by Jeannie Moon
Chapter Two
“You have enough hair for three people, Mia.”
“I know.” Her friend Mia DeAngelis was getting married, and the bridal party had come to the salon early to do a test run on their styles. Mia turned, whispering conspiratorially. “It’s kind of a pain in the ass, but I can’t say that too loud.”
“I hear you.” Lilly smiled. There were women who would kill for hair like Mia’s, but they had no idea what tresses like hers needed in terms of care. Mia was right, though, good hair was nothing to complain about. Twisting another caramel colored strand, she pinned the final section into an elaborate weave that swept to the side and tumbled across her friend’s shoulder. With a final flourish, Lilly put the jeweled clip behind Mia’s ear.
It took forever to do, but the style was gorgeous. Mia was going to be a beautiful bride. The beauty, of course, wasn’t only about the dress or the hair, it was about the love she’d found with Adam Miller, a man seemingly so wrong for her who turned out to be so right.
Noel circled the chair, assessing Lilly’s work. He fussed with a strand here, a wisp there, but after what felt like way too long, he nodded.
“It’s perfect. It suits her.”
Mia exhaled, and it was only then that Lilly realized her friend was holding her breath as well. Talk about pressure.
Glancing toward Noel, Mia raised an eyebrow. “He’s tough.”
“You have no idea.” Turning to her mentor, Lilly grinned. “Mia has great hair.”
“Obviously.” Waving off the comment, he circled again. “But you managed it well. I’ve never seen so much.” He leaned into Mia’s line of sight. “After your wedding, we will give it some style, maybe some long layers, yes? Bring it up to your shoulders.”
“No.”
Mia didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate even for a second, but Noel did. He couldn’t believe the response.
“Pardon? It will be perfect. I will cut it myself.”
“No.”
Training his eyes on Lilly, he shrugged before turning back to Mia. “I do not understand. Is this about the man in your life? It is not his hair.”
“Well,” Mia responded without so much as a flinch. “It’s not yours either. It’s mine.” The exchange was actually funny. Mia wasn’t going to budge, and Noel didn’t get it. He was completely dumbfounded. Her friend’s long curly hair was part of her, and she liked it just fine, even if it was overwhelming sometimes.
“Let it go, Noel.”
“But…”
“Nope. Let it go. She’s not going to let you cut her hair.”
Noel folded his arms in a huff as Lilly handed Mia a mirror so she could show the bride the back of her up-do.
“It’s amazing, Lilly.” Mia admired the intricate design. “Thank you. I can’t believe it’s less than three weeks away.”
In just seventeen days, Mia and Adam would be taking the next step in their journey which had started a little less than a year ago.
The town, famous for its romantic compass legend, was all about people finding their true north, the place they most belong. Love, family, romance… the town dripped with it, and Lilly was still wondering when her hometown would start feeling like home again. When she’d be strong enough to let her guard down and relax.
Maybe never, if Gio left his mark here. He could ruin the place that had provided her with an escape.
Mia rose from the chair and leaned in for a hug. “I’m so happy.”
Lilly held her friend close. “I’m happy for you.”
And she was. Whatever was missing in Lilly’s own life was her problem. Mia, who was a beautiful person inside and out, and a great mom, deserved every bit of happiness there was.
A beep came from the front of the shop, letting Lilly know someone had come in. It was Sunday and technically they were closed, but she wasn’t going to turn away a client. When Mia walked over to her Nana, who was watching from comfortable chair on the other side of the salon, Lilly headed to the reception area.
To her surprise, there wasn’t anyone who needed a quick blowout or haircut.
Nope, standing there in a pair of perfectly pressed khakis and a blue button-down shirt, looking every bit the FBI agent, was Jack Miller.
Whenever she saw Jack, Lilly was a mix of angry, embarrassed, and giddy. It was the giddy part that annoyed her the most. Why did her stomach still flutter when he was around? Wasn’t she beyond that? It was lucky for her that he didn’t find his way home very often. But that wasn’t going to be the case now. Since he was his brother’s best man, and Lilly was Mia’s maid of honor, there were going to be many more uncomfortable moments over the next few weeks. Frozen in place, everything about the man tripped an awareness in her body that made her senses start to spin like an amusement park ride.
Steadying herself quickly, she reigned in her frazzled nerves. Control was in short supply, and there was no way she was going to give up what little she had.
But just being near him stole all the air from her lungs. Nothing had changed since she made a fool of herself when she was eighteen. Jack still affected her, even when she didn’t want him to.
“Don’t I even get a hello?” His grin was charismatic as ever and his electric blue eyes sparked with mischief. Jack may have gotten older, but he still hadn’t grown up. The man was a real-life Peter Pan. Even with a respectable—even dangerous—job, Jack held on to the boyishness that never failed to charm everyone he came in contact with. There was a time Lilly would have done anything for him.
“Sure,” she composed herself. “Sorry. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Working out the Long Island office for a while. Figured I’d stop in. Say hello.”
“You wanted to stop in? Here?”
“Yes.” His face froze, his weight shifting from one foot to the other.
Lilly’s skin prickled.
“Why?” she asked, now realizing something was up. “Need a haircut?”
