Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

This was Jonah’s fault. He should’ve insisted on more protections for the outdoor area behind the shelter. If he’d already developed and rolled out the suite of apps he’d been mulling over for a couple of months, those kids might’ve been able to alert someone.

  Waiting never pays.

  “How’s the mom?”

  “Doris is frantic and blaming herself.”

  That was the last damn thing she needed to do.

  Jonah willed the emotions thrumming through him to chill the fuck out. He had to keep a clear head in order to help anyone. “I can be there in less than an hour.”

  “I just wanted you to know. I’m not sure what you can—”

  “When I hired you, I told you Sarah’s Smile was yours to run as you saw fit as long as I had say in the big picture. And keeping those women and kids safe is the biggest picture there is. I’ll call you when I get there so you can meet me at the rec center and we can talk this through.” He hit the end button and bolted up the stairs to get dressed.

  Now all he had to do was convince Tessa to go with him.

  7

  Although Tessa wanted to gun her engine and speed all the way back to the city, she’d learned not to let those kinds of impulses overwhelm her. When things became too jumbled and messy, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hold her thoughts together.

  So instead of taking I-40, she found herself winding her way down from the property Jonah owned and into the quaint town of Steele Ridge. A cup of tea would be just the thing, especially since she’d barely touched the one at his house.

  How had he known what type she preferred and why did he have it in his kitchen cabinets?

  Don’t read anything into it. Even the most experienced mental health professional would have a hell of a time figuring out why Jonah Steele does half the things he does.

  She slowed and cruised down Main Street. The town wasn’t a metropolis by any stretch and had a less funky vibe than Asheville, but there was something about it—a sense of warmth and connectedness—with the sparkling storefronts and the Smokies standing watch over it all.

  People weren’t bustling, but were taking their time wandering from the bakery to a handful of small shops. In front of the bakery sat a sandwich sign chalked with the day’s special—reindeer cookies—and a quote: Pain you must accept if love it is you seek.

  “Apparently Yoda is handing out relationship advice these days,” she said to herself.

  Tessa slowed to peer more closely at a shop named Triskelion Gallery. The window sign said “Reopening Soon Under New Management.” Then there was La Belle Style rocking outfits just as hip as anything Tessa had ever seen in Seattle.

  She pulled into a metered spot in front of Blues, Brews, & Books. Inside, she slid into a seat at a two-top and pulled her laptop from her tote. Since Jonah wasn’t inclined to help her, she needed to reach out to people and do damage control.

  She considered shutting down the e-mail account Carson and the others had received the blackmail threats from, but thought better of it. That was the only connection she had to the hacker right now.

  So she ordered her tea, smiling up at the pretty blonde when she brought it and biscotti to the table. “Thank you. Would you happen to have Wi-Fi?”

  “Not a place in town that doesn’t these days.” The blonde laughed and scribbled a combination of letters and numbers on a business card. $30+33621e.

  Looked like some type of strange math problem, but Tessa typed it in and connected. She set up a new e-mail address and gave it a gobbledy-gook password that she whispered to herself to make it hold in her mind.

  However, she wasn’t willing to check her bank accounts for any strange activity over a shared Internet connection. That would have to wait until she was home. Instead, she pulled out a small notebook and sketched a mind map.

  Fake e-mails

  Carson

  Davey

  Lauren

  Blackmail

  Suicide

  Secrets

  Hacked files?

  Tessa

  Her own name seemed to radiate from the page. But the problem was, she didn’t know exactly how the bubbles related to one another.

  She’d walked out of Jonah’s house as if she had a plan and knew how to execute it, but the truth was, her brain wouldn’t stop churning. And that was something she tried to avoid at all costs.

  One thing at a time.

  Letting her mind settle, she gazed around the restaurant-slash-bar with an adorable Little Free Library in one corner. What she’d seen of Jonah’s hometown so far, she liked.

