When Joss’s brain and body decided it was finally time to have a family reunion, her arms were shaking and the tub was perilously close to overflowing. But Shep apparently had decided he was fond of the female ecosystem because he was humming to himself and sliding his fingers along her still pulsing flesh.
“Sh… Shep. We need to… Can you stop what you’re doing and pop the drain?”
“Is pop the drain a euphemism for orgasm? I haven’t heard—”
“No, dammit!” She laughed. “It means you’re about to have water all over your bathroom floor!”
After some maneuvering, a little overflow, and a few breathless chuckles, she and Shep were eventually situated in the tub. Him leaning back, his gauze-wrapped chest and arm above the water, bandaged hand resting on the rim, and her straddling his thighs.
“It didn’t taste like birthday cake,” he commented. “You said—”
“It doesn’t always,” she said. “You have to use a special lube and I don’t happen to have any with me right now.”
“That’s okay. I liked it. It was hot and kind of… salty-sweet.”
“Like kettle corn?”
“Exactly!”
Cracking up, she slumped forward and laid her head on his shoulder. “Shep Kingston, I love you.”
His entire body—all seventy-six inches of him—tensed beneath her. Even his hard-on went completely still.
She’d scared him. Turned him into stone.
She lifted her head. Shep’s face was immobile and his eyes were filled with distrust. Her hand on his cheek, she said, “Shep, I… I—”
“You need to tell me what you mean by that,” he said hoarsely. “You love me like a brother or—”
“Ew! God, no. That’s just wrong.”
Turning his face away, he grabbed for the side of the tub, trying to push himself up and out.
But she hung on like a stubborn bull rider. “Uh-uh. No. You are not getting out of this tub. Sit your ass down and listen to me.”
He settled back, but didn’t look at her. Although she hadn’t meant for her feelings to come out in quite this way, they were floating between them. Not softly, but with potentially razor-sharp consequences.
“Will you look at me?” she asked softly.
He swallowed and turned his head. His gaze met hers, darted away, and held for a few moments. She caressed his cheek, the stubble soft beneath her palm, and finally, he looked at her.
The spotlight was on.
“I love you,” she told him. “Like a woman loves a man she wants to share things with—her body, her thoughts, her life.”
“Her life,” he echoed. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means I want to be with you.”
“Every day?”
“Every day I can.”
“I don’t love you like I thought I loved Amber.”
Inside, Joss’s heart began to spiderweb, like the tiny cracks on a windshield chipped by a careless pebble.
“I love you like someone I would do anything for.” Her fingers tightened on his face, and he covered her hand with his. “I love you like someone I would die for.”
“That’s why you yelled at me when I walked onto that bridge. You thought that to stop Dan Cargill you would have to die, too.”
“It would’ve been okay,” he said.
“No, it wouldn’t have!” Tears bubbled up at the thought that Shep could’ve gone over or through that shitty bridge, could’ve fallen to the bottom of that gorge. She couldn’t bear to be the reason someone else died. Call it causality or correlation, she didn’t give a shit. She had to take more care, had to do whatever it took to show the people she loved that she would stand by them and keep them safe. “Because I can’t live without you.”
* * *
Shep woke up in his cabin with daylight just starting to seep through the windows and inch across his chest. But the fledgling sunshine was all that was in his bed. The covers where Joss had lain beside him were pulled up to the pillow and smoothed out. Last night, she’d said she loved him, couldn’t live without him.
But something about the neatness of his sheets made his chest hollow out. He listened for the sound of the shower or the opening and closing of kitchen cabinets.
Nothing.
The silence surrounding him wasn’t anticipatory. It was foreboding. And Fiona was no longer propped in the corner of the room.
“Jojo?” he called out, his voice cracking and swinging high. He shoved away the covers and lurched to his feet, not bothering to find any clothes.
Finding Joss was considerably more important than locating his underwear.
“Jojo?”
Maybe she was outside on the porch with her guitar, enjoying the fall morning.
But when he opened the front door, his porch was deserted. The uneasy feeling inside him ramped up another six billion notches, and he patted his hip for his paracord.
Yeah, even if he hadn’t been bare-ass naked, that piece was long gone, used on the trap that hadn’t stopped Cargill.
Joss. Where was Joss?
Stop and think instead of freaking the fuck out.
Maybe she’d decided to go into town. He shifted his gaze to the carport. No, his truck was still sitting where one of Maggie’s deputies had parked it.
Shep ducked back inside and checked the kitchen. There on the countertop, was an Epic Bar with a folded piece of paper propped against it.
No. Notes were not good. Notes from women he cared for were horrible. Life-changing. Life-crushing.
He snatched up the paper and crumpled it in his fist.
She was gone. He knew that now.
She’s Joss Wynter, you shit. Of course, she is gone. Only a dumbass would believe she would stay, would really love him.
You, my friend, are that dumbass.
He had broken his promise to himself. He had opened himself up to try to love like a normal man. But he was not a normal man. Joss had finally figured that out and made her decision based on it.
