Come Back Home Again (Hope Valley Book 2)

by Jessica Prince

  Nothing on TV helped me get out of my head enough to relax, so I wandered into my kitchen and began rummaging through the pantry and fridge. An hour and a half later, I had a round, double-layer chocolate cake frosted and sitting on my kitchen island. I’d gone through the whole process of baking a cake without ever really engaging my brain. It was a task to keep myself busy, and for the most part, it worked.

  But with nothing else to bake, I headed back into the living room and snatched up my e-reader, hoping against hope that I could lose myself in one of my romances.

  I was three chapters in and couldn’t remember a single thing that had happened on any of the pages when I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive.

  Shooting to the window, I threw back the curtain and lifted the blinds I’d closed earlier. The headlights of Hayes’s silver Sequoia beamed over the front of the house as it traveled up the lane.

  Dropping the curtain back into place, I headed for the front door, unlocked and opened it, and stood just inside the storm door, watching as he parked in front of the house and killed the engine.

  It was only a little after four in the morning, so the sky was still completely black, and the chill from the night air seeped in. I was still in my nightie from earlier, but I’d shrugged on one of Hayes’s flannel shirts as a makeshift robe and put a pair of thick wool socks on my feet. However, the added layers did nothing to ward off the shiver.

  “Christ, angel,” he grumbled unhappily as he rounded the hood of his truck and started for the front porch. “It’s fuckin’ freezing out here. The hell are you thinkin’ standing in the door in practically nothing?”

  I brushed off his heated words, pushing the storm door open once he was at the top step. “I was thinking my guy’s probably just had the night from hell and I wanted to greet him at the door, not wait for him to get inside just so I can stay warm.”

  Hayes’s mouth was pulled into a thin line on his hard-as-stone face. His hand came up and pressed against my belly, gently forcing me back as he stepped into the house, letting the storm door slam shut behind him and kicking the front door closed.

  “I told you to keep this locked,” he grunted. “That means not openin’ it and standing there like a goddamn bullseye.”

  Something was very, very wrong. I felt it like acid in my belly, eating away at me. “I knew it was you,” I answered, my voice quiet and small. “I looked out the window first to be sure. I promised you I wouldn’t open any of the doors until you were home, and I didn’t.”

  He shrugged off his leather jacket, tossing it haphazardly over the couch instead of putting it in the hall closet. Then he ran a hand through his hair and let out a heavy sigh. “Look, I’m beat. I need to catch a couple hours before heading back to the station.”

  I wanted to argue, to push him to tell me what was wrong so I could try and fight back the shadows currently clouding his eyes, but he’d just spent the past four and a half hours dealing with a murder, and he looked exhausted. He said he’d tell me what happened when he got home, but now wasn’t the time. My man had crime to fight later today. I needed to let him rest.

  “Okay,” I whispered, stepping out of his way so he could pass. I followed after him, my heart heavy with each footfall as we climbed the stairs and went down the hall to the bedroom. “Do you need anything?” I asked as he stripped down to his boxer briefs and all but collapsed into the bed face first.

  “Just sleep,” he muttered.

  Leaving him be, I moved through the house, extinguishing every light upstairs and down. By the time I made it back to the bedroom, I could hear his small, chuffing snore and see the steady rise and fall of his back. I turned out the lights and quietly moved around to my side of the bed, slipping off the socks and flannel before climbing in carefully so as not to disturb him. I’d just gotten settled when the bed shifted. I felt the weight of his arm as it looped around my waist, then the heat of his chest when he pulled me into him and tucked me tight to his body.

  Moments later, those soft snores returned, his breath evened out, and his weight pressed into me as sleep took over.

  It took me a few minutes to shake off the unease still resting like a stone in my belly, but I eventually managed to doze off as well.

  Hayes

  Harley’s naked, stab riddled body lay on the floor, surrounded by blood. Christ, so much fucking blood the air smelled like iron. Her eyes lifeless blue eyes felt like they were watching me everywhere I stepped.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, crouching low. Lifting my hand, I brushed the matted hair from her forehead. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” I repeated, using my fingers to lower her eyelids, hoping it would help put her to rest.

  Those eyelids suddenly popped back open, but they were no longer lifeless, and they no longer belonged to Harley.

  The air around me began to shift and spark, and suddenly, in Harley’s place lay Tempie, her body broken and bleeding all over the floor.

  “This is all your fault,” she said in a low, scratchy voice.

  My blood turned to ice, and it suddenly became hard to breathe. “Tempie.”

  “You should have saved me Hayes. You should have saved me!”

  My eyes shot open and I pulled in a harsh breath, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard it ached.

  The moonlight poured into the room, and I looked across the bed at Tempie’s sleeping form. Her face was soft and relaxed in sleep, her back rising and falling steadily.

  She was okay. My Tempie right here with me, safe and alive.

  Thank fucking Christ.

  I rolled to my back, lifting my hands and digging the heels of my palms into my eyes to try and rid myself of the horrendous visions currently burned on the backs of my lids.

  “Jesus,” I grunted,” feeling cold down to my marrow.

