"Wait, Ian." Her voice rose an octave above the whisper she had talked in a moment ago.
There was something he caught in it. Something pleading, begging him not to ignore her. He turned back in her direction, unsure what it was she had left to say. All the while hoping maybe, just maybe, she had changed her mind in the last minute and would take him up on his offer. Shoving his hands in his pockets, keeping his eyes focused on hers, he waited for her to say what she wanted so badly to tell him. That's when he saw it—the same look of confusion, as though she was battling her own thoughts between right and wrong, as she stood still, the same look of fear etched into the worried lines of her pretty face. The look wasn't a good look on her and he didn’t like it.
"You have to leave, Ian."
The words cut straight through him without warning. Gutted, once again, but this time by the words that fell from her soft, kissable lips. Torment teased his thoughts as he collected what she was trying to say. Of course, she didn’t have the final say in whether he stayed or went, but knowing she didn’t want him here...that shit pissed him off. "What do you mean, Jenna? I'm not here to cause any problems. I'm here strictly on business. If it was out of line for me to ask you..."
He couldn’t understand what the hell this was all about. "I'm here for two weeks, that's it. And like I said, I'm here to fix up my rental house, nothing more than that."
Explaining the last part, he had to pretend he didn’t care about her. He had to pretend a lot in the last two years, but seeing her standing there in front of him with that look of battling emotions, deciphering the good and evil in this situation, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was possibly thinking about.
"If he sees us..." Her words trailed as though the man she was talking about was close by. "If he sees me talking to you..."
"Who, Jenna?" He couldn’t help the anger that had built up and flooded out in his voice. There was no reason for her to be that scared of someone knowing she was talking to someone. And the fact it was her fiancé who had her so rattled, he wanted to meet that bastard just to set him straight. "What's he going to do, Jenna?"
He couldn’t take this bullshit. He had walked away once. He wasn’t going to do that again. Fear had its grip on her, leaving her trembling as she tried to hide the tears that welled in her eyes.
"This is a small town, Ian. He'll find out about us."
There it was. He understood now where her fear was coming from. Not to the level of allowing a man to treat her like shit, but he understood. A part of him realized it wasn’t his business to concern himself with, but the other part, the part that wasn’t afraid of anyone, especially in this part of town, wanted to meet this piece of shit and set him straight—teach him a thing or two about making a person's life a living hell.
"People talk, Ian. It's only a matter of time before he finds out we're talking." She stopped, looking down at her hands as she bit at her lip—an attempt to control her emotions. "You have to leave. You know how this town can be. Everyone knows we have a history. One word and he'll..."
"This is our town, Jenna. He's the one who doesn’t belong here." Anger fueled a sense to make her understand. “Jenna.”
Confusion crossed her face once again, for the umpteenth time since they began their conversation. He regretted pretty much telling her he knew about her fiancé. He had tried to play it off like he had no clue, but the truth of it was that he hadn't walked away without keeping tabs on her. He had known about a man meeting up with her right around the time he had ventured back into the States from his deployment. There hadn't been a damn thing he could have done about it. He had been the one who left. It pissed him off then, but even more now that he realized he left her open for a piece of shit to fill his place. He couldn’t wait to meet the fucker face-to-face.
Silence wasn’t his ally. It pissed him off at how quiet she had become. She wasn’t the same Jenna he had once known. The Jenna he had known would say or do whatever was right for her. This fucking abusive son of a bitch she was with now shouldn’t have this much control over her.
"I'm not leaving unless you go with me," he said, reaching for her hand. When she flinched and pulled back, his anger turned to rage. "That son of a bitch."
"Ian, please, just go." Her tear-filled eyes said so much more than what she was wanting him to know. "Promise me you'll go."
"Only if you're coming with." Seeing that she wasn’t going to budge, he played the only card he had left. Hoping the card would trump all, he laid it out in front of her. "Jenna, come on, don’t let that asshole keep doing this to you. You deserve better than that."
"I can't have this discussion," she said, an attempt to make him leave, but after everything he had just figured out, there was no way in hell he was going to leave knowing what he knew. "Not here. Not now."
"Then when?" he asked, holding his hands out at his sides, at a complete loss for words to get her to change her mind. She had already made up her mind. The thought that it was too dangerous for her to even have a discussion with him set his rage on fire—sparking a new mission while he was in town.
Chapter 14
She had said too much. She may not have told him exactly what her situation was, but he knew. He wasn’t dumb. He had picked up on her nervousness, her hesitance when he had asked her to grab a drink and catch up. If she was honest, saying no to him was the hardest thing she had ever had to do.
She hated him for leaving West Grove, but hated him even more for leaving her behind without so much as a reason why. She knew why he had left. His parents had been worthless, leaving him with nothing in this town but a constant reminder of the life they had given him. She had wanted to change that for him. She had wanted to give him something meaningful here, but he hadn't wanted it. The time hadn't been right and the Army had much more to offer him than she had. Regardless of the fact he had left her, she still loved him, which was probably the reason her life was hell.
