by Mandy Morgan
And best of all, it wasn’t a damn Walmart…
∞∞∞
My Target run took less time than I’d expected, and I was ready to head out to the construction site in a little under an hour.
I keyed the address Tyler had given me into my phone’s GPS system and made my way out to an area near the local mall, where Tyler’s company was putting up a new movie theater complex.
I pulled my car into a parking lot that was still nothing but dirt, and as I climbed out of the driver’s seat, I saw there was a temporary office trailer nearby, and that Tyler was in deep conversation with a young Hispanic man out front.
I watched as the worker gesticulated wildly with his hands and yelled something I couldn’t hear straight into Tyler’s face. I was impressed with how calm Tyler stayed with the younger guy, and mentally chocked up more points in his favor.
I waited by my car until the heated discussion ended with the Hispanic man stalking off to join other workers that were pouring concrete, and then approached Tyler cautiously.
“Hi, there,” I said. “Everything alright?”
Tyler sighed. “It will be if I can get these guys to show up on time and do some actual work. Hector there seems to be allergic to both.”
“Well, I can come back later, if this is a bad time.”
Tyler gave his head a shake and smiled at me. “Not at all. Seeing you has been the best part of my work day by a long shot. Come on into the office with me and I’ll get you started.”
I followed Tyler up the trailer’s steps and hoped that I wouldn’t be another source of disappointment for him. I could feel my stomach tightening at the thought of not being able to pull my weight.
Tyler opened the door and grinned. “Not much to it, is there?”
It looked like a typical small business office, just on a much more cramped scale. There was a desk with a laptop and printer on it, a beat-up couch, and papers stacked on every available surface.
My mouth dropped open and my stomach knots clenched with a vengeance. “Oh, Tyler. I don’t think I’m cut out for this! I think I’ll just make more work for you in the long run.”
Tyler took my hands in his and pulled me in close. I pressed my cheek into his chest and could feel the rumble of his reply.
“You promised you wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, remember? You are more than capable of sorting out this mess and saving my ass.”
He pulled back and gave me a smile that both stirred the desire I’d felt the night before and soothed my anxiety.
“Besides, I’m going to show you the ropes, and I have no doubt that you’ll pick things up quick as a flash,” he said before pressing a kiss to my lips.
I reveled in how secure I felt in his arms, and then I took a deep breath before stepping away to scan the disaster he called an office.
“Alright, show me the ropes,” I said with what I hoped was a brave smile.
Tyler dropped me a wink and then picked up a stack of paperwork from the desk. “How about we start with clearing you some space to actually work?”
∞∞∞
By the time the lunch hour rolled around, I was feeling much better about things, and had actually managed to find the top of my new desk.
Tyler popped his head in around one o’clock and whistled in amazement. “You’ve really gone to town in here, Jenna, and it’s looking great.”
Why don’t you go ahead and grab something to eat from the food truck that just pulled up? I have to take a look at this fresh concrete job, and then I’ll join you.”
“You got it, boss!”
Tyler grinned, told me to put anything I wanted on his tab with the food truck guy, and then hurried off to inspect the morning’s work.
I stood up, stretched my back, and made my way out to the parking lot, hoping there was more than greasy crap on the menu.
I stood patiently in line for my lunch and was pleasantly surprised to find a fresh-looking salad up for grabs. I took my food from the vendor and then looked around for a good place to sit.
I found a stack of wooden pallets under the shade of a big oak tree at the edge of the construction site, and breathed a sigh of relief before making my way over to sit down and enjoy my salad.
All of Tyler’s workers looked like nice enough guys, but I was all too aware of being the only woman around, and I wanted to avoid any trouble by staying out of the spotlight and keeping to myself.
I was about three bites into my lunch and enjoying the cool breeze under my shady spot when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and alerted me that I was no longer alone.
I turned around and saw the angry man I’d seen yelling at Tyler that morning standing next to the tree I was sitting underneath, watching me with a creepy smile on his face.
When he saw that I’d spotted him, the perverted look on his face intensified, and he made his way over to my side, sitting down next to me on the stack of wooden pallets. I could feel my heart racing and I wanted to get the hell out of there, but fear had frozen me in place.
I watched as he moved one hand over to place it on my knee, and then he lifted his other hand long enough to place a finger to his lips before sliding it across his throat.
I had no problem understanding his message. After all, I’d lived with male threats for far too long. It felt like time had stopped, and then I heard a bird call from the branches above me, and I snapped back into the present.
I didn’t come all this way to be treated like this again, I thought to myself in a moment of icy clarity.
And then I brought my salad fork down into the meat of the creep’s hand. He cried out in pain and I jumped to my feet.
My salad dropped from my hands and hit the ground like a leafy bomb. I ran blindly for the office, and didn’t even notice Tyler until I blasted past him, bumping into him with my shoulder in my need to get away.
Never again, never again, never again! That was my only thought as I burst through the trailer door, slamming it behind me, and making sure it was bolted.
