Midnight Sun-29
"So . . . .you . . . know about that?" Jax said, wondering how in the world she did and for how long.
"Yes," Brenda confirmed.
"Can I ask you how?"
"Do you promise not to get angry?"
He thought it only fair that he should promise. After all, she knew the truth and *she* didn’t appear to be too angry.
"I promise," he said.
"Lois told me," she said.
"What?!" Jax erupted, halfway spinning around in the water.
"You promised you wouldn’t get angry," she calmly reminded him, her hands on his arms.
Yes he had promised. Damn it, why had he promised?
"She shouldn’t have done that," Jax said, trying to keep his promise.
"You sound angry, Jax . . ."
"No, I’m not angry, I’m just . . ." he raked his hands through his wet hair. "I’m sorry, I *am* angry Brenda," he said, getting out of the tub, drying off and putting on a pair of slate gray boxers. "And not because Lois told you either," he continued, "because I was going to tell you any way. I’m angry because she is in a position where I have to trust her, completely trust her, with *very* sensitive business issues and she violated that trust
when she just went and told you about the casino without so much as mentioning her intentions to me. She could have *suggested* that I tell you."
Brenda looked stricken. "You aren’t going to terminate her are you?"
"Under the circumstances I think it would be warranted," Jax said quietly.
Brenda leapt out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel and went over to him. "Jax, you can’t do that!" Brenda insisted.
"I can," Jax contradicted her, as he opened the sliding glass doors of the bedroom and sat down in the oversized chair out on the charming patio.
Brenda tossed on one of Jax’s shirts, buttoned it up and stormed outside after him. She saw him sitting in the chair looking like something sent from heaven above. The night was just descending on the island, the skies were a deep, dusk color, the moon was brilliant and huge, the moonbeams toying magically with the color of Jax’s hair and eyes making them even more gorgeous than they already were. The patio was enclosed by palm trees and had a
lovely stone walkway that led to a crystal blue pool. Jax sat in a chair that faced the moon and gave him a marvelous look at the night sky and he himself appeared to be some transcendental visitor to earth. Beautiful and brilliant and so spectacular that he almost seemed out of place in the peaceful, quiet, charming setting that surrounded him. Her Jax. He was just awe inspiring. And infuriating and dead *wrong* at this moment she reminded
herself.
"You can’t fire Lois, Jax," Brenda said, standing in front of him. "You should *promote* her is what you should do!"
Jax had to laugh. "I think you might have had one too many margaritas, Brenda."
"Jax, you should *thank* her for telling me, not punish her for it. Her telling me was the best thing that could have happened under the circumstances."
Jax rose a curious eyebrow. "What circumstances are those?"
"Yesterday, Pierre both called me at the museum and he told me a very unflattering story about how you swindled my very sick father out of Monaco’s greatest treasure and then only married me as a means to keep your hands on it somehow. He expected me to be shocked Jax. And to be furious at you and feel betrayed by you and then leave you and go back to Monaco with him and Marco. But thanks to Lois having told me about this casino business
beforehand, I was *prepared* when he told me. I was able to react in a way that I’m sure made him faint again."
"What did you say?" Jax asked, softly.
"I told him that taking advantage of vulnerable business situations was your job and that you were excellent at it and to the victor goes the spoils."
She had said that? Wow . . . .
"Now, I have *no* idea how I would have reacted had I not been forewarned by Lois, do you understand that?"
"I know exactly how you would have reacted," Jax informed her. "Because I know *you*, Brenda, and I know that you know me. You would never have believed Pierre based on his word alone. You would have come to me and spoken to me about it first."
He was right. But she refused to confirm that for him.
"Maybe, maybe not," she said with an evasive shrug. "All I know is that Lois telling me proved to be very beneficial in the end. She wasn’t betraying you Jax, or violating your trust, she was trying to be my friend and protect me from being blindsided with information that might jeopardize our relationship. She’s my friend, Jax, she’s *our* friend. She happens to be your employee, yes, and she has obligations to you, yes, but first and
foremost she is our friend and that was why she did what she did. You can’t punish her for that, can you? Now I want you to *promise* me, Jax, promise me right now that you will not fire her."
