Just One Look - Leah and Lance (Crossroads Book 15)

by Melanie Shawn

  “Leah’s an incredible girl.” She was perfect. He’d never believed in soulmates before meeting her, but he was starting to question his stance on that.

  “So there’s hope!” His grandma perked up.

  Lance just smiled, not having the heart to disappoint his grandparents. There wasn’t hope. He wasn’t the man for her.

  “I’ll check in with you soon.” He lifted his hand and left the hospital room.

  On his way to the parking lot, he tried to process what he’d just heard. All these years he’d believed that his grandparents hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. Not just after the arrest, but even before that.

  But they’d tried to be in his life. He wondered how many times they’d flown to New York only to have his mom turn them away. Then when he was released, he figured that they didn’t contact him because of what he’d done. But that wasn’t the case at all.

  He got on the back of his bike and tried not to think about how right it felt pulling onto Riverside Lane and riding through downtown on his way home. The shops that lined the street were mostly mom and pop shops. There was a yoga studio, a coffee shop, an auto shop, and of course, Barks, Bones & Bellyrubs.

  He was going to miss this place. Not as much as he was going to miss Leah, not even close actually, but he was going to miss it.

  Lance pulled into the driveway of Leah’s home and a melancholy cloud settled over him. This would be the last time he’d be doing this. Tomorrow morning he’d be getting on his bike and driving away from her. He’d had to face some hard things in his life, but this was turning out to be the hardest. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it.

  He opened the door and immediately tripped over a large suitcase. He stumbled but was able to catch himself before doing a face plant on the floor.

  “Oh sorry! Are you okay?” Leah asked as she dragged another suitcase down the hallway toward the front door.

  “Yeah.” Lance picked up the luggage and set it to right side. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking Casper, or Thor, sorry.” She apologized to Casper who had run up to greet him.

  “Thor?” Lance repeated as he scratched Casper behind his ears.

  “That’s his name. His owner reached out to me on Facebook today.”

  “So that asshole Martin was lying.” Lance had wanted to hunt that guy down and tell him never to contact Leah again after he’d heard about him showing up at the shop. Leah had tried not to let how much it affected her show, but Lance saw right through her act.

  “No, he wasn’t. Thor was his son Owen’s dog. But, shock of all shocks, it turns out Martin was abusive. Rebecca basically escaped when she had the opportunity. Martin works from home, so he watched her all the time. But Owen got sick at school one day and he sent her to deal with it. She said she was sitting in the parking lot and she knew that it might be her only chance to leave. So she did. It killed her leaving Thor but she couldn’t risk going back.”

  “If Martin is Owen’s dad, will she get in trouble for jus—”

  “Martin isn’t Owen’s biological dad. Owen’s biological father was never in the picture. Martin met Rebecca when she was five months pregnant. He always said that he was going to adopt Owen one day, but thankfully he never followed through on it.”

  Lance hated to be a skeptic, but he couldn’t help himself. So many people pretended to be something they weren’t. In his experience, most people were working angles. “And she just told you her whole life story over a Facebook message?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like that. We were messaging back and forth for a couple of hours. I think she really needed someone to talk to.”

  “You’re sure that this Rebecca is telling the truth and Casper, or Thor, is her dog?”

  Leah took her phone from her back pocket, tapped on the screen and turned the device to face Lance.

  “That’s him with Owen. See look, you can see his ear stripe.”

  Casper had a light gray stripe on his left ear, which meant that he wasn’t Casper. He was Thor.

  “Where are you taking him? Where did she go?”

  “California. She lives in a small town near Lake Tahoe, so we’re going on a road trip.” Leah’s lip quivered and Lance’s heart did something he wasn’t aware it could do: it broke even more than it already had.

  She dropped down and kissed Thor on the head as tears rolled down her face. “I’m taking you home, buddy, back to your boy. We’re leaving first thing in the morning.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  Leah’s face whipped up toward him. “What?!”

  “If you’ll let me, I want to go with you.”

  “It’s a thirty hour car ride, one way.”

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t say anything for what felt like an eternity. Her face was blank as she shook her head.

  He prepared himself for her telling him no, he wasn’t welcome. He was already starting to work on ways to convince her when she said, “Okay.”

  “Okay?” he repeated, praying that he hadn’t imagined what he’d heard.

  “Okay.”

  Relief washed over him, and he wasn’t sure if it was because Leah had agreed to let him tag along so she wouldn’t be driving across the country on her own, or if it was because, instead of leaving first thing in the morning and driving away from Leah, he’d be leaving first thing in the morning with Leah.

  Probably a little bit of both.

  Chapter 18

  “What sound is supposed to be soothing or happy but you find creepy?” Leah read the question off of her phone.

  She glanced up at Lance and did her best not to drool. It was difficult. He just looked so damn sexy driving her vehicle. There was some serious hand porn happening as he gripped her wheel. No euphemism intended.

  Moonlight shone in through the windshield, highlighting the muscles and tattoos running up his forearms. Her inner walls clenched remembering what it felt like having those hands on her body, those arms wrapped around her.

