I’m through mistaking need for love. Someone who loves you may need you, but need does not signify love. Love looks like sacrifice. It looks like awareness and intentionality and sensitivity. If I love you and see that you are sad, I feel sad, too. If I love you, and I see that you are happy, I am maybe even happier than you. When I hurt you, it doesn’t take very long before it hurts me even more. Then I will go to you and beg your forgiveness and spend some serious time self-searching to figure out how never to do it again. How to change because I love you. – Felicity’s Journal, April 18

Ta copine est très charmante, mais elle ne va pas durer longtemps, je pense. – Amélie in conversation with Jase.

The gentle swells and expanses of the Wyoming terrain melded into the grandiose waves of the Montana landscape. Felicity had asked if they could fly into Banff, hoping to shorten her time spent alone with Jase, but Jase refused. “Airports require too much security and documentation” he had informed her. “You are going to have to learn to roll under the radar if you're going to survive the next few weeks.”

When they had reached Cheyenne, they dropped off Felicity's convertible, but even so, Felicity's sense of exposure returned as they entered Canada. What if Jase was wrong, and ProtoComm had monitored her phone? Would Bill's men be watching for her? How powerful were they? Would they have surveillance on the roads? Did the ProtoComm CEO monitor his employees closer than Jase knew? Was Jase driving her into a trap?

“Should we be on the major roads?”

Jase laughed, a seemingly nervous gesture. “Huh, I wish I could say we didn't need to worry about that, but I can't guarantee that Bill isn't somehow tapped into traffic cameras, at least once we get to Calgary. But I have some alarms in place. If he starts monitoring me too closely, I'll know.”

Jase's nervousness rubbed off on her. Not that she felt totally safe with Jase anyway, but she trusted him more than ProtoComm or Brendon. She did not want them to find her.

With that thought, her insecurity bubbled over into words. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded gently.

“What?” he replied, guileless.

“Why are you saving me? Going against your boss. Risking your job.” Her eyes darted surreptitiously to his face. “It's not like you have too much of a conscience to abduct someone.”

“We already went over this.” He seemed hurt. “I've never abducted anyone or participated in an abduction in any way.”

“No, just benefited a company that did.”

For a moment, Felicity noted the distinct flare of Jase's nostrils as he appeared to hold in an angry retort. Felicity expected his anger; Brendon had always disliked her black and white principles. To her surprise, Jase did not reply. Instead, his eyes stared straight ahead at the road. From Felicity's perspective, he appeared to deliberate over what he wanted to say.

Finally, he spoke with surprising contrition, “You're right, of course. I've done a lot of things you would find reprehensible, and I've justified them. Lately, I've started to wonder about my lack of conscience. You don't know me, though,” he offered darkly. “There are many things I won't do, places that are too dark for even me. Part of the reason I got out of government work was because I needed to be able to question my bosses when something felt off.”

“Government work?”

“Federal law enforcement stuff. A lot of security people come from that background. And I thought for a long time that I didn’t have a choice. Even after I moved to ProtoComm, I was stuck in that pattern. But you were my first…” he trailed off.

“That sounds very salacious, Jase.”

Jase laughed out loud. “I guess it does,” he grinned, glancing at her. “Sorry.”

“So, explain yourself,” she smiled back.

“I did turn a blind eye to what Bill was doing. Like I said; I didn’t participate, but I could easily have found out. I was in this weird position. In government work, I had to keep an eye out for any illegal activity, but if I saw my bosses doing something, I had to keep my mouth shut in most cases. They really did have legitimate reasons a lot of the time. When I noticed some discrepancies at ProtoComm, my old job would have compelled me to notice and ignore. For once, I wanted to ignore in ignorance, if that makes sense.”

“I mean, sort of…” Felicity allowed.

“But about two weeks ago – just before that first party where I met you – Bill asked me to oversee the installation of a surveillance system. He’d had me do it at all of his residences – palaces, more like – so I didn’t think much of it. Your house, though, is pretty small compared to his.”

“My house?” she demanded, anger bubbling in her throat.

Jase sighed. “I didn’t know that at the time. I had no idea what Bill had brought me in on. Maybe he figured I knew how to follow orders and keep my mouth shut because of my previous occupation, because I kept my head down, but I only realized what was happening after I had finished and was testing the cameras.”

