“Yeah.” Jax’s eyes narrowed as he watched her panicked reaction, and she suddenly knew that he hadn’t dropped it at all, he’d just changed tacks, the cunning bastard. “Curtis and Dillon are working at Curves this Friday, but I can have Aidan take bouncer duty for one night at the bar, and send one of the guys to hang out with you. Curtis and Dillon ain’t chatty, but they’re good guys. Throw some half-decent coffee at them, and they’ll be fine sitting in a diner all night.”
“Great idea!” Sarah chirped, and Annie knew that her daughter meant it, that she hadn’t caught on to Jax’s little game of brinkmanship at all, bless her. “I know them both, Mom, and I’ll feel better if they’re there.”
“Uhhhhh,” Annie said. “Well, ummmm….”
“Yes?” Jax almost purred at her. “What is it, Annie?”
Annie sighed, defeated and she knew it. Goddammit. “I’m not working this Friday. I lied.”
“You what?” Sarah said, clearly baffled, even as Jax said wryly, “You don’t say.”
“Yeah.” Annie pushed her hair off her face, her go-to gesture when she felt really agitated. “But you knew that, right Jax?”
“I knew that.” He studied her closely, examining the worry etched into every line of her face. “Why’d you lie to us?”
“Yeah.” Sarah was less stunned now and more indignant. “Why did you?”
“Because… because…” Annie felt the urge to literally throw her hands in the air, then just went ahead and did so verbally. “Oh, Christ Almighty… because I have a date. Alright? I have a goddamn date and I didn’t want to say anything about it, so I lied. OK?”
They stared at her, taken aback. Sarah was trying to remember the last time that Annie had had a date, and it suddenly occurred to her that it had been years… years and years. She scrambled through her memory and reached way, way back, and recalled that salesman guy that Annie had met at the diner, and had dated for a while – maybe two weeks? – before he finally admitted to having a wife and kids, and Annie had kicked his cheating ass to the curb. Sarah was pretty sure that there hadn’t been anybody since that asshole.
From Jax’s side, there was far less shock and far more a sense of ‘well, finally, dear sweet God’. When he’d first met Annie going on four years ago, they hadn’t really hit it off, to be totally honest. They’d stared at each other across the tiny living room of the Matthews’ residence, and seen nothing much to recommend the other. Jax knew that Annie had seen a rough man, a sexually confident womanizer, who was almost definitely going to fuck her daughter, then fuck off on her, and frankly, Annie hadn’t been wrong to think any of that. Sarah had changed Jax, and then Jax had changed more on his own – but in that first moment, neither he nor Annie had known that.
And when Jax had looked at Annie that first night, he’d seen a washed-up, used-up, fed-up woman who had zero faith in men. She’d looked a decade older than her true age, she’d looked bitter and angry, she’d looked like a woman beaten down by life… and after learning from Sarah about her dickhead father abandoning them all, Jax knew that Annie holding things together had been hard and heart-breaking. She’d held it together for years, even before Sarah and Noah’s shit father had walked out, and that kind of thing took a toll.
Since Sarah and Jax had found each other, and since Noah had moved out to Carly’s Place and made a real go of his painting career, Annie had looked light-years better, though. She’d gained a bit of weight, making her sweetly-rounded and curvy, less angular and sharp, and the lines around her eyes and mouth had receded and retreated. Her eyes were bright and beautiful, and she actually made an effort with her long red hair, which made a bigger difference than Jax could have imagined.
So, yeah, Annie was a damn attractive woman now, and maybe always had been, under all the strain and stress. She was also a single woman, for all intents and purposes, though she’d never been able to find her husband to divorce the fucker, so she was still legally married, but so what? She considered herself divorced, and she sure as hell was, in Jax’s view. And if she was ready to date a nice guy, Jax was all for it, though he’d ensure that he was a nice guy. He glanced at Sarah, wondering how she was going to take it all. Her first words showed him:
“But… why lie?” Sarah asked. “I mean – it’s great that you’re dating someone, Mom. Why is this a secret?”
