by Ali Parker
Wesley had managed to ruin yet another thing that could’ve been good for Austin and me. I missed Jeremy like crazy, and it was obvious Austin missed him too. It’d taken me years, but I’d finally found a man I could trust.
Now I couldn’t be with Jeremy because being with him put him at risk. I couldn’t believe that despite everything I’d done, Wesley still managed to take that away from me.
A tight knot of unshed tears was forming in my throat as I thought about it all. Emotional and on edge as I was, I nearly missed it, but there was a car following us.
Near crippling fear gripped at my heart, a cold numbness washing through me as my heart thudded, fast and shallow, in my chest. Austin was watching me carefully. I forced myself to school my expression to calm as I pulled up to Austin’s day care.
“Here we are,” I said cheerily. Austin looked dubious, but he took my hand when I offered to help him out of the car. “How about I walk you in today?”
Austin brightened up, tugging on my hand. “Okay, mommy.”
It took everything I had not to look over my shoulder as we headed into the daycare. Or when I came out and headed to work, but I wasn’t going to give Wesley the satisfaction—if he was watching.
Even if he wasn’t, I did it for myself. To prove to myself that I could push him aside and go about my life. There was only so much I’d let him steal from me.
It was empowering to square my shoulders and shove Wesley aside, so I kept doing it on my way to work. I refused to look into the rearview mirror even once. He was probably there, probably still following me, but fuck him.
Sarah was waiting for me when I got to the salon, rushing over as soon as she saw me.
A client was already waiting on each of us, but Sarah had settled them with coffee and called out as she linked her arm through mine and led me to the back, “We’ll be right back, we’re just going to make some coffee for ourselves. No one wants a half asleep stylist!”
The clients giggled their agreement. I smiled apologetically at my client just before Sarah pulled me off the floor. “What’s going on with you?” She released my arm, planting her hands on her hips as she looked me up and down.
Lifting a shoulder, I shrugged. “What are you talking about?”
“Jeremy Lovett came by yesterday.”
The mere mention of Jeremy’s name kicked my pulse up a notch. “Okay?”
“He’s worried about you,” she told me, her eyes locked on mine. “I think he cares about you.”
Sadly, despite all the doubts crowding my mind, I believed her. And because he didn’t deserve the shitshow of my past, I had to stay away from him. I didn’t want to burden Sarah with all my Wesley issues, or god forbid put a target on her back as well, so I kept quiet.
She wasn’t going to be deterred that easily though. “He’s a good man, sweetheart. Don’t shut him out. Whatever happened, talk to him about it. I’m sure he would understand.”
“I can’t.” It was tearing me up thinking about Jeremy, hearing from Sarah that he was worried about me and that he cared. But it didn’t change a thing.
I couldn’t even tell Sarah the full story about just how bad things had really gotten with Wesley, so other than telling her that I couldn’t talk about it, all I could do was keep quiet. She was waiting for me to explain my answer, concern swimming in her eyes.
When I didn’t say anything to clarify my answer, she sighed and turned towards the coffee cart behind her. “I don’t know why you think you can’t talk to him. For what it may be worth, I think you’re wrong. Whatever it is, Jeremy’s a big boy, he can handle it. He may even be able to help you. But it’s your business.”
She smiled kindly, fixing each of our coffees and patting my arm when she handed me mine. “Take a minute, and I’ll see you out there, okay?”
Whisking up her cup, she pushed her way past the makeshift door to the back room, leaving me alone for the time being. I set my coffee down to rub my hands over my face, only then realizing my cheeks were damp from my tears.
A sob of frustration caught in the back of my throat as I swiped at my tears and tried to stem their flow—an entirely useless effort. The more I tried not to cry, the more the tears welled up and rolled down my cheeks.
Great. Just great.
I didn’t need a mirror to know I’d smeared my make-up. I probably looked like a sad raccoon. I just couldn’t bring myself to give a damn. Not right now.
I’d been a bundle of nerves and emotion all weekend, and I was beyond weary of feeling so strung out.
Wesley hadn’t so much as spoken to me, yet he sure knew how to get to me. I knew what he was doing was tantamount to abuse, but it’d never been clearer to me than it was right now. He wasn’t even here, but he’d parked himself in my head and was lobbing potshots to make sure I’d be miserable. It had felt like such an achievement to break free of him. I’d thought by scrounging up the nerve to leave him, I’d be free. No such luck. Even from a distance, he still managed to wreak havoc in my life.
I was alienating people who were trying to be there for me, I was caving to his demands even though they were hurting me, and I was willing to keep doing it if it meant keeping Austin safe. But I was also exhausted from it.
I was so damn tired of Wesley threatening me and Austin, and now Jeremy as well. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just leave me alone.
We didn’t work out.
We had a child together, sure. Austin would bind us together forever, but Wesley could’ve been a positive part of Austin’s life besides our relationship falling apart. Instead, his own son was terrified of him, and he caused us nothing but grief.