He couldn’t blame her, no matter how much he might want to.
Where did that leave him? No Joss. Maybe no Puck. Probably no job.
No life.
Shep grabbed the protein bar and yanked open the pantry door. With shaking hands, he dropped the bar in the trash and tossed the crumpled note in after it. Then he swept his arm across the shelf packed with protein bars and they flew everywhere. Some into the trash can, some onto the floor, some onto other shelves mixing his food in a way he normally hated.
He would never eat another one of those motherfucking bars again in his life.
31
Once again, Joss dialed the number she’d pulled from Shep’s phone early this morning before leaving his cabin. She’d debated waking him, but he’d been breathing like a man who needed another thirty-six hours of sleep. When she’d spotted a couple of white vans parked in his driveway, she’d known she needed to lure the tabloids off Shep’s scent.
She didn’t mind if the whole world knew what had happened to her over the past few days. She wanted to sing it to a hundred thousand people, but Shep wouldn’t want that kind of attention. With the promise of an exclusive sit-down with her back in LA, she’d convinced the tabloid reporters to trail her to California.
So she was on a plane back to LA—yes, gripping the armrests, but not drugged—to settle a few things before returning to Steele Ridge. Sans media vultures.
“Answer your phone, Shep!” She glared at the phone as she snapped it into the seat back in front of her.
A businessman in a pinstriped suit glanced back at her over his headrest. “If you stalk him like this all the time, no wonder the poor bastard isn’t picking up your calls.”
The old Joss would’ve shot back a cutting comment. Today, she simply took a breath and tried to give the man a genuine smile. “It’s not what you think.”
“That’s what they all say right before they boil the bunny,” he muttered as he turned forward again.
Okay, no more calls until she was on the ground.
Ten minutes later, Joss found herself reaching for the phone and stopped just short of popping it out again.
He was probably still asleep. She’d catch up with him once she landed.
* * *
Shep showed up at Way’s front door and pounded on it. This was the first time he’d ever been to his brother’s place without Puck at his side waiting eagerly for the piece of beef jerky Way inevitably slipped him.
Rocking from foot to foot, Shep was about to walk straight out of his skin if he didn’t have something to do from now until the time the vet’s office opened this morning.
When Way finally flung open the door, his hair was smushed on one side, his eyes were bleary, and he needed to use his razor in a bad way.
“What the hell are you doing on my doorstep at… What the hell time is it anyway? Is it Puck? Has something happened to Puck?”
“It’s seven forty-two, and I haven’t heard from Dr. Orozco yet today.”
“Damn, I’m sorry about that. But you caught me off guard by coming around this morning. I guess I’m slacking now that I’m out of the Marines.”
“You said we would test out the rifle you just modified.”
“And so you decided the morning after a nut job tried to kill you and your girlfriend would be a good time?”
“Yes. It is a good time. And Joss is not my girlfriend.”
“The way you and she were acting toward each other tells a different story. Why aren’t you in bed wrapped around your favorite rock star?”
“Joss is not in my bed. She is not in my house.” With each word, the confused agitation that had been his companion since he spotted the note in his kitchen grew in intensity until Shep felt as if it had teeth and would chew him up. “She is not in my life!”
“What?” Way passed a hand over his bedhead and stepped back to let Shep inside. “What are you talking about?”
He did not want to discuss this. Not now. Not ever. But he also knew his family. They would chip away at him until they knew the truth. “If I tell you, then you have to tell everyone else. I do not want to say this again.”
“You got it.” His brother arrowed toward the kitchen and went straight for the coffeepot.
Settling at the breakfast bar, Shep said, “Joss and I had sex last night.”
Way paused in making coffee and looked over his shoulder. “Uh, congratulations?”
“It was very good. She had five orgasms.”
“Damn.” Way’s eyebrows rose. “You might have to share some of your tricks with the rest of us mere mortal men.”
“She is highly orgasmic.”
Way snorted a laugh. “Just FYI… Those details might be TMI for most people.” He turned back, dumped grounds in the coffeemaker, and punched the on button. “But you showing up at my front door makes even less sense now.”
“When I woke up this morning, she was gone.”
“Like gone gone? Or maybe just-ran-to-the-store-for-some-breakfast-items gone?”
“She did not go for breakfast. She set out an Epic Bar for me.”
“Fuck,” Way muttered, scowling at the slowly dripping coffee. “I know she’s big shit and all that, but I would’ve sworn she was into you. I can’t believe she split without a word.”
“She did not say anything.”
“No text? No nothing?”
“She left a note.”
Way huffed and shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me that? What did it say?”
“I do not know. I threw it away. Notes are not good. If she had something good to say to me, she would’ve woken me up.”
“I still think you should dig it out of the trash and read it. But as much as I hate to, I tend to agree with you on the note thing.” He jerked the carafe out and dumped what had already brewed into a go-cup. “Gimme a few minutes to get dressed.”
