Next came some more back and forth texts, with Sam asking her if she was sure several times, then turning around and texting, “Okay, but you had better call me later with details. Dude is waaay sexier than I was prepared for. Luckily he’s blind or he would have seen my day-um! face when he walked in all shirtless and yummy looking.”
Josie chuckled. Leave it to Sam to pull a joke out of the situation, even one as intense as this.
As if reading her mind, a new message popped up on her phone. “You think I’m joking, but I’m not.”
Josie sucked on her teeth and typed. “I will call you later, Sam. Now pls go. And thanks.”
Sam must have taken her at her word, because when Josie entered the kitchen, Beau was sitting at the table alone.
“Beau,” she said.
But that was as far as she got before he was out of his seat. He lurched toward her, gripping the nearby island counter, then one of the bar stools, then walked forward without support.
Josie, having never seen him navigate a room blind, watched mesmerized.
But the scene didn’t last long. He snatched the air a few times, found her shoulder, and dragged her into his arms.
She could feel him breathing heavily against the top of her head. “You should have told me,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But I couldn’t.”
He gripped her even tighter. “I’m not him, Josie. I would never hurt you like that. No matter how angry I get, I would never lay a hand on you.”
“I know,” she said. Because despite the times she had been afraid of him, and as angry as she had gotten with him, she knew deep down in her heart Beau wasn’t like Wayne. He’d never hit her, and unlike Wayne, he would never pretend to be her Prince Charming. He was Beau Prescott, amazing lover, ridiculous asshole, and he’d never pretended to be anything else. “I know you’re not him,” she said.
He rocked her in his arms for a few beats. “Any chance of you telling me where your ex-husband lives or are you going to make me have Mac Google him?”
“According to the text I got from Mac this morning, you fired him,” she reminded him. “And he’s not my ex-husband.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, pulling back from her. “Are you still married to that bastard?!”
“No, but not because we’re divorced.” She looked away from him and finally confessed, “I’m a widow.”
Then for the first time in her entire post-college life, she told a man about what had happened between her and Wayne. The angry words that had turned into shoves, which had turned into occasional hits, then amped up to not-so-occasional beatings.
That was bad enough. She couldn’t even look at Beau as she told him her story. But then came the worst part, when Loretta died.
As sad as her mother’s passing had been for Josie, she realized it also meant freedom. She no longer had to live in fear that her mother would go hungry if Josie didn’t do exactly as Wayne said. And she began quietly making plans to leave him.
She’d made sure to clear her browser history after looking into Atlanta shelters, and when Wayne got home every night, she tried to be as perfect as she could for him.
And maybe it had worked for a little while, because Wayne talked down to her but didn’t hit her for months after the funeral.
But apparently he didn’t believe all was as peachy keen as she was putting on, because he kept pressuring her to make an appointment with a fertility specialist. He wanted to make sure she was all right “down there” because they’d been married for several years and still no kids.
Josie made the appointment but ramped up plans to leave before the blood tests revealed what Wayne didn’t know, that she’d been taking birth control. But then two days before the appointment, she came back from the grocery store to find her walk-in closet in total disarray. Clothes strewn about everywhere, every box removed from the shelves above. But the sight that really stopped her heart was her favorite pair of jeans from college lying on the floor—the back pocket of which was where she’d been hiding the birth control pills she snuck into her mouth and dry-swallowed every day.
She’d run then, knowing exactly what would unfold if she stayed in this house even a minute longer. But Wayne, who had been nowhere to be seen when she first entered the house, suddenly appeared at the bottom of the stairs. A steak knife glinting in his hand.
She screamed and turned tail, dashing back up the stairs, but she couldn’t get away fast enough. At the top of the stairs she felt his hand around her ankle and then she got the wind knocked out of her when she fell against the steps.
Before she could fully gather herself up, Wayne turned her over and with nothing but stone cold malice in his gleaming eyes, and plunged the knife into her chest.
Josie thought she was dead, she was sure of it. But here’s the funny thing about trying to stab someone in the heart. Despite it often being depicted as directly under the left breastbone, in most people it resides slightly left of center in the chest. As it was, Wayne took her breath away when his knife ripped through her left lung, but he didn’t, in fact, kill her.
And despite her punctured lung and years of abuse, or perhaps because of it, she saw an opportunity and quickly took it. With a rough grunt of exertion, she lifted her foot, drew it back, and planted it squarely in Wayne’s chest.
She’d always remember the expression on his face after she did this, almost comical. His expression suddenly morphed from one of undisguised, maniacal glee to one of shocked disbelief, his eyes bugging out in the moment after she pushed him backwards when he realized what had just happened. He grabbed out frantically, trying to find something, anything to hang on to. But there was nothing to grab, just air, and eventually he fell backwards, toppling heels-over-head down the stairs, until he landed at the bottom, his neck snapping upon impact.