Austin was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I wouldn’t change having him for anything in the world. Yet, I often wondered why I hadn’t seen Wesley for who he was right from the very beginning.
Maybe if I had, I could’ve broken things off with him much earlier, made a clean break for both Austin’s well-being and my own. Guilt weighed heavily in the pit of my stomach, getting heavier by the day because of Wesley’s effect on our lives.
The worst thing was that his poison wasn’t even confined to my life alone anymore. It had a domino effect, spreading to others around me.
It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. If I wanted to break out of this cycle I was stuck in, I had to break free of this hold he had on me. I just had no idea how to make that happen.
Chapter Three
Jeremy
I came awake, my thoughts fuzzy in my still dark bedroom. It took me a few seconds to register there was something heavy on my arm and something warm nudging my leg. Soft whining sounds punctured my hazy thoughts.
Arcadian?
Cracking open one eye, I found my behemoth of a black dog looking up at me with eyes the color of night. His tail started wagging when he saw he’d roused me, then he was off the bed and pacing around, looking back at me with this ‘are you coming already?’ kind of expression.
Weird. Arcadian usually slept like the dead, nothing woke him up. The hairs on the back of my neck and on my forearms rose, snapping me out of my half-awake state. If Arcadian was up, there was something going on.
Despite the darkness, I rolled out of bed. Whatever was bothering Arcadian deserved to be checked out. Pulling on the pair of jeans lying beside my bed from the night before, I mumbled into the darkness, “What is it, boy? What’s got you up so early?”
His only response was his tail wagging faster. As if he’d been waiting impatiently for me to drag my lazy ass out of bed, he let out a low yelp and took off down the hall. I went to flick on the light as I passed it by the door, but thought better of it.
Arcadian was acting strangely and clearly wanted me to follow him. If he was just looking to be let outside or if he’d had a sudden craving for an early breakfast, I was going to feel like an asshole for groping around in the dark, but I didn’t think that was what it was, so I left the lights off.
He paused by the front win
dows of the house just a second once he’d led me all the way to the end of the hall, staring intently at them before he looked back at me. Then he came over to give my feet a long, slobbering lick and took off in the direction of the kitchen. It figured. I could hear him slurping water from his bowl as I headed over to the windows.
In the darkness, only a few streetlights shed light on the road. Looking out, I squinted until my eyes adjusted. At first, when I saw the same car I’d noticed following me twice now parked across the street, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.
After blinking a few times, I realized that the car really was out there. It wasn’t my imagination. Sleep forgotten, my fists clenched and I made for the front door.
Knowing the history from Sonny, I still suspected the person following me was Marie’s ex. Where the fuck did the guy get off parking outside my house in the middle of the night? He was insane. While that was my initial suspicion, if only because I had Marie on the brain big time, my father’s warning the last time I’d visited him in prison flickered. He’d been concerned someone might try to approach me. I might be trying to make the best of a bad situation with my father, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t aware he’d brushed up against some shady characters.
For now though, my gut told me it was Marie’s ex.
Alert, now fully awake and fucking pissed off, I wanted to confront this coward right now. I’d just about had enough of his idiotic intimidation tactics. If he thought he was going to scare me off by stalking me, he was sorely mistaken.
I was halfway to the door before I remembered that going after the asshole was probably not the smartest move. As Sonny had warned me, anything I did would likely lead to retaliation against Marie. That was the last thing I wanted.
Returning to the window, I slammed my fist against the wall next to the frame and then rested it there, watching the car from the shadows. A couple minutes later, its lights came on and it drove away. If it hadn’t have been for Arcadian, I would never have been the wiser. I knew now that this guy was, at the very least, not going to stop with just following me around.
I waited for a while longer, but the car didn’t come back. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, so I went to make breakfast for myself and feed Arcadian.
By the time I got to work three hours later, I was thirty minutes early but going too stir crazy at home to stay there. The sight of Doc’s car in the lot when I got to the construction yard made me pause before I parked beside it. He’d told me a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to retire, and he was only going to come in to the office two days a week or so. Yet, I hadn’t been expecting him this morning.
Seeing his car there was strangely comforting. I’d never dreamed of taking over the company from Doc, but he was intent on it happening. Knowing that he was at the yard now, like he always had been, made me feel just a little bit less out of sorts.
I was still getting my feet under me with the construction teams. The teams followed my guidance without question, yet I wasn’t quite comfortable in the role yet. With Doc around for the day, I’d be able to bounce things off of him.
“Mornin’ boss,” I called with a grin, stepping into his office after a swift knock on his door.
Doc was at his desk, his graying head bowed over some paperwork he had spread out in front of him. He smiled when he saw me, folding the papers up. “You’re early.”
“Arcadian woke me up,” I said, offering the plain truth, but leaving out the details. I didn’t need Doc to be worried about me. I could take care of myself. Mentioning Marie’s abusive ex was only going to aggravate my frustration. “He decided it was time was for an early morning.”
Doc laughed, shaking his head. “Man’s best friend until they wake you up, am I right?”
