by Kait Nolan
“You got it, Chief.”
Chapter 6
Autumn said nothing as Judd ushered her into his house. Boudreaux barked and jumped with joy that his favorite human had come to visit. At her absent pat, he began to whine and pace. The shock was setting in and, with it, a healthy dose of fear that made Judd want to slam his fist through a wall. The son of a bitch had fucked with the wrong man. He’d find Jebediah and put him away for good this time.
He opened his mouth to say he’d take her bag upstairs. But, of course, she had no bag. Because she’d just lost everything she owned. A fresh wave of rage washed through him.
“Why don’t you get a shower, wash off the smoke?” he suggested. “I’ll round up something for you to sleep in.”
Autumn just nodded and went upstairs, Boudreaux on her heels.
With nowhere to redirect his fury, Judd scrubbed both hands over his face. His team had found nothing on their search. They’d be out again at first light. Any evidence from the fire itself would come from the fire marshal, and he’d proceed with the investigation from there. Tyrell Weller was already trying to track down Jebediah, who hadn’t yet checked in. He’d be a fucking idiot if he checked in after this, so, chances were, they’d be orchestrating a man hunt tomorrow. Autumn shouldn’t be left alone while he dealt with that. The whole family had been notified and were ready to circle the wagons.
He heard the shower cut on.
Tomorrow. All the rest of this would have to wait until tomorrow.
Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, he trudged up the stairs, pulling out his phone as he went.
He found a text from Mary Alice.
Is Autumn okay? I heard about the fire.
He’d walked out on her, all but thrown her ultimatum in her face, and she was still checking up on the woman she saw as competition. Because Mary Alice Reed was, down to the bone, a good woman. And he’d been an asshole. Not that he wouldn’t do it again under the circumstances, but he owed her an apology.
It was way past a decent hour to call, so he shrugged out of his suit jacket and thumbed back a reply. Physically, yes. But she lost everything.
An answer came almost immediately. God, I’m so sorry.
So she was still up. Judd didn’t hesitate before making the call. As soon as she picked up he said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have walked out on you like that.”
Mary Alice sighed. “Your friend was in trouble. You kind of rock the white knight routine, Judd. It’s part of the appeal. If you’d stayed, you wouldn’t be the man I fell in love with.”
Judd winced.
Before he could figure out what to say, she continued. “How’s Autumn?”
“In shock. Once that wears off—well, she’s got a tough road ahead.”
“She’s staying with you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah. Safer here.” As he said it, he keyed in the code to set the alarm.
Her silence spoke volumes.
“Look, you weren’t wrong about anything you said. I’ve been a shitty boyfriend, especially the last several months. There were reasons, but none of them were fair to you. I’m sorry for that. I honestly never intended to hurt you.”
“I know. And I get it. Autumn will always come first for you. I guess I’ve known it for a while now. After what the two of you went through together, that’s really not surprising. You are such a good man, Judd, and I wanted you to be the right one for me. But I deserve more than good intentions, and at the end of the day, that’s all you really have to give.”
The accusation, delivered in her soft, kind voice, hit him low in the gut, like a punch slipping under his guard. Had all his girlfriends felt like this? Had he really done this to all of them?
“So…that’s really it, then.”
“Yeah, I think it’s for the best.”
What more was there to say? “Well, good night, then.”
“Good night. And Judd? I really am sorry this happened to Autumn. She didn’t deserve this kind of bad luck.”
He didn’t bother to mention that it had nothing to do with luck. “I’ll let her know.”
After he hung up, he sat on the edge of his bed, waiting for some sense of devastation or anger that his girlfriend of two years had truly dumped his ass. But he felt only remorse for not having treated her better. She was right. She did deserve more than he had to give.
The shower down the hall cut off. The sound spurred him into motion. He still needed to find Autumn something to sleep in. Disappearing into the closet, he snagged one of his soft chambray button downs. She tended toward cold, so the long sleeves ought to suit her until they could pick up something more suitable.
When he came back out, she was standing just inside the bedroom door, wrapped in a towel, her hair slicked back. And it didn’t matter that her eyes were bloodshot or that the skin beneath her them was bruised. His mouth went bone dry at the sight of all that creamy skin.
Say something, asshole.
He dropped his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry, I meant to get something before you got finished, but I got caught on the phone.”
“Not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before.”
But it’d been more than a decade since he’d seen this much bare skin outside the context of swimming. And then they’d been under his parents’ roof.
She crossed the room and plucked the shirt from his numb fingers. “Close your eyes.”
He obediently slammed them shut, turning around for good measure. He heard the towel drop and couldn’t stop his mind from painting a picture of her, still rosy from the shower, sliding into his shirt. His hands itched to touch and he went hard.
No fucking way.
“All done. Which room am I in?”
He almost said, Mine. Because once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been a question. But a lot of years had passed since then. Things weren’t simple.
Readjusting his pants, he turned back around, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on her face, though he could tell well enough that the shirt hit her mid-thigh. “The blue one.” He’d earmarked that one for her when he’d bought the house, because including her in long term plans was simply instinctive, no matter how irrational.