Wayne died that day and Josie lived, but not without consequences. She’d found out later that despite lording his high-earning status over Josie for years, Wayne had been in debt up to his neck and everything, including the house, had to be sold to pay it off. And that was how she ended up back in Alabama in her grandmother’s old trailer, reeling from the end of what had started out as a fairytale romance.
“I wish you had called me,” Beau said, rubbing her back. “I would have paid for Loretta’s apartment, gotten her anything she needed. She raised me.”
She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “I was so ashamed. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone,” she whispered to him. “I shouldn’t have let him trap me like that. I should’ve been smarter.”
“Ssh, darlin’” he said. “You want know something? I couldn’t be prouder of you right now.”
She shook her head, confused. “Why?”
“Because you saw you were in a bad situation and you tried to fix it. That’s more than a lot of women would have done… men, too. You had me fooled into thinking the old Josie was gone, but you’re still in there. Even though I’m blind right now, I can see that girl clearly in you.”
She clamped her lips together to keep from bursting into a fresh round of tears. She hadn’t realized how much she needed to hear that. That she was still her old self, that Wayne hadn’t taken the best parts of her with him to his grave.
“Thank you,” she said. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips softly to his.
But he stiffened and dropped his arms from around her.
She nearly wheeled back, she was so embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have guessed after that story I just told you, there was no way you’d still be interested in me like that.”
“Josie…”
But Josie couldn’t bear to hear him let her down easily. “I’m just going to go… I don’t know, clean or something.”
She started to leave, but his arm snaked around her waist like a vice.
“Josie,” he said again. Then he grabbed her wrist and placed her hand on his crotch.
Josie’s mouth fell
open. It felt like he had a steel rod hidden underneath his sweatpants.
“I want you,” he informed her. “I feel like an ass right now because I want you so bad, even more than before now that I know Sam’s a girl and I’m the only one.”
“Really?” she said, finding it hard to believe the hard proof under her hand.
His mouth hitched into that half smile of his. “Josie Witherspoon, it would take a lot more than that to make me ever stop wanting you.”
“Then why didn’t you kiss me back?”
“Because I can’t think straight when I’m kissing you, and we need to talk about a few things.” He brought her hand up to his face and laid it against his bearded cheek. “Are you still on birth control?”
She nodded.
“I’m going to need a yes or a no out loud,” he reminded her with a teasing smile.
“Yes,” she said.
“And I’m scrupulous about my condom use. I took an STD test a couple of weeks before my accident. For charity.”
She laughed.
“I’m not kidding. L.A. takes HIV awareness very seriously. Last year a bunch of us Suns took the test for World AIDS Day and tweeted the results. You can look it up on the internet if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“Good, because Josie, I don’t want anything between us anymore. No more secrets.” He kissed her. “No more condoms. Nothing but you and me, darlin’.”
Josie wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow they ended up in one of the kitchen table’s chairs with Beau sitting down and Josie straddling him, bottomless, in nothing but one of her plaid shirts.
No words were exchanged, but they kissed and kissed until her kit kat was aching with desire. She let out a sigh of relief when his thick cock pressed in. Without waiting for a command, she began riding him and soon felt his hands on her buttocks as she bounced up and down on his lap.
“Damn, Josie, so tight, so good,” he said.
She arched her back to press more of her pussy into the front of him. And she moaned when he moved his hands under her arms and began physically lifting her up and slamming her back down on his penis as if she weighed nothing.
“This is just the beginning,” he growled. “The things I’m going to do to you tonight, Josie.”
Unbearable pleasure rippled inside of her vagina, signaling a much larger tidal wave on the horizon. “Oh, God, oh, God,” she said. “Mr. Prescott…”
But then he suddenly stopped again and his hands slid down to still her bucking hips. “Call me Beau,” he said.
“What?” she panted.
“From now on I want you to call me Beau. Not Mr. Prescott, not Beau Prescott. I want you to call me Beau.”
“But you said—”
“I don’t care what I said before. Call me Beau.” Technically, he was issuing her yet another command, but there was a plaintive note in his voice. Like he was begging her to call him by his given name.
As if to confirm her assessment, he began moving her on top of him again, his pumping action wild and frenzied. “Call me, Beau, darlin’,” he said, his voice sandpapered with raw desired. “Call me Beau.”
“Beau,” she cried out as a volcano of pleasure began to erupt inside of her. “Beau!”
She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and keened, “Oh, God, Beau!”
The orgasm ripped through, hot and pulsing like electric magma, turning her body into a pool of quivering jelly.
