Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

right—it will be the safest place we could go. When I don’t raise any objections, Hillerman spins on a heel and storms out of the room.

Russo chuckles. “That is so like her. I’m totally fan-girling right now.”

“You really followed her story in the news way back then?” I ask.

“Oh, hanging on every word,” he says. “Most people don’t believe some of the stranger things about her story. I mean, we’re talking the supernatural realm. Ghosts and voodoo dolls and séances. Nobody really took her seriously.”

“But you did?”

“I always did.” He takes a deep, satisfied breath. “And I still do.”

When his face flashes a quick shade of red, I gasp with a realization. “Oh my gosh, Agent Hillerman is totally your celebrity crush!”

“No denial here.” Russo points to the cut that is bleeding into his eyelashes. “And now I’ve got something way better than her autograph.”

“For sure. I mean, Hillerman never touches people. You might be pregnant.”

“If you know her story,” Brenner says, “then you’ve heard of Tabitha Durran.”

Russo’s face drops, as if Brenner has just said the worst possible thing. “Now there’s a bad apple, let me tell you. She was in prison for a stretch. Got out maybe ten years ago, hasn’t been seen ever since…” A thought strikes him, and he goes on high alert. “Wait, are you guys…” He’s too excited to form the necessary words.

Brenner confirms with a nod. “Yes.”

“You guys are going after Tabitha Durran?”

Brenner claps him on the shoulder. “Now you are, too. And this case, I can promise you, we win.”

The intense conviction in Brenner’s face scares me. I don’t doubt we can win, but I’m pretty sure that he and I have very different ideas of what winning is. For him, avenging Haley’s murder is the prize, no matter the cost. But for me, the only win is for Jay to still be alive when the dust settles.

A slight movement in bed wakes me from deep sleep. My eyes are too heavy to open. Murmuring something unintelligible, I drape an arm over Brenner’s chest and squeeze. But it’s too soft to be Brenner. It’s his pillow.

I open my eyes to see Brenner sitting at my feet. The room is pitch-black, dark even for my night vision. He’s fully dressed, and he smells warm. By that I mean that he smells like he just showered, and he’s holding a steaming mug of peppermint hot cocoa. Two of my favorite smells.

“Headed in?” I ask with a gravelly voice.

“Russo’s warming up the car,” Brenner says in a half whisper. “We’ll file our statements and check things out at the hotel, see if the crew there got anything useful.”

“What time is it?”

“Four.”

“You sleep any?”

“Enough.”

I sit leaning against him, hugging my knees to my chest. Like always, it’s freezing in our room. Brenner offers me the mug to hold, and it warms my hands. The steam smells incredible.

We stay like that for a long moment, just listening to silence outside our icy window. The world is asleep under a blanket of snow. I wish he didn’t have to go out into it.

“You’ll be okay here?” he asks.

“With her, you mean?” He doesn’t say anything, but I can hear his lips curve upward into a grin. I nudge him with my shoulder. “I’ll try.” The peppermint is too tempting. I steal a sip from his mug. Ouch, it’s still too hot.

Brenner’s just a silhouette in the dark, but I can feel his eyes on me. I’m surprised he’s not in more of a hurry to go. Didn’t he say Russo’s already out in the car?

“Shayne,” he says, and I can tell by the tenderness in his voice that he’s about to say something sweet. “You’re not like anybody I’ve ever known.”

Believe it or not, he says these kinds of things pretty often. Unsurprisingly, I never get tired of hearing them.

But this time, he’s got more to say. “I don’t think,” he starts, then changes course. “I think I could look and look and look, and never find another person in the world like you. How does that happen?”

Normally I’d throw out something quippy and self-deprecating in response, but I’ve learned with Brenner to simply be quiet and enjoy the swell in my heart. Plus, I’d rather not interrupt him at the moment, because he seems to be working up to something, and that sometimes takes him a bit. Better to let him concentrate. I keep very still and stare into the wafting steam.

He continues. “Knowing you—being with you—is sometimes…confusing. I get these thoughts, and the thoughts are…they’re not…” He sighs. “I get scared that I’ll start being glad about what happened to Haley.”

That jolts me awake. “What? Jay, why would you ever—”

“Because,” he interrupts, “if that didn’t happen, I never would have met you. Isn’t that true? I never would have looked into the underworld. I never would have moved to Detroit. You would still be here—that wouldn’t have changed. For the rest of my life you would have been out there somewhere in the world, but I’d have never known.”

My fingers tighten around the mug. The thought is terrifying.

“I used to wish more than anything that I could go back in time and stop what happened. But now…I’m just glad I’ll never have to make that choice. There’s no magic that can turn back time, right?”

Yes, he is being serious, and yes, the answer is no. “Sorry,” I say. “You’re stuck with me.” He lets out a breath of relief, and I don’t know what else to say. Has this really been on his mind? And is it sweet or tragic? I can’t decide. With all this racing through my mind, I take another sip from the mug.

“Shayne, are we married?”

I gulp, and too much hot cocoa burns all the way down my throat, but through the pain I manage to squawk, “What?”

He takes the mug from me. “I mean, in underworld terms. You quit your pack. We formed our own. Is that the