Wilde Forever (Wilde Women Book 1)

by Suzanne Halliday

  “Just so you know, my instinct is to take you in my arms and hold you close. But your body language suggests I’d get my balls ripped off if I tried.”

  Her eyes, although carefully shrouded and hidden in the shadows flicked his way.

  “I wanted you to know that so when I leave you don’t stand there and get all pissy in case what you needed was a hug, okay?”

  She nodded briefly then went right back to slumping against the window frame. There wasn’t anything else he could say until he talked to Amy and found out just what had happened.

  It took less than three minutes for Jax to fly through the back door of the bakery and make an immediate beeline for Amy who was quietly shooing two people he didn’t recognize out of the shop. These must be Brynn’s new helpers, he surmised. When Amy sensed his approach she whirled around and he was struck by the upset evident on her face. Some sort of serious shit must have gone down.

  “Oh thank God, Jax. Is she alright? I didn’t know what to do,” she told him with an agonized expression. “It all happened so quick. Please, is she alright?” she bawled, clearly trying to contain her emotions.

  “She’s at the house and as for how she is, maybe you should tell me what the fuck happened.”

  Amy wrung her hands and glanced in the direction of the tearoom, anxiously biting her lip and pacing like a wind-up doll.

  “Out with it woman,” he growled. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”

  She nodded and took a couple of steadying breaths but the shocked, colorless look on her face remained.

  “Well, um…Brynn had a visitor.”

  The red haze exploded. “It wasn’t that fucking cousin of hers was it?” he growled.

  “Seth? Oh, hell no. I doubt he’d have the balls to show his face around here. How’d you know about him?” she quizzed.

  Jax snorted in an unamused way and told her, “Douchebag must have found his balls because he showed up at the house yesterday before Brynn got back. I sent him packing but he brought a little surprise with him.”

  Amy’s instant anger reassured Jax that she would protect Brynn from unwelcome fuckery. “What was that little shit up to?”

  “He had Roger Ellis on a leash.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she shrieked. “Oh my God. I wish I knew what the hell was going on. Roger and Seth being together can’t be good for Brynn. Those two are like the Frick and Frack of ass-holery.””

  “Maybe you could ask Rhiann,” he muttered, instantly noting how Amy’s color turned to a rosy blush.

  She coughed and quirked a wry smile at him. “I see the cat’s out of the bag but believe me, nothing comes between the Baron-Wilde sisters. Nothing.” She chose that moment to glance again in the direction of the tearoom. She’d mentioned a visitor.

  “What’s going on then? Who upset Brynn and why do you keep looking over there like you expect Godzilla to come stomping this way?” He was getting irritated.

  “Actually, it’s her grandmother. She showed up out of the blue and, well…I don’t even know what happened. One minute they were talking and eating cake and the next thing I knew Brynn was shouting. Jax,” she exclaimed, “Brynn never yells. It was so unlike her.”

  “Wait,” he drawled, confused. “What? Her grandmother is here?”

  “Yes she is,” Amy declared with raised eyebrows. “Bryanna Charles. She’s sitting by the fireplace in the tearoom. After Brynn stormed out, she kept on eating her cake like nothing untoward had just happened. It’s weird, really. I suppose it’s just her way to act like her granddaughter hadn’t just gone off on her like a crazy person.”

  Bryanna Charles. Hmmmm. The name was ringing a bell. Where the hell had he heard it before? When the light bulb went on over his head, Jax instantly barked, “Bryanna Charles as in the Bryanna Charles?”

  Amy nodded. “In the flesh. I see you know who she is.”

  Jax took a long moment to consider this riveting piece of information. Of course he knew who she was. His mother was a diehard fan of the stage. He remembered so well the regular trips she subjected him and his brother to as kids, dragging them into New York and making them sit through a variety of Broadway plays. He’d never seen the illustrious Ms. Charles on stage, but his mother frequently gushed about having witnessed the woman in a production a long time ago. It was what sparked her lifelong love with anything that had a Playbill. Oh man, this he had to see.

