Page 55 of Shielding Aubree

Finn shrugged and took a step off to the side. "We can finish it later." He lifted his chin at Ruben. "Go ahead and call me when you're both done and if I'm not available..."

Ruben gave him a salute. "Will do."

As Finn walked away, he turned and gave Ruben a thankful smile.

Ruben was happy to help. If Jagger had an interest in working in the pool, this was a good place to start.

Ruben reached down and rolled up the cuffs on his slacks. "ATF?"

Jagger had found a chair and was untying his laces. "Yeah. Up until a couple of weeks ago. It's up in the air if I'm going back."

Ruben nodded as he sat down on the edge of the pool. "Aubree, my girlfiend,” he clarified, “just went back to work at NMPD. She was here at the Refuge for a couple of weeks."

One of Jagger's boots dropped to the flagstones beside the pool. "She was a client here?"

Ruben turned and saw Jagger's curious look. "We waited to date after she left the Refuge."

Jagger shrugged. "I wasn't trying to judge. I know how hard it is to find someone in this world. It's hard enough to bump into the right person without putting more obstacles between you."

"You're with someone?"

Jagger dropped his other boot to the deck. "Not anymore."

Ruben didn't ask for details as he sat down and set his feet in the cool water with a sigh.

"I was part of a raid where we confiscated a shit ton of weapons and drugs. The largest raid in our agency's history."

Ruben moved his feet through the water and turned to look at Jagger as the other man slipped his feet into the water beside him.

"It turns out taking that amount of shit from the bad guys makes them angry."

Jagger leaned back, bracing his hands on the deck behind him, tilting his face up into the late afternoon sunlight.

"My fiancée was another officer on our task force."

Was.

Ruben didn't miss the words he'd used, but one of them rang out louder than the rest.

"We had scheduled a meeting with our supervisor. We knew we had to come clean with the others about our relationship and the brass if we didn't want to get sanctions or suspensions, but it turned out we didn't need the meeting after all."

Ruben nodded and concentrated on the cool swish of water across his skin. "Did it happen during the raid?"

"No." Jagger sat up and folded his fingers together as he leaned forward on his thighs. "In my house. Someone had leaked the addresses of our team. From the messages that I found on my phone after, she'd gone to my house to wait for me and took the bullet meant for me." Jagger's voice was shaking but instead of tears, Ruben could feel the anger rolling off of the other man in waves, followed by the aching sadness that wasn't far behind.

The emotions he could feel coming from Jagger stole his breath. And when you couldn't breathe, steadying breaths didn't do much to help.

Ruben felt Jagger's pain in his own chest and out of the other man's sight, he wrapped his hand around his phone, willing Aubree to answer him back, just to tell him that she was okay.

A harsh wind blew across the surface of the pool and chilled Ruben to the bone.

Jagger sighed and his chin dropped down to his chest. "It doesn't matter how you met her, man. Don't waste a single fucking moment."

"Yeah." Ruben nodded, his voice raw in his throat. "Yeah."

13

Ruben knew he was probably crossing a line, but he picked the lock on Aubree's apartment later that night.

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