by M. S. Parker
“Don’t they scare you?” I asked. “Someone could hurt you.”
I saw the shadow cross his face, and I knew that he’d understood what I was really scared of: that some crazy person would take him away from me like my father had taken my mother. He came over to where I was standing and pulled me to him in a hug. I tucked my head under his chin and let myself pretend that I was in junior high again, accepting comfort from my uncle because of some minor incident.
“’Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.’”
“Mark Twain.” My words were muffled, but I knew he could hear them. “He also said something about school boards being idiots.”
Uncle Anton laughed and took a step back. “That he did. And I happen to think that makes him more credible.”
I managed a smile. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to go to court tomorrow?”
“Nothing’s ever one hundred percent safe,” he said as he went back to his salad. “Cars and airplanes crash. Tornados and hurricanes happen. Random events, natural phenomenon, all of it is as likely as something malicious.”
He hadn’t answered my question. “Do you at least tell the police about the letters?”
“They know,” he said. “And I have to let them do their job so I can do mine.”
I’d let it go then. He’d seemed so calm, so in control. It wasn’t until days later, after he’d been gunned down on the courthouse steps, after the case on his murder had been officially closed, that I’d learned the cops had tried to convince Clay to go into protective custody after the latest set of threats.
He’d turned them down, saying that he wasn’t going to let someone scare him into silence.
I’d hated him for that.
It hadn’t been until I’d started at Quantico that I’d started to understand why he’d done what he’d done, but as I stood in front of Clay and Agent Matthews, a similar offer hanging in the air between us, I realized that only now could I truly get it.
“Do you know the Mark Twain quote about courage?” I asked. I brushed my hair back from my face and squared my shoulders. “If I hide, my father accomplishes what he’d set out to do nearly ten years ago. I can’t let the fear of him rule my life.”
“Rona,” Clay protested. “Be smart about this.”
“Telling a woman that she’s stupid isn’t usually the best way to get her to listen.”
A man’s voice came from the doorway, but I didn’t quite believe that I wasn’t hearing things until my eyes confirmed what my ears heard.
Jalen.
I scowled at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Thirty-One
“I called him,” Clay said as Jalen entered the room. “I knew you wouldn’t accept protective custody, and I hoped he’d be able to talk you into it.”
I shot Clay a glare before returning to glowering at Jalen. “You two are both on my shit list.”
“I seem to have a permanent spot on it,” Jalen said. He held up his hands in the universal ‘I surrender’ gesture. “Not that I don’t deserve it.”
“Since you two like to talk so much, you can talk to each other,” I said. “I’m going home.”
“No, you’re not,” Jalen said, then hurried to explain. “And that’s not coming from me. I asked the doctor if you were ready to be discharged, and he said that you need to be kept overnight for observation because you got hit on the head.”
I looked at Clay. “I can’t believe you did this to me.”
Clay stuck his hands in his pockets as Agent Matthews excused himself. “I would give you a choice and say that either Jalen stays with you or I put a uniform at your door, but you’ll pick the cop just to spite him.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“So I’m not giving you a choice. You have to stay overnight, and with your father out there, you can’t stay alone.” Clay glanced through the doorway where he could see Agent Matthews talking with the doctor who’d examined me. “Talk things out with him, Rona. If he’s still being an asshole, I’ll take him up in the mountains and leave him there. But I think he might surprise you.”
“Why are you defending him all of a sudden?” I asked sullenly. “Last I checked, you were on my side.”
His expression softened. “I am on your side, Rona. But sometimes, you need someone to save you from yourself.”
I could see how hard it was for Clay to tell me to try to work things out with Jalen, but he meant every word, and that more than anything convinced me to at least listen to what Jalen had to say. If nothing else, I’d at least get closure.
“All right,” I said. “Jalen can stay, but when I kick him out after he says his bit, I’m not going to be calling you for a bodyguard. That’s on you.”
“Agreed,” Clay said.
He took a step toward me, his hands starting to come out of his pockets before he seemed to think better of it and just smiled. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, and my annoyance with him dimmed even more.
“If you need anything, just call me. The nurses have my work number and my personal one. If we hear anything about your mugger or your father, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks,” I said. I almost considered asking him to stay too, but I knew that would be selfish on my part, and I wasn’t going to do that. Besides, I’d promised to give Jalen a chance to explain himself, and since I didn’t know how personal that conversation would be, I didn’t want to make things even more awkward between Clay and me.
He closed the door on the way out, leaving Jalen and me not just alone, but isolated. If I’d been at home, I’d have at least had the freedom to move around my apartment, keep my hands busy. Here, all I could do was get back into bed and hope that Jalen wasn’t going to be as big of an ass as he had been that morning.
I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic about that.
“You wanted to talk,” I said. “Talk.”
“I – I mean – shit.” He sighed. “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”
“Apologizing or explaining?”
