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He sank the ball and smirked at Beck. “You going to tell me the rest of the joke?”
“Not a joke. A fact.” His friend motioned to the entrance with a tilt of his chin then wiggled his brows.
Jase looked, and yep, he had to agree. An angel had walked into a den of iniquity. Beside West stood Brook Lynn Dillon.
Hauntingly beautiful. And completely off-limits.
The urge to touch her, to hold her, bombarded him all over again, and he had to grit his teeth against it.
Feel nothing. Want nothing. Need nothing.
“Hey, Brook Lynn,” Beck called. “You’re looking mighty fine today—which can mean only one thing. You came to ask me out. Well, it’s your lucky day, pretty. I accept.”
Jase hit his friend in the arm and muttered, “Don’t flirt with her,” before he could think better of it.
Beck frowned at him. “Who was flirting? I was baring my soul.”
The conversation ceased to matter when he noticed Brook Lynn’s eyes were swollen and red, as if she’d been crying. There was a cut on her bottom lip, as if, in her despair, she’d chewed a little too hard.
He threw down his cue. If someone had hurt her—
His hands fisted at his sides as he closed the distance.
Her gaze landed on him and widened. Gulping, she stepped away from him. “Do you, uh, know where Jessie Kay is?”
Had he scared her?
“No,” he said, careful to moderate his tone. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her.”
Her shoulders slumped with defeat and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a big dose of fatigue. She worked far too much, couldn’t get much more than a few hours of sleep each night. While he admired her fortitude, rarely having seen anyone push themselves so fervently, he knew she couldn’t go on like that forever. Soon she would break down. If she hadn’t already.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “How are your ears?”
Chin trembling, she said, “They’re better. I can hear.” A second later, the trembling stopped, and determination darkened her eyes. Stubborn side engaged. “By the way, I never heard from you, so I didn’t know which of us needed to deduct the money. I just took a guess at how much I owed you.” She stretched out her hand. In her palm rested three crisp one hundred dollar bills.
He jolted back as if she’d just offered nuclear waste, wondering how long she’d had to save for so little. “Hell, no. That’s way too much.” A single penny was too much, he decided. “The lamp was ugly, so you did me a favor. I should probably pay you for getting rid of it. And the nightstand has a crack, nothing more. It’s no big deal.”
Brook Lynn breathed a sigh of relief as she stuffed the money in her purse. “If you’re sure...”
“I am. Now, how much do I owe you for the implants?” he asked.
She shifted from one foot to the other. “They...weren’t cheap.”
“That’s fine.”
“Like, over two thousand dollars not cheap.” She whispered the amount, as if scandalized. “If your furniture cost something similar—”
“No.” He didn’t blink. “I’ll bring the money to Rhinestone Cowgirl tomorrow. The full amount.”
She looked taken aback. “You know where I work? Never mind. Everyone knows. I don’t...I can’t accept so much...I—”
“Just say thank you and save us the trouble of arguing. You won’t win.”
She rubbed at her temples in a clear effort to ward off an oncoming ache. “Thank you.”
Better.
“And now,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I guess there’s nothing more for us to say.”
He hated himself and his weakness for her, but he wasn’t ready to be parted from her, even though he knew better than to try to hang on to anything. The longer you had it, the more it hurt when it was taken away—and it was always taken away. “I’ll walk you out.”
“No need,” she said, turning on her heels. “I’ll be okay on my own.”
“Okay or not, I’m still walking you out.” He would not be like the double-douches at the restaurant and leave her on her own.
She’d definitely gotten the implants fixed. Without reading his lips, she had a ready reply. “If your goal is to make sure I make it to my car, feel free to watch me through the window. You do like it when women walk away from you, do you not?” She disappeared through the doorway.
“Poor Jase. Denied and burned at the same time,” Beck said, shaking his head with mock sympathy.
West grinned. “Would you like some aloe vera for your soul, Jason?”
He flipped both of them off, choosing levity over man-pouting, and raced after Brook Lynn.
The moon seemed to have withered into a small hook, its golden glow hidden by clouds. The air was fragrant with the sweet scent of the magnolias, roses and strawberries growing along the edges of the house, turning what should have been a creepy night into a time for lovers. His hands curled into fists.