  The front door opened and in walked a gorgeous, curvy woman wearing a sweater duster with crazy flowers embroidered all over it. The colors were bright and bold—yellow, red, black, and teal.

  Tessa glanced down at her own gabardine slacks and Brooks Brothers blazer. In her pursuit of professionalism, had she abandoned her sense of style? Had she built up a sort of silk and wool armor?

  The woman strolled by on the way to the counter, and Tessa said, “That’s a beautiful sweater.”

  “Thanks.” The woman gave a warm smile. “It was made by a local textile artist.”

  “A very talented one.”

  “I’m Brynne Whitfield.” She held out her hand and Tessa shook it. “My boutique, La Belle Style, is just down the street. No pressure, but I have another one in the store. Cream with an embroidered dragonfly on the back. It would look amazing with your skin.”

  A man the size of Montana stalked up, swooped the woman off her feet, and gave her an unapologetic kiss of possession. Wow. That was either insanely bold or wildly romantic. Tessa wasn’t sure which.

  When Montana Man sat the woman back on her feet, her face was flushed and she was beaming at him. Wildly romantic, then. “What was that for?” she asked him.

  “Because I’ve heard a man should regularly sweep his wife off her feet, Mrs. Steele.”

  Steele?

  He had to be one of Jonah’s brothers.

  Stopping here hadn’t been a good idea. Tessa hadn’t considered the possibility of running into other members of the Steele family. Shortsighted, considering the town was named for them.

  She needed to leave now. She’d head back to Asheville and contact the police about her potentially compromised files. She gathered her things and shoved them into her bag. “Again, lovely sweater,” she said to Brynne. “But I have to be on my way.”

  Brynne gave her husband the evil eye as if he’d just tanked a sale. Tessa didn’t have the heart to tell her the duster wasn’t her style anyway. “If you change your mind, here’s my card.” Brynne pressed a business card into Tessa’s hand. “Please come by anytime.”

  Tessa had no intention of ever stopping in Steele Ridge again. Not after Jonah had made it more than clear he wasn’t interested in her problems. Wasn’t interested in her. Last thing she needed was to be hanging around like an eyelash-fluttering tweenager stalking the school’s star athlete.

  Still, she slid Brynne’s card into her bag.

  As she did, her phone played a snippet of a piano concerto and vibrated softly against the leather. Ah, the perfect excuse to make her escape. “Excuse me, I need to take this.”

  Brynne gave her a small wave, and Tessa hurried out the door. She quickly pulled out her phone and thumbed the accept button. “Hello?”

  “Tessa.” Jonah’s voice meandered its way down her spine, leaving an unwelcome tingle in its wake. “I know you’re pissed at me, but I need your help.”

  He’d offered to swing by Tessa’s place in Asheville and been surprised to hear her say she was still in Steele Ridge, right downtown. Hell, he was surprised she’d answered his call.

  When he pulled his car into a spot just down from the Triple B, he was relieved to see that Tessa was, in fact, standing on the sidewalk. Her face was a placid mask of disinterest, but she was there.

  He left the Tesla running and stepped out to wave at her. “Over here.”

  She pointed at her
own car. “The meters are for a max of two hours and the lot is full. How long will this emergency take us?”

  He had no idea, but from the sounds of the call he’d received, the situation wasn’t good. “Don’t worry about the meter.”

  “Don’t worry about it? If I leave my car here, I’ll get a ticket.”

  His impulse was to snap at her. Because although his own family gave him plenty of shit, most of the rest of the world not only jumped when he told them to do something, but also asked if it should be a long or a triple jump. He didn’t use that power often, but every once in a while, it came in handy. “Let me put it to you this way. My brother’s girlfriend owns the place, my brother is the city manager, and my cousin Maggie is the sheriff. I think I’ve got you covered if you get a ticket.”

  Instead of walking in his direction, she patted one of the old-fashioned parking meters. “It says they’ll also tow.”

