Текст книги "Take the Fall"
Автор книги: Marquita Valentine
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 13 страниц)
Seth
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
“Another letter, O’Connor.”
I take the letter and place it on my bed. For a minute, I almost give in to the temptation of opening it. Every week, without fail, for the past twenty-eight weeks, Rowan has sent me a care package and a letter. The care package, I open, because I’m not stupid.
But the letters are another story. I don’t want to read them. I don’t want my heart to soften toward her. All I want to do is finish out the next two months and join the Marines. I want to go far away from this place, from my old life, and never look back.
The hatred that lives inside of me now fuels me. I eat, sleep, and dream about taking my revenge, about actually killing Tony with my bare hands—at least I’d have a reason for being here. Not my bullshit luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time while letting love rule my brain.
But really¸ can I blame her? She didn’t force me to stay. She didn’t sit on top of my chest and pin me to the ground until I cried uncle.
I run my hand through my short hair, then pick up the letter and smell it, imagining that it’s her perfume lingering on it. That, instead of piss and vomit and the bleach that never quite cleans it all up, the scent that surrounds me is Rowan’s.
Images flash through my mind of our last time together, down by the lake, her golden hair spread out on the blanket, her breasts tipped upward, displaying her hard nipples. Rowan is beautiful with creamy skin and long-ass legs. One thing I always found sexy is how damn tall she is. How I didn’t have to bend very far to kiss her. How I could take her standing up, once we figured out the mechanics of it.
How she laughed, how she smiled, how she wrinkled her freckled nose; she made every day brighter.
“Come home to me,” dream-Rowan breathes. She holds out her arms, but remains out of my reach.
Shaking my head, I force the fantasy away, but then I do something I never do. I open the envelope.
“Fine. I get it. We’re over.”
My gut caves in, like I’ve been repeatedly punched. My throat gets tight, and my vision blurs.
This is what you wanted, I remind myself.
God, but I didn’t think it would hurt so damn bad.
Tucking the letter back into the envelope, I walk to the other side of my cell—all four steps—and carefully place it on top of all the other ones. Then I take the pile and shove it under my mattress.
Chapter 1
Rowan
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Nothing but death could make Seth O’Connor come home and face the girl he left behind. He had made that completely clear with seven months of ignored letters and care packages I sent him. But that wasn’t what hurt the most—oh, no.
The deepest cut came a year and a half later, when he’d returned to the States from a deployment and arranged for his grandmother to visit him in Jacksonville, North Carolina, at Camp Lejeune instead of coming home to Forrestville. Naively, I had thought that time in the Marines would make him see what he missed; that even though he’d hurt me, I couldn’t completely cut him out of my life. I don’t think my heart ever stopped racing at news reports of fallen Marines.
But in the end, and once again, none of that mattered. When he got home from yet another mission, he finally came to town, visited his grandmother…and left before I knew it, like some kind of asshole ninja.
So, I let him go. Again.
Instead of pining over Seth, I forced myself to go out with a couple of guys, and although I had fun, it wasn’t special. But I’m living my life. I’ve been making a life without him.
Over the years, I convinced myself that I was over him. That I didn’t need him. That this hole in my heart could be filled with other things. It worked.
Liar, liar, a voice whispers in my head, but I ignore it.
A part of me wants to thank Seth for what he did. He reminded me of something I had forgotten, that no matter how much a man said he loved you, in the end, he would abandon you. Just like my dad. Just like my brother.
Although it’s not exactly fair to put Jase in the same category. Prison makes it impossible for my brother to have a normal relationship with anyone.
The only person I’ve ever been able to count on is Miss Myrtle, and now she’s gone, too. But now that Seth’s back, I feel as though time has stopped and rewound. I’m sixteen all over again, and in love with Seth O’Connor while hoping like hell he feels the same way about me.
I sniff, but I refuse to cry—I’m not sixteen anymore or hoping for anything from him. My heart aches like hell and it feels as though someone’s rammed me in the stomach a million times, but I refuse to let the hurt show. I can’t let him see me weak, but missing a woman like Miss Myrtle isn’t easy to hide. She was fun, caring, smart, and made her house a home for me.
I lift my eyes, and my gaze collides with Seth’s. The sight of raw pain residing in those dark depths makes me suck in a breath. He’s hurting, just like me. Maybe worse, since he wasn’t here when his grandmother passed.
He’d missed seeing her alive by seven hours. I hadn’t been at the hospital at the time, but from the gossip, Seth had nearly gone insane when he finally arrived. Then he’d left before I returned—just like always.