“Oh my gosh; cameras in my house.” Felicity’s stomach churned furiously at the violation.

“Only in the common spaces, not that that makes it okay, just maybe not quite as horrific. But, yeah, cameras. And when I switched on the first test, there were you and Brendon. To be honest, I sat and watched the camera for a few minutes because Brendon was such a plastic person, I wondered what he was like when the mask came off. I’d never seen you before. And there Brendon was yelling at you like an asshole.”

Felicity pursed her lips. “I’m more surprised that you happened to catch him at one of his rare times at home than that you caught him yelling at me.”

“No, I realized that pretty quickly. I had to do this video check once a day, and I would watch everything at super high speed just to make sure there were no video anomalies or outages, and he was just never there. He would wander in at two or three in the morning a lot of the time, and that just didn’t match the image he put out in the company. Or to the public, for that matter. The ‘family man.’”

Felicity had to agree.

“I was kind of fascinated by someone who could so effectively pull off the Jekyll and Hyde routine. I mean, he didn’t beat you or the kids, but everyone talks like he is a saint, and even before I knew about this, I realized he was kind of a jerk to the people he was supposed to care about. It’s like he had no idea what he had, how rare to find someone who would fight for what was right but still care enough to show kindness.” His expression turned inward, and she had to wonder what story he had seen or lived that stirred up the longing she read in his face. Still, she would not let herself care – not while she had to get back to her children.

“I’m sorry, Jase. I can’t listen to you talk about this anymore.” She huffed. “I don’t really need that kind of validation right now. I need the kind that will keep me focused – not wallowing in self-pity about how I’ve been wronged.”

Jase nodded. “Okay, so what finally moved me off of my ‘don’t ask questions’ mindset was you. I mean, when I first set the system up and saw whose house it was, I just kind of assumed it was a test or something for Brendon. Keeping an eye on him because Bill didn’t trust him. But it bothered me because, as far as I could tell, there was nothing else in the system like that. I mean, was he going to spy on me if he didn’t trust me? Who else was he doing this to?”

“But I could only find the one house. Yours. Once I started poking around Brendon’s files, there were a couple of files specifically about you. About your habits. Your tendencies. Your family. ProtoComm didn’t have files like that on any of the other company spouses. I admit I slowed down the tapes a couple of times, trying to figure out what was so interesting about you to Bill.”

“You realize this whole ‘watching me’ thing doesn’t help your status as creeper.”

“Nature of the trade, I’m afraid. Surveillance people watch. It’s stalkerish. But we don’t usually meet the people we watch, so it’s kept separate and professional. I just didn’t see a way to stay separated from you and get you away from Brendon. And I didn’t expect to actually care what happened to you. But then you were…you. Brendon was such an awful person at home, but even when you fought with him, you were never cruel or rude. It was almost…kind.”

The words hung in the air. If she were to be honest with herself, she could see his dilemma. It didn’t make her feel less weird about the fact that he had actually watched her before she had known him.

“You make me sound like a saint. I’m not a saint.”

Shrugging, Jase looked out his window. “Not a saint,” he agreed. “Just unusually kind, and self-controlled, and sensitive. Look,” he scoffed. “I’m trying to lose the creeper label. Let me just keep going with my explanation.”

“Fine,” Felicity smirked. “Go ahead.”

“On one of the quick runs, I saw Brendon there alone. He was on the phone. I was curious, so I slowed the system down and eavesdropped.”

“And…”

“And he just laid it all out. I mean, I had to fill in some of the blanks. Like, for instance, he didn’t say his mistress was Aimée; he just mentioned his ‘girlfriend.’ I didn’t know he was bringing you to Canmore. He just said he had to displace you.”

“Displace me?”

“Get you to a remote location. No one of your acquaintance knows anything about Canmore or Banff or the thousands of acres of wilderness that surround them. Brendon could easily fabricate your disappearance. You wandered too far from a hiking trail, there was a bear, there are cliffs, there is a lot of unsettled land. Plus, he could get rid of you and not tell anyone for a month. By the time the police or your family started looking, the trail would be ice cold.”

Felicity shivered in spite of herself.

“So, I came to Banff. I wanted just to tell you everything that first day, but you knew almost nothing about me. We had flirted at a party-”

“I did not flirt with you!” Felicity insisted, aghast.

