Just What I Needed (The Need You Series)

by Lorelei James

  Jaxson said, “Check for empty ice cream cartons.”

  “Yep. Two. Fudge ripple and rocky road.”

  “Where the hell is he getting all this food?”

  Let them try to figure that one out. I hoped my young fishing buddies were late with today’s delivery.

  “For Christsake, this is worse than we thought,” Brady snapped. “Someone grab his phone and see if he’s been watching sappy Lifetime movies.”

  Jensen sighed. “I’ll do it.”

  “My phone is at the bottom of the lake.” Not intentional. I dove into the water with it in my pocket and it slipped out. “But feel free to tie a rock around your leg, jump in and see if you can find it.”

  Silence.

  “Walker—”

  “Is this why you tracked me down? You get a huge laugh out of seeing how goddamn miserable I am?”

  “We are not those guys.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “You think we enjoy seeing you like this?”

  I let out a slow breath. “I don’t care. So for the last time, get the hell off my boat. I’ve got nothing to say. To any of you.” I plugged the earbuds hanging around my neck into my ears and flicked on my iPod.

  I’d just started bobbing my head to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem when my arms, legs and torso were immobilized. My eyes flew open as someone removed my sunglasses and ripped my earbuds out. Then Jaxson and Jensen picked me up—in my chair—and set me down at the front of the boat in the blazing hot sun.

  All five of them lined up in front of me like the Scandinavian inquisition.

  “What the—?”

  “Shut it or we will gag you too, you ornery jackass,” Brady said in his “Don’t argue with me” CFO tone.

  I looked down and saw my arms and legs were tied to the chair with blue nylon rope. I didn’t have a freakin’ prayer of loosening the knots. “Which one of you is the kinkster with the rope fetish?”

  Ash squatted down. “That’d be me. And I was an Eagle Scout, remember?”

  “I don’t give a damn. Untie me. Now.”

  “Nope,” Nolan said with far too much cheer.

  “Welcome to your intervention, bro,” Jensen said.

  I laughed. “I need an intervention? Why? I’m the most well adjusted of all of us.”

  “True. We all sort of laughed about the fact we’d probably never have to do an intervention on you because you have your shit together.”

  “So why am I here, trussed up and roasting in the sun like some B-movie plotline of mistaken identity?”

  “Because this intervention is for us. We failed you,” Brady said.

  I looked from one face to another, shocked by their hangdog expressions.

  “So you need to listen to us.”

  “Like I have a choice? And is this really coming from you guys? Or from Mom?” Loved my mom, but dammit, I didn’t want her pulling that “No fighting in this house—you apologize now” discipline like during our childhood, forcing us to say sorry when we didn’t mean it.

  “Actually, our dad approached us about it,” Jaxson said.

  Ash nodded. “Same with mine. Evidently Uncle Ward had words with his brothers Monday morning, how he was being ignored by them much like we’d been ignoring you.”

  The one good thing about Saturday night had been the time I’d spent with my dad. We’d been able to talk without interruptions and reconnect one on one. The cool thing was, it hadn’t been one-sided—a father passing down advice to his son. He’d opened up to me about his struggles with his brothers and the family business. We’d parted ways at dawn with a better understanding of each other and a reminder that all relationships need tending—especially those taken for granted.

  “That’s why we’re here. No more ignoring this or letting it fester.” Brady gestured to Nolan. “You’re up first.”

  “I’ve had my head up my ass for a while,” Nolan admitted. “Last year after Brady’s intervention, it didn’t occur to me right away that if Brady was working less, someone else had to pick up the slack at LI. It was … embarrassing to approach Ash and admit I’d been screwing around. For the last eight months I’ve worked to become the executive I’d been pretending to be. My social life was sacrificed. Somehow you ended up getting sacrificed too, cuz, and I’m sorry.”

  Ash said, “I’m guilty of having a corporate mentality—letting others handle the small things and I step in only as a last resort. I applied that to family stuff too and that’s pretty cold. I’m making a conscious effort to change that.” His eyes narrowed. “As far as my little sister? You’ve gotta stop rescuing her. I won’t apologize on her behalf, but I’ll apologize for being so damn oblivious this last year to the shit she was pulling.”

  I hated this pouring-out-feelings-and-spilling-your-guts crap. If they hadn’t tied me up, I would’ve already jumped overboard.

  That’s probably why they tied you up.

  But they weren’t done.

  Brady ran his hand through his hair. “I went through major life changes last year. I wouldn’t have found the love of my life if not for you all kicking my ass. But finding Lennox didn’t mean I had to lose what I already had. I pretty much blew all you guys off all the time to be with her. I won’t lie; my wife is my priority now. I just have to remind myself it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” He smirked at me. “So fair warning, prepare to get your ass handed to you, little bro, since I’m reinstating our workout schedule.”

  I flashed my teeth at him. “Bring it.”

  “Jens, you’re up,” Brady said.