Brook Lynn stiffened as he came up alongside her, but said nothing to rebuke him.
“Pepper spray,” he said, noticing she carried her weapon, at least. “That’s good.”
“Oh, this isn’t pepper spray.” She held up a tube of hand sanitizer. “I don’t want to hurt people, just germs.”
This is a joke. Has to be. “So if a mugger leaves you bleeding on the street, at least you won’t contract a case of the sniffles. Is that it?”
“A mugger?” She scoffed at him. “Where do you think we are? The city? There hasn’t been a mugging in Strawberry Valley since Wanda Potts decided to role-play with her husband and steal his virtue.”
“I don’t care what’s happened in the past. I want you armed for the future.”
“Hello. I am armed.” She waved the sanitizer in his face. “The world is going to spiral into a zombie apocalypse one day...unless we get proactive and do something. It’s called germ warfare. Look it up. I’m doing my part.”
“That’s not what germ— Never mind. You fear zombies?”
“Fear? No. That’s Kenna. I’m actually looking forward to battling the undead. I plan to collect their heads like trophies.”
Why was that so damn sexy?
Hint: everything about her was sexy. Even the fact that she was clearly a hot mess. He’d never actually met someone who believed zombies were a real possibility.
His legs were longer than hers, his stride faster, so he reached her car first and opened the door for her. She didn’t get in right away, pausing to blink up at him. Confused by the gesture? Did she not expect the men in her life to be nice to her—or did she not expect Jase to be nice?
Either answer would have annoyed him, he was sure, so he didn’t bother asking.
“You’re headed home, right?” Knowing her—and as much time as he’d spent watching her, he was beginning to learn—there was a chance she had a third and fourth job.
“No. I have to find my sister. She and I are due to have a chat.”
Wait. He shifted, blocking Brook Lynn from sliding into the car. “You have no idea where she is. How do you know where to start looking?”
“I feel like you should already know the answer to that,” she said, a little sass to her tone. “Did you or did you not sleep with her?”
He glared, not appreciating the reminder.
“Fine.” She held up her hands, all innocence. “I’ll be starting with the bars.”
“And you’re going to...what? Go inside every one you come across between here and the city?”
He expected her to deny it. Wanted her to deny it. Instead, she softly announced, “Yes. But don’t worry. This won’t be the first time. Everyone pretty much knows me now and leaves me alone.”
Oh, hell, no. This delicate female had no idea how to protect herself from predators. Zombie or otherwise. He would stake his life on it. And yet she planned to trek through seas of drunken men who were only looking to score? Who may not take kindly to being rejected?
“I’m going with you.” The moment the statement registered, he cursed. He couldn’t help her the way she needed without finding himself in a whole lot of trouble she wouldn’t understand. He added, “West and Beck are going with us.” Problem, meet Solution.
Her surprise was immediate. Not used to anyone doing anything to help her with her sister? The idea alone made his chest throb, and he couldn’t blame coincidence this time. For some reason, this woman affected him in a way no one else ever had.
Would Daphne affect him even more deeply, now that they were adults?
“I couldn’t ask—” she began.
“You didn’t ask. I’m telling.”
Her eyes narrowed, her golden lashes nearly fusing together. She opened her mouth to snap a sharp reply, he was sure, before her shoulders sagged with defeat. “All right. Thank you.”
Determination could only carry a person so far, and she’d reached the end of hers.
He called for his friends, explained the situation; they didn’t hesitate.
“We’ll find her, no problem,” Beck said.
“Grab your keys,” Jase said to West. “We can reschedule pool time.”
“You don’t have to reschedule—” Brook Lynn began, but Jase gave her a withering glare, and she changed her tune. “I’ll drive.”
West glanced at Brook Lynn’s junkyard clunker and grimaced. “I insist we take my car.”
“I don’t want to use up your gas,” she called as he stalked back into the house.
Much better to use West’s gas than what little there had to be of hers. “Come on.” Jase helped her settle into the backseat of West’s Mercedes.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, even more confused. “You don’t like Jessie Kay, and you don’t like me, but you’re still willing to help us?”