He rubbed his jaw, his stubble whispering as it scraped against his palm. He still looked like he hadn’t shaved in a day or two, and his clothes were rumpled, but not in a ‘genius forgot to sleep’ way. Something had taken a toll on him over the last few days. I wanted to believe it was me, that missing me had affected him this way, but I couldn’t let myself hope that was the case.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses,” he began, “but I want you to understand why I thought…” He shook his head. “No, before I get to the why, there’s something you need to hear.”
His eyes were blazing as he turned his gaze on me and I was suddenly aware of how disheveled I looked. I hadn’t even had the chance to wash the blood out of my hair.
“I was an idiot, and I’m sorry.” Neither his voice nor his gaze wavered. “I jumped to conclusions. Again. I should have trusted you, and I should have talked to you. Both about how I was feeling this morning, and what made me go there.”
“Thank you.” I folded my arms more tightly around my middle. “And yes, you should have trusted me, but I already know why you went off. You told me about what Elise did to you.”
A part of me wanted to tell him that was why it had hurt so much. He’d essentially held me responsible for something his ex had done. One bad relationship and that was how he measured women. I understood that what she’d done had been awful, but it wasn’t like there was a series of betrayals and broken promises in his past.
Not like how I had losses piled up behind me, constant reminders of why I shouldn’t let anyone close.
“It’s more than that,” he said. He glanced at me, then turned his face away, as if he couldn’t quite bear to look at me as he spoke. “A part of me has even wondered if this is why I’d ended up with Elise in the first place.”
I waited in silence, not wanting to influence his decision to talk to me. He had to choose me on his own. I couldn’t accept anything les
s.
“My parents were never married.” He began to pace as he spoke. “I never really thought much about it as a kid because a lot of my friends’ parents weren’t married either, or they had been married but had since divorced. My parents lived in the same house, and I had my dad’s last name. We were a family, no matter what a piece of paper said. At least, that’s what my dad always told me. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how sad my mom was whenever we talked about it.”
I had one of those memory flashes that were like some sort of montage, bits and pieces all strung together, sometimes with a common theme. For me, the theme was ‘bad marriage.’ My parents had argued on and off in the years before the accident, so it wasn’t like they’d had some sort of idyllic, fairytale life until the day everything changed, but it hadn’t been the same sort of arguing that had come later. After the accident, the fights had turned ugly. Insults hurling through the air, shouted and screamed without any thought about who could hear. Things had been thrown and broken. Threats made.
I’d found my mom crying more than once, and she’d always told me it was okay, that Dad was just hurting, and he didn’t mean any of it. She’d always encouraged me to remember him the way he was rather than what he’d become. Sometimes, I wondered if she’d still be alive if I’d pressed the issue, pointed out the dangers. If I’d only convinced her to leave.
“When I was eight, my dad left,” Jalen continued. “I was sitting in our den, playing a video game, and he walked out with two suitcases. Never said goodbye. Never even looked back.”
My heart broke for the boy he’d been, but there were plenty of men in solid, stable relationships who’d had similar childhoods. Like Jalen had said, his situation hadn’t been unique.
“I only saw him a handful of times over the next two years, and whenever he was with me, he looked like he wished he was somewhere else. For my tenth birthday, I told my mom that I wanted to change my last name to her maiden name so we’d have the same last name. I had to ask my dad, and a part of me thought maybe this would be enough to get his attention. It wasn’t. He signed the paperwork without blinking.”
I held out my hand and Jalen came over to the bed. He gently wrapped his fingers around mine and sat next to me.
“It wasn’t until I was older that I found out that my father had been cheating on my mother almost the entire time they’d been together. She’d known, and she hadn’t done anything about it. She said it was because she’d been too scared of trying to make it on her own, but I think at least some of it was because she still loved him. Even after all that, she loved him.” Jalen’s thumb brushed back and forth across my knuckles, and I wondered if he was soothing himself as much as trying to soothe me. “He got married my senior year of high school, and I’ve heard he has a couple kids with his wife now. I don’t know if she was one of the women he’d cheated on my mom with, or if he’d fallen in love with her later. I received a card when I graduated high school, and that was the last I’ve heard from him. I’ve never met his new wife or their kids.”
“I’m sorry.” I squeezed his fingers, not knowing what else to say or do. I felt bad for him, for what he’d gone through, but I didn’t want to feel anything more than just the normal sympathy any decent human being would have. I couldn’t feel those deeper things, not if he was going to keep breaking my heart.
Because that’s what was happening every time he came at me with accusations. He was breaking my heart.
“It’s not an excuse,” he said. “I know that. There’s no excuse for the way I’ve behaved. I just want you to see me…so maybe you can forgive me.”
I could hear what he wasn’t saying, that it wasn’t just about forgiveness. He wanted us to be together again, or still, or whatever. To move past all of this by talking through things rather than trying to bury it. It was healthier that way, and I appreciated that he was trying to do this the right way.
I just wasn’t sure if it was enough.
