Deep in the Heart: An Austin After Dark Book

by Alexa Padgett

  “Fine,” I said, my anger draining from my body, leaving it achy, old. “What do you like?”

  His phone chimed again. He pulled it from his pocket. His scowl intensified.

  “Shit.”

  What?

  “I have to take Carter to the airport.”

  Now? As in, right in the middle of this conversation?

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Jenna… I’ll see you later.”

  I turned my back, unwilling to agree.

  28

  Cam

  Maybe it was a good thing I promised to take Carter to the airport. Didn’t feel like it, not with the fear in Jenna’s eyes. She needed reassurance now that I wouldn’t leave her or the baby. If there was a baby.

  Hot damn, I hoped there was. A tiny version of Jenna with all that blond hair and big blue eyes. Jenna could make her a tiny guitar and we’d jam on our patio.

  More images immediately filled my head. Of us in a little brick house, sitting on the porch swing as the sun set over Lake Travis, the whine of mosquitos and the hum of the whippoorwill filling the soft, humid night air. Jenna curled into my side, watching our kids run through the grass, her glass of sweet tea clutched in her work-roughened hands. I loved those hands and what they produced. I loved that she was willing to use them, to show the world that a woman was just as capable—more capable—than the men who’d come before.

  But I needed space to figure out how to deal with her fear—about us, about how to move us forward instead of wallowing in the guilt and grief of her grandfather’s death.

  Carter and I talked of inconsequential details, mostly sports and the ranches. I heaved out a sigh, enjoying the lessening tension in my body.

  Carter promised to come down for the holidays. We hugged for a long minute, but I already missed my twin and the closeness we still worked to repair.

  “Jenna’s a great gal,” Carter murmured.

  I grunted.

  He stepped back and narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Camden. You forget I know you.”

  Jenna wasn’t here at the airport, but that didn’t mean ears weren’t listening. The downside of fame was the lack of anonymity. If people realized who I was and what we were talking about, the press and my fans would know my plans before Jenna did. That didn’t sit well with me, especially because Jenna hadn’t ever been romanced properly before.

  “I don’t like how we left it today.” Understatement of the decade. “She might be…” Nope I didn’t want to say the words. Might jinx it somehow. I wanted Jenna to be pregnant. I wanted her to be tied to me forever.

  Carter raised his eyebrow.

  “She just lost an important person in her life. She needs time to deal with that.”

  Carter caught the handle of his carry-on even as his face morphed into disappointment. “Seems like more of an excuse you’re throwing out there, Ace.”

  I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you saying?”

  “Think about what you did after Da—Laurence died. You broke stuff. As much of it as you could.”

  “So?”

  “You really think Jenna feels any different than you did? She’s hurting and has a right to be. Those comments going ‘round are harsh.”

  “She wants to get back to her shop.”

  “Does she? Or does she not know how to handle all the emotion from the media shitstorm and is looking to you for support? Except because she cares about you, she’s also trying to distance herself so that you can make the smartest move for your career. At least I’d guess that based on the few of your phone conversations I’ve overheard since this story broke.” He squinted at me, tugging at his lip. “I bet you’re telling her you have to go out and tour?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “I do. I have a series of shows starting next week.”

  Carter made a disgusted sound low in his throat. “Is that what Jenna needs? Space from you?”

  I drew myself up, tall as I could. “I made commitments to my men, Carter.”

  He laid his hand on my shoulder, a heavy weight of responsibility I couldn’t shrug off. “You got a gal that needs you more right now, Camden.”

  29

  Jenna

  He’d said his fans didn’t want him with me. I waited for him to leave before I opened my laptop—something I’d avoided for days.

  My mouth fell open and my eyes watered at the horrendous comments people made.

  They didn’t just want him to stop seeing me. They said they’d stop buying his records, going to his concerts if he didn’t cut me loose.

  I slammed the laptop lid shut and began to pace.

  This was bad.

  So bad.

  My shoulders slumped as I wrapped my arms around my waist.

  I glanced around Cam’s house. I’d felt safe here. Happy as I could ever be.

  But each day I did so, each day I settled into the protective nest Cam built me, he came closer to losing his livelihood.

  I sucked in a breath. I needed to think. I needed space. We needed space.

  I called Kate. “Can you lend me your car?”

  “Um, sure. Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  I didn’t know where that was. Seattle maybe.

  “I don’t know, Jenna. I mean, I don’t mind you borrowing my car, but I get the sense from your voice Cam’s going to be mad at me.”

  “I just realized how bad the situation here is, Kate.” I bit the knuckle on my free hand to keep the sobs inside, where they belonged. That wasn’t the worst of it, but I couldn’t get out those other words. The ones that broke my heart.

  Silence pervaded the space between us. Considering her loyalties and her options, no doubt. “Why don’t you let me drive you somewhere?”

  The best I could hope for right now. Fine. “Take me to my place? Please.”

  Kate pulled up in her car a few minutes later with a scowl, wearing a dark tank top and cutoffs, her thick mass of ringlets tied up in a messy bun. I chucked my suitcase in the trunk and settled into the seat next to her, feeling formal and frumpy.

