Summer Heat (The Storm Inside #5)

by Alexis Anne

  “He’s working. He has a client in jail.”

  Marie grimaced. “I felt terrible asking him to work today but it was out of my hands. Jerry’s out on bail, by the way. They’re with the lawyers working on strategy.”

  “So he might be home before midnight?” I asked hopefully.

  She shrugged. “Depends. Jerry stole a car so . . . ”

  So it was complicated.

  Conversation turned to baseball season. Dad wanted to hear all about who was injured and who was looking good. He’d personally recruited several of the guys still on the team so it was like talking about family.

  The last thing we expected was for Roman to walk in just as we were finishing up. He stood in the doorway looking dazed. “Is there enough for me?”

  I jumped up to give him a kiss but he barely moved. He was stiff and tense and wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Roman?”

  He blinked at me. “I think I need to eat.” Then he gave me a soft, obviously forced smile.

  A plate was quickly piled with food and he shoveled down several bites before pausing to look around the table. “It’s been a long day,” he said with a shrug.

  But I wasn’t buying it. “Jerry?”

  “He’ll be fine. Apparently he didn’t technically steal the car. It’s very complicated.” He kept shoveling and avoiding my gaze.

  My phone started ringing from the kitchen.

  “Don’t answer that.” His eyes shot to mine. “I would advise everyone to ignore your phones this evening, please.”

  The blood started to drain from my head. I was right, something was wrong. “Why?”

  He glanced at the girls, setting his fork down. “Something’s happened.” He said carefully. “Something with George.”

  Oh.

  “That’s our cue for dessert!” Eve clapped her hands. “Girls, who wants ice cream and a movie?”

  “But it’s a school night,” Sam pointed out.

  “So we’ll pick a short movie!”

  I could feel every pair of eyes at the table on us. It was a weird way to be on display after keeping ourselves hidden for so long. Roman balled up his napkin and threw it onto his plate, his jaw ticking.

  That’s when I saw his knuckles.

  They were cut, a little bloody, and most definitely bruising. I grabbed his hand and turned it over so I could examine it. “What happened?” I whispered under my breath.

  He wrapped his fingers around mine and squeezed. “King George happened.”

  The small fantasy I had of sharing an uncomfortable Christmas dinner with his parents who’d begrudgingly accepted our marriage went flying out the window.

  “What did he do?” The dining room was completely silent. Only the faint sounds of a Disney movie starting upstairs floated down the stairs.

  “I really wanted this to work out. I thought if I gave him space he’d eventually calm down and see that this had nothing to do with him.”

  The bruises on my husband’s knuckles said otherwise.

  “He kept calling. He didn’t care that I was working so I told him to meet me at Bancroft Sports.” The muscles in his shoulders rippled with tension. “I figured he’d yell at me, get it out of his system, and I could get back to taking care of Jerry.”

  “Your dad is a real prick,” Marie grumbled, slumping down in her seat. “I have half a mind to ban him from my building.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

  I held my breath while I waited for the bad news—because there was no doubt in my mind it was bad.

  He kept shifting in his seat and I had a feeling it was because he was still pumping so much adrenaline through his system he couldn’t keep still. I tried to be calming but my own nerves were rattled.

  We’d been married for a second and everything was happening too fast.

  Way. Too. Fast.

  “I know my dad,” Roman gritted out. “I knew there was a good chance he was going to show up ready for a fight, so I called Wes.”

  Thank goodness.

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Greg asked, pushing back from the table.

  Roman shot him a look. “I didn’t know if I could.”

  “Well that’s a bullshit answer. Of course you should have called us.” Greg was half-cocked just thinking about it and Jake wasn’t too far behind him.

  “Seriously,” Jake said, “next time? You call.”

  “I appreciate that. Wes and I had it under control, but the backup would have been nice. Really nice.” He squeezed my hand and took a calming breath.

  “Dare I ask what he did?” My dad was practically seething at the other end of the table, his hands gripping the edge so hard his knuckles were white.

  I took that as a good sign, actually. Oh sure, Dad could get worked up just at the mention of George’s name, but not like this. It was personal and it had Dad’s protective instincts firing at full force . . . and I didn’t think it was just for me.

  “Guys like my dad . . . they need to be right. They always need to be right.” He shook his head and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “I didn’t know how he was going to twist things so that he could still be the man in control, ‘the man wronged by the Daniels’, but I knew that was the score. Whatever he was coming to do, it was to get back up on top of the mountain.”

  I didn’t understand how someone could live like that, but based on the look on my mother’s face, she understood completely. Was this what it was like with Cecil? Was Mom twisted and manipulated at any cost so that Cecil could be the best? Twenty years of fighting was too much, but in this moment I could completely relate to the hurt that must have started this fight.

  “So I had Wes and the security of Bancroft Sports,” he chuckled, “and I had Jerry who kept saying, ‘I’ve already been to jail once today, I can do it again. Let me at the sucker!’”

  “I like Jerry,” Dad and Greg said in unison.

  I sighed, but honestly? I really liked Jerry, too.