“I don’t think she’s ever stopped loving him. She has a new boyfriend. Not really new. They started dating two years ago, and she moved to Spain with him last year.” He glanced over at me, but only for a moment, like he didn’t dare to linger. Like it was dangerous to look too long. “The way my dad treated my mom destroyed her for a long time, and it fucked with my head more than I’d realized until recently. I never wanted to be in a position where I ended up like her. I didn’t want to care so much that someone would be able to hurt me like that.”
I swallowed hard, my heart skipping a beat when I realized the implications of what he was saying. I wouldn’t put words in his mouth though. If he wanted me to know it, this, he’d have to say.
He raised my hand and kissed my knuckles, then flipped it over, lightly tracing the bandage on my palm. His voice was soft. “I never thought it would be a problem. Even when Elise did what she did, it hurt, but I wasn’t broken. I married her, and I thought I loved her. Maybe I did. Whatever I felt for her though, it wasn’t strong enough for me to want to fight for her.”
Was that what he was doing here? Fighting for me? Somehow, when I’d heard that phrase in the past, I’d always thought it would be something aggressive, something loud and in-your-face. But Jalen wasn’t being any of those things. He was being vulnerable and honest.
And somehow, that felt more like fighting for me than anything my imagination would’ve come up with.
All of the feelings I’d tried to keep pushed down poked their heads up again. If he was as sincere as he sounded, I was in serious trouble. I could stand up against anger and accusations. I wasn’t so sure I could hold up against this Jalen.
“I want to fight for you, Rona. For us.” His grip on my hand tightened. “Please tell me that there’s something to fight for.”
I pulled my hand back. It was hard to think when he was touching me. “That sucks about your parents, but you can’t keep holding others’ actions against me. It’s not fair.”
“You’re right,” he agreed immediately. “I’m an asshole for doing it. And I’ll never do it again. Please give me a second chance.”
“I did.”
His face flushed, but he didn’t argue. “And I fucked it up, I know.”
Here were the questions that mattered, no matter how much it hurt to ask them. “What makes this time different? Why should I trust you when you’ve proven you don’t trust me?”
He slid off the bed and went to his knees. He was tall enough that he was still able to reach my hands. “I love you.”
The words took my breath away.
“I know you have every right to be skeptical after what I’ve done, but I swear to you, if you let me, I will do whatever it takes to prove to you that I want this to work.” He took my hands again. “You are the only person I’ve ever wanted a future with, Rona. The only person I can see. I love you, and I’m begging you to give me a chance to prove it.”
Thirty-Two
It would’ve been smarter to have told him that there wasn’t a chance, that he should leave and not speak to me again. It would hurt like hell, but better to hurt now than have my heart destroyed when he inevitably reverted back to being an asshole.
And he would.
Because I couldn’t hope for anything else. It would only make things worse if I had my hopes up.
Still, I didn’t have it in me to send him away.
Which was how we ended up with a tentative agreement where he’d stay with me in the hospital, and after I was released, we’d see where things stood.
I had to admit, it was more than a little amusing to see this big, rugged man playing nursemaid. Well, not really nursemaid, since it wasn’t like I was bedridden. They just needed to keep an eye on my brain, and Jalen managed to convince the nurses and doctors that he could do that better by staying in the room with me than they could by waking me up every few hours to ask me my name.
He’d charmed them all, and I realized this was what he was like as a businessman. He might’ve been scary s
mart, but he also had to know how to interact with people to convince them to invest in his company or believe in what he was building. As I watched him smiling and talking to the doctors and nurses, I couldn’t help but admire the easy confidence he exuded.
Then, I thought about how he was with me. How he had been when we’d first met versus the way he was now. He’d had that same brash impudence, almost arrogance, when we met for the first time. Hell, we’d been in the middle of an argument when he’d kissed me, and he hadn’t seemed the slightest bit concerned that I might not want him. He’d always known exactly what he’d wanted and gone after it.
But now, he hesitated around me, calculating each touch, each word. He wasn’t timid, but he’d lost the self-assurance he’d once had regarding my feelings for him.
Attraction and emotions weren’t the problem though. I still wanted him. I still cared about him. Maybe more than cared, if I allowed myself to go there. Trust was the issue. I wasn’t holding a grudge about the things he’d said. I’d forgiven him for all that. But I didn’t trust him to not do it again.
Those were the things I kept telling myself as the hours past, and he worked to prove himself to me. Anything I wanted or needed, he got it, whether it was something to read or help with my pillows. It would’ve been annoying if I hadn’t been able to see how much it meant to him.
We were in the middle of a debate about the merits of rebooting television and movie series when I dozed off. A nurse woke me a couple hours later when she came in to check on me.
She smiled at me, and it took me a moment to realize she wasn’t just being friendly. Jalen had fallen asleep too, his head resting on his arm, both of which were on the edge of my bed. His other hand was next to mine, our fingers lightly entwined, and I instinctively knew that I’d been the one to reach for him.
“You have quite a young man there, Miss Quick.” She kept her voice low as she checked my vitals. “He really loves you.”