Jax was not accustomed to taking orders or making concessions.
"Jax?" she said, kneeling in front of him and touching his face.
He sighed. "I won’t fire her," he agreed. "How long have you known anyway?" he asked.
"Since the day after the fund-raiser."
"And you never said anything?"
"I was waiting for *you* to say something. And, by the way, I’m still waiting," she reminded him. She stood up and he pulled her down onto his lap just as a warm tradewind gently rustled the leaves of the palm trees. "I really need to hear your version of how you got your hands on the casino, Jax, because in Pierre’s version he definitely painted you as the villain who hoodwinked my poor, sick father."
"I didn’t *hoodwink* him; that is a complete crock," Jax said. "He did that to himself. All I did, Brenda, was take advantage of a situation that *he* presented to me on a silver platter by his own, presumptuous and incorrect assumptions."
"What presumptuous and incorrect assumptions?" she asked as she turned around slightly so that her head was resting on his shoulder and her legs were dangling over the side of the chair, his arm resting across them. From inside the bedroom, a local radio station from nearby St. Bart’s was broadcasting love songs in honor of Valentines Day and the Kenny G version of "My Heart Will Go On" was drifting from the room out onto the patio seeming to blend
in perfectly with the gorgeous, tropical night.
"That he would have to give me something or pay me something in order for me to protect you. I would protect you no matter what. *You* know that. He, however, chose to believe that I was after something and I just didn’t bother correcting him, that’s all."
"So you met with my father to find out about me, didn’t you?"
"Yes. I was very curious about you, you knew that. You were rather mysterious about your background when I first met you, if you recall."
"I recall."
"And you know that I’m a man who needs my curiosity satisfied. At last I hope you know that about me."
"I do. And so you found out who I was before I ever told you?"
"Yes. I arranged a meeting with your father because frankly I thought that he might be some kind of a threat to you. I mean, you never wanted to talk about him, you were *missing* and he wasn’t even looking for you. That all seemed strange to me so I confronted him over that and he at first thought I was working with your sister and that *I* was the one out to harm you. Anyway, we both realized that neither one of us wanted anything but for you
to be safe. And that’s when he told me that he had a proposition for me and it was that he would give me whatever I asked for if I could keep you safe until he was ready for you to come back to Monaco."
"And you asked for the Casino?"
"It was the only thing I wanted." He looked at her. "Besides you."
"But Jax, that casino *is* Monte Carlo. It’s the main attraction."
Jax shrugged, "Brenda, it’s not like I moved it to some other location. It’s still there in the middle of the opera house. It’s still the stomping grounds for the richest of the rich. It’s still the main attraction. I just own it now, that’s all."
"But if my father weren’t sick he never would have agreed to this."
"I have a newsflash for you, Brenda. Your father wasn’t in the least bit sick when I met with him. He was perfectly fine and lucid and rational. And it isn’t like he just handed the casino over to me, I told him I would pay him for it . . .which I did. It was a business transaction as far as I was concerned. For me, you were never really a part of it. This was business and you were personal."
"Are you sure? Back then I might have been business to you, Jax."
"No. You were personal to me for a long time. I just didn’t like to think about it that way. As far as the other line of bull that Pierre tried to sell you, I did not marry you to hold onto the casino. In fact, my marriage to you violated the terms of my agreement with your father and the casino is now supposed to revert back to his ownership."
Brenda looked at him knowingly. "But it won’t, will it?"
Jax hesitated a moment. "I serioulsy doubt it," he confirmed.
"What did you do, Jax?" she asked, fascinated at being let in this much into his business dealings. She had always felt so closed out of that part of his life and was envious of Tea and Lois for being such a part of it. Now she felt very much a part of it and she wanted to just know more and more.
