His velvety laugh warmed me from the inside out. “Well, be sure to enjoy these next few days of relaxation then. I have a feeling you’re going to miss them when they’re gone.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I decided to take his advice anyway and grabbed the remote to start an episode of Game of Thrones. If I was going to relax, I was going to make Jase do it with me.
* * *
Something jostled me, and I slowly blinked my eyes open. Sleep clung to my mind, refusing to completely let go. It wasn’t until I felt two strong arms wrap around me that I realized where I was and what was going on.
“Jase?”
“Shh, baby. Go back to sleep.”
He lifted me off the couch and started toward the stairs. “I can walk. You don’t have to carry me,” I argued weakly while shoving my face into the crook of his neck. He was just so warm and his scent was too damn appealing. I couldn’t help myself.
His body shook gently with quiet laughter. “I like holding you like this. And, judging by the way you’re snuggling into me, it seems you like it right where you are.”
I didn’t bother putting up more of a fight because he wasn’t wrong. I liked where I was very much, and I was too sleepy to care or be embarrassed that he’d noticed. “You’re just so big and cuddly,” I muttered, my sleep-addled voice coming out slightly slurred.
“You have no idea how fucking sweet you are,” he grunted under his voice. If I’d been completely awake I was sure those words would have made me shiver all over with pleasure, but I was already drifting back off, having difficulty telling reality from dream.
“Mmm,” I hummed, burrowing deeper into him. “Like a big, muscly teddy bear who smells like . . . a man. And the woods.”
His chest rumbled with humor. “A man and the woods?”
“Yup. Mm hmm.” I nodded against the soft cotton of his shirt. “A man and the woods. Like a sexy lumberjack . . . in a suit.”
“Christ, Flower, you’re incredible, you know that? Crazy beautiful and absolutely perfect.” I felt the softness of the mattress and let out a happy sigh. “Jase Hyland,” I mumbled as I slipped further and further out of consciousness. “You’re my favorite person ever.”
Then sleep won out.
Chapter Thirteen
Jase
Fuck, but Poppy was something else.
Those last slurred, mumbled words played over and over in my mind as I stood beside her bed, watching her sleep.
Jase Hyland. You’re my favorite person ever.
It felt like I’d been hit in the gut with a two-by-four.
Farah had been the only one to ever feel like that about me, and with Cannon in her life now, I’d been shoved back a spot. Relegated to second place.
Loved but not needed.
Wanted but unnecessary.
My parents’ cruel, callous words rang in my ears.
“Why would anyone ever love a pathetic waste like you?”
“All you’ve ever done is suck the life out of me. I wish I’d never had you.”
“You’re a goddamn disappointment. An embarrassment to the Hyland name.”
“You’re no son of mine.”
All my life, all they’d ever done was tear me down. “It builds character,” my father would tell me when I was younger. “You’ll thank us when you’re grown, when you’re strong enough to stand up for yourself so no one can ever walk on you.”
He’d been full of shit. Over and over, those words had slammed into me like a wrecking ball, and each time they’d taken a little piece of me. Only now, as I thought back on those vicious words, Poppy’s voice followed right after, as sweet and smooth as fresh honey.
Jase Hyland. You’re my favorite person ever.
And just like that, she drowned out the ugliness swirling around inside my head.
The longing to pull the covers back and join her in that big bed, curling her against me and holding on tight was almost too strong to resist.
My cell starting ringing from inside my pants pocket just then, the sharp sound piercing through the silence.
Poppy stirred, her sweet little snores stopped as her eyelids slowly fluttered open. “Jase?”
“Shh, baby.” Bending at the waist, I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, wishing so much it was her mouth. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She was fading again as soon as her head hit the pillow. “Mmm. Night, honey.” Then she was out.
I moved from her room quickly, that endearment hitting me in the chest and spreading out so wide it was a struggle to breathe. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled the phone out as I started down the stairs and swiped the screen to answer. “Hey Ben. What’re you doing calling me this late? Shouldn’t you be all loved up with Myra right about now?”
He let out an annoyed grumble. “That woman. Swear to the Lord above, son. Ever since that sister of yours reined her in to help plan your last-minute weddin’, she hasn’t had a single moment for me.”
He could bitch and complain all he wanted, but we both knew he was full of it. He’d come to Connecticut looking for work years back. He found that work when my grandfather hired him as his driver, but he never had any intention of staying for long. Then my sister and I came along. Bennett, being the good man he was, knew neither of my parents were fit to raise a kid. He’d stuck around initially to keep an eye on us and eventually turned into the only parent either of us would ever have. Together, the three of us formed a family, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave us.
When Farah packed up last year and moved to his old hometown, we’d come for a visit. It was happenstance that, during that trip, he’d run into an old flame from the past, a woman he’d been carrying a torch for all those years.
The sparks between Myra and him were rekindled almost instantly, and he’d made the decision to move back to Redemption for good. Now the two of them were married and happier than ever.
