The Librarians Fanfic: By Paths Coincident 12/?
Title: By Paths Coincident 12/?
Author: Honorat
Rating: T
Crossover: Leverage and The Librarians
Characters: Jenkins, Eve Baird, Jacob Stone, Cassandra Cillian, Ezekiel Jones, Parker, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Damian Moreau, Chapman, Lamia, Others TBA as needed.
Pairing: Parker/Hardison, Cassandra/Jake, Cassandra/Eliot
Disclaimer: Dean Devlin, John Rogers, TNT own these characters.
Description: The Librarians discover Leverage International. Jacob Stone and Eliot Spencer have a family past, but they aren’t the only members of the two teams who’ve met before. Expect whiplash between light and dark. Lots of backstory in this chapter.
Previous chapters HERE.
* * * * *
By Paths Coincident
* * * * *
Eve took several deep breaths to calm the battle nerves that in the absence of discharge were making her feel as if her skin contained broken power lines, snapping and arcing. Not taking her eyes off the Brew Pub, she slowly holstered her pistol and backed up to where she could open the door of the pickup and step into the driver’s seat.
She did not relax until they were several blocks away.
In the rear view mirror, she could see Ezekiel’s face lit by the screen of his phone. Cassandra leaned sleepily against the side of the truck, the day obviously overtaking her. Beside her, Stone sat straight, staring into the night, the bandage on the side of his head standing out light over dark. Eve let herself gloat over them a little-her team, alive and mostly well. Safe, for the time being, from assassins and cults.
She would drop Ezekiel off first. Since his illegal activity significantly supplemented his income as a Librarian in Training, he had his own townhouse apartment in an upscale neighbourhood closer to the heart of Portland. Eve had no doubt the crime rate in the area was on the rise.
Cassandra and Eve had chosen economical apartments in the same building within walking distance of The Annex, so when they dropped Cassandra off, Eve would be able to dash in and grab her bag she kept packed for longer missions.
Stone had rejected conventional apartments and had found a room to rent on the top floor of an actual house.
When she informed her team of her proposed plan to spend the night with Stone, he objected, “I’ll be fine. If anything goes wrong, I can call my landlady.”
“If you are able to call her,” Eve said, “you don’t need her. Listen, you need someone to stay with you, wake you up occasionally, make sure you’re okay. Jones would irritate you to death.”
“And there is no way I’m babysitting you,” Ezekiel chimed in.
“And Colonel Baird has the most experience in dealing with injuries,” Cassandra put in.
“So, you don’t have to like it, but I promised someone would spend the night with you, and I intend to keep that promise,” Eve finished.
Stone was looking mulish, but the effort of arguing appeared to be beyond his capacity at the moment, for which Eve was grateful.
“That’s settled then,” Eve said. “I’ll just pick up my overnight bag when we drop off Cassandra.”
Stone’s only resigned comment was “How am I gonna explain you to my landlady?”
Jones laughed. “It’s the 21st century. You’re a man. She’s a woman. What’s to explain?”
Stone pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced in more than physical pain.
“I am going to strangle you, Ezekiel Jones,” Eve said through gritted teeth. “Life imprisonment would be worth it. But no jury in the land would convict.”
Ezekiel prudently subsided into his phone again. Several more blocks went by in blessed silence before an exclamation from the back seat startled all of them.
“No! I don’t believe it! I do not believe this!”
Cassandra, yanked back from the gates of sleep, popped upright, exclaiming “What? What is it?”
“Do you know who those people were?” Ezekiel asked, waving his phone around. The light bounced around the cab, annoying Eve and making Stone wince.
“Which ones?” Cassandra asked.
“Those friends of Stone’s cousin!” he said.
“Colin and Martha?”
“Exactly,” Ezekiel said significantly.
“What do you mean?” Cassandra sounded bewildered.
“Those names-Colin Hartnell and Martha Tyler-they’re made up from the names of actors and characters on Doctor Who. They’re aliases. I’ve just been running face rec on them.”
“Wait,” Stone interrupted irritably. “So they’re lying about who they are?”
