Stolen Nights (The Stolen Series Book 1)

by Renee Harless

  Finally, my house comes into view and a smile grows on my lips. I’ve been working nonstop for the past two weeks and tomorrow I have a very rare day free. But as I get closer to my driveway, I notice a small white coupe parked behind Elle’s SUV.

  Dammit, I mentally groan. I thought I gave that woman a clean brush off at the gym, but it seems Chelsea is looking for a repeat from me come hell or high water.

  I pull my car onto the side of the road with the hope that I can get Chelsea to leave quickly but as I approach my front porch, I know that won’t be the case. She sits slumped in one of the chairs on the front porch with a bottle of vodka in her hand. A half-empty bottle of vodka.

  Using my hand, I nudge her shoulder as I remove the bottle from her grasp and she promptly slumps to the other side of the chair. Anger begins to boil inside of me. I’ve had a long enough day and all I wanted to do was come home, heat up some dinner, and watch a game. Now I get to babysit.

  “Chelsea,” I growl as I perch against my porch post waiting for her to come back from unconsciousness. She begins to move slightly, so I nudge her foot, which earns me an indistinguishable noise from her direction.

  “Hmm. . .?” she asks as she begins to sit up in her seat and open her eyes.

  “What are you doing at my house, Chelsea?”

  “Why are you yelling?” she asks as she presses her hands to the side of her head.

  “I’m not yelling. I’m simply asking you why you thought it was a good idea to come to my house while I was gone and drink on my porch.”

  I pin my gaze on her hoping to use some of the skills my brother possesses in getting answers from people. Chelsea squirms in the seat before bringing one of her fingers to her mouth and chewing on the tip.

  “Chelsea?” I reiterate hoping to rid myself of her presence sooner rather than later.

  She pushes herself from the chair quickly, standing almost to my height with her sky-high heels. I notice she’s barely dressed in a short dress that looks more like a man’s tank top.

  “Jackson, I thought we had such a good time last time we were together. Don’t you agree?” she purrs as she gently strokes one of her fingers down my bare arm giving me chills. And not the kind of chills that are welcome. The kind that makes me wonder why I slept with her in the first place. Chelsea is gorgeous, but I usually don’t rely on looks alone. I may have been off my rocker that day.

  “Believe what you want, Chelsea, but there will be no repeat. Let me call someone to pick you up. I don’t want you driving.”

  “Jackson,” she whines but then suddenly she is huddled over herself as she pukes on my porch barely missing my feet. She takes a few breaths and then begins to apologize. “I’m so sorry.”

  I rake my hand through my hair as she looks at me in distress and I don’t know if it’s because I’m genuinely a nice guy or if it’s because she looks terrible with her mascara dripping down her cheeks, but I open the front door and promptly lead her to my couch.

  “I’m going to get you some water and aspirin,” I shout from the kitchen as I text my brother to pick her up.

  From the cabinet by the sink, I grab a glass and fill it about halfway and then pour out two aspirin into my palm from the bottle on the counter. Bailey prances toward me from the hall looking like she’s ready for dinner just as I walk into the living room to find Chelsea passed out on my couch. I place both of the items on the end table by her head, and because I’m not a complete douchebag, I take a blanket from the back of the couch and drape it over her body.

  “Come on, Bailey. Let’s get you fed.”

  Four hours later I wake to incessant banging on the front door. It’s so loud that even through my locked bedroom door I can hear it. Usually I sleep with it open, but I wasn’t about to risk Chelsea sneaking into my room.

  The knocking continues and I struggle to get out of bed and tug on a pair of sweatpants over my nude body. As I stumble down the hall, I peek into the living room and notice that Chelsea is still sleeping on my couch. Great. I would have thought Cooper would have grabbed her by now. I’m not sure how she can continue to sleep through all of the pounding on the other side of the door.

  I grip the knob in my hand and twist it before yanking the door toward me.

  “What do you. . .?” I begin, but the question falls from my lips as I take in Elle’s neurotic state on the other side of my door.

  “Please, I need you to move the car,” she cries as she looks down at her tiny daughter cradled in her arms.

