The Beard Made Me Do It (The Dixie Warden Rejects Book 5)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Her brows furrowed.

  “I would never,” she snapped. “It took me three freakin’ years to move on, and even then I sabotaged my own relationships. I couldn’t get over you!”

  “Does Mason Lyens ring any freakin’ bells?” I shot back.

  Her brows rose.

  “The boy that graduated with you? The one that you got into a fight with me over?” She pursed her lips, and those cute little lines between her eyebrows furrowed. “The one with the blonde hair and green eyes? The football player?”

  I nodded, gut tight.

  “That one.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, what about him?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm down.

  “You were with him,” I accused her. “When I came back, you were in his car, hugging him.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “This car?” she hissed, walking to the window and slamming the blinds down with her fingers, revealing the car that’d been rubbed in my face since I’d first seen her driving it.

  My eyes flicked to the road, and my throat went tight.

  “Yeah, that one.”

  The thought of her still driving his car, the one that I’d envied in high school, was enough to drive a freakin’ stake straight through my heart.

  Each time I saw her get in and out of it was enough to remind me exactly why I should stay away from her.

  Anger overtook Ellen’s usually calm features, and she launched herself at me.

  I caught her easily, stopping the right hook that she had aimed at my jaw with one hand, but caught an elbow to the forehead when she lifted up with the other.

  I grunted and caught her around the middle, restraining her arms down at her sides so she couldn’t throw any more blows.

  “I was buying that car so I could get to you, asshole!” she screamed, her voice hitting an octave that shouldn’t have been possible. “I was coming to you!”

  My mouth dropped open.

  My surprise didn’t stop her, though. No, she let me have it with both barrels.

  “Seriously, it’s like you never knew me. Like you didn’t care like you said you cared,” she hissed. “You don’t care what kind of a mess you left me in fourteen years ago. All you care about is your own fucking self. You don’t even have the balls to apologize. I left Sean because of you. I liked Sean. But the minute you showed up, my whole freakin’ world changed. I couldn’t lie to Sean. I couldn’t continue to live that lie. I’ve loved you since I was a senior in high school. That’s fourteen years, Jessie!”

  The raw emotion in her voice was hard for me to hear.

  The bad thing was that when emotions started to swirl, I got angry. I couldn’t and didn’t handle them well, so I lashed out.

  “You don’t think I know that, Ellie?” I countered. “You don’t think that was the hardest decision of my life? Because, let me just tell you something. It was. I regret that mistake every single second that I fucking breathe. Seeing you that first day I pledged to the club, it broke me. I was holding on by a thread, and there you come, waltzing right back into my life when I was barely breathing to begin with.”

  Then she collapsed, and I nearly fell forward when she gave me every single bit of her weight.

  Her body shook in racking sobs, and I dropped down to my knees, doing the only thing I could at that moment in time. Hold her.

  “I texted you every day when you first left. And then I’ve been pouring my heart out to you in texts for fourteen years.”

  My eyes closed.

  “I read every single message.”

  She just cried harder.

  Chapter 9

  I want someone to look at me the way I look at bacon.

  -Ellen’s secret thoughts

  Jessie

  We fell asleep that way, her head on my shoulder, and my arm curled tightly around her waist.

  We’d done this exact move countless times. Though now, with fourteen years between us, it felt so different.

  I knew we needed to talk. Knew it, but the feel of her in my arms made me feel like I was home for the first time in five thousand, one hundred and ten days.

  And yes, I’d counted.

  I was a fucking fool in love. Had been for fourteen years and would be for the next fourteen.

  ***

  When I woke up, she was gone.

  I assumed she was in the other room, so I got in the shower to rinse off the day.

  When I came back out, it was to find only Tally, Imogen, and Verity in the kitchen. Ellen and Naomi nowhere in sight.

  “Where are the other two?” I asked.

  Verity, Truth’s wife, was the one to answer.

  “I know that Ellen left in her car about an hour ago,” she said.

  I stiffened at hearing that Ellen had left.

  “As for Naomi, I assumed she was in her room.”

  She was eyeing me like I’d done something terribly wrong, and I instantly knew that they knew about me and Ellen.

  They might not know the whole story, but they knew enough to put two and two together.

  The clubhouse was big, but the walls were thin. They’d likely overheard what we’d discussed. Mostly because neither Ellen nor I had kept our voices down, and it was more likely than not, as all three women were looking at me like I’d committed the ultimate sin, that they knew every one of our dirty, little secrets now.

  “Be back,” I muttered instead of denying their thoughts.

  The truth was, Ellen had been with me.

  And it pissed me off all over again that she’d leave without talking to me first. Without hashing out what we both knew needed ironed out between us.

  Sooner rather than later.

  I left the room and went in search of the illusive woman, wondering whether I should be concerned or not that she wasn’t still here.

  I stopped in the living room when I saw Fender.

  “You see Ellen leave?” I asked as I passed.

  He shook his head. “Nope. I was in my room on the phone with my folks. Apparently, they’re coming for a little visit.”

