Wargasm (Payne Brothers Romance Book 3)

by Sosie Frost

  And still, Jules hardly spoke above a whisper.

  “It’s my fault the farm has no money,” he said. “It was my fault there was no money to rebuild the barn when it first burned down. No money to replace the equipment we’d lost. No money to move my ailing father into a comfortable hospice where he might have died in peace.”

  “Jules…”

  “I was supposed to be some fucking superstar.” He spat the word. “My parents spent every penny of their savings on me. Coaches. Trainers. Schools. I got my scholarships, earned my place in the draft, and I was set to make millions with the Rivets. Fucking millions.”

  And he blamed himself for a chance injury? “It’s not your fault you got hurt.”

  “Yes, it is.” He ground his teeth. “Because I didn’t tell anyone when I first got hurt.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I hurt my back before the season had even started, in some shitty afternoon, no-pads practice. It hurt like a bitch, but I was a goddamned rookie, and I wasn’t going to go crying to the trainers about a little ache. So I ignored it.”

  “What would they have done if you told someone?” I asked.

  “They would have pulled me from my first professional game.” He swore. “I was too goddamned proud to admit I’d been hurt before the season fucking started, and I wasn’t taking any chance that would prevent me from getting on the field. So, I shut my mouth, suited up, and played that game.”

  “What happened?”

  “Rivets against the Monarchs.” His voice hollowed. “On the first series of the game, the first play of my career, I get the handoff. I ran it up the middle and collided head-first with Cole fucking Hawthorne.” He snapped his fingers. “And I heard the pop over the crowds. Thought the bastard had paralyzed me. They peeled me off the ground and hauled my ass to the sidelines. Then the trainers started asking questions.”

  I bit my lip. “Was that when you retired?”

  “No.”

  “So, what—”

  “I lied.”

  “You…what?”

  “I lied. To the trainers. To the coaches. I stretched, touched my toes, did their exercises, and I told them I was ready to go out again.” He smirked. “And they let me play.”

  “Didn’t it…hurt?”

  “I survived the game, but I can’t tell you if we won or lost. I limped into the showers. Shoved half a dozen Percocet down my throat. Made it home and crawled like a fucking dog through my front door. Couldn’t make it any further than that. I slept in the entryway that night. And, by morning…”

  Just the memory of that pain ached in his voice. I shivered.

  “By morning it was worse,” he said.

  “When did you finally tell someone?”

  “Game three. When they carted me off the field and x-rayed me in the locker room.”

  I hated to ask. “What did they find?”

  “So much fucking damage I was immediately placed on injured reserve, rushed into surgery, and released by the end of the week.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Career over,” he said. “The doctors said I’m lucky I can walk.”

  My head swirled. “Does anyone know?”

  “Maybe Tidus, Marius. I don’t know. I didn’t tell my family. How could I? I’d fucked my career before it started. No fame. No glory. No wild parties with all the women Jack Carson could shove at me. No money to pad the dent left in my parents’ savings.” His laugh was harsh, cold. “But for about five years—as long as I was prescribed the Percocet—it didn’t fucking matter.”

  “Jules…”

  “Then the barned burned down,” he said. “And I realized what a goddamned mess I made for my family. And that shame…how was I supposed to come home?”

  I couldn’t imagine Julian deliberately avoiding his farm. “So you didn’t come back?”

  “No. It was better to be alone and in pain than to see what my bullshit had cost us all.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  “My parents had mouths to feed. Not just my brothers and sister, but the foster kids. Shit, the farm was crawling with kids. All in need of a hot meal and a warm bed. My parents never turned anyone away.” He hesitated. “Until the barn. Until we ran out of money, and I had nothing saved and no multi-million-dollar contract to help them.”

  Another pause.

  Julian stared over the night, his gaze focused long in the past.

  “That was when my mother got sick,” he said. “The worry killed her, not the cancer. I could have prevented it. Could have got her healthy, spared my dad the depression after she died. Not like he wanted to fight his heart condition without her by his side.”

  My heart broke. I stood, folding my hand into his. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Why not?”

  His words weren’t confrontational. He whispered with absolute resignation. “I let my pride ruin my life, and the shame destroy my family.”

  “It’s all in the past, cowboy.”

  “And it’s still fucking up everything today. My family is scattered. Hurting. I can’t help them. The farm needs a shit ton of work to get operational again, more work than I can do alone. And the barn…”

  My stomach clenched.

  “The barn represents everything. Something we can see and touch and know that we’re…” He shrugged. “That we’re trying to be whole again.”

  “Cowboy—”

  “You can help me.”

  “I…”

  My pulse quickened, and my stomach rolled. Not morning sickness this time. Just the cold-pit of fear that gnawed through my confidence and shadowed me with doubt.

  The barn was everything to Julian.

  And he…

  He was everything to me.

  It’d mean my job, my livelihood, my future, but this wasn’t a reckless decision.

  It was the right one.

