Eternal Embrace by Billi Jean Page A

moment somehow must have etched itself into her being. She knew why. That hug reminded her of sunshine. So warm and comforting she’d only to think on it and recall it all over again. Happiness. That was what his hug had been.
    An image of Jaxon, big and strong, flooded her mind, his strong face constricted in passion as he pushed inside her body. He’d made her feel alive—so much so that she’d been unable to attend to anything but thoughts of him the whole trip back to the States. Her grandfather’s home had been dark, cool and soothing, except nothing had eased the pain of losing Jaxon. In their brief time together, he’d filled her world—now, without him it was if someone had used a scalpel to remove something essential from her body.
    Was he dead? Such a thing seemed impossible to imagine, but what else would have kept him away? He’d been so clear on that—almost like he was promising her a whole lot more than his ‘ no matter what, I’ll be back—nothing, nothing will keep me away, Joey’.
    “He was your friend, wasn’t he?”
    She spun to see Sarah Travis standing in the doorway of the morgue, looking pretty and sweet in her pink nurse’s scrubs and little white tennis shoes. Joey settled her heartbeat and nodded. For some reason, Sarah irked her.
    “Yes, he was.”
    “You shouldn’t do an autopsy on a friend. I don’t think it’s allowed.” Setting down a chart, she turned and left without another word.
    Well, maybe you irked her too, Joey. Still, the woman didn’t like her to a degree that pissed Joey off. What had she done, except come home to work in the same hospital with the stupid girl?
    Didn’t matter, no one was cutting Evan up but her.
    Freezing, she fisted her hand, her stomach bottoming out.
    Fuck, cutting Evan up?
    Swallowing past a lump in her throat, she walked over and picked up the chart. The dim lights of the morgue were a sad, sad affair. The fluorescents overhead were so old she doubted they even made the correct wattage bulb any longer. Dark and dim worked for CSI: NY , but this wasn’t Hollywood. She had to walk back over to Evan to read his report.
    Possible gunshot wound to the chest. Glancing up from the report on Evan, she tried to make sense of why anyone would kill him. No one even disliked him, let alone hated him enough to do this.
    Disgusted, she set the lab report aside and pushed the blue sheet down his chest, spotting the large fist-sized burn mark on his chest. Gunshot? It looked more like a cannon ball.
    She put on a pair of gloves, then lifted Evan’s shoulder and rolled him to the side. His back showed the same mark—as if he’d got too close to a fire. There wasn’t an exit wound that she could see. Gently lowering him, she sighed then began to examine his chest more closely. Pulling the overhead lamp down with one hand, she bent as soon as she could see clearly and inspected the wound. She saw no entry. No hole. No blood. Nothing to suggest a bullet had entered him.
    What the hell did that mean?
    “Excuse me?”
    She jumped two feet and landed facing a young-looking woman with bright purple bangs and a white shaggy haircut. She was dressed in low-slung black cargo pants, a white short tank and a big clunky studded leather belt. Heavy eye makeup made her eyes look glamorous and her face bright, cheerful even.
    Popping her pink gum, the woman nodded to Evan. “Can we have a peek?”
    Peek?
    Joey sucked in a breath at the man standing behind her. Tall, lean, with an evil scar running from his left eye to his temple and past his strong jaw, he stared at her with the steadiness of a hunter spotting prey. He reminded her of the Terminator, only one heck of lot more deadly. She had the impression if she so much as moved too quickly, he’d have her pinned to the wall, tagged and bagged.
    “Yeah, so, we need to take a peek, it won’t take long, pinkie promise.”
    Joey swung her gaze back to the less frightening of the two.
    “No.” Uh, damn. Did she