“Oh yeah. Are they ever, and no wonder!” Ezekiel sounded like-well, like Cassandra high on Christmas. “They’re really Alec Hardison and Parker!”
The cab of the truck was filled with an unimpressed and unenlightened silence.
“Alec Hardison,” Ezekiel repeated. “How can you people be so smart about things you can’t see or that happened in the Bronze Age and have absolutely no clue about the real world? Alec Hardison is only the best hacker ever! He’s been my role model my whole life. I mean, he hacked the Pentagon when he was twelve years old! I didn’t manage that until I was seventeen-um, allegedly.”
Eve could feel him eying the back of her head. “Is that a confession, Jones?”
“Not at all, Colonel Baird.”
“What about the other one,” Cassandra asked. “Parker who?”
“It’s just Parker.” Ezekiel’s enthusiasm revved up again. “She’s like the queen of thieves. No one has ever caught her. They say she could steal the glasses off the face of the Pope without anyone noticing.”
“I guess that explains how someone could have pickpocketed my gun and replaced it unloaded,” Eve mused.
“Parker lifted your gun? That is so awesome! There isn’t anything she can’t break into or out of. She’s beaten a Steranko-twice!”
“A Steranko,” Eve said dubiously. She was aware that Steranko security systems were considered unbeatable.
“I know, right?” Ezekiel gushed-there was really no other word to describe it. “Did you see her take out those Serpent Brotherhood thugs?”
“So, hands of the world’s best thief, and she does do punchy, hmmm?” Stone asked.
“Hey, Parker is insane. I am not.” Ezekiel defended his pacifism. “One time, after a heist, she BASE jumped from the top of the tallest building in Dubai to escape. That’s 828 metres! Oh. My. God. I cannot believe I’ve met Hardison and Parker!”
Cassandra was holding giggles in her mouth with her fingertips, and even Stone had a twist of half a smile in the corner of his mouth. They had never seen Ezekiel Jones humble for even an instant, so this hero worship was particularly amusing.
“You’re totally geeking out again.” Cassandra said, her voice shining with laughter.
Ezekiel shrugged. “So, what I’m wondering is what are the world’s greatest thief and hacker doing running a brew pub in Portland, Oregon-particularly working with the world’s greatest-or worst, depending on your point of view-hitter, retrieval specialist, and general killer for hire, Eliot Spencer.”
“What?” Stone twisted around in his seat to glare at Ezekiel. “What are you talking about?”
Oh, hell. This was not how Eve had wanted Jacob Stone to learn about his cousin’s other profession.
“Jones,” she warned. “This is not the time.”
“No,” Stone said firmly. “I think it is. Explain.”
Taking Stone as the person who mattered, Ezekiel ignored Eve. “Okay, your cousin is a seriously bad dude. On a scale of one to ten of fucking scary, he’s like 18.”
“Oh.” Cassandra gave a little gasp. “Oh, no.”
“Jones.” Eve let some menace slip into her voice, but the irrepressible Ezekiel babbled on, his agile fingers flipping through information on his phone.
“I am not kidding you. The guy is a legend. He’s toppled governments! Word is, if Eliot Spencer comes for you, his is the last face you’ll ever see. He’s got a body count that looks like a phone number.”
“Jones, be quiet.”
“No, let him talk. I want to hear this.” Stone’s voice was chilled and soft.
“So I thought well, maybe it’s a different guy,” Ezekiel continued, “but no. THE Eliot Spencer was last known to be in Boston as part of Nathan Ford’s crew-they pulled some of the biggest jobs this side of the Atlantic in the last decade. And here’s the kicker. Two of the other members of Ford’s crew were Alec Hardison and Parker.”
“Ezekiel Jones, if you don’t shut up . . .” Eve’s teeth were gritted now. Jones possessed the ability to fray every last nerve belonging to every person within the range of his voice.
Their thief was still poking away at his phone. “Hey, did you know there’s a price on Spencer’s head-he’s wanted dead or alive in Myanmar for a cool 500,000 US dollars.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Eve growled at him.
