Page 5 of Plain Sight

I had no reason to think the occasion would arise when I’d do an ad-hoc comparative analysis of the times I’d been kidnapped.

I’m not in law school. I’m probably never going to go to law school, and not because of this kidnapping, or even the first one. I didn’t know until the end of my first kidnapping experience that what I’d felt for most of undergrad wasn’t suppressed excitement about law school, it was dread.

And then Jameson got himself arrested, and I got him out of jail. And then he got beat up by different cops, and I was by his side while he healed as much as he could before the wedding.

And now I am kidnapped again.

Maybe it would be smarter to change course and run to the safe embrace of Columbia Law.

Although I don’t know that Columbia Law would be accepting of a woman arriving on their proverbial doorstep in a wedding dress, asking to use a phone so that she could call her fiancé and inform him that she was no longer kidnapped, and she was sorry, but she’d have to miss the wedding on account of becoming a lawyer.

That’s not what I would do.

But all those years of living in the complete certainty that I would attend law school are working against me. Technically, there is precedent for this kidnapping in that I have been kidnapped once before, but the similarities are limited to the act itself—the thieving, as it were, and the travel by car.

The rest is different.

Jameson took me from a parking lot in the dark of night. This man, whom I will not be introducing myself to, took me from a cathedral in broad daylight. I had seen Jameson once before and eventually realized it. I’m sure I’ve never seen this kidnapper before, and I hope I never see him again.

The biggest difference is that Jameson was tense. He drove with a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. He radiated anguish and hid it under movement and hot determination.

This man is at ease. He drives like he’s heading back to the office from his lunch break. He’s not radiating anything but the mildest impatience. Like this was a task added to his schedule by his boss at the last minute, and now he won’t be able to clock out right at five.

That…

Is scary.

That’s scarier than a man who does something impulsive because he’s crumbling under half a lifetime’s worth of crushing grief.

A man who ticks off kidnappings like a third-year law student might tick off case briefs is probably a professional. He’s relaxed because he has no fear of consequences. He’s not going to get caught because—he assumes—I’m never going to have the chance to escape and later identify him to law enforcement.

And, of course, there is zero chance I’ll fall for this creep. Jameson was—is—captivating. There was something about him that compelled me to learn more, and it was not just his perfect body.

It wasn’t.

It was how intense he was, and how hurt he was, and how much he needed⁠—

Me.

He needed me.

I don’t have to justify how I feel about him. What I feel is beyond justification. It’s this deep ache in my chest, and this—this heat, and this light. Like recognition, if it was possible to recognize your soulmate. If souls are real and it’s possible to have a soulmate, Jameson is mine.

And I’ve never told him.

I wasn’t ready, and then everything was coming together. It wasn’t coming together well. There was that guy in Central Park who tried to stab us, which of course I reacted to, because how could I not? There was a man with a knife lunging at us. The stars happened to align so that I could pull off a sweet move and knock the knife out of his hand, hurting the man’s elbow in the process.

I didn’t have time to plan it out. I wasn’t thinking about being a hero. I was just moving.

But Jameson took it as so much more than instinct.

You saved me. I’ve always wanted⁠—

We went to bed together. I don’t know where else we would have gone. The memory of his chest against my back is palpable, even in this law-and-order-forsaken car.

The sounds he made.

The way he shivered afterward, and kissed my shoulder, and⁠—