  “She’s still here?” he asked.

  “Yep. It’s like she’s waiting for something.”

  Oh, he just bet she was.

  “Amy, close up, would you? I’ll handle Ms. Charles and don’t worry about Brynn. I’ve got this. Whatever this is,” he muttered as an afterthought.

  Brynn’s assistant reached out and squeezed his forearm. “I just knew from the moment I laid eyes on you Jackson Merrill that you were going to be good for Brynn. She needs a strong man to help her see the light, y’know?”

  He shrugged. “From your mouth to God’s ear. She’s a spitfire, that one, and isn’t exactly falling at my feet in surrender.”

  Amy snorted in amusement. “You wouldn’t want her to. Where’s the fun in that? You go ahead,” she nodded in the direction of the tearoom, “and see what kind of damage control is needed. I’ll take care of everything and slide out the back. Call me if you guys need anything.”

  “Will do…and thanks. I’m glad Brynn has you to count on.”

  Okay then. Time to recall his inner Gladiator and step into the arena to see what the hell was messing up Brynn’s normally well-ordered world. The minute he came around the corner of the tearoom and caught sight of Bryanna Charles from behind, he could tell by the tilt of her head and the in-your-face body language that he was in for one hell of a ride with this one. Now he knew where Brynn came by all that feistiness. It was in her blood. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  BRYNN STARTED PACING THE MINUTE Jax left. She couldn’t get a handle on her emotions, flying between being mortified at her outburst and soul-ripping despair that the life she’d so carefully nurtured was being destroyed. And not from outside forces. In this case, the call was most definitely coming from inside the house.

  She didn’t need a piece of paper and a pen to list all the changes and stresses that had come at her in the last weeks. They were all but etched on her brain and quite easy to access.

  First was the revelation of her grandmother’s dastardly manipulation. The older woman taunting Brynn with a change in her estate had set her on an emotional roller coaster that she hadn’t been able to slow down or control. She hated anyone trying to mess with her life. There was an ex-husband lurking around after all who could more than make that point. The news that Roger had hooked up for some unknown reason with her cousin had come out of the blue. She might not know exactly what those two idiots were up to, but she knew it wasn’t going to be good. It wasn’t a coincidence that two men who loathed her showed up together at her home. Lord knows why. They certainly hadn’t come for a cup of tea or a cinnamon bun.

  Then there was the matter of her parents, or at least her father anyway who seemed to be spinning Nana’s ridiculous record about Brynn being old before her time, too serious, and in need of a M-A-N to complete her life. Damn but that made her angry. The assumption hit her like fingernails on a chalkboard. Rhiann letting her know that their mother was less than thrilled with what was going on had given her a glimmer of hope but even that seemed to be fading fast.

  Brynn knew she’d been out of her damn mind for contemplating even for a single second the notion of getting herself a beard husband to play along. The thought had burst upon her in a moment of desperation, and she’d entertained the idea because that was what she did, but she’d known all along it was a grasping at straws solution.

  She supposed it was childish to be angry that people who loved her were so friggin’ concerned about her solitary existence. If this was about Rhiann, and it was her sister acting as Brynn had for the last few years, wou
ld she have been on Team Nana? Man, that was a hard call to make. A lot of what they were saying was true. She hadn’t anything that resembled a social life and couldn’t own up to having gone on a date since…well, shit. Since before she met Roger, and that was a lifetime ago. When you looked at it that way it did seem like she needed a kick in the butt.

  Flopping to her back on the bed, Brynn lay there and stared at the ceiling. It was the insistence that she was unfulfilled and somehow incomplete without a relationship that got under her skin. She’d never, ever wanted to be one of those women. Always searching, lamenting the lack of romance, feeling like half a person because she was single.

  Even though her divorce had been ugly she’d had to admit that ditching Roger Ellis in the dustbin of foolish mistakes had been a blessing in disguise. She hadn’t loved him. In fact the truth was she thought she was too smart to get caught up in some romantic foolishness. Marrying had been a pragmatic decision—one that eventually bit her on the ass.

