Brides on the Run (Books 1-4): Small-Town Romance Series

by Jami Albright

  The silence between them drowned out the melody of the guitar. He paused in playing to take a swig straight from the bottle of whiskey.

  His body language clearly said back off, but she knew he needed her to push him beyond whatever this was. “So, what’s up?”

  “Nothin’.” Another strum, another swig.

  “Really?” She picked up the half-empty bottle from the ground. “Cause it looks like you’ve been pretty busy here.”

  A grunt was his only reply.

  She’d already learned that he wouldn’t talk until he was ready, and sometimes not at all. So she lay there looking at the stars and listened to him play. There was no conversation for twenty minutes and thankfully no more drinking either.

  This appeared to be a not at all kind of night, and her heart broke at that. She wanted to be there for him, to be his comfort. But she was learning that you can’t make people want you or see your value, no matter how hard you try. She reached for her shoes and stood up. “Good night, Gavin.” A kiss to the temple, then she would leave him to brood alone.

  “Wait.” His voice was like rocks in a grinder. He took her hand. “Please, don’t go.”

  “Okay.” She resumed her place on the chair. “Do you want to talk?”

  “Not really.”

  “Alright.” So what if he didn’t want to talk. He wanted her there, and a small zip of hope buzzed in her heart.

  “I spoke to Jack while you were out.”

  “No wonder you’re in a foul mood.”

  The ghost of a smile shuffled across his face. “Yeah, well.” He continued to play softly. Still, he didn’t look at her. “There was this foster family I lived with for a short while when I was six. They were the only really great people I was ever assigned to. The mom stayed at home, and the dad worked in a factory. They had a son of their own and me. Sam and I shared a room. But it was good, you know?”

  “It sounds nice.” She had no idea where he was going with this.

  “It was. Shirley, the mom, always had a snack ready for us when we got home from school, and I remember my clothes always smelled like her perfume.” The song he was playing changed. “I loved that smell. Sometimes I’ll walk down the street or be in a crowded room and get a whiff of it. It always makes me smile.”

  “Mmm.” It was all she could manage without crying, and if she cried he’d stop talking. It was the saddest, sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

  “And Bill, the dad, he was a big guy. I remember thinking his arms were like the Hulk’s. He came home every day at six o’clock. Sam and I would wait on the front porch for him. Seeing him walk up the drive was the best part of my whole day. He had to be tired, but he’d toss the ball with us, or chase us around until Shirley called us in for dinner. While we ate, he’d talk about his work, what they were making, how those things would be used to make other’s people’s lives better. At night, he’d read to us before bed or tell ridiculous stories until we were laughing our asses off. Then he’d turn off the light, and say, ‘Sleep well, men.’” A chord changed punctuated the sweet night-time blessing.

  “That sounds nice. How long were you with them?” The words slipped around the tears in her throat.

  “About nine months. Looking back, I think they were probably going to adopt me, or at least make me a permanent placement, but her sister and brother-in-law were killed in a motorcycle accident, and they had to take in their two kids. There wasn’t enough room or money for me to stay.”

  Sorrow flooded her tear ducts and a sob fought to escape her mouth, but she battled them back.

  “When they broke it to me, I was devastated. Bill told me I had to be brave, and to always remember to work hard and be a man.” He cleared his throat. “It’s probably the only reason I’ve never completely self-destructed.”

  “Where did you go from there?”

  “After that, the homes they put me in were not stellar. Most of the dads didn’t work, or if they did, they’d come home and drink all evening, or not come home at all. I don’t know if I was ever truly clean after that. Nobody cared enough to make sure we bathed or did homework, or whatever. It wasn’t until I started living in the group home and they required us to shower, keep our beds made, and keep our shit picked up that I felt clean again. Weird, huh?”

  “Not so weird,” she whispered.

  “When I was twelve, Johnny moved into the group home, and he had all these great memories of his mom and dad. He worshiped his dad. He taught him to play guitar, then he taught me.”

  “And now you’ve taught Brody.” This was an easier topic to talk about.

  He huffed a laugh. “I tried to teach Brody. He’s a little…challenged. Anyway, the point is, real men, good men, good father type men, work, and they teach their kids to work. I mean, look at Floyd, he’s one of the hardest working men I’ve ever met.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I’m a thirty-year-old, unemployed musician, Scarlett. Except for about a year when I was sixteen, I’ve never done what most people would call an honest day’s work in my life. After that, I stood on street corners and played music for money, and stole if I had to. Once Johnny and I got a record deal, we busted our asses to make our music the best it could be. That was my work. Real men work, Scarlett. Men who have things to offer their children work. And I…”

  She got it now. Since he didn’t have a record deal and couldn’t make music, he didn’t think he could be a father to Aiden. It didn’t matter that he didn’t need to play another show or make another record to provide for the boy. Work equaled a good useful man.

  Standing, she took the guitar from him and straddled his lap. Her fingers threaded through his hair, and she lifted his face to meet her gaze. The desolate pain punctured through her hard-won composure. “I’m not going to tell you how messed up your thinking is, or how hard you’ve worked to accomplish all that you have. And I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong because it’s how you feel and I respect that. I’m only going to say that you deserve to have someone look at you the way I look at my father, and to love you like there’s nobody else in the whole world better than you.”