I allow myself a longer look. This is the first time in years I’ve seen him in person. He’s wearing black head to toe. His hair is cut short and his shoulders are broader than ever. When he left Forrestville, he hadn’t been so tall and wide shouldered. He hadn’t been so…manly looking.
His full lips flatten into a thin line, like he’s displeased at me staring at him.
Ha! Fat chance I’ll stop now.
Boldly, I let my gaze travel over his sexy face. At this moment, my pride and anger are overshadowing my grief, so I could give a damn what anyone would think about me checking him out at his grandmother’s funeral.
He looks older and harder than in the pictures he’d mailed Miss Myrtle. The man in the picture smiled and sometimes posed with a dog in his lap, all the while wearing a uniform and a gun strapped to his thigh. Other times, he would be playfully serious, with his battle buddy and brothers as he called them in his letters to her. But the man standing across from me looks ready to destroy anyone in his path.
Including me.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the preacher murmurs as he closes the Bible. He glances up at the mourners, his expression serene. Calm. Just like you’d expect a pastor to be. But I don’t feel serene or calm. I’m a jittery mess inside. “The Gardner family would like to thank you for coming today.” The crowd begins to thin out, whispering condolences to Seth and me as they go.
“Do you want me to stay here with you?” my best friend asks, her hand slipping into mine. Piper Ross, the epitome of proper southern manners and my lifesaver since the day the two men who had mattered most to me were sentenced to jail. Her hand feels like it’s on fire, or, rather, mine feels like ice. Either way, I need the support right now.
“Or I can go to your house and handle visitors so you can have some time for yourself,” she adds.
The thought of dealing with anyone right now makes my stomach roil. “Thanks,” I whisper gratefully as another lump forms in my throat. I’ve known of only one other person as sweet and kind as Piper, and that’s my other best friend, Brooklyn Reeves. Morgan. She’s Brooklyn Morgan now.
As if she’s reading my mind, Piper continues talking. “Brooklyn would probably do a better job, but you’re stuck with me,” she says seriously. If we weren’t at a funeral, I’d punch her in the arm right now. We’ve been working on her self-esteem issues for years, but her mother has a way of undoing any progress Piper makes with a single withering glare.
Like she’s doing now. Mrs. Ross’s dark eyes narrow and her mouth pinches. Heck, she probably thinks we’re being rude for talking, even though the ceremony is over. Okay, so she probably thinks I’m rude for talking, and I’m corrupting Piper in the process.
Much to Mrs. Ross’s obvious displeasure, Piper and I have been best friends for years, but it’s a weird friendship. She’s quiet. I’m loud. She’s proper while I have no clue if the fork I’m using is the right one.
But I love her to death because she’s never backed down from being friends with me, even after Jase went to jail and everyone else at school looked at me like I was contagious.
I fight the urge to stick my tongue out at the woman, if only because I don’t want to embarrass Piper. And…I want to make Miss Myrtle proud. She attempted to teach me to be a lady. It’s the least I can do to act like one at her funeral.
“I’m never stuck with you.” Turning to Piper, I see the tears running down her cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to be strong. “Besides, pregnant women are moody as all get out. And so are their overprotective husbands who won’t let them fly clear across the country because of their stupid due date.”
Actually, I had been relieved Brooklyn’s doctor had put her on travel restrictions. As much as I love the girl, she isn’t a part of my past. She didn’t know me before everything went down. She only knows the tough woman I’ve become. The same one who’d hired her to help me manage Gardner’s.
Swallowing around that lump in my throat, I manage to say, “Could you go deal with everyone?”
Piper smiles and squeezes my hand. “Take your time.”
I don’t want to take my time. I want everything to fast-forward and be over with already. I want it to be next week. A year from now. Any length of time that would put distance between me and death…and Seth.
“Thanks,” I whisper before she walks away. Turning my attention back to the grave, I struggle to maintain my composure. The workers are already at graveside and pulling away the blanket of Astroturf covering the mound of dirt beside it.
The world seems to shrink. The thought of all that dirt falling in on her…I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then open them again, only to find Seth’s gaze on me.
My feet start moving before I can stop them. His eyes widen slightly, and my chin goes up. I can be the bigger person. I can talk to him like it’s no big deal he’s here after being gone for so long. That it’s no big deal he cut me out of his life without a real explanation.
My hands clench into fists, and I stuff them into the pockets of my winter coat before he sees them. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, inwardly relieved at how controlled my voice sounds.
“Thanks,” he replies in a gruff voice I’ve never heard before. I want to cry at the sound of it. I want to slap him, too. I want to know why and what the hell’s his problem. Most of all I want his stupid, muscular arms around me while he whispers, It’s okay.
