Page 128 of Long Road Home

Life moved on.

Each case was new.

She’d accepted the truth of what God had done for her, and now she was new as well.

Kenna’s stray tears damped his T-shirt. She was supposed to be stronger than this, but the truth was, the more time she spent with him, the more she would feel what she was feeling right now. It would grow. She would fall deeper into it. And then she would never want to wade back into danger when the alternative was to be here and feel safe.

She leaned back, sniffing and swiping the heel of her hand across her face.

“It’s okay, you know?” Jax said. “You’re exhausted, and that makes anyone’s emotions closer to the surface.” His eyes did look a little red. “It’s been a rough few days.”

“At least not wearing a badge means I don’t have to do cleanup.”

He shook his head. “Thanks a lot.”

She grinned. “Sucks to be you, I guess?”

Jax snorted. “One day you’re going to say something, trying to be funny at completely the wrong moment, and it’s going to sink like a ship.”

“Let’s face facts, it’ll probably be in front of your mother.” And wasn’t that a nightmare waiting to happen? She wanted to meet his family. Maybe dragging it out this far was making it worse not better, and she should simply tear off the bandage. Show up at his parent’s house one day and introduce herself. But who did that?

He slung his arm around her neck and kissed herforehead. “You’ll survive her. The rest of us will help you. We’re pros.”

Kenna got another cup of coffee and refilled his mug. She had just lifted it to her lips when her phone chimed—loudly, because she’d turned it up to take a shower so she wouldn’t miss anything. “Is it them?”

Jax tipped her phone up so she could read the screen. “Looks like it.”

She gave him her pin code, and he unlocked it.

“Another picture,” he said. “Can’t see where she is. But there’s an address.”

“And Maizie couldn’t get anything from the number?”

“Before you came out of the shower, she told me it was unregistered. And it seems like it’s being turned off between uses.”

She pulled open the closet door and dragged out a smaller sweater so she could start layering up. “Where are we going?”

Ten minutes later, Jax pulled over to the side of the street, down from the church.

“I can’t believe this was the address.” She stared at the building, some lights on inside—mostly in the basement levels, given the lit windows down by the ground. The main sanctuary seemed dark.

“You still think we should hold off calling this in?”

“We don’t know if it’s Stan or Jennifer.” That didn’t make much sense as far as a reason not to call anyone. But Kenna only realized that after she’d said it. “You and I can sneak around easier than an entire team. If they jump the gun and go in, they could get her killed.”

“So it’s recon first?” He flicked off the headlights but left the carrunning.

She twisted in her seat to grab her hat and gloves off the back seat. The extra layer of a bulletproof vest he’d insisted she put on since they had two wasn’t comfortable. She’d been shot in the chest once while not wearing one, so she didn’t argue. “You thought I’d just walk in the front door?”

“Isn’t that normally in your top three of plans?”

Kenna chuckled, even though inside she was a bundle of worry for Forrest. At least she didn’t have to do this alone—or partnered up with someone she didn’t trust. “You could take the back door.”

“Yeah, no. Together or not at all,” he said. “And don’t argue that splitting up covers more ground. It would be a waste of you trying to deflect with humor to avoid your feelings.”

Too bad her response to that would’ve been humorous. Now he would never know what she’d have said—and it would’ve been funny, thank you very much. How was the fact she had been crying in her RV not that long ago avoiding her feelings? They were so close to the surface right now, it was any wonder she wasn’t crying again. Or laughing so hard she was crying, which would’ve been the same thing.

Kenna sighed. “Let’s just go.”

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