  “George showed up with a reporter and a cameraman, so I refused to let them in. That’s when Dad went off the deep end. He started yelling. It was . . . please don’t ever watch the footage, babe. Please?”

  I swallowed down the lump of emotions that had formed in my throat. “Why?”

  He gave me a sad little tilt of his head. “He said things I don’t ever want you to hear.”

  “About me?”

  “You. Me. Us. He used it all.”

  That made me even angrier. “You?”

  “He can say whatever he wants about me. I’ve heard it all. But he’s not allowed to say anything about you, June. Not ever.” He was so angry that his voice cracked at the end. Then he pulled me to him and crushed me against his chest. “I went a little nuts.”

  His arms trembled as he held me. There was so much emotion running through his veins—anger, frustration, disappointment—but the most obvious one of all was how much he loved me.

  I held him closer. “It’s okay, Roman.”

  “It’s not okay!” He pulled back and glared at me. “It’s not even close to okay. We all know what George is capable of when he’s angry and the minute he spoke your name it became a possibility that he might—even if it were a small possibility—treat you that same way. I can’t let that happen.”

  I cupped his face. “I’m right here.”

  “What about tomorrow? A year from now? George needed to know that you are off limits.”

  “He’s right,” Dad said. His eyes were locked onto Roman as if he were seeing him for the first time. “You are off limits. I’m proud of you for making that clear, Roman.”

  Roman was stunned by Dad’s choice of words. “I’m not proud of what I did to make my point clear . . . which is another reason I don’t ever want you to watch that footage.”

  Oh God . . . what did he do?

  But before Roman could answer, Greg began slow clapping. “I told you all from the beginning—I like this guy.”

&n
bsp; Marie punched him in the arm. “Shut up Greg.”

  I picked up Roman’s hand and examined the cuts. “You got into a fight with your dad?”

  He nodded. “It was a long time coming.”

  “Is he hurt?” I was more concerned that the police were moments away from appearing on our doorstep than I was for George’s wellbeing.

  “A little more than I am.” He winked. “But we’re on the same page now.”

  “What page is that?” Dad demanded.

  Roman turned his attention to my father. “That he no longer has to be burdened with the constant disappointment of a son. We’re done. I disowned him and he was glad to wash his hands of me. As far as George is concerned I’m a Daniels now and he never had a son.”

  I was too stunned to say anything. I stared at him in shock as his words slowly sank in.

  “He may be happy now but it will come back to haunt you. His ego has to be bruised if your fight is on camera,” Jake said carefully.

  “Wes handled that. He’s friends with the reporter, of course. They agreed to run a story that makes it look like George disowned me, not the other way around. With any luck George will be happy with looking like he went out on top. And since June and I have no plans to appear in anymore headlines, George should forget I ever existed.”

  “What about your mom?” I whispered.

  He shrugged. “I think with a little time we might be able to build something there.” He pulled me in for a quick, reassuring kiss. “Family means everything to me, but they aren’t my family anymore. Not after this.”

  “What is it?” I paced the area in front of our bed while Roman sat.

  He followed me with his eyes each time I passed. “The night you left me.”

  I froze. “We’ve already talked about this.”

  “We did. But we didn’t talk about all of if. I think, after today, it’s important.”

  “Why?”

  He reached for me and I went to him. He took my hands and looked up at me. “Because five years ago he did the same thing.”

  I sank to my knees. They were too weak to hold me. “What do you mean?”

  He brushed the hair back from my face and tucked it behind my ear as he searched my eyes. “Five years ago? He threatened to disown me, said a lot of really valid but painful things about my future. He scared me.”

  I didn’t fully understand so I asked for more. “The things you said that night . . . about your teammates . . . about me . . . those were your father’s words?”

  He didn’t move. His hand held my cheek as he stared into my eyes, but he didn’t move a single muscle. “Yes.” He finally took a breath. “He inserted just enough doubt into me that I began to question everything. My feelings for you, your feelings for me, my friendships . . . they all seemed fake. I was scared.”

  And George tried it again tonight, except this time Roman wasn’t swayed. “I do love you.”

  His eyes softened. “I know that. And I know my love for you is real, too. In these last couple of years I’ve learned a lot about life. I’ve learned how to build a relationship that lasts and when to walk away from the ones that will never be healthy. So this time when George attacked my friends, I knew he was wrong. I know I can trust Wes and Greg. I know Marie values me as an agent. I know my love for you is real. His words bounced right off me. They sounded ridiculous. But five years ago they sounded real.” He took my face in both his hands and leaned down close enough to kiss. “If you ever hear or see anything from tonight I want you to remember everything I’ve just said. Five years ago I was hurt when I lashed out at everyone. It was the wrong thing to do. I’m different now than I was then.”

  I put my hands on top of his. “We both are.” I leaned up the last couple of inches and kissed him. “Love is messy, Roman. I don’t think I ever truly understood that until now.” It was a beautiful mess, but a complicated one just the same. “You know what I’ve finally learned?”

  He looked at me in wonder, as if I had just magically appeared in front of him. “Tell me.”

  “Love is two people falling apart and growing back together in new ways, over and over again for the rest of their lives.”

