by Cherrie Lynn
“No, it’s fine. That you called me. And that you want my number. I’ll give it to you. But you can call me here too, it’s okay.” He heard her draw a deep breath. At least she sounded as rattled as he felt. “I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
All at once, shame burned in his chest. He’d told her he wanted to see her again, and then, like an asshole, he hadn’t followed through. He’d broken that trust. Well, never again, everyone else be damned. Clearing his throat, he pushed on. “Listen, you mentioned bringing some stuff over to color the girls’ hair, and they’re asking, so I was just wondering…”
He had to cringe at how lame it sounded, but she bailed him out. “Yeah, sure! Just name a day.”
“Are you off Sunday?”
“Yep.”
“Six?”
“Great. No church?”
“I think we can take a night off.”
“Ooh, naughty. I like it. I’m already corrupting you.” He fidgeted at the tightening in his jeans. The way she said that… Apparently, the sudden blood diversion from his brain to his dick caused a short circuit. His mouth began saying things he hadn’t given it permission to.
“I don’t mean for you to think they’re the only reason I’m inviting you over.”
“Don’t worry. I saw it for the convenient excuse that it was.” She chuckled, and he almost felt guilty for the surge of lust that shot through him. When the hell had this turned sexy? He hadn’t meant it to.
“I’ll see you Sunday, then.”
She gave him her cell phone number, which he jotted down after leaping into the dining room and stealing pen and paper from Mia’s backpack. Both girls watched him with wary Dad-has-lost-his-mind expressions. He and Starla said their farewells, and he hung up, still under the watchful eyes of his daughters.
“What?” he asked them, and they quickly cast their gazes back down to their work. With a grin, he turned and walked out the door with one final statement. “Starla’s coming over Sunday.”
A duet of “Yay!” erupted behind him.
***
She showed up with a homemade pizza and another fresh batch of huge chocolate chip cookies. And, if possible, she looked even more beautiful than she had the last time he saw her. All in black: a long, loose top over tight jeans and tall boots. The stark contrast to her platinum hair, board-straight tonight with its pink and turquoise, was striking. He might have stared a little longer than he should have when he answered the door.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he said as she laid everything out in the dining room, amazed that she had done so. And that she had remembered how the girls had pestered her for pizza.
“I always remember requests.” She laughed as Ashley and Mia both burst into the room, chanting her name and hugging her hips. She squatted and hugged them both back, staying on their level to ask them about school.
The sight of the trio sent an ache through his heart. Rubbing absently at it, he turned back for the kitchen and looked around for something productive to do. Plates. Drinks. The chatter and laughter from the dining room was beautiful, a welcome change from the usual quiet nights at home—it reminded him of having his family together. Of course, those happier moments had been interspersed with darker, moodier moments, and, toward the end, outright fighting. But he wouldn’t let himself dwell on that. The pizza smelled heavenly. He heard Starla telling the girls they couldn’t have a cookie before dinner and chuckling at their groans of disappointment.
Wow. As far as winning his kids over, she was knocking it out of the park. He’d never expected to see it. Even as they ate their pizza, they gazed adoringly at her and hung on her every word. They damn sure weren’t making this easy on him. Or, on second thought, they were making it easy, too easy, which in itself presented new problems.
Pizza and cookies demolished, a hair-and-paint party erupted in his living room. Starla hadn’t only brought hair chalk but some body paints too, to give them the “tattoos” they wanted. He’d never heard such squealing. Neither Ashley nor Mia could sit still while Starla drew elaborate butterflies, hearts, fairies, and abstract designs on their cheeks and arms. She’d barely get one done before they begged for something else. Ashley’s hair ended up in an elaborate, pink-streaked updo, Mia’s in what she squealed was an “Elsa” braid and what Starla called a “Dutch fishtail” of all different colors. He prayed to God that stuff would really wash out, or Shelly would kill him. He’d told her this was happening, and while he doubted she was exactly pleased, she’d seemed okay with it.
“Wow,” he said, admiring Starla’s work.
“Like two little punk-rock princesses,” she said.
“If the tattoo thing doesn’t work out, you could always go to cosmetology school.”
“I did, actually,” she said, making an adjustment to Ashley’s hair. Then she shrugged and looked at him. “Wasn’t for me.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Hey,” she said, a sly little smile curling her lips. “I didn’t say I wasn’t good at it, just that it wasn’t for me.” But no sooner had she quit speaking than her expression smoothed out and she turned her attention back to Ashley’s hair. “I guess it’s something I need to explore again, though.”
“Why? If you’re doing what you love, stick with it.”
“Things are…not good up there. For reasons we talked about. Reasons I probably shouldn’t have talked about.”
“Getting worse?” he asked.
“To tell the truth, not much has changed except for me. I don’t get why I can’t keep doing my job and just be happy. Like I used to be. I could always deal before.”
Jared glanced at Ashley, who sat in front of Starla busily digging through her collection of paints, and then at Mia, who was still gazing lovingly into her handheld mirror. Neither of them was paying an ounce of attention to the grown-up conversation, but still, he’d love to get Starla to himself under the stars with a couple of beers again. Not that he would be a lick of help in her situation.
