If Tomorrow Never Comes (24 page)

Unable
to repress the joy exploding, barbed yet sweet, a gush gurgled up past her lips
with a small yelp of sound, the hoarseness startling as she kissed Jake's
cheek.
 
Another escaped, then, another
until she recognized the sound as laughter.
 
Her head seemed to be twirling around and around as laughter continued,
the reaction causing the world to whiz past as if spinning out of orbit while
Jake held her until his arms ached.

The
room was so swelled with emotions Margaret's sobbing, and bellowing nose as she
blew into tissues went unheard.
 
Only
Jake heard Billy leave.
 

CHAPTER 23

           
Permeating Jake's apartment was
emotion Billy had never experienced before.
 
Contrition turned him from the scene; his mind doing mental gymnastics
assailing him with fresh doubts caused anguish to flash high.
 
Never again could he look into the eyes of
the one person he respected and loved.
 
The one he betrayed.
 
Emerald eyes
glaring at him, said Jake knew.

           
Whom did Jake think he was
kidding?
  
Had he come to know him better
than Jake knew himself?
 
The show down
would surely come.
 
Jake had no choice
but to expose him.
 
He couldn’t expect
mercy, besides, he didn't deserve it.
 
Having deceived his best friend, he’d complicated matters by
jeopardizing the life of an innocent woman.
 
A woman Jake loved.
 

           
If he hadn’t followed his
instructions to investigate Jordan, maybe there would have been a chance.
 
A treasonous act committed the day following
the raid so filled was he with a powerful need to find out why his hero went
against his own steadfast rules by risking his life to save a courier, an
enchanter in disguise whose pictures captivated him.

           
When his investigation failed to
uncover the slightest detail, as though Jordan never existed, his suspicions worsened.
 
The only alternative was to break into Jake’s
office.
 
There he unearthed the
unexpected, all in one neat little package, Jordan's past, Jakes’ plans' for a
major raid, evidence against drug couriers, and shockingly the results of the
investigations of fellow DEA enforcers.
 
The package filled with evidence now hidden safely in his apartment.

           
Billy’s present emotional state
induced flash backs as to how relieved he was when no condemning information
pertaining to himself was found in the package.
 
If Jake suspected him, he found nothing conclusive, thanks to
Scorpio.
  
Yet, finding the evidence had
been too easy, as though that was Jake’s intentions.

           
Considering Jake placed himself in
jeopardy in the name of love, how could he deliver the information to
Scorpio?
 
The kind of love Billy forgot
existed, envied, and had only known from his mother.
 
Gagging on lumps of regret, his sleeve
swished across damp lashes.

           
As if dice tossed upon a gambling
table, thoughts of his mother, Scorpio, Jake and Jordan, spun in Billy's
head.
 
In split seconds, as if the dice
hit, bounced, spun, rolled, and abruptly slammed against his heart, he decided
his destiny.
 
Without counting the black
dots, Billy made a choice knowing Jake would not stand in his way.
 
 

           
Orbiting flashes of red reflected
off the roof of Billy's car, the sirens' shrillness nothing compared to the
alarm ringing in his chest.
 
Breaking
every traffic law, he pursued his destiny.
 

           
As if savoring the torture, it took
an unbearable length of time for the elevator of his apartment complex to reach
the fifteenth floor.
 
Each occupant’s
eyes seemed to be writing an indelible message across his forehead, “TRAITOR,”
making the walls close in.
  

           
Like the slime he was, squeezing
through the crack in the elevator door, he vaulted so anxious was he to
retrieve the evidence Scorpio would seek in compensation for losing six men.
Fumbling for his keys, he darted down the hall.
 
Once inside he closed the door and secured the lock.
 
Eager for temporary refuge, he leaned against
the cold steel and released a sigh filled with relief.
 
Though everything appeared normal, something
contaminating the air told him his luck had run out.
 

           
 
Billy moved to the bedroom, every part of him
aware, alert, eyes wildly scanning his domain to make certain every detail
remained unchanged.
 
Just as he crossed
the threshold, something horrible cloaked him.
 
Struggling for the slightest breath, he brushed wildly at trepidations
sweat slipping torturously down his face.
 
Despite the illumination from outside, he felt as though he'd perforated
the blackest cloud of doom.
 

           
Body swishing this way and that, one
hand coming behind his back searched for the weapon perpetually holstered
there.
 
Claiming it, he whirled around
fully prepared to challenge the smothering waves of terror that made his heart
bang against his lungs so forcefully he gasped for air.
 

           
Scorpio’s image before him made
disgust’s grip brutal.
 
At once eyelids
went rampant, like the wipers of a car in a driving storm, attempting to
eliminate the confronting stigma.
  
He
should have known the futility.
 
Forever
etched in every mirror he encountered there’d always be the very image of the
man he despised.
      

           
Cold fingers raised deadly hard
steel to trembling lips willingly separating to allow the weapon access.
 
