Slow Burn

by Alexis Adaire

  Ty Jackson is not a quitter.

  I need to talk to Jess again, to force her to tell me in clear terms what she’s worried about. I can’t overcome her objections if I don’t know what they are.

  As for her text telling me not to contact her again? Fuck that.

  I’m going to fight for my woman, even if my opponent is her crazy side.

  I pull up my lines and crank the outboard motor, then fly over the surface of the lake toward the dock.

  An hour later, I drop Beau off at home, then continue to Jess’s place to find out once and for all what the fuck is going on.

  Chapter 21

  Jess

  I am SO FUCKING STUPID.

  In the last few hours, I’ve sent eight texts to Ty and left four voicemail messages for him. He hasn’t responded to any of them. The last time I heard from him was last night, after I left him hanging at the restaurant.

  Now I’m looking at the distinct possibility that he won’t respond. Ever.

  I may have chased off the only man I’ve ever wanted to marry. The man who would make a perfect husband and a great father.

  SO.

  FUCKING.

  STUPID.

  I sit on my couch, twitching like a crackhead. It’s all I can do not to pick up the phone and try yet again.

  If I lose Ty because of such an idiotic mistake, I would never forgive myself.

  Looking out my living room windows, I see the fading light of a summer Sunday. I could wait until tomorrow to give Ty a chance to calm down enough to call me. It occurs to me that if he hasn’t responded yet, he might not be willing to ever forgive me for being such an asshole to him last night.

  I have to go to him. Talk to him in person, face-to-face.

  That’s the only way I can make sure he knows what happened and how horrible I feel about the whole mix-up.

  I grab my purse and keys, then I realize I haven’t showered, I’m not wearing makeup, and I’m dressed like a slob, in black yoga pants and a gray Modest Mouse T-shirt with no bra. I briefly wrestle with the idea of cleaning up before dashing off to try to salvage my relationship, but the last thing I want to do it lose my boyfriend forever. Cleanliness can wait; Ty has seen me looking worse after a night of nasty sex.

  “Good girl!” Bianca calls as I rush out the door. I sure hope Ty thinks of me that way after I explain. Assuming he gives me a chance to explain at all, that is.

  It’s dark out when I get to his place. There’s no truck in the drive, but I knock anyway and get no answer. I return to my car, my stomach churning with anxiety. I figure I have nothing to lose by trying to reach him by phone one more time, so I dial the number.

  As I’m sitting there, waiting to see if Ty answers, I hear the sound of a phone ringing nearby, and recognized the White Stripes song he uses for my ringtone.

  What the fuck?

  I walk toward the sound until I see his cell phone lying in the grass. The screen is totally cracked and unreadable, but it’s his phone.

  Now I wonder if he’s okay. He’s not home, or… or… maybe he’s home and his truck is in the garage. I hadn’t considered that. Regardless, I feel a sudden need to get into his house, to see if he’s there. I don’t want to turn around and drive back home because I need to see Ty tonight.

  Then I remember the glass sliding door between his living room and the patio. He always leaves it unlocked because Beau is his security guard. I open the side gate and slip into the back yard, setting off his motion detector light. Beau barks loudly, but his tail starts wagging the moment he sees me walk up to the patio. I check the door, and sure enough, it slides right open.

  The house is dark when I step inside. Beau jumps on me, happy to see me, as always.

  “Ty?” I call out. No answer.

  I look around the living room and the kitchen counter, but don’t see his keys. Evidently, he’s not really not home. I check his bedroom to make sure he’s not passed out drunk or something. After what I did to him last night, he’d have every reason to get shitfaced.

  He’s not in the bedroom, either. I flick the light switch and look longingly at the bed we’ve been sharing, hoping against hope this isn’t the last time I’ll ever see it. Then I notice the little black ring box on his night stand.

  My ring!

  Or the ring. I can’t call it mine, since I refused it last night.

  I have to see it again, though.

  I open the box and remove the ring. It’s heartbreakingly exquisite, the most beautiful engagement ring I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t have made a more perfect choice if I’d picked it myself.

  Try it on, Jess.

  Of course I’d get that impulse. What woman wouldn’t?

  Every bit of common sense in my brain tells me not to.

  I start to put it back in the box.

  But I can’t do it.

  Chapter 22

  Ty

  Where the fuck is Jess? I’m at her house, but when I ring the bell, the only sound I hear from inside is Mindy barking. The car’s not here, either.

  Jesus, what a nightmare. I just want to ask her to tell me what the hell is preventing her from accepting my proposal.

  But to do that, I’ll need to find her first.

  I ring the bell again, then knock loudly. Still nothing.

  I sit in my truck for a few minutes, but I soon realize it’s pointless to wait for her if I don’t even know when she’s coming back. It could be hours from now.

  Finally, I decide my best bet is to go home. I may not have a working cell phone any more, but I can use my land line to call Jess.

  When I arrive at my house, I’m surprised to see her car in my drive. She’s not sitting in it, though, and the front door of the house is still locked. I guess that maybe she’s in the back yard, possibly waiting on the patio, so I go around the side of the house and through the gate, but no one’s back there.