She saw him grin, and one eyebrow shot up. “Okay,” he leveled skeptically. “If that’s what you think. But I knew you wouldn’t believe me, anyway, and you had just found out about Aimée.”

“Her name,” Felicity interrupted. “You say it so strangely. Not ‘Ay-mee’ but ‘Ay-may.’”

“Aimée. She’s French.”

Aimée… “I wonder if she’s the one who called my home the other day, just before the party in Phoenix. If she did, it’s hard to believe she had the nerve.”

“She has the nerve to cheat unapologetically with a man who has three children and a wife. She’s probably not particularly demure.”

Felicity shrugged irritably. “So, Brendon laid out his plan…”

“Brendon laid out his plan, and I waited for a chance to get you away. I set up a couple of cameras outside the cabin to watch for anything suspicious, but Brendon barely went there, and I didn’t see anyone else but you go in or out. I was a nervous wreck at the party because they could have slipped you out at a thousand points in the night, and I didn’t think I would be able to keep you in my sights as much as I needed to. But then you conveniently wore that dress, and half the guys at the party spent the whole night with their eyes on you.”

Felicity hid her face in her hand. “That was such a big mistake,” she sighed.

“Well, it worked strategically for me, though I had my eye on you mostly for different reasons than the other guys.” He grinned, and Felicity slapped him on the arm, which only made him grin wider. “When they told me to drug your drink…”

“That was you?” She felt her first stab of hurt by something he had done.

“You’re lucky it was me. I know that sounds crazy, but it could’ve been Jack. I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been the best way to get you out of there. I measured the dose to make sure you woke up before Mexico. It was a failsafe in case Perry couldn’t get to you in time.”

“You sure cut it close.”

“I’m not a pharmacist. I was kind of playing a guessing game. But if I had refused to do it, someone else would have, and Bill would have fired me. I would have lost track of you completely. I had hoped – when I ran into you outside that coffee shop – I had hoped I could persuade you to leave with me then. Of all the opportunities…but you, of course, had to be ridiculously principled, talk about working it out. Without telling you what I knew, you would not have caved. And even if I had told you, you had no reason to trust me. I don’t really know why you trust me now – at least enough to agree to this insane plan.”

Staring out the window, Felicity tried to come up with reasons why he was wrong. Drugging her was so dangerous! He did unconscionable things. But she realized that Jase hadn’t made the danger. Brendon had. Bill had. Jase had made the danger less dangerous. If she lived in a perfect world, she could have blamed him for not making her completely safe, but she knew he had made something decent out of impossible odds.

“Thank you again,” Felicity offer meekly. “I get it; I understand what you were up against. If I second-guessed you, I’d be playing armchair quarterback. You managed a pretty amazing feat.”

“As did you,” he contended. “Waking up to a couple of human traffickers, and having the presence of mind to escape? That was remarkable. You don’t have any training.”

“Ha!” Felicity shook her head. “You’d be surprised how much of being a mom requires keeping a level head in really terrifying situations. And I guess I trust you because…you don’t pretend to be something you’re not. You’re not selling a narrative. From the moment you saw me at the hotel, you’ve acknowledged all the wrong or confusing or dark parts of this whole scheme. There’s just something to be said for honesty.”

Jase smiled at her, and they seemed tacitly to agree to take a break from disclosures. Instead, they settled into quiet relaxation for half an hour.

“You know,” Felicity finally asserted, “I have so much trouble believing he did all this. He wasn’t always like this.”

Shaking his head, Jase countered, “He was always like this. He wasn’t always this brave.”

“I really don’t think so,” continued Felicity. “It was like his heart died after Noah’s accident,

and he had to build himself a false one to keep from disappearing. He made a false mind, a false life, a false heart.”

“You need to stop giving him so much credit. He behaved until he didn’t have to.”

“So you’re saying this has been going on for a long time? I’ve had to wonder, how long has he been playing me the fool?”

“This is not on you, Felicity. Lots of people hide their infamy until they gain enough power so that there are no repercussion when they don’t. And the smarter the person, the better they hide.”

“Are you hiding?” she wondered, and when she turned to the stark profile, his jaw had tightened.

“I don’t hide…” he offered tersely. “I wear a strong armor, but I always show my face.” Staring at that face, it seemed to reflect his claim. The near-black hair met a deep shadow of stubble that had sprung up overnight, and she found the image terribly striking. He was hiding something, but if she read him right, he was no pretender. Then again, her record of accurately reading men was currently zero to one.

