She opened her mouth.
But this shit from Megan wasn’t the only pressure Judge had about this same subject.
And if he didn’t put up with it from the other source, he was not going to put up with it from his girlfriend.
“Meg, no,” he cut her off before she could use it. “I love my job. I love what I do. I love it. I’ve told you that. More than once. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Do I mean nothing to you?” she retorted.
Uh.
No.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he returned. “And your answer would be rougher, babe, because it isn’t me breaking it off with you because you’re not what I want, and you won’t adjust your life to make yourself into that. So the only answer you could give me is, not much. I don’t mean much to you. You’re seeing the wrong man. And now, it’s over because you’ve either figured that out, or you’re cutting your losses before you invest any more time with me.”
She appeared insulted. “Judge, I love you.”
Okay.
That totally pissed him off.
“And you’re ending things not because I’m a dick to you. Not because I lie or cheat or steal. Not because I flirt with other women in front of you. Not because we fight. Not because we have differing opinions we believe in strongly and we can’t get around those differences. But instead, because you think I have no direction or ambition when I do have direction and ambition.”
He saw her start to intercede.
But he was far from done.
“I want, and I’ll add that I work very hard, to get kids moving their bodies. To show them how extraordinary nature is. Introduce them to vistas that don’t include concrete and asphalt. Where the air is fresher, and the stars shine brighter. I want to explain to them how important it is we guard these things, keep them safe and pure, and what it’ll mean when we don’t. Because they’re going to be in the positions soon where they have no choice but to do something about it, and they need to start thinking about that now.”
She again tried to say something.
But he hadn’t even gotten to the most important part of it.
So he didn’t shut up.
“And above all, just to let them know they aren’t forgotten. There are people who give a shit about them and what they experience and want to broaden those experiences, their minds, and bottom line think they’re worth spending time with. And I don’t know, Meg, if that isn’t good enough for you, then you’re right. Though I wouldn’t take you to a bar to dump you after we spent over a year of our lives together. But that makes no difference. You’re right. We’re wrong. And it’s time to end it.”
With that, and her staring at him, he slid off his barstool, pulled out his wallet, opened it and tossed enough money on the table to pay for their drinks and the food that had not yet been delivered.
“I gotta get home,” he said. “Text me when I can come to your place to get my shit. I’ll pack yours up and bring it when I do that.”
He started to leave, but she caught his forearm.
“Are you really just walking away from me?” she demanded.
He stopped and looked down at her. “Sorry, did I steal your exit?”
She took her hand from his arm. “There’s no need to be a dick.”
Unh-unh.
No.
“Hang on a second, you told five minutes ago, in all honesty, that you thought I had no direction, no drive and that I didn’t know what I wanted or how to go after it in a preamble to dump my ass. And I’ve given you what you want. We’re through, and I’m walking away because I’m not real hip on sitting here after you’ve kicked me to the curb and watching you pick through a plate of tater tot nachos because eating two expends your allotment of calories for the day. And I’m being a dick?”
Right.
That was definitely dick-ish.
His sister (or that would be stepsister, but she’d been around so long, he didn’t really think of the “step” part of that) said often that he looked like the Zen master. Mr. Outdoorsman. Mr. Easygoing. One with nature, one with humanity. But piss him off and all that was out the window.
And she did not lie.
“Maybe, when I said fight for something, I meant me,” she suggested with not a small amount of hurt.
His stomach clutched.
It was not a good feeling.
“And how would I do that, Meg?” he asked quietly.
“Well, you could not live a hundred and thirty miles away.”
Judge closed his eyes and dropped his head.
Because that meant quit your job and move to Phoenix.
“Judge,” she called.
He opened his eyes and looked at her, what was happening fully registering.
This was it.
They were over.
And he wasn’t okay with that.
Because he was in love with her.
“I want more of you, would you quit your job and move to Prescott?” he asked.
A hard shell slammed down over her eyes as she replied, “I know what you’re doing, but there are far more opportunities for both of us in Phoenix.”
“And then you get a job in LA, and I follow you there. And then New York, and I follow you there. Right?”
“There are programs for kids, in nature, for the environment, everywhere, Judge. You can’t get away from any of them.”
He’d been bending, because he’d been considering what she was saying and what was happening between them, because she was right, and he didn’t want to lose her.
However, the last part of what she said struck him.
You can’t get away from any of them.
Who exactly was “them”?
“Do you want kids, Meg?” he asked.
Her head twitched.
One of her tells.
“Of course,” she lied.
Holy fuck.
She’d lied.
About wanting kids.
If he had it right, because this was so important to him, they’d had this conversation on their third date.
