Page 65 of Unwanted

Harper let out a small gasp. His mother. His mother. The hairs on Jak’s neck stood up. “My mother?” he asked, rubbing his hands on his thighs. They felt cold and sweaty. His mother was dead? The woman who had brought him books and told him she would come back for him? Ice ran down his spine.

“Yes. Jak, do you know anything about your mother?”

“I…” He looked at Harper, and her mouth was open. His mother was dead. No one could hurt her now. “She came here. I never met her before that.”

Agent Gallagher pressed his lips together, his eyebrows moving closer to each other. “When did she contact you, and how?”

“She came to see me five…years ago. She told me she was trying to find a place for us to live. She brought me kids’ books. She promised to come back and bring me more books. She told me not to tell anyone about her.”

Agent Gallagher frowned again. “I see. And did she indicate why?”

“No. I thought…” He looked at Harper. “I thought it was something about the war. The war Driscoll told me was being fought.” He looked back at the agent. “I said something about it, the war, and she agreed, or…” He frowned, looking away, trying to remember what he’d said and what she’d said back. “She said, yes, the world is on fire.”

They were all quiet for a minute before Agent Gallagher asked, “Do you think your mother was working with Isaac Driscoll somehow?”

Working? Did she have a job with Driscoll? Is that what the agent meant? Jak thought about it. “I don’t know. She didn’t seem to like him. She said she’d followed him from town. But…there was another woman too…” He kept his gaze on the agent instead of looking at Harper, feeling heat rising in his face. He didn’t want to tell them about the redheaded woman, but he knew he had to. He told the agent and Harper about thinking the woman was hurt, about bringing her back to his cabin, and then about her offering her body to him. He didn’t look at Harper while he told the story, not wanting to know if she was angry or, worse, if she didn’t care that he’d touched someone else. He was not like the gray fox, he wanted to tell her. He only wanted to touch her.

And he knew now why the other woman had felt wrong. Smelled wrong. She hadn’t been meant for him. She wasn’t Harper.

“Did you get the feeling the redheaded woman was involved with Driscoll somehow? And if so, why would she tell you about the cameras?”

Jak shook his head. He had no idea. Most of him hoped the agent could put it together, find answers. But another part just wanted it all to go away. Driscoll was dead—his life was better without him—and he wanted to figure out where to go now.

“Okay, Jak, thank you. I appreciate all your honesty. I’m going to try to figure out what was going on. I’m going to do my damnedest, okay?”

Jak nodded, running a hand over his prickly jaw, the question he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer to falling from his lips. “Who was she? My mother?” It still caused hurt to echo through him when he thought of those words—my mother. She’d never been a mother to him though. She’d never come back.

“She was a troubled young woman, Jak. She made a lot of very bad choices, but I think she was trying to make them right. I think she cared about you and carried a lot of regret.”

Jak didn’t know how to feel about that. He wasn’t sure he could miss someone he’d never known. He wasn’t even sure he could be angry at someone he’d never known.

When Jak looked up, Agent Gallagher was watching him, a worried frown on his face. But when he met Jak’s eyes, he gave him a small smile. “There are some other things I’ve found out about your past and where you might go from here.”

Jak felt a jolt of fear. “Do I have to leave the cabin I live in now?”

Agent Gallagher sighed. “I’m afraid so. I spoke to Isaac Driscoll’s sister, who’s his next of kin, and she was unwilling to let you remain on the land.” Why did he look mad? What did he care if Jak couldn’t live in his cabin anymore? It wasn’t really his anyway. Maybe he should have left it the second he found out Isaac Driscoll was watching him, had lied to him. But he hadn’t wanted to let the man know he’d found out what he was doing, had thought he could hide it, so he’d acted normal…tried to understand what to do. And then…Driscoll was dead.

And now, he couldn’t be sorry he’d had somewhere to be with Harper. If he hadn’t had this cabin, he wouldn’t have been able to protect her from the cold.

Take me inside.

At the memory of the words, Jak’s skin flushed.

But now…now the cabin wouldn’t be his anymore.

He’d go back to the forest. He’d survived it before. Survived it with less knowing than he had now. The only thing that made his heart speed up and his throat go dry was the woman sitting next to him, the woman who he wanted to call his own. The woman who he would never let visit him in a cave in the woods. When he thought of it, he felt ashamed. He could feel her eyes on the side of his face, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“How long has she given Jak to vacate the land?” Harper asked, and he heard anger in her voice too. They both thought that woman should let him stay. But…now that he was really thinking about it, maybe he didn’t want to stay. Not in a place where he had been lied to, watched. He didn’t want to live in a cave in the woods because it would mean leaving Harper, but…he didn’t want to live on Driscoll’s land either.

“A week,” Mark said.

Harper gasped as she brought her hands to her mouth. “A week? What kind of horrible witch is she?”

Mark Gallagher laughed, but it didn’t sound like a regular laugh. There was no happiness in it. “Class-A.”

“I guess so. Does she know what her brother did?”

“I didn’t get the notion that she cared. They weren’t close. She’s interested in her payout, and that’s about it.”

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