  This is fucking weird. Where could she be?

  Then I notice the sliding door is open, but Beau’s not out here. The only explanation is that Jess is inside, and Beau’s with her. I quietly enter the house and immediately hear a strange noise coming from down the hall. Creeping softly on the carpet, I make my way toward the bedroom, where the light is on.

  As I approach the door and the sound gets louder, I realize it’s crying.

  Jess crying.

  Sobbing, to be precise. Huge, anguished sobs.

  I peek around the corner and see her sitting on the edge of the bed, tears streaking her face. She’s looking down, at her hands. The index finger of her right hand is tracing the contours of the engagement ring I tried to give her, which is on the ring finger of her left.

  She’s dressed for shit, her hair isn’t brushed, she has no makeup on, and is a teary, snotty mess.

  And despite all that, she’s utterly beautiful.

  Beau runs to greet me when he sees me, and Jess jerks her head up in shock.

  We stare at each other for a second or two, then she runs to me and wraps her arms around me, holding me tightly to her.

  I hug her back just as hard, and that’s how we stay for at least five minutes. Hell, it might even be ten. Neither of us says a word, though Jess continues to cry her eyes out, her head buried against my shoulder. My shirt soon grows wet from her tears.

  Finally, she pulls back and looks me in the eyes, her face a total mess.

  “I’m so sorry,” she blurts out, then immediately resumes crying on my shoulder.

  I’ll let her get some more of it out of her system, but I’m going to need some answers soon, like in the next few minutes.

  When she stops to look up at me again, I put my hands on her shoulders.

  “Jess, it’s time you tell me what’s going on.”

  She tries to wipe her face dry, and I hand her a tissue from my nightstand so she won’t have to use her shirt. Eventually she almost gets her crying under control and gives me the most apologetic look imaginable.

  “I’m sorry,” she say
s, choking back tears. “I was given some bad information about you.”

  “What the hell?”

  “It wasn’t true, but I thought it was, even though part of me knew it couldn’t be.”

  This is not going well so far.

  “What kind of ‘bad information’?”

  She looks like she wants to crawl under the bed.

  “That you were in prison.”

  My eyes grow big.

  “Really? Prison? For what crime?”

  Jess sighs and looks away.

  “Murder,” she says timidly.

  “Murder?!”

  “But it was supposedly in self-defense!” she says.

  I’m not a happy camper right now. Someone has told my girlfriend—the love of my life, mind you—that I went to prison for killing somebody. I don’t know if I’m more pissed at the rumor-spreader or disappointed in Jess for believing that about me.

  I turn away from her, running my hands through my hair.

  “Ty, I’m really, really sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “How could you think that I’m capable of doing something like that?”

  “I told my brother about us, and I was so happy when I told him, but when he heard your name, he told me that Tyler Jackson had killed someone over a girl, was convicted despite the self-defense, and had gone to prison.”

  “Your brother? I don’t even know your brother.”

  “I know that now. This afternoon I talked to someone who knew about the murder and they explained it was someone named Taylor Johnson. My brother just got the names confused.”

  “But you believed him.”

  Her tears start to return. “I didn’t want to. Then I remembered you telling me you’d done stupid things in your past, and how you’d repaid your debt to society, and the two pieces fit perfectly. I didn’t know what to believe.”

  This is all starting to make sense now.

  “Jess, I had some IRS problems. I got audited and had to pay a pretty big fine and some back taxes. I thought I could get away with not reporting some cash money I earned working construction. That’s all. No murder, no felony, no jail time.”

  She sniffles, grabbing another tissue.

  “When did you hear this shit?” I ask.

  “The day before we left for the road trip.”

  “Well, that explains your schitzo behavior the first couple of days.”

  “I was so confused. I didn’t know whether to run to you or away from you. Then I just decided it didn’t even matter. I convinced myself that you had no other choice than to kill this guy.”

  “And last night? At the restaurant?”

  “I couldn’t say yes, regardless of how much I love you, because I still thought you were hiding this big hideous secret from me. Then it all got to be too much and I had to get out of there.”

  She lifts her hand up and adjusts the ring. It looks like it belongs on that hand, like it was made all those decades ago knowing that it would one day adorn Jess’s finger.

  “I was such an idiot. Will you ever forgive me?” she asks. I can hear in her tone that she’s deathly afraid I’ll say that I won’t be able to.

  I have to admit, it’s totally understandable. If a woman hears from someone she trusts that her new boyfriend is a murderer, she’s going to freak out. Jess was scared to ask me and kept waiting for me to confess to her. Only she didn’t realize there was nothing to confess.

  “Of course I forgive you,” I say. “I was miserable when I thought I had lost you.”

  “I was, too!” she says. “When I found out it was a mistake, I kept calling and texting you all afternoon.”

  “Well, I did murder my phone when I got your text about not contacting you again.”

  Jess lowers her head and I think she’s about to start crying again, then I realize she’s looking at the ring on her finger.

  “Ty…?”

  “What, baby?” I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me again.

  She looks up, a trace of sparkle in her puffy red eyes.

  “Are we good now? We’re still a couple?”

