by Jeana
His wife. The words rolled over Karly like a freight train, leaving her boneless and broken. She resisted the urge to stare or glare at the woman and gave her a tight smile instead, refusing to look at Jerome. No way would she give the two-timing bastard the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. Instead, she lifted her chin and rattled off the specials before turning to the kitchen.
“Are you okay?” Josh frowned at her a few minutes later as she sat with her head between her knees, blowing and puffing like a winded horse. Beautiful Josh with his messy dark blond hair and long-lashed blue eyes, always concerned and always eager to help. He was a beacon in the darkness of her fucked-up life.
“I’m fine,” she said, even though her voice quavered, and her hands trembled. “I just need a minute.”
“Hmmm…” Skepticism dripped from his tone. “Girl, you are sitting on a bucket inside a broom closet. Nothing about that suggests you’re fine.” The bare overhead light bulb highlighted his flawless cheekbones when he cocked his head to the side and gave her a measuring look. “The scary guy in the corner booth? The one with the bite-worthy ass? He left you a ten-dollar tip.” He sighed and eyed her uniform kilt and tight white tank top with blatant envy. “I wish I had a short skirt.”
“What? Ten dollars for a glass of water?”
A few years younger than her, Josh was utterly gorgeous in a fashion model kind of way, sleek and fit, with a golden tan. Even though they’d only known each other a few weeks, he was the one person she liked at The Scotsman. Probably because they both carried secrets and neither of them liked to share or ask questions.
“Yeah. He asked me to make sure you got it.” Josh dug deep into the front pocket of his black pants, retrieved a wadded bill, and pushed it into her hand. “How do you know him anyway?”
“He’s a friend of a friend and my brother,” she replied, not wanting to go into it.
“Are all your friends that hot?” One of his winged brows arched in question. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe. “Girl, you’ve been holding out on me. So when can I meet this brother of yours?”
Distracted from her meltdown, she snorted with amusement. “God willing, you’ll never meet him. He’s an asshole.”
“So you’ve told me.” Josh narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Actually, I’m not feeling too well. Do you think you can cover for me?”
“Sure,” Josh said with a sympathetic smile. “I’ll let Scotty know.”
“Thanks. I’m just going to sit here for a minute.” She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned her head onto her hands, desperately searching for relief from the impending insanity. “And could you shut the door, please?”
Josh raised an eyebrow but did as he was told, leaving her to the quiet of the broom closet. Her mind whirled, overwhelmed first by Emma’s situation and now by the appearance of Jerome and his wife. His wife. Saying the words made it reality. It was one thing to learn he was married and another to see the woman in the flesh. All the pain and humiliation of their breakup rushed back with gut-wrenching intensity. The man was a lying, cheating bastard, and good riddance. What she couldn’t get over was being made an unwitting accomplice to his adultery.
Oh, God, I’m going to hell. This thought sent her head back between her knees as spots of black and red swam before her eyes. She clenched her fists until her nails bit into the flesh of her palms, taking comfort in the pain. No matter how she tried to make excuses for what happened, the result remained the same. She unknowingly had an affair with a married man. The thought turned her stomach.
The walls of the closet began to close in around her. Memories of the closet at her parents’ house and poor Emma sitting in the darkness brought tears to her eyes. She put her hands over her ears to drown out the echoes of her father’s drunken rampages, still fresh in her mind. The air thickened and settled over her like a suffocating blanket until she could barely breathe. Panicked, she yanked open the closet door and rocketed out of the darkness, through the kitchen, and exploded into the parking lot.
Randy took a deep draw on his cigarette, the end glowing cherry red in the darkness, and watched the smoke curl in fanciful wisps around his head. The sultry summer air clung to his T-shirt. Moths and mosquitoes danced and fluttered in the pool of light from the overhead street lamp, dipping down to whine near his ear. Deep in thought, he scratched the stubble along his jaw, carefully avoiding the sensitive scar coursing from ear to collarbone. Not for the first time, it occurred to him normal people didn’t do business in dark alleyways. After all these years, it seemed natural, comfortable even. This revelation disturbed his calm and brought vice-like tension to his forehead.