  She was almost certain if she squeezed her thighs together she could bring herself to orgasm at the mere memory, but where would the satisfaction be in that? If she was going to come, she wanted it to be at Lance’s hands. Literally.

  As per usual, Lance was quiet and she waited for him to answer. She was just happy that he’d agreed to play Icebreakers. They’d listened to several podcasts, and music, but eight hours into the drive, after they’d stopped for dinner at a roadside diner, she asked if they could play a game and he’d said yes. So she’d chosen Icebreakers in hopes of getting to know Lance better.

  She didn’t want to pepper him with questions and make him feel like she was interrogating him. Even though that was exactly what she was doing, it was disguised as a game. And it was working like a charm.

  “Ice cream trucks,” he finally answered.

  “Yes!” Leah exclaimed. “I was going to say nursery rhymes, but ice cream trucks is better.”

  “Which nursery rhyme?”

  “Any! The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” She shivered thinking of a spider, any spider. She was very afraid of spiders. “Humpty Dumpty. I mean, he fell off a wall, shattered, and they couldn’t put him back together again. London Bridges is a song about a bridge collapsing. The Muffin Man…I know he’s up to no good. Why are people looking for him who know what street he lives on? Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, he couldn’t keep his wife so that psycho put her in shell?! What the actual fuck are we teaching our kids?”

  Lance’s lips twitched. “You’re right. I’m changing my answer to nursery rhymes.”

  “No. Ice cream trucks are way creepier. It’s basically like the pied piper for children.” Leah read the next question. “What scene in a movie makes you tear up every time you watch it?”

  After a few moments of his silence, she got impatient and offered hers. “Mine’s easy. The end of Thelma and Louise. I bawl every time. Okay, go, your turn.”

  He sighed. “Love Actually.”

 
“You’ve seen Love Actually?” Leah asked suspiciously, trying to gauge whether or not he was being sarcastic.

  “My mom loved that movie.” Sadness tainted his voice. “We watched it every Christmas.”

  Now Leah felt like a shit for doubting him, but that didn’t stop her from asking a follow up question. “What part did you cry at?”

  She’d seen it a half dozen times thanks to Bea the hopeless romantic, but she didn’t remember it being a tearjerker.

  “The part when Emma Thompson’s character opens the—”

  “Opens the CD!” Leah clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d totally forgotten about that scene.

  Lance’s chin dipped in a nod. “When she pulls herself together and brushes her hand over the comforter…”

  Leah watched as Lance got choked up and in that moment fell just a little bit more in love with him.

  She wasn’t sure this road trip was really the best thing for her emotional state. When he’d first told her he was coming with her, she’d been over the moon ecstatic. Well, first she’d been in shock, but after the shock wore off, she’d been over the moon ecstatic.

  One minute she’d been thinking this cross country road trip would be her way of getting over Lance, who she was sure she’d never see again, and the next he’d insisted on going on it with her.

  But now, after spending close to twelve hours straight with him, she was coming to realize her excitement might’ve been misplaced. She wasn’t only prolonging her heartbreak, she was compounding it. She was going to spend the next four days in an enclosed vehicle with a man that she was falling in love with. And all she had to do was not fall any further.

  Sure. No problem. Simple, right?

  He sniffed back emotion and Leah playfully observed, “You, Lance Taylor, are full of surprises.”

  “Yeah,” his tone changed. “Not all of them good.”

  Leah knew what he was referring to. She wished that he could forgive himself for what happened all those years ago. She could see that he was tormented by the past. From her perspective, he wasn’t to blame. But she understood that everyone had their demons.

  Leah swallowed over a large lump that had formed in her throat. “I wasn’t sure when to tell you this, but I found out about what happened.”

  He didn’t respond, but she saw the whites of his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  “I didn’t ask anyone,” she rushed to clarify. “I mean, full disclosure, I did google, but I didn’t find anything at first. But yesterday, Meg told Jasmine. She’s worked for your grandparents for over twenty years, so she knew the story.”

  Leah’s heart was racing. She had no idea if this was the right time to bring it up or not, but it felt so wrong to have this information about him and for him not to know. She continued, “I know that you probably won’t take me up on this, but I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  She felt like a giant weight had been lifted off her chest. She knew what happened; he knew that she knew what happened. Now the ball was in his court.

  Since she didn’t want him to feel any pressure, she glanced down at her phone to find another question and hoped that this wouldn’t be a repeat of the kiss. After that kiss, everything had changed between them. The road trip had gotten them right back on track, and now she may have just derailed them again.

  Before she found a question to ask him, he said. “I wasn’t even supposed to go out that night.”

  Leah did her best not to let her jaw drop to the floorboard. She couldn’t believe he was actually talking. She remained quiet, giving him time to say what he wanted.

  “It was my birthday. I was turning fourteen. I’d won tickets to a Knicks game after entering an art contest at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club. I only entered because the game was on my birthday, I thought it was fate or something.” He shook his head and let out a puff of forced air. “My mom and I were supposed to go. When I got home from school she wasn’t home. I got dressed. My nonno and nonna had bought me a new jersey and everything.