  He started to protest, but she silenced him with a kiss, then another, then another until she felt his taut muscles relax. His hands flattened on her back, the heat from them burning through the fabric of her thin cotton dress. The fire between them scorched her from the inside out.

  This good man needed to know he was worth loving. She couldn’t say the words I love you. That wasn’t the arrangement. But she could show him. She felt for the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head. His penetrating look simmered with enough intensity to steal her hammering heart. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and trailed kisses down his neck to the cross over his heart.

  He grabbed the bottom of her dress and yanked it over her head. She sat straddling him, naked except for bra and panties, totally unashamed. The approval in his eyes was all she needed to own this moment.

  “God, you’re beautiful.” The desperation in his words was like kerosene, volatile and combustible. He strung kisses down her neck, and his calloused fingers stroked sensitive places that ignited her own desperate want. Reality existed somewhere beyond the here and now with him.

  “Take me to bed, Gavin.” It was a plea, not a request or a command.

  In one swift movement, he stood with her in his arms. They didn’t break the kiss, her legs clasped around his body. Every step he took caused his jeans to rub against the most intimate part of her, while his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her backside. A moan ripped from both of them when he pulled her closer. Every part of her touched every part of him. The erotic electricity that coursed between them was a drug she craved.

  She needed him. He needed her. She would communicate her love for him in the only language she could.

  The one he spoke fluently.

  Chapter 23

  Gavin’s uneaten chicken sandwich sat in front of him, while he and Kr
isty watched Scarlett play with Aiden on the restaurant’s playground. Two weeks ago, he hadn’t known any of them. The enormity of it all made his head hurt. Well, that and the half bottle of whiskey he’d swallowed last night.

  Scarlett picked Aiden up and twirled him around. He could hear his son’s happy giggles through the glass of the restaurant. She had that effect on people. He’d been in a dark place when she’d returned from her errands last night, and she’d loved him back toward the light.

  Another twirl, another giggle, and his damn heart barely fit in his ribcage.

  “You gonna eat those?” Kristy pointed to his untouched fries.

  “They’re all yours.” She looked like she needed every available calorie on the table and then some.

  “Thanks.” She snatched the fries and wasted no time devouring them. In a t-shirt and shorts, beat-up tennis shoes and no make-up, she looked about sixteen years old. He threw pain relievers back with a slug of soda.

  “How old are you?”

  “Your private detective didn’t tell you?” There was venom in the words, tempered, but they definitely had a bite to them.

  “I didn’t ask, and if he did, I don’t remember.”

  “Twenty-one,” she said, but wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  He knocked his knuckles on the table once to get her attention. “Really?”

  “Fine. I’m nineteen.”

  Aiden was almost two, so she’d been solely responsible for him since she was seventeen. His gut twisted around the anger that had lived there since he found out about Johnny’s deception. All the things that could’ve gone wrong raced through his head. “How did you support yourself and Aiden?”

  She shrugged and dragged three fries through a river of ketchup. “Tara left me some money.”

  “How much did Johnny give her?”

  “Half a mil.”

  “Five hundred thousand dollars?”

  “Yeah.” She wiped her hands on a napkin and reached into Aiden’s diaper bag, withdrew a manila envelope, and slid it across the table.

  The crinkle of the envelope opening and Kristy slurping the last of her drink were the only sounds in the nearly empty fast-food joint. He set the packet down and wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, then pulled out a stack of legal-looking papers.

  It was a contract stating that Tara would receive half a million dollars in exchange for her silence about the baby. It also stated that she couldn’t come after him for more money and that he would never try to gain custody of the child. Johnny had forged his signature.

  He fisted his hands and counted to ten…then twenty…then thirty.

  Johnny, I’m going to kick your ass in the afterlife.

  Guilt slapped him. It was clear by the contract language that his best friend and brother had, in a really screwed-up way, been trying to protect him. Even so, the anger was bitter to swallow.

  He pointed to the last paper in the stack. “That’s not my signature. I’ve never seen this before in my life.”

  Kristy threw her wadded up napkin onto the table, then crossed her arms defiantly. “That’s not my problem. I’m the one who takes care of him, who takes him to the doctor and stays up with him when he’s sick. Me. Not you. Not Tara.”

  She was right, she’d done it all and done it by herself. “How did you get medical care for him without Tara around?”

  “Can I have your sandwich too?” She reached out and nabbed it without permission.

  Changing the subject, like that would work, such a rookie mistake. “Kristy?” He gave her his Delinquent glare.

  “Tara used some of the money to buy a new identity.”

  “Why?”

  She rolled her eyes with all the force of her nineteen-year-old self. “Bad people were after her. I told you this.”

  He’d forgotten. A horrible thought crashed into his head. “Are you and Aiden in danger?”

  “No.” She began to tear the napkin to pieces.

  “But you were?”