If it wasn’t their third, it was their fourth.
And that wasn’t the last time they’d talked about it.
“Do you want kids, Meg?” he repeated.
“We’ve talked about this, Judge,” she snapped.
Another tell. She quickly got belligerent when she was called on something she couldn’t defend.
“Yes, and you told me you did. Now, I’m not sure you were being truthful.”
“Are you saying I lied?”
“I’m saying your hair shakes when you’re hedging. And your hair just shook.”
She knew not to challenge him on things like that. You didn’t deal with children on a regular basis, not to mention donors, and not be hyper-attentive.
“I think I’m realizing I’m one of those later-in-life-for-a-family women,” she admitted, like it was nothing.
But it was not nothing.
It was big shit.
And she knew it.
“You’d mentioned that, and I told you I wasn’t real big on being in my fifties, and living the life with my family that I want, rather than being in my thirties or forties. And you agreed, saying you wanted the same thing.”
“You’ll be fit until you die, Judge,” she scoffed. “You’ll be hiking and biking and camping when you’re eighty.”
“Sure, but time doesn’t discriminate. There’s no arguing I’ll be fitter in my thirties and forties. And when my kids are young, I want them to enjoy me when I’m also young.”
“Judge—”
“This is a big shift, Meg, anything behind it?”
“Judge.”
He didn’t cut her off that time. She just didn’t continue.
“Earlier, did you intend to end us or change us?” he asked.
It was slight, but she lifted her chin.
She had a dimple in it.
He’d thought it was cute.
He
still did.
“I need a man who will fight for me,” she declared.
“I get that, because I need a woman who will do the same for me.”
It was impossible for him to put more meaning into those words.
And she knew precisely why.
She flinched.
Shit.
That said it all.
He remained standing, she sat there, and they stared at each other.
And suddenly, he got it.
He understood.
He understood where he was at.
And he understood where she was too.
This meant he got closer to the table, to her, because they both needed him to share it.
“Honest to Christ, this isn’t meant to hurt you, Meg, but I’m in love with you.”
Her expression warmed.
“But I don’t love you,” he finished.
Her face went blank.
“And if you’re honest with yourself,” Judge continued, “you’ll see you feel the same way about me. We’re great together. We’re great in bed. We’ve had great times. But there’s a reason neither of us is willing to give in order to have more of the other. We don’t fit. We don’t share the same goals. We don’t find the same things important. There’s nothing wrong with what you want or what you think is important. There isn’t anything wrong with where I’m at with all that. They just don’t go together, and I think we both knew it, you just got us on the road where we’d get it.”
Her eyes were crazy, and as such, concerning as they moved over his face and she said, “I don’t think I knew it. I think I just blew it.”
“Give it some time, honey,” he said gently.
“Judge—”
He cut her off then by leaning in and pressing a hard kiss on her mouth.
When he pulled away, he didn’t go far when he said, “Bottom line, it’s been fun, you’re fantastic, and I’ll never forget it, Meg.”
Her mouth opened.
But so they could both get on with things, Judge walked away.
And he didn’t look back.
Chapter 1
The Two Words
Judge
Now…
Considering the fact he’d brought in a coffee for his buddy, Rix, who managed the store, Judge was down on the floor where Rix’s office was, not on the top floor where his was, so he saw her when she walked into the shoe section.
He’d dated Meg.
And before Meg, there was Jess.
And before Jess, there was Kimberly.
They all had different color hair, Meg and Jess were tall, Kim was not.
But even so, Judge had a type.
He knew it.
And that woman who’d strolled up to the shoe displays?
She was his type.
Multiplied by a thousand.
Christ, she was beautiful.
And bad news.
He could tell that last by the outfit, including her ridiculous, high-heeled booties.
He’d worked at River Rain Outdoor stores for nine years—starting as a sales associate when he was still going to college and advancing to director of the Kids and Trails program.
In all that time, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman walk into any of their stores wearing shoes like hers.
And when he came down again a half an hour later to hit Rix’s office to make some copies because the copier in the corporate offices at the top level was busted, he noticed she was still there.
He also noticed he had further evidence she was bad news.
That evidence?
The sheer number of boxes of boots that she was trying on scattered around her.
She looked like she’d not set foot on a hiking trail in her life.
And she looked like she was there because she’d already trolled through all the boutiques around the square, but this hadn’t assuaged her shopping fix, because nothing really did.
Therefore, there was a possibility, after making a member of staff bring her fifteen pairs of shoes, she’d walk out not buying anything.
She’d do this not thinking a thing of it.
However, he noted some of the boots she was trying on were riding boots, and Judge could see that round ass of hers in the saddle on top of a horse.