  “I waited and waited she never showed up. Finally, when it was getting late, I decided to go without her. But when I went to get the tickets, they were gone. I tore up the house looking for them. I found out later she scalped the tickets so she could get high. I should’ve known, but at the time I really didn’t believe that she would do that to me.

  “Anyway, there were a couple of guys, older guys in the neighborhood that I hung out with sometimes. I knew they sold weed and shit like that, but I never thought… When I couldn’t find the tickets I had the brilliant idea to get drunk. That’s all I wanted to do, just get drunk and not feel for a while. I went to the spot that Art and Rowan hung out at. I’d already finished off half a six-pack by myself when the guys said they were going to hold up the store.

  “They were strapped but they said the guns weren’t loaded and all I had to do was stand at the door. I knew I shouldn’t go with them. I knew I should go home but I didn’t want to. I was pissed. At my mom. At the world. At everything… so I went.”

  Lance paused and Leah held her breath, hoping that he would continue. He did.

  “When the gun went off, I felt like I was in a dream. Everything was in slow motion. Art and Rowan were running out of the shop and the clerk was on the ground bleeding. I didn’t know what to do.” Lance sounded as if he were a million miles away. “I tried to save him. I did. I called 911 and put his jacket over the wound to stop the bleeding. He was still alive when the paramedics got there. He lived for three more days. I should’ve done something. I should’ve stopped them. If I’d done something he’d be alive. His wife would still have a husband. His kids would still have a father.”

  The picture that Leah had seen in the newspaper crystalized in her mind’s eye. The black and white image had been haunting her. She couldn’t imagine what seeing those people in color, in real life, must’ve done to Lance. She could feel the weight of his pain like a hundred-ton boulder sitting on her chest. She couldn’t imagine carrying around that burden for all those years.

  “I don’t mean to go all Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting on you, but Lance, it’s not your fault.” She knew he wouldn’t believe her but she had to say something. “You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t shoot him. You stayed and tried to help him.”

  Leah wanted to say more, but she didn’t know the right words and she didn’t want to make it worse. They sat in silence and Leah prayed that she hadn’t said the wrong thing. It might not’ve been what he wanted to hear, but it was what he needed to hear.

  When he stayed silent, she opened her mouth, she wasn’t sure what to say, when a rank smell filled the space and Lance and Leah both turned their heads and looked at one another with horror.

  They spoke at the same time. “It wasn’t me.”

  In unison they both turned and looked over their shoulder to Thor, who stared up at them with his big brown puppy dog eyes.

  “Oh, Thor!” Leah rolled her window down. “He must have to go.”

  “Good timing. We’re here.” Lance pulled into the parking lot of the hotel that Leah had booked because it had the best Yelp reviews and was dog friendly. He cut the engine and sighed. “I’ve never talked about any of that before.”

  “Never?”

  Lance shook his head. “Never.”

  Her heart swelled with gratitude. “Thank you.”

  Lance’s brow knitted and he turned his head toward her. “For what?”

  “For trusting me. I feel honored,” Leah said sincerely.

  “Thank you,” he reached out and covered her hand.

  “For what?” Leah knew that Lance would say for listening, but she was just trying to prolong the moment because his large hand covering hers felt so good.

  His green stare bore into hers with an intensity that stole her breath as he rasped, “For existing.”

  His words shot straight to her heart. He truly had a gift of complimenting her in the most personal, intima
te ways, taking her completely by surprise. She wasn’t falling in love with this man, she was in love with him. And even though she knew it might destroy the tenuous bond that they’d just formed, she found herself leaning toward him. There was nothing she could do to stop her mouth from seeking his.

  She closed her eyes and felt his warm breath fan across her face. She braced herself for the onslaught of sensations that were about to overwhelm her as their lips met. But instead of feeling his soft but firm lips against hers, she found herself choking on a thick cloud of foul stench.

  “Oh my god!” She grabbed her zip up hoodie from the floor and put it over her mouth and nose.

  Lance opened his door and coughed.

  “I’ll take him.” She opened her door, scooping up Thor’s leash and her purse. “You can check us in. The reservation’s under my name but you’re listed too.”

  Lance nodded and walked toward the entrance as Leah got Thor out of the backseat. She hooked his leash on his collar and Thor wagged his tail. “You’re lucky you’re cute, you stinky cock blocker.”

  The dog’s tongue covered her cheek as he gave her a big sloppy kiss before hopping out of the SUV.

  She smiled. It wasn’t the kiss she’d wanted, but she’d take it.

  * * *

  “The reservation is under Porter.” Lance handed over the credit card and ID to the front deskman who didn’t look a day over twelve.

  He was happy to have a moment away from Leah. Spending that much time in the car with her was messing with his head. He’d been so ready to walk away from her last night. Well, more resigned than ready, but still.

  He’d had a plan to be hundreds of miles away from her by now. Instead, he was checking into a hotel with her. And he’d just opened up to her in ways he never had to anyone before. He felt raw and vulnerable, and he didn’t like it.

  “Here you go, sir. Room 114.” The young kid slid two key cards across the counter, along with Lance’s driver’s license and Visa.

  Lance waited for the clerk to tell him the other room number. When he didn’t he asked, “What is the other room number.”