“Crazy fucking bit—” Bubba’s head thudded against the table again, and Jackson grabbed Essie’s drink to keep it from toppling over. “Yeah, yeah, all right already! I won’t bother her, okay? Jeez, now let me go.”
Bubba bolted the instant Essie released her grip on his tie, shooting her a death glare over his shoulder just before he exited the restaurant.
Ignoring the stares of the patrons sitting at the tables around them, Essie took the drink from Jackson and swallowed a mouthful. “Sorry for the interruption. What were we talking about?”
Jackson grinned; he couldn’t help it. Smart, sassy, kickass women had always been his drug of choice. Just watching that got him aroused. “Holy shit, that was hot. I forgot how much I loved watching you work.”
The hint of a smile graced her luscious lips. “Sucking up won’t get you anywhere.”
“Maybe not, but it’s always worth a shot.”
Now that the excitement was over, the people around them quickly lost interest and resumed whatever they’d been doing. The waitress returned to take their orders, curiosity plain on her face, though she didn’t ask about Bubba.
Outside, a truck peeled out of the lot, and Essie let out a satisfied chuckle.
“Think he’ll heed the warning?” Jackson asked once the waitress left.
“I doubt it. Men like him never learn. I’ll have to call his ex and let her know to be on alert.” She downed another sip of her drink, and Jackson watched her throat muscles move when she swallowed. “It’s going to be hard to resist the temptation to wire that truck with explosives. Maybe later, after the divorce is final.”
“You’d go to jail for that.”
Her smile returned, brighter than before, and this time it reached her eyes. “Only if they catch me.”
And they wouldn’t; she was simply too good. Nina was so damn lucky to have this woman in her corner.
Jackson shook his head as he scooted his chair closer to hers. “So that thing at the bar was for a friend?”
Essie looked at him as if he’d sprouted wings and a tail. “You know better than that. I have associates, acquaintances. A long list of enemies. I can’t afford to have friends. As it was, I shouldn’t have had you, but that was a moment of weakness on my part.”
What a lonely way to live. No way could he handle that kind of isolation. He needed connections with family and friends to maintain his sanity and keep him grounded. “It doesn’t have to be that way, you know. You’re not working black ops anymore.”
“It’s not that easy. Bazarov is just one in a long line of people who’d love to see me on a slab in the morgue. That doesn’t go away just because I moved into the private sector. If anything, I have to be even more careful, because I’m no longer working under the protection of the US government. Each personal connection is a point of weakness that might get me—or that person—killed.”
“For how long?”
She shrugged. “Years? Decades? It’s hard to say for sure. It depends on how long those people stay alive, and how determined they are to hold grudges.”
That target on her back was his fault. She’d left the Agency because of him, in a last-ditch effort to salvage their marriage. He hadn’t understood the full weight of her sacrifice until it was too late. “Well, like it or not, you’ve still got me.”
She arched a brow. “You keep forgetting we’re divorced.”
“No, I remember.” Jackson sipped his beer. “Biggest mistake I ever made. I never should have let that happen.”
“You didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s not true. I should have fought harder for you. Should have shown you exactly how much you mean to me.”
Her lips pressed together as she set her drink on the table. “Jackson…”
“What? I’m just saying. We’re good together. Better than good. We’re amazing. You know that as well as I do.”
A hint of sadness touched the corners of her mouth. “Yes, we were amazing together…until we weren’t. There’s a reason we got divorced.”
“True, but things are different now.” He reached across the table and took her hand, and when she didn’t pull away, a spark of hope lit inside him. “I’m out of the Army. You’re no longer with the government. The things that drove a wedge between us aren’t an issue anymore. It would be a damn shame to throw away a perfectly good second chance.”
For a few long moments, she stared down at their joined hands, and he could have sworn he saw longing in those beautiful ocean-blue eyes. But then she sighed as she broke their connection and picked up her drink again.
“Shattered glass can’t be fixed,” she said.