  She shrugged. “I gave them what money I had left, and they stopped harassing me. That was two years ago, and I haven’t heard from them since.” She seemed to realize how vulnerable her admission made her. His back went ramrod straight. “We’re fine. I handled it. Just like I’ve handled everything else that pertains to Aiden and me.”

  The small amount of food he’d eaten threatened to make a reappearance. She must’ve been scared shitless. He was scared shitless for them. The first thing that had to be done was to get them out of that hole they lived in and into someplace safe.

  Kristy seemed to be unaware of the bomb blast she’d ignited. “Anyway, I used her old driver’s license and social security card to get the things I need for Aiden,” she mumbled into her soda.

  “And you haven’t been caught?”

  “No. We look enough alike for me to pass as her.”

  Did she have any idea how much trouble she could get into? Probably not. There’d be time to deal with her fraud later, but he would need to get someone on it ASAP. The second item on the list, keep Kristy’s ass out of jail.

  He wanted her protected in case this ever came back on her. It wasn’t her fault, she was just trying to survive and keep his son alive. He understood and respected the hell out of her for it.

  “Anyway, Tara is now Sasha Strong. Doesn’t matter, good riddance is what I say. I want an ice cream cone now.”

  She might say she didn’t care, but he could read the hurt in her eyes. He’d let her off the hook for now and pass the name, Sasha Strong, to Jack. He shoved the sleeves of his Henley up his arms. “Do you know where she is?”

  “After the bad guy, there was a rapper, then another bad guy, and now she’s livin’ with some professional football player in Florida. Supposedly they’re getting married.”

  He looked at her, then out the window to Aiden, and shook his head.

  She let out a sigh as big as Nevada. “Yeah. I know.”

  They were silent for a long moment. Tara had screwed them both over and not given one damn about it either.

  Kristy squared her shoulders. “So what do you want?”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want my son. I know you’re attached to him, and I’d never cut you out of his life, but he’s my son, and he belongs with me.”

  Wrong thing to say. Gavin knew it the minute he saw fire flash in Kristy’s eyes.

  “You’re his father, huh? Where exactly were you when I was sitting in the ER all night while he ran a raging fever? Or when I was getting two hours of sleep at a stretch for the first six months of his life? And when I was trying to decide which was more crucial—food or medicine? You arrogant ass.” She yanked her purse and Aiden’s baby backpack from the seat beside her.

  He gripped the backpack and held on. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was out of line. Please don’t leave.”

  If looks could kill, he’d have been cut to ribbons. She sat slowly. “I. Am. His. Mother. The only one he’s ever known, and I will not just hand him over to you. We don’t even know if he’s really yours. I know he’s mine. So get your fancy lawyers, I’m not scared of you.”

  The set of her jaw and her rigid posture told him she absolutely wasn’t afraid of him. “I want a DNA test.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her gaze held a calculating glint.

  “Fine.” He wasn’t afraid of her either.

  “I’ve heard those things can take a couple of months to get the results. A lot can happen in a couple of months.”

  “It can, but if you go to a private lab, you can get them back in one to three days.”

  She choked on her drink. “One to three days?”

  “We’re not enemies, Kristy. We both want what’s best for Aiden. Can we at least agree on that?”

  “I can agree that I want what’s best for him.”

  They weren’t getting anywhere this way. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What did you want t
o do with your life before you unexpectedly became Aiden’s mother?”

  She picked at her nail. “It doesn’t matter. I have Aiden, nothing else matters.”

  “But what if it did matter? What would you want?”

  She fiddled with the group of bracelets on her wrist. “I wanted to study marketing. I’d already been accepted to UNLV. I was considered a junior because of dual credit classes I’d taken in high school. But then Tara had the baby…and now I have Aiden. Dreams change.”

  “Tell me about it.” He watched his wife and his son chase after each other. Who could have predicted he’d be sitting here wondering about the safety of playground equipment, and how fast he could get his wife back into bed. Life was weird and a little awesome.

  “You can’t seriously be thinking you’re going to raise Aiden with your lifestyle. I mean, what? You’ll have a kid-sized room set up for him on the tour bus?” She threw the obliterated napkin on the table. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. It’s hard as hell. You worry all the time. You have to watch him all the time. You’re responsible for him all the time. How are you going to do that?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “You and her?” She jerked her head toward the window. “From what I saw on TV, this relationship seems sketchy at best.”

  Their relationship might have been sketchy in the beginning, but not now. He and Scarlett were solid. She got him, and he got her. A smile split his face when he saw Aiden gave Scarlett a kiss on the cheek. This would work. He knew it. “We’ll handle it.”

  Scarlett wanted this little boy worse than she’d wanted anything in her whole life. From the moment he’d taken her hand, she’d fallen completely in love.

  It made no sense. Absolutely no sense at all, but love was funny that way.

  She loved Gavin. The epitome of the kind of man she’d avoided her whole life, the kind of man that sang the same song as her soul. He and this towheaded child, with his cupid’s bow mouth, dimples, and a face that could go from serious to joyful in a heartbeat, had crashed through her defenses, and she was head over heels. Neither of them was on her meticulous life list. But they’d both barreled in and shredded that list to pieces. And she couldn’t be happier.