“He’s my date! That’s what dates do!” She moved to go back to the dance, but he stepped in front of her.
“Please—”
“Please, what?” She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Please don’t go back in there with him.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I fucked up. I should have asked you to homecoming last year. I should have been dating you all this time. I’m sorry, T.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he crowded her, pushing her up against the side of someone’s car, where they stood arguing in the school parking lot. “I was just scared.”
“Of what?” Her voice was as soft as his.
“Of this.” Then he kissed her.
A band from Santa Cruz was playing an Eagles cover song at the Shark Tooth when Vaughn, Cade, and Ty walked in, helping contribute to the California-esque vibe of the place. The bar was adjacent to the small boardwalk that ran along the ocean side of the town. Most of the commercial buildings in Big Sur were wedged between Highway One and the beach, with the residential portions of town on the east side of the highway where the land climbed to the grass-covered rolling hills that were home to ranches, cabins on large tracts of land, and a few newer exurban neighborhoods.
“Watch out, ladies!” A voice boomed from the far end of the bar as the Jenkins men stood near the doorway looking for a place to sit. “The Jenkins brothers are out in force!”
Several locals turned to see Vaughn, Ty, and Cade, most of them chuckling and a few yelling out humorous insults.
Cade rolled his eyes, while Ty laughed and went to slap his friend Gavin on the back, exchanging insults the whole time.
Vaughn kept his head down, quietly weaving between tables to get to the spot at the end of the bar where Gavin had secured them a high table.
“Hey there,” a sultry voice said as he squeezed between a barstool and a cluster of miniskirt-clad women.
Vaughn looked up to find Jaycee Orleans licking her lips as she took a long look at him.
“Long time no see, cowboy,” she purred, running a hand down his arm.
He stifled the unease that rolled through him. Before his accident, Vaughn had spent a lot of time at the Shark Tooth and every other bar within twenty miles, and he’d spent a lot of time with women like Jaycee, one-night stands, friends with bennies. Yeah, he’d spent a lot of time trying to keep his mind off other things—other people. T.J.
And it had worked, for all of college and the couple of years after. They were a distraction; they helped him. But now, while he supposed he could fuck a woman against the wall in the bathroom without having to take off his leg, somehow his heart wasn’t in it. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to get naked in a bed with anyone. Yeah, sex these days was a losing proposition for Vaughn, and the worst part was he wasn’t sure he even cared. In all those times with all those women, he’d never felt half of what he did with T.J. Never wanted one of them naked and begging even a fraction as much as he wanted her when she was fully clothed and busting his balls.
“Hey, Jaycee,” he finally muttered, his eyes darting to his brothers’ retreating backs.
“You’re looking great.” She pursed her shiny lips. “I heard about your accident. I’d be happy to provide some personal therapy.” She rubbed her hand down the front of his torso, heading straight toward his crotch. Jesus.
“Uh.” He wrapped his fingers firmly around her wrist and snatched her hand away from the danger zone in the nick of time. “Thanks, but I’m here with my brothers. Having a guys’ night out.”
He dropped her hand like he’d been burned and turned to go after Cade and Ty.
“Okay,” Jaycee called after him. “But the offer stands—anytime you need a little TLC.”
He waved over his head and kept moving, looking down to make sure his leg didn’t get caught on anything in the crowded space. While the trajectory of his leg could be controlled well because he had an intact knee joint, he couldn’t feel if anything below his knee got knocked or caught when he was in close quarters. It made the navigating somewhat more difficult, and since he preferred not to fall on his ass in front of half the town, he kept his gaze down.
Which was why he knocked right into something, eliciting a squeak that jolted him out of his hyperfocused state. His hands shot out in reflex, and he caught whatever—whoever—it was as they stumbled. The other person’s weight pulled him off-balance, and he was forced to take another step, planting his good leg to keep upright. The extra step meant that his victim was now virtually under him, bent back in a slight dip as he held what was definitely a her.
