by Lori Ryan
True, the betrayal had happened before the friendship truly grew, but she’d known Lydia since they were kids. PJ should have been more loyal and sure of her.
But, look at where her loyalty toward Ellis had got her. That loyalty had apparently been completely misplaced.
PJ opened her mouth to speak, to say what she felt she needed to so they could put it behind them, but the door to the bus opened before she could say a word. Gabe stood in the doorway, taking in the two of them as they sat side by side on the couch.
“Hey, ladies. Peej, you got a minute?” he asked, his eyes glancing from Lydia to PJ and back again.
Why was he calling her Peej? He never did that.
And, that’s when PJ felt it. Not just the crackle of tension that somehow seemed to fill the air. Not the whoosh of her own breath leaving her, or the ever-so-slight shift in Lydia from friend to threat that happened in the blink of an eye.
It was the sharp jab in her ribs she felt most acutely….
The other things all seemed to follow immediately thereafter, as the world slowed down. Lydia’s voice came to her as though she were speaking in a tunnel, echoing and slower than it should have been.
“No, Gabe,” Lydia said with a sick smile crossing her face. “She doesn’t have a minute. She’s not going anywhere.”
Gabe lost the smile as his eyes narrowed on Lydia. He stepped further into the bus, hands held out at his waist, showing he wasn’t a threat.
“Stop there,” Lydia said, and PJ looked down at her side to confirm what she felt.
The barrel of a gun dug into her ribcage.
Gabe stood in the doorway to the living area. PJ was closest to him, but with the gun right at her side, there was no way she could move, no way could she get away from Lydia.
And, with PJ between him and Lydia, there was no way for him to tackle Lydia or do anything to help her. They were both utterly at a disadvantage.
“What––?” she started, but Lydia twisted and jabbed at her ribs, causing her to stop.
“Your boyfriend isn’t very good at hiding his emotions, is he?”
Lydia laughed but there wasn’t any humor in the sound. There was just anger and hatred, the kind that only came with a twisted soul.
“It’s just like you, PJ,” she practically spat out. “Just like you to walk away from all of this with the world thinking you’re some kind of saint for being brave enough to give up your child; you get to go right back to your career, and you get the man. Good god,” she laughed bitterly. “You’re walking out of this with everything you came into it with, and a gorgeous billionaire who fucking loves you.”
PJ shook her head, but Lydia sneered at her and continued. “You and Ellis are just alike. Always doted on. Always loved. Always having every damned thing you want handed to you as though you’re somehow better than the world around you.”
“I don’t think Ellis had anything handed to him,” PJ said, unable to stop the honest assessment from coming out of her mouth. “He had a horrible life in foster care before he came to your family.”
Ellis of all people had never asked the world for anything. All PJ had ever seen him do was give and care and love the people around him, even Lydia.
The gun dug into her again sharply and PJ sucked in a breath.
“No!” screamed Lydia, making PJ jump. “He used that, used his history to manipulate everyone into loving him, doting on him. It was all part of the show he put on for the world. The poor Ellis White show he’d perfected over the years.”
Lydia turned her attention back to Gabe. “What was it that gave it all away?” Her tone was more idle curiosity than anything else, and it struck PJ as so utterly at odds with what was happening.
How quickly Lydia had downshifted from the anger rolling off her in waves only a moment before when she’d been talking about Ellis. She was truly sick.
The realization shook PJ. They weren’t dealing with a stable person at all, and that scared her more than anything.
Gabe seemed to understand what Lydia was asking, but PJ felt dazed as she tried to follow their conversation.
“Got a call from the police back in Massachusetts,” Gabe said, sounding calmer than PJ felt. “It seems your mom hasn’t been answering phone calls or the door. At first, everyone assumed she was just upset, that she needed time to deal with the loss of her son. But after a couple of days, one of the neighbors finally used the key she had given him to go in and check on the house when she was out of town. Despite the fact that you cranked the air conditioning in her house, the smell when he entered gave it away.”
PJ swallowed as Gabe turned to her, his voice trying to portray calm, as though he wasn’t concerned about the situation. “Lydia fed her mother a lethal dose of valium the night of Ellis’s funeral. She put the first dose in a glass of orange juice. Did you force the rest of the pills down her throat after she was unconscious, Lydia?”
Lydia sneered again but didn’t answer.
PJ closed her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. It could not be happening. Oh god. Ellis.
She opened her eyes and stared at Lydia. “You set Ellis up. He had nothing to do with this, did he?” she asked.
“Nothing? Are you kidding? He had everything to do with this. Everything. He was the one who started it all. He came into our family and changed it all. He took my parents away from me with his never-ending need for love, for validation, for attention. My dad tried to balance things out, to be sure I didn’t get lost when my mom turned all her love to Ellis, but then my dad died and I was left alone.”
Lydia had lost all semblance of calm. She was shrieking now. “And, my mom…my mom never cared about me. Never really had when I think back on it. But, she loved Ellis. God, how she loved Ellis. When she demanded I help get him this job, I knew I’d never get away from him, he’d never stop ruining everything good in my life. I finally have a career I love, that I’m good at—and when I go home and tell her what I’m doing, she says, ‘Ellis could do that with you.’”