“So is that why you’re calling?” I asked, humor tangled around my words as I moved through the house, checking the locks on all the windows and doors and shutting out the lights. “To complain your wife isn’t paying you enough attention? The wedding’s Saturday. Only a few more days and you’re home free.”
“Wish that was why I was callin’, son.”
The sudden seriousness of his tone immediately put me on high alert. “What’s going on, Bennett?”
He blew out an audible breath, and I could just imagine him rubbing the top of his head, something he did whenever he was frustrated. It was a move I’d seen a lot growing up whenever Farah or I did something to drive him crazy. “Know it’s late, Jase. But I need you to get over to the house. We need to talk, and I’d rather it be in person.”
“You’re starting to worry me, man. What’s this all about?”
What he said next made the blood turn to ice in my veins. “It’s about your parents.”
I stopped walking mid-stride, my limbs suddenly feeling like they were mired in drying cement. I was frozen from the inside out, barely able to hear Bennett over the sound of blood rushing in my ears and the manic pounding of my heart. “What about them?”
Then he dropped the bomb. “Pretty sure they’re here, bud.”
* * *
One of the benefits of small-town living was that it took no time at all to travel from point A to point B. It was only a ten-minute drive from the inn to Bennett and Myra’s place, but I managed to shave five minutes off of that by breaking every road law known to man.
Their front door opened as soon as I turned in, my headlights illuminating the driveway. Bennett stepped onto the front porch with Myra trailing right behind him. As soon as he came to a stop, she tucked herself beneath his arm, the two of them watching me with unsettled expressions on their faces.
Myra moved from Bennett’s hold as I climbed the steps , and came to me, lifting up to press a kiss to my cheek. “Hey, sweetie. Good to see you.”
“Good to see you too, sweethea
rt.” I returned her affectionate look, unable to help myself in the presence of her sweetness.”
“Come on, son. Let’s go inside.”
I didn’t want to go inside. I didn’t want to delay for one more goddamn second, but I had too much respect for Bennett to do anything but move into the house as ordered. He was the one to raise me, after all, and he’d been the one to instill that respect in me. He’d damn well earned it as well. He’d shown me the man I wanted to be, not the one that was expected. He’d led me to the right path and gave me the tools and encouragement I needed in order to walk down it on my own. I still struggled to stay on that path, but without him, I’d have been so lost in darkness I never would have been able to find it.
The door closed behind me, and I was hit with that familiar, calming smell I’d long since come to associate with Bennett. The man was an avid reader—he’d read anything and everything, but had a preference for murder-mysteries—and had kept every single hardcover and paperback he’d ever read. His beloved, well-worn books filled the bookshelves lining both sides of the fireplace, as well as the ones in his office and the bedroom. There was always a stack resting on the small table by his favorite chair and on his nightstand.
In this day of technology, he’d held firmly to his old-school roots, insisting the only way to read a book was to physically hold it in his hand.
I could smell the leather from his more expensive collections and his few precious first additions and make out the faint musty scent of the old pages; it was like stepping into the closest thing I’d ever had to a home. It was a smell of comfort, of joy. It was a smell that reminded me of the very few good memories I had growing up, all because of him.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Myra asked once I settled on the couch in the living room. “I could make you a sandwich. Or I could put on a pot of coffee.”
“I’m good, honey. But thanks.”
She looked from me to Bennett who’d taken a seat in the big, worn leather chair across from me, the chair that was always and forever designated his. No one who entered his sanctum was ever to sit in that chair. Her face was marred with concern as she tangled her fingers together in front of her.
“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “I’ll just leave you two to it, then.”
Bennett gave his wife a gentle smile. “Thanks, darlin’.”
She moved to parts unknown, leaving the two of us alone to talk, and I got right to it. “All right, I’m here,” I said, impatience saturating my words and making my jaw tick. “Now tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Got word from an old pal last week that your folks up and fell off the map. Didn’t think much of it at the time, what with them unable to afford that big, glitzy house anymore . . .” He gave me a look, part humor, part disapproving father before carrying on. “Been keepin’ my eyes peeled and ears to the ground since that whole thing went down. Then after gettin’ that call, I reached out to a crew here.”
“What crew?”
“Whitman Rose’s boy, Jensen. Old man was as mean as a snake, but he raised a good kid. Just got out of the Army and came back home. A couple of his buddies came with him. They got skills from their time in the service, Special Ops, and started up a small security business in town, so I put in a call, had them do some diggin’ around.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Spotted a swank Mercedes cruisin’ through town. Didn’t fit in. People around here noticed. Also noticed the older man and—this is a direct quote—'a woman with more Botox than sense’ didn’t fit in either.”
“Fuck,” I hissed, leaning forward to brace my elbows on my knees. I raked my hands through my hair, giving it a tug of frustration. “What the fuck are they doing here? For all they know, I’m in Nashville, not Redemption.”
“Can’t say for certain. Way I figure it, they just assumed you’d want to be close to your sister. They know how protective you are of her. Hell, son, you took beatings in her stead she doesn’t even know about.”