  My heart lurches at the devastation and fear on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks in giant waves.

  “I can’t.”

  “I need to get my car. I have to take Kennedy to the ER. She’s had a fever all night, and nothing is breaking it. It’s at 104, Jackson. She could have a seizure. Please move your car,” she pleads and out of instinct I place my hands on her shoulders drawing her attention toward me and hopefully calming her down.

  “Look, I can’t move the car because it’s not mine. I don’t know where the keys are. But I’ll take you in my car. It’s parked on the street. Hand me your keys and I’ll grab the car seats from your vehicle, okay?”

  Elle doesn’t respond. Her big brown eyes look up at me in surprise and, I’m hoping, thankfulness.

  “You hear me, Elle? It’s going to be fine. She’s going to be just fine.” I try to soothe her, give her a little hope, but I can see in her eyes that until her daughter is awake and back to her cheerful self that she won’t believe a word of it.

  It takes a nudge of her shoulder to get her moving toward my car on the street after slipping her keys from her fingers. Once I’m inside my house I rush around frantically, my calmness while speaking to Elle completely disappearing. Though children have never been on my radar, nor am I a parent, those two little kids are freaking adorable and very polite. I hope that one day, when or if I have kids of my own, that they’re just like those two.

  I lurch in place as I’m mid-air at yanking down a shirt over my body.

  Since when have I ever considered the thought of kids or being a parent? And why is my heart beating a million times a minute at the thought of something truly being wrong with Elle’s daughter?

  “Shit,” I murmur into the air as I finish dressing in something more than sweatpants. I tug on a pair of sneakers and grab my keys and phone from my dresser. As I lock the front door I text my brother one last time to let him know that Chelsea is still at my house and I would really appreciate it if he or one of his fellow officers could pick her up. He replies quickly that he is on his way. An unexpected call kept him out late.

  Elle’s white SUV unlocks automatically as I press the button on the key fob and I grab one booster seat before skirting around to the other side to remove a harness type contraption from the other seat. The thing is massive but surprisingly lightweight.

  As I approach my car, I find Elle holding her daughter closer to her face and she is singing a song softly in her ear. If time weren’t so critical right now, I would think of whipping out my phone and recording it. Both her voice and the moment are beautiful and worth capturing.

  “Hey,” I whisper as I approach, hoping to keep her and her daughter calm. “Do you have a preference to which side to put these on?”

  “Oh my God,” she gasps as she looks at the carseats I carry grasped in my hands. “I forgot Noah. How could I forget Noah?” she asks frantically. “I’m a terrible mother. They’re going to take away my children and give them to my ex, and he doesn’t even want them,” she says as her emotions begin to get the better of her. I can see her body begin to shake as she stands before me looking as if she has seen a ghost.

  “It’s fine, Elle. I’ll get these installed real quick and run in and grab Noah. You’re taking care of your daughter, and you’re worried sick.”

  “But what if. . .” she begins, but I cut her off.

  “Stop. Just get in the car, Elle.”

  Thankfully she nods her head and leans aga
inst the passenger side as I install both car seats. Luckily the booster goes in quickly and I latch the other in what I think is record time.

  “I’ll go get Noah while you strap this one in, okay?” I tell her as I’m already heading toward her house telling myself that I probably should learn her daughter’s name.

  I’m not sure which room is Noah’s, but maybe out of instinct alone I locate a room covered in dinosaurs. In the middle of a full-size bed lies the little man clutching a T-Rex stuffed animal. Cool kid.

  As I pull his covers away he immediately scrunches up his body into a ball to stave away the chill in the air. Without a second thought, I lift the tiny man into my arms and he immediately wraps himself around me, burrowing his head against my neck. Instinctively my hand goes to his back and I stroke along his spine a few times as I take in his bubblegum scent.

  In all my life I have never had the overwhelming sense that I need to protect something, someone. Not since the day I saw Elle’s two kids scurry into my yard asking to play with Bailey and then how I felt when I saw Elle rush over in a panic. I wanted to protect her from feeling that surge of fear, to shield her from any more wrongdoings in her life. But I can’t, that isn’t my place. Yet as I walk out of her home carrying Noah, I try to hide my inward smile when I consider that maybe I have it wrong, maybe it could be my place. If only she didn’t make me want to pull out my own hair.