  Jensen looked at me and then aimed his focus across the lake. “I’d rather take a beating from the entire Broncos defensive line for three hours than talk about this stuff. But here goes. No surprise I’m gonna make this about me. In the last few years I’ve resented the expectations of being present at every Lund family gathering. Didn’t anyone realize I have a life, friends, women, teammates that are way more important than these stupid family things? So I figured if I did my time at the Lund compound, none of you had the right to expect anything more from me outside of that.” He snorted. “Talk about self-absorbed. But since we’re doing this, I’ll say the last year has been the loneliest of my life. None of my great new buddies know me like you guys do. Being with them is all about the partying, usually with me picking up the check. I realized during training camp that I was looking for something with these guys that I already had and I oughta be thankful for what I’ve always taken for granted.” His gaze met mine. “Sorry, Dubbya. You’ve been there for me without fail and I’m gonna figure out how to give it back to you.” A gleam entered his eyes. “Let’s hug it out now, bro.”

  “You touch me and I’m—”

  “It’s not like you can get away.” Then the smart-ass hugged me, while Brady, Nolan and Ash argued about who got to be the next to hug the “man of the hour.”

  Assholes.

  I’d really freakin’ missed them.

  “And last but not least … Jaxson?” Brady prompted.

  “At first I was feeling cocky, thinking I’m the least guilty in this situation,” Jaxson said. “But then it hit me that I’m probably the worst of the lot because I don’t know what’s been going on with you in the last two years. What really made me feel like crap was when Mimi asked me why you were so quiet and I gave her some lame-ass answer because I didn’t know. But she said it’s probably because no one listens to you anyway.”

  There was a punch in the gut.

  “We’ve all got our dramas and traumas. But through it all? We had this.” He gestured to the six of us. “Our folks had a lot to do with forcing that to start with, but we formed this family bond out of choice. We’ve always had each other’s backs. And even if one person is flailing, there are seven other members of this family to offer a hand and pull you back in. It sucks balls that we all assumed someone else was taking care of it with you, Walker. I’m speaking for all of us that we won’t make assumptions about that again.” />
  Silence stretched as they all stared at me, waiting for me to say something.

  “Guess it’s my turn, huh? I’m glad you all pulled your heads out of your asses. If this happens again, I won’t wait so long to call you out on it. Fair?”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Now untie me. I can’t feel my damn arms.”

  That prompted Jensen to break out into a chorus of “Can’t Feel My Face.”

  Brady told him to shut it. Jaxson started singing along.

  Ash started to untie me, but Nolan said, “Wait. He might go ballistic when we bring up the Trinity thing.”

  My head snapped his direction. “What about her?”

  Nolan said, “I tracked her down and tried to apologize to her.”

  “You tried to apologize?”

  “She said that you were the one I owed the apology to, not her, for violating your trust and being a first-class douche canoe—whatever the hell that is. And she’s right. I don’t know what possessed me to make cracks about your dating history to a chick like Paris. But I promise you it was just that one time. It wasn’t like I’ve always been talking trash behind your back. Seriously, sorry. Total dick move.”

  “Put me in the ‘tried to apologize’ category too,” Jensen said. “She went off on this tangent about me not having a right to judge crazy because everyone has some craziness in them. Then she talked about never painting a person or a situation with a wide brush or you’ll just end up painting yourself into a corner. Does that make sense?”

  An artist’s analogy? That made my heart twist. I missed her so damn much. It’d been hard as hell staying away from her—that’s why I’d spent the last three days on my boat. She needed to come to some realizations on her own or this would never work between us.

  “So, uh, yeah,” Jensen started. “I said some stupid shit to her that she did let me apologize for. I thought I was looking out for you the way you do for me, but I botched it. No surprise. Sorry.”

  “I did a dumbass thing last year, talking out of turn to that woman Lennox used to be friends with. I have a different perspective seeing it from the other side.” I looked at Brady and he nodded. “Now we all squared away? So you can untie me?”

  Ash undid the knots fairly quickly. As I tried to get the circulation going again, they loaded the cooler onto their boat and prepared to leave.

  “We would stay and shoot the shit with you for the rest of the day,” Brady said, “but I figured you wouldn’t be sticking around after I relayed this last bit of information from Mom.”

  “What?”

  “She decided to have your piano delivered this morning.”

  “Jesus. Why? That thing has been in storage for years.”

  “No idea, but when she was leaving, Trinity showed up at your house. And—” He and Jens exchanged a look.

  “And what?” I demanded.

  “Not and what. You should be asking with what. Evidently she had a sledgehammer. And a cat.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Nope.”

  I had no idea what Trinity was up to, but I needed to find out ASAP.

  Jensen said, “Dude, word of advice from someone who’s recently hugged you? You need a shower before you race off to deal with your not-crazy girlfriend and her pussy.”

  Nolan high-fived him.

  I flipped him off and pulled anchor.

  Twenty-two

  TRINITY

  I was in the living room of Walker’s house when the door blew open and he stormed inside.

  Finally.

  “Trinity! Where are you?”

  “I’m right here.”

  Walker stopped five feet from me. His hair was wild. He was sunburned.

  He was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Why?”

  This time, my rambling stream of consciousness wasn’t random words I’d struggle to remember. I had had days to plan out exactly what to say to him. “To apologize for running out on you. To grovel for being an idiot and believing for one second you had anything to do with trying to buy off Kierkegaard. As soon as I got home I realized the situation had my father’s handprints all over it.”