  “Hayes?” Tempie’s gentle, sleepy voice pulled me from my melancholy. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, angel,” I lied. “Everything’s fine.”

  Her warm body shifted closer and her arm wrapped around my stomach. I wasn’t sure when I’d moved in the night, disengaging from around her. In all the nights we’d spent together we’d fallen asleep and woken up tangled in each other.

  She pressed as close to me as she could, holding tight. “You sure?”

  I shifted into her, needing to feel her to shake off that terrible dream. My arms locked in place so she couldn’t get away as I settled back and tried to get comfortable.

  “Yeah, baby. I’m good. Go back to sleep.”

  She eventually drifted back off, but I wasn’t so lucky. Instead, I laid there, holding onto her as I stared up at nothing until the sun eventually started to rise over the mountains with the start of a new day.

  Temperance

  He’d had another.

  He wouldn’t admit it or talk to me about it, but in the three days that had passed since Harley Madison’s murder, he’d woken up with a jerk, breathing hard and trembling uncontrollably.

  There’d also been a massive shift in his behavior in that time. If he wasn’t distant or distracted he was short and usually in a bad mood. I’d let it slide by, knowing it couldn’t be easy dealing with not only two murders, but also the death of someone he’d been intimate with. Sure, he didn’t care much for her, but that didn’t make it any easier knowing she was dead. And to hear it around town, she’d died very badly.

  When I woke earlier this morning he’d still been asleep. After so many nights of working ungodly hours, not to mention coming home and suffering through restless sleep broken by bad dreams, I knew how exhausted he must have felt, so I’d left him in the bed and come down to make him some breakfast.

  The coffee was brewing, the biscuits were just about done, and the sausage gravy was bubbling on the stove when I heard Hayes’s muffled shout of “Fuck” come from upstairs. A second later I heard the thud of his feet hurrying across the bedroom, then the shower cutting on.

  I’d only just gotten the biscuits out of the o
ven and his plate made when he shot into the kitchen like a hurricane a few minutes later. His jeans and shirt were on, both unbuttoned, and his blazer was hanging over his arm. He placed his gun, holster, and badge on the island, then worked on doing up his cuffs, water droplets falling from his hair onto his starched collar. I barely had time to appreciate him in all his masculine glory when his eyes shot to me and he demanded, “Why the hell’d you let me sleep in?”

  At the anger in his words, I stopped short of rounding the counter to give him a kiss and froze with my mouth hanging open. “I—” My head swiveled to the clock on the microwave. “It’s barely eight in the morning, honey. You haven’t been sleeping well. You needed to a couple more hours, that’s all.”

  He finished with his cuffs and started the on buttons along his chest. “That wasn’t your goddamn call to make,” he continued griping as he shoved the hem of the shirt into his jeans, did them up, and started threading a black leather belt through the loops.

  “Hayes.” I came unstuck from the floor and closed the distance between us, placing my palms on his chest. “I was just trying to help. You’ve barely gotten any rest the past few days. I woke up and you were out. All I wanted to do was give you a little more time, so I decided to come down here and make you breakfast before you had to head out again.”

  “I don’t have time for breakfast. Got shit to do.”

  His holster and gun went to his right hip, and he clipped his badge to the front left on his belt.

  “You have to eat,” I insisted as he slung his blazer around and slid his arms into the sleeves. Persistence wasn’t working, so I went for a different tactic. “Baby, I know you’ve been having nightmares. You didn’t even have five full hours of sleep last night. You need some sort of fuel.”

  “I’ll make a cup of coffee.”

  “That’s not enough. You need—”

  “For fuck’s sake, Temperance!” he bellowed. “Get off my goddamn back!”

  I stumbled back so fast that my hip bumped into the counter, knocking off a glass of orange juice I’d poured for him earlier and set too close to the edge. Juice spilled all over, and glass shards went flying around my feet.

  Hayes hissed, “Goddamn it,” and started to bend.

  “No,” I snapped, my tone so harsh it made him stop. “Leave it.”

  “Tempie, you’re barefoot. There’re glass all over—”

  “I said leave it.” I clipped. “I don’t give a shit about the glass. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Christ.” He shook his head in frustration. “I told you. I don’t have—”

  “You don’t have time. I know, you’ve said that so many times the past three days I’ve lost count, but you haven’t been yourself since you walked through that door the other night. Something’s wrong. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

  He braced his palms on the counter like all the energy had drained out of him and he needed the leverage to stay upright. “What happened is someone broke into Harley Madison’s house and stabbed her so many times her body was practically torn in ribbons.”

  My skin went cold and I could practically feel the blood draining from my face as I sucked in a gasp. “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah,” Hayes clipped. “Think of what your definition of brutal is, then multiply that by about a thousand and you probably still wouldn’t be able to comprehend what I saw the other night.”

  “Honey—”

  “So excuse the fuck outta me if I don’t feel like comin’ home and reliving that horror show with you.”

  But that wasn’t what this was about. There was something much deeper and darker playing inside of him, and I’d be damned if I let it take root and fester. So help me god, I was going to dig it out of him so he could heal, whether he liked it or not.

