12:57 PM Logan, Maine
Cam backed away from Jon, her movements jerky. They'd been stalking around each other for the last two hours. Impatience and fear had her strung so tight she was going to scream and keep on screaming if she didn't get some answers. Jon had given up talking to her finally. His amazing mouth kept moving, but all she could focus on was that he'd had her watched for the last 2 years. If that wasn't bad enough--she hadn't even known she was being watched.
Shouldn't she have felt something? With everything that Lucas had done to find her over the years, she thought her instincts were much better about that sort of thing. But here--in the place that she'd finally felt safe--she truly wasn't. Staring out the wide windows she'd once adored, now she found herself standing to the side--out of sight. She knew it was the shock talking, and yet she couldn't quite get out of her own way. Was he out there now?
What she needed was to get away from Jon. At least for a few minutes. She had to pull herself together. "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Jon stood, his deceptively easy pose on her couch gave way to nerves stretched as tight as her own.
"I'm not leaving, so relax yourself. I just need--I need a minute all right?"
He jammed his hands into his pockets and his gaze dropped to the floor. She could see his hands bunched into fists, tight against his hips in the well worn jeans. All that wild blonde hair falling forward, making him look deceptively innocent. Hugging herself tightly, she hurried to the back of her house, locking herself into the bathroom. Swinging the medicine cabinet open she reached for a bottle of Tylenol with a shaking hand. Fisting her fingers, and forcing herself to stop, reached again, pleased to see only the barest tremor. It was all a mistake. They would talk to his cop friend.
Cops lie.
She shut down that little voice. Not all cops lied. Not everyone was like Lucas. Not every cop lied and manipulated the system. She closed the cabinet and popped two tablets, cupping her hand under the cool water to swallow them down and splash water on her face. Looking up, she saw a face that had been gone for so long--the drawn features, and the instant hollows in her cheeks, She wiped at the smudge of charcoal on her cheek, and the tracks of her panicked tears, erasing everything she could from the woman she used to be. She wouldn't be that woman again. Not ever again.
She liked her life now--she liked not living in fear. Lucas would not take this house and this life from her.
Lifting her chin, she stared back at herself. She reached for a brush and pulled her hair down so she didn't look so severe and damaged--she wouldn't be that woman again. Dabbing on a little gloss with a touch of pink for color she felt slightly better. She would talk to the cop, talk to Jon, and she would figure this out. With a little luck, she'd find out that it was all a mistake.
Heading back into the living room, she found Jon standing before her canvass, his eyes unreadable. Could he tell it was him? It was a little on the abstract side, but seeing the man and the study together told her that she'd caught his likeness. Perhaps a little too well actually. She didn't watch television, but she had caught his face on the odd magazine over the years. She knew he was touring, had caught songs on the radio in her car even, but for all intents and purposes, that day he'd put her on the plane had been the last day she'd seen him. Her eyes drifted down to his mouth, remembering that one kiss they'd shared. Funny how his single kiss would be the one she remembered the most.
When he turned to her, he caught the look, his eyes unreadable--back to the flat blue that was missing that undefinable sparkle that was really the only thing that ever showed true pleasure on his face. But his gaze dropped to her mouth too. Did he remember that kiss too? Right. Was that before or after he kissed his wife each night? She faced the canvas instead.
It was good. Sometimes when she was in the heat of the moment within a new piece she was too close to it, her mind's eye much more forgiving than the reality of the board when she was done...but not here. It captured his intensity. Once she added some more depth, the strong blue eyes would be all that was necessary to finish off the piece--Stark, almost untouchable here. Gone was the charisma that he used as a shield.
"It's me." She lifted the loose canvas nailed to the board to cover it. He stopped her. "I don't mind it. It's not beautiful. I like it."
Her lips quirked. Even now, he couldn't be anything but honest. "No, it's not beautiful--you're a beautiful man, aesthetically, but that's not--"
"It's not all that I am," he finished for her. "It's a rare thing to see." His fingertips traced the deep grooves at his mouth and eyes. She could see the surprise when he felt the actual texture of it. "Most people smooth things over. Airbrush out the imperfections." He curled his fingers back into his palm and dropped his hand. "I mean, I'm vain as the next man--I don't want to look old. But I don't want to look plastic either."
A tiny piece of her relaxed. As intense and hard as he could be sometimes, his intuitive nature was always there. He just hid it under layers of indifference. Knowing that she did the same to hide any emotions during her time with Lucas so he couldn't use them against her, she imagined Jon was the same. Show the safe things, hold onto the important ones. How must it feel to be watched every day of your life. Just who lived in the jail?
He peeked at his watch, and the tension returned within the tick of a second. Hadn't he said he would meet with the cop this morning? "Jon?"
His eyes met hers, the blue as turbulent as the sea out her window. "I don't know where he is."
She crossed her arms over her stomach, her fingers digging into the well worn cotton. "It can't be Lucas, it just can't." Before he could answer, his cell rang. When he walked away from her, she focused on the wide shoulders that tapered down to his lean waist. She tried to remain calm, and all she could read was the tension of his muscles rippling under the sweater, the immediate clenching of his thighs and glutes as he widened his stance as if to brace himself.
And decided she didn't want to know and hated herself for it.
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