“Well…” Annie floundered. “I just – I wasn’t sure that you’d approve.”
“Approve?” Sarah echoed. “Why do I need to approve, Mom?” She gestured at Jax. “God knows I didn’t ask you what you thought of Jax before we started dating, and God also knows that you didn’t approve… not that I cared, mind you. He was hot.”
That broke the tension a bit and they all grinned at each other, remembering that awkward first meeting, thinking about how far they’d all come since then.
“Anyway,” Sarah continued. “I’m thrilled that you’ve got a date on Friday, because let’s face it, you’re long overdue for a night out. Who is he?” She gave her Mom a saucy grin. “Anyone we know?”
“No,” Annie said firmly. She may have had to come clean about the actual existence of the date, but there was no way in hell that she was sharing the identity of said date. “Just a guy who comes into the diner every once in a while.”
“Nice guy?” Jax grated out, already feeling protective of his future mother-in-law, already kind of hating the idiot who was almost-certain to hurt her in some way – and when that happened, Jax was getting the boys together and they’d be paying dickface a visit. “Single? Solvent?”
“Sexy?” Sarah chimed in. “Super sexy, even?”
“Argh,” Annie muttered, flushing red, knowing that it was clashing furiously with her hair. “Enough, kids.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Sarah began, but Annie cut her off.
“No. I stayed out of your love life, and I’ve become very hands-off about Noah’s too, after my first worries about him and Callie. I want you to do the same for me, sweetie … stay out of things. I honestly don’t expect this to go anywhere, which is another reason that I didn’t want to say anything. I think we’ll have one date – one, singular – and then that’ll be it. Nothing to get excited about, or get invested in. It’s one dinner – one, singular – and then I’m sure we’ll go our separate ways.”
“Why?” Jax said. “You think he’s not worth it?”
“Oh, no. No. He’s totally worth it.”
“So – what?” Jax narrowed his eyes at her again, pinning her with his usual damn x-ray vision. “You think you’re not worth it, huh?”
“I just said for you to stay out of it,” Annie said tartly as she got to her feet and reached for her heavy coat. “So I’ll thank you to do that.”
“Oh, Mom –” Sarah said, a bit alarmed that they’d pushed it too far. “We didn’t mean –”
“I know,” Annie said wrapping her scarf around her neck and retrieving her gloves from her coat pockets. “Look, kids… my love life is dead, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. One dinner doesn’t mean anything, OK? This guy is… well. He’s not for me, not long-term. He’s just a decent guy who invited me for a meal, and I said yes because it’s nice to eat with another human person, just for a change. But this isn’t going anywhere – I know it, he knows it, now you know it.”
“Really?” Sarah said tentatively. “Really nowhere?”
“Really.” Annie dug her car keys out of her purse, gave Sarah and Jax her firmest smile, the one that she gave drunk customers who thought they were being cute, and as she did, she tried hard to forget Sam’s slow, gorgeous smile as he’d held her hand and called her ‘honey’. “Really, really nowhere.”
And she wasn’t actually sure who she was trying to convince anymore, because if truth be told, despite her best efforts and all her common sense, a tiny sliver of hope had started to creep into her heart and it had taken hold, it h
ad gained ground, it had started to blossom. Hope for a kiss; hope for a second date; hope for being the focus of this smart, kind, funny man’s desire and want. Just for a little while.
But if there one thing that she knew, it was that hoping for things with Smoking Hot Young Doctor Sam Frickin’ Innis was a one-way shortcut to heartbreak and heartache. Hoping for anything with him was a massive mistake; it was a fool’s errand; it was folly and it was pathetic. In her experience, hope was a malicious motherfucker in so, so many ways, more ways than she could count. Hope was cruel and taunting and, ultimately, hope was hopeless.
She left Jax and Sarah’s beautiful home in the Rockies, and went to her shitty little car that was practically being held together with duct tape. She slammed her car door, and as she did, she also slammed down on her hope. Hard.