He took one last, sweet drag from his cigarette. Smoking was his only vice—if you didn’t count drinking, gambling, and an occasional cage fight here and there. If he had any brains at all, he’d give that shit up—the smoking—before it killed him. Smoking was all he had, really, and how sad was that? Twenty-six freaking years old with little more to his life than the clothes on his back and a carton of cigarettes. No wonder Pilar packed up their kid and left. Disgusted with himself, he flicked the butt with practiced precision into a murky puddle. The cigarette landed with a plop, concentric rings undulating outward through the water.
As he watched the ripples dissipate, a blur of legs and abundant red-gold hair exploded through the back door. The door banged against the wall behind it, the sound echoing off the building like a gunshot. The blur came to a stop a few yards past the building. It was the waitress, Karly, looking disheveled and breathless, ponytail askew.
He shifted his stance, unsure whether to confront her or remain hidden. Repelled by drama and emotion, he had no desire to take part in either. Before he could make up his mind, the back door opened again and a man appeared.
Dressed in khaki pants and a polo shirt, the man kept his back to Randy so he couldn’t see his face, but it was obvious by the slope of narrow shoulders and thinning hair that he was older. Late thirties, early forties, maybe. He stopped beside Karly. She turned to face him, giving Randy a clear view of her expression.
Randy stepped back into the shadows, unwilling to intrude on what was obviously an intimate encounter, but unable to leave without interrupting them. With an inward groan of exasperation, he crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
“I’m sorry, Karly. I didn’t know you worked here,” the man said. “If I’d known, I would never have brought Malina to this place.”
“We met here,” Karly said. Her voice was startlingly deep and husky for such a petite thing. The clear confidence of it carried across the heavy summer air. “How could you not remember that?”
“We did?” The man scratched behind his ear as if puzzled. The hair on Randy’s neck bristled with dislike. “You’ll have to forgive me. A lot has happened since then.”
“Why are you out here, Jerome? We have nothing to say to each other.”
“You never let me explain,” Jerome said. “You left without a word. I think you owe me the opportunity to clear the air about what happened.”
“I owe you nothing. You’re married. And I’m not interested in hearing anything you have to say, because obviously truth is not your strong suit.” The steel in Karly’s voice brought a silent snort of amusement from Randy. “How can you stand here and look me in the eye after you lied to me?” She began to pace back and forth, arms gesturing in a fit of temper. “Men like you make me sick.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Karly. I love you both. And I know you love me, too. I can see it in your eyes.”
“What you see in my eyes isn’t love. It’s disgust. You don’t deserve my love.” Karly dropped her head, shoulders drooping, hands curled into fists at her side. Her voice lowered, and Randy strained forward to catch her words. “I won’t allow myself to love you. I’d rather spend the rest of my life alone than waste one more second on someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
/> “I didn’t mean to mislead you. Believe me, no one is more disgusted with my behavior than I am.” He made a move to touch her, but she jerked away from him. “Things just got out of hand. I never intended for it to go so far. You’re intelligent and so lovely. I couldn’t resist you.”
“I think you knew exactly what you were doing.” She crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her chin in defiance. “You played me from the start.”
“I didn’t come out here to argue with you.” The man’s voice turned petulant, thin, and wheedling, similar to the mosquito whining in Randy’s ear. “I only wanted to explain and see if we can still be friends.”
“We can’t be friends,” Karly said. Her voice was calm and controlled, as if she had rehearsed this speech many times. “My friends don’t lie to me.”
“I won’t let things end like this. You have to listen to me.”
A sudden breeze lifted Karly’s hair, stirring her to action. She tried to step around Jerome, but he caught her by the arm. Randy’s hands twitched with the urge to throttle the man for touching her. Common sense stopped him short. The girl had a handle on things. It was none of his business, and he preferred to keep out of it unless she needed his help.
