Count on Me (Petal, Georgia)

by Lauren Dane

  He hated that she had to cancel a fun night with friends just when she was finally starting to build a life and community there in Petal. “I’m sorry… I know it’s unfair.”

  She sighed. “You were right. I don’t want to be the cause of anyone getting hurt. But now you’re stuck with me. You’re not going to want me at your place alone either. I could go with you to the Pumphouse, but honestly just thinking about going there tonight makes me a little nauseated.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. You and I are going home. We’re going to have dinner and I’ll let you try to beat me at Mario Kart again. Then we do lots of sexytimes.”

  She burst out laughing.

  Once they got back to the house, he checked out the inside, and once he’d done that, he headed out to make sure all the motion-detector lights were working while she started making dinner.

  Shep texted her that he’d been thinking a lot and wanted to get together to talk if she had time that weekend, and if not he’d talk to her on Thursday.

  It felt positive. He didn’t say much one way or the other but if he didn’t believe her, he’d just say so up front. Or drop the topic. Maybe argue? Certainly not mention a regular get-together if he was mad. Right?

  She’d been buttering the bread she was going to pop under the broiler when she heard the front door open up.

  “I just got dinner started. We had some chicken so I’m sautéing it now to get a good crust and then I’ll pop it into the oven.”

  “Okay.”

  He sounded odd so she looked up to find him coming into the room with her grandmother.

  Caroline hadn’t even been able to tell him about that part of her messed-up day yet. She looked to Royal. “Yeah so when you got back inside I was going to tell you I finally connected with my grandmother today. In the hall. Outside a court room.” It was a memory she’d cringe over forever.

  Her grandmother sniffed. “I don’t know what you expected. You’ve been avoiding me since the vulgar fistfight you got into at a restaurant in town.”

  “And as I said to you, I didn’t engage in a fistfight vulgar or otherwise. Garrett and his friend Benji started on us. In front of a crowd, so if you’d like to talk to one of a dozen or so people, let me give you their names. But no. You come down to my place of work, one of the few places in this town when I do not have to worry if I’m measuring up, a place I am respected, and you came in there and started an argument with me in front of the judge I had just argued a motion to. That was vulgar.”

  “You’ve done nothing but start fights and trouble since you came back to town. I’m really going to have to ask you to stop seeing Shep for a few months. I don’t like your influence on him.”

  “That’s not going to happen. He’s old enough to decide for himself. And yes, I’m fine thank you. I figure you came out here to check on me after my home was broken into and vandalized and then my car was vandalized today. You must know,” Caroline said, cutting off her grandmother’s avenue of escape, “since you came out here instead of to my apartment. I’m a little—no actually—a lot shaken up because my mother’s real killer is poking around trying to freak me out.”

  “You stop this right now.” Her grandmother’s gaze went so hard and sharp Caroline stepped back. “You will stop. Your father, Enrique Mendoza, killed your mother, my daughter, Bianca. He died in prison, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to see him take his last, tortured breath. Every time you tell someone that monster was innocent, it’s a slap to your mother’s memory. You don’t care about her. You never have. You were a selfish child and you’re a selfish adult. At least she’s not alive to see what a terrible person you’ve become. Stay away from my family.”

  Caroline stood there, utterly stunned into silence. Her grandmother’s mouth was set in a hard, angry line on her face. This was a woman who was implacable. There was no talking to her at this point. She’d decided Caroline was the enemy and would slash her as hard as she could to wound her so she could get away.

  And leave her shit hanging on Caroline to carry around like always, and Caroline was so done with that.

  “Anything to keep from admitting you might be wrong. Oh my God. For so many years I did all I could to make you love me. To make you see that I was still the same Caroline who used to make brownies in your kitchen. But you won’t. I can see that now. You will rip me apart to keep me from showing you you might have been wrong all these years. That man is out there right now, and that you would rather be here making me feel bad instead of working with me to catch him says so much about you. You need to be careful too.”

  “Is that some sort of threat?”

  “For heaven’s sake! No. It’s a warning that a crazy person is out there.”

  “You’re just like his people.” Her grandmother put her handbag strap firmly up on her shoulder once more. Arming herself. “Shep and Mindy were spared the contamination of his genes, but you got more of him than they did.”

  “Mrs. Lassiter, enough!” Royal interrupted. “Stop this. You’re saying a lot right now that you can’t take back. You need to think about the way you say before you say it. Furthermore I can’t allow you to stand in my kitchen and hurt Caroline.”

  “Get her out of your life before she wrecks it like she did ours.”

  Caroline ruthlessly shoved every last emotion down as far as she could.

  Royal stalked to the door and yanked it open. “You told me you wanted to make things up with her, and then you used that lie to come into my house and attack your granddaughter. I do think Bianca would be ashamed. But not of Caroline. Now get out of my house and off my land.”

  Abigail stalked out, and he watched until she got into her car before slamming the door, locking everything and turning to face her.

  Caroline was frozen. She felt like if she gave in to any one feeling that it might all go terribly bad. Royal approached her slowly, taking her upper arms. “Oh my God, sweetheart, I am so sorry. She told me she wanted to make up. I never would have let her in if I’d known.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Her tone was faint, but firm.

