Deep in the Heart

by Alexa Padgett

  The world spun. I was alone. I didn’t want to be alone.

  Jude and Micah walked to me. Jude placed his hands on my shoulders. Micah took my hands.

  “No,” Micah said, his voice firm yet quiet.

  “No,” Jude echoed. “You didn’t cause that accident—which probably wasn’t an accident at all. That’s on Ben. Not you.”

  “But Pop-pop had my car,” I whispered.

  “And Ben plowed into it,” Micah said. “Seems like, from what Dad said anyway, that this was intentional, Jen.”

  I flinched. Jude tightened his hold on me. Cam stepped back in—close enough for me to feel the heat of his body. These wonderful men protected me now, but would it be enough? Should they even be here?

  My grandfather was dead because of me.

  “What happened to him?” Cam asked. “Ben.”

  Micah shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling. “He’s in the hospital. Don’t know which one and don’t know how extensive his injuries are.”

  I twisted to face Cam. “You didn’t know?”

  He cupped my cheek as he shook his head. “I would have told you, sugar.”

  His eyes gleamed with sincerity.

  “Jen,” Micah said, his voice gentle.

  I closed my eyes before I turned to look at him.

  “Dad’s really upset. Mom’s doing her best, but you have to understand something else.”

  I waited, breath baited.

  Jude’s mouth tightened into a grim line. Uh oh. That was Jude’s I’m-really-pissed face.

  “Mom and Dad have gotten lots of phone calls about the accident. Rather, Ben hitting Pop-pop.” Micah’s eyes flicked over to Cam, offering an apology.

  “We’re betting a story will come out tomorrow,” Micah said. Each word dropped, staccato and harsh, like a bomb on my heart.

  26

  Cam

  My head ached from the stiffness in my shoulders. Jenna didn’t say much on the way back to my place, letting me hold her curled form against my side.

  I’d made calls to Brenda and to my label. I’d gotten as far ahead of the story as I could. Might not be enough, especially since I had no idea what Jenna’s father told reporters.

  I waited until we were settled in bed before I brought up the conversation she’d overheard. I played with strands of her long hair. “Remember that first dinner we had at your place? When you told me you were messed up, too?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, her voice catching.

  “I need you to understand, that wasn’t a dig at you tonight, sugar. More at me. I’m the one that bashed apart my guitar because I couldn’t take all the emotions building in me.”

  “Cam. Please, don’t.” With that, she walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Everyone handled grief differently. I knew that—I’d witnessed it in the sandbox and again, here, within my own family.

  But Jenna shutting down worried me.

  Because she wasn’t just dealing with grief. Right now, from where she stood, her father betrayed her, and I knew just how hard it was to come back from that type of hurt.

  I hadn’t. My childhood, no matter how happy, was forever tainted by Laurence’s deeds with Kim. Nothing—not one thing—could ever make me see past those choices.

  “I’m sleepy,” Jenna murmured, eyes still downcast, when she walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later. She climbed into bed, rolled away from me and tucked herself into a ball. I opened my mouth to try to talk to her but then I closed it. What could I say?

  The story hit the next morning with the strength of a ten-foot tsunami. My fans were not happy. Many threatened to boycott my albums and my label if I didn’t dump Jenna—the reason a sweet old man, a legend in the music world was dead—immediately.

  Yep, the media reports spun this the worst way they could. Nothing Jenna’s parents said seemed damaging to their daughter outright, but the overall impact was a family torn apart by grief. Salacious—the perfect click-bait that had my fans in a lather within minutes.

  I held firm in my belief Jenna did no wrong. My mother, Carter, and Katie Rose were hounded by reporters each time they left the house.

  Jenna slid further into herself. No matter where I took her or what we did, her mind wandered away from the present.

  She didn’t cry. She didn’t call her parents, either, which I understood. But I ached for her.

  The third morning, over coffee, I asked her what she’d like to do that day.

  “I need to work on a client’s guitar.”

  That was the worst idea. No way I was letting her back into the space she worked each day with her grandfather without someone to take her mind off the empty desk across the room. An idea wormed its way forward and I smiled, liking that scheme as it’d fix another ongoing problem I’d struggled to solve. But that was for later. Right now, I needed to get some light back in Jenna’s eyes. And, if I was honest, I wanted to hold her close to me. I always wanted to do that, but right now it seemed especially important.

  I took her horseback riding. She thanked me with another passionate round of lovemaking out-of-doors. Much as I enjoyed that treat, I worried about the wake the next day.

  This goodbye proved as difficult to get through as any other. Driving to the funeral parlor, I held her hand as Jenna turned her wan face, cheekbones more prominent, toward the window. She didn’t speak and her fingers lay cold and too still in my hand. The media met us at the entrance, their shouted questions horrific.

  “Did you lend your grandfather your car because you knew Ben was after you?”

  “Ben’s supposed to make a full recovery. Do you have a statement?”

  “Are you looking forward to another trial, Jenna?”

  “Do you enjoy the spotlight that much?”

  Angry as I was, I stared straight ahead and pulled Jenna through the throng, holding her tighter to my side as I mentally damned the press, my fans, the entire world who’d found Jenna guilty without a shred of evidence.

