Again, when he was sweet it was my undoing. When he said things like that it made me feel like I wouldn’t be waiting in vain to hear him actually ask me to stay with him. I could wait until he told me his home, and his heart, were empty without me being around every single day.
I was leaning forward so I could give him a real kiss and tell him he was special to me too when my new phone vibrated on the kitchen table. Shifting to the side my eyes widened in surprise when I saw a text message from David’s number on the screen.
“Who is it? You just went white as a ghost.” Case’s voice dropped to a growl and he reached for my phone, but I snatched it up before he could read the message.
“David. He must be out of jail.” I felt my jaw drop when I read the short message.
I’ll sign the papers. Just tell me when and where.
I clasped the phone to my chest and blinked at Case’s like an owl. When I found my voice I told him, “He says he’s going to sign the papers. Oh my God. I never thought this day would come. It’s finally over.” I couldn’t help the feeling of relief that suddenly swamped me. The man who had lied to me, deceived me, tricked me, set out to hurt me, was almost out of my life for good. I couldn’t wait to say my final good-bye. Once those papers were signed I could focus on Case and where we went next from here.
Before Case could say anything, I moved forward so I was practically in his lap. I kissed him with all the elation and frustation I felt bubbling under the surface. Although Case was still stuck on us not having sex until I was divorced, I was getting addicted to everything else we were doing. And not knowing when I was going to get another chance to spend the night snuggled in his bed, I met that intense blue stare with one of my own and told him, “Let’s celebrate.”
His wicked grin told me he was all in with that plan.
The next morning Case chuckled and shooed me out the door in front of him, smacking me on the butt on the way. I could feel his reluctance the entire time he drove me to Kody’s bar, where David and I had agreed to meet. It took a miracle and all of my lawyerly persuasion skills to get Case to agree to let me have this meeting with David on my own. I needed to say good-bye to my marriage and the man I no longer loved alone. I didn’t need Case to get the wrong impression if I cried or yelled. There were no regrets in leaving, but it was still hard to give up on something that had been such a huge part of my life for so long.
Case gave me one last punishing kiss before I climbed out of his pickup truck and headed to the bar. David was easy to spot as soon as I entered. His suit and tie stuck out like a sore thumb in the rustic, western interior.
I took a seat across from him and pushed the pen sitting next to the stack of papers in front of him across the table with more force than necessary. David’s hand was shaking when he reached out to grab it. He was a disheveled mess. His hair was standing up at odd angles all over his head, his glasses were smudged and sitting crooked on his face, his suit was wrinkled, and he was both pale and unshaven. I hardly recognized him. Not surprising, since the man sitting across from me was now a stranger. There was no sign of the man I had married, because the David Barlow I thought I knew didn’t exist.
“Sign them.” I didn’t offer a greeting of any kind or show any concern about his haggard state. I tapped my fingers on the table in front of me impatiently. I’d wanted to meet somewhere neutral and public. He had wanted to meet somewhere secluded and private. Looking at him, I could understand why. He was humiliated. He was also going to be disowned if the rumors going around town were accurate. Daddy Barlow had finally had enough of covering for his baby boy, and now David had officially lost everything. “I’m going to push the divorce through with or without your signature, David. Sign the paperwork, and we’re done. Keep holding things up, and I’ll make sure every single detail is made public. I will hang all of your dirty laundry out to dry.”
“Aspen…”
His voice was shaky, and his nervous gaze darted all around the mostly empty bar.
Kody was leaning behind the bar top, pretending to do inventory while watching me and my soon-to-be ex with an eagle eye. Crew Lawton was also doing a piss-poor job of pretending to eat lunch instead of playing bodyguard while I had this one last showdown with David.
Case fought me tooth and nail on being present for this showdown. He didn’t want me anywhere near David. I should’ve known the protective sheriff was going to send in reinforcements. Crew refused to look away from David, making my former husband squirm uncomfortably. I would be uneasy under that icy blue stare as well. Crew’s resemblance to his older brother was uncanny. He also had the same commanding presence, which was impossible to ignore.