  “You don’t hate me for the things I’ve said?”

  “No.” I wanted him to hear this most of all. “I don’t want you to be perfect. I just want you to keep fighting. No one stays the same. But if we keep falling in love, keep fighting to change together, then we’ll be okay. That’s the love I want.”

  He kissed me hard. “That’s the love I want, too.”

  28

  Five years earlier

  I stared up at the stars. There were so many. “It should be near the water. Water is calming.”

  “On the beach?” Roman asked. He was lying beside me in the bed of Wes’s pickup truck. We borrowed it for the night. A friend of theirs had a family farm just north of Gainesville. We were in the middle of nowhere and could see every star in the sky.

  “Or a lake. A river? I don’t think it matters just so long as there is the calming sound of water.”

  “Okay. That’s going on the list. What else?”

  We were dreaming up our ideal facility for the imaginary recovery center we both wanted to build. I could see it all in my mind. The fitness center, the experts we could work with, the futures we could build. “There should be an outdoor fitness area, too. A track. A pool.”

  “We’re going to need a lot of money.”

  I shrugged. “It’s all imaginary.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” He rolled onto his side and ran a finger from my belly button to my cheek. “I’m about to have a world-class sports management degree and you’re almost done with athletic training. We could do this.”

  There was a beautiful, steady breeze at the top of the hill, which was the only reason we weren’t dying on such a hot summer night. It kept things cool enough to be comfortable but more importantly, it kept the mosquitoes at bay.

  Mostly.

  “You’re a dreamer, Roman.” This much I’d come to know about him. He saw possibility in everything.

  I was more practical. “It would take so much time and effort and then what if it didn’t work?”

  “What if it did?” He had this way of turning things on their ear so I saw them differently.

  “You make a compelling argument.”

  His finger dipped inside my dress. “That’s how I got you to give me a chance.” He ran his finger across my nipple, making it peak. “Compelling arguments are all about getting someone to see things from your perspective.”

  I sighed as desire swelled inside me. “And your perspective was?”

  “That I’ve waited my whole life to meet you.”

  I froze, my eyes moving from the stars to his eyes. My heart skipped a beat—there was so much in the dark depths. How was it possible that Roman, of all the men on the planet, was the one looking at me like he saw forever?

  “You say that to all the girls.”

  He shook his head. “You know that’s not true. There’s only one woman and she’s you.”

  He skated his finger back and forth across my nipple. “I love making you feel good. I love talking about imaginary rehab clinics. I love the way you make me feel.”

  “And what’s that?” I whispered, half aroused, half falling in love.

  “Like I can be anyone I want to be.”

  “You can.”

  “Until you, there was only baseball. Nothing else.”

  And that scared him. What if he got hurt just like our fathers? Who would he be without baseball? I rolled to my side, suddenly brave as I cupped his scruffy face. “Who do you want to be, Roman St. James?”

  “Yours.” He rushed on. “I want to build this future we keep talking about. Maybe not the clinic, but something. You want to travel, let’s do it. Between the two of us we know more about baseball than any other couple out there. We could do something together.”

  Couple. He called us a couple.


  “And it’s more than that,” he continued, as if the courage was building inside him with each word. “I want to be a good man. I don’t want to be like George. I like being there for my friends and I really like it when they’ve got my back. That feels right. And I think I want kids one day. More than anything I want a partner I can do all of this with.” He took a breath and searched my eyes. “If you think you can put up with me . . . I’d like that person to be you.”

  I was stunned into silence.

  “I know it’s a lot,” he said, “but I have this feeling. I’ve never had it before and I keep trying to figure it out.”

  “What do you think it is?”

  He hesitated. Whatever it was he wasn’t ready to say it. “My parents don’t keep friends around for long,” he said. “Since Dad retired they’ve moved to three different cities. They’re not happy, but it’s all I’ve ever known until now.”

  My heart was pounding in my chest. It was pounding because the hope in his eyes, the words he was saying, they were all so honest.

  And I was falling for him. Falling hard.

  “And now?”

  He picked up my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “Now I know that there’s more. This feeling? I think it’s love. When I picture the future I see a house filled with it. Wes is there, I have good friends who share dinners and our kids grow up together. That future . . . that’s what keeps getting to me. That idea that these people around me will still be there years down the road, and I’ll be there for them. It’s about building and growing something bigger than me.” Then he placed my hand over his heart. “I see you there.”

  I loved everything he just described. It sounded like a lovely life. “Even though I’m a Daniels?”

  “Yes.” He sat up and pulled me into his lap so that I was straddling him, my skirt fluttering around us. “It goes against everything I’ve been programmed to want, June. I keep worrying that there’s something wrong with me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.” I ran my hands through his soft hair, my heart beating fast. “Why would you say that?”

  “A man doesn’t want crap like that,” he said in an imitation of George. “Men need to roam free. Wives are trophies. Women are for conquering. Friends are for using. Fuck,” he shook his head and leaned his head against my chest. “Wanting a wife I loved, kids, a house, and friends? George would call me a pussy if he knew.”