  Fucking hell. He yanked his phone from his pocket and hit a couple of buttons. When his brother answered with “Grif Steele,” Jonah said, “There’s a silver BMW parked in one of the spaces near the Triple B. Can you please make sure it’s not ticketed or towed?”

  “Are you asking for gratuitous favors from a civil servant?”

  “Civil, my ass. And servant isn’t a word I’d ever associate with you. How about this? Tell Aubrey that if she’ll feed the meter every two hours, I’ll pay her twenty bucks on top of the cost.”

  “She’ll be all over that. But what’s the deal?”

  “It’s an emergency. I need to get to Asheville and Tessa Martin is going with me.” He motioned for her to head his way, but she stubbornly stayed put. “She’s worried her car will get hauled off while we’re gone.”

  “Tessa?” Grif asked. “The Tessa?”

  His family knew all about Tessa now, even though they’d never met her. “Yeah.”

  “Gimme the plate number.” Jonah could hear papers shuffling from the other end of the line. “Go.”

  He stepped out into the middle of Main Street in order to see Tessa’s license plate and recited the letters and numbers.

  “Got it.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “I live to serve.”

  At that, Jonah just snorted and cut the call. “It’s all taken care of,” he told Tessa.

  “We could just go in my car,” she said.

  The impatience and fear that had been swirling around inside him since Dianne called boiled to the surface. The minutes were ticking away. “Are you doing some kind of defense or blocking thing on me? Is that what that is? Sorry, I don’t have time. If you don’t want to help me, fine, but I need to leave. Now.”

  “Maybe if you would tell me what this is about—”

  “It’s about some women and kids who’re in a major crisis,” he nearly shouted, turning the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Trambly, who were strolling down the sidewalk toward the Mad Batter Bakery.

  That got Tessa moving. She finally abandoned her friend the parking meter and dashed toward his car.

  He tried not to notice the way her breasts bobbed slightly under her jacket, but his eyeballs were like magnets when it came to her body. He swung himself back into the driver’s seat. As soon as Tessa was inside and had the door closed, he reversed out of the parking spot and pushed the thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit through town to hit the interstate.

  Once he was no longer worried about mowing down little kids and old ladies, he took the on-ramp and was doing eighty before he even hit the freeway proper. Then he added another ten to it once they were on the road.

  “Look, Tessa, about earlier…” He glanced over to find her staring straight out the front window, one hand clutching the center console and the other dialing her phone.

  She juggled it to her shoulder. “Hi, Katy. Could you add King B to your list today? I’m out and don’t know when I’ll be home. Thanks. I really appreciate it.” She slipped her phone into her tote, readjusted her hold to the door handle, and eyed Jonah. “You’re speeding.”

  “I drive this fast all the time,” he said.

  A puff of laughter escaped her. “I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse. There are reasons for limits.”

  If Jonah had believed in all the limits people had tried to place on him in his lifetime, he wouldn’t be where he was today. But then again, he could see why Tessa might want to keep a tight hold on her life’s controls. “Who’s King B and why is Katy putting him on her list?”

  “Katy is a college student I hired off Rover.com because I knew with my schedule that I’d need backup care for Badger—aka King B.”

  “You have a dog.”

  “As do millions of other people,” she said.

  “Tessa Martin and something as messy as a dog don’t go together in my world.”

  “Which just proves that you don’t know as much about me as you think you do. Now, if you could give me a little more information about this emergency, I could be better prepared.”

  She was right. One thing at a time today. “It’s called Sarah’s Smile, and it’s a women’s and children’s shelter.”

  “What?” By the way her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened, it wasn’t at all what she’d expected to hear. “How in the world are you involved—”

  “With a shelter?” Yeah, this was the part he didn’t really want to disclose. If he did, then she’d probably dig around until she ferreted out all his plans. Although he didn’t regret what he’d done on her behalf in the past, he was now trying to use his vast resources to help people rather than punish them. But these missing kids made Jonah want to find their dad and beat the shit out of him. “It’s just something I help out with once in a while.”

