Page 23 of Theirs to Love

“Yes,” Travis and Jackson said in unison. Jackson nodded at Travis as if conceding. “Sorry, force of habit,” Jackson whispered. “This is our room.” Jackson unlocked the door and pushed his way into the room. For being the only motel intown, the place was unexpectedly clean. Emily hesitantly walked through the door but then saw that it wasn’t half bad and nodded her approval.

“I’ll find a place that delivers, do you have a preference?” Jack asked. Emily shook her head and plopped down on the bed.

“I’d love a change of clothes; can’t we go out?” Jackson felt bad that they had to be in the center of this storm with him. That was what he was trying to avoid by leaving in the first place.

“Maybe tomorrow, Em. Sorry.” Jackson rummaged through his bag and found a fresh T-shirt for her to slip into. The thought of Em wearing nothing, but his shirt did crazy things to him. He wanted her in nothing at all, but he was afraid to hope for something that might never happen again.

He tossed her the T-shirt and she shyly thanked him, padding off to the bathroom to shower and change, leaving Travis and him alone in the small room. Tense and awkward didn’t even begin to describe how Jack felt watching Travis’s big body pace the room.

“Where the fuck were you?” Travis growled. So, they were going to just jump right into it then. “Do you know what your leaving did to Emily?” Travis finally stopped pacing and stood still. Jack looked at Travis and the desperation and hurt on his face nearly did him in. “Do you know what your leaving did to me?” Travis’s voice broke taking a piece of Jack’s heart with it.

“Travis,” Jackson reached for him only to watch Travis take a step back putting more space between them. He let his arms fall to his sides knowing that if he pushed Travis they wouldn’t ever find a common ground to build on. “I’m so fucking sorry, Travis.” Jackson didn’t hide his tears, he let them fall unabashedly down his face not hiding the fact that he was hurting from the man that he loved.

“I left to keep you and Emily safe,” Jackson said. Travis grumbled under his breath letting Jack know that he wasn’tbuying it. “My ex-partner, Logan Cross, wasn’t going to stop coming after me and now I know why. Em’s dad hired him.” Emily’s gasp from the bathroom doorway had him regret his words. That wasn’t the way that he wanted her to find out. He was hoping to explain everything to Travis so that they could comfort her and figure out a plan to keep her safe.

“My father is a control freak Jackson, but he’d never hire a thug to harass you.” Em’s anger hurt. It felt like she didn’t believe him and that was like a knife to his heart.

Travis sighed, “Let’s hear him out, Em. Jack came back for a reason and his Captain said that he had news about the case. Let Jackson tell us what he’s found and then we can figure out everything from there.” Emily nodded and took Travis’s offered hand sliding into his side. Jack wished like hell that she’d let him offer her comfort but the fact that she was wearing his T-shirt was enough for him right now.

They all sat down, Travis and Em on the king-size bed and Jackson in the hard chair that was in front of the small desk. “I had no choice but to leave you that day, it was for the best.” Emily tried to protest but Travis shushed her holding her to his side. “Believe me Em, I would have done anything to stay with you and Travis, anything. Cross wouldn’t have left any of us alone, he even called in death threats to the station. That morning, my Captain got a call that put the entire department under threat. He was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to keep everyone safe, including the two of you. He put me on paid leave and told me that it was conditional upon me leaving town until things died down with Cross. They had no lead on his whereabouts and without knowing where he was, we couldn’t protect everyone. My Captain knew that Cross had people on the inside of our department, but he wasn’t sure who. My leaving gave him time to weed out the crooked cops working for Cross and try to bring him down. It was working too, that’s how wegot intel on your father, Em. One of the guys that he questioned broke down and told my boss that Cross had been hired to do a job, going after both me and Travis, making it look like a hate crime to cover his tracks.” Emily gasped again covering her mouth with her shaking hand and it took all his willpower not to go to her and pull her from Travis’s arms into his own.

“Why does your boss think that it’s Mr. Jude?” Travis asked.

“He wasn’t sure of it until this morning. They finally caught Cross, he was renting an apartment across the street from Emily’s and well, now your townhome.” The thought of the two of them moving on and moving in together hurt like hell. Jackson rubbed at his chest as if trying to soothe an ache. “He’s been watching you both this whole time. Here, I thought that I was protecting you by leaving. Instead, I put you both in even more danger. Your father didn’t care about me, I left and that was exactly what he wanted. I thought that Cross was the only danger and that he only wanted me. If I left town he’d follow me and you and Travis would be safe.”

Emily nodded, “But we weren’t safe because my father was behind everything. He used your past trouble with Cross and hired him to come after both of you to get you out of my life.” Travis pulled Emily into his arms, kissing her forehead.

“You couldn’t have known that your father would go so far to split us apart, baby,” Travis soothed. “This isn’t your fault.” Jackson watched the two of them feeling like an intruder watching a private moment between two lovers. He wanted to get out of that room, to run away and this time, he wouldn’t come back. It was just too painful seeing the two of them together and not being a part of them.

