Christmas Encounter
Page 7
“Merry Christmas, and Godspeed,” he said with a smile before slamming the door shut.
Just at that moment, my phone rang. “Jensen, are you at the airport yet?” Nancy asked as soon as I connected the call.
“No. I’m actually on my way back to Friendship,” I explained.
“Thank goodness. Jill’s just called to tell me that Lauren’s in jail. I don’t know what’s happened, but I think she’s going to need you,” Nancy said.
“I’ll head straight there. Whatever it is, I’ll sort it out,” I replied, worried sick about what her dad had gotten her into.
“If there’s anything I can do, just let me know,” she said.
“Actually, I’d like to ask you a favor,” I replied. We talked for a few minutes before hanging up. Turning the truck around, I looked down the barren highway for Gabriel, unwilling to leave him out in the cold … only to find that he’d completely disappeared.
Without stopping to think, I put my foot to the floor and broke more than a few speed limits as I raced back to my girl.
Chapter Seventeen
Lauren
Five hours earlier, I’d stood heart-broken at the door of the motel room, watching for the last time as my father threw his clothes into a bag. Jensen had offered me everything I’d ever wanted. And I’d rejected him. As he laid himself bare for me, I remembered every single word of Nancy’s speech, and I knew that this was the moment she feared. The moment where he’d start compromising his dream or, worse still, give it up for me. So I’d pulled off the con of a lifetime and convinced him that leaving me behind was for the best.
Now I was faced with the very reality I’d protected him from. “What have you done?” I asked, knowing from the urgency of his packing that it was really bad.
“It’s about time you showed up. I’ve not seen you for days, and then I hear today that you’ve been hooking up with some fancy mark. Well, I hope that boy has deep pockets, because we’re going to need them if we’re caught. Now pack your stuff,” he demanded.
“What have you done?” I repeated, trying to remain calm.
“An acquaintance of mine sold me a copy of the database details for the community center senior citizens club. Names, addresses, contact telephone numbers, that sort of thing. So, I called a few and told them I was from the bank, calling to conduct a security check. Worried them a little with the threat that their ATM cards might be frozen and talked them into giving away their bank details to verify their account. I used that to set up an e-wallet account, and from there, I transferred a little cash into a withdrawal account.” The slight note of pride in his voice sickened me. He’d deliberately targeted the weak and the vulnerable, and he was proud of himself for it.
“How much did you take?” I asked, dreading the thought of how I could possibly face anybody in this town after what he’d done.
“Don’t you look at me all high and mighty. This puts food on our table. Now pack your stuff. We’re going. One of the stupid pensioners freaked out and went to the sheriff.”
“I’m not going with you,” I said. It was the first time I’d said it, and the shock was enough to make him pause.
“What do you mean, you’re not going with me? For years I’ve carried you, and now you’re walking away? Just when we’re starting to make some real money?” he replied.
“This is not a life. Running place to place, conning retirees out of their life savings. It’s wrong, Dad. It’s no way to live, and it ends now,” I argued.
“I don’t think you understand, girlie. The withdrawal account is in your name. Some stupid savings account your grandmother set up for you. I knew it would come in useful one day. So you see, it’s not me that’s implicated in this whole thing, it’s you.”
“I had nothing to do with any of this. Why would you use my name?”
“Stop acting all superior. You’re no different than me. Cut from the same cloth, both of us. You don’t give a crap about those people. Now I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Pack your stuff and get moving,” he shouted.
“You’re wrong! I’m nothing like you. It’s Christmas Eve, and you’ve taken from elderly people who probably couldn’t afford to lose that money. I’ll admit I’ve done things that I’ll be ashamed of for the rest of my life, but I did them to eat. To survive. You do it so you can drink and gamble your life away.
“Well, I’ve had enough. It stops here. Run away if you want to, but I’m staying. I’ll face whatever comes my way, and then I’m going straight. I just hope you can run faster than the sheriff. Because if you touch one more cent of the money in that account, then I’m doing everything I can to help him find you,” I said.
I didn’t see his backhand coming until I was lying on the floor.
“You’re as ungrateful as your mother was. Good luck on your own,” he said venomously, and grabbing his bag, he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
I didn’t allow myself to cry. I mourned the loss of Jensen in my life, but Dad’s leaving felt like something that should be celebrated. Well, maybe after the swelling had gone down and I’d been arrested for a crime I hadn’t committed. So, all in all, it hadn’t been my best day. But despite feeling like my heart had been ripped out with Jensen gone, I knew I would never want to take back a second of the time we’d spent together. Whether he knew it or not, meeting him had changed me. He looked at the parts of me that no one else had taken the trouble to see, and he made me feel like I was worth something. He liked the person I was, and more importantly, he made me like that person too. I wasn’t my father’s daughter. I was me. And I was getting my butt off the floor and taking life by the balls for a change instead of running from it.