"I let the casino be raided," he explained.
Brenda gazed at him in confusion. "Raided? By who? Someone who you think will give it back to you? I don’t under . . ." and then her eyes lit up. "You were raided by yourself!" she figured out.
He grinned at how quickly she had deduced that. "That’s right." He knew that Brenda only managed to figure it out so quickly because she knew him better than anyone else did. She knew him as well as his parents and Jerry now.
"How did you do it?!" she asked. And he was delighted, and more than a little turned on, to discover that she did not sound in the lesat bit angry about it, but in fact extremely intrigued and excited by his tactics.
And so Jax told her all about the dummy corporation and the non-existent British millionaire recluse he had concocted. And he told her about Justus Ward's invaulable assistance as the ELQ turncoat who had, with Jax's help, played Ned Ashton like a fiddle to get him to actually unwittingly assist in the plot.
"That was ingenious, Jax. You are so incredible," Brenda said with a little laugh. "My poor father really never had a chance against you. He will *never* figure this out."
"Tha'ts the idea. But before you feel too sorry for him, let me tell you that he had all these big plans to force you to marry this stuffed shirt twice your age, and part of our deal was for me to make you more *worldly* as your father put it, to help ease you into said arranged marriage with as little resistance from you as possible."
"He wanted you to make me more worldly?"
"In respect to men specifically," Jax explained. "And the older crowd in general. You're young and you were supposed to marry this much older aristocrat, so your father wanted me to get you to the point where you wouldn’t run screaming from the idea of being with a man so much older than yourself. He wanted me to take you to functions and introduce you to the 40 -50 year old crowd and kind of steer you away from people your own age. But the
minute he told me you were going to have this arranged marriage to this person you didn’t even know, I *knew* I wasn’t going to let it happen. I just didn't know how."
"Was that the real reason you asked me to marry you then?" she asked. "To protect me from having to marry the Earl of Edinborough? To stop it from happening?"
"It was the reason I toyed with the idea of proposing to you for a few days," Jax confessed. "But when I did actually propose to you, it was because I wanted you, Brenda. And because I wanted to be with you. I didn’t want you to be taken away from me somehow. I was in love with you when I asked you to marry me and I hope you know that’s true. I was in love with you long before that, actually. Way before I even knew who you really were, or who
your father was, or about the casino or any of that." He hesitated a moment and then said, "I guess I was pretty much in love with you from the beginning. I was just very resistant to it."
"I know," she said believing him without hesitation and knowing that she had been in a similar situation; madly in love with him, but more mad at herself for *being* in love with him. She had fought it as hard as he had in the beginning.
"We have to find Eliot," Jax said to her. "Because I’m not going to let your father and his minions guilt-trip you into doing what he says because you’re the only thing he’s got left. I know you, Brenda. I know that as much as you love me, he can get to you that way."
Brenda shook her head. "Nothing could ever make me leave you, Jax. Not even my father. I love you to much. *Way* too much."
"That’s easy to say when he’s not standing in front of you pleading his heart out to you to save the kingdom or whatever. No, we have to find that partying cousin of yours and whip him into shape before your father decides to bring out the big guns in his attempts to persuade you to take your sister’s place as the heir apparent. We have to present your father with a viable alternative so that he can't use any desperate pressure tactics on you."
Brenda nodded. "Okay. Well I know we’ll find Eliot. We can do anything we put our minds to."
"That’s right," Jax agreed, smiling at her.
"Can you tell me more about your business dealings?" Brenda asked, her brown eyes dancing with excitement at the even deeper closeness she felt between them now. "For instance, tell me how you knew that Justus Ward could be turned against ELQ and wasn't in reality some kind of a double agent turncoat type who would turn on you as well?"
Jax grinned at her enthusiasm for learning more about the world of corporate raiding. He had no idea she was so into this.
Inside, the song "Give Me Forever" was playing, the lovely melody floating out to the patio and mingling with the night.