“I never said I didn’t like you,” he informed her, moving in beside her.
As his friends claimed their spots up front, she looked at him, her lovely face illuminated by the vehicle’s interior light, her expression almost...sad. “I’ve learned that actions speak so loudly, words often don’t need to be uttered.”
“Well, I think my actions tonight are proving I like you just fine.” Liked her far too much.
As they motored down the country roads, he turned and gazed out the window—anywhere but at her—hoping to stop the now-constant ache, end the conversation and shatter his awareness of her in one fell swoop.
He accomplished only one out of three and cursed.
Brook Lynn sat so close to him, the heat of her enveloping him, the scent of her filling his nose, and both fogged his mind.
They passed through his favorite part of town, where different-colored buildings formed connecting lines on each side of the road. Some of the buildings had tin roofs, some shingles. Some were flat; some were pointed. Some of the walls were made of red brick and some of wood. But every single one had character, as if they had come straight out of a painting.
Brook Lynn shifted, rubbing her thigh against his, breaking his concentration. His hands itched for contact... How easy it would be to reach out and twine their fingers.
Hand-holding? What, I’m in junior high now?
“Jase,” Brook Lynn whispered and sighed warily. “I like you just fine, too. You’re actually a pretty nice guy.”
Kind words. For him. The least-deserving person on earth. If she knew half the things he’d done...hell, even a tenth of the things he’d done...she would have kept her lips zipped. But she didn’t know, and he reached for her without thought, the need to connect with her stronger than the need to remain self-contained, distant.
Who am I?
The moment his hand covered hers, she visibly relaxed. He tightened his grip, actually clinging to her. I’ve helped soothe her. Me. And maybe...maybe she’s soothing me, too. At least a little. Because even though desire for her was building, turning his body into a pressure cooker, he experienced wave after wave of peace. As if the world could catch fire and burn around him, and it wouldn’t matter. He was finally where he needed to be, doing what he needed to be doing.
Might not know who I am, but I know I need more of this. Which was the very reason he forced himself to release her.
CHAPTER FOUR
JASE REVERENTLY LAID Brook Lynn on one side of his bed while Beck just sort of plopped Jessie Kay on the other. Both girls were passed out, though for different reasons. Brook Lynn was exhausted. Jessie Kay was trashed.
The lamp on the nightstand cast soft beams of light over Brook Lynn, and Jase found himself standing there, unable to move, staring like a creeper. He’d never expected to meet the real Sleeping Beauty. Silky blond hair spilled around a face as delicate as an antique cameo. Her lashes were so long they curled at the ends. Her heart-shaped lips were red, plumped...begging for a kiss.
A muscle flexed deep in his gut.
“Jessie Kay?” she muttered, the girl clearly never far from her mind.
“She’s fine. She’s right next to you,” he said quietly, not wanting to yank her from that sweet place between sleep and wakefulness. “Beck is tucking her into bed right now.”
Her eyes remained closed as she burrowed deeper into the covers. “Home?”
“My home. You slept through most of the search.”
“Have to tell her...we...fired.”
She and her sister had been fired...from Two Farms? Surely. It was the only job they worked together.
Her earlier tears suddenly made sense. That muscle in his gut flexed all over again.
He’d learned a lot about Brook Lynn tonight, and he’d liked every detail. She was dedicated. Loyal. Kind. Caring. Determined. Sweet.
Too sweet for me.
Only a fool would fire her. And knowing her situation? The fool had to be a major asshole. Somehow she had become a mother to her older sister, and she was a damn good one.
“Jase?” Beck’s voice whispered through the room.
He glanced up. His friend now stood in the doorway, waving him out. Though he hated to leave, he dragged his feet into the hall, shutting the girls inside.
In the kitchen, West gripped a beer in each hand. His eyes were darker than usual, reflecting the shadows underneath.
Beck cursed under his breath. “Seriously?”
“No need for a hissy, Becklina. These aren’t for me.” West handed a beer to each of them. “You’ve both earned a drink. And don’t even think about refusing.”
In unison, they claimed a spot at the table.