  Walker didn’t move. He waited, patiently, like he always did.

  “I’m here to tell you that you are the most amazing man I’ve ever met. You get all the weirdness and neurosis that is me and yet you prove time and time again that you like me anyway.” Now that I’d reached the hardest part, I swallowed with difficulty. “And yes, I knew it killed you to let me walk away. But you did it anyway. You are the strongest, most self-assured man I’ve ever known. You believed in this—in us—from the start even as I kept unintentionally trying to derail this with my actions and my words. You knew earlier Saturday night before the storm hit that I loved you, but I was too afraid to say it. You let it go when you should’ve demanded the truth from me. I regret that so much. It wrecked me when you snapped at Nolan about how he’d humiliated me, the woman you’re in love with, because I could see that it gutted you for me to find out that way. And yet I never doubted that you meant it. But even knowing that? Saturday night as I stared at the ceiling, miserable and alone, I told myself I didn’t deserve you.” I stomped over to him and got right in his face. “But you know what? Fuck that. I deserve you and you deserve me, a woman who loves you with everything she has, who will always give you her all. I love you, Walker Lund, more than you can ever possibly comprehend, so I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you. You will know every minute of every hour of every day how much I love showing you how completely you belong to me. And—”

  Walker’s hands cradled my face, his mouth landed on mine, not to stop the flow of chatter but to show me how profoundly my declaration had affected him.

  He shook so hard I clutched him tightly to quell his tremors, proving I was strong enough to be the one who anchored him for a change.

  The kiss slowed from full-flown passion into tenderness. Sweetness. With maybe a little relief thrown in. When he released me, I burrowed my face into the crook of his neck, grateful the warmth and scent of his skin filled my soul.

  “Trinity.”

  “Let me just stay like this for a minute.”

  When the minute was up, he shifted back to look at me. “I love you.”

  “Yay me!”

  He laughed. “Not the reaction I expected, but oddly enough I have come to expect that from you.”

  I gave his smiling mouth a smacking kiss. “What else is on your mind? Because the smile doesn’t hide the clouds in your eyes, babe.”

  “Your father is an asshole.”

  “Uh, yeah. I told you that.” I poked him in the chest. “You should listen to me about that kind of stuff. Wait. Did you talk to him again?”

  “I wanted to let my fists do the talking, but I refrained. He tried to play off bribing Kierkegaard as an honest mistake that his ‘name’ could fix.” Walker splayed his fingers around the back of my neck and followed the arc of my jawline. “I hate that he did this to you.”

  “I’m not being flip when I say I’m used to it. It’s a perfect example of why he’s out of my life, Walker.”

  “I get that now. And I’m sorry for being a jerk about you not telling me, even though you should have. From here on out, we share all family stuff, okay?”

  “Okay. Speaking of … Annika the PR whiz might’ve created a silver lining out of the Kierkegaard situation. When your mother told her what happened, she was outraged, mostly because she hadn’t been there.”

  He frowned. “Now that you mention it, I never asked why Brady, Lennox and Annika weren’t at the LI shindig.”

  “Because Annika was at the hospital with them. Evidently Lennox got really sick and Brady freaked out. He hauled her to the ER and called Annika, who immediately showed up and jumped to the conclusion that Lennox was pregnant. Which pissed Lennox off, becaus
e she’s not pregnant; she just had food poisoning. But thankfully Annika didn’t call Selka with the news she might be a grandma because can you imagine how mad your mom would be if that was yanked away from her?”

  Walker stared at me with the oddest expression.

  “What?”

  “You’re in the Lund family gossip loop now.”

  I grinned. “Isn’t it great?”

  His slow-blooming smile was a thing of beauty. “Yeah, babe, it is.”

  “Anyway, Annika has created this whole PR campaign for me. ‘Trinity Amelia’s artwork is deemed too edgy and controversial for local art galleries’ or something along those lines. She claims my work will be even more in demand. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Very.” Walker lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me with the seductiveness I’d grown to crave. As much as I wanted to surrender to him, I also knew that once we were in his bed we wouldn’t leave it the rest of the day.

  I forced myself to break the kiss.

  He growled. “Come back here.”

  “You’re distracting me.”

  “That’s the plan. I plan on distracting you to the point you don’t know your own name.”

  Gulp.

  Walker whispered, “It’s time to fuck and make up.”

  “Umm … don’t you mean ‘kiss and make up’?”

  “Nope. We’re starting a new tradition.”

  My mind blanked.

  And the sexy man kept it blank for the next three hours as he proved just what an awesome tradition it was … four times.

  —

  I kissed Walker’s damp pectoral and attempted to roll to my side of the bed.

  He clamped a big hand on my ass and said, “Where are you going?”

  “To the neutral zone. We need to finish talking.”

  He sighed.

  I disentangled from him. “I need at least five feet between me and your lips during this discussion.”

  “You get five minutes to say what you need to. Then my lips are gonna be back where they belong.”

  “Where’s that?”

  His wicked smile caused my heart to trip. “All over you.”

  Swoon.

  He sat up and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Meter is running, babe.”