The look Jax gave Brenda gave her heart quite a pleasurable surge and she took his face in her hands and turned his head so that he wasn’t gazing so directly at her. She knew that if he continued to look at her that way she would melt and then get all excited and run amuck with passion and that would be how they would spend the rest of the evening. Exploring all avenues of passion. She kind of wanted to finish this conversation about his work
first and she knew the moment they were distracted by desire, any and all discussion would cease for the rest of the night as their lips would be otherwise occupied.
"What’s wrong?" he asked her, a sexy smile toying with his lips.
"Just . . . ummm . . .don’t look at me that way," she said, averting her eyes since he was looking at her *that way* right now.
"What way is that?" he asked softly.
If ever there was a sound one could equate with seduction, it was Jax’s voice. He took her face in his hand so that their eyes were once again locked in a gaze. His hands brushed down the side of her throat and Brenda caught his had in hers.
"Oh no, you don’t. We’re not going to do this now," she said.
"Do what?" he asked innocently.
Brenda laughed. "Jax, we are supposed to be having a discussion, right now. It was a really good discussion and I don’t want it to end just yet, okay?"
Jax shrugged. "Let’s just discuss something else," he suggested. "Like, this chair, for instance," he said giving her a smile of reckless sensuality.
"This chair?" she repeated.
"Yeah, do you like it?"
Brenda gazed at it. "Sure, it’s very nice."
"Very nice? That’s all?"
She looked at him as if she feared he was losing his mind. "Jax, are you feeling all right? You don’t see spots before your eyes or anything, do you?"
"The only thing I see before my eyes is that which I love more than life itself," he assured her. Then she felt his hands slide behind her head as he undid the braid she’d had her hair up in during their bath. His fingers then combed through her loosened hair as he watched it fall in a sensuous bundle down her back.
She was weakening. "Jax this isn’t working," she fibbed. "I want to finish our conversation," she tried to maintain, even as her eyes were suddenly as darkly passionate and enticingly reckless as his own, and one hand was behind his neck, gently stroking the ends of his hair, while the other hand rested on his chest, thrilling to the sensation of the combination of his warm skin and the hard muscles beneath it, not to mention the rapidly
increasing beating of his heart.
"Oh yes, our conversation about the chair," he said being intentionally ignorant. "What do you think of it besides it being very nice?"
She sighed and played along. "Fine we'll talk about the chair, Jax. Well it’s a nice, big club chair!" she said with exaggerated enthusiasm that made him smile at her antics. "A classic Charles of London style, right?" She ran her hand along the back of the chair and the soft leather felt very sensuous beneath her fingertips. "It feels like supple nubuc leather. Probably designed by Pembrooks in England. How’s that?"
Jax nodded. "Shockingly accurate."
"I do know my expensive furniture," she said with an adorable smile.
"Yes, you do. But you failed to notice the most significant thing about this chair, Mrs. Jacks."
Brenda gazed at the chair, trying to figure it out. "What?" she asked, giving up.
"Well it’s exactly like the one in that dream I told you about. Remember? *The* dream?"
Brenda’s eyes widened. Ohhhh . . . . *the dream* . . . . .the one he’d had back on New Year's Eve when they had slept in the same bed in the Chalet in Switzerland (actually, *she* had slept, he had stayed awake all night fighting off waves of arousal which he blamed on her constant movement in her sleep). He had first mentioned this dream to her on the plane ride home from their honeymoon in Malibu.
Her body felt flush and her eyes darkened even more with desire as she remembered what he had told her.
"You remember the one I’m talking about?" he asked her with a smile that could have made the very moon above them fall in love with him. "The one where I find myself in a room made completely out of stained glass. Flaming torches. Light against darkness. Shimmering colors and beauty swimming in dizzying circles all around me. I’m sitting in this very chair, in this dazzling room and I’m watching you." His voice was so soft, deep
and seductive.
