Dawson's Honor (Welcome to Covendale Book 6)

by Blaze, Morgan

  And if Eddie killed him for it, at least he’d die doing something good for once in his life.

  Chapter 7

  After her uninvited guests left, Piper spent a long two hours pacing the house while she calmed down and debated her next move. There was no question about turning over the money. She’d never been expecting it in the first place, and if it kept Eddie Verona and his giant, backstabbing henchman from harassing her, she wouldn’t feel the loss.

  But a gut feeling told her that might not be the end of it. Either both Celeste and Patrick had been overreacting in the extreme, or Eddie wasn’t the type of man to let go of a grudge. Ever.

  Now she knew. Her aunt had been dealing with Eddie that night when Patrick brought her home, so Jonah must’ve been the one to break her leg. The idea that she’d spent two years serving pie and coffee to the man who’d done that to Celeste sickened her. Worse, she’d actually been attracted to the cold bastard. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at the time—still just a kid. Another thought that horrified her.

  Never mind that she couldn’t reconcile the quiet, polite and self-effacing Jonah she’d come to know with the kind of monster he had to be. She’d just ignore the small inner voice that kept insisting he didn’t know what Eddie was springing on her, so maybe he hadn’t known about Celeste either.

  She couldn’t risk believing that.

  More immediately, she had to decide whether she was going to work tonight or not. She suspected Jonah wouldn’t dare show his face there, but there were other problems. One, she was bone-tired and sick with fury. Two, she couldn’t deal with the endless questions from Rose if she failed to keep a lid on her emotions. And three, what if Eddie decided to come into the diner and harass her some more?

  She’d just about convinced herself to call in when she realized she’d left her phone in the car, after the earlier scare with Patrick. It was probably dead now. Muttering under her breath, she slipped a pair of shoes on and headed out to get it.

  She was halfway down the walk to the driveway when someone grabbed her from behind.

  A huge hand clamped across her mouth before she could scream, and an arm locked around her body, effectively pinning her. She got one good kick in before a deep voice rumbled in her ear, “Hold still. I won’t hurt you.”

  Jonah. She sobbed, but it wasn’t from relief.

  “I have to bring you inside. Then we’ll talk.”

  She couldn’t resist if she wanted to. He carried her back to the porch, up the steps and into the house. He kicked the door shut behind him, then set her down gently, let go and moved back.

  She whirled and slapped him across the face. “Get out of my house, you crazy bastard!”

  If she’d hurt him, he didn’t show it. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Do you have orders to break my leg, like you did to my aunt?”

  Jonah closed his eyes. “No.”

  “Get out. I’m calling the police.” Maybe she didn’t exactly have a phone right now, but he didn’t have to know that.

  She’d gotten two steps away when he grabbed her arm.

  “Let. Go,” she ground out.

  “If you call the police, you’re dead.”

  She froze. The world started spinning around her, and it was all she could do to keep from fainting. “You’re here to kill me,” she whispered. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m here to keep you alive, damn it!”

  A deeper shudder went through her. She’d never heard him shout before—he sounded rough, desperate. Almost as afraid as she was. She tried to let some of the tension out, to signify she wouldn’t run. But he didn’t let go.

  Reluctantly, she turned to face him. “Why would calling the police make me dead?”

  “Because Eddie has connections,” he said. “If the police know something, he does too.”

  “And he’d kill me for calling them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? He said he just wanted the money.”

  Jonah made a frustrated sound. “Stop asking questions and go pack a bag. I need to get you out of here.”

  “I ask questions when I’m nervous. And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Yes, you are,” he growled—and started dragging her toward the stairs.

  “Stop!”

  She pulled back hard, surprising him enough to loosen his grip, and managed to wrench her arm away. Then she took a quick step back. “Tell me why I need to get out of here,” she said.

  “I don’t have time to explain.”

  “Then give me the condensed version! I’m not taking off with Eddie Verona’s junkyard dog, just because he says I should.”

  A spasm passed through his features. “Because Eddie wants to kill you, and I don’t.”

  “So this is you protecting me.”

  “Yes!”

  Every logical fiber of her being told her she was nuts for even considering this—but her heart whispered that he was telling the truth about not hurting her. Still, she needed a little bit more to go on. “You know what’s going on with all this,” she said. “If I go with you, I want you to tell me everything. Understand?”

  “Fine. I’ll tell you on the way. Just—”

  “And I want one good reason to trust you. Right now.”

  His shoulders slumped, and he stared at the floor for a long moment. At last he said, “I didn’t break Celeste’s leg.”

  “I meant one good true reason.”

  “I didn’t.” He said it forcefully, and looked at her with pain in his eyes. “Eddie ordered me to. I refused, so he did it himself.”

  “Come on. You expect me to believe—”

  “I may be a monster, but I will never hurt a woman,” he said. “Ever.”

  She stared at him, and suddenly remembered the exact wording of Celeste’s letter. Trust the boy. He will never hurt you. He would’ve been a boy to her then. “Jonah,” she said slowly. “Did you say that to Eddie, that you’ll never hurt a woman? In front of my aunt?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Just humor me. Please.”