  Turning to her side, she grabbed a pillow and tucked it beneath her head only to be assailed by a scent she’d know anywhere. Jax. Was it reflex that made her take a deep breath? He always smelled so damn yummy, and right now, being awash in his scent instantly calmed her nerves. What the hell was that all about?

  In every way that mattered, Jackson Merrill represented the wild card in her unwritten list. It bothered her that she’d fallen for him so quickly. Never having been a believer in that ‘love at first sight’ rubbish, it was more than a little galling to admit that pretty much summed up where she stood. Reluctantly at that.

  How in the hell was it even possible to feel so deeply for someone she’d known for just a week? There was absolutely nothing sensible or reasonable about such behavior. And not only that, even though she’d been careful not to say the words out loud, he certainly had. She’d been rocked to her core last night when he’d said he was falling in love with her.

  Brynn tried to remember if she’d ever, ever heard those words come out of her ex-husband’s mouth. The answer was a resounding ‘no’ and especially not in the circumstances she and Jax had been in. Roger might have thrown the love word around when he’d been caught acting like an ass but he’d never wrapped her in his arms and said those words while he’d been inside her. Not the way Jax had.

  Time and distance did funny things to memories. Especially the ones that had ‘meh’ written all over them. It wasn’t a surprise that Roger had cheated on her. Or so often. At no point in their relationship had they ever been what you would call, hot for each other. Brynn shuddered and groaned into the pillow. When it came to her sexuality, she’d relied on the no-nonsense, matter-of-fact ways that had ruled her life. She’d gotten what she deserved, she supposed. Her reputation as an ice queen hadn’t been all that far off the mark.

  But Jax had certainly blown all that crap out of the water. With him she was a completely different person. She felt like an honest-to-God woman for the first time in her life.

  She’d proven her mettle time and time again when she was up to her eyeballs in the world of finance and practically every day since as she step-by-painstaking-step built a business from nothing and succeeded. A ‘screw the haters’ mentality had been the fuel in her engine through the years of non-stop hard work that got her to today. Only now she wasn’t so sure this was where she wanted to be.

  When she’d heard the words coming out of her mouth as she yelled at Nana that she’d had enough and wouldn’t be continuing the business, it hadn’t felt like the end of the world. Well, maybe it did a little. But something had been shifting inside her this past week. Being with Jax completed her in some strange way and all that stuff about unprotected sex and the possibility of babies hadn’t freaked her out nearly as much as it should have.

  That didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified he’d simply get in his big truck one day in the not too distant future and drive off because his business demanded that was what he do. She was. But relationships didn’t come with crystal balls. By opening the door into her heart, even if only a tiny crack, she’d invited in the terror of losing him and also the unfamiliar exhilaration that came with surrendering to somebody else.

  Jax was a complicated man with shit going on in his head she could barely imagine. He’d walked away from a promising medical career when it didn’t fit him anymore. She respected that on a deeply personal level, having done something similar herself. He’d also opened up to her in ways she had no doubt had been difficult. Admitting his need for control and the reasons why hadn’t scared her off in the least, something that surprised her to no end. After what he’d been through in the war, it actually made perfect sense. She couldn’t even imagine what living like that minute by minute, day after day was like. The constant danger. The visceral fear.

  Yielding to his powerful needs didn’t feel like submission at all. It felt like an act of unconditional love, something she hadn’t known she was capable of and that scared her almost as much as an uncertain future. He was so upset that he’d been rough with her but for Brynn, understanding that he needed her, needing taking her hard and maybe a bit aggressively only made what she was feeling more substantial. Even when he tried to slow down and be more loving, a point came when that wasn’t enough. It was fucking thrilling that he pounded his possession into her hipbones with every thrust. If it was the last thing she ever did, she was going to make him understand that she was okay with it. Welcomed it in fact. Each time they came together like that she inched closer to revealing her true feelings. If he was brave enough to show her who he really was, it was only a matter of time before she did the same.