"I’m playing the piano . . ." she remembered.
"Yes. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s ‘Solfeggietto’"
She smiled. "A very difficult composition, Jax. Couldn’t you have dreamt of me playing the Pachelbel Canon or Rachmanonoff or something?"
"Hey this was *my* dream," he grinned. "And besides, you were magnificent. You played it perfectly. Your beautiful fingers gliding over those piano keys like they were air. Your hair was hanging down your back like it is now and I wanted to bury my hands in that beautiful hair of yours . . .kind of like I’m doing now. I’m sitting in that chair watching you, in a fever to touch you. I want to feel you," he stroked her face. "I want to hold
you, I want to kiss you. But I can’t move from the chair. I have to wait for you to come to me."
Brenda’s heart was leaping around rather frantically inside of her as she could see the scene Jax was talking about so vividly in her mind as if it were an actual memory instead of a dream.
"The colorful lights are shifting in all kinds of spectacular patterns in the room. But I’m hardly aware of the phenomenal light display because I’m only cognizant of you and the crazy pounding of my heart in my ears. I can’t hear anything but my heart beating. I can’t see anything but you, Brenda."
Brenda was mesmerized by him as he spoke. She was willing him to kiss her, to touch her, to fulfill all the fantasies he was putting inside of her head with every word he spoke.
"But I know that I can’t go to you, that you have to come to me," he continued "So I’m sitting there willing you to look at me. And you do. You look into my eyes. No - deeper than that. You look into my soul. And you know the same thing that I know. That you and I are . . . inevitable. Your fingers come to a halt on the piano, but the music keeps playing somehow. Everything is so surreal. The music playing by itself, the colorful
gem-like lights shimmering everywhere – and you. You get up from the piano bench and walk slowly across the room until you’re standing in front of me."
"I reach out and touch your face," she said, remembering what he had told her when he’d first spoken of the dream. "Slowly, I trace the path from your hair down to your chin," she said as she did exactly that, her touch feather-light and very provocative. She was dying to kiss him, but they weren’t up to that part of the dream yet.
Jax closed his eyes. "You’re wearing this fantastic, clingy little slip of a silver dress. It looks like it was made out of moonbeams or something. It’s so pretty and so sexy, but it’s ridiculous because it’s *freezing* outside and that dress looks like something you’d wear to a party on the beach in Costa Rica in the middle of a heatwave."
Brenda laughed and stole a quick kiss.
Jax continued. "But even though it’s so cold outside, we’re inside and there’s a fire, and it’s so warm and alternately dark and light – everything about the place and you is bewitching." He opened his eyes and the look within the silvery-aqua depths just made her go weak inside. Excitement shot through her and he felt her shiver with desire in his arms. "And all I can think is that I can’t wait to get you out of that moonbeam dress," he
whispered with a wicked little grin that just sent her. She felt his hands beginning to unbutton the shirt of his that she was wearing..
Won’t you give me forever to show
All of the love I have here for you
And if you give me my reason for living
To love you
I love you, I do
"My hands are in your hair, pulling you down towards me," Jax said softly.
The sexual tension between them was crackling with electricitry. Brenda was quivering inside with excitement and that feeling of such thrill that only Jax could ever give to her. She thought if she loved and desired this man any more than she already did, her heart would surely burst from overflowing with the feeling.
"Then I kiss you," she whispered, eagerly puckering her soft lips and sliding her arms behind his neck to give him a passionate kiss. But he stopped her. He flashed her a very sexy little smile, said "wait" and placed his hand over her beating heart. He saw that it was racing as wildly as his own.
"Wait?! No, I can’t wait," Brenda insisted, her desire for him making her whole body ache with it.
Jax laughed a little. "Patience, the one virtue my beautiful wife is sorely lacking," he murmured. "But I’m afraid you can’t kiss me, Brenda. Because in the dream, it didn’t happen that way. In the dream, I kissed *you*, remember?" he corrected her. And Brenda let out a little moan as Jax’s lips touched the base of her throat, searing a sweet infusion of heat into her. She arched her head back and allowed herself the pleasure of his lips gliding
along her throat while his hands glided along her body, removing the shirt completely.