“No way!” he shook his head vehemently. “I’ve better ways to score a half million. Ones that involve my surviving to enjoy it.”
“So why hasn’t someone collected it?” Stone asked.
Eve winced.
“Self-preservation. I told you,” Ezekiel said. “Eliot Spencer is the best. You don’t hit him unless you want to be very, very dead, or at least wishing you were. Did you see him in The Brew Pub? Oh, right, you were knocked out by the cupboard door. He took out eight of those Serpent Brotherhood assassins while Colonel Baird was dealing with two-without breaking a sweat.”
Stone was so very still now. Eve risked a glance at him in the flickering glare of the passing street lights, and the expression on his face made her heart hurt for him.
“Jones, someday, somebody is going to shoot you in the face, and you’ll still be asking ‘What did I say?’” she said.
“What did I say?” Ezekiel remained oblivious to the effect his words were having on Stone. “Hey, Colonel Baird, when did you meet up with Spencer? You get along better with Dulaque than with him! Must have been some kind of a show down!”
“Okay, that’s it. The next person who says a word on this ride is walking home. And Jones, you’ll be lucky if I stop the truck so you can get out.” Eve clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles shone white in the glow of the dash and fought not to remember.
She did not succeed.
By the time, she had dropped Ezekiel and Cassandra off at their respective lodgings, Eve was scarcely holding on to her composure. She wished she had no responsibilities and could return to the Annex and its gym or salle d'armes or whatever Jenkins wanted to call it, where she could exercise herself into oblivion. She really needed something to punch.
Returning to the pickup after her quick visit to her apartment, Eve climbed in and tossed her bag into the back seat.
Stone looked over at her briefly. “Do you need directions?”
As his Guardian, Eve knew the address where Stone boarded, but she had never been there. Since his truck was usually the transport when they traveled as a team without the use of the back door, he would drop each of them at their apartments and continue on alone.
“I’ve got GPS.” She waved her phone at him. He nodded and leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes.
For some time, the only sounds in the car other than those of the engine and the windshield wipers was the quiet, polite voice of the GPS telling Eve where to turn, and finally, when they had arrived.
The neighborhood was older-tall trees, smaller houses set back from the sidewalks on lots that sloped up. Not a prosperous part of town. Eve parked the truck along the street beside a battered mailbox with the number Stone had given her glinting on its side. She turned to look at him, to ask if this was the right place, but his eyes were still closed.
“Hey,” she pitched her voice so as not to startle him. “Stone. I think we’re here.”
His instant response told her that he had not been sleeping. “Good.”
Eve undid her seatbelt and started to open the door.
“Wait,” Stone said. “Before we go in, we need to talk.”
Oh, shit. Reluctantly, Eve eased the door closed and sat back in her seat. Her empty stomach gave a sickening lurch. Because she did not have anything to do with her hands, which showed a distressing tendency to shake, she held onto the steering wheel again.
She could feel Stone’s eyes on her now. But she did not look at him.
“What is it?” she asked, although she did not want to know.
“Colonel Baird,” Stone’s voice was determined. “Eve. You don’t have to tell me any details about what happened between you and my cousin. But I need to know one thing.”
Eve had realized some version of this conversation was coming. She had been dreading it from the moment she had heard Eliot Spencer’s name.
“You can ask,” she said, massaging her temples in a vain attempt to stave off a tension headache. Her grammar was very precise. He could ask, but she did not guarantee him an answer. Jacob Stone would understand the nuance. Taking a deep breath and clenching her fists at her sides, she faced him and braced for whatever he would say next.
“Eliot and I were just kids the last time I saw him, just out of high school,” he said, his face more serious than she ever remembered seeing it, his voice low and rough with emotion. “I realize now that he became a very different person from the cousin I once knew, and that person did some terrible things. So tell me true, Eve.” He held out his hand as if he might brush the back of her hand with his fingertips, but he did not touch her. “Is there anything that Eliot Spencer did to you that requires that I go back to the Brew Pub tonight and kill him.”
