over her mouth and behind his eyes. “He treats me very well and makes me very happy.”
“Good.” I nodded, and before I could stop myself, I added, “And I cannot stress enough how important it is that you always orgasm first.”
Jennifer pulled her hands from mine and covered her face, groaning. “Good Lord, mother.”
“I mean it!” I peeled her fingers away, leveling her with my fiercest glare. “If he doesn’t see to your pleasure, don’t let him have a moment’s peace. Do you hear me?”
She nodded, cringing, her earlier tears swept away by my latest words. Good.
I would leave my daughter because I had to. But I’d be damned if she spent her life without every kind of love, without someone to cherish and treasure her—body, mind, and spirit.
Cletus Winston was a good man, and I trusted him to treat her right. But if he didn’t, if I found out he ever neglected or hurt my baby . . . well.
I was already on the run for one murder. What difference would a second one make?
We traveled all through the night. I didn’t mind. I was too keyed up to sleep. Despite the earlier pledge to myself that I’d question Jason about where we were going, I found I was too tired to talk. As morning dawned, throwing our shadows on the road on a long stretch ahead of us, a strange kind of resolve awoke within me, rising at my back with the sun.
I was not with my daughter or my son. I was lost to them. But it would not be forever. I would find a way to return, and it would happen before Jennifer and that man of her made me any grandbabies, or before Isaac met a woman and settled down. I would not miss both of my kids’ weddings and I would be a proper grandmother one day.
Perhaps it would never happen, but fixing my mind on the goal made me feel better, more in control.
“Life is so strange,” I said and thought in unison, though I hadn’t planned to speak at all.
Jason glanced at me and then back to the road. “How so?”
Since he asked . . . “Just when we think our path is set and we’re cruising along toward the inevitable tomorrow, the good Lord sees fit to throw a sexy, sweet motorcycle man in my path to shake everything up.”
A reluctant looking smile tugged at his mouth. “I seem to recall it being the other way around. It was you throwing yourself in my path, wasn’t it?”
“Well, who can keep track of such things.” I flicked my hand this way and that. “My point is, I can’t believe we’re here. Together. And this our life now.”
“Driving to Texas in a Volvo isn’t our life for long.”
Turning in my seat, I gave his profile my full attention. Goodness, how I’d missed just looking at his handsome face. “Oh? Then what is our life?”
Jason rubbed his chin, looking calm and thoughtful. “Well, let’s see. It’ll start once we reach Russia. And then, after that, maybe Morocco. Or Ethiopia.”
My eyebrows skyrocketed and I felt acutely breathless. “We . . . we’re going to Russia?”
“Yes.”
“Why? And . . . how? And what—how will we pay for such a thing?”
Jason adjusted his rearview mirror to account for the glare of the sun, his lips forming a faint smile. “Russia is one of a few countries that don’t have an extradition treaty with the US, and I know Russian better than Amharic, Darija, Arabic, or French.”
“You speak Russian?”
He chuckled, presumably at my tone. But you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. What was going on?
“I speak a little, enough to get by in big cities. But we’re going to a resort town and most everyone there speaks enough English or German. We shouldn’t have too much trouble getting around.”
Heaving a tremendous sigh, I shook my head and looked out the front windshield. “Well, okay then. We’re going to Russia. But how am I going to get a job if I don’t speak the language?”
Jason sent me his trademark expression that was half frown, half grin. “Why would you need to work?”
“I assume we’ll need to eat and a roof over our heads.”
“You assume correctly. But, Diane, gorgeous, that’s all taken care of.”
“You already found us jobs?”
“No,” he drawled, his frown clearing to reveal nothing but pure amusement. “I have money. Lots of it. You won’t need to work unless you feel moved to do so.”
My stomach twisted at that and I sunk lower in my seat, shifting to one side to keep the rays of sunshine in the side mirror from blinding me.
“What’s wrong?” Jason’s hand settled on my leg and he gave it a squeeze, a frown knitting itself between his eyebrows.
“It’s just . . .” I shook my head, facing him again. “I think we need to get something straight.”
“What’s that?”
“I love you.”
His hand on my thigh tightened and then released, but his features didn’t change. He just kept on staring forward, eyes on the road, jaw set. The only sound inside the car was the rotation of the wheels over the pavement.
Maybe he didn’t hear me?
“I’m in love with you, Jason,” I repeated, my tone matter-of-fact because this information was matter-of-fact. “I’m telling you now so you go into this with your eyes wide open. I absolutely refuse to become a burden to you. And if you don’t feel the same way—or think you could, given enough time—it’s not too late for you to turn back and send me on my way.”
In response to this, his hand slid further up my thigh, his fingers moving more toward the interior of my leg. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet,” he said, his tone also very matter-of-fact. “But I need you, Diane.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. Therefore, I peered at him. “You don’t need me. No person needs another person.”
“I do. I told myself I wasn’t going to tell you now, not until we were all settled someplace safe.”
“Tell me what? What are you talking about?”
“I can’t think about my life without you being part of it.” Jason reached for my hand, curled his fingers around mine, and lifted my knuckles to brush a soft kiss there. “When I think of the future, I think of you and me. I can’t see any other path for me.”