High Risk Love by Shannon Mayer Page B

article.” Just the idea of a woman being so out of it that she thought she was married to him, then pregnant, then lost the baby—all of which didn’t exist, had never happened. No wonder he’d been running from her.
    Hours passed with ease, the three of us speaking freely, or as freely as I ever had. It was refreshing to be around people who expected you to be yourself, and nothing more. People who didn’t know the past and the people who’d died far too young. Here, I could just be me, just Jasmin, not Jasmin who lost her entire family.
    Finally, Hugh stood up, stretching his arms over his head. “Ladies, I’ve got to get back to the set. One of us has to work.”
    Jet blew him a kiss. “All right honey, I’ll be back later, keep the bed warm, baby.”
    They were beyond silly; they were downright ridiculous. But the bond between them was obvious and they were so comfortable in their own skins. I didn’t need them to tell me that in twenty years they’d been through a lot together.
    Just the two of us now, I went to pick up my camera. Jet’s hand covered mine.
    “Don’t. Let me just talk to you without the camera between us.”
    Strangely nervous, I knew that if there was a moment to ask him about his childhood this was it. For the magazine, of course. I pulled my hand back. “Sure. You want to tell me about your childhood now, with Hugh gone?”
    Jet’s face closed down so fast it was if a shutter had dropped between us.
    “You’re awfully interested in my childhood. What would the magazine want with that?” The teasing in his voice was gone now; what was left was a thread of something else . . . something darker.
    With a roll of my shoulders, I settled myself back in my chair. “People want to know what makes you tick, why you would willingly put yourself in the line of fire day after day. Why this? Why not the army or police work? There are lots of dangerous careers out there, why this one?”
    His jaw flexed and he pulled at his bottom lip with his teeth. As if considering.
    “It was the only thing I could do. The only thing I was—am—good at. I never finished school, this was all I had.” His words fell from his lips, and he stared at the crumpled napkin in his hands.
    What the hell was I supposed to say to that? I went with keeping it professional, the questions that Kevin had given me to ask.
    “And your parents supported you in this decision, to leave school and pursue the stunt career?”
    Jet erupted out of his seat, the chair flinging backward and hitting a guy sitting behind us. “Fuck. Enough with the questions!”
    I knew my eyes were wide, couldn’t help it. The man behind Jet stood up and cursed at him in Spanish. Jet flipped the guy off and within seconds they were chest to chest, yelling at each other. Despite Jet’s earlier statement that he didn’t fight, his fists were clenched, pulled back and ready to fly. I jumped out of my seat, scrambling to grab him. The last thing he needed was a black eye, or worse, a fight that ended with him on the floor. Especially since I’d prodded him to this.
    The Spanish man’s wife, girlfriend, whatever she was, pulled at her man’s arm, speaking low and fast.
    I forced Jet’s hand open and laced my fingers through his, the words slipping out of me. “Just breathe.”
    A shudder rippled through him, the tension leaving in a sharp exhalation. A heartbeat and he shook his head, then lifted his other hand up to the man he’d bumped. “Sorry, my fault.”
    The other man waved him off and the ‘almost’ fight was over before it had really begun. I squeezed Jet’s hand, rubbed it with my thumb as he’d done to me the night before. Had it been just last night that he’d walked me home?
    Carefully, he unlaced our fingers. “Thanks, I would have gotten canned if I had a black eye.”
    “Figured as much. Can’t be getting the talent’s face all smashed up,” I said lightly, hoping to draw him out of the darkness that seemed to come