Eve felt her heart crack. Of course. In that moment she desired nothing more than to throw herself into the arms of this splendid, honorable man and weep. He wanted to know if his cousin had raped her. And if it were so, no family loyalty would supersede his commitment to her.
“No! Oh, no! Jacob, it wasn’t anything like that,” Eve exclaimed reaching to grip his outstretched hand. “I swear. We met as combatants, on opposite sides of both the fight and the law. But it was a fair fight. He gave me no more and no less quarter than he would a man. And I lost. I lost spectacularly, my entire team, in fact.” Tears stung her eyes now. “They all died, and I-I nearly did.”
Her voice betrayed her and ended in a sob.
“Oh, Eve,” Stone said. “I am so sorry.” And then, shifting over into the awkward gap between the seats, he drew her into the circle of his arms, warm and secure, like her father used to.
Eve clung to him as if he were his namesake, solid as granite, while the hurricane of emotions that had been building up all evening overwhelmed her. And he simply held her while she shook and sobbed, drenching his shirt with her tears.
She did not know how long he sat in what must have been extreme discomfort, rocking her gently, allowing her to break apart against him like a storm surge against a cliff. But finally, she grew still, spent and empty and numb. For a long time she simply rested there listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, feeling a sort of peace slow the race of her pulse and calm the unevenness in her breathing.
Only when she started to move again did Stone shift forward and fetch a box of tissues from down beside the gearshift. Still holding her with one arm, he gently wiped the tears and mucous from her face as if she were a small child.
Suddenly self-conscious, Eve pushed herself away from him, straightening up in her seat. Grabbing a handful of tissues, she scrubbed at her face, trying to wipe away more than just the damp.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” She sniffed, not looking at Stone.
From where he had returned to his own seat, Stone’s voice came warm with his smile, “It didn’t happen.”
Once again, Eve wondered what alchemy had gone into the making of Jacob Stone. Whatever it was, she was so very grateful.
“Then, I think we should go in, now,” Eve said, realizing she was completely exhausted. She made herself look at Stone.
He nodded at her, respecting her desire to leave behind what they had had just shared. “Let’s go then.”
* * * * *
TBC
Author: Honorat
Rating: T
Crossover: Leverage and The Librarians
Characters: Jenkins, Eve Baird, Jacob Stone, Cassandra Cillian, Ezekiel Jones, Parker, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, Damian Moreau, Chapman, Lamia, Others TBA as needed.
Pairing: Parker/Hardison, Cassandra/Jake, Cassandra/Eliot
Disclaimer: Dean Devlin, John Rogers, TNT own these characters.
Description: The Librarians discover Leverage International. Jacob Stone and Eliot Spencer have a family past, but they aren’t the only members of the two teams who’ve met before. Expect whiplash between light and dark. Lots of backstory in this chapter.
Previous chapters HERE.
* * * * *
By Paths Coincident
* * * * *
Eve took several deep breaths to calm the battle nerves that in the absence of discharge were making her feel as if her skin contained broken power lines, snapping and arcing. Not taking her eyes off the Brew Pub, she slowly holstered her pistol and backed up to where she could open the door of the pickup and step into the driver’s seat.
She did not relax until they were several blocks away.
In the rear view mirror, she could see Ezekiel’s face lit by the screen of his phone. Cassandra leaned sleepily against the side of the truck, the day obviously overtaking her. Beside her, Stone sat straight, staring into the night, the bandage on the side of his head standing out light over dark. Eve let herself gloat over them a little-her team, alive and mostly well. Safe, for the time being, from assassins and cults.
She would drop Ezekiel off first. Since his illegal activity significantly supplemented his income as a Librarian in Training, he had his own townhouse apartment in an upscale neighbourhood closer to the heart of Portland. Eve had no doubt the crime rate in the area was on the rise.
Cassandra and Eve had chosen economical apartments in the same building within walking distance of The Annex, so when they dropped Cassandra off, Eve would be able to dash in and grab her bag she kept packed for longer missions.
Stone had rejected conventional apartments and had found a room to rent on the top floor of an actual house.
When she informed her team of her proposed plan to spend the night with Stone, he objected, “I’ll be fine. If anything goes wrong, I can call my landlady.”
