She loved David so much. She rubbed her chest. Her heart ached. This time with him had meant … everything to her.
Tessa picked herself off the floor and pulled on the tee shirt, mechanically knotting it at the waist since it was so large.
What to do now? She looked down at the papers on the floor. Nothing. She’d do nothing. Give David his freedom if that’s what he wanted. That would be better than seeing the look in his eyes when he learned the truth about her.
The bridge that night. The truck that hit her. She knew it had to be Kyle. Maybe even her mother. Dear old mom wouldn’t want the nasty truth to come out when she was preparing for a governor’s race. Wouldn’t that just looked wonderful splashed all over the news?
Tessa fell to her knees in front of the window and wept for the second chance she’d been given that she couldn’t take. Not having a memory had helped her return to the normal she’d had before Kyle entered her life again. David hadn’t wanted a romantic getaway to rebuild their relationship. He’d wanted her away from the public so he could talk her into signing the property settlement and the divorce papers. She couldn’t even blame him. For anything.
Finally, all cried out, she got off the floor and staggered to the dresser where she’d seen a pen. She picked up the papers and scribbled her name at all the yellow flags on the documents. Then she threw the pen and papers on the bed.
David deserved better. He deserved someone not broken.
Tessa caught herself blindly staring out the window. Something moved and broke her trance. Her gaze focused. Who was skulking around the trees at the bottom of the slope? The man stepped out, and the sunlight caught pale hair. She swayed. “It can’t be.” Her eyes remained on the man who stepped over the low stone wall and disappeared from sight. Terror filled her. She didn’t stop to reason with herself that Kyle couldn’t be here. She opened the window, and the security alarm shrieked. She didn’t hesitate. Out the window and onto the roof. The electronic squealing echoed in the quiet summer afternoon.
*
David was halfway to the Diamond Bar Ranch when his cell phone sounded a strident tone. He picked it up and looked at it. The security alarm at the lake house had been set off. He grinned. Damn. He really needed to get Tessa a cell phone. He waited for the alarm to be reset. When it wasn’t, he braked. He got this bad feeling and made a U-turn in the middle of the road and headed back to the house. He called the Sheriff’s Department and got one of the deputies who told him the Sheriff had already left for the lake house.
David punched the accelerator. All he could think about was how Tessa had disappeared before. He raced back to the house as if her life depended on it because he feared it just might.
*
Tessa knew if Kyle got to her, he’d kill her for sure. She managed to roll off the roof and hang from the gutter to make her way to a downspout. She hit the ground running, sprinting for the hill. A shot rang out behind her. She ran faster.
She almost made it.
Kyle tackled her before she reached the tree line. All the rage inside her exploded. She fought with everything she had, kicking and clawing, but he was a brute of a man. Even in his fifties, he was strong like a bull. He laughed as they fought. When he finally had her face down on the ground with his knee on her back, and his fist wrapped in her hair, she still wouldn’t give up.
“Terry, little Terry. You used to be such a sweet girl?”
He stood and pulled her up then he punched her in the stomach. She doubled over, and he let her fall to her knees, retching.
“You’re pure evil,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you.” It was a lie, or maybe it wasn’t. She was beyond fear.
He backhanded her. His laughter was loud, raucous. “Keep it up. I like it. But you better be careful. You make me mad, and I’ll do your husband when he gets back and make you watch.”
Icy fear paralyzed her, but only for a moment. She lowered her head and then jumped to her feet, ramming into his groin with everything she had. He screamed. “I remember when you punched me down there,” she said, staggering, still trying to breathe normally. “You ruptured an ovary. Caused me to miscarry. You left me with only one ovary. You robbed me of the chance to have children.”
She managed to get close to him and raised her foot, prepared to stomp him where it would hurt the most. She miscalculated. He jerked her foot, and she was the one on the ground now. He stood and grabbed her right ankle and started pulling her toward the lake. Tessa kicked and screamed, even knowing no one would hear her.
Oh, God, what if her body wasn’t found? David would be accused again. She found the strength to curl her body up and catch his lower leg, making him stumble.
“You goddamn bitch,” he shouted, pulling the gun from the waist of his pants.
Tessa rolled away and rose to her feet, swaying. She heard the roar of an engine and looked toward the house. David! The truck catapulted through the low wall and headed for Kyle.
Kyle shot. Glass starbursts appeared on the windshield, but David kept going. He hit Kyle dead on. His body flew backward and landed in the shallow water at the edge of the lake.
David jumped out of the truck and raced to her. “Tessa. Sweetheart!”
Tessa smiled and walked into his arms. “I love you, David.” Then she fainted.
Chapter Nine
Finally, the Sheriff’s Department cruisers, the ambulances, and the other assorted people who had showed up at the farm to lend a hand departed.
At last Tessa and David were alone. There were still depositions to file and charges to be brought against Kyle, if he lived, and against her mother, Tessa decided. That would come later.