“No. We’re old friends. We’re in this wedding thing together. Seems perfectly natural to me. Why are you so suspicious?”
Always cool and relaxed, there was something not right about his behavior. Off. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it felt like he was trying too hard.
She shook her head slowly. “No. It’s not. What’s going on, Jack?”
There was a long pause, the painful kind that preceded bad news. Breathing out, his gaze grew less playful, and his mouth pulled into a thin line. “Is there a place we can talk?”
“What’s wrong with here?”
“Not here.”
He’d heard the voices in the back. Obviously, he meant alone.
Jack’s back had gone stiff. His eyes didn’t waver. This was serious.
Lilly motioned to him to follow, and he did. They were waylaid by Mia who was worried her future brother-in-law might not show up for the wedding, but Jack eased her away, keeping his focus forward.
Lilly’s heart pounded in her chest as she spoke to one of the stylists and avoided Mia’s very pointed gaze. “Lock up for me?”
She couldn’t hear her own voice because of the rushing in her head. Why was Jack there? Why did he want to talk to her?
As a bead of sweat trickled down her back, they made their way up to her apartment. It was a brutally hot August day, but her nerves were responsible for the perspiration more than the heat.
“Sorry to screw up your day. I didn’t mean for you to close early,” he apologized.
“I only opened today so we could do a test run on Mia’s hair. I’m closed on Sunday and Monday in the summer.”
“Ah. I didn’t know hair gets a rehearsal, too.”
“Yep. You work on Sundays?”
“I work every day.”
The jitters in her stomach went to full-blown panic when she walked into her apartment. He followed, and when the door clicked shut behind them, Lilly felt her breath catch.
Panic attacks didn’t listen to reason, and no matter how many times sh
e tried to calm herself, thoughts of Gio and his violence played with her reason. When she turned, she saw Jack still had his hand on the doorknob. Frozen there, he studied her for a second, and then opened the door. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave this open a little bit.”
Instantly, she realized he knew.
It was ninety degrees outside and humid, but until that moment, Jack didn’t look like he’d broken a sweat all day. Dropping his leather backpack on the chair by the door, he approached her slowly, but deliberately made sure there was distance between them.
Lilly leaned into the kitchen island, the cold granite cooling the flush that burned her skin.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was hoarse, and she was fighting back a wave of nausea that rolled through her. She knew why.
*
“I’m here about the report you filed a few days ago. The one concerning Gio Graham.”
Her eyes were flat. Cold.
“I went to the local police, not the FBI. I’m confused.”
“I know. But since this—situation—began in California, there’s a federal statute in play. Additionally, there were some irregularities, so it now falls under our purview.” He kept his boss’s bullshit suspicions about cyberstalking and Lilly’s supposed mental state out of the conversation.
“Because it crossed state lines?”
“Yes. There is a federal law that addresses domestic violence. He’s so high profile, the local police didn’t want to deal with it.”
“Fabulous.” Lilly was a spinning ball of nerves; she couldn’t stand still. As she moved past him, Jack maintained his best special agent posture, hands shoved in his pockets, with no sudden moves. “How much do you know?”
Taking a step in her direction, but careful not to crowd her, Jack confirmed her fears. “Everything.”
That one word took her out at the knees. She dropped onto the sofa with a thud.
“Everything?” she whispered.
“Yeah. I read the entire file.”
He’d read it twice. The first time made him sick. The second time he wanted hard justice for the bastard who’d hurt her. Jack knew he was supposed to maintain his objectivity, that his personal connection to her shouldn’t matter, but he was failing miserably at the task.
This woman had been part of him since the kiss they’d shared fourteen years before. He’d never shaken how she’d made him feel, and her words lingered in the back of his mind. Lilly was always strong, independent; but seeing her now with her head dropped and her eyes turned down made him angrier than he’d ever been. Gio Graham had nicked her spirit, and that was a damn crime in itself.
The motherfucker was not going to get near her.
“Do you know why the DA didn’t want to prosecute?” he asked.
“I know his reason was bullshit.”
“I’m likely to agree with you, but what did he tell you?” Jack was fishing, because he knew once it was shown she wasn’t a threat to the actor, the case would be deemed out of their jurisdiction. As it was, he was reaching.
“It was he-said-she-said. I said he hit me. Gio said otherwise. We were a very public couple, very affectionate, and that made my claim questionable. Personally, I think the DA and the detective thought I was crazy, you know? That since he broke up with me, I wanted to get back at him.”
“Did he break up with you?”
“I wouldn’t call what happened between us a breakup. I left. He moved on to his next… person.”
“But you did have a restraining order at one point?”
“It didn’t matter. None of it did.”
Lilly rose from the chair, wrapping her arms around her middle protectively. She shivered, and Jack was at a loss for how to respond.
“When I moved home, all I wanted was to put distance between me and him. I knew I wasn’t going to get justice, so distance was the next best thing. I had a life to live, and staying there was no longer an option. So, after I made several attempts to return the jewelry he gave me—because I wanted nothing from him—I sold it. I donated half the money to a women’s shelter and used the rest to open my salon.”
“That must have been some nice jewelry.”
