Both Jax and Brenda slept in late. It was almost 9:00 when Jax finally woke up to feel Brenda wrapped snuggly around him, still sound asleep. Very carefully Jax shifted her off him so that he could gently get out of bed without waking her. He put on his robe and headed into the study. After reconnecting the phone he called room service to order breakfast for them. He turned on the television in the study to catch up on the latest news on the storm. It turned out that not long after Jax and Brenda had gone to bed last night the storm had pretty much blown itself out. All the roads were open in town and no activities had been cancelled due to weather. Jax got up to look out the study window and saw a beautiful sunny morning. As he stood staring out the window, he thought back to his discussion with Brenda last night concerning Nikolas Spencer and J&J Jacks. Now that he had time to look more objectively at the situation, it was possible that Brenda was right: that his brother hiring Nikolas away from Jacks International had just been a business decision and not any kind of a threat against his company or against Jax personally.

The ringing of the phone interrupted Jax's thoughts. He walked quickly back to the desk, not wanting the phone to awaken Brenda. "Jax here," he said.

"Jax, this is Travis. I think my men have figured out how the intruder has been getting into your house. Do you mind if I come over to talk to you and Brenda?"

"Of course, when can you be here?" Jax was suddenly very concerned at what Travis had found.

"I'll be there in about an hour. The side streets are still pretty slippery, so I'll have to take it slow. See you then."

Jax hung up the phone just as Brenda walked into the study. "Jax, who was that so early in the morning?" Jax had to smile as he looked up at her. No one had a right to look that beautiful first thing in the morning, he decided. No one, that is, except his Brenda.

"That was Travis. He said he's figured out how our helpful intruder has been getting into the house. He's on his way over right now. He said he'd be here in about an hour, so we probably should get dressed."

"Okay, you go ahead and shower. I'll call room service to order breakfast." She started to pick up the phone to call, when Jax reached over and took it away from her.

"Already done, luv. I called as soon as I got up. Why don't you go ahead and shower; by the time you're done, breakfast should be here." He kissed her quickly on the nose and gently pushed her toward the door."

"Hey!!! No fair!" she laughed softly as she headed out the door to the master bathroom. Jax soon heard the shower running. He was tempted to join her in the shower but quickly realized that if he did they would end up picking up where they had left off last night, and neither of them would be ready when Travis got here. He took a couple of deep breaths to clear his head and went to get the paper from outside the door.

About 20 minutes later Jax was surprised to see Brenda coming down the stairs from the bedroom, fully dressed, her makeup on and her hair pulled up in a ponytail on top of her head. "How on earth did you do that so fast? I think you may have set a personal record for showering and dressing!" He couldn't help smiling at her little girl face.

"I'm not sure how to take that. Are you telling me that I take too long to get ready or something?" she asked, looking at him with a face that would melt any man's heart.

"I never said that, my love. All I meant was that you finished very quickly. I'm not complaining, by any means. Besides, breakfast isn't even here yet."

"Good. You'll have time to get dressed before it gets here then. Now hurry up. I want us to be finished by the time Travis gets here. Oh, by the way, did you call room service back to have them bring extra coffee for him? I'm sure he'll be chilled from being outside today." Jax nodded that he had already done as she suggested. Brenda smiled sweetly and turned him toward the stairs, giving him a gentle push, much the same way he had sent her off to shower earlier.

About 10 minutes later there was a knock at the door. Just as Brenda got up from the couch to answer it, Jax came walking down the stairs. "Now that's what I call perfect timing, don't you?" Jax said laughing softly.

Brenda just looked at him as she opened the door. There was the room service waiter with the cart containing their breakfast and the additional coffee Jax had requested. Brenda signed for the meal and gave the waiter a generous tip after he pushed the cart in front of the fireplace.

True to his word, Travis knocked on the door just about an hour after talking to Jax. As Jax opened the door to let him in, Travis saw the remnants of their breakfast on the cart "I hope I didn't interrupt your breakfast?" He looked from Jax to Brenda who both shook their heads.

"No, not at all Travis. Would you like some coffee? It's still hot, and you do look awfully cold. Are the roads bad?" Brenda had managed to again amaze Travis at the number of questions she could get out in one breath. While he had been trying to absorb all of her questions, Jax had helped him remove his coat.

"Thanks, I could sure use a cup."

While they had been waiting for Travis to arrive, Brenda had suggested that Jax start a fire since she knew Travis would be chilled. "Come sit by the fire and drink your coffee. Then you can tell us what you found out about the house," Brenda told him as she went to sit beside Jax.