  “Uh-uh.” Tessa shook her head, a cautious movement. “That doesn’t fly with me. Men are rarely allowed into shelters like that. After all, men are the ones the women and kids are trying to get away from.”

  Jonah had never hit a woman in his life, unless he counted a few recent paintballs that might’ve splattered his sisters. Or that time Micki had put him in chokehold when they were eight years old and he’d had to stomp on her foot to save himself. But Tessa’s words made his stomach shrivel. “I don’t go inside the shelter itself.” At least not since it opened a few months ago. “But they let me work with the kids at the rec center across the street.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly, as if she still didn’t get the whole picture. Which she didn’t, because he didn’t want to give it to her, dammit. “So what’s the emergency?”

  The adrenaline that had flooded his body when Dianne called him released again, stiffening Jonah’s muscles, and had him white-knuckling the steering wheel. “One of the spouses found out his family was staying at the shelter. Let’s just say he came to claim what was his.”

  “Oh, God. What—” she cut off with a gasp as he took the off-ramp at twice the posted speed.

  Jonah lifted his foot from the gas pedal and pulled air into his lungs. He wouldn’t do the shelter any good this way. He needed to get his shit together and calm down. The last thing those kids needed to see was another out-of-control asshole. “We’re almost there. They need some more counseling support because all the women and kids were thrown into chaos when it happened.”

  “You want me to do crisis counseling? That…that’s not my area of expertise. There’s a reason I chose corporate coaching.”

  He hadn’t completely stopped to consider how Tessa might react to a situation like this. Had just seen what needed to be done and assumed. “If you can’t do this, then—”

  “I do have hundreds of clinical practicum hours from my doctoral work. It’s not like I’m incapable.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Tell me more about the situation. I want to be prepared.”

  “He took the kids,” he told her.

  “Oh, dear Lord.”

  Yeah. But they were all going to need more than prayers. “They need all the help you can offer.”

&nb
sp; “I’ll do my best.”

  That was all he could ask of her. “The director will brief you when we get there. I’ll be over in the rec center with some of the older boys. She said they were acting all tough like they weren’t affected, weren’t scared, but they’re posing.” Something he knew plenty about. Acting A-Okay when you were actually bleeding inside.

  A few zigs and zags through the streets in the West Asheville neighborhood, and he pulled into the rec center’s parking lot. “I never approach the shelter itself, so you’ll need to cross there,” he told Tessa as they got out of the car and he pointed to a skybridge arching over the street. That structure had been nonnegotiable because he wanted the kids to be safe in every possible way and the street between was just busy enough to make him nervous. “They’re expecting you inside, but I’ll text to let them know we’re here.”

  But Tessa just stood there looking at him as if she could read his every thought, his every emotion, his every failing. So he ducked his head and let his thumbs fly across his phone to give Dianne a heads-up that he’d arrived and brought in reinforcements.

  “We’ll be here awhile,” she said.

  “Yes. As long as it takes.” For as long as it took today, anyway. Some of these kids’ scars would never go away. Just like Tessa’s would be with her for the rest of her life. That was something Jonah could never steal, hack, or fix. And he hated that reality with a passion that had blackened something inside him.

  “This conversation isn’t over,” Tessa said, straightening her jacket and putting on what he thought of as her I-can-fix-you face. “Afterward, I want to know what’s going on here.”

  He scrubbed his knuckles over his scalp hard enough to make him permanently bald. “Yeah, you and me both.”

  8

  Six hours after Tessa walked away from Jonah in the rec center parking lot, the last of the women waiting to talk left the “counseling office” the shelter director had set up in a utility closet. The scent of bleach and industrial strength cleaner had likely been blanketing Tessa the entire time, but now she noticed the sharp fragrance. It, combined with an empty stomach and the tension headache she’d been fighting off since Jonah called her, made nausea creep up on her.