He starts to leave, but I stop him by stepping slightly in front of him. “How long are you staying?” The question comes out more sharply than I intend.
Seth gives me a look and runs the side of his thumb right under his bottom lip, just like he did when we were together. “I’m not sure.”
I cross my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together. If I don’t, my heart is liable to fall out and onto his feet, where he can grind it into the ground once more. “What do you mean you’re not sure?”
Seth
Distance and time are supposed to dull feelings and memories, but seeing Rowan like this, so beautiful and vulnerable, brings them back to the forefront in an instant.
Only years of military training and discipline prevent me from touching her, when all I want to do is take this beautiful girl in my arms and hold her. All I want to do is kiss her sweet lips and say that I’ll do anything for her, so she won’t ever cry sad tears again.
During the funeral, I couldn’t bear to take my eyes off her. She’s what kept me grounded when the preacher began to say the words I knew were coming. Over and over, I mapped the new curves and planes of her face, a face that had changed from that of a fresh-faced teenager into a proud and strong woman’s. When her eyes met mine, baby blue like the ocean, full of salty tears I knew she refused to let fall, I nearly lost it.
My hands are still clenched into tight fists. I relax them, stretching my fingers and feeling them pop.
“Seth—how long? I have things to do besides wait for you to grow a set and speak to me,” she snaps and I bite back a grin. That’s my girl—direct and ballsy as hell.
“As long as it takes,” I say. Yeah, so I have less than two weeks right now, and that’s not enough time to convince her to forgive me—hell, the timing’s all wrong, but what can I do, other than stay the course? I don’t expect Rowan to give me another chance. Nah, I don’t expect it, but I’m going to do my damnedest to convince her to see things my way.
There’s something about war that makes a man feel like a mortal instead of a god. There’s something about the bodies and wounds and lack of second chances that everyone who died over there didn’t get. For me, it was enough to make me question my nursing of this hatred for Rowan and her brother. It was enough that I realized all I thought about was her—seeing her, touching her…making love to her again.
War and death give you a perspective like nothing I’ve ever experienced, not even prison.
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“We can talk later, sure.” I’m not here to talk about the past right now, or the future. I’m fully in the present, burying my grandmother. Later, when it’s just the two of us and we’ve had some space to calm down after our first meeting in years, I’ll apologize for fucking up her life. For wanting her to suffer and for discarding her like a used piece of tissue. Self-loathing washes over me, coating me with guilt. So much damn guilt.
From all the letters and phone calls with my grandma, I know Rowan was special to her, that Rowan made her days and nights easier just by living there. My grandfather died a few years before I went to jail, leaving us alone. He had been a good man, a man who worked with his hands and had started an auto repair shop with my grandmother. Funny enough, she was the one who taught him about engines.
As an only child, my grandmother had learned about engines and cars from her dad. She had become fascinated with torque, and horsepower, and the way a piston forces expanding gas into the cylinder.
She loved NASCAR and Sunday dinners. She loved laughing and dancing with my granddaddy, and most of all she loved my mom and me. Or at least that’s what she would tell me at night, after she tucked me in when my mom had to work late.
I believed it, though. I believed it even though I knew they weren’t my real grandparents. They had taken pity on a single mom and her child and let them stay for as long as it took to get back on their feet. I believed it even when my mom didn’t come home from work one day, and left my five-year-old self with two people who’d never been able to have kids of their own. I’m not really sure how my mom met the Gardners, but they had given her a job at their auto shop. I guess she handled the responsibility of a child for as long as she could. From what I gather, she was pretty young herself—she’d had me when she was a teenager. They ended up adopting me when it became clear my mom was never coming back.
I never knew my dad, but I knew love. From my grandparents, I learned what a man should do, how a man should treat a woman, and how to take responsibility for my actions. Just like I’m attempting to do now.
Rowan glances away, her jaw working. “Fine. Whatever, Seth. I just thought…yeah, whatever, O’Connor.” Then she walks away, a purpose to her gait, as if she’s dismissing me. As if she never expects to see me again.
But have I ever given her any reason to think otherwise?
“Fuck,” I breathe, running a hand through my closely cropped hair.
“Mr. O’Connor,” a man says, catching my attention.
I turn my head to see an older bald guy wearing a nice suit striding toward me with a manila envelope in his hand. He stops a couple of feet short of me and nods. “Thanks for waiting.”
“Can I help you?” I ask. If it’s a bill collector, I’ll pound his ass into the ground for being so damn rude. Well, I would if I didn’t have an aversion to going to prison again. This guy looks like the type who would not only press charges but sue my ass.