Maybe not hard enough, though.
Chapter Four
“So,” Sam said, pouring her a third glass of wine, depositing the last spring roll on her plate. “How’s your life, Annie?”
“Um,” she said, scrambling to marshal her rambling, meandering thoughts and get them under some semblance of control. The wine had gone straight to her head, partly because she never drank, partly because she’d been so nervous about this date that she’d barely eaten that day. “In what respect?”
“Any respect, honey.” He wielded his chopsticks like a goddamn pro, picking up a piece of broccoli easily. “What do you want to tell me about?”
Her brain froze up, went fuzzy. What was she to tell Sam, exactly?
Would he be gosh-darn-thrilled to hear about her work? Waitressing full-time in a diner was hands-down one of the least-glamorous jobs going, beaten out possibly by washing dishes full-time in a diner. What would Doctor ‘Saving Lives Every Damn Day’ Sam Innis be able to relate to, precisely?
Should she talk about her kids? Sam didn’t have kids, she knew, so she was pretty sure that he’d have zero interest in hearing about the joys and perils of parenthood. Maybe she could ask him if he wanted kids, but if he said ‘no’ then that conversation would be over good and quick.
Maybe she could talk about the state of the world? But she was pretty uninformed about most things – she read the news, naturally, though she barely understood so much of what was going on recently – and she knew that talking about religion and politics was always a bad idea. So that was out.
She didn’t travel, she didn’t know anything about art, she didn’t have time to read long, complicated books that challenged societal norms and sexual boundaries. So… what was left?
Nothing but searing honesty, she supposed. She took a fortifying gulp of wine, dove in with reckless abandon.
“My life is pretty boring,” she said. “Just work and seeing my kids when they have time for me around their lives. Laundry, grocery shopping, bad TV. Nothing to write home about.”
Sam smiled at her, so damn gorgeous in the dim light. “I somehow really doubt that.”
“No, no, it’s true. I’m not even remotely interesting.” She picked up her chopsticks and scowled at them, then set them down and picked up her fork to eat her slippery noodles. “I’d much rather talk about you.”
“Me, huh?”
“Yeah.” She shovelled the food into her mouth, paused, stared at her plate. “Wow. These noodles are incredible.”
“They’re my favorites.” He used his chopsticks to pluck some up, and she almost sighed at his grace. God, his hands. “So… what do you want to know about me?”
“Maybe about where you come from?” she said, already knowing it all: Sam was undoubtedly from a wealthy, educated family, maybe even a family of doctors, maybe four generations’ worth. He’d lived in a big house with a massive backyard and a swimming pool. He’d gone to the best private schools, probably on scholarship, not that his parents hadn’t had the cash lying around. Vacations every year, to Swiss mountains and Spanish beaches. In short, his early life had been the polar opposite of how she’d had to raise her own kids, scraping and saving, living paycheck to paycheck, going without meals herself to make sure the kids ate, holding on until she was able to get her free daily meal at the diner, helplessly watching Billy drink away money that should have gone to keeping the lights and heat on. “Maybe tell me a bit about your childhood?”
“Oh, sure.” Sam drank some green tea and it suddenly came to her that he’d barely touched his wine. Then again, he’d picked her up and driven them to the restaurant, so he was clearly being a responsible chauffeur, even as she got carelessly and casually squiffy. “Well… let’s see. My parents died in a car accident when I was twelve years old, and then it was just me and my brother, Vic. He was nineteen when they died, and he fought to have the right and responsibility to raise me. Went to court and everything. Didn’t back down, didn’t give up on me and on us.”
“Are you serious?” Annie was stunned; she hadn’t seen any of this coming. “You – your parents – oh, Sam, my God. I’m so, so sorry. What happened? Did your brother win in court?”