  “It would appear that we are. Not even rumors of murder could separate us.”

  She lifts her left hand in between us, the ring right in front of me.

  “Does that mean I can keep this?”

  Now she’s smiling like the Jess I remember, the one I love so damn much.

  I put on my serious face and look her right in the eye.

  “No, you can’t.”

  Chapter 23

  Jess

  “What?”

  I don’t believe my ears. Now that I explained to Ty why I had been suspicious of him, and that it was all a case of mistaken identity, I asked him if I could keep my engagement ring, the one he’d offered me less than twenty-four hours ago. Only his answer is going to break my heart all over again.

  “No, you can’t keep it. I’m sorry.”

  I don’t understand, and my stomach resumes doing flip-flops, like it has been almost continuously since I ran into Bobby Moncrief’s girl in the grocery store.

  “But I…” I can’t form the words.

  “I proposed to you last night, Jess. And you refused to answer.”

  “That’s because I thought—“

  “It doesn’t matter why. I put myself out there and you shot me down. I’m not going to go through that again.”

  Why is he doing this?

  “Ask again,” I tell him. “I’ll say yes this time, I promise.”

  Wait a second. Is that a smirk I see? His lips aren’t smirking, but I could swear his eyes are.

  “No, it’s your turn.”

  My poor brain is so confused by everything that’s happened today, I have no idea what Ty is trying to say.

  “My turn to what?”

  “To propose.”

  He can see my obvious bewilderment.

  “I’ve already proposed once. This time you have to propose to me.”

  I get it now. I just don’t believe it.

  “You’re serious?” I ask.

  “Dead serious.”

  I break into a smile.

  “I’ll totally do this,” I say, removing the ring from my finger. “You’d better say yes, though.”

  “No promises. Let’s hear your proposal.”

  I stare into those intense eyes. God, I love this man.

  Dropping to one knee, I hold the ring in front of me, then take a deep breath.

  “Tyler Jackson, I want to give you a lifetime of love and adventure and great sex and children and grandchildren. I’ll be your best friend and your trusted companion, and I’ll even agree to do slightly more than fifty percent of the cooking and cleaning and laundry.”

  I pause, then sum it up.

  “I promise to love you with all my heart for as long as my heart continues to beat. Will you marry me?”

  Ty looks smitten. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what I’m reading in his eyes.

  But he’s not answering. He’s just standing there, staring at me.

  “Well?”

  “Let’s hear more about this lifetime of great sex.”

  I laugh and punch his thigh, but he just looks down and raises an expectant eyebrow.

  “Okay. I’ll give you a lifetime of blowjobs. Daily blowjobs. Even more often than that, if you can handle it. I will fuck you enthusiastically with all my heart and all my body. And when I say all my body, I mean all of it. I’ll happily give myself up for you to have me whenever you want, wherever you want, in whatever way you want, no matter how twisted.”

  A smile spreads across Ty’s face.

  “Stand up,” he says. “Give me that ring.”

  I remove the ring, then get to my feet and hand it to him.

  He looks me in the eye and says, “I accept your proposal of marriage, Jessica Henson. I agree to be your husband, forever and a day.” Ty takes my left hand and slides the ring back onto my finger.

  Then he gets serious. “I l
ove you, Jess.”

  He kisses me, hard. It’s everything a kiss is supposed to be. Hot, passionate, yet tender and heartfelt at the same time. Our kisses are amazing and I’m certain I could exist on nothing but those kisses.

  I pull away, framing his face in my hands.

  “I love you, too, Ty.”

  “Then please, promise you’ll never get all crazy on me again.”

  “I promise!” I say, throwing my arms around him and hugging him as tightly as I can.

  When I do, I feel a hard bulge against me.

  “Wait a minute,” I say, taking a step back. I put a hand on his jeans, and sure enough, there’s a very hard cock in there. “Did you get a hard-on while I was proposing to you?”

  Ty grins. “Well, you were down there on your knees, talking about daily blowjobs and twisted sex. And then that kiss. Damn, who needs sex when we have kisses like that?”

  I’m all smiles. I’ve gone from as distraught as I’ve ever been, to as elated as I’ve ever been, in a matter of moments.

  I’m getting married!

  To the handsomest, sexiest, most incredible man on the planet.

  “Now there’s only one thing left to do,” Ty says.

  “And what’s that?”

  “We have to baptize our future marriage, to purify it.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “Come with me.” He bends and picks me up in his arms and starts walking. I’m carried like that down his hallway, into the living room. It’s thrilling to be held like this, by a man like Ty. Beau is following, barking as I’m carried through the screen door.

  “Put me down, Ty.”

  “I will,” he says. We arrive at the swimming pool, the pale blue water underneath me.

  “This is for not trusting me enough to ask me about my past,” he says. Then he tosses me unceremoniously into the middle of the pool. I come up cursing and splashing water in his direction. He’s already taken his shirt off, and I watch as he lowers his pants, his rock-hard cock—my rock-hard cock—splitting the warm night air like a sword.

  He jumps into the water right next to me, drenching my face all over again.

  When he surfaces, he says, “We should get those wet clothes off you.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”