PJ just stared. Ellis had to be interviewed the same as all of the other applicants for the job he’d held. Sure, he’d gotten the interview based on his relationship to Lydia, but he’d qualified for that job fair and square. And, he’d been good at it. He’d been a crucial part of PJ’s team in the past six months.
“Then you start in with Ellis just like my mom. Always defending him. Always sticking up for him like he was some big part of the team, like we needed him here.”
“Why now?” Gabe asked, drawing PJ from the thoughts that swirled in her head.
“Ah,” Lydia said. “That was Ellis, too. You see, he isn’t innocent in any of this at all,” she said. “Ellis was the one who stole your journal. At least the first time.”
There was a subtle shift in Gabe’s face—it was there and gone in a flash, causing PJ to wonder if she’d imagined it. Lydia was still focused on PJ and her diatribe about Ellis and showed no sign that she’d seen the shift in his expression.
“He watched you all the time. When you thought you were alone, Ellis was there. He went so far as to put a tiny spy cam in one of your bags. Did you know that? Did you know the little creep was spying on you? He saw you writing in it, and he hid to watch where you put it away. You didn’t know the little creep was that obsessed with you, did you? He stole it to see if you ever wrote about him.”
The laugh and smirk on her lips were cruel and twisted.
“He cried when he discovered your secret; that you were as bad as his slut mother who didn’t want him. I told him to put the flash drive back and forget he’d read it. You know, despite that, it still took him over a week to realize it was me when your journal was leaked to the press. He puffed up all righteous and told me I had to stop. When I reminded him he started it all, he broke down and cried, begged me to stop.”
PJ didn’t care what Ellis had done. He didn’t deserve to die for it and she had no doubt Lydia had something to do with pushing him to take his own life. Lyd
ia continued her warped diatribe before PJ could say anything.
“It was easy to convince him I would do just that. I told him I’d stop and I’d put your journal back.” Lydia shrugged a shoulder as though what she was saying was nothing significant.
“I copied it and the next day, I slipped the USB drive and the phone into his luggage just in time for those goons you hired to get here and start searching people.”
“He killed himself,” PJ said, tears running down her face. Ellis may have been obsessed with PJ, and his spying had started all of this, but he didn’t deserve to die.
Lydia laughed and the cruelty of it cut through PJ. “I know. It was beautiful, really. I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. Icing on the cake, actually.”
PJ heard the crack of her hand against Lydia’s face before she realized she’d even moved. It was a stupid move with a gun in her side, but she hadn’t actually planned to do it. When she heard the laughter and the callous words coming from the woman in front of her, she reacted without thought.
And then things happened so quickly, she couldn’t really say what happened first or who moved when. Suddenly she was on the floor under Gabe and someone, maybe Justice, was tackling Lydia from behind. He’d come from the back of the bus in the split second following the slap.
But, the thing that registered most with PJ in that moment was the heat. The absolute, searing heat that ripped through her side. The pain that followed it was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and she fought to take a breath as she saw Justice and Eric secure a screeching Lydia.
Gabe’s hands scrambled over her, tearing at her shirt while the door to their tour bus opened. She caught a glimpse of Debra and the police, and someone was calling for an ambulance and Gabe’s hands pressed into her side.
“It just grazed you, Pru,” he whispered to her, as the pain shot through her. It didn’t feel like any graze to her.
What the hell did a real bullet wound feel like if this was what being grazed felt like?
Holy hell, there was a song in there somewhere, PJ thought, as Gabe pressed his lips to her temple and whispered in her ear while they waited for the ambulance.
“Been meaning to tell you,” she said looking at his deep brown eyes. “I love you, Gabe Sawyer.”
She didn’t know what possessed her to say that now, but it seemed like a good time to get that out there. Before anything else happened.
He laughed. Well, that wasn’t quite what she was going for, she thought with a frown. Not really what you want to hear when you say I love you for the first time.
But, he made up for it pretty quickly, pressing a kiss to her mouth just before the EMTs climbed onto the bus. “I love you, too, Prudence Jane. But, we’ll have to talk about this later. They need to take you to the hospital now.”
And, that was that. That was the first time her future husband told her he loved her. Hardly the thing great love songs are made of.
Epilogue
PJ sighed as she crossed her legs under her on the couch, but it was a happy sigh. One of contentment and peace. After finishing out her tour and spending some time at her parents’ house, she had moved into Gabe’s Connecticut home with him and begun a life of normalcy and stability.
One with friends and a boyfriend she loved with all her heart. Trusted with the same.
She smiled as she lifted her guitar to her lap and listened to the music building in her mind. Her music had come back to her.
Only now she wrote only for herself. She no longer felt the pressure to create for the sake of an album or a tour. She could let the music flow through her and come at its own pace, in its own time.
She released songs for free on the Internet, and she performed occasional concerts with the proceeds going to organizations that help young mothers, or expecting teenagers who need support as they make decisions about their future.
