Race the Storm

Chapter 13

Jax glanced over at Willa as they pulled out of the parking lot onto the little road heading into town and straight to the coffee shop. He wondered what she thought of the team. Did she like them? She sure seemed to like Wes. He wished he had Wes' way with words, could make her relax and not worry like Wes could.

Maybe he should have sent her with Wes.

But he didn't like that plan either.

And as Diego had reminded him, Willa had asked for Jax to stay with her last night. So she must feel kind of safe with him, right? He would definitely do everything in his power to protect her and keep her safe, that was for sure.

So no, he wouldn't have wanted to send her with Wes. Or Diego. He trusted both of them with his life, but he wanted to keep an eye on Willa himself. They were doing their part to help by taking the vehicle he and Willa had brought to the hotel and taking it in a different direction. Now he was driving an old dark gray Ford pick-up, which had probably been Diego's choice of ride.

"Are you sure I can't order your coffee for you?" Wila leaned away from the window. "What if I promise not to go too wild? I'm good at figuring out people's tastes."

"Is that so." Jax wasn't going to give in. While he didn't know Willa hardly at all yet, he had a feeling she would pick something sugary and overly sweet just to mess with him.

"No, really," she said, "It's part of my job. Or my future job." She offered him a half smile even as her nose crinkled. "Or it was going to be. I guess I...we'll see."

Whatever future she had planned for herself was going to have to change. Both of them already knew that. He hated that things weren't going to work out the way she wanted, and he hated that she had been trapped into this by the Estate. The government. The people who tried to control everyone else and ruined whatever you thought your life was going to be. Jax had been in the PsyOps group's hands long enough to cultivate a rather cynical view of the world. He hoped that wouldn't be the case for Willa. He was going to try to keep her from that.

"For what it's worth, I"m sorry," Jax murmured after a second of quiet. That didn't seem an adequate enough word, but it was the only one he had. "I know your life would have been easier if I left you at the Estate."

Willa looked at him and Jax found himself unusually tense, wondering what she was going to say next. He'd feel horrible if she thought that after everything she knew. It would make him question if he'd done the right thing. And maybe he shouldn't have assumed he was doing the right thing, maybe she never wanted to be a mother, but he could keep the baby, she still didn't have to be...

"It's okay," she said softly, her hand touching his shoulder for a moment before she turned her attention back out the front windshield. He wished she would look at him so he could read her better, even if it was only using his peripheral vision. "If I'd ever found out what I know now, that this baby was mine..." She shook her head, one hand moving to gently rest on her stomach. "I would have one, been furious with the Estate, and two, done everything in my power to track my baby down." Her expression tightened, growing almost fierce–a look he hadn't really seen on Willa before. "And I would have killed them if I'd found them creating a little soldier."

Dang. Mamas were scary. He wasn't going to tell her that she would have never made it that far. That the Estate probably would have kept tabs on her for the rest of her life after releasing her, and would have stopped her the moment she started trying to find her baby. That's assuming they even let her live her life after producing a healthy, powered baby.

No, the best hope would have been that she produced a regular, unpowered baby. Then, maybe then, she and the baby would have a chance at a normal life.

But from what Wes had found, that was a big fat unlikely if.