Page 88 of It's You
Tombeur finally looked away with a grin and rubbed his chin. “I’ll give you this. You got steel balls, son. Good thing, ’cause you’re gonna need ’em.”
Tombeur had put out his hand.
Jack eyed it, wishing his life were different. But he saw the wisdom in Tombeur’s insistence, even if his body cried out to return to her immediately. He would stay in Portes de l’Enfer for a decade and work for the council until his twenty-eighth birthday. And until he had a viable plan to protect his pack and his woman, he would not return to Carlisle.
“I agree to your conditions.”
Jack shook Tombeur’s hand, then watched as Tombeur blended the blood and scrawled the initials D.T. beside the name Jacques Beauloup. The binding was complete, but Jack’s journey back to Darcy had just begun.
4
Jack took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, exhausted by the force of his memories. At the time, he’d had no idea it would take almost twenty years to come up with a viable plan and return to her.
And look where it got you, Jack. Great job.
He wasn’t more than ten minutes from home now, and after he greeted his family, he intended to grab Julien, who knew the woods better than anyone, and find their father. He was sick of sitting so long, and after the long drive, he’d welcome the run. A Roug run. It had been a long time. He almost sighed in anticipation.
He glanced at his phone and was surprised to see that he had a text message. So deep in his own thoughts, he hadn’t heard the phone ping.
Willow
Found the records you were talking about. When can we talk?
He slowed down the car on a straight, wide road so that he could text back.
Jack
Almost home. Need to deal with family business. Tonight.
He hit send, then impulsively wrote again:
Tell her I miss her.
And hit send again.
As he pulled into the parking area adjacent to his parents’ cabin, he checked his phone again and was disappointed to find a single reply:
Tonight.
Not a word about Darcy.
“Jacques!”Lela raced out of the cabin and threw her arms around her older half brother.
“Hey, Lela.” Jack clasped her smaller body in his arms, looking down at her braided hair.
When she finally leaned back and looked into his eyes, Jack was surprised by how mature and womanly she appeared. Lela had always been good-looking, her skin and eyes a touch lighter than most Rougs, owing to her quarter-blooded human ancestry, but the last time Jack had seen her was three years ago, and she’d still been a teenager. She’d certainly filled out since.
“Are you checking me out?” she asked, looking up at him from under heavily lashed eyes.
He pushed her away. “Quit flirting. I’m your brother.”
“Half,” she said, eyes challenging, hands on her hips. Jack had a sudden flashback to Lynette standing the same way before Tallis.
The door opened, and Jack’s brother, Julien, appeared behind Lela. Again, Jack was surprised by how much his siblings had changed in the three years he’d been away. At twenty-six, Julien was almost as tall and broad as Jack, with a thick head of jet-black hair, void of the gray Jack sported at his temples. But Jack could see the sorrow around his eyes.
Julien was aveuf. A widower. Bound at eighteen to his sweetheart, Natalia, she’d been killed on a hunt last summer, hit by a truck when they were crossing the road during a hunt south of Portes de l’Enfer. Julien had dispatched the driver quickly, leaving the truck abandoned, and returned to the pack carrying the limp body of his mate.
Jack dropped his eyes to see Julien’s little daughter, Delphine, appear at his side. The four-year-old had black hair and big, brown eyes tinged with tiny moss-colored flakes, like her father. Since losing Natalia, Julien and Delphine had moved back in with his parents and Lela.
