I tried to do the seatbelt, but my fingers felt numb, and it flew out of my grasp.
So Judge nabbed it, leaned in and did it for me.
“Darling.” Mom, agonized.
“I think she needs some time, please.” Judge, respectful.
“Come here, honey.” Bowie, to Mom.
A sob.
Sasha.
My door closed.
I watched my Evoque roll away, Rix behind the wheel, Zeke in my passenger seat, head out the window.
And then we were going, and I didn’t look to the side, where I knew Mom, Bowie and Sasha were standing.
We cleared Bowie’s drive, and I stared at the back of my car, finding it strange it was there, and I wasn’t.
“You with me?” Judge asked.
“I’m not a cheater,” I said through stiff lips, not tearing my gaze off my car. “I didn’t know he was married. I ended it the first moment I could when I found out.”
“Give me your hand, baby,” he ordered softly.
I kept my hands in my lap.
“Okay, we’ll be home soon,” he relented gently.
Home?
I didn’t ask.
Eventually, after an interminable, silent drive, I watched Rix pull my car into Judge’s drive and idle until Judge opened the garage door. He then pulled in.
Judge did too.
We all got out.
I stood between my vehicle and Judge’s, wondering why Rix had parked my car in Judge’s garage, also not knowing what to do.
Rix and Judge did the handoff of my bag, and I heard Judge murmur, “Take Zeke?” and Rix reply. “Yeah.” Then Rix again, “Turned her ringer off, man. Her phone’s blowin’ up.” And Judge, “Thanks.”
Then I had my chin caught between the side of an index finger and the pad of a thumb.
I looked up.
At Rix.
He said nothing, but the kind look in his eyes unraveled the only part left knitted together inside me.
My lips quivered.
He stroked my chin in an affectionate gesture, a gentle squeeze to the tip, as he moved his fingers away.
Then he was gone, my hand was in Judge’s, and he was pulling me inside.
I was right.
His fingers…
Tailored to fit my hand.
We went up some steps, and he dumped my bag on a counter in the kitchen and then let me go and was all about turning on lights against the waning sun of a winter afternoon.
Distractedly, being fully in it, I noticed his space was far more upscale than I expected it to be. It was also far roomier than the outside indicated.
A trick of architecture. A façade for safety’s sake.
Outside it was Nothing to See Here.
Inside, it was a mountain home fit for the vehemently touted heir to the dual thrones of the Texas and New York Oakleys.
Judge was suddenly standing right in front of me.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“Do you want a drink?” he offered.
“I researched you.”
He made no noise and showed no reaction.
“You played tennis with my father.”
“Yeah, Dad called yesterday. Guess they talked. He told me. I was too young to remember.”
“I researched you,” I repeated like he didn’t speak.
“Chloe, baby, you’re kinda freaking me out,” he said softly.
“He left me,” I whispered.
“That guy who cheat—?”
“He left me all alone. All alone to take care of them. All by myself.”
“Who, honey?”
“Uncle Corey,” I croaked.
And that was when I totally lost it.
I had no idea how I got from where I was standing with Judge to being tangled in him lying side by side on one of his leather couches, my face shoved in his throat, sobbing.
But when I finally surfaced enough from the emotion that had dragged me under to be aware of anything but it, that was where I was.
That said, my surfacing wasn’t about rescue. It was about gasping for air, because the emotion still had hold of me, trying to tug me back down.
“Mom and Dad were golden. Shining. Ethereal,” I blubbered against the skin of his throat.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“I lived my life knowing that was mine. Mine because I basked in their glow. Mine because one day, I knew I’d have that same thing.”
Hazily, I felt Judge’s body tighten.
But I needed to say the words, let them out, so that hold would loosen. That hold that had been constricting its death grip, inch by inch, day by day, from the minute Uncle Corey took his own life.
I needed it to let me go.
I didn’t know if I’d survive as the me I knew me to be if it swept me back under.
“But Dad cheated on her.”
“Christ, baby,” he groaned, gathering me closer, tangling his long legs tighter in mine.
I tipped my head back, and he dipped his chin to catch my watery eyes.
“I’m so mad at them, both of them. Mom too, for not finding a way to work it out. And as crazy as it sounds, I might be more mad at Mom. Dad did not do right. It is not okay what he did. I’m not saying that. But he was destroyed. Destroyed. And she was always on us about forgiving. About understanding why people do the things they do and not being too hard on them. And this man that she loved and adored, who she gave children, spent half her life with, she just throws him away? And then throws Bowie in his face?”
Judge said nothing, just stroked along the nape of my neck.
“I know that’s judgy and even childish, her pain is not my own. It isn’t my place to make that call. And it’s an ugly trait some women have, placing the blame on a sister’s shoulders when it is so not a woman’s burden to bear. Especially with what he did. And I want so badly to be happy Mom found Bowie, and part of me is, but I miss them.” A sob tore up my throat. “The bottom line is that I miss my mom loving my dad.” Another catch and he shoved my face into his neck again.
