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“Then you don’t have to go to the brunch?”
“We need to stop by, and show our faces, but I have meetings most of the afternoon.”
We.
He saysweoften. And I like it. I’m also terrified about how much I’m coming to depend on this man considering Hunter’s blood might well be on my family’s hands. When one turn of a corner might lead to a Knight killing Hunter. I’m still not sure how we survive that if it turns out to be true.
He motions to the journal. “You haven’t touched it.”
“I’ve decided I can’t stomach more of his words this morning. And I can’t find the passage I was remembering anyway. And we’re right. I’ve read it about a hundred times. It isn’t going to miraculously solve anything.”
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Relief, I think. He really doesn’t want to talk about anything that leads to his mother as I’ve suggested that passage will.
“Instead of a morning run,” he says, “how about a walk?”
“Sure. Should I shower and change?”
“Not necessary. This will be fast. Echo is on my mind. He lives down the beach. Savage’s people have been there looking around and they say everything is in order, but I want to see for myself.”
“That’s a great idea.” I take a sip of coffee and scoot off the stool, flashing back to my last encounter with Echo as I do. He’d shoved me against the castle wall and I swear I’m suddenly right there in that hallway, with him standing in front of me;
“This path you’re on, if you walk in the wrong direction with Jax, I will make you and everyone you love pay. Understand?”
“I don’t know what that means. I don’t know.”
“You know. We both know that you know. Do not test me. This is your one and only warning.”
With those words, he had pushed off the wall and walked away.
“Emma?”
I blink Jax back into view. “Just thinking of Echo. It wasn’t him. He didn’t leave me that note for me, Jax.”
“You can’t know that, Emma.”
“I’m not the humanizer to him you claimed I might be. He threatened me. He told me if I took the wrong path with you that he’d make me and those I love pay. He was protecting you. That man would not have accused you of killing Hunter.”
“Then why leave?”
My stomach knots. “We both know he wouldn’t. Something happened to him. Something not good.”
“I wish I didn’t agree,” Jax says grimly. “That’s exactly why I want to go by his place.”
I nod, feeling the urgency of doing just that.
A few minutes later, we’ve bundled up in jackets, and we’re walking the beach on a beautiful morning with clear blue skies, the ocean crashing into the shore, seagulls flying overhead. “It’s beautiful here,” I say. “Why would we want to live anywhere else?”
He stops walking and turns to face me, his hands settling under my jacket, on my waist; his touch warming me against the chill in the air. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
I stare up into beautiful blue eyes filled with hope, hope I put there, hope he would only experience if I mattered to him, the way he’s come to matter to me. I catch a strand of his blond hair blowing in the wind. How could I not want to be with this man every day of my life?
“Emma?” he prods.”
“I want to move in with you, Jax. Honestly, I can’t imagine going back to San Francisco and not being with you here, but I’m afraid of getting here, moving in, and getting cozy, just to have the world explode around us. I want us to find Echo and find a few answers to what happened to Hunter first.”
He catches my hand and laces our fingers together. “We may never know what happened to Hunter.”
“Someone knows. My family knows.”