“Get your hand off of me.” Karly yanked her arm free and retreated a few paces away. Red fingerprints marred the pale skin of her slender bicep. “If you touch me again, I’ll go straight inside to your wife and tell her everything.”
A long silence stretched between the couple, disrupted by the night songs of crickets and frogs. Randy inhaled a deep breath, mesmerized by the mixture of passion, determination, and devastation on Karly’s face. Ablaze with emotion, the heart-shaped face took on an ethereal quality. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t tear his gaze from her. Relief came in the form of a distant car alarm, disturbing the quiet and breaking her spell over him. He scrubbed a hand over his face to clear his mind.
“You need to go, Jerome,” Karly said. “Go back to your wife and stay the hell away from me.”
When Jerome left, more than a few minutes passed before Karly regained her composure. Torn between the desire to scream or cry, she chose instead to stand immobile in the darkness, clenching and unclenching her fists until her thoughts steadied. Her words to Jerome had been brave, but her insides quivered with the turmoil of her emotions.
The wound of their breakup was still raw. Less than two months ago, she’d been lying in his arms, watching the sunrise through a castle window. The trip to London had been the culmination of a lifelong dream. A romantic weekend getaway with an esteemed scholar had been the icing on the cake. Two days later, she saw the texts from his wife. The dream became a nightmare, leaving no doubt about his dubious character, and ripping her heart to shreds. Just when the gaping hole in her soul began to scab over, he ripped off the bandage and left her bleeding.
Overwhelmed with the need to break something, she searched the immediate area until her gaze landed on a broken tree branch a few feet away. She bent to retrieve it, tested the weight in her hands, and looked around her for something to smash. Raising the limb overhead, she took a deep breath and aimed for the employee picnic table sitting beneath the tree.
“Easy now.”
The gravelly voice startled her. With a shriek of alarm, she whirled, heart in her throat, stick upraised. Randy eyed her, a mixture of amusement and wariness on his face. With gentle hands, he pried the stick from her fingers and tossed it into the dumpster. It landed inside with an echoing thud, similar to the hollowness inside her.
“I really need to hit something right now,” she said, a little breathless from the surge of adrenalin brought on by his sudden appearance. “And you’re not helping.”
“Well, not a good choice unless you want your bell rung,” he said, shaking his head. “The stick was oak, and the picnic table is metal. You’d feel it all the way to your toes.” He cocked a thick, dark eyebrow and thumped a fist on his chest. “You’re welcome to give me a punch if you think it’d make you feel better.”
For a split second, she considered it, eyeing the expanse of muscle beneath the tight T-shirt then shook her head. He looked more formidable than the table. “How long have you been standing there?” she asked instead, cheeks flushing with embarrassment at the idea of a witness to her shame.
Randy leaned against the dumpster, long legs crossed at the ankle, and searched his pockets for a cigarette while Karly tried to catch her breath. “Long enough to know that guy is a dick,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I’m sorry.” The furrow between his brows deepened as his eyes searched her face. “Are you okay?”
“Have you ever had someone rip your heart out then wave it in front of your face?” Her words came out breathy, cautious, and high-pitched. Feeling a wave of nausea, she passed a shaking hand over her eyes.
“Can’t say that I have,” he replied, looking amused. “Sounds painful.” He studied her again, his eyes dark and unreadable. “You don’t look okay. You’re white as a sheet.”