“If you are able to call her,” Eve said, “you don’t need her. Listen, you need someone to stay with you, wake you up occasionally, make sure you’re okay. Jones would irritate you to death.”
“And there is no way I’m babysitting you,” Ezekiel chimed in.
“And Colonel Baird has the most experience in dealing with injuries,” Cassandra put in.
“So, you don’t have to like it, but I promised someone would spend the night with you, and I intend to keep that promise,” Eve finished.
Stone was looking mulish, but the effort of arguing appeared to be beyond his capacity at the moment, for which Eve was grateful.
“That’s settled then,” Eve said. “I’ll just pick up my overnight bag when we drop off Cassandra.”
Stone’s only resigned comment was “How am I gonna explain you to my landlady?”
Jones laughed. “It’s the 21st century. You’re a man. She’s a woman. What’s to explain?”
Stone pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced in more than physical pain.
“I am going to strangle you, Ezekiel Jones,” Eve said through gritted teeth. “Life imprisonment would be worth it. But no jury in the land would convict.”
Ezekiel prudently subsided into his phone again. Several more blocks went by in blessed silence before an exclamation from the back seat startled all of them.
“No! I don’t believe it! I do not believe this!”
Cassandra, yanked back from the gates of sleep, popped upright, exclaiming “What? What is it?”
“Do you know who those people were?” Ezekiel asked, waving his phone around. The light bounced around the cab, annoying Eve and making Stone wince.
“Which ones?” Cassandra asked.
“Those friends of Stone’s cousin!” he said.
“Colin and Martha?”
“Exactly,” Ezekiel said significantly.
“What do you mean?” Cassandra sounded bewildered.
“Those names-Colin Hartnell and Martha Tyler-they’re made up from the names of actors and characters on Doctor Who. They’re aliases. I’ve just been running face rec on them.”
“Wait,” Stone interrupted irritably. “So they’re lying about who they are?”
“Oh yeah. Are they ever, and no wonder!” Ezekiel sounded like-well, like Cassandra high on Christmas. “They’re really Alec Hardison and Parker!”
The cab of the truck was filled with an unimpressed and unenlightened silence.
“Alec Hardison,” Ezekiel repeated. “How can you people be so smart about things you can’t see or that happened in the Bronze Age and have absolutely no clue about the real world? Alec Hardison is only the best hacker ever! He’s been my role model my whole life. I mean, he hacked the Pentagon when he was twelve years old! I didn’t manage that until I was seventeen-um, allegedly.”
Eve could feel him eying the back of her head. “Is that a confession, Jones?”
“Not at all, Colonel Baird.”
“What about the other one,” Cassandra asked. “Parker who?”
“It’s just Parker.” Ezekiel’s enthusiasm revved up again. “She’s like the queen of thieves. No one has ever caught her. They say she could steal the glasses off the face of the Pope without anyone noticing.”
“I guess that explains how someone could have pickpocketed my gun and replaced it unloaded,” Eve mused.
“Parker lifted your gun? That is so awesome! There isn’t anything she can’t break into or out of. She’s beaten a Steranko-twice!”
“A Steranko,” Eve said dubiously. She was aware that Steranko security systems were considered unbeatable.
“I know, right?” Ezekiel gushed-there was really no other word to describe it. “Did you see her take out those Serpent Brotherhood thugs?”
“So, hands of the world’s best thief, and she does do punchy, hmmm?” Stone asked.
“Hey, Parker is insane. I am not.” Ezekiel defended his pacifism. “One time, after a heist, she BASE jumped from the top of the tallest building in Dubai to escape. That’s 828 metres! Oh. My. God. I cannot believe I’ve met Hardison and Parker!”
Cassandra was holding giggles in her mouth with her fingertips, and even Stone had a twist of half a smile in the corner of his mouth. They had never seen Ezekiel Jones humble for even an instant, so this hero worship was particularly amusing.
“You’re totally geeking out again.” Cassandra said, her voice shining with laughter.
