Read Online Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel by Emily March - Free Book Online Page A

talented.”
    Back when they were together, Cat had done all the picture taking. Jack never touched a camera. She wondered if photography was a new pursuit or simply one more thing he’d hidden from her while they were married. She had tucked the photograph into her shopping bag, and once back at Eagle’s Way, she’d buried it in her panty drawer under the assumption that Jack would never find it there. Now, though, as she attempted to capture a spectacular shot of the predator in the sky, her thoughts continued to stray back to the photograph in her lingerie drawer, and the one on the dresser behind her.
    She was almost relieved when a new image entered her viewfinder. Spying the whirling blades of a helicopter, she caught her breath.
    The Eagle was back.
    Hoping she hadn’t been spotted on his balcony, she hurried back through the master bedroom. Downstairs, she took a seat at the bar in the kitchen and pretendedto idly flip through a magazine while drinking a glass of hastily poured iced tea.
    The door opened and Jack stepped inside. Cat took one look at his expression and gasped. He looked ten years older than when he’d left. “Jack, what’s wrong?”
    He walked straight through the kitchen and into the great room without speaking. He headed straight toward the wet bar where he poured three fingers of scotch into a crystal tumbler. He tossed the drink back in one large gulp, then filled the glass again.
    She had never seen him act this way before. “Jack. You’re scaring me. What happened?”
    “Not now, Cat. Just leave it be. Leave
me
be.”
    Another time, she might have been hurt, she might have pushed, but not now. Not when he was so terribly upset, so horribly raw. Shaken, she nodded once and returned to the kitchen where she took her seat, pretended to read the magazine, and listened for sounds coming from the other room.
    Probably five minutes later, she heard a thunk and then a crash. Glass breaking. Not a window, though. His drink glass, most likely, smashing against the floor tile.
    Next she heard the pounding of his shoes on the stairs followed by the slam of the master bedroom door. “Okay.” She blew out a breath. “What now?”
    Obviously, something really bad had happened. In her experience, Jack never brought his work home. Why now? Had the situation changed, his job changed, or had Jack changed?
    Even as she asked the question, she heard him descending the stairs. He went straight out the front door. She walked to a window and looked out. He’d changed into gym shorts and sneakers. The Eagle was going for a run.
    Cat was worried about him, seriously worried. Sheglanced down at her own clothes—shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers—and muttered, “What the heck.”
    She followed him, running hard to catch up, though she didn’t question her ability to maintain pace with him. She had run cross-country in high school and college, and earlier this year she’d completed a half marathon. Why she felt compelled to accompany him on his run, what she thought she could accomplish, she couldn’t quite say. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to be alone.
    He spared her one glance when she fell in beside him and then he picked up his pace. Stubborn fool. She kept up, and within minutes she could tell that he’d forgotten she was there. Jack appeared lost in his own thoughts, tortured and dangerous.
    He ran and ran and ran, down the road, across the meadow, picking up his speed until finally he outpaced her and pulled away. Cat slowed to a cool-down jog, breathing heavily. She wondered if he intended to run all the way to town.
    She had slowed to a walk when he looped around and turned back toward the house. He accelerated as if sprinting toward an unseen finish line until he lifted his face toward the sky and yelled. Screeched.
An eagle’s cry of pain
.
    Oh, Jack
.
    He bent over double, his hands on his knees. “Jack, what is it? What’s wrong?”
    “Go, Cat,” he ordered, his voice