“Just cry it out, Chloe,” he urged gently.
“I can’t…I have to…I have…have to release,” I whimpered.
“Do what you need to do,” he replied, giving me a squeeze. “I got you.”
I got you.
I cried harder.
But I spoke through it as I did because I couldn’t stop.
“What she said, Sam, Corey’s ex, wh-what she said on that sh-show, he did that. Uncle Corey. He did that to M-mom and Bowie. I kinda knew, all my life, he had a th-thing for her. Everyone knew he wa-was cutthroat. But I had no idea he was that evil.”
“Yeah. That was seriously messed up,” Judge concurred.
“But he was…we all forget, because of that. B-because of how ugly that was. Because of what a shock it was to…to learn about that. We forget, he was always th-there. For all of us.” I gulped. “Especially me.”
“All right. All right, honey,” Judge crooned.
“He was…he was…I’m him.”
“What?”
“Me,” I pushed my head back against his hand and he caught my eyes again. “I’m Uncle Corey.”
“You are not,” he growled.
“No.” I shook my head against the toss pillow we were lying on. “He taught me to be like him.”
“Chloe—”
“The good parts. The strong parts.” My lips trembled. “The loving parts.”
“I don’t get—”
“He loved her so much, Judge, and he couldn’t be close all the time. So he groomed me to take care of her and all that was hers. To be his proxy.”
“That’s you, not him,” Judge stated firmly. “That’s who you are.”
“Sully said I wear armor.”
I was jumping all over the place.
But Judge was right there with me.
“You do that,” Judge agreed.
“But it has vulnerabilities.”
Judge said nothing.
“And…and…people I love shouldn’t aim at those vulnerabilities.”
A darkness that was even more scary than a glower from Rix shadowed his eyes, and he enunciated every word clearly when he replied, “No. They. Should. Not.”
He was thinking about Sasha.
“I’m talking about Uncle Corey.”
“Okay, but we’ll also be talking about what kind of relationship you have with your sister, because, straight up, she either extricates her head out of her goddamn ass or we’re gonna have issues. And by that I mean her and me. No fucking way is she gonna get away with that shit again, I’m there, or not, and I got no problem informing her of that.”
It was my turn to say nothing.
He misinterpreted my silence.
“You think it’s not my place. But when you pull yourself together and get a good look around at where you are right now, and how you are right now, you’ll understand it fucking is.”
“I’m scared about how much I feel for you,” I blurted.
He blinked.
Before I could lose my nerve, I whispered, “You terrify me.”
I didn’t miss his moves this time when I suddenly found myself on my back with Judge flat-out on top of me.
And I felt as well as heard the rumble of his, “That shit you spouted at Rix.”
“If Mom didn’t have Bowie…” I let that lie.
“Honey,” he smoothed my hair away from my face with both hands then kept them woven in the strands on either side of my head, “this is not about your mom losing your dad, it’s about you losing him.”
“I haven’t. He’s there. He’s hurting. He fucked up, but—”
“The golden dad who could do no wrong. That is who you miss.”
I shut up.
Judge spoke.
“I don’t know what went down, none of my business, and we can talk through why I’m gonna say this to you, but it’s none of yours either. What happened between the two of them can’t help but affect you, but the truth of it is, it’s theirs. And from what I know about both of them, if either of them knew you were struggling with it this way, it’d kill.”
He was so right.
It would.
“And I don’t mean just get over it,” he carried on. “I mean, if you’ll let me help, we’ll work to get you to a place of realizing they both love you like crazy, your brother and sister too. And what happened between them has no bearing on how they feel about you.”
He was so right about that too.
He also wasn’t done talking.
“Specifically, as for your dad, what you gotta get is, he is the same man to you as he always was. Steadfast. Loyal. Loving. You’ll never see this, but you need to know. When he heard you come through his back door, and he knew you were there, I swear to fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man I’d describe as beautiful. Your dad knowing you were gonna be close and soon, that was beautiful.”
Oh my God.
Another sob ripped through me.
Judge moved his thumbs to catch the new onslaught of tears as they fell down my temples.
When I got a (kind of) lock on it, Judge said gently, “I would never let you fade away.”
My lips started quivering again.
“I don’t know what we got ahead of us, baby, but no matter what, I would never, ever let you fade away. The thing is, you wouldn’t let that happen either. You are a lot stronger than you think.”
“It’s a ruse,” I whispered.
“Horseshit,” he fired back. “You’re hurting right now because you lost your grandma, the foundation of your family, and Szabo all in blow after blow after blow. You instinctively turned your focus to making sure everyone else was all right, and you didn’t look after you.”
I did this.
I did as Uncle Corey told me to do.
But he was supposed to have my back.
Then he took himself away from me.
“No worries about that,” Judge continued. “You got me now, and we’ll see to that. But a warning, doll, as of now, that focus is shifting. They can sort their own shit, we’re gonna look after you.”
We’re gonna look after you.
Damn it, it was going to happen again.
