by Cherrie Lynn
They went for mutually decided upon Tex-Mex, and Starla found her incident hadn’t negatively affected her appetite. She rarely went to restaurants so the tortilla chips and salsa and queso were a rare treat. Jared raised his eyebrows when she ordered a Coronarita. “Aren’t you going back to work?”
“Fuck it.” The decision had been made as soon as she’d eyed the drink menu. Fuck Ghost. Fuck Brian Ross. Tay and Janelle hadn’t done anything to her, but they would probably be better off without her around tonight, even if they didn’t know it yet. “I’ll call in. If they get swamped, they can set appointments like always.”
“Starla. If you take no other advice I ever offer, take this. Don’t burn bridges.” He reached across the table and stilled her hand from grabbing the drink as soon as the waiter set it down, his blue eyes earnest and still brilliant even in the dimness. “You will regret it.”
As she stared at the drink, the urge to get rip-roaring drunk battling with the need to do the right thing, to be a better person, her eyes filled with tears. Horrified, she snatched up a napkin and dabbed at them. Jared abandoned his spot across the table from her and slid into her side of the booth, shielding her from the other patrons of the restaurant. She inched over to make room, so thankful for him right then that she could only cry harder.
“Tell me,” he said, but it wasn’t a gentle request. It was a firm order. Before she could stop herself, the whole sorry story poured out. Max. Brian. Even Macy showing up. Whenever she dared to look at him, his expression had grown a shade darker, brows drawing together, jaw going tight. Eyes so intense it scared her. She didn’t think anyone in her life had ever listened to her the way he did, as if every word that dropped from her lips was somehow precious.
“I’m glad you didn’t cancel on me,” he said at last. “And I’m glad Brian stood up for you. I don’t blame you for needing the rest of the night off, but he should have volunteered it, not jumped down your throat about that asshole almost running you over.”
She noticed he was ignoring her mention of Macy altogether.
“Well…Brian, he…kind of has a temper. He was wound up, and there wasn’t anyone else to lash out at, so he lashed out at me. Anyway, I guess I’d feel safer at work than at home right now.” Sighing with relief that her deluge seemed to be over with, she popped a tortilla chip in her mouth and glumly eyed her untouched drink. “You’re right. I should go back and I don’t need that.”
“I don’t know so much about that now. I didn’t realize you’ve had such a bad shock.”
He’d no sooner said it than Starla’s phone signaled an incoming text. Her heart lurched about two inches downward when she saw it was from Brian, but she sagged in relief when she read the words. Sorry. Take the rest of the night off.
Either the thought had come to him on its own once he’d cooled down, or Candace had introduced it after he got home and told her what happened, but either way, Starla only wanted to put this day out of her mind and focus on the night ahead. She wrote back: Thanks, I will, sighed, and met Jared’s expectant look. “I’m off the hook. Pass me that drink.”
Chuckling, he did so, but she noticed he didn’t move back to his seat across the table from her. She liked that. He radiated warmth and protection, and she soaked it up like an old, dry sponge. She’d been starved of it most of her life, hadn’t she? Maybe it had been her own doing. Maybe she’d deserved it for some of the choices she’d made. But the need for change, for something new, something incredible, pulsed under her skin. It threatened to consume her, to melt away the armor she wore to keep everyone else out, to shed it like an old skin. The memory of the way he’d kissed her burned through her like the alcohol she drank, and her toes curled in her shoes.
Whatever the night ahead held, she was ready.
Chapter Eleven
Just when Jared thought Starla couldn’t possibly drink any more and remain upright, she drank more. But it was fine with him. If he’d ever met someone who deserved to let her hair down, it was her—he’d seen what the kind of scare she was going through had done to Shelly. Starla wanted to put on a tough front, pretend it was no big deal, but he saw those flashes of worry in her eyes when their conversation lulled, when her laughter stilled for a moment. He saw how she glanced up with a little start every time someone walked by their table, as if she expected it to be Max. And why shouldn’t she?
He absently stirred the ice in his sweet tea and thought about having a talk with Brian Ross himself. She’d kill him if he did, but that was only if she knew about it.
“I can’t eat another bite,” she proclaimed at last. Chuckling, he waved for the check, having reached that point long ago. She’d eaten like she’d been starving herself for days, and he felt like an asshole for having let her make dinner for him twice before returning the favor in some small way.
“We’ll do this again really soon,” he told her. “Promise.”
“Ooh, promises already. Careful with that.” She gave him a salacious wink as she swayed a bit beside him. Yeah, despite her impressive food consumption, the tequila had definitely gotten to her. He hoped he could get her in the truck.
When the check came, she offered to pay her share. Jared wouldn’t hear of it. “But the drinks—” she began, and yes, her drinks had cost more than the food, but still.
“Are my treat,” he finished for her.
“Thanks,” she said quietly, sinking into herself a bit.
“What’s the matter?”
“I didn’t really intend to get plastered on your dime.”
“Don’t worry about it. What do you want to do now?”
She stared at her empty margarita glass, and alarm shot through him when her bottom lip trembled slightly. “I don’t want to go home,” she said softly.