His gaze moved up from a set of perfect breasts snug in stretchy azure fabric with a deep V in the front, and on to a neck that was smooth and slim. And then he reached the face, that face, the face that haunted him day in and day out, even when he wanted nothing more than to be free of it.
“Sorry,” he murmured as they stayed frozen in their embrace, T.J.’s big brown eyes blinking at him. But then his gaze dropped, against his will, to her breasts again, and he jerked both him and T.J. upright, setting her away as much as he could in the middle of the tables, stools, and people.
T.J. cleared her throat and smoothed her tight, short dress. Vaughn was caught speechless at the vision of his wholesome, lifelong best friend wearing something that looked like it belonged in a Los Angeles nightclub. The brilliant shade of blue contrasted with her black hair and golden skin, making her glow like some sort of goddess.
Fuck, she was beautiful.
“You’re dressed up,” he stated like a total dolt.
She grimaced. “Yeah, I let Janelle dress me.” She shrugged. And that was when he became suspicious, because Janelle was constantly trying to set up T.J. Ever since they’d all come back to Big Sur after college and started working, Janelle had been a thorn in his side, because while he wasn’t good enough for T.J., neither were any of the douches Janelle kept trying to foist on her.
He cleared his throat, willing his dick to stay under control as his gaze traveled all the way to the tips of her little feet clad in the highest fuck-me heels he’d ever seen. Stifling a groan, he gritted his teeth. “You look nice,” he added.
“Um, thanks.”
And suddenly he knew that he couldn’t do it. He’d thought their argument the other day had been for the best. She deserved to be free of him, in every way. Free to go live her life, find love, be amazing. That was what the rational, responsible part of Vaughn knew. And it was what he’d wanted to happen when she’d walked out of his gym, her eyes sparking with anger. But he hadn’t seen this dress when he’d made that decision. He also hadn’t thought about what might happen if he wasn’t monopolizing her time, keeping an eye on any guys that started circling.
After they’d broken up senior year in high school, he’d kept his distance, so destroyed by the death of his parents, he hadn’t been able to think or care about anything except getting through each day with the least amount of pain possible. They’d stopped talking. He’d known it was for the best, because once that car went off the PCH, he was damaged goods, and she deserved so much better than anything he could offer.
But a funny thing had happened in that first year of college. She’d started snapchatting him out of the blue. And he’d answered. And over the next year, they’d slowly melted the barriers between them until the summer after freshman year, they’d come home and spent most of the summer hanging out like they used to—like they used to before they dated. Before he’d lost his mind with jealousy at homecoming and kissed her.
And they’d kept things friend zoned since, but it wasn’t like his overwhelming feelings for her ever went away. No, it was more like he hid them in a secret drawer. The only problem was it was an overstuffed drawer, with messy unmentionables spilling out of it, jammed half-open and half-shut, threatening to explode all over the room at any moment.
And whenever T.J. dated, that drawer would strain further, creaking in protest at the burden
it was containing. But in all their years of friendship, T.J. had only ever dated the same guy a handful of times. Then Vaughn would make his presence known in whatever way he could, playing the best-friend card shamelessly, bad-mouthing the other guy, asking for more of T.J.’s time, and generally being a pain in her ass. Conveniently, the guys would disappear in short order.
“Who are you here with?” he asked, looking down at her with an expression that he hoped resembled the one Cade gave him when he was being fatherly.
And that was a mistake, because T.J. stiffened and her face went stony, as if she’d just remembered that they were no longer speaking.
“That’s really not any of your business,” she snapped.
Oh no, she didn’t. He put his hand on her hip and squeezed slightly. “Look, I said I was sorry the other day, and I really am. I didn’t mean any of it. I’ve been an asshole the last few months, and I’m working on it. I know that I’ve treated you terribly. I’m sorry.” His voice lowered. “This is hard as hell for me, T. But I’m going to pull it together, I promise.”
