Read Online No Rules by Starr Ambrose - Free Book Online Page A

to her when she’d flinched from his quick hug. She’d been in a daze, noting the changes that fifteen years had brought and feeling nervous enough to crawl out of her skin. She couldn’t have replayed the conversation five minutes later, much less five days, but she tried.
    As she spoke to them, a tray of food was brought in by a man she hadn’t met and set on a folding table. Eating while everyone watched her felt awkward, but hunger won out. The meal of roast beef, potatoes with gravy, carrots, green beans, and cherry pie was too good to ignore. She talked with her mouth full, because they expected it.
    She went through the awkwardly abbreviated family news she’d shared and ordering from the menu. Dull stuff. Kyle and Evan listened closely without expression. Mitch gave her an encouraging smile. Nice guy. Much friendlier than Avery, who couldn’t have looked more disinterested if Jess had been reciting the alphabet. The woman slouched in her chair, examining her cuticles while one foot bounced in an impatient rhythm.
    Donovan was not nearly so detached. For a half hour as she ate and talked, he prodded her for details like a prosecuting attorney, taking notes and making her back up when he thought she hadn’t provided enough detail.
    “You said Wally told you he still worked at the university. What did he say about that, exactly?”
    “Just that he enjoyed it.”
    “Is that the word he used, ‘enjoyed’?”
    She frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he said he liked it. But that was the gist of it.”
    “Don’t give us the gist of it. Give us the exact words.”
    She didn’t appreciate the admonition. “I can’t remember. He liked being there, obviously. Was glad he’d stayed and hadn’t gone somewhere else. Something like that. I remember I took it to mean that he was glad he hadn’t done what my mother had wanted him to do. That he didn’t regret—” She snapped her fingers as the memory clicked in. “That was it. He said, ‘I have no regrets. None.’ It was just another dig at my mother for leaving…” She trailed off as the awful truth registered, and she turned to Donovan, her mouth falling open in silent shock. “That wasn’t what he meant, was it?”
    “No,” he agreed softly. “He was telling you, and us, that he knew what was going to happen to him. He wanted us to know he had no regrets.”
    She looked at the somber faces and tried to wrap her mind around it. “He knew someone was coming to kill him, and he wouldn’t have changed anything?”
    “Yes. What we do was very important to him. It’s important to all of us.”
    Even Mitch’s friendly expression had gone sad, and Jess flushed, realizing she’d blown off her father’s weighty sentiment as simply one more salvo in an ongoing war between her parents. These people must hate her for how much she disrespected a man they clearly admired. But Donovan’s eyes were kind as he nudged her back on track. He might just be coddling her to get what he wanted, but she appreciated it. “Go on, Jess, you’re doing great. What did he say next?”
    She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the strange reality of four trained commandos and their boss hanging on her words, so she could remember the equally strange conversation with her father.
    Massaging her temples as if that would help the thoughts take form, she said, “I’m pretty sure that’s when he brought up the story characters for the first time. He, uh, said he’d seen all my books and he wanted to give me one more idea.”
    They all stiffened to alertness. “One more?” Donovan asked.
    “My first book was based on a story he’d helped me write,” she explained. “When I was nine or ten, I started inventing animal characters. I had a whole book of illustrations. I always knew I wanted to illustrate children’s books, but I wasn’t very good at developing plots until I was older. That last year when I was twelve, after he came back from Iran, my