  And that right there was the damn elephant in the room. All her bitching and moaning about Nana’s crazy scheme to marry her off, the insistence by her parents that she needed a life, even Charlie and Rhiann’s endless rhapsodizing about soul mates and eternal love—all of it was not so much a festering annoyance as a secret yearning.

  He’d asked her to trust him and told her they could fix whatever mess she’d made. Until he’d said the words she hadn’t realized that was exactly what she needed to hear, just one more way she was surrendering to this man, this surprise entrant in the sweepstakes for control of her heart. Brynn snuggled the pillow Jax had slept on closer to her and closed her eyes. Maybe together they could find a way to make some sense of all this unexpected madness.

  “Ms. Charles,” Jax said as he walked into Brynn’s grandmother’s eyesight and extended his hand. “I’m Jackson Merrill, a friend of Brynn’s. May I have a word, please?”

  The unwelcome sight of Brynn’s bakery apron tossed on the floor near his feet nearly undid him. There was something powerfully symbolic about it that struck at his gut. He didn’t need any further proof that something ugly had gone down.

  Violet-colored eyes, the kind that were unusual enough to give a man, any man, pause, looked him up and down with neat precision in a way that left him feeling naked and pretty much trembling in his work boots. Holy mother of God. Talk about a formidable presence, this lady was the definition of intimidating. Her hand swept out and took his after a heart-stopping moment of dead silence that he was pretty sure had been meant to send him to his knees. Wow. She was good.

  “Mr. Merrill,” she drawled with all the panache of a queen meeting a lowly commoner. He tried not to swallow, sensing she’d pick up on the nervous reflex and use it against him. “It took you long enough.”

  She dropped his hand and sat back, eyes still assessing although she didn’t seem quite as ready to eat him for dinner.

  Taking a step back because he wasn’t stupid enough to sit in her presence without being invited to do so, he frowned and asked, “I beg your pardon?”

  Bryanna Charles consulted her diamond-encrusted watch like it was written into the script they were acting out and sent him a scathing look. “It took you almost fifteen minutes young man. I imagined you’d make an appearance in short order after my granddaughter huffed her way out of here in high dudgeon. H
er indignation was impressive, I must say,” she added with a mischievous twinkle in those violet eyes. “I suppose she told you about our…misunderstanding?”

  Hmmm. She was playing him and doing a fine job of it too. Handling Brynn was nothing compared to her grandmother.

  “Actually, ma’am, she didn’t say much of anything,” he told her in as dry a tone as he could muster. “She was too upset.” He paused for good measure then added, “I don’t like it when Brynn gets upset.”

  Her expression went from dour and intimidating to welcoming and beaming in a nanosecond. It was as if his words had flipped a switch and the entire dynamic of their discussion had changed. Mental note to self: stay on your toes around this lady.

  “Please, have a seat Mr. Merrill,” she told him with a dazzling smile.

  He considered sitting next to her in the chair that Brynn probably vacated, but he much preferred a head-on view so he could stay alert to changes in nuance or tone that would help Jax navigate this odd encounter. Picking the discarded apron up from the floor, he folded it neatly and laid it aside. He made sure to move slowly and with careful deliberation, sending this dragon woman a message by his actions. Grabbing a straight-backed chair from one of the tables, he sat down directly in front of her and adopted a casual but watchful posture.

  Going for respectful but low keyed he nodded at the empty plate on the table at her side and asked, “Did you enjoy the cake? I understand it’s one of Brynn’s signature items.”

  The violet eyes boring into him twinkled with merriment. “An old family recipe that my granddaughter has made her own and yes, it was wonderful. How terribly observant of you.”

  Jax shrugged and tried a smile on for size. “I’m partial to the sticky buns, myself.”

  He was completely surprised when she settled deeper into the big wing chair and laughed. “I understand her ‘sinful buns’ send out a siren’s call to a man’s stomach.”