  “Caro? Talk to me. Tell me you hate me or that you want to punch me but don’t go all silent.”

  She shook it off with a deep exhale. “I don’t hate you. I love you. I’m just so horrified and embarrassed and angry and hurt and a whole lot of other things, but none of them are pleasant. I don’t know how to put it into words.”

  He pulled her into a hug, rubbing his hands up and down her back, slowly, soothing them both.

  Royal didn’t know how to make it better. How to fix it or make it right. He swayed with her there, her nose nuzzled in his shirt, head over his heart.

  “Just because someone shares your DNA doesn’t make them family, Caroline.”

  “I know.” She turned when the kitchen timer went off. “I need to flip the chicken. It feels like a gravy kind of night, what say you?”

  “Every night is a gravy kind of night.”

  He prowled around while she made dinner. Spike trotted along after Royal, making her laugh.

  They ate dinner and played Mario Kart and she totally lost. Again.

  Back in the bedroom after they’d closed everything down for the night, he’d come in and waggled his brows. “Well, Ms. Mendoza. I see you’ve lost in my gaming hall tonight. And yet you say you’re lacking funds. However will you pay your bill?”

  He hopped up onto the bed, and she followed, straddling his body. “I’ve been told I dust topless really well.”

  “Ms. Mendoza, everything you do topless you do well.”

  She started laughing, and he went in for the kill, raining kisses all over her neck and jaw all the while unbuttoning her pajama top.

  “I’m so glad you kept the beard.” She petted it, loving the way it felt. “It’s so sexy.”

  “Then I’m glad too. I like it when you pet me.”

  She kissed the top of his head as he continued to kiss her skin. He pushed the sleeves of her shirt down,
letting the fabric pool at her wrists.

  He slid his palms all over her upper body. From her throat down her chest, circling her nipples and then down to her belly and hips. “Course I like to pet you just as much.”

  She arched into his touch.

  He backed up enough to get his shirt off and returned, pulling her close, all that skin against all that skin. She sighed happily, snuggling into him.

  Somehow amidst arms and legs, they managed to get naked and back snuggling. It had started to rain, and the sound of it on the window made her feel better.

  He flipped them both onto their sides and kissed her slow. Heat began to tingle in her toes, seeping upward. Caroline gave back as much as he gave her, their tongues sliding against each other.

  His taste brought her home. Gave her a stillness inside that allowed her muscles to relax.

  “Let me love you, Caro,” he spoke, lips against hers.

  She relaxed utterly as he kissed her eyelids and her cheeks, her ears and her jaw. Down her neck as he breathed her skin in. Warm and sensual, like a perfume made just for him.

  He tasted her, loving her the way he knew she liked best. After he’d made her come, he made his way to the chair across the room and sat. He crooked his finger, and she moved to him, climbing into his lap and sliding her body down his cock.

  It was quiet but for the pounding of his pulse in his ears and the sound of ragged breath. Just Royal and Caroline in the dark. He’d know the weight of her, the feel of her mouth on his in the darkest of rooms.

  After another orgasm for her and one for him that hit so hard he nearly fell out of the chair, he carried her back to bed.

  She turned into his body when he got in with her. “I checked all the locks and the outdoor lights. Everything is secure.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed his chest and snuggled back in tight.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Royal watched Caroline kill it in her television spot. It was just three minutes, but she’d spent pretty much the entire week going over those one hundred eighty seconds.

  She had such a beautiful voice. A little husky in places where she was most emotional. Her Southern had returned in the two months she’d been back, and it worked for her.

  Caroline connected with the host and with the camera. She knew her cues, and the whole thing was over in a flash as she was escorted off, replaced by the new guest. The producer gave her some info and thanked her.

  “This calls for a fancy breakfast.” Melissa gave Caroline a big hug. “You did so well.”

  “I have many talents,” Caroline joked.

  Royal put his arm around her shoulders as they headed out.

  “I’m starved and in dire need of coffee.” Royal had opted for his Charger instead of his truck. He opened the passenger door, and Melissa slid into the back and Caroline got in the front.

  Her phone started to beep as they headed out of the main snarl of the city where the studio was located.

  “I most definitely vote yes on the Honey Bear.” Royal looked over briefly at his woman, so sexy he really wished they were alone.

  Melissa asked, “Do you feel better? I mean that you did this? No matter the outcome, you managed to do this. I’m proud of you and happy and sad too because I know this whole thing is rough, and oh man do I want to punch your grandma. Yes, I know that’s disrespectful and all that, but she is a terrible person.”

  “I’m relieved. Anxious still, but there’s only so much I can do and I’m doing it. Everyone has been so kind with all these offers to help.” Caroline smiled. “So yes, for this moment, I do feel better. Even if nothing comes of it.”

  They arrived in Petal, and he found a place to park just a few blocks from the Honey Bear. Melissa made them sit down and headed back to the kitchen to get some breakfast started.

  Caroline leaned on him. “Thank you for coming with me today.”

  “Darlin’, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  She smiled. “Look, I know you have work to do today.” He had work to do every day. A farm always had something that needed doing. It was amazing, how much work he did. “You can go back home. I’ll just walk to work and get some stuff done.”