David found the divorce papers on his bed. He carried them to the bathroom where he’d left Tessa soaking in the whirlpool tub. She was pretty beat up. He’d wanted her to go to the hospital. She’d refused.
She saw the papers and cast her eyes down. “Can we talk about that tomorrow?” He’d been so tender and loving. She didn’t want to think of a future without him.
“No. We talk now.” He tore the papers into fourths then tore them again. “I took four bullets for you. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“I thought your truck took the bullets.”
“Well, it did, but you know how we Texans feel about our pickups.”
David grinned crookedly at her, and she felt hope flutter in her wounded heart. “Are you saying you want to stay married?”
“I’ll say it anyway you’ll believe it.”
Her eyes solemn, Tessa said, “First, I need to tell you everything.”
He let her.
They both cried, but the tears washed away the pain of the past.
Later, they made love. This time there were no barriers to overcome—within them or between them. No bad memories to mar their happiness. Only a future they couldn’t wait to share together.
Only passion, desire, and love between them as powerful as heat lightning flashing in the dark summer night.
Epilogue
Tessa wore the red silk negligee that David had given her for his birthday last month.
“I’m home,” he called. He walked into the bedroom. “That’s what I like to see after a hard day at the office.”
He started shedding his clothes. “I see I’m dining in.”
His wolfish grin made her laugh. “We are, but dinner’s in the kitchen. I picked up something on the way home from work.” She waved her hand down her body. “This goes with the gift I got you.”
She handed him a small white box decorated with blue and pink bows. With David’s love, she’d thought she had everything. Now, with their baby, conceived at the lake house, she knew she’d grabbed the brass ring.
He lifted the lid and frowned. Then his gaze jerked to her. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you think it’s a positive pregnancy test, it is.”
“But how?”
A heartbeat later, David was holding her so close she could ha
rdly breathe, but she didn’t mind.
“Without medical assistance?” Tessa laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something magical in a west Texas summer night. Maybe it’s all that heat lightning.”
Maybe it was just meant to be.
The End
About Joan Reeves
Joan Reeves is a bestselling author of Contemporary Romance. Available as ebooks, print books, and audio books, her novels all have the same underlying theme: “It’s never too late to live happily ever after.” Joan lives her happily ever after with her husband in the Lone Star State.
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Tan Lines and Salty Kisses
Danielle Jamie
Prologue
Parker
It’s been eight months since I kissed Becca goodbye out front of Chase’s beach house. Finally, in only two more days we’ll be together again with the whole gang for an entire week. With all of our lives being scattered across the entire United States it’ll be great getting all of us together again.
Chase has been so busy since entering the Sprint Cup Series, which kicked off its new season last month, that we’ve only seen him when he comes home to Charlotte to prepare for the following week’s race. He spends almost all of his free time at Kenzington Motorsports.
Vance and I have to practically drag him out of the garage for our weekly get together at TGIFridays every Wednesday night. It’s the one day we all set aside to get together and try to catch up on everything going on in each other’s lives.
When I broke the news to them last week, shocked doesn’t even begin to explain what they were feeling. Now I’m sitting here on the edge of my bed staring at my luggage piled on the floor as I hold the letter in my hand that’s going to change my life. I’ve known for a week, but I couldn’t find the words whenever I tried to call, FaceTime or text Becca to tell her.
I know she’s going to freak out.
Our relationship is rocky enough, doing this long distance thing with her in Athens and me in Charlotte. It hasn’t been easy. We both suffer from jealousy and frustrations of being hours apart, living two separate lives while trying to be together.
Thankfully my father gives me his private jet to use as I please. So for Valentine’s Day I flew to Georgia and surprised Becca on campus. The smile that reached ear to ear made the trip more than worth it.
We only had two days together, but they were two days that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.
These last eight months have been hard, but a great test showing me how Becca can handle being apart from me. It’s been far from easy, but to us it’s worth the struggle. I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s feisty, speaks before thinking, and dances to the beat of her own drum. She is unlike anyone I’ve ever dated. Those few short weeks we had last summer were amazing. It was spontaneous, crazy, and whirlwind romance unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
Along the way I found myself falling in love with her. I’m hoping she loves me enough to stay with me after I break the news to her I’ve been dreading to tell her. I don’t want to spend our only week together with her upset or worst case scenario: telling me she never wants to see me again. So I’m going to make the most out of this week with her, and then before I head back to Charlotte I’ll break the news to her.
I squeeze the envelope in my fist before I get up off of my bed and walk over to my suitcase. I stare at it one more time before stuffing it into my suitcase. I know deep in my heart this is what I have to do. She won’t be happy but I hope she’ll understand. I need to separate myself from my family. Make something of myself that will make people say Parker Maclaren and think of me. Not of my father the Congressman, or my mother the alcoholic socialite who’s hanging onto her life as she knows it by a thread.
Mostly I want to be the man that Becca can be proud of.