In his efforts to disarm her, the cigarette pack from his shirt pocket had fallen into the mud puddle at their feet. He frowned and retrieved the pack, water dripping from the cellophane wrapper. With an expression of resignation, he tossed it into the trash. One of his large hands scrubbed through the bristly copper hair atop his head. The scar tissue of an angry jagged slash snaked from jaw to collarbone. How had she missed that before? He shifted slightly as if to block it from her view. She averted her eyes, trying to look anywhere but at him.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, to convince herself as much as him. The shock of seeing Jerome and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach might never go away. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
“Just enjoying the smog and the heat,” he said dryly. “You look like you’re going to puke. Do you need to sit down? Maybe we should go inside…”
“No!” The protest burst from her lips. The last place she wanted to be was inside with Jerome and his wife. “I mean, thanks, but no. I just need a breath of fresh air and then I’m going to catch the bus home.”
Silence expanded between them until she looked up at him.
“I’ll walk you to the bus stop then. You shouldn’t be out here alone. Especially in that getup.” The dark eyes crawled over the swell of her breasts, skimmed the strip of bare belly below the band of her tank, and flitted over the tiny kilt, white knee socks, and black shoes. When his gaze at last dragged to her face, the approval was evident but tempered by the kindness in his eyes. Her cheeks flushed at the unspoken compliment.
“I do it all the time. It’s no big deal.” She waved an airy hand through the air. “But I appreciate the offer.”
“People are twisted. You can never be too careful.” He shoved his hands into his pockets as if unsure what to do with them and gave her a flicker of a smile. “Ally would be really pissed if she knew I let you walk by yourself. And honestly, I’m a little afraid of her.”
CHAPTER 3
The route to the bus stop passed through a wooded park, thick with brush and aged trees. Although street lamps lit the sidewalks with golden pools of light, the dark shadows of the park remained deep and mysterious. At Randy’s insistence, they walked down the center of the deserted street. His vigilance caused the hair on the back of her neck to prickle. She swallowed hard, forcing along the lump of nerves caught in her throat, and tucked her purse into the crook of her arm.
They walked side by side without speaking, the quiet broken only by the rustle of leaves and branches. The occasional brush of his bare arm against hers sent tingles of gooseflesh over her skin. He was close enough to see the rise and fall of his chest with each breath, to smell the musk of masculine perspiration mingled with testosterone and shower gel. She took a delicate sniff. Even his sweat smelled good.
Randy broke the silence first. “You handled that pretty well,” he said. “I think I would have punched the guy in the nuts.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow
in his direction, secretly pleased with his praise. “I wanted to punch him in the nuts. I still might,” she added. He laughed.
More silence ensued, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. With his hands in his jean pockets, he had an easy air about him, as if they were old friends taking a stroll. The moonlight highlighted the strong lines of his profile, a bold forehead, straight nose with a slight bump at the bridge, and an angular jaw. They were fierce, masculine features like those of an ancient warrior passed on through generations. Every inch of him exuded confidence and capability, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was as capable in bed.
“So what’s with the water and lemon, anyway?” Not liking the direction of her thoughts so soon after an encounter with Jerome, she changed the subject. “Are you on the wagon or something? Dieting?”
“Hell, no.” A deep throaty chuckle reverberated through the humid air. “I don’t like to drink when I’m working. And I sure as hell wouldn’t eat anything cooked by Scotty.”
“Working? I thought you worked at Felony. Did you quit or something?” She stopped in the middle of the street to remove a rock from her shoe, placing a hand on Randy’s broad forearm for balance. He waited patiently for her to replace her shoe then fell into step beside her when she moved on.
“I still tend bar and bounce. But it’s not enough to live on, you know? So I moonlight here and there.” When a car turned the corner and headed up the street, he guided her to the sidewalk with a gentle nudge. The touch of his hand to her elbow, fingertips warm and calloused, made her eyes widen. The car whooshed past and turned at the next intersection, leaving them alone again.
“Moonlight? Doing what? Testing the drinking water?” She bit her lower lip as he laughed again.
A twig cracked in the underbrush beside her. She squeaked and dropped her purse. A mangy dog clambered out of the thicket, tail low and eyes haunted. A nervous giggle burst from her lips as the mutt trotted across the street. Randy bent to retrieve her purse and handed it to her before shoving his hands back into his pockets.