Wearing a riding habit.
Even if she was trouble, and he had not the slightest interest (or he was telling himself that), he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
Because he was a moron.
That said, she caught his gaze every time.
So he was looking.
But so was she.
His instincts proved true when he came down for the third time with more to copy, and he again walked through the shoe section to get to the office in the back. Doing this close to where she was seated, still trying on boots, because, yes, in the fifteen minutes between then and now, he had not stopped being a moron.
And again, she caught his gaze.
He had no clue why, but as her gorgeous hickory brown eyes hit his, he muttered, “Nice booties.”
Her back shot straight, and she demanded, “What did you just say?”
Yup.
Moron.
He shook his head in an effort to shake some sense into it, then dipped his chin to her and kept walking.
“Excuse me,” she snapped, and Judge continued on his way, but looked over his shoulder at her. “What did you just say to me?” she repeated when she caught his eyes.
“Nothing, miss, have a nice day,” he replied.
“Do you work here?” she asked.
He drew breath into his nose, stopped and turned to face her.
She’d been sitting.
She was now standing.
Fucking fuck.
Straight on and standing close to her?
She wasn’t beautiful.
She was stunning.
Facing her, not for the first time, Judge wished Prescott was a good two hours further from Scottsdale. Being an easy drive away, it was one of the weekend playgrounds for people like her.
Now, it was September, when temperatures around Phoenix were gearing down, so things would peter off with folks from down south coming up to get away from the heat.
Coming up to play weekend warrior, do stupid shit at campsites, bring up their guns and shoot things when they had no clue how, or any intention of field dressing a deer, not to mention eating its meat.
Tossing their water bottles during a hike, and not doing that in trash receptacles.
Having disposable water bottles at all.
Looking down on the townies.
But there she was.
Tall. Shiny, chocolate brown hair. Slender but curvy.
But for Judge (outside the hair, and those long-ass legs), it was her neck.
Her neck was long and graceful, which made her seem almost…
Vulnerable.
When he knew she was probably not.
And her hands.
Those hands were insanely beautiful.
Because of the man he was and the life he liked to live, even though it made him stupid, and this was part of the reason he was a moron (and all the other parts surrounded his taste in women as well), he got off on the way she dressed.
Judge had always liked a woman who looked after herself in that way (and others, and those others didn’t revolve around her hiking or climbing or doing something to keep fit, but instead things like giving herself facials and having polished nails—like he hadn’t learned the hard way, repeatedly, that opposites did not attract).
Her way of dressing was overtly expensive. Smart. Lowkey dramatic (and yeah, she made those opposing concepts work together). And she had a definite personal style she was completely confident in.
She also had a significant attitude, if the flash in those eyes was anything to go by.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.
“So you do work here,” she stated.
“I do, ma’am, I�
�”
He said no more when she griped, “Oh my God, do not call me ‘ma’am’.”
Judge nearly laughed.
Instead of doing that, he started, “I’m sorry, I—”
He again got no more out.
“You should be sorry,” she declared. “Do you often walk through the store that employs you, making personal comments to the customers?”
He’d done that.
He’d said two words, but the words he said were not what he meant, and she hadn’t missed it.
It was uncool.
But he knew why he did it.
Because he didn’t even know this woman’s name, and she was under his skin, so he’d done it angling for what was happening right then.
The particulars of that, however…
They weren’t something he was going to think about.
And now he needed to move on from what he’d instigated and get far away from her…and fast.
“You’re right, I should have kept my mouth shut,” he admitted. “You have my apologies.” He patted his chest with a flat palm. “Sincerely. I was out of line.”
She watched his hand on his chest, and for some reason, she got even more ticked when she did.
She then raised her eyes to his.
And he felt a variety of things in a variety of places (and regrettably, one of those places was his dick), when he saw she was not going to let this go.
She was going to dig in.
Deep.
“And I asked, do you do that often?” she demanded.
“I apologized, and—”
“An apology must be accepted,” she sniffed.
“And it should be,” he shot back, “if it’s genuine. Which it was.”
She raised a perfectly arched, perfectly waxed, dark brow.
“Was it?” she asked, making clear she knew the answer and it wasn’t what was about to come out of his mouth.
“Of course it—”
“Please,” she drawled. “Don’t assume I’m stupid.”
“I’m not assuming you’re stupid,” he returned. “In fact, if I made an assumption about you, that wouldn’t be it.”
What the fuck are you doing, man? Don’t goad the woman. Walk away.
Her head cocked, which wasn’t a surprise. What was in it undoubtedly was her weapon of choice.
Chasing Serenity Page 3