  He frowned at her. “What on earth would ever lead you to think I’d do that? You took the entire day off work.”

  “Only because I wasn’t sure how I’d be afterward. Truly, I’m fine. There’s no reason for me to waste a day off.”

  “With what? Leisure?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have a job to do. A farm that needs running. You can’t spend all your time babysitting me.”

  “In the first place, I can do whatever I want. And in this case, I want to be with you. Yes, the farm needs running. But I’m not the only one who can do it. Everything that needed doing today is taken care of. That’s enough. We’ll eat and fill up and make sure Melissa is settled, and then you and I are going back to my place and spending the rest of the day in bed. Napping, fucking, reading. We’ll stop at the store on the way home for provisions.”

  How on earth could she refuse?

  Which is how she found herself naked in Royal’s bed eating ice cream from the carton and reading a novel.

  He snuggled up at her back, one of his hands on her hip.

  They’d had so much sex she had sore muscles in places she hadn’t known there were muscles in.

  Her skin smelled of him.

  “One of my favorite things is how I can smell you on my skin during the day.”

  He rustled, taking the ice cream and putting it off to the side and pulling her closer. “Yeah?”

  “I’ll be in court or off doing something, and I’ll move or shift and it hits me. Just a wisp of your scent on me.” It made her happy. “Like a talisman.”

  He kissed her neck. “I like that. I love coming back here for lunch, and when I first walk in, I see one of your sweaters on the back of a chair, or I catch a hint of your perfume in the bathroom. I like having you in my life every day.”

  “Man, you already got it. Four times.”

  He laughed and turned her to her back. “Never enough where you’re concerned. But you’re safe for now. I think I need to drink a few gallons of water to rehydrate after the last three hours.”

  “You make me laugh. Thank you for that.”

  He kissed her slow, and despite her satiated state, desire still rose when he touched her this way.

  “You make me happy.” He rested his forehead against hers before easing himself back to the bed. “I’m a pretty easygoing guy. My general mood tends toward affable.”

  She nodded, looking up at the way the late-afternoon sun cast sharp shadows on the ceiling. “It pleases me to be around you, and yes, part of that is this us thing that makes me happy, but you’re a positive person. It’s rarer than it should be.”

  “Thank you. But there’s happy and there’s happy. You know what I mean?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “I have a good life. My business is doing well, and that means I’ve managed to start pulling the farm into the next century. I have nice friends to hang out with. A house that fits me. I dated around and enjoyed things physically when an opportunity arose, and I wanted to accept it.”

  Caroline growled and he snickered.

  “So I had no complaints. I was happy and centered and successful, and then you. I turned my head and I saw you in the grocery store. I watched you contemplate just how you were going to get that box down, and it was like, wow, there’s a whole deeper kind of happy. Because I thought about you all the time until we finally managed to run into each other again—mainly because I was coming to town daily.”

  “Thank goodness. I do like a go-getter.”

  “And there was this connection. I tried to tell myself it was the newness of it. But I’ve dated before. Enough to know the difference between new-relationship excitement and this fifty-foot-high series of deep ocean waves that came with you. Exhilarating, that’s what it is. You’re powerful and
you have so much energy and it’s terrifying and sexy all at once. Knowing you’ll be what I see when I wake up each day makes me happy.”

  He went quiet as she lay there, happiness coursing through her, a smile on her lips.

  “You make me happy, Caro. In a way that I wasn’t craving because I had no idea it even existed until you.”

  “I’m pretty lucky you love me.” She rested her leg on him to touch more, be closer. She was lucky.

  “You’ve been having a time of it. You okay?”

  She blew out a breath. “This is all so overwhelming, and yet here you are, helping me through, making me believe I can do it.”

  “You have been doing it. For over a decade before I came into your life.”

  “Like I said, it’s different now. All the stuff I’ve learned how to do isn’t as useful at this point. I’m not a cop or an investigator. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in all this. I’m scared I’ll mess up. Scared of whoever it is out there who wants to hurt me.” That was the worst part. She hated being scared, and she’d gotten used to plowing through the world without fear. And in a matter of months, everything in her life had changed. Some, like the long, tall handsome man next to her, were good changes.

  Being scared made her feel helpless.

  So many aspects of this new reality with her mother’s murder were not only out of her hands, but something she just didn’t have enough of a handle on to feel super confident about.

  She wasn’t a wait-and-see sort of person. But now she had to be, and on top of that, she had this creepy-stalker deal going on.

  “Point taken. Things are different, yes. This isn’t a legal-system issue. You’re a rock star there, so I can understand why the shift is distressing. But you’re doing everything you can. Your friends are doing all they can. You have allies here at the Petal PD and over in Millersburg too.”

  “I’m trying to keep it all copacetic. Trying to remember I can’t control everything, and that people who are awesome at their jobs are helping. Most of the time it works. Right now so much is happening, and I’m so glad I took this afternoon off with you because I really needed to let go of all that out there and focus on what’s in here. This is the most relaxed I’ve been in a while. I can’t hide forever. I have stuff I really need to think about but not right at this moment.”