  I gripped the umbrella tight and stared only at the encroaching puddle threatening my toes.

  “If I had the barn, I could start a new life,” Julian said. “You’d have a place in it.”

  The thought terrified me and excited me and ruined me. “For the first time, cowboy…I’m not sure what the future holds.”

  “It’s easy enough to have one with me.”

  How was that easy? That choice—that thought, that hope, that delight—was anything but easy. It was frightening and dangerous and wild.

  “I have a career,” I said. “The remnants of a plan. I can’t just…drop everything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s not how life works. I know I’m pregnant, but that doesn’t mean I abandon everything I’ve planned, everything I’d worked towards.”

  Julian stared over the fields again. Made the words easier. The hope. The pain.

  “I’m not asking you to give that up,” he said. “Just let me be part of that life.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Life isn’t simple, Micah. It’s messy and complicated. Terrifying.”

  “That’s why I have my plans,” I said.

  He frowned. “But life will never go to plan. No matter how much you schedule or what you scribble into your planner, life isn’t that predictable. And that’s the fun of it, princess. Experiencing that uncertainty. Getting screwed by fate. Knocking up a stranger.”

  I dared to speak the words I’d feared since the moment I’d peeked at the blue stripes on the pregnancy test. “And if we hadn’t gotten pregnant? Can you honestly say you’d still be a part of my life?”

  I knew the answer. A resounding no.

  We were two different people with two very different lives and plans and desires and goals. We’d been careless, but it wasn’t a reason to abandon our lives and force ourselves together. It wasn’t fair to the baby. It wasn’t fair to us.

  And it wasn’t fair to my heart—a heart breaking because I was too damn terrified to take the chance.

  Julian exhaled. “You don’t hav
e to do this alone.”

  I released a trapped breath. It did nothing to ease the squeezing ache in my chest.

  “You have me,” he said. “You could depend on me. Lean on me. Have a future with me. Princess, you know that I…”

  He quieted.

  Didn’t say the words.

  And neither did I.

  And not because I didn’t feel them too—not because that sweetness didn’t linger on my tongue.

  Who could say those three little words so easily? Who could abandon everything safe and reasonable and predictable for a terrifying risk created from a shared secret?

  I hardly knew Julian. Our lives had crossed for one night, and everything had changed.

  Could I sacrifice everything I’d planned, everything I’d ever wanted, everything I needed to secure my future and a good life for my baby on a desperate hope?

  In a heartbeat, Julian turned cold. Distant.

  “I should go,” he said. “Help clean up the tent.”

  His steps rang heavy against the bleachers. Each step fractured my heart a little deeper. I called to him before he disappeared into the rain.

  “Jules.”

  He didn’t look at me. “Yeah?”

  A heaviness gutted me, crashing into the ever-present morning sickness. I swallowed, drowning those words in a pit of cowardly nausea.

  “I’m going to approve the barn.”

  His jaw clenched as he looked away, patting the hard metal of the railing.

  “Thanks, princess. But I think I’m looking for something else now.”

  17

  Julian

  Never thought I’d miss dealing with the county fair until I was back at home, managing disaster after disaster on the farm. Easier to deal with catastrophe when it was on someone else’s land, screwing with someone else’s day.

  Then again, Micah had made any calamity manageable. Or maybe fooling around with her in a spare tent had made the problems worth fixing. Sex was a great defense against a world eager to rain on a sunny day, slip a disc in a man’s spine, or pick apart a farm one rotten timber at a time.

  The last replacement fence post pounded into the soft earth. I joined it with the old fence that had separated my fields for the past ten years. Instantly, the rotten wood crumbled. The fence teetered, and two feet fell forward, cracking another three support posts.

  I pitched my hammer at the mess. Fuck it. I’d take a goddamned match to the whole line. No sense trying to salvage the unsalvageable. The wood was as warped and splintered as the roof to the house. I’d only bought so much timber for the fence. I’d need double what I’d ordered to fix what remained. Maybe more.

  That money was better spent on the roof. The hot water tank. The barn. The seed. The equipment. Modernizing the irrigation system.

  Lists upon lists of projects. Expensive projects. Projects that needed more than one godforsaken person to complete.

  Screw the fence. I needed a beer. Didn’t trust myself anymore with painkillers, but no one said a goddamned word when a man self-medicated with alcohol.

  I ditched the timber and retreated to the house, pitching my tools onto the porch as a silver Accord spun its way up the driveway. Micah parked next to my truck, patted a grazing Clyde on the head, and met me on the bottom step. I sat. She didn’t.

  Her dress looked a little tight. Not showing, but enough about her was changing. Didn’t have much time left in the first trimester. At some point, we’d have to tell people. The little princess didn’t want to start any gossip, but I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate anyone suggesting the baby wasn’t mine.

  Or that the woman belonged to anyone but me.

  Micah wore her hair down today. Gentle curls brushed against her shoulders. Gorgeous. Tempting. If only she dared to let her defenses down too, for even a moment.