  “I’m not asking you to recount all the gory details, Hayes. I’m just asking you to talk to me. This is clearly weighing on you, and I just want to help. I want to be here for you. Talk to me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”

  “Not really feelin’ up to pourin’ my heart out here, Tempie.”

  My adrenaline had spiked, making my whole body shake as I fought back the need to burst into tears or yell and pound on his chest until I finally broke through. “This isn’t us,” I whispered. “This isn’t what we do. We don’t shut each other out. We talk to each other.”

  A rough, sardonic bark of laughter burst past his lips. “That’s rich, comin’ from the woman who lit outta town like her ass was on fire without a single word or reason for twenty-one fuckin’ years.”

  The tears that had been burning behind my eyes did their best to push through, but I somehow managed to fight them back.

  “That’s the last time you throw that in my face,” I said with quiet rage. “You understand me? The last time.” His whole frame jerked back, and I could see the regret written all over his face. But I refused to stand there and be insulted. “You want to be an asshole?” I asked, reaching across the island and grabbing a dishtowel with jerky movements. “Have at it, but I won’t be your punching bag.” With that, I dropped to my knees and began cleaning up the mess I’d made.

  “Tempie, stop.” He lowered to the floor as well and tried to reach for me, but I pulled back and kept working, gathering up the large pieces of glass. “Damn it, angel. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

  My head shot up, and I skewed him with a vicious glare. “What do you care? You said you need to leave, so leave.”

  “Tempie, look I—”

  “Ow!” I was so mad that I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, and a piece of glass sliced into my palm. “Shit.”

  “Fuck, baby.” Hayes reached for me and grabbed my hand. “Here, let me look at it.

  “Let me go,” I demanded, trying to give the injured hand a jerk and hissing when the cut burned with the strain.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Hayes grunted. His fingers gripped mine tighter, as he stood, wrapping his other hand around my arm and gingerly helping me up. Then he grabbed my waist and lifted me over the remaining glass, not putting me on my feet until I was standing at the sink.

  “I’m fine, Hayes,” I said, trying to get free again as he turned on the water and pulled my palm beneath to rinse the cut.

  His eyes came to mine and all the anger from earlier was gone, replaced with remorse. “Please,” he said quietly, “just stop fighting me and let me take a look.” I stood in silence as he washed and examined the cut with a gentleness I wouldn’t have expected from a man as big and strong as he was. “It doesn’t look so bad.”

  He finally released my hand, and I shut off the water and grabbed a paper towel. “I told you so.”

  “Look, angel. I’m sorry, I just—”

  “We promised each other a fresh start,” I blurted out, unable to hold the words back any longer. “No more living in the past, remember?”

  “I remember,” he replied quietly.

  “I’ll be damned if I let you pull us back there whenever you’re hurting, Hayes.”

  “Tempie—”

  “We talk,” I cut in. “That’s what we do. You have a bad day, so bad it gets to the point that it plagues your sleep, to the point it eats at you and changes you, you talk to me. I told you before, it’s my job to make it safe for you in here, to have your back when shit gets so deep you feel you can’t dig yourself out from beneath it. And that includes putting you in your place when you start to act like a raving jackass. I’m here for you. No matter what, Hayes, I’m here. But you will not walk on me when you’re struggling. I won’t allow it, just like I wouldn’t expect you to let me walk all over you. Understand?”

  “Angel—”

  “If something’s still so fresh in your mind you can’t talk to me about it, you say that.”

  “Baby, I tried—”

  “No, you shut down and closed me out. There’s a difference. I asked, and you slammed a wall down between us. You didn’t say, ‘Angel, this is all just too much for me right now. I l
ove you, and I’ll talk to you eventually, but right now I just can’t.’ You got all grunty and short and just expected me to listen. And you’ve been doing that for days. That shit is not gonna fly.”

  By the time I finished my rant, I was so heated that I almost missed the way Hayes’s lips were pulling up at the corners. Almost.

  Narrowing my eyes into slits, I hissed, “Are you seriously laughing at me right now?”

  “No,” he lied, then busted into a full-blown belly laugh, throwing his head back while his arm shot out and pulled me forward until I crashed into him.

  His arms locked around me like steel bands and his face burrowed into my neck until his laughter finally tapered off. Which took a while.

  When his head finally came back up, the shadows that had been in his eyes were fading. They still lingered, but they were nowhere near as prominent, and that rock in the pit of my stomach began to lighten.

  Reaching up, I cupped his scruffy jaw and asked, “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah.” The humor fled from his expression, regret taking over. “Tempie, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he insisted, lowering his forehead to mine. “It’s really fuckin’ not. I had no business sayin’ what I—”

  My hand shifted to cover his mouth. “I forgive you,” I declared. “You apologized, I forgave you, and now it’s done. We had an argument, then we got past it. Don’t hold on to this, Hayes. You’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

  He closed his eyes and I felt his chest rise with a deep inhale. “I hate that this is happening. I hate that I can’t find the asshole killin’ people in my town, and I fuckin’ hate that I feel like I can’t keep you or anyone else safe.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” I exclaimed, leaning deeper into him, wrapping my arms around his waist and giving his big body a little jostle. “None of it is on you.”