  “I won’t have the shop open this week,” I told her when I climbed in. “You’ll still get paid, but I need to spend time with my family.” A total lie, but I didn’t want Kate to worry about her income. She’d found a cute little apartment not too far from downtown that she wanted to rent. Getting out from under the constant supervision of her family meant a level of freedom she deserved—one I’d help facilitate. Every woman needed to find her own feet.

  Once she dropped me off, I shot out of the car and bolted into the building past the few loitering paparazzi, who clearly weren’t expecting me. I fell through the door to my apartment and chucked my suitcase in the corner. Then I curled up on my bed.

  I turned off my phone. When the shadows lengthened, I finally rose and changed into my oldest sweats. I pulled my hair up into a tight braid and pulled a beanie over the mass, grabbed my phone and shoved it into the hoodie’s pocket.

  I went to the shop.

  The low nighttime lights were on. I paused out front, feeling furtive and tentative.

  Finally, I opened the door and walked in, inhaling the scents of raw wood and varnish. I shut and locked the door behind me.

  Then I headed back to the workshop where I lost myself in the new project I’d been paid a lot of money to complete. Here, at least, I could stop thinking about whether Cam loved me, if he wanted the baby we might have created. How to change my media image and make Cam’s fans like me.

  Nothing came except bleary-eyed fatigue.

  When my eyes refused to focus, I closed them and laid my folded hands on the table, wishing I’d made better choices somewhere along the line. Choices that meant Pop-pop was alive, my father didn’t hate me, and Cam wanted me as his lover and partner.

  Raised voices woke me. I sat up in a rush, wincing as sharp pain slashed down my neck and into my s
houlders.

  What was going on? The voices seemed louder.

  I stood, grabbing Gerald, my bat, and peeking around the corner just as Kate slammed the door on the raised voices of what had to be probably twenty or more reporters outside the door.

  She turned the lock with a grunt and yanked down the twill skirt that had bunched around her thighs while she wrestled with the door.

  “Good. You are here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Kate studied me. “You look like crap.”

  I shrugged. “Feel like it. I spent most of the night working on the new guitar.”

  “So…you haven’t checked the news?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

  I shook my head even as I clutched the bat tighter to my chest. My heart slammed against it, causing me to wince.

  “What happened now?” I asked.

  Kate bit her lip. She looked from the floor to me and back again. “I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it. Ben was hit by a car late last night.”

  I fell against the wall. “What?”

  Kate pulled her phone from her purse and fiddled with the settings. She handed it to me, and I stared at the headline: Hit-and-run suspect in his own hit-and-run.

  I closed my eyes. “Oh, shit.”

  “It’s actually a lot worse in the article.”

  I scanned it, my heart thrumming hard as my stomach dropped away. Ben was released yesterday from the hospital, only to be readmitted late last night after he was hit not far from his parents’ house…or mine, for that matter. His parents’ house sat around the corner from my parents’, less than a quarter of a mile.

  “Jen…I hate to ask you this…but, do you have any kind of an alibi?”

  My stomach dropped further as I shook my head.

  “I was here. All night. And, as you know, I don’t currently have a car.”

  “You didn’t call anyone? There’s no way to prove that, right?”

  I shook my head again as I sucked in a breath. “They think…people think I did that?”

  Kate closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “You’re a person of interest, thanks to the shit Ben’s pulled against you, but I have no idea if the police think you smashed him with a car.” She sighed. “Cam’s out of his mind with worry and the press is really hounding him hard.”

  I twisted my hands together, faster and harder than before. “He thinks…he thinks I did that?”

  Kate opened her eyes but they were dark. The skin around them pulled tight. “I don’t know, but, Jen…I’d suggest you get a lawyer. Pronto.”

  “Where’s Cam?” I asked, wishing I’d stayed yesterday. Wishing he was holding me.

  Kate’s face crumpled—as if this, more than anything else hurt her to say. “He’s at a meeting with his label. The executives flew in this morning, after the news broke about Ben.”

  “He called you to check on me.”

  She nodded.

  I pressed a hand to my stomach. “They—the executives—want Cam to stop seeing me. To publicly denounce me. Because of the bad press.”

  Kate cleared her throat as tears pooled in her eyes. The tip of her nose turned bright red as she struggled to control her trembling chin.

  “That’s what they want. They said they’d blacklist him not just from their label but from the entire industry if he doesn’t.”

  I called my lawyer after Kate’s comments. She met me at my shop and drove me to the police station—since I still didn’t have a car. There, I spent the next few hours being interrogated about my whereabouts last night. After hours upon hours and re-hashing my relationship with Ben, his visits to my shop and the subsequent death of my grandfather, my lawyer requested a break.

  I cradled a Styrofoam cup of thick black sludge, also known as coffee, in my hands. I closed my tired eyes, wincing as my lids scraped against the bloodshot mess.

  “This is ridiculous,” Karen, my lawyer, griped. “I don’t know why we’re still here. You can’t tell them anything, but that one cop wants you to be the driver that hit Ben. It has to be the location they’ve keyed in on.” She scowled. “They know you don’t have a car. They know you left your apartment on foot, thanks to the cameras in the lobby and the closed-circuit surveillance cameras on Sixth Street.”