  I snorted.

  Fender’s parents were very conservative. They hated that he didn’t graduate college. They hated that he worked somewhere they didn’t approve of instead of the family business, and they also hated that he rode motorcycles and had tattoos.

  “What about Naomi?” I asked.

  “Room, the last I checked,” Fender said distractedly, staring at the coffee table where he was working on a draft of a house. “She came out for an hour or so for some tea. We commiserated on the fact that y’all were fighting outside our rooms, and then she went back in there. I heard the TV turn on and haven’t checked since.”

  I sighed.

  I was pretty sure that everyone in the whole damn club would know about Ellen and I by sundown.

  Annoyed now, I walked straight to the surveillance room that was set up off of the kitchen, and flipped on the monitor.

  I rewound to two hours before, then fast-forwarded until I could see what time Ellen left.

  Then froze when I saw that Ellen had left, but Naomi was with her.

  “Mother. Fucker,” I growled.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Fender,” I stepped out of the room. “Naomi’s gone.”

  His head snapped up.

  “You’re joking.”

  I shook my head.

  “Negative,” I said as I pulled out my phone and dialed Ellen.

  Ellen didn’t bother with pleasantries when she answered.

  “Yeah?”

  It sounded like she was crying, and my panic level shot through the roof.

  “Ellen, where is Naomi?”

  There was a large pause on the other end, and then a whispered, “I dropped her off at home. I’m at my shop. Why?”

  I immediately hung up and ran out of the house, heading for
my bike, and drove straight for Naomi’s place as my anger boiled beneath the surface.

  But the moment I pulled up outside, I saw the blood.

  And I knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  ***

  Four tense hours later, I felt like a shaken up bottle of Coke as I tried to sit in my seat and not go off on the man who’d done his level best to kill anything left inside of Ellen.

  Sean had yelled at her for being a part of something she—nor I—had any clue was happening, and I was fuming inside.

  “She’s probably dead in there, and you helped her get that way.”

  I knew the man was devastated. Hell, I was devastated for letting it happen. He’d told me to keep her there. I’d thought I had. So if it was anybody’s fault, it was mine.

  But as I listened to the nearly silent crying coming from Ellen, I’d almost broken down and pulled her into my arms.

  But I didn’t.

  Only because Sean came out of the room right when I was about to crack, demanding answers of me.

  Answers as to why his woman had nearly died. Answers to why I’d let her drive away with Ellen when she should’ve been at the clubhouse under lockdown with the rest of the women.

  Not that they were technically on lockdown. At least not that I’d understood. Sure, there’d been some bad things happening to Sean and Naomi lately, but not enough to where I thought I needed to guard the clubhouse with my rifle while sitting on the roof waiting for intruders.

  But you didn’t have me watching them! I wanted to growl. You just had me take them all to the clubhouse.

  Instead, I took the high road and started to explain. Giving every single piece of information that I had and anything I thought might be relevant.

  Then came the hard part, explaining how I’d found Naomi on the floor in her house, bleeding and broken.

  Chapter 10

  Hating your alarm when it goes off and you have to go to work because you didn’t die in your sleep.

  -Things people contemplate when they wake up and hate their life

  Ellen

  I couldn’t say I was proud of myself.

  After nearly getting a woman I liked killed, I wasn’t so sure that staying near my brother was the best thing any longer.

  Every time I was within seeing distance of either Sean or Naomi, my stomach would plummet and I’d turn around, rushing to get somewhere, anywhere, that they weren’t.

  I deserved everything that was thrown at me.

  The day I’d dropped her off at her car, her house hadn’t been empty like we’d both assumed. No, it’d had some psycho killer hell-bent on hurting Naomi in it, and the only thing that saved her was her dog.

  I’d left her that to handle on her own.

  She’d even miscarried their baby. Seriously, I was the biggest asshole on the planet.

  I looked down at my hands, wondering how long I would have to stay at this club party that was supposed to be a celebration—one that celebrated Naomi’s life and health.

  Tommy Tom tried to tell me that Sean wasn’t upset with me any longer, but honestly, there was no misunderstanding the anger in his eyes each time they were aimed in my direction.

  Though, I had to admit that wasn’t very often, seeing as I tried to look anywhere but at him or his fiancée.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I looked up to find Jessie staring at me.

  I looked away.

  “Fine,” I said, standing up. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  Without waiting for him to apologize or tell me ‘it’d all be okay’ again, I walked away and didn’t look back.

  “Do you want to dance?”

  I stopped when a man I didn’t know stepped in front of me.

  He wasn’t anybody I knew, but since I could feel Jessie’s glare burning into the back of my neck, I said yes.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  I happened to take a glance over my shoulder, and my belly tightened at the pure masculine anger that was written clearly all over Jessie’s face.

  He wasn’t happy that I’d been ignoring him. In fact, I knew that not by the anger on his face at seeing me say yes to a dance with another man, but by the numerous angry texts and voicemails I’d received from him over the last two weeks since that night Naomi almost died.