Then she fucking wouldn’t, if he had anything to say about it. “What’s going on at home?”
“Can we leave now?” She’d no sooner asked than the waitress dropped off his credit card slip. He signed quickly, adding the tip, then pulled Starla from their booth with an arm firmly around her waist. She didn’t seem to need the support, really, but he liked the feel of her at his side and, thankfully, she seemed to like the feel of him at hers. Her arm slipped around his waist and her thumb found the belt loop of his jeans; her scent teased at his senses as her long hair tickled his arm. She let him absorb a little of her weight as she shuffled along beside him and…
Dammit. He should have known he couldn’t go anywhere in this town without seeing someone he knew. Shelly’s sister, brother-in-law, and niece were sitting at the table nearest the door. Friggin’ hell. So much for ever convincing Shelly he wasn’t seeing someone—he and Starla were hanging on to each other like a couple of teenagers, and while he had zero complaints on that score, of course, he knew how it looked.
While he’d once shared holidays and special occasions with these people, those ties had been severed by the cruel ax fall of divorce, and he didn’t feel any obligation to go over and speak. They damn sure wouldn’t have walked over to greet him had the situation been reversed. But since he and Starla were already the object of his former sister-in-law’s chilly gaze, he acknowledged them with a wave. She returned it, but not happily. Jared urged Starla on out the door.
“Who was that?” she asked, having not missed the exchange.
“Former in-laws.” He hit the unlock button on his key chain remote.
“Oh. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
“She looked at me like she wanted to stab her fork through my eyeball.”
“Don’t worry about it. They never were the friendliest even when Shelly and I were married.”
“Ugh. I can’t stand a bitch.”
Jared chuckled. Starla definitely called them like she saw them, and he bet she hit the mark more often than she missed. “I can’t complain much about them. They’re good to the girls and always around to help Shelly out if she needs it.”
“But so are you, I’m sure. Who
’s around to help you out if you need it?”
“I don’t need it.”
“Everyone does sometimes.”
He held open the truck door for her, watching as she climbed carefully inside and mulling over her remark. A strong support system was in place for him. He still had his parents and one set of grandparents. Great friends. A comfortable life. Truly, if he hadn’t had all that, where would he be? Maybe he needed more than he liked to think. And maybe she was revealing more about herself than she thought.
Jared climbed in on his side, but instead of starting the truck, he looked at her. Admired the luminescent fall of her hair and the way it conquered the darkness pushing in around it. The pout of her generous lips. She’d tasted so good last night. He wanted to touch her again, but he didn’t dare—the feeling wasn’t unlike being told as a child not to touch an expensive vase, when all you wanted was to get your grubby hands on it. Feel its cool smoothness, its delicacy. But if you broke it, it would be your ass.
She was beautiful.
Tearing his gaze away when she seemed unwilling to meet it, he started his truck. “My place?”
“Okay.”
“You didn’t answer me before. What’s going on at your house?”
She sighed. “I think I mentioned my roommate and her deadbeat brother.”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“It’s so bad I’m thinking of moving. No, scratch that. I’m moving. As soon as I can.”
A slither of apprehension snaked through his veins. Jesus. First her job, and now her living situation? “Bad like how?”
“Fighting, mainly. This guy is a piece of shit. No job, no plans to get one. Drunk most of the time, or high, or something. My roommate doesn’t care if he lives on our couch and mooches off us forever. It’s getting ugly.” Suddenly, she growled with frustration and shoved her hair back from her face, holding it in place. “My God, all I do is dump problems on you. I’m a walking, talking, fucking train wreck. Honestly, you can take me home right now if you want to, and I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”
“I’m not doing that. Not unless you tell me to.”
She dropped her hands and met his gaze. The truck rumbled patiently and seconds ticked by while she stared at him. “I should. For your own damn good.”
“Don’t worry about my good.”
“I’m going to fix my problems. New job, new place to stay.”
He gave her one brief nod. “All right.”
“Seriously, I decided that last night. I’ll tell Brian soon—it’s just hard, you know? I mean…it’s like, when I’m not at work, it seems like the obvious solution, yeah, I need to do this, but when I’m there, and I know he’s back in his office and all I have to do is go in and tell him I’m out…I can’t make myself move.”
“You need a backup plan in place first, right? Somewhere else to go?”
“Yeah, but I want to tell him I’m leaving before I start looking. I don’t want to look for another job behind his back.”
“Gotcha.”
“It would help tremendously if I knew what the hell I wanted to do. I love what I do. Love it.” Such passion filled her voice that he didn’t doubt her for a second. “We have friends in Dallas who own a parlor. I’ve thought about going there before, but I don’t want to move that far. But I guess I need to shut up and do what I have to do, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s no reason you should do something that makes you unhappy. The idea is to improve things, right?”
“Right,” she said glumly.
“You should talk to Brian, Starla. There has to be another solution. You don’t want to leave that job. I can tell you don’t.”
“I don’t, but…”
“But what?”
She drew a deep breath, held it. Cast her gaze down at her lap. “Getting away from Brian Ross is the only way I’ll be able to move forward with my life.”
He wanted to be sympathetic. He wanted to offer comfort, assurance. But what came out was “Bullshit.”