“Don’t ‘Aspen’ me, David. You bribed my client’s violent, abusive husband to come after me. You knew what he was capable of. You pretended to not know anything when my office was trashed, when you were the one behind it. You put my life, and Kody’s life, at risk by blackmailing an unpredictable lunatic to run me off the road. How careless and selfish can you be? Not to mention all the risks you took yourself. Drugs, prostitutes, escorts. Do you have any idea how risky your actions have been? You’re so lucky no one died. There is nothing else to say. I don’t want anything to do with you, and I don’t want your last name any longer. I don’t know who David Barlow is anymore. He’s not the man I married and he’s not the man I fought so hard to have a family with.” I was so close to being back to Aspen Keating, to being free of him and all the expectations that came with the last name Barlow. I slapped the table with my palm, making the table shake. “Sign them!”
David jumped and let out a tiny squeak that had our audience chuckling. He blushed a bright red and eventually scrawled his name across the places on the stack of papers marked with an X. When he lowered the pen and pushed the stack back in my direction, his lower lip was trembling. I swore if he started crying after everything he’d put me through I was going to jump across the table and claw his stupid eyes out. I was the one who got to choke back tears and be sad about the end of things. Not him. He had orchestrated this entire mess.
“When we first met I really thought I could do better, that I could be the Barlow my father always wanted me to be. You made me want to be a better man. I told myself I could be worthy of you, that we could have the perfect family.” He pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I know people always said you married up, but I always knew I was the one punching above my weight class. You were always too good for me, Aspen.”
Collecting the papers and sliding out of the booth I glared down at him. “I’m still too good for you. I’ll see you in court, David.” I fully intended to testify against Jed Coleman. Unsurprisingly, David had indeed made a deal to also testify against him, as well as his brother, which meant, as expected, he would never serve a minute in jail. Both Case and Hill believed the older Coleman was behind both the shooting and the fire. His motive was still in question, but Case seemed to believe Jethro wanted me out of the way so Jed’s wife wouldn’t have an advocate and they could coerce her into dropping the charges against her abusive husband. Case believed the Colemans thought I was the only thing standing in the way of things going back to the way they’d always been, and Jethro was just doing his brotherly duty by getting me out of the way.
I wasn’t so sure I agreed with that assessment. The state was going to press charges for assault and battery againt Jed regardless of whether Kayla Coleman testified against her husband or not. That was inevitable when the law got involved in domestic cases, and I’m not sure my being her lawyer was enough incentive to kill me. But, lacking any other reasonable explanation, everyone warned that Jethro Coleman was still a threat, so I still needed to be extra cautious.
Cowboy boots clipped on the worn wood floor and I looked up into familiar blue eyes as Crew approached the table. He nodded at the papers and I flashed him a thumbs-up. I cleared my throat and tossed my hair over my shoulder. “Good to go.”
He winked, his eyes twinkl
ing playfully. He was probably the most easygoing of the Lawton siblings, but I would never make the mistake of underestimating any of them. Charm could be deadly, and Crew had more than his fair share of it.
“That’ll make big brother happy.” He narrowed those intense eyes in the direction where David was still cowering in the booth. “If anything happened to my sister because of your dumbass, whatever the Colemans might have planned for you would be a picnic compared to me and Case.”
David audibly gulped and shrank back as far in the corner as the space would allow. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to be the object of any of the Lawtons’ ire either. A pissed-off cowboy was one thing. A pissed-off cowboy with the last name Lawton was another.
After leaving David with his head down, sitting alone and dejected at the table, I followed Crew toward the front doors. He tilted his head toward the bar, where Kody was actually serving customers now. I didn’t want to interupt her to tell her good-bye so I simply waved and silently followed her brother. “She gave me a key to her place and told me to drop you off. Are you sure there isn’t anything you need to get from Case’s before we roll?” My Audi was still at the body shop. Since it wasn’t parked in the garage during the fire, it had escaped the damage that destroyed the house, but the exterior had taken a beating and all the tires needed to be replaced.