PJ knew she’d been lucky to have her parents’ support and unwavering love when she’d become pregnant at such a young age. Many girls weren’t that blessed.
As she closed her eyes and began to play, the music flowed through her into the guitar and lyrics began to form in her head. As with many of her songs lately, this one spoke of love so strong, it swept her world sideways and took her off her feet.
Of a life so filled with joy, she felt comfort and strength and peace in all she did. The words came effortlessly to her as the chorus began to play in her head before she even gave thought to what it should sound like. Her music had definitely returned.
Gabe watched in silence as Pru sang softly on the couch, her whole heart and soul wrapped in song, as he’d often seen her over the last few months.
She was barefoot, her hair still slightly damp from the shower, and she’d never looked more beautiful to him. He loved to watch her sing, to see her lose herself in complete contentment as music flowed from her. She sang of love and hope and a happiness she wished the world could share with her.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. He’d intended to wait until tomorrow night to do this. He had a fancy dinner planned. They’d eat out on the patio under the stars with candles and flowers and the quiet beat of the ocean behind them. But, he couldn’t stop himself now.
Gabe pulled the box from his pocket as he watched a smile come over Pru and her song stopped. She blinked her eyes open and gasped when she saw him on his knees in front of her.
She was beautiful.
Love poured from her eyes, all for him, and he felt as though he might be able to rebuild his lost family after all. To find the home, the anchor, he’d always wanted. In her. She was it for him.
He should have better words for her. Something more eloquent. But, what came out instead was simply, “Be mine, Pru? Be my wife, my family, my love – forever?”
She was crying when she nodded, and he guessed she was as lost for words as he was. That was okay. They didn’t need words.
As he pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply, with all the love and passion he felt for her, he felt it coming back to him in waves. Their love was something so strong, so palpable, he felt it in everything they did, in every touch or thought they shared.
Gabe lifted her and carried her to the bedroom, where they both found ways to show their love to one another without the need for words. With only touch and taste, with gasps and moans, and pleasure unlike any he’d ever felt before Pru.
He was home. With her, wherever she went, he finally had a home.
PJ felt the warmth of Gabe’s hand holding hers as they crossed the lawn to make their way to Jack and Kelly’s house. She loved the feel of his hand around hers, so strong and steady. Always there for her. And now, she thought as she felt the ring he’d placed on her finger earlier—now, he would be hers forever.
Her parents had been thrilled when they’d called them earlier, and they promised to come for a visit soon to help her plan for the wedding. They would tell Gabe’s mom when they visited her next week, provided she was having a lucid day.
As often as not, she was not aware of who they were when they visited, but with any luck, she’d be aware and happy for them when they saw her next. She’d been taking a new medicine that seemed to be bringing her more and more clear days.
They arrived a bit late, finding everyone else was already there. Out on the patio—watching Maddie and Ella play in the grass—sat Kelly, Samantha, Jill, and Jesse. Samantha was grinning and PJ listened to the conversation as she settled into a seat.
Gabe took off to join the other men who were hovering over a table where Mrs. Poole was unwrapping dishes. PJ didn’t know how that woman kept up with feeding this group when they came over.
Jill rocked a car seat with one of their twins in it, though PJ couldn’t say whether it was Nicholas or Mark. The other baby lay on a blanket next to Kelly, who was patting his back. Jill and Andrew had named the boys Nicholas Conner Weston and Mark Christopher Weston and they were adorable.
“We’ll be releasing a new version next
month to work out some bugs and add two new levels for the game,” Samantha was saying and PJ knew she was talking about Tangled Legacy, the online game Sam had designed that was quickly taking on some of the biggest games in the industry.
Kelly beamed at Sam. “I’m so excited for you, Samantha! This is amazing.”
Sam bit her lip. “I’ve got an offer from a company that wants to sell Tangled Legacy action figures and another one who wants to create a boardgame based on the game.”
There was a lot of squealing to that and PJ couldn’t help but grin as Samantha blushed. Samantha wasn’t the kind of woman who loved attention, but she had to be feeling really good about what she’d accomplished. It wasn’t the same kind of thing as PJ had gone through when she was discovered and her fame came hard and fast, but if Sam needed someone to talk to about that kind of life change, PJ would be there for her.
She looked at her friends and was grateful for the way her world had changed. If not for someone stealing her journal, she thought again.
She looked down at the now sleeping infant in the car seat.
“I swear, I think they get more beautiful each day,” she said to Jill, who smiled back at her.
Jill looked tired, but there was likely nothing that could take that smile off her face. Even exhaustion. Motherhood looked so good on Jill, PJ began to wonder if she was ready to begin her own family now with Gabe. To have a baby she didn’t have to give up.
A pang of guilt stabbed at her as she wondered how Matthew would feel if she had children of her own after giving him up, but she knew her aunt and uncle would help him get through it. They’d work through it together as a family.
Kelly leaned in and whispered to the group. “Don’t look now, guys, but I think Mrs. Poole is finally giving into Roark.”