Chapter Fourteen
Tyler
By the time I’d chased Hector off with threats of violence and the police, I was shaking with rage and needed to put my hands on my knees and take long, deep breaths to calm myself enough to talk to Jenna.
I’d seen the whole thing play out as I was making my way over to join Jenna for lunch, and controlling my temper with the man I’d just fired had been one the hardest things I’d ever done.
Only thoughts of what would happen to Noah if I went to jail kept me from beating Hector to within an inch of his life. But luckily, he’d gone easily enough, even though his smug, twisted smile stayed in place.
Once I was calmed down, I approached the office, and found the door locked. “Sweetheart, it’s Tyler. Can you let me in?”
I got no response, so I dug out the keyring in my pocket and let myself into the cramped trailer. I found Jenna on the couch with her face in her hands, shaking so violently that her body was vibrating like a pitchfork.
“Jenna? Sweetheart? Everything’s okay now. He’s gone and I’m here,” I spoke softly and moved slowly, but even so, she jumped a mile when I put a hand on her shoulder.
Jenna looked up at me with eyes that were full of pure terror and rage. I’d known coming in that she would be upset, and she had every right to be, but she was in a state of distress that bordered on hysteria.
“Everything is not okay,” she whispered hoarsely. “How can you say that? How can you expect me to be fine with what happened? It was so much like the stuff Ray did…and I—I just can’t!”
My heart filled with sympathy for her and my fists clenched with my desire to get ahold of her asshole of an ex-boyfriend for doing this to her.
But I was also struck by how deep her wounds were, and just how damaged she really was. I’d been so sure that I could help Jenna, but now I was starting to worry that I’d bit off more than I could chew.
I had Noah to think about, after all, and ev
en though I know he cared about Jenna already, I had to think about what would happen if he was around her if she ever lost control like this again.
First things first, I told myself. Focus on helping her right now and worry about the rest later…
“I think we should get you home, sweetheart.”
“I don’t have a home!” she cried out and shot to her feet. “And I can’t go back to your place and risk putting Noah in danger.”
I was taken aback by how closely her words mirrored my own concerns, but I pushed that aside and tried to take Jenna’s hand in mine to pull her to me for comfort.
“No! You could be just like Ray and that asshole out there and all the others. I have to get out of here and be own my own. It’s the only way, don’t you see?”
She looked at me with the wild eyes of an animal caught in a trap, but before I could even think of what to say to that, she’d hurried over to the desk, grabbed her purse, and bolted out the door.
“Jenna, wait! Please don’t do this,” I called after her as I strode across the office and through the door. I was just in time to see her fling herself into her car and crank the engine over.
I tried yelling her name again, but she was gone with the squeal of tires and a cloud of dust. I was left standing there in the aftermath, trying to figure out what had just happened.
And how the hell I was supposed to feel about it…
∞∞∞
When I pulled through the school pick-up line that afternoon, Noah was wearing a smile that broke my heart just as badly as the sorrowful look he’d given me when I’d dropped him off earlier.
I knew he’d be devastated by Jenna’s departure, but what I wasn’t expecting was the massive meltdown that came along with his heartbreak.
“Where’s Jenna?” he asked before he’d even put on his seatbelt. “How come she’s not with you?”
I took a deep breath, tightened my hands around the steering wheel, and broke the news to him as gently as I could. “Jenna had to leave, buddy. She didn’t want to, but there was no other choice.”
There was silence from the backseat, and for a couple of moments, I thought he was handling things better than expected. And then I heard what sounded like a seeping teapot and glanced into the rearview mirror.
Noah’s face was screwed up tight and his little fists were clenched in front of him. I steeled myself against the coming storm, and hoped that we’d at least be out of earshot of the school when it came.
“You promised me, Dad! I already told the other kids I had a new mom, so she can’t be gone! She can’t, be, she can’t be, she can’t be…”
Noah kicked the back of the passenger seat of the 4Runner with every chanted denial. There were tears pouring down his cheeks, and he was taking in great gulps of air in between sobs.
I pulled over on the side of the road to try and console my son, but he wouldn’t be calmed or comforted. I just had to wait until he’d worn himself out, and didn’t have any more fuel for the fire.
Once his screams had dwindled to watery hiccups, I tried to cheer him up with the offer of a rare trip to McDonald’s for dinner.
“Sure, I guess,” he mumbled.
All of this was bad, but the worst of it was what I saw when I turned to give Noah what I hoped was a winning smile.
I found my six-year-old son sucking his thumb, just as he had when he was a baby, and which he hadn’t done since his mother had left.
∞∞∞
Dinner was a somber affair, McDonald’s drive-through or not. I could barely get Noah to finish his Happy Meal, and he claimed he didn’t want to watch anything, not even a movie or cartoons.
We sat on the couch together and stared at the local news on the TV until he finally dropped off around nine o’clock with his thumb still firmly planted in his mouth.
