Read Jaxson's Song for Free Online

“Reporting a
false event is a crime.”
    “ I didn’t make it up.” The words left her lips in a rush.
“Someone really did break into my house tonight. He was waiting for
me when I came home. I heard his footsteps on the porch and then I
ran. The front door was open, he’d definitely been in the
house.”
    “ Is anything missing?” Carl countered, though why he asked,
she couldn’t say. He’d seen her walk in just now. He had to know
she hadn’t yet had time to walk through the house.
    “ I don’t know.”
    “ Let’s look now,” Jaxson interrupted, crossing the room and
taking her hand in his much larger one. His rings pressed into her
fingers, the chill of the silver and gold dragging her out of her
dazed state.
    “ Jaxson, I don’t get it,” she whispered fifteen minutes
later.
    They’d gone through both
floors of the house, painstakingly checking each room, especially
the bedrooms and the kitchen. Granted, she and Lilly didn’t own
anything that could be considered extravagant, but there were a few
pieces of jewelery each had brought with them from Atlanta, and
Aunt Viola had left them a set of sterling silver cutlery. Neither
of which had been touched.
    Beyond that, they owned
the typical household items—a couple of televisions, a VCR, a DVD
player, I-pods and a handful of movies. Nothing that couldn’t be
tossed into the back seat of a car.
    The art on the walls was
antique and the furniture was of good quality but those were not
things that any average, run-of-the-mill petty thief worth his salt
would bother making off with. Regardless, everything was in its
place, arranged just as Kate had left it when she’d locked the door
behind her that afternoon.
    “ Well, at least nothing was stolen, right?” Jaxson shrugged
and headed down the stairs to join the officers who waited
impatiently in the front entryway. “So…what’s with the mirrored
room?”
    “ Don’t ask. And yeah…” Kate spoke slowly and descended after
him, “that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But you heard those men.”
She lowered her voice and, ahead of her, Jaxson slowed his pace and
glanced back over his shoulder. “They think I made the whole thing
up. That I…I don’t even know, picked my own lock? And made this up,
for what I have no clue. Who would do something like
that?”
    “ A crazy person?” He shrugged again and picked up the
pace.
    “ I’m not crazy.”
    “ I never said you were.”
    “ I didn’t make this up. Someone was really here.”
    “ I know.”
    “ And—wait—what?”
    “ I said I know.” Jaxson sighed. “I believe you.”
    And the funny thing was,
he did. Sure, he didn’t know Kate Delaney, didn’t know a single
damn thing about her, but he knew people. And she’d been completely
terrified earlier. He’d seen the stark look of terror in her wide
eyes; violet eyes, he could see now under the brighter lighting,
not gray or blue like he’d originally thought.
    No way had she made the
whole thing up. “It’s not me you have to convince.” He sent her a
meaningful look, then inclined his head toward the officers
clustered next to the front door.
    “ I think they’ve already made up their minds.” Kate’s mouth
tightened. “Nothing is missing,” she called to the
officers.
    “ If you have any more problems, give us a call,” the older
cop, Benson, advised her, not unkindly.
    Jax watched Kate give the
man a grateful smile and he felt his gut tighten. Hell. The woman
was dangerous. She made him feel edgy and at ease, all at once. And
when she smiled, it made him want to do things for her. He felt
ashamed now for snapping at her and slamming the door in her face
earlier.
    He watched Carl issue
thinly veiled threats to Kate, reminding her of the penalty of
non-emergency calls to 911, and he felt the unfamiliar urge to put
himself between her and the old bastard. He didn’t. That would have
been very, very stupid, given his current legal troubles. Somewhere
in the house, a