I still couldn’t believe Kody offered her place up for me to crash until I found a rental. I’d brought a lot of chaos into the Lawtons’ collective lives. I wondered if they would ever stop surprising me.
“No. I’ve got what I need.” And I didn’t want to completely remove myself from Case’s home. I felt like if I left a little bit of myself behind, I wasn’t really leaving for good.
“Let’s head out then.” He turned and called good-bye to his sister, who shouted good-bye to us both without turning around from the tap behind the bar where she was pouring a beer.
I clutched the paperwork to my chest like it was the most precious thing in the world—because it kind of was. I’d been waiting for so long for that signature. It felt like I finally had a chance to start over, to get things right.
Crew wrapped a hand around my elbow and helped me walk slowly toward the door. I had a splint on my ankle and no longer needed the crutch if I moved slowly and carefully. We’d only taken a few steps when the door swung open, and the last Lawton stepped through it.
Crew laughed full and loud next to me, fingers giving my arm a reassuring squeeze. “Wondered how long it was going to take him to show.”
Case stalked in my direction, eyes locked on the papers in my hand. He pushed the brim of his hat back and growled, “He sign them?”
Slightly stunned I nodded. “He did.”
“So you aren’t married to him anymore?” The questions were short and sharp.
I cocked my head in confusion. “Well, a judge has to sign off on it, and the paperwork needs to be filed with the court, but no, not married anymore…”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him why he wasn’t at work in the middle of the day, but a moment later he bent and sealed his mouth over mine in front of his family, my ex-husband, and the customers lining the bar. He might as well have branded his name across my forehead, it was such a public display of claim. I was getting very good at not knocking his hat off his head when he kissed me, but this time when it fell to the ground neither of us cared.
When Case broke away to breathe, I blinked at him like an owl. He rubbed his thumb across my swollen, damp lower lip and growled, “Mine.” He dropped another biting kiss on my slack mouth, and a second later I felt the edge of his shoulder dig into my stomach as he swooped me up in a firefighter’s carry over his shoulder. I scrambled to hold on to the papers against his broad back as he turned and headed for the door. I lifted my head in time to see Kody laughing behind the bar and Crew shaking his head. David looked like he wanted to say something from his seat but stayed silent with one warning look from the younger Lawton brother.
I should’ve been outraged, after all, I wasn’t property to be hauled around. But it was kind of remarkable to have Case openly declaring our never-ending war had ended, and we were now on the same side, fighting the same battle. No one could question that Case Lawton literally swept me off my feet.
“You could have asked me to come with you, you know? I would have gone willingly.” I was pretty much ready to follow him wherever he wanted to lead. “People are going to talk.” It wasn’t every day the sheriff carried someone out of his sister’s bar over his shoulder with the intent of taking them to bed rather than to jail.
Case dropped a wide palm on my ass, and I felt his shoulders shake underneath me as he laughed. “If it were possible to die from an overdose of foreplay, we’d both be in the ground. The papers are signed. The house is empty until my kid comes home tomorrow. It feels like the stars aligned, and I’m not one to let an opportunity slip by.” He used the hand on my backside to give it a little love tap before he set me down on my feet next to his huge, black pickup truck. He looked so good in his lightweight, gray Henley and a pair of faded jeans.
Case took my face between his large hands and placed the sweetest kiss imaginable on the tip of my nose. “Will you come home with me, Aspen? Please?”
Like there was any question. “Of course I will.” I grinned up at him and gave a little shrug. “Though I’m not sure I can wait that long. I’ve never been so sexually frustrated in my life.”