"Thanks, this really feels good. Okay, now for the reason for my visit… Because of the bad weather last night a couple of my investigators decided to camp out at the office instead of trying to drive home. Since they had nothing much to do they started looking at the blueprints for your house that Mr. Rollins provided us. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until one of them, Ben Robins, looked at the exterior dimensions of the house as compared to the interior room dimensions." With that he opened his briefcase and pulled out the house plans. "If you'll notice the frontal plan indicates that the overall length of the house is 98.4 feet, yet if you look at the length of the rooms across the front of the house including the foyer it only totals out to 92 feet even. Where is the other 6.4 feet? Both Ben and his partner, Scott Barris double-checked their measurements before they called me. Since I had the 4-wheel-drive with me I decided to head back to the office to check it out for myself. We redid the math several times, and each time it came out the same. There was over 6 feet of floor space missing in the house.

"Since none of us were going to be able to put this to rest, we all piled into the 4-wheel-drive and headed over to the house. We measured the outside length of the house ourselves and came up with just over 98 feet. Then we went inside and measured the length of the parlor, foyer, and library. We came up with a total of 92 feet each time we measured.

"That still left us with the question of where the missing 6 feet could be. Jokingly, Scott piped up with the idea that since the house was so old there might be a hidden entrance that would account for the missing footage. Since none of us could come up with a more logical explanation, we started checking walls for a secret passage, and guess what we found?"

Both Jax and Brenda were staring at him, "Don't stop there, Travis. What the devil did you find?"

"Well, imbedded in the carvings of the fireplace in the library is a lever that, when pushed in one direction, opens a section of the side wall. Once inside that doorway, you follow a narrow hallway to the back of the house. At the end of the hallway are two doors. The one on the right when pressed opens into the kitchen. The one straight ahead requires that you turn a lever just to the left of the door to open it to the back yard, just inside the large bushes behind the house."

Neither Jax nor Brenda said anything. Who could have know about the hidden entrance, and what reason would they have for using it to try to frighten them out of the house?

"Is this the only hidden passage you found?" Jax asked with more than a touch of concern in his voice.

"Nope, there's one on the opposite side of the house that leads from the dressing area in the master suite, down a passageway to a set of stairs. At the foot of the stairs is a set up similar to the one on the other side of the house.

"Do you realize what this means, Jax? We now know how someone is getting into the house. Since we didn't know of the existence of these two entrances they were never wired into the security system. Anyone with any knowledge of the house could have used them to get in whenever they wanted. Even the motion detectors wouldn't have revealed them, since they were only on the obvious entrances."

"I take it you've taken steps to secure these entrances, Travis?" Jax was shaken by the information Travis had just given them. When he looked over at Brenda, she was very quiet and he could tell she was upset. "Don't worry, luv. Now that we know how they are getting in, we'll be able to catch them if they try it again."

"You can be sure of that, Brenda. My men have already wired both entrances and installed motion sensors. If anyone tries to use them again, we'll catch them.

"In the mean time, Jax, now that we know how they have been getting in, do you have any clue yet as to who might be trying to frighten you guys?"

Jax sat quietly for a few minutes when suddenly his face clouded over. Brenda knew that look well. The only time he ever got that look on his face anymore was when he was thinking about his brother Jerry. Then she realized what he was thinking and couldn't resist the urge to shiver as a chill went up her spine. It seemed like everything that had happened over the past couple of days was beginning to make sense. She just wished the pieces wouldn't fit together in the end.

"Travis, I want you to check out my brother Jerry. See if he's been anywhere near the places where either the blueprints or the building plans are kept on file. Check if anyone other than Matthew or one of our authorized representatives had asked for access to the files pertaining to Stanhope Manor since we took possession of it. You might have to dig deep. If I know Jerry, he'd have paid someone very well to hide his interest in the house. Get back to me on this today!!"

By the time Jax finished issuing orders, Travis already had his coat and gloves on and was heading for the door. "I'll get back to you sometime this afternoon. Will you be here or at the office?"

"I'm not sure. You'll be able to reach me on my cell phone regardless of where I'm at. Tell your people that Brenda and I will be heading over to the house in a little while. Have one of those two agents meet us there. I want to see these passages.

"And Travis, . . . good work!"

"Thanks. Do you want me to have the men seal up the passages?"

"Jax, I don't think we can. Remember what the Restoration Society said, we cannot alter the interior or exterior of the house in any way for three years. Can't they just put special locks on the inside of the doors to secure them? Besides, if they are wired with alarms and motion sensors, there's no way anyone can get in without being caught." Brenda turned a frightened face to Jax. He couldn't be sure if she was frightened about the possibility of an intruder in their home or about them getting in trouble with the Restoration Society for sealing up the secret doors.