Jase clinked his bottle against Beck’s. “Congratulations. You got twelve numbers during tonight’s mission. It’s a new record.”
“Yeah. An all-time low. I must have been off my game somehow,” the guy said with a slight pout.
West rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Beck’s lack of success is not tonight’s top story. This just in—Jase has feelings for Brook Lynn.” He waved his hand around the center of the table. “Discuss.”
Feelings? Him? He slammed the bottle on the table with more force than he’d intended. “You’re wrong. I barely know her, but even if I did feel something—which I don’t and never will—I won’t go after her. That delicate Southern flower would cut and run the moment she learned the truth about me.”
West frowned at him. Beck patted his shoulder. Both radiated the ever-present guilt and sorrow he hated so much, as if they were to blame for even this.
He loved them, but sometimes he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them. It hurt too much.
“Besides, if I wanted Brook Lynn, why would I be thinking about finding Daphne?” he asked. “Tell me that.”
“Daphne?” Beck shook his head, hanks of hair falling over his forehead. “Why the hell are you thinking about her? She left you when you needed her most.”
“Maybe I left her,” he said. He might have blamed her for their split at first, but then he’d gotten over himself and reviewed the situation through her eyes. His actions had presented her with a clear-cut choice: a life of misery with him or a chance at happiness without him. It wasn’t brain surgery.
West scowled at him. “You were forced to leave her.”
“No. No, I wasn’t. I chose to do what I did, and the decision cost me.”
Silence descended, tense, oppressive. Jase looked away from his friends, his gaze skipping over the room. Have got to finish repairing this place. It was time. They were settled in, and they weren’t going to move. Not again.
The yellowed wallpaper had what looked to be strawberries scattered in every direction. He’d already replaced the chipped and stained laminate counters with marble and the parquet floor with stone, only to stop. Some part of him recognized the house had become a metaphor for his life. Bits and pieces fixed up, the rest a crumbling wreck.
While a little manual labor would change the house, nothing would ever change him.
“Jase,” West said. “Forget about Daphne. We need to talk about the reason you won’t admit you’re developing feelings for Brook Lynn.”
Seriously. When had these two become such pusses? “I have no feelings,” he insisted. “I’m too screwed up.”
“We’re all screwed up,” Beck said. “But that doesn’t stop me from trying.”
“Boy-o, you haven’t been trying,” West said. “You’ve been plowing, sowing the proverbial wild oats.”
If people were clay, then the past was the pair of hands on the spinning wheel, shaping...shaping...misshaping. They’d each been dried and hardened damaged. The only way to change them now was to break them. But Jase had been broken before and had tried to glue the pieces of himself back together. Had suffered in ways he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. He was different now—worse.
He would not break again.
“Forget about me. You’re avoiding the heart of the issue, Jase,” Beck said softly, leaning back in his chair. “We all are, and it’s not doing us any good. So I’m just going to say it. Because despite the fact that we all did what we did together, we’ve never spoken the words aloud.”
A stilted pause as Jase shook his head. They hadn’t spoken the words aloud because he couldn’t bear to hear them.
“Nine years ago,” Beck continued, “we committed a terrible crime. The three of us. Together.”
Not ready to do this. Jase drained his beer then drained Beck’s. “Enough.”
The color faded from West’s face, but still he said, “We killed someone.”
Jase went still. Why were they doing this to him? As if he would ever forget.
West, looking haunted, said, “They deemed it voluntary manslaughter.”
“You refused to name names and testify against us to reduce your sentence,” Beck added, “so you were given the maximum penalty.”
“I know. I know all of this,” Jase snarled, his rough voice echoing off the walls. “Enough!”
Damn it, the girls.
He twisted in his chair to watch the door in the hallway. A minute passed...two...three... To his immense relief, it never opened.
He released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He never wanted Brook Lynn to discover he was an ex-con. A murderer. That he’d committed the crime not in self-defense but in white-hot rage.
“I expected the purging of the poison to make me feel better,” Beck said, slumping in his chair. “Instead I only feel worse.”
“Yeah,” West said, just as despondent. “That kind of sucked.”