“You don’t hide, either, Liss.” He threw her a glance. “And your armor is much more flexible than mine, but I see how this whole experience might force you to harden. I intend to keep that from happening if I’m able.”

“But how long did I deceive myself? How did I miss this? Maybe I need to be harder…” she wondered, peering out at the stony canyon that had sprung up outside her window.

“No, no!” Jase reached for her hand. “You have children, Liss. You need to grow strong under the armor. You are just the right amount of toughness and tenderness. You fought for your kids but you were kind to your husband. If my mother had held half your strength, maybe Meg…”

He cut off the sentence, and the pain in his face restrained Felicity’s curiosity. “Jase…” She squeezed his hand. “You don’t owe me anything. I’m not your responsibility. Helping me won’t undo what you have been through.”

Turning fully toward her for a moment, he flashed her a brilliant smile. “Don’t psychologize me, Felicity Miller. You do not want to go there. Why does anyone do what he or she does as an adult? There are always reasons. Even your shyster husband has reasons why he feels he has to screw the world to benefit himself.”

“But the accident – ”

“This is not about what happened with your son. If anything, Brendon has just used that as an excuse to be the person he already wanted to be. You faced the same struggles, and you didn’t create a pretend self to fake your way through life after. You’re real,” Jase insisted, his voice rising. “That’s why he hates you. You were a reminder every day that he was a pretender, something without substance or significance. And in a mind that worships significance, that made you the enemy.”

“But I’m not! Doesn’t he understand that? I am the only person who can understand his pain and offer him the compassion that would help him – not blind worship or excuses.”

“He doesn’t deserve that from you!” Jase’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. “What did you do with the pain you were handed? You are still overflowing with kindness and optimism. You give him everything while he tries to destroy you. I know that because you are you, you cannot write him off, but he is beyond your help. Maybe someday, after his artificial world crumbles under its own lack of substance, he will be ready for compassion. But right now, compassion is just another tool to buttress his house of cards. Maybe the best thing you could do for him is just step away and stop giving him that sense of reality in the middle of his illusion. Let the cards fall!”

“But how could I know? I mean, I just don’t believe the way the world works now…if you ‘fall out of love’ you just drop a nuclear bomb on the stability of little kids, you throw a man under the bus because you realize he’s human. We’re all human – we all fail and make mistakes. When should I have walked away?”

“I mean, maybe it’s less about dropping a bomb and more about peace talks. If you had insisted on counseling or something early on, maybe you would have realized his issues long before they had such intense consequences.”

Felicity huffed a breath. “But I wouldn’t have Noah or Nicholas if I had figured out Brendon’s issues early on. I can’t say I wish that, no matter what.”

“And I guess that’s where we have to resign life to the hand of Fate or Providence or whatever. I mean, I’m starting to think that really good things can come out of bad situations. It doesn’t excuse the perpetrator, but it can give hope to the victim.”

“Don’t call me a victim,” Felicity commanded.

Shrugging, Jase clarified. “Not a victim in essence; just a victim in position. You didn’t choose this; you didn’t participate in the affair or the crime. Brendon did – this was all him. This suffering – for you and your kids – was all brought on by him and his choices.”

When Jase lulled into silence, Felicity stared out the front window. His words had mostly rung true, at least the ones about Brendon. Jase had vastly exaggerated her virtues, but he seemed to understand Brendon. Felicity even wondered if Jase spoke from experience – either as a man whose cards had fallen or as a man who had needed to separate himself from someone else’s choices.

Both of them seemed drained by the emotion of the exchange, and Felicity’s melancholy returned. They could see the border ahead, and leaving her country, even for as benign a neighbor as Canada, stole Felicity’s confidence. Jase somehow provided her with a measure of courage, though. She had no idea what demons haunted him as he stared at the blue and silver metal that served as a gateway to a foreign land. Maybe one day he could explain; of course, that idea presupposed that she would see him one day far enough in the future to hold perspective on the current day. Likely, she would never know.

Once they had passed the border, Felicity grew impatient.

“I have to call my brother,” she insisted, her heightening nerves apparent in her tone.

“Not a good idea,” Jase answered too coolly. “They have your home phone lines monitored.”

“Who says my brother is at my house?” she challenged, and another smile curved Jase's lips.