"You have a point, luv. Travis, at least for now, just have your men install interior locks on the doors. I don't care if they are electronic or combination or key, just so they don't show from the outside. Got it?"

"Got it! I promise you, Brenda, no one except for the three of us and the agents I have install them will know the locks are there. You can count on it." With that said, he extended his hand to Jax and then to Brenda, who smiled weakly at him as he walked out the door.

"Okay, honey, I know what you're thinking. You think Jerry is behind this, don't you?" she said as she looked down into his cold, blue eyes. Jax had sat back down on the couch when Travis had left.

"It's all starting to make sense now. They are either going to make a run on Jacks International, which would explain Jerry's sudden interest in Nikolas Spencer, or Jerry is having some of his low-life friends get even with me for walking away from them after the Federal authorities took over J&J Jacks of Alaska. Remember, he swore that he'd make me pay for hurting his mother by walking away and not looking back. Maybe this is his way of making me pay -- by frightening you and ruining our chances to be happy in that house."

Brenda came over to him and sat in his lap. She wrapped one arm around his neck and rested the other on his chest. "Sweetheart, no one can ruin our happiness in our first home, so you don't have to worry about that.

"As to Jerry trying to get revenge, do you really think he'd do that? I mean she is your mother as well as his. He'd have to know that anything he did to hurt or make you unhappy would make her unhappy as well. Don't you think the last thing he would do or your father would let him do would be to make your mother unhappy. Jax, she loves you. I know that doesn't mean much to you because of what happened, but it does to her. Regardless of the bad blood between you and your parents, I can promise you that your father would NEVER let Jerry do anything to make your mother unhappy."

"I don't know, Brenda. Even if I bought your reasoning as to why he wouldn't do it for revenge, you have to admit that the idea of the two of them making a run at Jacks International is not all that far fetched. I mean, look at it.

"Jerry knows we were just married. He knows we're planning the move into the house. I mean, it's been in the paper, for crying out loud. He also knows how important you have always been to me. It makes perfect sense that he would consider this a perfect time to go after the company. He figures I'll be away from the office a lot to be with you, so he starts trying to hire the top executives away, like Nikolas. Next thing you know, we have deals starting to fall apart. You can't tell me I'm just being paranoid about him!"

"No, unfortunately, knowing him as well as I do, I have to agree that this seems exactly like something he would do. What do we do to stop him? Because I swear to you, Jax, if he's out to get you, he'll have to go through me first!" Brenda said as she tightened her hold on him. She was not going to let anyone, even his own brother, hurt Jax ever again. They had already hurt him too much.

She was startled out of her memories when Jax started to stand up and set her down on her feet. "Come on, luv. Let's go to the house and check out these passages. Maybe now all the 'mystery moves' will stop, and we can get back to decorating our home. When did Matthew say the library furniture was being delivered?"

"He said it would probably be here the day after tomorrow. Why? Are you in a hurry or something? Remember we can't take legal possession until after January 29th."

"I know. I was just wondering. Do you think our bedroom will be ready for us to move in soon? I thought it would be kind of nice if we moved into our first home on Valentine's Day. After all, it IS the anniversary of the first time we met."

Brenda looked at him in shock. "I can't believe you remembered that! Jax, do you really think we could move in that soon? I mean that would just be the perfect day!!"

"Well, that depends on you and Matthew. Will we have a bed to sleep in by then?" He looked at her with that twinkle in his eyes that had been missing since Travis had told them about the passageways.

"I'll make sure of it, if I have to charter a plane to fly it in from England! I promise you, by February 14th we'll have a bedroom you won't believe, in a house that will truly be ours and ours alone!! Come on -- let's go check out the house. We don't want ANYTHING to interfere with the deliveries!" With that said, she grabbed her coat from him and headed for the door.

As he headed toward the door to catch up with her, he couldn't help but shake his head. She was really amazing. Once she set her mind on something, nothing stopped her -- not logic or practicality or common sense. He knew that if she said the house would be ready by Valentine's Day, you could count on the fact that it would be ready. He loved seeing her so happy and excited as she was whenever they were at the house or were talking about it. It almost made up for all that she had suffered at the hands of his family. He made himself a promise: if ANY of them were responsible for what was happening at the house, they would pay. He reached for her just as the elevator doors opened. They walked in, and he wrapped his arms around her. This was where she belonged and this was where she was going to stay, wrapped in his arms. Nothing was said by either of them all the way to the house. Both seemed to be lost in thought: Brenda with a million details to finish in order for them to move; Jax with plans to insure Brenda's safety and happiness. Almost out of instinct, they gently entwined their hands together and rode on in silence to their future home.