She blinked a couple of times before shaking her head gently. “No. I’m sorry, but it’s too late.” She gave him a look of pity, and his fucking heart shriveled into a lump. “It’s time. You know it as well as I do. We’re grown up, and whatever was between us was over a long time ago. What we’ve been doing all these years isn’t friendship, it’s codependency. It’s time for us to go be adults, live in the future, not the past.”
He swallowed as something vile and bitter tried to climb up his throat, struggling to listen to her without saying something asinine for once.
She shifted awkwardly, looking behind her where Janelle was signaling for her to hurry up as a tall, dark-haired man approached the table.
“I have to go. Good luck, Vaughn.”
Then she turned and walked away from him, and yes, he knew it then, she was walking away for good.
And he was fucking ruined.
6
“God, I love you.”
T.J. giggled lightly in the moonlit field where they lay in the back of his pickup truck.
“Do you think our parents know we do this?” she asked.
He tried to listen to her as he skated his lips across her throat and down to the cleavage that peeked out of the v of her button-up shirt, but his brain was short-circuiting every time he touched her creamy skin.
“Mm,” he mumbled, pushing the fabric aside and licking the top of her breast.
She giggled again, and he palmed one of those luscious mounds, squeezing it as he moved one leg between her thighs and pressed on her core.
“Ohh…” She made this sweet gasping noise, and his dick turned hard as concrete.
“Tell me you love me too,” he whispered into the night.
Her laughter stopped, and she held his head between her hands, bringing his face up where she could look into his eyes.
“You know I do.”
“Say it.”
“I love you, Vaughn.”
His heart thumped hard, and he kissed her lips softly. “I love you. Forever, T. I’ll love you forever, no matter what.”
T.J. took a shaky breath as she turned away from Vaughn and made her way to the table Janelle had grabbed for them.
Someone upstairs apparently wanted her to be miserable, because that was the only explanation for putting Vaughn directly in her path on the night of her debut. Yes, tonight was the night T.J. took her life back after six years of waiting for Vaughn Jenkins to get his shit together and come back to her. She was dressed up, she was meeting a new guy, she was here to dance and drink and laugh and pretend, at least for a little while, that her heart wasn’t so broken she’d never be whole again.
She’d done it all with Vaughn—been friends, lovers, estranged, friends again. And it didn’t work. She couldn’t have him in her life anymore. He was going to break her for good if she kept it up. The pain she felt watching him as he made his way through most of the single women in the area was bad enough, but add in the way he would freeze her out every time he hit a major speed bump in his life… Well, it equaled out to something she couldn’t bear anymore.
And it was time for T.J. to learn to take care of T.J.
“Hey, chickie!” Janelle squealed as T.J. finally reached the table. “I want you to meet a friend of mine from college. Drew, this is T.J. T.J., Drew.”
T.J. turned to him and was pleasantly surprised. Tall and dark, his white teeth flashed in a movie-star-quality grin as green eyes sparkled at her. “Nice to meet you,” he said in a husky voice.
“It’s nice to meet you too.” She smiled. He might not be Vaughn, but he wasn’t bad.
“Well, let’s get drinks!” Janelle chirped like a proud mother bird.
Drew flashed T.J. an amused look that said he understood Janelle and her machinations.
“So, where do you live?” T.J. asked.
“Seaside, actually,” he answered. “But I work from Monterey south to San Luis Opisbo, so I’m around Big Sur quite a bit.”
“Oh, what do you do?”
“Drew’s a doctor,” Janelle piped up proudly.
T.J. tried not to laugh, and Drew’s eyes said he was struggling as well.
“So…you’re a traveling doctor?”
He laughed. “Actually, yes. I’m on contract with Central Coast community health clinic, and they can’t afford to have a full-time doctor at every location, so there’s a nurse practitioner at each of the clinics, and then I spend a day or two a week at each one on a rotating basis.”
“He’s a doctor and a good person,” Janelle added helpfully.
Drew leaned over and murmured in T.J.’s ear, “I’m not actually that good.”