  I lifted my head, my mouth dropping open. “We have cameras in the shop. At both doors, in the front room and in the workshop where I spent the night.”

  Karen scowled even as her eyes began to dance. “You’re just mentioning this now?” she grumbled but her lips twisted upward.

  “I just remembered them now,” I said on a sigh. “I’ve been a bit distracted, seeing as how I was accused of a felony and my boyfriend’s decided to dump me to save his career.”

  Not that I knew what Cam planned to do—he hadn’t contacted me today. Rather, I hadn’t heard from him in the brief time I had between calling Karen Whitby and arriving at the police station, when my phone died. Not that I would have taken it out of my purse anyway. Not with all the questions thrown at me the past few hours.

  “What’s the name of the company that handles your security?” Karen asked.

  She wrote it down and then looked up the number on her phone. Within two minutes, she had the company’s manager on the line, and he promised to pull all the video from our shop and send it to both Karen and the detective assigned to Ben’s hit-and-run.

  I waited on that hard chair for another hour before the police dismissed me.

  As I walked out, free to go, two officers tugged my father into the station, his hands cuffed behind his back. My mother trailed behind him, face wet with tears.

  I rushed toward him. “What’s going on?”

  I laid my hand on my dad’s chest.

  “I did it for you, baby girl,” he said on a sigh. He dropped his head forward so I could no longer see his haggard face.

  “That’s enough, David,” my mother said, her voice sharp. She looked to the police on either side of my father. “Please take him back. I’d like to speak to my daughter.”

  The officers hustled my father down the hallway, even as he struggled and continued to yell.

  “That’s why they held you,” Karen muttered. “They were trying to flush him out. Get him to come here to defend you.” She shook her head, but her eyes gleamed with new respect when they lifted toward the closed door that led to the interrogation rooms where I’d spent most of the day.

  Mom turned toward me, her shoulders stooped with fatigue. “None of this is on you, Jenna. Your father made his choices, just as Ben made his.”

  “What—what’s going on?” I asked, sounding as small and scared as I felt.

  “Your dad tried to kill that boy,” my mother whispered, her eyes pooling with tears. “I-I didn’t want him to say so in front of the police.” She pressed her lips together until she had better control of her voice. “I can’t believe this. Any of it. But the Suburban shows the damage. I expect the police will collect enough samples off the front to build a case against your father. And…and he’ll go to jail.”

  “Dad?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  Mom placed her hands on my shoulders. “He’s not handled his father’s death well. I’m… I think he’s quite lost his mind.”

  I stared at her, horror washing over me in a thick, cold wave. Mom cupped my chin and tried to smile.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” I asked. I clenched my jaw together to keep my teeth from chattering.

  Mom pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Maybe…” Her voice broke. “Maybe this will be the wake-up call he needs to realize he’s acting as badly, if not worse, than Ben has.”

  “Mom…” I stared at her for a long moment. “What can I do?”

  She smoothed my hair with shaky hands. “Help me find a good lawyer.”

  Karen stepped forward. “I can suggest the names of a colleague if you need one. And I’ll stay here with you until he arrives.”

  Mom smiled but it was f
illed with sadness. “Thank you.”

  Karen pulled out her phone again and dialed a number. Within seconds, she was talking to a man named Vincent.

  Mom touched my cheek once more. “I’m serious, Jen. None of this is your fault.”

  I stared at her, sure she must be wrong.

  “I should go sit with your father,” Mom said with a sigh. “What are you going to do? Where’s Cam?”

  I dropped my gaze, not wanting to add to her pain. “He had a show tonight. I’m sure he’s there preparing.”

  Karen walked back over, already talking to my mother. I broke in to wish them goodbye before all but running from the police station.

  I trudged down the street, ignoring all the other pedestrians. Within moments I began to sweat, but I continued, needing to move, trying to outpace the anger and desolation building within me. My father…Ben…Cam…the label…the press… The huge cauldron of problems ate at me as I tried to breathe through the issues, find a solution.

  Three miles later, my body quivered with the need for water but no solutions came. I pushed into the air-conditioned coolness of my building’s lobby, ignoring the questions yelled at me by the reporters who seemed to camp out here now.

  Hurrying down my hallway from the elevator, I opened my front door and dropped my purse. I pulled out my phone and plugged it in, hoping for a message from Cam. There were multiple from my brothers and even my mom and Kate. Cam’s one text was terse: In meetings. Need to talk to you.

  I sucked in a breath and stared at those words. Written almost six hours ago now. I glanced up, taking in my kitchen, living room, the dark windows beyond where the city glowed.

  They said they’d blacklist him not just from their label but from the entire industry if he doesn’t.

  Cam would be at his show now.

  I picked up my keys, grabbed my suitcase, and threw it on the bed. Only to sit next to it, realizing I didn’t know where to go. Or what to do next.

  They said they’d blacklist him not just from their label but from the entire industry if he doesn’t.