Chapter One
Parker
“Back to my favorite place on earth,” Chase shouts from the driver seat of our rental car.
He was here a month ago kicking off the new season for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Of course he ended the first race of the season driving past that checkered flag claiming his first win of the season.
“Time to do nothing but drink, go boating and have my dick shined multiple times a day by hot college coeds,” Vance says clapping his hands together as he stares out the window watching the scenery quickly change from the city of Daytona as we leave the airport to the strip of hotels and condos along the ocean.
He’s taken man whore to a whole new level since him and Reagan split up. They tried the long distance thing with her attending a community college in Myrtle Beach and him living in Charlotte. But it ended abruptly just before Christmas after he decided to surprise her by driving down to Myrtle Beach. He walked into her apartment and found her fucking some guy. The biggest shocker wasn’t finding his girlfriend with another guy. It was the fact that she was banging her gay best friend. I guess she forgot to mention the part where he was into both guys and girls. To say he was shocked would be an understatement.
Poor guy was even planning on dropping the big L-word to her for Christmas.
Relationships are scary territory. You never know what you are going to get when you open yourself up to someone. I’ve been lucky with Becca that she was willing to give us a chance even with everything going on in our lives.
Chase and Ashlynn have a weird set up going on. It’s like they’re together but not together. I can’t keep up. He constantly talks to her on FaceTime and they’re always texting, but then he’ll be out hooking up with other girls. Especially when he’s on the road. He’s always in the press now that he’s entered the Sprint Cup Series. All the women he’s taking out after the races are plastered across the front pages of every gossip magazine. But Ashlynn is the only girl he stays in contact with.
I imagine this week with them will be either great or a disaster depending on how Ashlynn can handle press and fans hassling him since we’re in Daytona where he is like king to this city. Especially being the grandson of the legendary Arnold Kenzington.
We definitely don’t deserve them, but I know I thank God every day that he brought a girl like Becca into my life.
“Well, while you’re busy being the Gigolo of Daytona Beach, I’ll be busy making up for the last month and a half of having to use my hand. I think it’s safe to say it’s the same for Chase. Especially since he was a douche and made Ashlynn spend Valentine’s Day alone.”
Reaching between the two front seats Chase punches into the back seat hitting me in the arm. “Shut up asshole. We had a FaceTime date for your information. I was too busy getting my car ready for Daytona to go to Athens. Plus, we agreed to keep things casual between us. If I had flown down there to see her it would’ve sent her the wrong message. We’re both too busy to do anything more serious than we are right now.”
Rubbing my throbbing bicep I glare at him. “I was there. Your FaceTime date and expensive chocolates and flowers were sweet and all, but I think me showing up to bring Becca out on a real Valentine’s date kind of screwed you. If you two have this crazy ass understanding where you’re together but not together, I think she still would’ve liked to have someone there to spend Valentine’s Day with her. If you keep blowing her off and banging half the country, that girl’s going to move on at some point and be with someone who can give her what every girl wants.”
“And what does every girls want?” Chase asks, glancing into the back seat at me. The hint of annoyance in his tone is evident. I’ve struck a chord with this whole Ashlynn thing.
Vance, suddenly feeling like the relationship professional chimes in, “I’ve learned the hard way that girls say they can handle long distance relationships, but the reality of it is they love having a guy there close to them to make them feel loved and wanted. They want to feel as if they are your number one priority. Girls love being showered with affection, over the top mushy shit and gifts. E
specially they love having a dick ready and waiting for them whenever they want to fuck. If you’re hundreds, even thousands of miles away, she’ll settle for the next best dick. Sometimes in the rarest occasions she ends up falling for the guy, and a night of meaningless sex turns into multiple nights. Before you know it they go from just fucking to actually spending time together outside the bedroom. That’s when he’s able to swoop in and steal what you want because he is able to give her what you can’t. He is there whenever she needs him no matter the day or time. Sometimes that convenience wins over the feelings you two share.”
Chase makes a grunting sound brushing off my comment and drives turns onto the road leading to the condo we’re all staying at. “Ashlynn and I are not you and Reagan. We have a connection that no other guy or chick can replace. We’re happy with what we are for right now. After she graduates college things will be simpler and we’ll finally have our time.”
Vance’s words ring loudly in my head. He’s speaking my biggest fears out loud. I need to try to stay positive and trust that when I break the news to Becca, she’ll be able to support me on this decision and be faithful while she waits for me to return. Because losing her is not an option. The thought of her with another man makes my blood boil and my fists ache to punch something or someone.
I need to ignore the negative and try to focus on the positive or I’ll never get through this week.
Chapter Two
Becca
I barely slept at all last night. I couldn’t stop thinking about seeing Parker today. I know Ashlynn is just as excited to see Chase. Probably more so than me seeing as Parker flew to Athens to see me last month, but she hasn’t seen Chase since we left Myrtle Beach last summer.