Ezekiel shrugged. “So, what I’m wondering is what are the world’s greatest thief and hacker doing running a brew pub in Portland, Oregon-particularly working with the world’s greatest-or worst, depending on your point of view-hitter, retrieval specialist, and general killer for hire, Eliot Spencer.”
“What?” Stone twisted around in his seat to glare at Ezekiel. “What are you talking about?”
Oh, hell. This was not how Eve had wanted Jacob Stone to learn about his cousin’s other profession.
“Jones,” she warned. “This is not the time.”
“No,” Stone said firmly. “I think it is. Explain.”
Taking Stone as the person who mattered, Ezekiel ignored Eve. “Okay, your cousin is a seriously bad dude. On a scale of one to ten of fucking scary, he’s like 18.”
“Oh.” Cassandra gave a little gasp. “Oh, no.”
“Jones.” Eve let some menace slip into her voice, but the irrepressible Ezekiel babbled on, his agile fingers flipping through information on his phone.
“I am not kidding you. The guy is a legend. He’s toppled governments! Word is, if Eliot Spencer comes for you, his is the last face you’ll ever see. He’s got a body count that looks like a phone number.”
“Jones, be quiet.”
“No, let him talk. I want to hear this.” Stone’s voice was chilled and soft.
“So I thought well, maybe it’s a different guy,” Ezekiel continued, “but no. THE Eliot Spencer was last known to be in Boston as part of Nathan Ford’s crew-they pulled some of the biggest jobs this side of the Atlantic in the last decade. And here’s the kicker. Two of the other members of Ford’s crew were Alec Hardison and Parker.”
“Ezekiel Jones, if you don’t shut up . . .” Eve’s teeth were gritted now. Jones possessed the ability to fray every last nerve belonging to every person within the range of his voice.
Their thief was still poking away at his phone. “Hey, did you know there’s a price on Spencer’s head-he’s wanted dead or alive in Myanmar for a cool 500,000 US dollars.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Eve growled at him.
“No way!” he shook his head vehemently. “I’ve better ways to score a half million. Ones that involve my surviving to enjoy it.”
“So why hasn’t someone collected it?” Stone asked.
Eve winced.
“Self-preservation. I told you,” Ezekiel said. “Eliot Spencer is the best. You don’t hit him unless you want to be very, very dead, or at least wishing you were. Did you see him in The Brew Pub? Oh, right, you were knocked out by the cupboard door. He took out eight of those Serpent Brotherhood assassins while Colonel Baird was dealing with two-without breaking a sweat.”
Stone was so very still now. Eve risked a glance at him in the flickering glare of the passing street lights, and the expression on his face made her heart hurt for him.
“Jones, someday, somebody is going to shoot you in the face, and you’ll still be asking ‘What did I say?’” she said.
“What did I say?” Ezekiel remained oblivious to the effect his words were having on Stone. “Hey, Colonel Baird, when did you meet up with Spencer? You get along better with Dulaque than with him! Must have been some kind of a show down!”
“Okay, that’s it. The next person who says a word on this ride is walking home. And Jones, you’ll be lucky if I stop the truck so you can get out.” Eve clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles shone white in the glow of the dash and fought not to remember.
She did not succeed.
By the time, she had dropped Ezekiel and Cassandra off at their respective lodgings, Eve was scarcely holding on to her composure. She wished she had no responsibilities and could return to the Annex and its gym or salle d'armes or whatever Jenkins wanted to call it, where she could exercise herself into oblivion. She really needed something to punch.
Returning to the pickup after her quick visit to her apartment, Eve climbed in and tossed her bag into the back seat.
Stone looked over at her briefly. “Do you need directions?”
As his Guardian, Eve knew the address where Stone boarded, but she had never been there. Since his truck was usually the transport when they traveled as a team without the use of the back door, he would drop each of them at their apartments and continue on alone.
“I’ve got GPS.” She waved her phone at him. He nodded and leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes.
For some time, the only sounds in the car other than those of the engine and the windshield wipers was the quiet, polite voice of the GPS telling Eve where to turn, and finally, when they had arrived.