“What’s happened?” he asked, easing himself off the couch and onto the floor with them. Starla glanced at him uncertainly. “Something has,” he went on. “You seem even more down about it tonight than you did before.”
“It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Well…he’s back at work. With Candace and the baby. It’s kind of thrown me into a funk. I’m sure I’ll get over it. And…” She trailed off, casting her sad brown eyes down and pursing her lips. “I shouldn’t talk about it.”
“Okay, of course you know that now you have to.”
She pointed at the back of Ashley’s head. Ah. Something they shouldn’t hear. “Girls,” he said, “why don’t you go play in your room and let me and Starla talk?”
“Dad,” Mia said suddenly, ignoring his request completely. “Can we take pictures to send to Mom?”
He barely suppressed a groan. And so it began. “Let’s not, all right?”
“Aww,” Ashley chimed in, with deflated shoulders and pleading, upturned face. “Please?”
“No. To your room. Now.”
“Do we have to take a bath?” Ashley asked, seemingly horrified at the notion of losing her new hair color so soon.
“Not yet.”
With that, they happily jumped up and ran off to their room. Starla chuckled. “You put the daddy voice on them.”
“It’s a necessity sometimes.”
“You convinced me. It made me want to get up and run to my room.” She winked at him. Naturally, the sudden image of taking her to his room flashed across his brain. He tried to subdue it, but it unfurled of its own volition…carrying her in, laying her on his bed, kissing a trail down her fragrant neck.
“So what’s going on?” he asked seriously, beating that fantasy back to where it belonged…which was tonight, after she’d gone home and the girls were sound asleep. “I’d invite you out on the patio again, but it’s pretty chilly out there.”
> “Oh, that’s fine.” She absently began collecting her supplies, recapping bottles and screwing on lids, then putting them back in her bag. She also seemed to be collecting her words, so he didn’t rush her. Instead, he jumped up and got them a couple of beers from the fridge.
She accepted hers gratefully as he settled back on the floor next to her, on the old blanket he’d brought out of the guest room closet to protect his carpet from the chalks and paints and glitter. At last, she announced, “Our friendship is having a detrimental effect on one of my working relationships.”
He didn’t have to ask which one. Or why. But on that note, he cracked open his beer and took a big swig.
“I don’t want to make things worse than they already are between you guys, so don’t get mad at him or anything. And I don’t really want to talk about it, because it’s a delicate situation, and I have a habit of saying too much and starting trouble. I don’t want to do that. But it’s been really sucky the past week.”
“It’s wrong of him to give you problems at work,” Jared said, finding it difficult to talk through a tightly clenched jaw.
“It’s not problems so much as…atmosphere. I can just tell he’s pissed. It’s tense. Clients are even starting to notice a little. And it isn’t all him. I snap at him too much. I know that. But I’m mad at him for being mad, I guess.”
“Have you talked to Brian?”
“I’m trying to avoid Brian as much as possible.”
“You can’t, though. The guy’s your boss. He’s you’re go-to if you have a problem with another employee, that is if you and Ghost can’t work it out.”
“I can’t see us working it out, though, because my position is that it’s none of his goddamn business who I hang out with. It’s not like he would do me the same courtesy if the shoe was on the other foot. I like him, but he’s being entirely unreasonable about this, and my position is also that he can get over it or kiss my ass.”
What respect he’d had for the guy was fast dissipating, to know he’d give a coworker so much grief over something so ridiculous. To the point that she was thinking of leaving her job over it, especially.
“Okay, I see your wheels spinning,” she said, and he realized she’d been scrutinizing him for the past few seconds. “Do not do anything about this. Do not say anything about this. In fact, pretend I never told you this.”
“He’s that insecure?”
Starla clapped her hands over her ears. “I won’t listen. If I listen, I’ll want to speak, and I’ve spoken enough already.”
“All right,” he grumbled. He’d let her off the hook, since she was so distressed about it. But damn, the driving need to find that dude and settle a few things was like an itch under his skin. It would do nothing except cause trouble for Macy and Starla, and prove Shelly’s point. He knew that. Still, stupid, overly dramatic bullshit like that drove him nuts. Life wasn’t high school.
“On top of all that,” Starla said, picking at a loose thread on her shirt, “Max sent me roses. It just…ugh. It makes me want to go somewhere no one knows me. It creeps me out. He could be anywhere, watching me. Whenever my back is to the windows lately at work, I feel like he’s out there. Sometimes I have to look to make sure he’s not.”
“Starla, maybe you need to get help with this guy.”
She scoffed. “Like what? You go try to file charges on someone for sending you flowers and tell me how that works out for you. Or a restraining order? A joke. You think a piece of paper is going to stop an idiot like him if he gets his mind set on doing something stupid?”
He watched her grimly, noticing the slight tremble of her hands now as she fiddled with the errant thread, looping it and unlooping it around the tip of one index finger. Long, shimmering blonde hair curtained one eye, and the other was cast downward, but he knew, he just knew there was some real turmoil going on there.
