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It wasn’t Jenny, because she hated texting. And calling. Or communicating in any way that wasn’t showing up in the middle of the night unannounced. So that left one other person.
And it made her stomach twist up in knots.
Jaxon frowned when he looked at his mobile and then scanned the room to find Teagan. He pointed to the mobile and then held up one finger in the air. He’d just be a moment. Then he turned and took it out of the dining room.
She heard the front door open and close and she knew that she’d run out of time to tell him what had happened. While she was fairly certain Jaxon wouldn’t be upset with her, she knew that she’d have rather told him than Eric.
Now she could only wait until he came back.
“Um… yeah… Dad. I could use some help,” she said with what she hoped wasn’t a fake-looking smile. “Can you grab the salad and bring it out?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
As Jaxon stepped back in, a paper bag with a couple of bottles of wine tucked under his arm, his eyes sought out Teagan. He always seemed to gravitate towards her now. She was hugging her father. Lingering a bit before pulling back to speak with him.
She’d been acting strangely, hadn’t she? Jaxon mused to himself, wondering if she was upset about an exam or something. But he couldn’t really remember her talking about an exam, plus her class that she’d been worried about seemed to be going more smoothly than she’d thought it would. He could usually read her feelings, but he felt there was a missing piece here.
Oh, fuck, the doctor’s appointment.
He tried to will her to look, watching as she continued to talk to her father. She’d had an appointment and they hadn’t been able to talk much for the entire day. He’d just assumed that she’d gotten busy at work, but what if it was something else?
Bad or untimely news? She said sheneededto talk to him as soon as possible.
God, what if she was pregnant?
Panic bloomed like weeds springing up through the cracks in a sidewalk, spreading through his body and shattering the fragile calm he’d been cultivating. Not that it was difficult to shatter at all. He carried his worry on his sleeve.
His heart raced as he tried to remember the last time she’d been on her cycle. He wasn’t as well-versed in these things as he should be, but he was pretty certain that they’d been careful enough, and that they weren’t in any danger of an unwanted pregnancy.
He’d always used a condom. But even those were only ninety-eight percent effective, weren’t they? In perfect conditions?
Fuck, he was never perfect when he was about to fuck. He was surprised anyone wanted to fuck himever. Let alone, Teagan.
Swallowing, he tried to seek her out again.
But before he could get her attention, his mobile buzzed in his pocket. And as he pulled it out, an email banner floated down from the top of the screen. He’d have just put his mobile back into his pocket because he got nothing worthwhile sent to his email, but the subject line gave him pause.
Attn: Something you should see
The winking face bothered him. And so he set down the wine and turned around, heading back out on the patio to read it in peace.
Upon opening it, he recognized the email address as one of Eric’s. And there wasn’t any text in the email's body, just a folder entitled ‘open me’.
Fearing the repercussions of both obeying and not obeying those two words, Jaxon opened it. There were four photos.
Teagan.
In varying states of undress.
Well, from the top down.
The picture quality wasn’t as good as it could be, showing they were scans of digital pictures. Scans of digital pictures that were printed out and scanned again.
They were old as well, Teagan looked young enough to make him feel sick. He closed down the file, almost dropping his mobile on the ground, but somehow he held onto it.
He’d never seen the photos in question, but he’d heard about them. Brad had attempted to drive down south to North Rock and kill Joshua. Honestly, that was better than the little prick deserved.
Except, as far as he knew, all the copies were gone. How had Eric gotten ahold of them?