He handed over the bottle of water and some headache medicine. “You’ll want to drink that down before you go to sleep.”
She took them without argument, following him to the room next door.
Judd turned back the covers. “I got some of those foam pillows you like. You want an extra blanket?”
She crawled in the other side. “No.” He wanted to stroke the lines of tension away.
“Are you gonna be okay in here by yourself?”
She rolled over, giving him her back, saying something that sounded an awful lot like, “I don’t have a choice.”
Boudreax leapt onto the bed, curling up in the crook of her legs.
Judd pressed a hand to the bed but didn’t touch her. He didn’t know the right thing to do and that left him uneasy. Moving across to the dresser, he opened the top drawer and pulled out a night light. He didn’t know if she still used one or not. When she’d been a child, her father’s most frequent punishment that didn’t involve a beating was to lock her in the shed. She’d been terrified of the dark. He didn’t want to leave her in it now. Plugging it in, he straightened.
“Thank you,” she said softly, eyes fixed on the light.
At least he’d done something right. “I’ll be just next door if you need anything.”
“Night, Judd.”
“Goodnight, Firefly.”
~*~
Autumn watched the clock, seeing the minutes tick slowly away, and with it, her chance for escape. There was no way she’d make the meeting point now. Mama would go without her. She’d made that perfectly clear when they went over the plan. If Autumn didn’t come, Mama couldn’t afford to wait. She was leaving Wishful today, come hell or high water, to start a new life far away from Daddy and his rage.
Maybe, if it had been a normal day, Autumn would’ve gone with her. But Judd had asked to meet her after school to talk. He’d been so serious and nervous. Judd was never nervous. And she knew they were finally going to talk about it. How things were changing between them.
She loved him. It seemed she’d always loved him, the serious, blue-eyed boy, who’d protected her from the day they’d met. Some would say family mattered more, but Autumn had a lifetime of bruises that said otherwise. If the choice was leaving the physical pain and leaving him or staying for the chance of something better when they turned eighteen in a little over a year—well, there was no question in her mind.
Here they sat, hands clasped, on the sagging, slipcovered sofa in her living room. In and of itself, that wasn’t unusual. Judd was a touchy, affectionate sort of guy. It’d been important to him to show her that not all touch was in anger. He was one of the very few people who didn’t make her flinch at sudden movements. But his palm had never sweated holding hers before. She didn’t even mind because this was Judd, her Judd, trying to find the words. She prayed they were the ones she wanted to hear.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“What about?” Please say us.
“You and me.”
Giddy nerves bubbled in her blood. She struggled to keep her voice normal. “Yeah?”
“We’ve been best friends since we were six.”
“And we’ll be best friends until we’re a hundred and six.” She knew this down to her very marrow.
“Absolutely.” The conviction in his voice never wavered. “But I’ve just been… Have you ever thought about us as…something else?” He lifted his gaze to hers and his eyes were so intense, they pinned her to the spot. Not that she wanted to move away from him.
“What kind of something else?” She knew what she wanted with him. Everything. But his friendship was too precious to her to risk it without being absolutely clear what he meant.
“You and me. Like, together. In a relationship.”
“More than friends?” she asked softly.
Judd hesitated, stroking a thumb over the back of her hand. Autumn felt the touch through her whole body.
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not an ultimatum or pressure or anything. And if you don’t want—”
Autumn laid her free hand over his mouth to stop the flow of words. The inadvertent press of his lips against her fingers sent a fire down her arm. “All the time,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I think about it all the time.”
His gaze sharpened. Of course, he wouldn’t be that guy who got a goofy grin at finding out they were on the same page. “Yeah?”
Autumn nodded, thinking that the time for awkward words was past. If only he’d kiss her, they could clear the rest of this up in a hurry. Or not a hurry. Not a hurry would be even better.
Judd shifted toward her on the sofa, his knee bumping into hers. Everything in her wanted to leap into his arms, close the distance between them, and finally, finally explore this heat that sparked every time he was near. But that wasn’t his way. Judd was all about the slow and careful, especially when it came to her. He treated her as someone of value. Someone he treasured. She’d never get enough of that.
He reached up, skimming a hand along her cheek. She turned into his touch, her eyes half-closing to better focus on the sensation. Slowly, his hands slid beneath the heavy fall of her hair, stroking along her nape. The whole time, his eyes stayed on hers, watching, assessing her reaction to every touch.
She’d go mad if he didn’t kiss her.
“I won’t break, Judd,” she whispered.
One corner of that serious mouth curved up. The sofa dipped between them as he leaned in.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Autumn’s eyes flew open. Crushing disappointment mixed with panic as she scrambled back from Judd. “Daddy.” How had she not heard him get home?
He stood in the doorway, a bunch of yellow tulips crushed in his hand, his eyes cold as ice as he stared at them on the sofa. “I said, what the hell is going on here?” His voice held that carefully measured tone that said he’d been drinking and was trying to hide it.