  Noah stays asleep during the car ride, but Kennedy wakes up momentarily to puke all over herself and Elle, who had decided to sit in the backseat with her.

  I turn into the Emergency Department area of the hospital just as Elle says, “I’m sorry for all of this trouble. I owe you, Jackson. I’ll pay someone to come detail your car, and I’ll get a quote for a new fence. Anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a car. And maybe we can talk about the fence,” I add, but when I get no response I take a peek in my rearview mirror and notice that Elle’s attention is on her daughter whose breathing seems to have quickened.

  Thankfully I pull into an open space and Elle nimbly maneuvers her way out of the car and unlatches Kennedy all before I can place the car in park. She’s halfway through the entrance when she turns toward me with a frenzied expression.

  I step out of the car and say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got Noah.”

  Elle nods and then proceeds to take her daughter into the ER while I carry a still sleeping Noah into the waiting room. Just as I take a seat in a quieter part of the waiting room, Noah wakes up. He groggily eyes me, glances around the room, eyes me once more with a dazed look, and then promptly falls back asleep. Ah, the life of a kid.

  Taking a cue from Noah, I rest the back of my head against the wall and saddle up for a long wait ahead of me. Ten minutes later I feel the chair next to me shift and I open my eyes to find Elle in a pair of scrubs instead of her vomit-stained shorts and T-shirt staring at the blank wall ahead of us.

  “Hey,” I whisper, and I’m rewarded with her gaze as she steers her eyes toward me. “How is she?”

  “I don’t know. They said they want to give her fluids and monitor her for a while,” she murmurs and then glances down to look at Noah still clutching his T-Rex. “I can take him,” she says, but I clutch the boy a little tighter, not ready to give him up, and shake my head.

  “It’s okay, I have him. Seems like we’re going to be here a while.”

  She sighs, “Yeah,” not mentioning how I have slipped in that I’d be staying with her. She may drive me crazy but I’m not going to leave her alone in a moment like this.

  “Thank you. . . for being nice to me and sorry for messing up your date,” she whispers as she looks down at her hands twisting in her lap.

  It’s then that I remember about Chelsea. Hopefully Cooper has picked her up and she'll keep from repeating this incident again.

  Needing to see Elle smile, craving it almost, I add, “No date, just someone that needed to sleep off too much alcohol. And don’t worry, this is just temporary. I’m sure I’ll go back to being an asshole in the morning.”

  Finally, I get that one puff of air, that one tiny chuckle, and all is right with the world. At least for the time being.

  On a whim, I adjust Noah in my arms and use my free hand to reach out and grab one of Elle’s hands. She clutches it like a lifeline and I do my freaking best to ignore the sparks shooting up my arm at her touch. It’s amazing, really.

  But what surprises me more is that Elle tilts to the side and rests her head on my shoulder, and everything around me floats off into oblivion. It’s just me, Elle, and a five-year-old future paleontologist in my arms. If it weren’t for the fact that her daughter may be fighting for her life in the other room, or that we’ll both brush off this moment as happenstance, I’d say that everything feels right.

  And dammit doesn’t that just suck?

  Chapter Five – Elle

  Two Weeks Later

  I turn over in my bed and stare at the red illumination coming from my nightstand. Stupid alarm clock. It’s been taunting me for weeks. Constantly ticking away time like I have some to spare. Every minute counts. I need at least a few hours of sleep to be able to function well, but my clock seems to have something else in mind.

  “You couldn’t just give me five more minutes?” I ask the inanimate object and as if it can sense my question, the number switches from a five to a six.

  I groan loudly as I grab my extra pillow and try to smother myself with it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out well for me because four minutes later my alarm sounds, alerting me to start my freaking day. As if I didn’t know it already. Angrily I stare at the clock and press the snooze button, cursing it inside my head that 4 a.m. has come way too soon.