“I’m your grandmother’s attorney, Shaw Kelly,” he says, holding out his hand.
I shake it. “Nice to meet you.”
“This is for you,” he says, passing the envelope to me. I take it. “If you have some time, I’d like to meet with you about the contents.”
“I really don’t have time,” I begin, walking away. “I’ll take a look at this later and call you.” I need to get to Rowan. I need to—
“It won’t take long. An hour at the most,” he says, catching up to me. “I know this is difficult right now, but—”
“Just spit it out, buddy,” I say as we stop beside my truck.
“It’s about your inheritance. Come by my office in the morning, around eight a.m., and I’ll explain everything, then you can be on your way. My card’s in the envelope,” he says.
“My inheritance?” Not even in a million years would I expect my grandmother to leave anything to me.
“It’s quite a lot, but there are options.” Shaw sighs, looking around. “I really don’t want to talk business in a cemetery, so if you don’t mind…tomorrow at eight?”
Well, point to him because he’s classy. I glance over my shoulder, and a burst of sunshine in an otherwise dreary day hits me as Rowan trudges to the black Lincoln Town Car the funeral home provided for today. If I’d gotten here sooner, I could have ridden with her, but judging by her reaction to me, I’m almost 100 percent sure she would have rather shoved a stick up her ass.
She eyes us, disapproval written all over her face, like I’m doing some shady dealings.
“Eight’s good,” I say, forcing my gaze away as I shove the envelope into my coat pocket.
“See you then,” Shaw says.
We shake hands again, and he leaves. I walk around my truck, climbing inside to start the engine. Then I check my phone for a local watering hole to spend a little time in while I figure out the best way to approach Rowan again.
I’m surprised to find out that the most popular bar is one I thought would have gone under long ago. Chucking my phone into the passenger seat, I put my truck in gear and head out.
A few minutes later, I pull into the parking lot of a honky-tonk on the bad side of town. As a kid, I spent good money procuring a fake ID to get in the place. The Double Deuce specialized in cheap beer and expensive women. Of course, I loved it. But I’d loved Rowan more, so I went only a couple of times with her brother and kept my nose clean.
Heading inside, I’m surprised at how different the place looks. It actually seems like a real bar. It’s clean with high-top tables and chairs that aren’t broken. Music paraphernalia from this century decorates the interior instead of that old shit they used to have stapled to the walls. In fact, the place looks damn good: a sort of classic bar meets shiny shit to attract the local crowd out this way and draw in college kids and hipsters, too.
The hostess smiles at me. She’s definitely new. I don’t think the last guy who ran the place—some joker in his fifties who acted like he was eighteen—had a clue who his customers were. “Bar or table?”
“Bar.”
“Help yourself.”
I flash her a smile and amble over to an empty barstool in the corner. It’s not the best seat, but it allows me to view my surroundings without worrying who’s behind me. Yeah, it’s a residual habit from constantly watching my back both in prison and in war. It’s been hard for me to break, but I don’t see the harm in it.
Signaling the bartender, I order a Fat Tire and a dozen hot wings. I glance at the menu again. Whoever bought the place really wanted to change everything; they have a much bigger selection. But it’s still only bar food. It’s not like they turned into a family chain restaurant.
Over the next couple of hours, I drink and eat, then drink some more. My aim isn’t to get drunk, but to kill some time. Plus, it’s going to take a whole hell of a lot more than three beers to get me wasted.
“Say Something” by A Great Big World starts playing over the sound system. My chest gets all tight. That was us—Rowan and me. She waited and waited for me to say something until I drove her to the point of no return.
She gave up on me, like I deserved. Only, like she deserves, I plan on never giving her up again.
I park my ass on the barstool until that damn song is over, then pay my bill and head to the only real home I’ve known. I need a shower and to find out where Rowan is living. The last I heard from my grandmother, Rowan had been planning on getting her own place.
Not that I’d asked. No, my grandmother had accidentally on purpose let it slip the last time I’d talked to her. Right before my last deployment. I’d planned on talking to Rowan that day, but circumstances out of my control prompted me to leave town a hell of a lot sooner than I’d wanted.
Duty had called and the possibility of being accused of going AWOL didn’t sit well with me.
Pushing open the door, I walk outside and head to my truck, gravel and oyster shells crunching under my boots.
Though it’s only five in the afternoon, the sun has already begun to set and I press a little harder on the gas. I’m ready to make things right. Yeah, it might be a little soon, but is it, really? It’s been seven years.
Unlucky seven. I fucking hate that number.