Her fiancé had to have known she was in love with someone else all this time. He had to have known her heart wasn’t one hundred percent his. That her mind wasn’t focused on the here and now, but rather the past she so badly wanted a second chance at. She had wished and begged for a second chance to make things right for her and Ian someday, but that someday hadn't come.
Until now. Ian Riley was back in West Grove and all it had taken was seeing him this one time for her heart to go crazy, causing butterflies to flutter about wildly out of control while her thoughts played out possible scenarios that would lead to her escape from the monster she had once thought she would happily marry someday. But that someday wouldn’t come if she could help it.
Seeing Ian at the diner had brought back all of the emotions she had thought were well gone by now—hurt, anger, love—everything she had promised herself she'd let go of. But now, with him back in town, she had to do something.
Taking blows from the one you thought loved you hurt less than what Ian had done. He had left her when all she needed was more time to prove to him there was something worth staying in West Grove for. All she had wanted to do was prove to him she loved him and her love was all he really needed. The pain from him leaving had severed her like a jagged knife, but she was more than willing to figure this out and make things right in her life.
Driving home, she realized last night had been a close call with her clothes, the empty dresser, and John finding out what she had really been up to. It wouldn’t take him long to sense that something was up. That something had changed in the course of a week. Whether that change in her mind would be blamed on Ian or not was left to be determined.
Flicking the cigarette out the window, she reached into her purse and pulled out the bottle of perfume she had tucked in there this morning to cover up her new habit. A habit she had once hated with a passion, but now loved because of the way it settled her nerves.
Smoking was something John disapproved of, and if he found out, he would definitely let her know how much he hated it. She cringed
at the thought of his fists finding their way over the already too tender parts of her body. She wanted nothing more than to live a normal life that included going home after a long day at work and soaking in a hot bath with a good book. Instead, she only found herself soaking in the tub on nights the pain from his brutal fists became too much to bear and left her with no choice.
Pulling into the driveway, she tossed the half empty pack of smokes into the middle compartment between the front seats. The thought of locking it had crossed her mind, but she knew he would want to know why something was locked, which was something else he hated. He hated that she had locked her things, like the time she had locked her jewelry box, he had gone apeshit crazy because he had no idea why she would want to lock it in the first place and refused to believe her reasons.
Oh well, it was only a matter of time before she was out of this place. Out of sight and out of mind. The time couldn’t come fast enough. It was all about the opportunity and the odds in her favor.
Shutting the car off, she yanked the keys out of the ignition and buried them in the side zipper of her purse before opening the car door and stepping out. A slight breeze blew past her on the way to the garage door, and she was tempted to pull the perfume out of her purse and spritz her clothes once more, but the opportunity vanished when the door opened and she was met by John.
The look on his face should have told her she was in for another round of his antics and pathetic rage. The opportunity to grab her keys and make a run for it had disappeared the moment he reached out and grabbed her arm, dragging her into the garage before anyone could see him and the anger he failed to hide.
"What do you think you're up to?" His brows arched together, meeting at the point of a V above his eyes. His mouth twitched and anger raged violently in his eyes, causing his pupils to dilate past the point of no color. "You think I wouldn’t find out?"
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about."
"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" His voice boomed in the empty garage, ricocheting off the walls and shattering her nerves for the second time this week. "You're fucking that guy from the diner!"
Furious with his accusation, she raised a pointed finger at his face, something she would regret, but she wasn’t going to let him talk to her like she was a whore. She was doing no such thing and she wasn’t going to take his insecurities and bullshit anymore. "You know damn well that isn't true!"
Anger coursed through her body, taking the place of fractured nerves and chaos. The anger gave her a boost of confidence to deal with this out-of-control lunatic standing in front of her. How long it would last was to be determined, but for now, she was using it for everything she had at stake. And to be honest, it felt pretty damn good to talk back to him.
"That's not what I’ve heard." He stood there, still as he could muster, with his arms crossed and a pout on his face. The anger in his voice was evident, but the rage had settled—for now and not for long. She knew the routine of these episodes better than her favorite reruns of Gilmore Girls. She knew when everything would happen and the exact timing of his reactions.
"Then you’ve heard wrong," she said, trying to sound confident, but not too proud of herself. Little by little, the old Jenna was coming out. Day by day, she felt like she was making a change for the better. She was on a mission to bring the old Jenna out in the open and give this man, who had fooled her and her love on more than one occasion, a run for his shit. "Your sources have been unclear of what they have supposedly seen or heard."
"Says the whore." His words no longer hurt. The sting his words had once caused was a thing of the past. She no longer cared what he called her, or what he thought of her. He could call her any name in the book and hit her up and down the wall and around the house. She was used to his bitterness and the fact nothing was going to change unless she changed it herself. Given enough time, she would have it all figured out and she would be on with her life. With or without a man. Fact was, she was tired of the bullshit and didn’t need a man if this was the kind of life she would have to face day after day. Sure, she wanted happily ever after and all of that, but it was obvious those words were only written in fairy tales and not to be taken to heart. "You honestly think you can get by with banging him? You really thought I wouldn’t find out? I'm a lawyer, for fuck’s sake, Jen. It's my job to figure shit out."