  Chuck stepped in behind us, arms crossed over his chest, the scowl deeper and uglier than I’d ever seen it.

  I couldn’t take away her grief, and the more I tried to shoulder it for her, the more my mind revved into overdrive.

  I felt the cracks form in my composure, and I detested this place we were in. I watched Jenna throughout the service. She seemed to fold into herself—becoming the tired, scared young woman her grandfather mentioned when I used to come into his shop years before.

  I stopped to shake hands with Jenna’s brother Jude.

  “You doing all right?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Dad made everything a million times worse with that interview. I can’t leave the house. We had to unplug the home phone, stop checking our emails. I’ll be glad to go back to San Francisco.”

  “Don’t blame you, man.”

  “How’s Jen doing?” Micah asked, joining us.

  “Not good. I’m really worried about her.”

  Micah tugged at his short, neat beard. “I don’t know if this’ll help…”

  I tensed and didn’t hear the rest of Micah’s words because Jenna’s father grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. Before I could make my way through the crowd—which included many musicians I would have enjoyed talking to any other day—Jenna’s mother joined her father and cut him off mid-sentence.

  Jenna wouldn’t look at her mother. She turned her back on her father and walked directly to me.

  “I’m ready to go,” she said, still unable to look at me.

  “All right.” I clasped her hand and pulled her from the large, crowded room.

  I caught Micah’s eye and dipped my head toward Jenna. He nodded, a frown building across his face. Jude stood next to him, eyes narrowed as he turned from us to glare at his father, who still scowled at Jenna’s bowed head.

  What the hell was going on here?

  She didn’t speak as we waited in the vestibule while the media yelled q
uestions through the door. Chuck called for the vehicle, which two of my staff brought around. Chuck stood in front of us, blasting a path for Jenna, mainly, who still didn’t speak once we settled into the SUV. I leaned my head back against the supple leather of the seat, thankful we’d made it through this tangible step of saying goodbye.

  The afternoon sun warmed the interior, making me shift uncomfortably. I was ready to get this suit off and put on something comfortable. Maybe haul Jenna down to the river for some relaxation.

  We both needed it.

  As soon as Chuck parked the SUV, she tore up the porch like ants lit up her pants. Whoa. Not what I expected. Whatever went down with her father upset her.

  I caught her as she hurried into my bedroom. I turned her stiff frame, unsurprised by her rigid posture.

  “What’s wrong? Please talk to me, sugar.”

  Her lips twisted and she dropped her chin, a sure sign she was about to move away. Not happening. I cupped her jaw and tugged her gently around to face me. She kept her lids lowered as I waited.

  “Nothing,” she finally mumbled.

  I unwrapped a candy and shoved it in my mouth, trying to ignore my shaking hands. “Oh, it’s something.”

  She stepped back, trying to retreat. I couldn’t let her. Not this time.

  “Jenna.”

  She stilled. Her shoulders dropped.

  “What happened with your parents?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about that.” Her voice rang with finality. She refused to turn around and look at me.

  “Are you angry with me?”

  A quick shake of that bright blond head.

  “Are you sick?”

  Another negation.

  “Hurt?”

  A pause before the shake.

  “I want to help you.”

  “You can’t.” The words burst from her lips as if they’d been hovering there, right there, waiting for the chance.

  “Why’s that, sugar?”

  “B-because.”

  “You’re a grown woman, Jenna Marie. Don’t devolve down to grade schooler now because you’re scared to talk to me.”

  That brought those bright blue eyes flashing up to mine. They burned with just the right amount of temper.

  “Going to try to deny it?” I taunted. My heart rate escalated and my nose twitched, but I held her gaze with mine, steady and firm like she needed.

  “I’m late.”

  I paused, shut my mouth, sucked the candy. “You’re late? As in your period.”

  She nodded, eyes wide and deep shadows building within.

  “And you’ve known for how long?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  “Since we went horseback riding. Yesterday,” she said to clarify.

  Not long. And not what I’d wanted to talk about, but we’d deal with this first. “All right. Well, should we get a test?”

  She sank to the edge of the bed and bowed her head. For the first time in days, emotion seemed to waft from her.

  “I was afraid to tell you,” she murmured.

  “Why?”

  She stood and paced. I let her go, understanding the need to burn off that excess energy. Finally, she turned back toward me. “Because of the questions tossed at me like I’m such an evil person of course they won’t hurt me. About hurting your image, your brand. Your career. My life.”

  Each word came out faster, sharper, until they piled on top of each other.

  “That’s a lot of worries. Have I given you a reason to think I’d leave you alone?”

  Jenna tugged at her skirt, gripping the material and twisting it in her hand. “What you said the other night. At my condo.”

  I absorbed that. Not that she meant it as a blow, but I’d known then I’d have to pay for those words she misconstrued. Now was that time. “You think I meant what I said then as a slight against you?”

  She shook her head, slower this time. I stepped in closer, using my legs to bracket hers before I lowered my forehead down. The first brush of her silky hair against my skin brought a sigh of pleasure to my lips. My heart rate settled and the quivering in my hands stilled.