On his way to his bedroom, he scooped up a pile of towels and some other stuff and dumped it all in a paper sack.
“What is all that?” Shep asked him.
“Nothing. Just stuff I planned to take by the v…”
“By where?”
“The… ah… vintage resale place over in Canton.”
“Those look like brand new towels,” Shep said. “And aren’t we headed west anyway?”
“You’re right,” Way said quickly. “Don’t know what I was thinking.”
In Shep’s experience, his brother did very little without forethought. Which meant he didn’t want Shep to know his plans for those towels.
Weird, but not worrisome.
“Don’t go on overload while I’m putting on my pants,” Way said. “We’ll be out of here in five minutes, tops. Nothing like a little target practice to fix you right up.”
Although Shep appreciated his brother’s willingness to serve as a diversion, he had a feeling nothing would fix the hole Joss Wynter had left inside him.
32
Joss had played to stadiums that were so massive she felt like a speck on stage, but she’d never performed with nerves twanging the way they were tonight. And this venue was tiny even compared to the gigs she and the band were settling for before they recorded their first album.
But this was the most important performance of her life. It was the first time she cared only about how two people reacted—one in the audience and the one sitting on this wooden stool. She glanced down at the wicker basket on the small stage. She had so many gifts to give tonight.
Please accept them. Please accept me.
Although Joss had been full of confidence and certainty when she left Steele Ridge a week ago, now doubts were trying to slither their way inside her head. Trying to blast their way inside her heart.
Shep hadn’t answered a single one of her calls, voice mails, or texts. Seven days of them.
She’d convinced herself not to take it personally because she’d learned that he liked to communicate on his own terms. Which meant face-to-face was the only way to get through to him.
And if she could outrun a killer, she could put herself on the line for the man she loved.
Randi Shepherd had been kind enough to rig a small stage curtain for Joss. She’d also been generous enough to close the Triple B to anyone outside the Kingston and Steele families. When Joss had offered to pay her generously for the sacrifice, Randi’s voice had gone quiet and serious over the phone.
She’d said, “Here in Steele Ridge, we do anything for family. And we do it out of love.”
Joss blew out a breath, but her lungs froze when she heard the sound of the door opening and people walking into the restaurant. Her ears strained for Shep’s voice. For his speech patterns.
Definitely some male voices. They were ribbing one another about a paintball game. Apparently, Pretty Boy and Baby Billionaire had paired up and whipped their brothers’ asses. A couple of women were protesting the whole outcome, arguing the win would’ve been theirs if the guys had been brave enough to let them know when the battle was going down. Verbal jabs and laughter continued until the guys agreed to a rematch, where it was predicted the women would dominate.
The door opened again and another group came in, talking over each other.
“If Cash brought another dish that includes bacon of any type, he should be permanently disqualified from the potluck competition.” Joss recognized the voice as Maggie’s.
“Fine by me,” a man shot back. “That just means I get the benefit of eating without having to cook.”
Joss smothered a laugh. Had Maggie actually growled at her brother? My God, she wanted to be a part of that, a family that loved as fiercely as they fought. A family that instinctively knew how not to just accept each person for his or her quirks, but to truly treasure them. Because with them, she could be the real Jojo Winterburn, not the insecure and attention-desperate musician she’d been all her life.
And although she’d paid a visit to her own family and made amends, she knew the Kingston
clan was where she belonged. But they were just a bonus that came with the man she needed.
She wanted to spend her life with Shep, the man who’d helped her see who she was, and that life was about more than applause and empty adoration from strangers. The man who was so real himself that her chest ached with how much she loved him. He was everything she’d never known she was looking for.
“I do not want to be here.” Joss’s heart seesawed at the sound of Shep’s voice. His very grumpy voice. “I told Mom that. I told Dad that. But Way said he would burn all my climbing equipment if I didn’t get my ass down here.”
“West Waylon Kingston!” That had to be their mom.
“I am leaving,” Shep said.
“No, you are not, Harris Sheppard Kingston!” his mom scolded. “Sit down right this minute, all of you.”
Yow. It appeared that Joss needed to get this show on the road if she wanted to avoid a full family meltdown out there. Randi probably wouldn’t appreciate it if Joss’s plan turned into a Steele-Kingston bar fight.
I can do this. If Shep could put his life on the line for me again and again, I can put my heart and my pride on the line for him.
Randi slipped behind the curtain. “You about ready?” she whispered. “The natives are getting a little restless out there.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” But her stomach was so far up her throat that she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to sing a note. “How does Shep look? How does he seem?”
“Honestly?” Randi said. “Disgruntled and pissed off. But I have a feeling you’re going to change that with whatever you have planned.”
“I hope so. It’s so scary to lay yourself on the line like this.”
“These two families have plenty of experience with that. Next time all the girls get together, you’ll hear the stories.”
“I’d like that so much.”
Randi reached for Joss’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. Then she slipped back out and said, “Tonight, we’ve got a super special treat. That’s why we moved the regular Kingston potluck dinner down here to the Triple B.”
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