For a breath of a second, acceptance shaded
his features until an invisible current of a breeze through the open patio door
halted him. Insistent puffs, making thin curtains move, that danced across the
room playing with his shirt, until wafting up the shaft of his nose to
penetrate the mind balking at life a familiar pungency that turned the air
rancid, and made him desperate to release the lurking geyser of bile.

           
Long, dread filled strides brought
him to the dresser where the hinged top allowed access to a fake drawer only he
knew existed.
 
Finding it empty meant one
thing.
 

           
Day light sprinted for cover as
darkness crept forward.
 
The sky was not
nearly as black as the blood gorging veins so viciously they throbbed from
pain.
 
In a trance like state, moving to
the patio he glanced below at the cars innocently moving about as if insects
with glowing antennas.
 
Listening to the
rhapsody of the city his hands clutched the railing preventing the cowardice
within from hurling his body over.
 
It
took long agonizing moments, before his eyes leveled at what he knew was
there.
 

           
Across the street, on a patio
directly opposite his, with light from the apartment outlining his body, as though
he were God, Billy glared at a man in a white tuxedo whose eyes brazenly
challenged his.
 
Billy could almost hear
his father’s evil laughter, see the flash of white vixen sharp teeth, and feel
his nails puncture the skin around his neck.
 
Or was it Billy's nails penetrating his palms as he clenched his fists
to hold back a fierce need to kill?
 
His
laughter as he imagined spilling Scorpios' venomous blood, his razor sharp
teeth severing the umbilical cord linking him to the devil?

           
Ever so slowly, Billy counted the
black dots on the imaginary dice rolling in his head, five, six, seven.

CHAPTER 24

           
Jake moved Jordan to the couch where
she lay limp in his arms, an occasional hiccup shaking her.
 
Love seemed to be a mediocre word for what he
was feeling, just as he knew she did too.
 
The strangeness masking even the ordinary words they whispered as if
their speech had taken on a language of its own.

           
Mumbling prayers of thanks, Margaret
scurried about Jake's kitchen preparing whatever she could find to feed the
bewitched lovebirds.
 
Quaking at the mere
thought of how close she'd come to losing them, no time was permitted for
frightful thoughts to wander.

           
“Them,” she reflected, a smile
wrinkling her cheeks when she considered how much space Jordan now occupied in
her heart.
 
Never having a daughter, she
always wondered what she'd missed. Apparently, God answered more than one
prayer.

           
Preparing the meal, she pondered her
remaining years.
 
A survivor of life's
tribulations, she knew how losing a loved one could rip seams in one's
soul.
 
Dear God, she couldn’t survive
another tear.
 
She’d have no reason to
live if anything happened to Jake or Jordan.
 
Just the thought of what it would do to either of them if they lost each
other after just discovering love's magic, made her ill.
 
They were so young with a whole lifetime
ahead.

           
Born no fool, Margaret knew Jake
lied to Jordan.
 
He wouldn't stop now;
and unfortunately, Jordan was as bull headed as he.
 
Two people she loved were hell bent on saving
the other.
 
She could not allow Scorpio
to destroy them.
 
Scrambling eggs busied
her hands, scheming to make sure he wouldn’t, busied her mind.

           
It took considerable coaxing to get
the couple into the kitchen where placed in front of them were heaping portions
of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon along with tall glasses of orange juice and
milk.
 
Laying her apron on the counter,
Margaret sat watching them eat.
 

           
One would have to be blind to miss
their magnetic eyes.
 
Though their hands
never touched, nor words spoken, she felt the fervor of passions’ electrical
storm foaming the oceans of gold and emerald to a boiling point.
 
Their minds so completely immersed in each
other they were drowning in the words they wished to say.
 
Amazingly, each time their lids draped and
slowly lifted again; an invisible current decoded it all.
 

           
When Jordan dropped her napkin and
Jake instantly bent to retrieve it, as their hands met the most stunning smile
she ever saw made Jordan's translucent skin shine with the rush of joy.
 
At that moment, Jake seemed to have forgotten
everything about everything, his countenance transmitting a song as old as
time.

           
Watching them, Margaret couldn't
help but recall when they were far from friends, and marveled how they had
changed, like a Willow tree swaying gently to the breath of love.
 
Releasing a sigh, dabbing at a tear creeping
out of nowhere, she pondered their love story, the ending of which she'd never
know unless she left them alone.
 
With
fingers crossed, she returned to her apartment muttering incessant prayers.

           
Concerned over how Jake's face had
turned ashen, how his eyelids drooped wearily, how his forehead crinkled
signaling pain, Jordan insisted he lay on the couch while she straightened the
kitchen.
 
Despite rushing through the
chores, upon returning, her prince slept.
 

           
She concluded it was best
considering his love for her had shown so bright she realized more than ever
her ability to love him equally had shriveled and left her dry.
 
Still, she did not want to go to the bedroom
alone to sleep in his bed without him in the chair nearby.
 
She couldn’t wake him particularly when the
passion and need in his eyes said he wanted her as any man who loved a woman
would.
 
Considering all that had taken
place, things would not, could not be the same between them ever again.