The neighborhood was older-tall trees, smaller houses set back from the sidewalks on lots that sloped up. Not a prosperous part of town. Eve parked the truck along the street beside a battered mailbox with the number Stone had given her glinting on its side. She turned to look at him, to ask if this was the right place, but his eyes were still closed.
“Hey,” she pitched her voice so as not to startle him. “Stone. I think we’re here.”
His instant response told her that he had not been sleeping. “Good.”
Eve undid her seatbelt and started to open the door.
“Wait,” Stone said. “Before we go in, we need to talk.”
Oh, shit. Reluctantly, Eve eased the door closed and sat back in her seat. Her empty stomach gave a sickening lurch. Because she did not have anything to do with her hands, which showed a distressing tendency to shake, she held onto the steering wheel again.
She could feel Stone’s eyes on her now. But she did not look at him.
“What is it?” she asked, although she did not want to know.
“Colonel Baird,” Stone’s voice was determined. “Eve. You don’t have to tell me any details about what happened between you and my cousin. But I need to know one thing.”
Eve had realized some version of this conversation was coming. She had been dreading it from the moment she had heard Eliot Spencer’s name.
“You can ask,” she said, massaging her temples in a vain attempt to stave off a tension headache. Her grammar was very precise. He could ask, but she did not guarantee him an answer. Jacob Stone would understand the nuance. Taking a deep breath and clenching her fists at her sides, she faced him and braced for whatever he would say next.
“Eliot and I were just kids the last time I saw him, just out of high school,” he said, his face more serious than she ever remembered seeing it, his voice low and rough with emotion. “I realize now that he became a very different person from the cousin I once knew, and that person did some terrible things. So tell me true, Eve.” He held out his hand as if he might brush the back of her hand with his fingertips, but he did not touch her. “Is there anything that Eliot Spencer did to you that requires that I go back to the Brew Pub tonight and kill him.”
Eve felt her heart crack. Of course. In that moment she desired nothing more than to throw herself into the arms of this splendid, honorable man and weep. He wanted to know if his cousin had raped her. And if it were so, no family loyalty would supersede his commitment to her.
“No! Oh, no! Jacob, it wasn’t anything like that,” Eve exclaimed reaching to grip his outstretched hand. “I swear. We met as combatants, on opposite sides of both the fight and the law. But it was a fair fight. He gave me no more and no less quarter than he would a man. And I lost. I lost spectacularly, my entire team, in fact.” Tears stung her eyes now. “They all died, and I-I nearly did.”
Her voice betrayed her and ended in a sob.
“Oh, Eve,” Stone said. “I am so sorry.” And then, shifting over into the awkward gap between the seats, he drew her into the circle of his arms, warm and secure, like her father used to.
Eve clung to him as if he were his namesake, solid as granite, while the hurricane of emotions that had been building up all evening overwhelmed her. And he simply held her while she shook and sobbed, drenching his shirt with her tears.
She did not know how long he sat in what must have been extreme discomfort, rocking her gently, allowing her to break apart against him like a storm surge against a cliff. But finally, she grew still, spent and empty and numb. For a long time she simply rested there listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, feeling a sort of peace slow the race of her pulse and calm the unevenness in her breathing.
Only when she started to move again did Stone shift forward and fetch a box of tissues from down beside the gearshift. Still holding her with one arm, he gently wiped the tears and mucous from her face as if she were a small child.
Suddenly self-conscious, Eve pushed herself away from him, straightening up in her seat. Grabbing a handful of tissues, she scrubbed at her face, trying to wipe away more than just the damp.
“Well, that was embarrassing.” She sniffed, not looking at Stone.
From where he had returned to his own seat, Stone’s voice came warm with his smile, “It didn’t happen.”
Once again, Eve wondered what alchemy had gone into the making of Jacob Stone. Whatever it was, she was so very grateful.
“Then, I think we should go in, now,” Eve said, realizing she was completely exhausted. She made herself look at Stone.
He nodded at her, respecting her desire to leave behind what they had had just shared. “Let’s go then.”
* * * * *
TBC