T.J. felt the heat rise in her cheeks as she met his gaze.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
Her heart sped a touch. The band was playing an old Sheryl Crow song, slow and sweet. It had been a long time since anyone had held her in their arms. Then she reminded herself that this was the new T.J., and the new T.J. deserved to be held, deserved to be wanted.
“Yeah, I would like that actually,” she answered. And then a tall, sexy man led her to the dance floor, and she tried hard not to think that it wasn’t the right tall, sexy man.
“Dude,” Ty whispered in Vaughn’s ear. “You’re going to have to quit staring or else go do something about it.”
Vaughn tore his eyes away from the sight of T.J. locked in another man’s arms. His blood was boiling, and there was a strange buzzing noise in his ears that wouldn’t stop.
“What would you suggest I do?” he asked. “She told me we’re done. She’s not my friend anymore. I have no right to interrupt her date.”
“Yeah, you’re not her friend—and news flash, you never were. You’re the love of her life just like she’s yours, and everyone for a hundred damn miles knows it.”
Vaughn shook his head as he nursed his beer. “Not anymore.”
“He still moping?” Cade asked, leaning over from across the table.
Vaughn glared at him.
“You’re going to fuck this up for good, dude,” Cade warned.
“We talking about the whole T. J. Brisco deal?” Gavin asked, walking up with a tray full of new beers. Cade and Ty both nodded.
He set it down in the center of the table and lifted one in a toast. Ty and Cade also grabbed new bottles, and Vaughn raised his half-drunk one.
“To our very own T.J. finally being back on the market. The men of Big Sur thank you, Vaughn.”
Cade choked on the swallow of beer that was halfway down his throat, while Ty spit some of his on the table with an “Oh shit!” attached.
Vaughn slammed his bottle down on the table, causing it to foam and spill out the mouth.
“What the fuck?” he asked, standing and squaring off with Gavin.
Gavin put his hands up in surrender. “Hey, just calling it like it is. Every single guy I know—well, and some who aren’t single
too—has been talking about T.J. since she came home from college. I can’t help it if she’s hot and sweet and smart, dude. You’ve made it pretty clear you’re not interested. You can’t expect everyone else to keep hands off too.”
Vaughn felt the jolt of adrenaline hit his system hard. He was so angry, he forgot that with him sporting half a leg, Gavin could undoubtedly easily kick his ass. Instead, he jabbed a finger in Gavin’s face. “Don’t fucking talk about her like she’s a thing to be passed around. And don’t talk like I’m not still in the picture. I will always be watching out for T.J.”
“As her friend?” Gavin asked, amusement in his expression.
Vaughn’s gaze fell on T.J. and the guy who were on what must be song twelve. How long could two people dance anyway? The asshole’s hands slid from her waist to her hips, heading toward her ass. Then he leaned down, brushing his lips along the hair next to her ear, and she molded her body closer to his.
“Fuck being friends,” Vaughn hissed before he turned and stomped toward the dance floor. As he left, he might have heard Gavin say, “Too much?” and Ty answer, “No, man, it was perfect.”
“Excuse me?” Vaughn tapped T.J.’s dance partner on the shoulder. The guy left his hands all over T.J.’s ass but turned to give Vaughn a lazy smile.
“Yeah, hey…” He raised an eyebrow in question.
“Mind if I cut in?” Vaughn asked, but not really.
“I’m afraid that’s up to the lady,” Asshole responded, stopping and looking at T.J. Her eyes grew round like a deer’s trapped in the headlights for a moment, and then she pasted on a smile and ignored Vaughn.
“T.J. Please?” Vaughn pleaded.
The asshole looked from one to the other, his hands slowly sliding off T.J.’s hips.
“T.J.?” Asshole asked, looking concerned. “What would you like to do?”
Then, before either man could say another word, she spun on her heel and bolted for the bathrooms.
Vaughn's Pride: California Cowboys Page 4