She ignored him. As she tried to press past him, he grabbed her arm and brought her back in front of him, but not without a fight. She struggled against his tight grip on her arm, shaking against his hold, not only squirming in an attempt to free herself from the stench of alcohol on his breath, but to keep him from getting a smell of cigarettes on her clothes.
"Will you let me go, please? You're hurting me." She knew it didn’t matter to him, whether he was hurting her or not. Nothing mattered to him when it involved her. "I haven't done what you think I have. I go to work and come home. That's all I've been doing, so your sources are lying or making something out of nothing."
A grunt rumbled in his throat before he let her go with a light shove, pushing her out of his face. "My sources wouldn’t lie. They tell me what they see and hear. They have no business telling me lies. What makes you think they would?"
It was pointless to argue with him. More than pointless to try to explain that what he was hearing, if he was even hearing anything at all, was so far from the truth than he cared to imagine. Hell, maybe he didn’t have anyone watching her. Maybe he was making all of this up on the whim in an attempt to make her break and tell him everything. He had to be smart enough to know she wouldn’t break—not that easy. It would take a lot more than a ruthless assumption to get her to tell him what was really happening in her thoughts, in her world. He could believe whatever the hell he wanted to about her. It wouldn't change the fact he really didn’t have a single clue.
Chapter 15
He couldn’t stand the thought of another man hurting her. He had no clue as to what this man looked like, but the thought of him made him sick. He wanted nothing more than to deck the son of a bitch who had done who knows what since the day he left Jenna behind.
He kicked himself in the ass, knowing that the choice was Jenna's. Regardless of what he promised her, she had to make the final decision. He wasn’t sure what it was about that girl, but he had always loved her.
Swinging a hammer against the stubborn nail in the last of the shingles, Ian let out a frustrated grunt. Coming here had been a bad decision on his part. How the hell was he supposed to make all of this shit make sense?
"Hey, easy there, pal," Todd said, raising his hands up in defense as he shuffled around Ian in search of a way down off the roof. "What's got you so worked up, man?"
"This whole situation. How the hell am I supposed to just leave town next week and leave her behind again?"
Todd's face twisted in a way Ian knew he was holding something back. It was obvious what the guy was thinking. Ian had done it once before. What was making it so hard to do it again?
"This time's different," Ian said, trying to convince himself more than Todd.
Todd ran a shaky hand through his uncombed hair. He was in need of a beer. Ian knew the signs all too well. His father had been an alcoholic. An abusive one at that. The only thing he had been good at was drinking and slapping around the ones who loved him.
"What's your plan then?"
Shrugging was the only answer to that question. Ian needed time to digest this, to think it over. A plan of action. He had been good at that in the Army. Here and now, in the States, it was different. There were consequences for actions taken, and that was another thing he knew all too well. He was still facing consequences years later, Jenna's broken heart being one of them.
"Well, time's running out, boy," Todd said, stating the obvious whether Ian knew it or not. "You've got to figure out what the hell it is you really want and get it."
Nodding as he stood, Ian slid the handle of his ha
mmer into the tool belt hanging from his waist. Back then, there hadn't been a single clue what the hell he truly wanted in this life. Disappointment had dug its fangs in deep with every chance it had while Ian was growing up and getting out on his own. Jenna had been the only thing that had brought a sense of stability in his life and that had been the exact thing that had scared him away. He wasn’t ashamed to admit his faults, but he was ashamed that she had been on the receiving end of his flighty ways. Breaking her heart, along with his, had never been his intention. He would swear that on his mother's grave.
"You love her, don’t you?" Todd said, digging through the stack of ice in the cooler and pulling out a cold one for either of them.
Taking the beer being offered to him, he twisted the top and tossed the cap into the barrel next to the stack of old shingles. It hadn't been only a few hours on the roof and it was a great feeling to be done with it. It looked great from where he was standing. He couldn’t have done a better job by himself. "Thanks for the help, man," he offered, pointing toward the shingled roof, avoiding responding to the old man's obvious question.
"I'll take that as a yes," Todd said, pulling up a folding chair before sitting next to the makeshift table between them. "You've got to take the chance you have and make things right. No matter how high the stakes are, you've got a chance here."
The only stake Ian saw holding him back weighed in favor of being the only barrier between winning back Jenna—her piece of shit fiancé.
“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving her, Todd,” Ian admits, sliding another cold one out of the ice cooler after tossing his empty bottle to the side. The thought of her had kept him alive in Iraq. It sounded corny to even admit that to anyone, but it was the honest truth. The explosion of the IED had taken a lot from him, giving him nothing but random flashbacks and a diagnosis of PTSD. Losing his dog, the one and only companion he had while he was there, had taken a harder punch than anything else he’d ever faced in his life. Dogs were the best of the best and he’d never forget Gunner—the original.
Saving Jenna Page 7