“Nothing’s going on. Nothing happened." She was stumbling over her words because she’d wanted something to happen. And in Jebediah Buchanan’s mind, thoughts were as good as deeds when it came to sins.
"I got eyes in my head to see otherwise, girl." He shifted his icy stare to Judd. "How long you been fucking my daughter?"
Temper cut through Judd’s shock, straightening his spine. "I'm not. We're not. It's not like that! I swear."
“Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown gives birth to death. Get outta my house, boy.” Jebediah swung his attention back to Autumn. “Where’s your mama?”
“I don’t know.” It was the truth. She wasn’t about to say her mother was gone.
Her father moved toward the back of the house.
Judd hadn’t budged.
Autumn risked moving closer to nudge him toward the door. “You should go,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m not leaving you with him like this.”
“If you stay that’ll only make it worse.” She’d pay for her sins tonight. Jebediah would take it out of her hide. “Just go.”
She managed to herd Judd into the kitchen before he dug in his heels. “Don’t stay here. Leave with me.”
Autumn cast an agonized glance back at the living room. Her father would be coming any minute and Judd needed to be gone. “I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“Autumn—”
“Please, you need to go.”
Something crashed from the back of the house. “Sidda!” Jebediah roared.
He knew. Oh God, he knew.
“Go, go, go. Go now.” Autumn shoved at Judd, which had zero effect.
“Not without you.” He was pulling her toward the door, and it was her turn to dig in her heels.
“Bitch! Faithless whore! Painted Jezebel!”
“Come on, Autumn.”
Jebediah lurched into the kitchen, the flowers still in his hand. “Gone.” He took in Judd and Autumn, halfway out the door. “No other woman of mine’s gonna leave me.”
Autumn saw the gun as if in a dream. It rose slowly, in a perfect arc to point at her chest.
Judd swept her feet out from under her, and as she fell, time sped up again. He dove toward her father. The gun echoed like cannon-fire. Judd crashed to the floor, still managing to catch Jebediah around the ankles. Her father toppled.
Autumn scrambled to her feet, terror a live wire in her blood. Judd wasn’t moving. The tulips lay scattered around his prone body, their petals crushed, stems broken. Jebediah was trying to get up. She grabbed up her mother’s cast iron skillet and ran at him, swinging the skillet with all her might. It connected with a solid thunk, the impact reverberating up her arms. Jebediah dropped like stone.
Autumn kicked the gun away and crouched by Judd, in the spreading pool of red.
“Judd. Judd!” She rolled him over. Blood. So much blood. The shot had hit him in the right side of his chest. No exit wound, which meant the bullet was lodged inside somewhere.
He took a gurgling breath.
“Hang on. You have to hang on,” she ordered, grabbing a couple of kitchen towels and the phone from the wall.
She pressed the towels against the wound and leaned. Judd groaned.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I have to stop the bleeding.”
With one blood-smeared hand, she managed to dial 911. She didn’t understand a word the operator said, she just started speaking. “This is Autumn Buchanan at 117 Cedarwood Road. Send an ambulance and the police. He’s been shot. Oh God, he’s been shot. Please hurry.”
The operator was saying something, but she couldn’t hold the phone and keep pressure on the wound.
; “Autumn,” Judd wheezed.
“I’m here.” An awful pressure was building in her chest, like a balloon being inflated in her rib cage.
“Something…something…need to…”
“Don’t talk. Save your strength. An ambulance is coming.” Please God, let it be coming.
“Tell you…”
“You tell me on the other side of this. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, goddamn it.”
But his blood continued to pulse, hot and wet through her fingers.
Autumn’s face was wet with sweat and tears. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me, Judd Hamilton.” Her vision was going gray around the edges, and the pressure in her chest turned to pain. She had to hold on. Had to keep him from bleeding out before the paramedics arrived. In the distance, sirens wailed.
“Autumn—” His eyes closed.
“No. No. NO! Judd! Wake up. Wake up!” She risked reaching for his throat, trying to find a pulse. But there was nothing.
She was screaming now, sobbing as she knelt in his blood and watched the only good thing in her life fade away. Something in her chest burst, a brilliant fountain of pain that had her slumping over his body. Dimly, she thought she’d escaped her father anyway.
“Autumn, wake up!”
She broke from the nightmare on a gasp, as if surfacing from a deep swim. And for the first time since they were teenagers under his parents’ roof, Judd was there to pull her free of the night terrors.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m safe.” He hauled her into his lap, dragging her hand and pressing it to his chest so she could feel the thump of his heart. Not slow. Not steady. She’d scared him.
Autumn curled into him, not yet able to speak. Sweat slicked her skin and chills of old grief and terror wracked her body. The taste of his blood still coated her mouth, and her throat was raw from screaming. Boudreaux laid his head on her knee, whining. She pressed her face into the hollow of Judd’s throat, breathing him in until both their hearts began to slow. He smelled of good, clean male and sleep, that indefinable trace scent she recognized on an instinctive level, though it’d been years since they’d shared a bed.