  “Yes, I did. Can we go now?”

  “Okay.”

  He blinked. “Okay?”

  “Give me a minute to pack a few things.” She walked past him, headed for the stairs. “I’ll be right down.”

  If the situation wasn’t so awful, the look of astonishment on his face would’ve been hilarious.

  She took the stairs fast and went into her bedroom. She’d grab a few changes of clothes, her laptop and phone charger—and her gun. Going along with Jonah to who knows where still seemed like the worst possible idea on the surface, but she needed to have faith in something. She didn’t doubt he’d been telling the truth when he said Eddie wanted to kill her.

  Celeste said she could trust him. She’d have to hope that her aunt had been right.

  * * * *

  Jonah had never met anyone who worked so hard at not being saved.

  A few times he decided this couldn’t be the woman he knew from Pete’s Diner, the one who talked little and smiled less. This Piper was all over the place—walking fast, speaking rough, and taking no bullshit. Even when it wasn’t actually bullshit. It took a good thirty minutes to get her out to the car, and she was already hammering him with questions before he so much as got the engine started.

  “Whoa. Slow down,” he said, giving the key an angry twist. “Let’s get on the road, okay? And then, maybe one question at a time.”

  She drew a deep, trembling breath. “You’re right,” she said. “I need to get a grip. Like I said, I ask questions when I’m nervous.”

  Jonah relented as he realized he’d probably been expecting too much from her. He was a lot more used to this sort of thing. Going on the run from his boss-turned-murderous-psycho was a new experience for him, but he’d seen a lot. And he doubted she’d been in so much as a fist fight before now.

  A metallic clack drew his attention. He glanced ov
er, and saw her checking the clip on a handgun.

  Okay. Maybe she was used to this sort of thing.

  He cleared his throat. “Planning to shoot me?”

  “What? Oh, this,” she said, as if the gun was some kind of fashion accessory. “I just thought it might be useful for self-defense. Against Eddie, I mean.”

  “So you’re planning to shoot Eddie.”

  She shuddered. “I hope not. But if I have to…”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “But maybe put it away for now, okay? Accidents happen.”

  “All right.” She shoved the gun back in her bag.

  Jonah breathed a little easier. “Why do you have a gun, anyway?”

  “Hold it,” she said. “You’re answering my questions first.”

  “Fine.” At least she seemed calmer now, and he’d like to keep it that way. They’d both need to focus if they were going to make it through this alive. “Ask away, then,” he said. “Just…make it one at a time.”

  She nodded. “Okay, so first—where are we going?”

  “Out of town.”

  “Elaborate,” she said. “And consider that a standing rule. Don’t hold anything back.”

  He sighed. She really wasn’t going to make this easy. “There’s a no-tell motel out past the strip,” he said. “It’s nameless, rundown and out of the way. I thought we’d head there and take a breather. Then we can figure out how to move forward.”

  “I assume Eddie doesn’t know about this…no-tell motel.”

  Jonah let out a rough laugh. “He doesn’t settle for less than four stars. Likes to think he’s a gentleman.”

  “So he’s delusional, then.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  Piper fell silent for a few minutes. Eventually, she said, “What do you know about Celeste?”

  The pain in her voice wrung his heart, and he wished he had something concrete to give her. “Unfortunately, not much,” he said. “I only met her once, and Eddie never told me anything about her before then. It was…early days, for me.”

  “Early days,” she said. “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen and stupid.”

  She stared straight out the window, her face a perfect blank. “Tell me what happened that night.”

  He didn’t want to, but he had promised to explain everything he could. “She was a late payment,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully. “Eddie keeps his clients to a weekly schedule, but she hadn’t paid him in three weeks. Somehow he knew she’d be at this storage place, so that’s where we went. Where we found her.” Jonah paused as the screams that had never quite left him echoed through his head. “He kept it from me—that she was a woman. I didn’t know until his thugs dragged her out. She tried to run.”

  “Oh, God,” Piper whispered. “She must’ve been terrified.”

  “No doubt. But she was pretty pissed off, too.” He remembered her fighting like a demon, until she caught sight of Eddie. Like she knew it was hopeless to fight him. “She asked him for one more day. But Eddie, he doesn’t take excuses. So he handed me a crowbar and told me to break her leg.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t,” he said. “The rest of it’s bad enough, what I do. But a woman? There’s no way.” He drew a breath, and said, “I told him no. Then he took the crowbar back and did it himself.”

  Piper closed her eyes. “He must’ve been furious.”

  “Yeah. He was.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  Jonah’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “You don’t want to know that.”

  “Yes I do.” She turned toward him, her features reflecting sorrow. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Jonah…”

  “Goddamn it, I said nothing!”

  She flinched, and he felt more like a monster than ever. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just… look, I thought we were talking about Celeste.”

  “We are. But I need to trust you,” she said. “And you need to trust me. You can tell me anything.”