  Did she even realize how beautiful she was? What I’d give to greet her properly? Haul her into my arms. Kiss the apprehension from those pouty lips? Relieve both of our stresses with a simple touch?

  “Hey,” I said.

  Micah fiddled with a folder. She handed it to me, swallowing hard. Her eyes were red.

  Crying?

  Jesus.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Here.”

  I ignored them. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re upset.”

  “I’ve been upset.”

  And I’d done everything in my power to help her. “What can I do?”

  “It’s not your responsibility to worry about me.”

  Bullshit.

  Micah kicked a rock. Her high heels sunk into the mud. She never learned. The woman was so obsessed with portraying the right image she’d never recognize her real self if she stripped out of the designer clothes and faced the mirror.

  “A few weeks ago, I met with Mayor Desmond,” she said. “Apparently, my father had convinced him and the board that your land was worth a great deal of potential to the community. Tax revenue. More people and businesses moving in.”

  “Yeah.” I leaned against the stairs and ignored the pain screaming from my lower back. Wouldn’t get any better standing. Learned long ago to just get used to it. “I heard that too. I counter-offered.”

  “Anything good?”

  “It’s no Rivets’ contract, but it’d be enough to get my brothers and sister on their feet.”

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to stay off my feet.”

  She smirked. “Are you interested?”

  “What do you think?”

  “If you are, I wish I had known about it earlier today.” She handed me the application. “This is yours. Pending approval by the zoning committee—who, under penalty of death for skipping their assigned duties at the county fair, promised to sign off on the variance. It’s yours.” She bit her lip. “I’d say you earned it.”

  “And only three months late.”

  “What’s a couple months? You’ve waited five years.”

  I tapped my folder against my hand, but Micah didn’t share my smile. My stomach dropped.

  “What?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing—”

  “Tell me.”

  She dragged a breath over lips thin and tight. Trying to stop the tears. This time, it wasn’t because of the hormones.

  “Mayor Desmond expressed to me his interest in the future development of your property,” she said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning…he would have preferred you sell the farm so my father could begin work on Butterpond’s revitalization.”

  Son of a bitch. “What exactly did he tell you to do about my application?”

  “That doesn’t matter now.”

  “Like hell, princess.”

  Micah hesitated. Too damn proud and too damn vulnerable. “I was told to decline your application.”

  The folder turned to lead in my hands. “You refused?”

  Her eyes met mine, glistening with tears she’d never let fall. “I filed your application. Then I packed my desk.”

  I rose to my feet, gritting my teeth as the quick stab of pain struck my back before jolting down my sciatic nerve. She rushed forward to help. Just what I needed. First a limp, now a woman throwing her career away for me.

  “You quit your job?”

  She shook her head. “A resignation looks better on resumes.”

  “Christ. What the hell did you do?”

  “What I had to do,” she said.

  A quiet rage tore through me. Who the fuck was Desmond to think he could control what I did or didn’t do with my property?

  The mother fucker thought he could threaten Micah to get his goddamned development?

  I’d rip his head off.

  “Jules—”

  I interrupted her, teeth clenched. “I would never ask you to sacrifice your job.”

  “You didn’t need to a
sk me.” Micah brushed a soft hand over my arm, then pulled away before she got too close. “This was important to you. You needed this barn—for more than just a three-legged goat. This…this was for you. To start again. To help your family. It was what you wanted.”

  But it wasn’t what I needed.

  The nails and timber, boards and concrete meant nothing to me. The barn was just a building. The farm just an idea.

  But this woman—this beautiful, sexy, unbelievable pain in my ass—was everything missing from my life.

  And now she finally understood.

  It’d taken disaster after disaster, ruined pies and cancelled fireworks, but now she realized what I’d promised her.

  Everything I meant to rebuild. Everything I wanted to begin.

  It was for her.

  And our baby.

  “Don’t worry about anything.” I pulled her tight, ignoring her quiet protests. “Not the job, the baby, anything. Got it?”

  “Jules…”

  “Forget the damned five-year plan. I can give you so much more.”

  She tensed. “Wait, Jules.”

  “You’ll stay here. On the farm.”

  Now she pulled away, her eyes wide. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll help you through the pregnancy here. We’ll fix up a room for a nursery.”

  “Stop,” she said. “Listen to me.”

  “We can raise the baby together. Here. On the farm. Like we should have done from the beginning.”

  “Jules, you don’t understand,” she said. “You…you didn’t let me finish. I resigned from my job today.”

  “I know.”

  She quieted. “That means I can’t stay in Butterpond.”

  Shock cracked through my spine. “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because I’ve accepted a position at the civil engineer’s office in Ironfield.”

  Son of a bitch.

  Micah couldn’t meet my gaze. Good. At the moment, I couldn’t stand to look at her.

  “You’re fucking leaving?”

  “It’s a great opportunity,” she said.

  “In Ironfield.”

  “The job pays more. I’ll have more responsibilities. It’ll look great on a resume.”