  Her breath puffed across my chin, warm and sweet. Like Jenna when she wasn’t so caught up in her head.

  Keeping her out of there was more challenging than my last tour outside the perimeter. Her demons were every bit as real to me as the sand-colored-camo monsters who killed my buddies. I closed my eyes, took a deep, slow breath. Not the time to fall back into that nightmare.

  Not when I was trying to build a future. Here. Now.

  27

  Jenna

  My father pulled me aside at the funeral. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I didn’t know how this story would turn out.”

  I cleared my throat and forced my gaze up to his. “Do you think I’d do that? Get Pop-pop killed to protect myself?” My heart raced and I clenched my hands into fists, trying hard to keep it together.

  Dad opened his mouth, shut it. He and Pop-pop, together, were my rock. My reason I was standing here—alive today.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Dad finally said. His eyes filled with tears. “I miss my dad. Why couldn’t that boy leave you alone? That’s the stem of all this. If he’d just left you alone, I’d be able to call my dad tonight and watch the game with him.”

  “David,” my mother said, coming up beside him.

  I couldn’t look at her. Maybe she thought I was responsible, too. I ducked away, asking Cam to take me home. To his home.

  But I wanted to run.

  To bury my head under my pillow and just give up.

  Some people had a knack for living—found joy in every nuance of their days. I could barely cobble together two words to form a coherent sentence, let alone pick a reasonable outfit or trust myself out in public.

  Cam must have seen the panic rising as it clawed its way up my throat because he wrapped me back up in those thick, warm arms and drew me close against his chest as soon as we settled into his SUV, moving away from my family, from the funeral home—from my last glimpse of my grandfather.

  Cam was my home. The only place I wanted to rest my head. I told him I was a day late, needing to steer clear of my parents’ strange behavior. I was closer to a week late, but that wasn’t uncommon, especially when I was stressed.

  Cam’s calm acceptance of the possibility of a baby made me fall even deeper in love with him. He knew just what to say to me, just how to soothe. He was the only man I’d ever yearned for, ever wanted to tuck into.

  Which was exactly why I needed to get away. In a minute. After my legs quit shaking and my breathing regulated.

  “Better?” he asked.

  I wasn’t. So I waited for a long moment before I nodded.

  “You able to listen with those ears and your head now? I got a few words to say back about what you think I said and what I meant.”

  No. I did not want to hear him gently let me down, explain while he was looking for companionship, he never planned to love another woman—wouldn’t let himself after the way Kim busted his dreams. And I was simply too much work to deal with.

  I slammed my eyes shut, willing my heart to calm again.

  “Cam—”

  “Before you get fussier than a wet cat, hear me out.” He lifted his arm from my back and used his thumb and forefinger to tip my chin up. Much as I resisted, my eyes rose to meet his.

  Those beautiful depths held patience, a hint of humor and a whole lot of passion. I frowned, trying to step back, but Cam tightened his arm around my waist and his thumb against my chin.

  He nuzzled into my neck before pressing tiny kisses to my throat and down to the skin available above the scoop neck of my blouse. I shivered as his warm breath drifted over my skin, overheating me further. He chuckled, a deep, dark sound. Like dark chocolate and rumpled satin sheets.

  “Damn, sugar. We need to talk but I get so caught up… You’re my sugar-laced addiction.”

  Cue internal destruction.
My chest ached as my body roared with need only to collapse with a whimper of rejected ash.

  “I’m not an addiction.” I twisted away, stumbling back from his feel-good hands as I tried to regulate my breathing, to keep the tears from pouring out of my eyes.

  “Jen—”

  I dropped my hands and wrapped them around my waist, eyes darting every which way but landing on his again.

  “What if I…” I sucked in a breath. “What if I just need you to hold me?”

  “That’s all I’ve been doing, sugar. Through this media storm, with my fans clamoring for me to cut you lose.”

  Frustration bit through his words.

  My shoulders hunched and I nodded once. Not so much in acceptance because Cam crushed me even further with words like my father’s.

  I stood, my chest heaving. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” I slashed my hand, negating my father’s words, but Cam’s still swam through my head. “I just…for one minute I wanted something more than sex.”

  “Jenna.” He said my name, softly, sweetly. I heard the melody of it, what I thought was caring in the timbre of it, but I’d already turned and began to stumble away. “I don’t want—”

  There was nothing more I wanted to say or hear from him right now. Not one damn thing. His phone chimed.

  “Dammit, Jenna, I don’t like you walking out on me,” he called.

  I whirled back to face him. “What do you want, Camden?”

  He opened his mouth but slowly shut it, looking pensive. I slammed the heels of my hands to my eyes.

  “You want your other guitar.”

  “Well, sure. But I want to spend time with you, too.”

  Those awful words. Spend time. Pass the time. None meant anything too serious. Even after I’d told him I might be pregnant.

  “Where do you see us going?” I rasped out, dropping my hands to meet his gaze.

  He stepped back, his eyes shuttering. “You’re focused on your career. You don’t want to come live here and live off me.”

  “She did a real number on you, Cam. You’re right, I don’t want that. I don’t even know if I want kids. I’m so messed up.”