Targeted

reminded him of the beach and coconuts. It was very quiet, especially for a Friday night. Normally someone in the neighborhood was having a party, so he savored the stillness. He didn’t have school or baseball practice tomorrow, which meant he could sleep in if Ms. Bigsby let them.

“Do you want to go to the beach tomorrow?” she finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

His entire body tightened. The beach. With Sophie. In a bathing suit. Being tortured by seeing her and not being able to touch, or stop other guys from staring at her. He tried to find his voice but failed.

She pushed up and looked at him, her dark eyes guarded as she inched away from him. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s not like we have to be friends just because we live in the same house.”

He’d been living under the same roof as her for a week, and he sure as hell didn’t want just friendship. Clearly she’d misunderstood his silence. “I want to!” he blurted, then felt stupid. “I was just thinking I don’t have a bathing suit.” Okay, that sounded lame, but she seemed to believe him.

Her shoulders relaxed a fraction as she leaned back against him. “You’re lucky because you’re a guy. You can just wear shorts. Or I’ve got some money saved up. I can buy you a suit at the boardwalk on the way.”

She was offering to buy him something? He tightened his grip around her shoulders as something foreign settled in his chest. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it made him feel warm. “Nah, I’ve got some cash saved too.” He was always socking it away. Never knew when he’d get stuck in a shitty house and have to split. There was no way he’d let her pay for anything, but it amazed him that she’d offered in the first place.

“So . . . did I hear Inez stop by earlier?” There was more than a little hesitation in Sophie’s voice.

Sam snorted. “Yeah. Stupid cow.” He didn’t understand girls at all. He’d told Inez to leave Sophie alone and had been pretty mean to the neighbor girl. It wasn’t like he wanted to be mean, especially to a girl, but she tortured Sophie and that shit was gonna stop. So what did the crazy girl do? Inez came over wearing practically nothing and asked him if he wanted to “hang out” with her tonight. As in hook up. Fucking gross. The thought of touching Inez like that was enough to turn his stomach.

“You can hang out with her if you want. Just because she’s—”

“No.” He couldn’t even let Sophie finish that thought when he could hear the pain in her voice. He shifted their bodies so she had to look up at him. She stared at him with big eyes and he forgot to breathe. What he wouldn’t give to kiss her. Just once. He swallowed hard. “You think I’m that shallow?” He didn’t expand because he didn’t need to.

Smiling shyly, she shook her head and tucked it back against his shoulder. “I’m glad you don’t want to hang out with her,” she said after a few minutes of silence.

•   •   •

Jack hated the memory that played through his head, but he couldn’t slow it down or stop it as he tried to lift Sophie’s head without waking her. He slipped a pillow under her head, but she opened her eyes immediately. Instead of the fear he expected, her espresso-colored eyes were confused.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled.

“You fell asleep out here and I don’t want you to get a crick in your neck.” His hand hovered under her head. For a moment he stared at her parted lips. She wasn’t quite awake, still in between that dream state and awareness. What he wouldn’t give to taste her again. The soft sighs she’d been making in her sleep made him wonder what she’d been dreaming about.

“What time is it?” Her voice was quiet.

Slowly he withdrew his hand and sat on the floor even though moving away from her was the last thing he wanted to do. “A few minutes before midnight.”

She rolled over on the couch and faced him. Jack had pushed the coffee table out of the way and laid out a blanket and pillow on the floor next to the couch. In the quiet living room, slivers of moonlight peeking through the long blinds covering the sliding glass door were their only illumination. It was still light enough for her to see that he’d fashioned a makeshift bed next to her.

“Why are you out here?” There was a slight trace of panic in her whispered question.

“I’m sleeping next to you.” Occasionally he opted for boxers, but he normally slept naked. He knew that even boxers would freak her out, so he’d stayed in his jeans and T-shirt. Not exactly comfortable, but he’d dealt with a lot worse.

“Why?”

“If something happens, we need to be able to move together and quickly.”

“Oh.” She pulled the blanket up higher on her chest.

“Try to get some sleep. In the morning we have some decisions to make.” He closed his eyes and tucked one hand under his head. Sleeping next to Sophie again like this wasn’t exactly the way he’d imagined it. Once he joined the NSA he’d kept tabs on her. From afar he’d watched her develop into a beautiful woman. But beautiful women were a dime a dozen. There was something else about Sophie that called to him.

Always had.

From before they’d even spoken to each other. Jack didn’t know what it was about her that got under his skin. Maybe it was the fact that she understood where he came from. They’d both had similar upbringings. Both had grown up in foster care because of shitty drug-addicted mothers who’d abandoned them to the system. Neither knew who their fathers were. They’d both been unwanted. They were both survivors.

Of course she’d survived a lot worse than him. He’d dealt with the occasional beating from asshole foster parents, but she’d been terrorized by a sick bastard when she was seventeen. And Jack hadn’t protected her.

“Jack?” Her quiet voice cut through the even quieter night air.

“Yeah?”

“Please talk to me.” The pleading note in her voice surprised him.

It was dark, but he could make out the delicate lines of her face. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything.”

“Can’t sleep?”

Her hair rustled softly against the pillow as she shook her head.

“For what it’s worth, you’re handling this better than most civilians would.”

She chuckled and in the dark he couldn’t tell, but he thought she smiled. At least it sounded like it when she spoke. “Civilian. I guess you’ve been doing . . . whatever it is you do for a while?”

Wesley would probably be pissed if he found out, but it wasn’t as if Jack was spilling state secrets. “I’ve been working for Wesley for five years.”

“Sorry if it’s rude, but how old are you?”

“Almost thirty-one.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

She shifted again, this time onto her back. “Nothing. You just remind me of someone and he would have been the same age.”

Jack knew that he should keep his mouth shut. He should try to get some much-needed sleep. Unfortunately he didn’t give a damn about what he should do. Thoughts of Sophie had been torturing him for years. Shut your fucking mouth, he tried to tell himself again but lost the battle. “Do I remind you in a bad way or a good way?”

“Both.” Her answer was soft and immediate.

“Who was he?”

She was silent for a moment, but finally spoke. “You’ve obviously read my file, so you know I was in the foster system.”

He remained completely still against the pillow. “Yes.”

“You remind me of one of my foster brothers. His name was Sam.”

“You two were close?”