Jase’s mind drifted to the hours before his entire world had come tumbling down...when he and the boys had been so hungover they’d slept the day away. Tessa had come barreling into the apartment, tears streaming down her cheeks, waking them. It had taken a while, but West had finally gotten the story out of her. She’d gone to a party with her girlfriends and one of the guys there—Pax Gillis—had followed her when she left and raped her in her car.
Even now, bile burned his stomach at the thought.
They’d gone after the guy and beaten him bloody, and it should have stopped there. But even after Pax passed out, their rage hadn’t cooled. They’d continued to whale...and whale...until finally stopping no longer mattered. The damage was done.
Even though Jase had paid for the crime—again and again—guilt had plagued him ever since, almost as bad as prison. Almost. Books and movies often tried to depict the horrors of life behind bars, but they weren’t even close to the reality. There was no privacy. Few privileges. Food he wouldn’t serve to dogs. Hour after hour spent with nothing but memories—and other inmates. Constant threats of violence...rape. Carving weapons in secret simply in an effort to protect yourself, all while living with the knowledge that years would be added to your sentence if you were ever caught. But what else could you do? Let someone shank you?
Been there, done that. And he had the scars to prove it.
Jase would rather die than go back.
“I know you.” Beck returned to subject one. “You prefer commitment. Need it. But ever since your release—”
Speaking over him, Jase said, “The boy locked behind bars was not the man who emerged. I’ve changed.”
“The core of you hasn’t.” Beck pegged him with a hard stare. “You’ve been settling for randoms, and I don’t know why. I mean, I know why I do it. Panties melt off whenever I enter a room, and it’d be criminal not to do something about it. But that’s not the reason you do it.”
“I know why,” West said softly. “You don’t think you’re good enough. You don’t think you deserve better.”
He pushed to his feet. “This is the last time I’m going to say it. Enough.” A familiar rage brewed, dark and hungry.
Calm. Control.
His friends only wanted the best for him. He knew that. Just as he knew they thought they owed him for letting him take the fall for them, not realizing they’d long ago paid their debt in full. And not just for the money and the house. They were the only visitors he’d had his entire time behind bars, showing up at least twice a week. They’d offered ears to listen and, as puss as this sounded, hearts to care. Not that he’d ever shared the worst of his experiences.
They didn’t know he would never trust anyone else and would always assume the worst of everyone around him. That he would never stop looking over his shoulder, expecting to be attacked. No woman would ever be able to put up with that for long. If one even wanted to be with an ex-con.
Brook Lynn was the one who deserved better.
So was Daphne. Hell, so was Jessie Kay.
Damn it! He’d come to Strawberry Valley desperate for a clean canvas, but all he’d done was paint it black.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said. Have to get out of here. There was a pond deep in the heart of their land where the fish practically jumped into his hands. The little slice of tranquillity might be just what he needed.
Beck glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s 2:00 a.m.”
“I think I can handle the dark,” he said, trying for a dry tone. Deep down, he knew his words weren’t exactly true. There was darkness in his mind, in his soul, and he’d never handled them. Would he ever?
CHAPTER FIVE
BROOK LYNN LIFTED her arms overhead, arched her back and extended her legs while pointing her toes. As she stretched, the heavy ache of slumber gradually receded from each of her limbs. Sunlight spilled over her, warming her. The seductive scent of masculine musk mixed with the pleasant fragrance of honey and oats enveloped her, fusing with the very fabric of her being. The softness of the sheet beneath her paired with the comforter above her made her feel as though she’d been swathed by clouds. It was, quite simply, heaven on earth. Something she hadn’t experienced in a very long time. If ever.
The only thing that would have made the moment better was a bowl of her French toast casserole, baked with layers of fresh bread, heavy cream, brown sugar and the pecans that fell from the tree shrouding her front porch.
Her stomach rumbled, all get up and prepare this now.
She blinked open her eyes. An unfamiliar—no, slightly familiar—setting greeted her. A single window was draped by navy blue curtains. Minimal furnishings: a bed, two nightstands and a dresser. The wood floor was scuffed. Realization struck, and she frowned. She’d been here once before—and it had not been an enjoyable experience.