  Usually I’m a morning person. I’ve always enjoyed waking up before the day starts and watching the sunrise while I spend a few hours baking. My kids are sound sleepers so it has always been my personal private time.

  But two weeks ago everything changed. The night I had to rush Kennedy to the emergency room for a fever that medicine couldn’t break, my world changed. Jackson, my irritating, asshole of a neighbor came to my rescue. He drove us to the hospital, not complaining once as Kennedy vomited all over his clean interior (and me!) or as he held a sleeping Noah in his arms in the most uncomfortable chairs known to man. Someone really ought to tell healthcare providers that all waiting rooms are uncomfortable.

  But what really changed for me that night, or early morning considering it was around 3 a.m., was that he held me. It was just for comfort and consolation, but the way his hand wrapped around my much smaller one and the way he gently rubbed circles across the back had put me under a spell.

  And I want it broken – now.

  I can’t sleep. Every night when I close my eyes, he’s there. Jackson is there waiting for me in that space between darkness and consciousness. He’s waiting with all of his sexiness: the tattoos, unruly dark hair, and lean muscles that I want to trace with my tongue. And that’s the problem. Ever since that moment when he showed just an ounce of empathy I was lost, hypnotized, and I hate every second of it.

  I don’t want to feel this way again. I feel like I’m trapped under someone’s spell and I can’t break free. That was how it began with Dan. He spun a web that I couldn’t free myself from until it was too late and he had found a new plaything. I was lost in Dan and our marriage. My only outlet was my baking, and when my world fell apart, I clung to it with everything I had.

  And now? Now that I can’t stop thinking about my exasperating neighbor my baking sucks. I’ve screwed up three recipes in the past two weeks. Simple mistakes that I should never be making at this point. Because who still mixes up salt and sugar? Not this baker. I never even made that mistake when I was learning from my grandmother.

  Add in the fact that I haven’t seen Jackson since he brought us home from the hospital and my mind is a wreck. I’m torn in two. I’m torn between wanting him and hating him. Craving a glimpse of him and wishing I cou
ld get over my new infatuation.

  “Come on, Elle. Give it up,” I whisper into my empty room just as my five-minute snooze goes off.

  Knowing that I have a large order to work on this morning, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. Just as my foot drops onto the floor,I hear loud grumbling sounds from outside my window.

  “Are you kidding me?” I say to no one as I peek through my large pane window and find no one there.

  Mumbling, I throw open my bedroom door paying little mind to the fact that I’m heading outside wearing a silk camisole and shorts.

  I notice a man with a weed eater standing in my ditch swiping the machine back and forth as it cuts the grass. It’s not the same man from two weeks ago. He was blond and much younger. I watch slack-jawed as the muscles of the shirtless man bunch around his shoulders. His forearms are tight and corded, and his veins pulse with the movements of the machine. And I never knew it before, but apparently, I am extremely turned on by forearms – not just Dan’s. I feel my panties dampen as he works the tool, his bottom tightening with each step. I’m also turned on by a nice butt. But I’m pretty sure all women are.

  It’s only 4 a.m. but sweat beads along my hairline and around my clavicle as I watch the man trim my yard. Maybe this is the guy that can break the spell Jackson has me under. Maybe this one will solve my problem.

  But as he turns to the side, I take a good look at his arms and find one covered in a full sleeve of tattoos. The same tattoos that grace Jackson’s perfect arms. I inhale a quick breath as I realize my error.

  With my hand on my neck, I try to walk slowly back into the house to not draw attention to myself, but as if he can sense me from afar, his perfect face turns toward me in surprise. My chance to hide is gone, so I stand there awkwardly and use my free hand to send a small wave in his direction. Right off my thigh. Like a middle schooler seeing her crush in the mall. Awkward.

  I expect him to continue working, so I’m equally as surprised when he cuts off the machine, frees two plugs from his ears, and begins to stalk toward me. Of course, I can’t help but watch his chest as he saunters toward me looking like he’s taking a stroll down a fashion runway. He definitely missed his calling. With his jawline and blue eyes, he would have made it far in that world.