I got another kiss. This one quick and hard on the lips as he opened the door to the truck and helped me climb inside. The thing was lifted so high, I would’ve needed a damn step stool to get inside of it if Case hadn’t been there to give me a boost. I guess everything really was bigger in Texas.
Snickering at the thought, I turned when Case climbed up into the cab next to me. He took his hat off and tossed it on the dash. He used a hand to push his dark hair back, and I was overwhelmed with the urge to sink my teeth into his razor-sharp jawline. Throwing next to his hat the paperwork that signaled I was free to do what, and whomever, I wanted, I slid closer and dragged my nose along the outside of his ear and gave in to the urge to nip at the curve of his jawbone.
“This is like all my high school fantasies coming true. Making out with a hot cowboy in the front seat of his truck.” I ran my fingers down the strong column of his neck and rubbed my thumb over his Adam’s apple. “Teenaged me would be dying right now. Adult me is impatient as hell.”
Case swore and shifted in the seat, making the leather creak. He turned his head slightly so our mouths could align. Eye to eye, his gaze was serious, and his voice was sure when he replied, “If I could be here with anyone in the world, I would still choose you. You might’ve spent a lot of time alone when we were kids, but I’ve been on my own since my marriage ended. Maybe we just needed the timing to be right so we could finally be alone together. But there is no reason for either of us to ever be lonely again.”
We stared at each other for a moment, a lot unspoken in the heated look we shared. Eventually, we’d have to put words to everything we were feeling, but not right now.
Quirking my eyebrow, I let my hand fall to his lap, where the softly worn denim lovingly clung to his muscular thighs and the heavy weight pressing between them. He sucked in a breath as I palmed his growing erection through the fabric. His eyes narrowed as he reached out to wrap a hand around the back of my neck so he could pull me closer. I went willingly and whispered against his mouth, “I lied. I don’t think I can go home with you. I’m not going to make it. I want you, want you inside of me, so bad I can taste it.” Having him in my mouth and hands was no longer enough. I wanted him inside of me, filling me up, claiming me.
Case gave a little growl and set about devouring my mouth in a kiss that was going to leave my lips bruised and swollen. I grabbed ahold of his shoulder and maneuvered myself so I was straddling his lap. One nice thing about being on the small side was that I fit in the space between him and the steering wheel w
ith plenty of room to move. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back with just as much ferocity.
Teeth clashed. Tongues tangled. Breathing became a nuisance as hands started to find their way under clothes. The windows started to fog up, but I couldn’t care less, because Case’s hands were on the back of my thighs, moving under the fabric of the loose, black shorts I’d put on today. I sucked on the tip of his tongue and shoved my hands through his soft hair. When we eventually broke free so we didn’t suffocate, we were both panting and flushed. His dark eyebrows arched almost to his hairline as I untangled a hand so I could wrestle with his ever-present mammoth-size belt buckle.
“We’re gonna get arrested for indecent exposure.” He said it jokingly, but the humor in his tone fled when I finally had his pants open and a hand wrapped around his straining cock. The flared head was already filled with color and the heavy vein running underneath was plump under my fingertips.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m pretty close with the sheriff.” I kissed the side of his neck, using my teeth to nibble my way down to his collarbone. I had nuzzled my way past soft cotton to get at skin, but I liked it. It was like going on a treasure hunt for all the places on his big body that I knew would make him lose his mind. “I also know a good lawyer.”
“Aspen…” I liked the way he said my name, but I needed him distracted beyond the point of saying anything.
I tightened my hand around his thickening flesh. I wasn’t one who threw caution to the wind on a regular basis, well I hadn’t been. But maybe that was all part of figuring out who I was supposed to be, now that I was no longer living my life through a filter of what everyone else thought.
I wiggled off his lap until I stretched out on my belly along the long bench seat. Thank goodness he had his personal vehicle. This never would’ve worked in his SUV. Plus the likelihood of me convincing him to fuck me before we got to his house would have dropped dramatically in a city-issued car.
Justified Page 20