Brenda literally felt weak with all the desire boiling over inside of her. Jax teasingly kissed her all around her mouth, purposely not touching her lips and driving her quite mad from it all. Then he touched his lips to hers very lightly and allowed the tip of his tongue to so very, *very* slowly run it’s way along the contours of her lips. Deliberately tantalizing. Achingly delicious. Brenda’s eyes practically rolled back in her head as
the pleasure took hold of her.
And she let her pleasure be known with a series of tiny gasps and adorable moans as well as murmuring his name so softly he could barely hear her.
Jax laughed in that soft, sexy manner that was natural to him.
"You like that?" he asked her.
"Yes," she responded breathlessly, feeling completely under his spell now. Then she said, just as breathlessly "Bed, Jax."
Jax laughed and concurred. "Yeah, bed," he agreed as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her inside and over to the bed, laying her upon it. And no sooner had they hit the satin sheets than their desire exploded. Their lips descended upon each others like magnets unable to resist the pull, and engaged in hot, sensual kisses that made the room seem as if it were spinning. To Brenda, Jax was everything that was beautiful, elegant and
seductive. She desired him more than air to breathe at this moment. They made love with a passion that took hours to be satiated and in the end, the entire night of lovemaking was actually quite indescribable. Something that was quite a common occurrence between them. And as they drifted off into blissfully exhausted sleep much later, they dreamt of each other, and the bond of love between them ran deeper than ever.
Won’t you give me forever to show
All of the love I have here for you
And if you give me my reason for living
To love you
I love you, I do
+ + +
The next morning Brenda was sitting out on the patio still pretty love-intoxicated from last night and thoroughly enjoying the gorgeous day. She sat outside in hunter green shorts and a white halter top, her hair in a ponytail and sunglasses on her face, while she was soaking up the warm sunshine and enjoying her breakfast which consisted of Macadamia nut pancakes, a tall glass of cold mimosa and a bowl of fresh pineapples and sliced mangos. She
was also having some of her birthday cake for breakfast, since she and Jax hadn’t gotten to eat it last night having been sidetracked by the call of passion which had lasted into the wee hours of the night.
Another boat had docked on their small docks a few moments ago and Jax had gone out to meet the person he’d obviously been expecting. Now Brenda heard Jax come back into the cottage.
"Brenda, come here," he called to her. "I have something for you."
She grinned and hopped up out of her chair. Another surprise? He was too much! She went inside and stopped in her tracks as she saw that Jax was holding a little golden retriever puppy in his arms. "W…what’s that?" she asked nervously.
"It’s a puppy, Bren."
"But what’s it doing *here*?" she asked next, not coming near him.
"It’s here because it belongs to you. Come here."
Brenda shook her head several times and in fact backed up. "Jax, how could you do this? You know I’m afraid of dogs," she said, biting her lip.
"Which is exactly why I did this. I love you, Brenda, and I don’t want you to be afraid of anything," he said softly. "I made you a promise a while ago that I would cure your fear of dogs, I haven't forgotten that promise. I’m going to fulfill it. Starting right now."
Brenda just stood there shaking her head. "By *giving* me one? No, Jax, no . . .I don’t want it." Her mind was filled with memories of the Dalmatian that bit her.
"Sweetie, it’s only a puppy. She won’t hurt you, I swear it. Come here, you’ll see."
"That dog that bit me was only a puppy too," Brenda said, not budging.
"Brenda, I know that you trust me. I know that *you* know that I would never let anyone or anything hurt you. Now, if I’m wrong; if you don’t trust the things that I say, if you think I would let you be hurt, then you’re right. You should just stay there."
Brenda nervously folded her hands together and approached Jax with baby steps until she was in front of him and the shiny golden haired creature sitting happily in his arms.