“If you need me to do anything,” he said, hearing the rough, rugged edge in his own voice, “just let me know.”
Her gaze flickered up then, something blooming there he couldn’t identify. Something that looked like surprise, hope, or maybe just immense gratitude. It almost made him angry. He could not believe this girl couldn’t go to the people closest to her for help—even if it was for her own reasons. “I mean it,” he stressed, holding her gaze.
“I believe you,” she said. “I guess that’s what shocks me. You don’t know me.”
He shifted over so that he was facing her and leaned back against the couch. “No? Well, let’s see. You’re great with my kids. You’re a helluva cook. You’re devoted to your job, or it wouldn’t be causing you so much pain to think of leaving it.” He paused, surveying her expression as next he said, “You have more love to give someone than you know what to do with.”
But she didn’t let him in that time, didn’t let him see the effect of what he’d said. Face blank, she simply shrugged and said, “I guess you know how that feels.”
She had him there. “Yeah, I guess I do. Anyway, no, I don’t know you well. But I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character. Yours seems pretty solid.”
“Give it time,” she said glumly.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“I’m not, really. I like myself. I think I’m pretty awesome. I just have this bad habit of”—she turned and checked behind her to make sure the girls weren’t in earshot—“fucking things up.”
“See? Look at that. You checked for young ears before dropping the f-bomb.”
Chuckling, she reached over and swatted him on the leg. He grinned at her, seeming unable to look away from her brown eyes. They sparkled nicely when she laughed. He liked the way her red lips framed her perfect teeth as she smiled, and he lamented making that smile falter with his next words. “Honestly, though. Do you think Max might try something? Because I was absolutely one hundred percent serious about my offer.”
As expected, her face fell, her gaze straying to some vague point high over his left shoulder. “I don’t know. I really don’t. So far it’s just nasty texts and flowers. But—”
“Nasty texts?”
“You know, like talking dirty. His lame attempt to turn me on, I guess, which did not work. What exactly are you suggesting?”
“Whatever you need, Starla. Say the word.”
She cocked a taupe eyebrow at him. “I’m not exactly ready to put a hit on him.”
“Shit,” he laughed. “I wasn’t talking about murder. But I will have a nice little chat with him, or employ certain ass-kicking methods, if the need arises.”
“You’re pretty confident.”
“I’ve held my own in a few scraps, yeah.”
Her gaze dropped from his and did a quick sweep, taking in the width of his shoulders. He had to say, he liked to see those eyes dancing over him. He liked the appreciative twinkle in them even more. “I bet,” she said.
“Honestly, most guys like that are total chickenshits. They prey on women because they’re too afraid to pick on someone their own size.”
“Well.” She sniffed. “No one is preying on me.”
He supposed he’d struck a nerve with that wording, and she might try to deny it now, but he wondered at what the future might hold if she didn’t set this creep straight now. Not later, not after he’d shown up at her house or her job or sabotaged her car or something like that.
“When Shelly was in high school,” he told her after a moment’s debate, “she had a stalker. It started out with things like Max is doing to you, but it got so bad she had to go to her parents and school officials, alert the authorities, all that. She got lucky. He had some unrelated outstanding warrants, so the cops picked him up on Shelly’s tip and sent him off for a few years. Not long enough, though. Once he got out on parole four years later, he saw her around town and it started up again, only this time more threatening. Now he blamed her for his getting sent to prison. She and I had just gotten engaged and she was pregnant with the girls when that happened
.”
Starla was listening with rapt attention. “What did you do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing to get my hands dirty, though I wanted to. I had a little chat with the guy’s parole officer. Before long, they’d snatched him up on drug possession and his parole was revoked, and I’m sure that’s because his parole officer had been all over his ass after my visit.”
“You know what sucks about that whole thing?” Starla said. “Not a damn thing was done to that asshat over what he did to Shelly. It was all unrelated stuff. That’s such bullshit. She didn’t get her justice for being terrorized.”
“It’s like you said earlier. Their hands are tied until he actually does something to you.” He gave her a level stare. “I’m telling you, don’t let it go that far. Come to me, go to your friends, let someone know.”
She waved a hand in the air. “I’m sure it won’t. I’m ignoring him completely. He’ll get bored and move on.”
“Starla—”
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore.” Her voice rang with steely determination. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Jared fell silent, though questions still boiled feverishly in his head. If she ever confessed to Max hurting her, hitting her or otherwise, he wouldn’t need her permission. He would whip the cowardly little prick’s ass. Damn the consequences.
And…had she slept with him? The mention of dirty text messages had sent a jolt of alarm through Jared. It was none of his business, of course, and he would never even dream of asking. But he hated the thought that she might have given herself to someone so undeserving of that particular honor.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she told him. She crossed her long legs and rested her elbows on her knees. “I heard…” Her voice trailed away, and something changed about her expression. Hurt crept into her brown eyes, stealing the twinkle that had been there for him. “I was indirectly informed the other day that I talk a lot about my problems. I really appreciate you having me over, and I feel pretty good tonight. It’s the best I’ve felt in a while. I don’t want to fu—um, don’t want to mess that up by talking too much about him.”