After packing up my stuff, I straightened out the room as best I could and checked out of the motel. Unsurprisingly, Dad hadn’t paid the bill, so I kissed the last of my wages good-bye and handed the money over to the manager. After that, I headed to the bus station. If I was going to jail, and in all likelihood I was, I needed some place secure to store what little stuff I had. The bus station had luggage lockers, so I figured I’d stick my bag in one of those, stop off at the coffee shop to explain to Jill what was happening, and then head over to the station to turn myself in before they came looking for me. Of course, that’s not what the sheriff saw when he caught me at the entrance to the bus station with a packed bag.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I protested.
“Of course it’s not,” he replied.
Chapter Eighteen
Jensen
“I need to see Lauren Matthews,” I said.
“Sir, who are you and what makes you think you can walk into my station and demand to see anybody?” the desk clerk said in a tone so bored and condescending that I had to take a deep, long breath before replying to avoid snapping back.
“My name is Jensen Caldwell. I’m a friend of Lauren’s, and I heard that she’d been arrested. Whatever she’s accused of, she didn’t do it. I’ll bet money that her father is behind this, and I need to see that she’s okay,” I explained.
“Well, that’s very sweet, sir, and while I’m sure that a note from her boyfriend protesting her innocence would be sufficient evidence to release a suspect in England, I’m afraid we work a little different here,” she retorted sarcastically.
“Wow. I see you’re full of Christmas spirit today. So how about this? Either you let me see Miss Matthews now or I will have a team of the best lawyers money can buy here within the hour. The sole purpose of which will be to make your day as crappy as possible. So what’s it going to be?” Was I aware that I sounded like a complete arsehole? Yes. But rationality went out the window the minute I knew Lauren was in trouble.
“Jensen?” I jerked around at the sound of Lauren’s voice. The look of shock on her face matched my own. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’ve come to save you,” I replied stupidly.
“I’m fine. The sheriff asked me to come in to make a statement,
but they had a case put together before they even found me. They know it was all Dad. He conned a lot of people out of their savings, but they caught him at the bank trying to withdraw the money. He’s in custody now, and I’m free to go,” she explained.
“Oh. That’s great news. I thought … I thought you might need me,” I said, feeling like an idiot.
“How did you even know I was in trouble?” she asked.
“Gabriel told me,” I explained. She looked at me and smiled. A sad, nervous smile as though she was waiting for me to turn around and leave again.
“I love you,” I blurted out in the least romantic way possible. “I love you, and I realized somewhere along the highway that it doesn’t matter where we found each other and how far apart we are. When you find something as precious as we have, you don’t just throw it away on the possibility that things might get a bit hard down the road. I don’t care how many miles I need to travel to be with you or how much work it takes for us to be together. I’m all in, and if we have even a chance at having what Ronnie and Nancy had, I’m taking it.”
Every moment that she didn’t reply felt like a lifetime. I’d give the world to keep her, but it didn’t matter if the world wasn’t enough.
“You’re crazy, you know that, right?” she asked. “You and I make absolutely no sense together. But so help me, you are my fairy tale, Jensen Caldwell. I don’t care where you live, and I don’t care what you do for a living. As long as we’re together, we’ll figure everything out. I love you, and I choose us too.”
I didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. Instead, I closed the distance between us, lifted her up so that she wrapped her legs around my waist, and kissed her until we were both breathless. My joy was indescribable.
“Do you mind? Some of us have work to do,” said the still bored-sounding desk clerk.
Resting my forehead against Lauren’s, I reluctantly let her down, and with a satisfied, happy grin I didn’t try to hide, I threaded my fingers through hers and pulled her toward the door.
“Merry Christmas,” I said cheerfully as we passed the desk clerk.
“Bah humbug,” she shouted at my back. Lauren giggled happily, and I let go of her hand to wrap my arm around her shoulder, tucking her into my side.
“Where are we?” Lauren asked, her face a picture of wonder as she stared up at the house.
“We’re home,” I replied. “That is, if you like it,” I replied, nervous about her reaction now that we were here.
“What do you mean?” she asked, stepping out of the truck to take a closer look.
“I realized, when you were describing your dream home, that it sounded just like Nancy and Ronnie’s place. It’s a great place to raise a family, and it’s been filled with love and laughter for a lot of years, and I figured we could use a little of that. Nancy offered it to us for Christmas, and if we like it here, she’ll let us buy her out so that she can live with her daughter permanently,” I explained.
Lauren didn’t say a word as she stared up at the house.
“What do you think? Do you like it?” I asked finally.
“Oh, Jensen, it’s unbelievable. I never dreamed of anything that was anywhere near this beautiful. But it’s so far away from where you need to be,” she replied.
“I can live anywhere in the world. If Ronnie and Nancy could make this work, so can we. Now, do you want to see inside?” I asked.
Her happy smile as she grabbed my hand was all the answer I needed. I slipped my fingers between hers, knowing, as I walked toward my future, that somewhere, somehow, Ronnie Adler was smiling down on me.