“Better now than it was when he was a puppy.”
Nodding, he motioned for me to take a seat. “So true. A puppy’ll wear you out. No way could I manage one at my age.”
“I’d say. He used to wake me up every few hours back then,” I replied as I settled into the chair across from Doc.
He laughed again, steepling his fingers after stuffing the papers he’d had in front of him into an envelope and sliding it across his desk to me.
Lifting the envelope off the desk and holding it up between my fingers, I arched a brow at Doc. “What’s this?”
“Another by-product of my age,” he told me, grinning wryly. “It’s the paperwork to the company. It’s yours now. Congratulations.”
My entire body went ice cold as his words seeped in, my muscles freezing in place. “What? Already?”
I’d thought there’d be at least a few more months before it got to this. Doc shrugged, leaning forward on his desk. “Already. This was always the plan as far as I was concerned.”
“I know.” He’d been honest about that while he’d been planning all this. Yet, it didn’t change the fact I was taken off guard. I’d expected a slower transition than this. With a mental shake, I forced myself to focus.
Along with the sense of shock and apprehension that I was going to run the company Doc spent years building up right into the ground without him, excitement was starting to take root too.
A sense of pride rose inside of me. Over everyone Doc could’ve chosen, he’d chosen me. That meant something. Given everything my family had gone through the last few years, pride had been hard to come by lately.
“I guess I’m just still surprised,” I finally admitted. “I don’t know if I’m ready to run this place all by myself.”
To say I had mixed feeling about it all was an understatement. Doc wasn’t having it though. His jaw clenched into a determined line and his eyes glinted with the same emotion. “You’re like a son to me, Jeremy. And I value all the hard work you’ve done for me all these years. I see how much what happened to your father and your family hurt you. Through it all, you haven’t skipped one day of work.”
I started to tell Doc that wasn’t enough reason to give me his company, but he held up a hand to stop me. “Let me finish before you start with your nonsense about how your dedication to this company hasn’t warranted this, because that’s all it is as far as I’m concerned. Nonsense.”
When I snapped my mouth shut, he continued, “Thank you. Now, you listen to me and you listen well. I don’t have any children of my own to leave this place to. Neither of us is cheating anyone out of an inheritance here. I want the business to be yours, understand?”
I knew Doc didn’t have any kids of his own, it was something we’d often spoken about. It still didn’t explain why he was leaving the company to me over all the other guys who worked here. “I understand, but are you sure you don’t want to reconsi...”
“No. I’m not reconsidering this. I’ve given this more thought than you realize. There is no one I’d rather trust with this place than you.”
The sincerity in his voice caused a knot of emotion to form in my throat. I wasn’t used to getting emotional, and I sure as shit never showed much emotion, so I swallowed through the tightness. “Thank you, Doc. I’ll do my best to make you proud, but I’m not promising anything.”
I let the corners of my mouth lift as I said it, breaking the serious atmosphere that’d settled over the room some. Doc laughed softly, relaxing back into his squeaky wheelie chair. “What more could any man ask for?”
Pushing out of my chair, I folded the envelope with the paperwork in it and slid it into the back pocket of my jeans. “Don’t know, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Sure it is.” Doc smiled. “Before you get to work, there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
I nearly groaned out loud. I didn’t know how much more of the emotional stuff I could take this morning, but Doc wasn’t giving me a choice. And it wasn’t like I could walk out without even listening to him after the man had just given me his company.
“What’s up?”
He hesitated, rolling the chair forward again so he could fold his arms on his
desk as he spoke. “I may be old, but my hearing’s still fine.”
“Okay?”
“I still hear all about everything that happens in this here town of ours, and I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’ve been seeing that pretty new stylist at Sarah’s salon.” I was willing to bet the grapevine’s name was Sarah. She wasn’t a gossip, but she was curious about Marie and me, and she was one of Doc’s friends. “I’ve also spoken to Sarah about the delay in the renovations at the salon. We both know that extension was going to help them increase the business more than a little.”
“Okay?” I still wasn’t getting where he was going with this.
His eyes were sparkling now, waiting for me to put the pieces together. “What I’m saying is that if you wanted to take care of your girl, you know what to do.”
“Cryptic much?” I asked. Even as I said it though, the pieces were starting to fall into place. Doc started nodding the second I came to my conclusion about the hint he’d been trying to give me. “As the owner of the construction company, I’m in the position now to extend credit to the salon owner, aren’t I?”
Doc formed a gun with his thumb and index finger, lifting his hand like he was blowing smoke away from the barrel. “Bingo.”
Well what do you know...
Chapter Four
Marie
Today marked one week post Jeremy—a whole week since I’d last seen or spoken to him. I was slowly coming to terms with the situation and telling myself the only change was things were back to the way they’d been before. Wishing things were different wasn’t going to change them.
At least it was Friday, which meant that I was only working tomorrow afternoon and I could spend some time in the morning with Austin. It was still early, and I was busy with a weekly client of mine when the bell above the door to the shop alerted to me someone entering the shop.