“I heard you telling him to feed your dog and take care of your plants. He wanted to invite Briel over for dinner.”

“Yes,” she admitted, irritated, “but I told him to leave. And take the dog. And I’d use his cell anyway.”

“He hasn't left your house,” Jase countered with complete confidence. “Before I left Banff, Bill asked me what Nick might find on your home computers. Nick uses ProtoComm for cell service. Apparently, your brother's been trying to hack them, so Bill has an alert on Nick.”

Jase's tone held both censure and admiration for Felicity's brother. The jerk, Felicity silently chastised her brother. For her part, she couldn't see past the fact that Bill had suspicions of Nick. Even without going home, she might bring calamity on her family. She needed to get Nick off of ProtoComm’s cell service.

“Will Bill go after Nick?”

Jase shook his head. “Bill doesn't have time for this to turn into a web of cover-ups. Considering who set those files up, I doubt there's a man on the planet who can unlock them, and even if they do, I'm betting the files all relate to Brendon more than to ProtoComm. Bill will monitor the computers and not act unless he sees something dangerous to the company. So far, all Bill has seen is a few errant clicks. As long as you don't call him, Bill won't have any further reason to notice Nick.

How convenient, Felicity realized bitterly, that I can't call the only person besides Jase who I can count on! She considered finding a public phone if they still existed and contacting her brother anyway. She could instruct him not to reveal her identity over the phone. For the moment, though, she accepted Jase's imperative.

“What is this place?” Felicity changed the subject as Jase consulted his GPS.

“Nanton. Just an unremarkable, small town. Nice enough, as those things go. You won't see much of it, though, since you'll have to stay with me in the room.”

The words brought butterflies to her stomach once again. This keeps getting better and better, she cringed. How often would she have to sleep with him before he started asking her to “sleep with him”? Not that she would – she had been thoroughly off-market for fifteen years, and she felt no desire to jump back into the game when the corpse of her marriage wasn’t even cold.

Once in the city limits, Jase turned off the main road, passing through an apparent industrial area and into a neighborhood.

“Why are we here?”

“ProtoComm is more likely to have eyes on bigger towns, like Lethbridge. We can blend in here. Plus, there’s an alternate route out of town just south of where we’re staying. It could go through any of several towns, or to the foothills, where we could go on foot if we needed to.”

So now Felicity might add to her experiences living off the land while hiking through the foothills. “Why not drive through the night?” She tried to distract herself from mountain flight by asking questions nearly as disturbing.

“I don't know about you,” Jase laughed, “but I'm a little tired. Plus, we want to be alert and clear-minded as we near Banff. I should have access to all the information I need to safely navigate around Bill's security there, but not all surveillance is electronic. I need to be acutely alert if I'm going to avoid dragging you into a trap.” He narrowed his eyes in thought and his voice lowered in concern, “I have the feeling that if they found you now, you would be in worse straights than you were to begin with. This may be the last night of good rest you can have for a while.”

I don't see how anything could be worse than being a slave, she mused. But then qualified, Except leaving my children to be raised by a sadistic criminal. She would just be grateful she was free for multiple reasons.

Jase pulled off of the road, into the driveway of a charming house with a “Bed and Breakfast” sign out front. She cringed when Jase signed them in under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Green, but she guessed that the owners would had learned not to ask questions of guests.

Obviously attuned to the expression on her face, Jase tried to reassure her by his own demeanor. As soon as they were far enough away from the desk not to be heard, he explained, “Even in this day and age, nothing is as inconspicuous as a married couple traveling together. I'm just trying to hide our tracks – well, really just your tracks – as well as possible.”

Typical of a bed and breakfast, the room bloomed with flowers, real and tapestry, covering every possible square inch. Still, the sheets and the floor were clean, and a comfortable chaise looked out the window toward the foothills. The room wasn’t large, however, and Felicity couldn’t quite relax with Jase’s proximity.

He graciously took the chaise, a position he said he preferred anyway as it was closer to the door.

Though Felicity wished she had someone between herself and Jase, she couldn't help but feel grateful that he would get between her and an unknown assailant. He obviously didn't concern himself too much about the possibility because, within minutes, Felicity heard the steady, even breath of sleep emitting from the couch to her right. I could be insulted, she snickered, but she in fact appreciated his obviously innocuous intentions. Bolstered by his confidence, she settled herself into a fairly undisturbed slumber.