He stood to leave, suddenly needing some air. “It wasn’t your fault either, Jack,” Travis whispered. Jackson wasn’t sure if Travis said those words or if his mind was playing tricks on him. “You couldn’t have known that Em’s dad was behind any of this.”Travis stood and crossed the room to where Jackson stood by the door. His back was to both Em and Travis, not quite able to face either of them. He didn’t want to hope that they would find a way past all the pain and hurt that he put them through and forgive him. It was asking too much.

“Don’t—” Jackson’s voice broke with unshed tears. “Don’t say things that you don’t mean, Travis. I see the hurt and anger in both of your eyes. You feel that I betrayed you by leaving and honestly, I’d do it all again if I thought that it would keep you both safe. I love you both so fucking much—” Jackson couldn’t finish his sentence, tears now falling down his face. He would have said that he’d do anything for them, even die but he couldn’t get those words out. Travis had wrapped his arms around Jackson from behind with Emily slipping between him and the door to hug his front. He was surrounded by the two people that he cared for most in the world, and he felt like he had finally found his place. They were his home, his everything.

“We love you too, Jackson,” Emily whispered, softly kissing the tears that ran down his face. “We missed you so much, every day and you didn’t give us the chance to tell you how much you mean to us. You took away our team and made us think that you didn’t want to be a part of us anymore. Your note said that you needed time to think that everything was moving too fast. What were Travis and I supposed to think?” Jackson closed his eyes trying to remember that morning. He fought so hard to push those memories out of his mind not wanting to cloud his focus with events from that painful morning.

He remembered thinking about leaving Em and Travis a note, but he felt that would be too impersonal. “I didn’t leave any note, Em. I thought about leaving you one, but I didn’t. I couldn’t sleep after the captain called me, so I got dressed and headed over to the station. I was going to tell him that I had a plan to keep us all safe. But when I got to the station, he told methat a new threat had been called in and I knew that I had to walk away to keep you two and everyone at work safe.” Emily looked as confused as he felt.

“What was your original plan?” she asked.

“I was going to ask you and Travis to go on an extended vacation with me, you know go away and let the whole situation die down some?” Travis wrapped his arms tighter around Jackson. “But, when everything went sideways that morning I couldn’t put everyone in danger, so I left.”

“See, that’s where you went wrong, Jack,” Travis growled into his ear. “You should have let Em and me in. We were a team, and you took away our say in the relationship, making decisions for us. We never stopped loving you, but it hurt like shit that you left us so easily.” Travis turned Jack to face him, and Jack braced himself for the hurt and anger that he saw earlier in Travis’s eyes. This time, he found none of those things. This time, he saw so much love that it nearly tore him apart. Travis pulled Jack in for a kiss that reminded him of all the passion and love that they once shared. Love that he hoped they would all share again and that hope that had him wishing for things that he thought were no longer a possibility—Travis and Emily.

Travis

Travis broke the kiss between Jackson and him, not wanting to take things too far before figuring out what the hell was going on. “So, if you didn’t write that note, then who did?” They both turned to Emily as if she had the answers.

“Connie gave me the note, but I can’t believe that she knew of my father’s plan to cut the two of you out of my life. She’s my friend, hell she’s like a mother to me. My parents have always been cold and distant. When I was a child they were either traveling or on the odd occasion that they remembered that they even had a daughter, my father would control every aspect of my existence. It got to the point that once I turned twenty-one, I took the trust fund that my grandfather had set up for me and I struck out on my own. I put myself through medical school and had very little contact with either of my parents. The only person I spoke to from my childhood was Connie. She’s like my family—please don’t try to make me believe that she was capable of helping my father.”

Travis didn’t miss the concern on Jack’s face. He could tell that the cop in Jack was convinced that Connie had something to do with the mysterious letter. “Didn’t you say that Connieseemed glad that Jack left that morning?” Travis hated bringing it up, but he remembered how upset Em was that Connie seemed relieved that Jack was out of her life. He saw all the same red flags that Jack was seeing, and he was afraid that Emily was about to have her heart broken again, this time by someone that she thought of as her family.

“Yes,” Em nodded, “Connie was almost happy that Jack took off and left us a note saying to give him space.” She shook her head, “I just can’t believe that she would sink to that level, she always seemed to be on my side even when I chose to go against my parent’s wishes. Why would she write a note telling us not to follow Jackson?” Travis pushed her long blond hair from her eyes, framing her face with his hands.

“I’m not sure, baby. Maybe she thought that our relationship was wrong or maybe she was always on your father’s payroll, feeding him information to help him keep an eye on you.”

“Fuck,” Jack swore. “This is so much worse than I ever anticipated. I thought that this whole thing revolved around me and my problems with my ex-partner. But Cross was just the tip of the iceberg. This was all about you,” he turned to Emily and pulled her into his arms finally allowing himself to take what he had been longing for over the past couple of months. She melted against his body, taking Travis’s hand into hers, holding onto them both as if they were her lifelines.

“This fucking ends now,” Travis barked. “If we’re going to move forward together then we make all of our decisions as a team.”

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