  Jonah forced himself to calm down. The things she wanted to know, they were everything he never talked about. The dark things that shaped him into this…weapon. But he felt something for her beyond the need to keep her safe. So shouldn’t that mean letting her in—even past the borders he guarded?

  “He beat me.” It was hard to say, and harder to elaborate. “Eddie beat me like a dog, until I couldn’t stand, couldn’t see. He told me it was a lesson I had to learn. And…” This part was the hardest, but it was the one she had to know. She needed to understand how serious it was, so she wouldn’t do anything risky. “He said one day he’d tell me to hurt a woman again. And if I didn’t do it, he’d kill me.”

  A soft sob escaped her. “This is ‘one day’, isn’t it?” she said. “He told you to hurt me, and…”

  “I won’t,” Jonah said firmly. “No matter what he does.”

  They were nearing the turnoff that led to the motel. He slowed and swung left, taking the narrow road at a crawl in case another vehicle was coming out. “We should be safe here for a while,” he said. “It’s not the greatest, but the rooms are fairly clean.”

  He glanced at Piper when she didn’t respond. Her pallor alarmed him—she was white as a ghost, slumped in the seat and shivering all over. “Are you okay?” he said. “We’re almost there, but if you need something…”

  She blinked rapidly and pulled herself erect. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired.”

  He nodded. “I hear that. You can grab some sleep while we’re here.”

  “Okay.”

  She definitely wasn’t fine. But he’d worry about that after they were more or less settled. He pulled into a parking spot, cut the engine and sighed. “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go get us a room.”

  “Okay.”

  His concern grew as he got out of the car and headed for the motel office. She could be in shock—after all that had happened tonight, it wouldn’t be surprising. But if she stayed dazed and barely responsive, he’d have a hell of a time protecting her.

  He’d just have to hope she snapped out of it soon.

  Chapter 8

  The room was just as Jonah said—not the greatest, but fairly clean. Two full-sized beds, with a nightstand between them holding a lamp and a phone. A dresser with a television on it. At the end of the narrow room, a bathroom with a stand-up shower.

  Piper was beyond caring about the accommodations. He could’ve brought them to a cave covered in mold and slime, and she would have gone with him.

  He’d chosen a death sentence over hurting her.

  She’d never felt worse in her life, especially about the conclusions she’d jumped to earlier. She accused him of breaking Celeste when he was the one who’d been broken. Eddie had beaten the hell out of a nineteen-year-old kid for refusing to hurt someone—and Jonah thought he was the monster.

  It forced her to wonder what other lessons Eddie Verona had crammed down his throat over the years. And whether Jonah ever had a choice about what he did.

  “Welcome to paradise.” Jonah smirked as he closed the door behind them and locked the deadbolt. “Take whichever bed you want, as long as it’s not the one next to the door.”

  Still shivering, she walked to the furthest bed and tossed her bag on it.

  “That was mostly a joke.”

  “I know.” She made herself turn around and face him. “Jonah, I…don’t know what to say, except that I’m sorry.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “For getting you into this,” she said. “He’s going to kill you because of me.”

  “He’ll try.” A threatening look crossed his face. “And don’t you apologize,” he said. “None of this is your fault. It’s my decision.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.” His clear gaze met hers. “I had a problem, and someone I know told me to look at it from a different angle,
” he said. “So this is it.”

  She managed to smile. “Some angle.”

  “Yeah. And it’s still better than the original choice.” The lines of his body relaxed a little, and he said, “Are you going to be okay now?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I’m not dead, so that’s a bonus.”

  “Good. Let’s work on how we’re going to keep it that way.”

  Fresh chills went through her, but she nodded and sat on the bed next to her bag. “Where do we start?”

  “With Eddie’s partner,” he said.

  “He has a partner?”

  Jonah nodded. “One who wants to bring him down just as bad as I do. I think he’s got something on Eddie,” he said. “But he’s not easy to contact. I talked to him once, and all he’d say was that he had to be careful this time.”

  She gave a slight frown. “So he’s tried doing this before.”

  “Yes.” Jonah paced a few steps. “What I don’t get is how he could’ve failed, and lived to try again. Unless…he was working with someone else.” He stopped suddenly, shook his head. “Whoever it was must’ve been desperate, or crazy,” he said. “I can’t see anyone actually wanting to work with Patrick.”

  The name jolted her. “Patrick?” she said. “Patrick Stiles?”

  “You know him?” Jonah said. “How…”

  “It was Celeste.” More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The things he knew that no dry cleaner should, the way he helped Celeste disappear, his reaction to her death, his command that Piper leave town when he heard about the inheritance. He was Eddie Verona’s partner, and… “My aunt was working with Patrick,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” She told him about that night when Patrick brought Celeste home, and then about the confrontation with him earlier today—the one that seemed so far away now. “I think he cared for her,” she said. “He was devastated when I told her she was…dead.”

  “And he couldn’t protect her in the end.” Jonah spoke in rough tones, a faraway look in his eyes. “Christ. Well, maybe he’s willing to use a little less caution now,” he said. “Because we need to move fast.”