Starla’s gaze snapped to his, her brows knitted above her dark eyes. He’d expected that anger. Damn if he was going to let it cow him. “I think I know better than you,” she bit out. “I told you we didn’t have to talk about these things if you’re—”
“No, I want to talk about it. Stop letting this dictate your life. He’s never going to love you. Face it. I had to. Macy is never going to love me. You get over it, and you move on.”
“Oh yeah? And that worked out for you how? You let Macy wreck your fucking marriage.”
“I did. I was weak, and I hurt a good woman, and now we have two little girls paying the price. So if you want to go that route, if you want to let this fester and eat at you and doom every relationship you have and every decision you make for the rest of your life, then be my guest. Been there. But I don’t recommend it.”
He glared hard at her as she jerked around and stared stonily through the windshield. “Take me home.”
“No.”
“You said you would.”
“You said you’d fix your problems. I’m giving you the best, the only solution. It’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, Starla. I know how hard it is to let go. I couldn’t. For years.”
“How?” she cried suddenly, and it ripped at his heart. “How do you let go when—they’re—they’re the only—one you’ve—” Sobs began punctuating her words, and finally she couldn’t finish. Jared lifted the console between them and scooted toward her, pulling her into his arms. She went, to his amazement—he’d expected her to resist, and he would have let her, would have taken her home if she insisted. Her tears soaked his shirt; her fists clutched at it now just as they had last night…only then, it had been passion driving her, not anguish. He leaned his cheek into her silky hair, stroking her shaking shoulders.
“Baby,” he murmured, and the endearment surprised even him as it slipped from his mouth. “He’s not the only one, okay? There will be someone else for you. But don’t do what I did. Make sure he’s right.”
Jared realized even as he said it that he didn’t like thinking about that hypothetical man. Someone else to hold her, to feel the warmth of her tears when she was sad and the blessing of her smile when she was happy. No. To hell with that. He didn’t know if he could be that person for her. He could try. He wanted to try. But if—God forbid—his own words about letting go of past hurts came back to bite him in the ass, if he destroyed her too, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. But he damn sure didn’t want anyone else getting the chance.
Chapter Twelve
After that embarrassing drunken display, Starla forced herself to remain dead silent on the way to Jared’s house. She felt raw, ripped open, exposed, and she didn’t like it. She, who had become an expert at keeping secrets for so long, had laid it all out there in front of someone who was scarcely more than a stranger to her. If she opened her mouth again, something else horrible and mortifying might pour out, and that scared her more than anything in the world right now.
But that would be good, wouldn’t it? Meet his fucking challenge, since he wanted to know it all. Tell him about the filthy things lurking in her soul, the rotting skeletons in her closet, then maybe he would realize she wasn’t worth his time and take her home.
Only she didn’t want to go home. Ever.
So she kept her mouth shut.
Night had fallen, black and absolute. No moon, no stars. Lightning flickered to the west—another spring storm about to blow in. If a tornado came through and blew her entire world away, she didn’t think she would complain too much. She would run away, make a fresh start somewhere else knowing there was nothing to run back to.
“He’s never going to love you.”
She knew it. She respected it. But Janelle, the only other bearer of the secret, had never flung it in her face so harshly. Janelle had only ever looked at her sympathetically or, at times pityingly—not that Starla often pined out loud about Brian to her frie
nd, but Jan knew her well enough to see when it was eating at her. She knew when Starla couldn’t take one more second of all the bright sunshiney vibes and rainbows and prancing fucking unicorns that illuminated Dermamania whenever the happy couple was about.
What scared Starla far more about Jared’s words was that the he in question would apply not only to Brian Ross, but to every man she ever met who was worth a damn. Like, maybe…the one sitting next to her now, who hadn’t uttered a word himself since they’d left the restaurant. He was probably thinking that if he had any sense, he’d take this fucking basket case home and never bother with her again. Why the hell did he want anything to do with her? He was a gorgeous man who, above all else, had his shit together. He could have his pick of hundreds of girls who had their shit together too. Macy was his ideal, for fuck’s sake. Macy! Rich, educated, well-dressed, perfectly coiffed Macy.
And Macy wanted a guy like Ghost. Jesus, what a tangled web.
“Storm coming in,” Jared commented, finally breaking the silence between them. Until that moment, the only sound had been the gentle roar of the truck’s engine. Even the radio was off. She had no distraction from the chaotic nature of her thoughts. For her, the storm was already here, in her head, in her heart. Her pulse was like thunder in her ears.
“The girls are afraid of thunder,” he went on conversationally, almost as if he were privy to her thoughts. “I always try to tell them it’s not the thunder but the lightning they should be concerned about. I don’t want to scare them, but I want them to respect the danger. They’ll probably be huddled in bed under the blankets tonight.”
“You must miss them so much when they’re gone,” she said, scrounging through her brain and forcing out the first appropriate thing that came to her.
“Oh yeah. I do. I don’t like not being there. Especially when I know they might be afraid.”
For some reason, that made her fucking eyes well up again. “Have you ever…” Her voice strangled on her, but she got it back under control, “…thought about working it out with their mom? For their sake?”