I carried him carefully to bed, praying that I wouldn’t wake him up and start the meltdown all over again, and then I figured I’d go to bed myself—it’s not like I had a reason to stay up late, the way I had the night before.
Thoughts of Jenna played through my head as I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t get her face out of my mind. Or her gorgeous green yes. Or her generous curves. Or the smiles she had given me that lit up whatever room she was in at the time.
I knew there was nothing I could do. Hell, I didn’t even know where she was or how to get ahold of her, and I had no idea how she would react even if I could.
She’d made it pretty clear that she wanted to be on her own, so I just kept staring at the ceiling, playing movies of her in my mind, and kicking myself in the ass for not chasing after her that afternoon.
Then just before midnight, I was hit by a jolt of inspiration—I did know how to get ahold of Jenna! I’d texted the address to the construction site to her that morning before I’d left for work.
I bolted upright in bed, leaned over and grabbed my cell phone, and pulled her number up on the screen. I hesitated for a second before pressing the call button.
Thoughts of how insistent she was on being alone raced through my head. Not to mention my fears of having my heart broken into a million pieces yet again, and what would happen to Noah if he was around so much painful emotional baggage.
But then an image of Noah with red eyes and his thumb in his mouth flashed through my mind, and I realized that Jenna could only help my son. I’d been an idiot not to realize that from the start.
He cared about her and she obviously cared about him. It was concern for Noah’s well-being that had caused her to flee the construction site in the first place.
I took a deep breath, pushed the call button, and put the phone up to my ear. Once I heard Jenna pick up, I didn’t even wait for her to say hello, I just rushed on with what I had to say.
“Jenna, I’m so sorry that I let you leave today. I know I shouldn’t have, and I want you to come back. You do have a home, and it’s here with me and Noah.”
I paused to let her respond, but it wasn’t Jenna who answered. It was a man with a lazy Southern drawl and a nasty attitude that oozed through the phone.
“My, my, isn’t that just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard? But my woman’s home is with me, partner, and there’s nothing you or her can do about it.”
My hand tightened around the phone so hard, I thought I might break it, but before I could even open my mouth to tell Ray exactly what I thought of him, I heard Jenna shout out something about a motel, and then the line went dead.
My vision was red with fury, I knew what I had to do. As I jumped out of bed to take care of business, I just hoped I’d get a shot or two at Ray first.
Chapter Fifteen
Jenna
As I watched Ray stalk back and forth across the tiny motel room, I did everything I could to make him forget that I even existed. Staying still and keeping my eyes down, I counted my breaths and prayed that this would all be over soon.
I hadn’t known where else to go after I’d stormed off the construction site, so I’d returned to the motel where I’d been staying when I’d met Tyler and Noah.
I didn’t have much money to my name, but I’d had enough for a night’s stay, and I figured some rest would help me clear my head enough to figure out my next move.
Just as I was walking down the outside corridor from the motel’s office to my room, a figure had stepped out of the shadowy parking lot in front of me, and I’d come face-to-face with the man I’d tried so hard to leave behind me forever.
“Well, isn’t this nice? It’s a family reunion,” Ray had drawled with a sneer. “Fancy meeting you here, little Miss Sassy Pants. Been missing me?”
I’d frozen in mid-step as my stomach sank and my heart went into overdrive. “Ray! How did you find me?”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you with your phone’s GPS for years,” he’d replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if I was an idiot for not knowing. “I gave you a few days to cool off and come home, but you you’ve taken this too far, Je
nna. The fun and games are over. It’s time to go.”
And here I’d figured he was too stupid to know how to do that, I’d thought as I’d scanned my surroundings for an escape route. But I’d found that I was boxed in by the building on one side and Ray on the other.
With no other choice, I’d decided to buy myself some time to think by turning on the charm and appealing to Ray’s love of anything free.
“You’re right,” I’d said to Ray with a smile. “This has gone on long enough. But I’ve already paid for the motel room for the night. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let that go to waste?”
“Now you’re talking, Missy. Let’s go on and get cozy, why don’t we?”
I’d lead the way to my room, where Ray had pulled a pint bottle of cheap whiskey out of the back pocket of his jeans, turned on the TV, and proceeded to get drunk and totally ignore me for the next several hours.
My plan had been to wait for him to drink until he passed out, and then make a run for it. I still had no idea where I was going, but a destination had been secondary to my need to get the hell away from Ray.
Ray had just begun to nod off in the cheap armchair he’d pulled up in front of the TV when my phone rang, causing us both to jump, and making me forget about trying to stay invisible.
I leapt off the creaky twin bed where I’d been sitting and wracking my brain to figure out what to do after I’d made my escape, and made a beeline for my purse.
But Ray was closer to where I’d left it on the little dinette table by the window, and he snatched up my phone with a triumphant look. He was slightly wobbly on his feet, but nowhere near as drunk as I’d hoped.
I watched as he’d answered the call and brought the phone up to his ear. Ray didn’t say a word, but his eyes widened in surprise before shrinking down to angry slits as he listened to what the caller had to say.