“Yes, and to this day, I still can’t believe it. But he dropped out of college, gave up his football scholarship to Texas U, found a job and an apartment that he could afford. Made sure that I was clothed and fed, checked my homework every night, kicked my ass when I messed around. Vic just set aside his own life, all his dreams and wants and aspirations, and focused totally on me and my present and future. He gave up the luxury of mourning our parents and got on with it all, but he made damn sure that I had someone to talk to.” Sam blinked at the tea cup in his hand. “He was badly hurt in the accident, and he was in a lot of pain for a long time, but he never complained. Not once.”
“He was hurt?” Annie said. “Vic was in the accident with your parents?”
“We both were,” Sam said, so softly that Annie barely heard him over the crowded restaurant. “Me and Vic. It was Christmas, and he was home from college for the break. We were coming back from picking him up at the airport. We hit some black ice and spun out, went over the mountain edge and rolled down a hill, until we crashed into the bottom of a ravine.”
“Oh, no.” All Annie could think about was Sarah and Noah experiencing such a traumatic event. “Oh, that’s so awful.”
“It was worse for Vic, believe me. He managed to get me out of the wreck and carry me out of harm’s way, then he went back for our parents, who were unconscious. The car was on fire by then, and he got burned… all over his hands and arms and face. He fought hard, though, he didn’t want to stop trying to save their lives, but he couldn’t get them out of their seatbelts. He got dragged away by some passing motorists, in the end, dragged away kicking and screaming and fighting them, and it took five full-grown men to do it. They got him clear just before the car exploded. If those people hadn’t forced him away from our parents, then I’d have lost my whole family that night.”
Annie stared at Sam, wondering just how the hell he’d gone from that horrible thing that had to have scarred and damaged him in ways that she couldn’t even begin to imagine, to the successful, compassionate, amazing man that he was now.
“How –” she began, hesitated. “How did you become a doctor?”
“Vic.” Sam sighed. “He – well. When I told him that I wanted to be a doctor – like the doctors who saved most of the skin on his face and hands and arms, who took such good care of him – he made it his life’s mission to make it happen. He paid for college, and then for medical school. Paid the whole damn shot, so I never had to work, not even for groceries. He paid for my whole ride.”
“How?” Annie shook her head. “How did he manage that?”
Sam looked uncertain. “Well… he made some pretty major sacrifices.”
“Such as?” Annie asked, imagining that Vic had sold his car, sold his blood, sold his parents’ belongings. She adopted a joking tone. “Did he start selling drugs?”
“Well…” Now Sam looked actual
ly shifty, and Annie looked at him sharply. “Well…”
“Did he?” she said, aghast. “Was Vic a drug dealer?”
“Have you ever heard of the Road Devils, Annie?”
“The Road Devils? You mean – the motorcycle club?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I have! They’re bad news… criminals and murderers and drug dealers…” Annie stopped abruptly as the knowledge hit her like a lightning bolt. “Vic joined the MC, didn’t he?”
Sam turned his teacup around in his hands. “He did.”
“They pay well, I guess.”
“They do. Well, they did. The money was way better then.”
“Yeah? How come?”
“Because back then when he first patched in, about fifteen years ago, the Devils were big into illegal things. Bigger risk means a bigger payday, so Vic did pretty much anything he was asked, and he socked away the cash for my education. But since Wolf Connor took over about a year ago, he’s worked to get the club away from all that stuff. Connor’s working to make the boys legit, and he’s got his hands full. Resistance, inside and outside of the MC. Not everyone wants to be a law-abiding citizen, even if my brother does.”
“And legit businesses take in less cash than murder-for-hire, I imagine?”
“For sure.” Sam looked at her now, wondering if she was preparing to make a break for it. “That’s the place that Vic drew the line, Annie. He never killed anyone on a contract. He promised me that when I found out where the money was going from, and I told him that I was dropping out of college to keep him safe. He told me that he was never an Enforcer, that his function was more to do with sourcing stuff that the club needed. Alcohol, bikes, women… and yes, drugs.”
“But he has killed people?”
Sam was silent. “Yes. He’s never told me, but… yes.”
“You’ve never asked?”
“No.”
“Will you ever?”
Lush Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 8) Page 6