“It was obscene how much he spent. But that was Gio—everything was for show. Even me.”
The rush of protectiveness sent up all kinds of red flags, but Jack ignored the warning bells sounding in his head and focused on Lilly. For the first time that he could remember, she looked scared.
He’d known Lilly since she was ten years old. Compass Cove was the kind of place where families knew each other in twenty different ways. Lilly was friends with his sister Natalie, and he was friends with her brother, Luca. Her grandmother and grandfather had worked on his grandparents’ estate for years. They knew each other well. Growing up, she was a pest, but he always liked her spirit. She didn’t take crap from anyone. He remembered being over the Vasquez house; if she was playing a video game or watching TV, the boys weren’t going to move her, unless she wanted to be moved.
The tension, which showed itself with every movement of her body, tore at his professional veneer. He was pissed. So pissed. That she ever had to feel afraid, that someone had hurt her like this, made him crazy.
“How can I help?” he asked. It was lame, and he hated putting the question to her.
“You can’t,” she whispered. “Unless you’re going to arrest him, and I don’t think that’s even a possibility.”
Taking two steps toward her, Jack stopped a few feet away. He wished he could lock the bastard up and throw away the key, but she was right, it wasn’t going to happen like that. “Lilly…”
“Jack, I’m having enough of a hard time with you just being here. I hate that you know. That you’re seeing me like this.”
Her voice had gone from a slight tremor to a noticeable shake. She was fighting back the best she knew how, but the control was an act. He could see she was crumbling on the inside.
“You shouldn’t worry about that. I’m here to help.”
“But I do. I tried to leave the victim behind in California. She followed me back. Deep down, I’m always on edge… scared. I feel weak.”
His instinct was to go to her, wrap her in his arms, and hold on, but Jack didn’t dare. First, because he was there in an official capacity, and second, because the last thing she needed was him in her space.
So, he kept his distance, even though he wished he didn’t have to.
“Can I ask why you’re here? I mean, why did the FBI send you?”
It was pure luck that the case landed in his lap. But it was good luck, because anyone else would be casting suspicion, grilling her for information and sending her into a tailspin. “It could have been anyone,” he responded honestly. “But I’m glad they sent me.” Jack chose his words carefully. “I hate what happened to you.”
Lilly took a deep breath before she finally turned and faced him. Her eyes were wide, bright with unshed tears. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
The emotion that cracked her voice did the same to his heart. Jack, unable to stay in his professional role, approached her. When his hands settled on her shoulders, he was thankful she didn’t flinch. “I won’t, but it may come out. You made an official complaint, and with him in town…”
“The press may dig it up.”
“Yes.”
Jack didn’t know what he expected from her. But he hadn’t expected that she’d calmly walk to her kitchen, take a bottle of wine from the fridge, and pour herself a glass. It might have been five o’clock somewhere, but not in Compass Cove.
“Do you want anything?” she asked.
“No.” He watched her body language. Restrained, guarded—Lilly had built a solid wall around herself, but he knew nothing was impenetrable. The ex could definitely do damage if he was given the opportunity. “Is there anything I should know? Do you have a reason to think he’s going to come after you?”
“Yes.” Lilly took a healthy swallow of her wine and tucked a thick loc
k of dark hair behind her ear. “Because he can. Because he thinks it’s his right. He doesn’t feel he did anything wrong. He’s always under so much stress, and really, I had it coming, you know?”
How many times had women uttered those words? It sucked.
Jack got to thinking. It was going to be a couple of weeks, at least, before he was back on his heroin investigation, which meant he could spend that extra time in town. Technically, he didn’t know if there was a case. He’d have to do more digging to determine the status of her complaint, but he could use the time in town to keep an eye on things.
Adam and Mia’s wedding would provide him with the perfect cover, since Lilly would hand him his ass if she thought he was trying to protect her. She’d always been stubborn and tough, but watching her at that moment, her tiny frame tucked into the corner of the couch and her eyes cast down, she looked so very vulnerable. Add to that she was hurting—and scared—made Jack angrier than he’d been in a very long time. The frustration, the inability to act, gnawed at him.
“I never could figure out what you saw in that guy. I mean, if you ask me…”
Lilly looked up slowly, her eyes narrowed, and the temperature in the room dropped by degrees. From the dark depths of her eyes, he saw daggers. If looks could kill, he’d have been dead three times over. What the hell was that all about?
“I didn’t ask you, though, did I?” Her voice was low, fierce. “How is this my fault?”
Shit. “I didn’t mean that, it’s just, you have to be careful with guys like him. They feel entitled.”
“They feel entitled, but I have to be careful? Seriously?”
“You’re misunderstanding me. I know it’s not your fault. God, I would never say that—”
“Yet, you just did.” Lilly rose and walked to a door on the other side of the kitchen island. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Jack opened his mouth to argue, but decided it would only put him in a deeper hole. He’d really ticked her off.
“Okay.” He picked up his briefcase on his way to the door. Before leaving, he handed her his card, so she would know he was there if she needed him. “I’ll be around. Between a case I’m working on out here and the wedding, I’ll be crashing at my mom’s house. I wrote my cell number on the back.”