  The most recent one had only been an hour before.

  My lips tilted up at the corners as I thought about that text.

  Jessie (9:30 PM): If you don’t show tonight, I’m going to come over to your place and drag you out by your hair. Then I’m going to sit you on my lap the entire night, despite your protests, and hold on to you so you can’t go anywhere or do anything. Don’t think I’m bluffing either. I’m on my last shit, woman. Don’t disappoint me.

  Hah!

  Don’t disappoint him my ass.

  I did end up going and not because he’d demanded it of me, but because I’d already planned on it.

  Not to mention I also came because my brother had asked me nicely.

  He’d told me that he missed me and that I’d been working too much.

  I’d, of course, called bullshit. The man was a doctor, so if anyone was working too much, it was him.

  “Hey, you okay, darlin’?” the man who had asked me to dance asked.

  I nodded, then offered him my hand.

  He pulled me to the dance floor. The moment his hands went to my hips to pull me in closer to his body, I went.

  But in my mind it wasn’t a stranger’s hands on my hips, they were Jessie’s. It was Jessie who was pulling me in close and telling me that everything would be okay.

  ***

  Jessie

  “This is my jam,” I told Fender. “Turn it up.”

  Fender stared at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “This is Garth Brooks. You can’t jam to Garth Brooks,” Fender contradicted me.

  He also, I noticed, didn’t turn it up.

  “I can do anything to Garth Brooks that I want,” I informed him loudly. “I can sing to him. I can dance to him. I can jam to him. I can even fuck to him.”

  Fender stared at me for a few long seconds, then threw his head back and laughed.

  I got up and turned the radio up my own damn self.

  “This is kind of harsh,” Fender said from my side. “Scaring the shit out of the new man because he deserves it sounds like something you’d do.”

  My eyes automatically went to Ellen where she stood next to her new friend, a man who accomplished something I’d been trying to get her to do with me all night.

  Fucking A.

  “Yeah,” I grunted. “Will you hand me another beer?”

  And the night deteriorated from there.

  Sean took a seat at my side and I looked at him in question.

  “I need to apologize,” he said. “Or, at least, Naomi said that I had to.”

  My brows rose.

  “I’m not the one that needs the apology,” I informed him. “Maybe you should think about apologizing to Ellen.”

  He sighed.

  “I tried,” he grunted. “Each time I get near her, she runs away.”

  I snorted. “That’s because you made her cry, and she thinks that you hate her. And she hates herself because you told her she was the reason that Naomi was in the hospital. Which, of course, she then blamed herself for Naomi losing the baby. And in her mind, all of that equates to murder.”

  Sean’s mouth dropped open.

  “What? You wanted me to sugarcoat it?” I asked him.

  He closed his mouth.

  “Wait until she can’t go anywhere else and then immediately offer her an apology. Don’t explain yourself. Just say that you’re sorry for the words that you threw at her. Tell her she didn’t deserve to be spoken to that way, no matter how upset you were, and just leave it at that. She’ll come around eventually,” I continued.

 
Sean stared at me.

  “And how do you know she’ll forgive me?” he challenged.

  I grinned.

  “She’s about to accept my apology, and I’ve had fourteen years of pissing her off,” I informed him. “I definitely have the bigger hurdle to jump over, though.”

  Sean snorted.

  “Maybe you should offer your apology before she leaves and does the dirty with another man?” Fender drawled.

  I looked up in time to see Ellen being led to the bar where the man gestured to the bartender.

  “Fuck,” I growled, standing up. “Time for the big guns.”

  Then, I did the most sacrilegious thing any country music lover had ever done.

  I changed a Garth Brooks song.

  Searching for the song that I wanted, I grinned when the familiar tune started to echo throughout the bar that we’d taken over for a celebration for the night.

  The moment the familiar opening chords of Sweet Home Alabama filled the air, Ellen’s head snapped up, and her eyes immediately went to the table where Fender and I had been sitting for the last two hours, controlling the music.

  Her lips thinned, but damned if she didn’t stomp away from the man she was dancing with and storm straight out of the damn building.

  “Now what?” Fender asked, a smile in his voice.

  “Now,” I said, standing up and finishing off the last of my beer, “I go try to figure out what has her ass chapped.”

  Fender snorted. “Well, having a chapped ass is definitely something that would have me acting like a crazy motherfucker.”

  I flipped him off and strode out of the bar, still smelling the scent of peaches—Ellen’s signature scent since she was a seventeen-year-old—and tried to tell my dick to behave.

  It didn’t listen.

  Chapter 11

  Just because you have a beard, doesn’t mean you’re a man. Vaginas can grow hair, too.

  -Things you probably shouldn’t say to a pissed off male with a beard

  Ellen

  I was on the verge of tears, this time due to the fact that the man I’d been in love with since I was seventeen years old wouldn’t stop talking to me. He wouldn’t stop texting me. He just wouldn’t leave me to my depression in peace.