"I don’t want to touch it," Brenda warned him quickly.
"Bren, it’s just a baby. Come on." he took her hand. "Come on," he said in a voice so soothing that she really believed that no harm could ever come to her as long as Jax was there. She shocked herself by actually allowing him to place her trembling hand on the head of the tiny puppy. The dog did not bite her or snarl at her or anything remotely threatening or violent. It merely looked at her with it’s huge brown eyes and wagged it’s tiny
tail.
Brenda looked at Jax and he smiled at her. "See? It’s okay." He removed his hand from Brenda’s, allowing her to touch the puppy on her own.
Brenda moved her hand from the puppy’s head and placed it on it’s side, carefully, tentatively stroking the golden fur.
"You okay?" Jax asked her.
She nodded and felt her confidence growing as the dog remained nothing but sweet and friendly and seemed to be enjoying her touch. "She’s pretty cute," Brenda said, getting closer to both Jax and the puppy.
"Isn’t she?"
"What’s her name?" Brenda asked.
"That’s up to you. She’s your dog."
Brenda looked uncertain. "I don’t know about this, Jax. I mean, maybe I can pet her, and that’s a big step for me, but keeping her? I don’t know about that . . ."
"Well guess what? You really don’t have a choice, Brenda. I bought her for you and she’s going home with us. When she’s a year old we’ll take her to Alaska and she can stay there with Storm, Magellan and Hercules if you’d like. But you’re going to take care of this dog for at least a year."
Brenda looked at him with a pleading look. "But Jax . . ."
"No buts, Brenda Barrett-Jacks. This dog is going to be your responsibility for 365 days. You *will* get over your fear of dogs, Brenda. I promise you will. You just have to trust me. So . . .what do you want to call her? Oh and speaking of naming things, this is your island, so you’ll have to name that as well."
Brenda gazed at the little pooch. "She looks like an Ophelia," she decided, "Filly for short. And, don’t laugh at me but, this island reminds me of Giligan’s Island so I’d like to call it that."
Jax looked at her. "Giligan’s Island? You want to call this place *Giligan’s* Island?"
"Well not exactly. I mean, since all of the islands surrounding us are called St. this and St. that, I thought we should go with the flow and call this St. Giligan’s. St. Gil’s for short."
"There is no saint named Giligan," Jax pointed out to her.
Brenda laughed. "I know that. But this is *my* island, all right?"
"All right," Jax said. "St. Gil’s it is. Would you like to hold your puppy?" he offered.
Brenda shook her head and backed up a bit. "No. Not yet, okay? I’m definitely not ready for that . . ."
"Okay," Jax said, not pushing it. "She’s pretty sleepy anyway." He placed the puppy in a basket and the dog closed it’s eyes. "I just wanted to get you used to dogs again because before we head off to Bora Bora to find your cousin, I need to stop by the ranch in Alaska and talk to the family."
Brenda’s eyes widened. Oh no. She would once again be face to face with the huge tongue wagging beast Hercules! Just remembering how the huge St. Bernard had licked her face that one time and the way he would bound after her in frantic excitement every time he so much as laid eyes on her made her want to cringe.
"When are we going to Alaska?" she asked.
"Today," Jax told her. He looked at his watched, "In about two hours to be exact."
Brenda let out a long breath and nodded. "Okay," she said.
Jax pulled her into his arms and gave her a long hug. "It’ll be fine, sweetie. You just have to remember that the dogs love you. They really do. Remember that they saved your life - all three of them. They would never hurt you Brenda, they would only protect you. Just like me." He kissed the top of her head.
She nodded and just held him tighter. She really didn’t want to disappoint Jax. He was really expecting her to get over this childhood phobia. He was so confident that he could help her do it, that he was all she needed to be able to do it. Brenda, however, wasn’t so sure . . .
Troi
IRFC
"We must put the titans back together" - B. Guza