“And she never will,” I said on a growl, red starting to seep into my vision. “Farah’s finally got the life she deserves. She’s happy. She doesn’t need to know any of that shit.”
He gave me that disapproving scowl again. This was something he and I had argued about for years. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million damn times, boy, it’s not on you to carry the burdens of the past on your shoulders alone.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I muttered, casting my gaze to the side as the memories came rushing through my mind like a dam bursting, leaving shame in their wake. “That’s all over and done with. It’s in the past, so no point in rehashing it.”
“Really?” he clipped, agitation dripping from that one word so thick I could taste it. “’Cause it seems to me, it’s still very much in the present.”
My head shot back around, and I skewered him with a glare. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn good and well what it means, Jase. You ate their shit for thirty-five years of your life, lettin’ it seep into your skin and fester until it consumed you. You know, there are healthy relationships out there. Look at your sister and Cannon. Hell!” He threw his arms out at his sides. “Look and me and Myra. You claim that shit’s in your past, yet you’re gettin’ married to a good woman on Saturday, and the whole damn thing’s a lie!”
“Jesus,” I barked, shooting to my feet. I began to pace the length of the floor as a million different emotions—most all of which were unwelcome—took root inside me. “Why the hell are we talking about this?”
“Because you’re so bogged down by the shit those goddamn parents of yours beat into your head that you don’t see what’s right in front of you!” Bennett bellowed, rising from his chair and stepping in front of me so we were chest to chest, nose to nose. “Jesus Christ! Do you even realize what you’re doin’? If you stopped and looked for just one second, one goddamn second, you’d see that the woman you’re about to tie yourself to could actually make you happy if you gave her a shot.”
Something ugly and vicious began creeping up my throat, squeezing so tight it cut off the air I needed to fill my lungs. Panic had set in, sinking its talons deep in my chest and leaching its poison through my whole body. “It’s not like that,” I croaked. “What’s happening with Poppy and me, it isn’t that. We’re friends. It’s a business arrangement, for Christ’s sake!”
The words felt necessary, and I needed the shield they offered, but that didn’t mean I didn’t hate each and every one of them as they spewed past my lips. There was a part of me that rebelled against the thought of Poppy being only a tool in this whole godforsaken scheme. But another part of me, a much larger part led by the fear that had me in its unforgiving grip, wouldn’t allow myself to admit that she’d become so much more.
I couldn’t . . . I just couldn’t do it.
Sadness washed through his features, making him suddenly look so much older than his years. “Breaks my heart to see you do this to yourself,” he said in a low, agonized whisper. “You aren’t what those miserable fucks made you believe you are, son.”
I was officially done. I needed to end this conversation before it twisted me up more. As it was, the high I’d been riding after holding Poppy and hearing those sweet words was long gone. As much as I’d hated it, I needed the reminder that the world I’d been living in the past couple weeks was nothing more than a fantasy. Reality had slapped me in the face, and the blow had been necessary.
Forcing my attention back to Ben, I swallowed down the lump that had formed in my throat and asked, “We done here? It’s late and I should get back to the inn.”
He shook his head gravely. “See, that’s my point right there. Back to the inn. You’ve been livin’ there for weeks, and you can’t bring yourself to call it home.”
“That’s enough, Benny.” Myra stepped into the room just then, a stern look aimed at Bennett.
“But darlin’—”
She lift
ed her hand, and his mouth instantly clamped shut. “You said your piece, now it’s done. Beatin’ a dead horse won’t do anything but cause frustration.”
He wanted to argue, I could see it written all over his face. But when Myra spoke, that was it. The way she had the big, brawny man wrapped around her little finger was a sight to behold. Bennett never dared do anything that could possibly upset his woman.
My gaze returned to Bennett. “You hear anything else about those two, you let me know right away, yeah?”
He nodded resolutely. “Will do.”
I tipped my chin and started toward the door, pausing beside Myra to place a kiss on her cheek.
“You’re a good man, Jase,” she whispered in my ear before I pulled back. “A very good man. And one of these days you’ll see that.”
The smile I gave her didn’t come anywhere near my eyes. “Thanks, sweetheart. Talk soon.”
“You will,” Bennett reaffirmed.
“We’ll see you Saturday, love,” Myra added.
With that, I exited their house, climbed into my car, and headed back for the inn with a familiar, miserable weight sitting firmly on my chest.
Once again, Geoffrey and Margo Hyland had managed to cast their shadow over the light in my life, whether they were close or not.
Chapter Fourteen
Poppy
Something had changed. Jase had been acting different for the past few days. I could feel him starting to pull back, and as much as I told myself it was fine, that it was probably for the best, I couldn’t help but be saddened by the sudden rift I felt forming between us.
It had started the morning after Jase had tucked me into bed. Usually, when I woke up and headed for the kitchen, I’d find him already there, having just gotten in from an early morning run. He’d be standing at the counter, enjoying a cup of coffee as the kettle for my tea heated on the stove.
Crazy Beautiful: a Redemption novel Page 10