I was right, it did, and I lifted my head and shoved it into the side of his neck to hide my latest assault of tears.
He pressed me back down to rest on the pillow and angled so I could have my hiding place and he could run his nose along the side of my neck.
That felt so nice, I could concentrate on it and eventually (again, but a lot faster this time), I got it together.
And when I did, I said dejectedly, “I miss him.”
He lifted his head and got it on the first guess.
“Szabo?”
I nodded.
“You miss him, and you miss who you thought he was, and found out he wasn’t when he did your mom and Duncan so dirty.”
I nodded again.
He got an odd look on his face before he asked, “Does it occur to you what you saw as grooming was something else?”
“Like what?”
He shook his head, like he was trying to figure something out, and he talked it through while he did it.
“I’ve heard a lot about Corey Szabo. Some of it wasn’t so good. But nothing negates the fact he wasn’t just a genius. He was canny. Loyal as fuck. To your mom, especially. And he had a will of steel.”
A will of steel.
“So maybe,” Judge went on, “he saw himself in you and like attracts like. So could it be he wasn’t grooming you? Could it be that he just admired you? Or more importantly, he saw those qualities in you, and the other ones besides, and he just really loved you?”
“He totally loved me,” I admitted softly, and Rhys Vaughan sprang to mind.
Only Uncle Corey, as a parting gift, would leave someone he loved a tool she could wield to do what she needed to do for those she loved.
The only thing she’d ever want that she couldn’t get herself.
That was what he’d left me.
I didn’t share that though.
That was for later.
(Maybe.)
But it occurred to me then, giving me Rhys, it was more than just a gift.
It was keeping his promise to me.
It was giving me back what I’d lost when he took himself from me.
It was giving me someone to take my back.
“He loved me a lot,” I finished huskily.
“Did you love him?”
“He was family.”
Warmth hit his gaze. “Then of course you miss him, baby.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Warmth hit his entire face, he bent his head and touched his mouth to mine.
He then lifted it and declared, “In case you didn’t get this, I am not fine at all with us not being an us.”
One could say I got that.
I pressed my lips together.
Judge did not.
“It wasn’t hard to sense your hesitancy, that something was messing with you. I thought I could play that. Then, at your pad on Wednesday, you laid it out, and I pretended I didn’t give a fuck. You stood up and freaked me out, though I thought for sure I’d called your bluff with the look you had on your face before you took off upstairs. But you just did what you said you were going to do. You changed clothes, came back, and you were totally over it.”
Oh Lord.
“And that fucking stung.”
Hmm.
“So, being a guy, instead of feeling hurt, I got pissed. And at this juncture, I hate to have to share that, if certain buttons are pushed, I can be a hothead.”
Well then.
“And so I spouted my own shit. Which obviously hit the mark, but you were behind your armor, so I couldn’t tell.”
Damn.
“And then you didn’t reach out, at all, and I knew you were serious. I’d read it wrong. You weren’t into me. Or I didn’t do i
t for you. Or whatever.”
Fuck.
“But this morning, I knew you were full of shit when you made that remark, throwing in my face my own words about us lasting a minute, and I realized I had to get my own head out of my ass.”
Well…
“And I felt like a motherfucker that I’d left you hanging for so long after I said that crap I did not mean.”
The remorse.
God, he was so sweet.
“You’d barely started your car to take off before Rix filled me in on your convo.”
Ugh.
“And here we are.”
We were that.
Right here.
With him flat out on top of me.
“So, let’s get some shit perfectly straight, yeah?” he declared.
Oh dear.
“Judge—”
“Nope, quiet and listen.”
I shut my mouth and narrowed my eyes.
He grinned.
Then he said, “I like you. A lot. I think about you. All the time. I barely know you, and I know I want to explore a future with you. You fascinate me. You turn me on. You piss me off. You make me laugh. You’re completely predictable, and you surprise me all the time. I could stare at you for hours, but I’d rather kiss you for days. I can’t wait to be inside you. I want to know everything about you. Zeke digs you. Rix thinks you’re the total shit. I want you immersed in my life. I want to dig deep into yours. I know I could fall in love with you because that’s already happening. So this is happening, because I know you feel all that too, and we’re done with you pushing me away. We’re doing this.”
As if that declaration wasn’t enough (which it was), he kept speaking.
“I can’t make any promises. I can’t heal that hurt that’s making you skittish to open your heart. All I can do is be steady for you as you do that work yourself. And as you do it, then beyond, promise to give everything I got to protecting you against those who would fuck with you, including your sister…”
Well then.
It seemed clear Sasha had far more to contend with than just me holding the grudge I had just decided to hold for at least a month.
Her bigger challenge was going to be winning Judge.
“…and guarding your heart, and Chloe, honey, I swear to fuck, I’m gonna do just that.”
That heart he’d promised to guard was beating a mile a minute, I could feel it slamming against his chest.
“So?” he pushed.
There was only one answer to that question.
Chasing Serenity Page 24