But Beau wouldn’t stop his assault on her senses. He kept bringing her hips down on his with relentless force until he came, too, with a gruff bark of triumph.
“Josie,” he said, with a happy sigh. “Josie.”
They held each other. Josie straddled across his lap, Beau’s arms wrapped around her like a cocoon, just the two of them, in pure bliss, their baggage dropped, their individual problems on hold. The world stopped spinning and put itself on pause, just for them. And for a moment everything was perfect and pure.
“Josie,” he said, sounding happier than she’d ever heard him. “Josie, I—”
The sound of the doorbell popped their perfect little bubble.
And Beau’s face fell. “Don’t answer it,” he said, drawing her closer and kissing her neck.
“I have to answer it,” she said. “It’s probably Sam. She’s forever leaving her purse behind.”
She scrambled off his lap and pulled on her jeans, hoping to God she didn’t smell too obviously of the mind-blowing sex she’d just had.
“I’ll be right back,” she said as she left the room.
“What happened to ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott’?” he called after her.
“I thought you wanted me to call you Beau now!” she called back, letting the kitchen door swing shut behind her.
She was still giggling when she opened the door…
…and found Colin Fairgood, standing on the doorstep.
CHAPTER 18
COLIN FAIRGOOD WAS STILL TALL, but he was no longer skinny. Long, lean muscle had thickened out his entire body and even his face, which used to be somewhat gaunt, was now more sculpted and defined. It all made for one very arresting picture, especially when you threw in the blue eyes glittering with determination under his white Stetson.
But still she said, “Colin?” just to make sure this perfect specimen was the same guy she used to walk to the comic book store with every Wednesday.
But then he said, “Holy shit, Jo-Jo, it really is you!” before letting loose that same big, old Colin grin and pulling her into his now very strong arms. “I had nearly given up on trying to find you. I can’t believe you were here all this time!”
She pulled away from him. “You were trying to find me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I Googled your name last month and found a news story about what that fucker you call an ex-husband tried to do to you. I flew straight out to Atlanta to find you, but by that time it was too late. You’d already moved and nobody could tell me where you went.”
“Are you serious?” She really couldn’t imagine a blond country star at Colin’s level wandering around her old suburb, asking her mostly black neighbors if they knew where she’d gone.
“Dead serious,” he answered. “And you wouldn’t have believed my face when I called my mama up this morning and she mentioned Mindy had seen you in the grocery store, and that you were working for Beau Prescott now. I didn’t think it could be true.”
She cringed inwardly. If he was this incredulous about her being Beau’s maid, how would he react if he found out what else she was getting paid to do for Beau? “Well, I’m really happy to see you,” she said. “I can’t believe you came all this way.”
His eyes ran over her. “Are you okay?” he asked, cupping his hands around her shoulders.
“I’m fine,” she said. “And I’m sorry I got you worried.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” he said angrily. “I’m so mad at myself for letting you fall out of touch like that. And over a stupid wedding invitation. Played right into that fucker’s hands. And now you’re working for Beau, which means you must be really hard up for money.”
“It’s really not that bad,” she started.
But he shook his head. “Don’t try to sugar coat it for me, Jo-Jo. I know you’d rather crawl over broken glass than work for Beau Prescott. Why didn’t you call me? If it was money you needed, I would have bailed you out.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he smacked himself on the forehead. “What am I saying? Of course you couldn’t call me. You didn’t have my number.” He took her by the hand. “But that’s okay, I’m here now, and I’ve got my limo outside. Let’s go.”
He started to lead her out the door, but she dug her heels into the ground. “Colin, I can’t just leave.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head at him. “Because I work here.”
“Tell Beau to find another housekeeper.”
“I can’t just—” She stoppe
d and lowered her voice. “I’m not supposed to be telling anybody this, because I signed a confidentiality agreement, but Beau’s blind and he’s not taking his rehabilitation seriously. So he doesn’t just need me to cook and clean, he need needs me.”
Colin squinted at her as if she had gone crazy. “This is Beau we’re talking about, right? Beau Prescott? Made both of our lives miserable in high school? The one you swore you’d never talk to again after he announced in front of the whole school that he’d tricked you into getting with him—”
She held up her hand to stop the barrage of unkind Beau Prescott statistics. “I know, Col, but he’s still a human being, a blind human being now.”
Colin scanned the foyer, his eyes suspicious. “So he has you at his beck and call every day. Doesn’t even give you any time off?”
“I get time off,” she said, wondering how she had suddenly been put in the weird position of defending Beau Prescott against her oldest friend.
“When?” he asked, obviously not believing her.
“I get Friday and Saturday nights off,” she said, realizing only now how stingy that must sound to someone who didn’t know about the real deal she and Beau had struck.
Colin’s mouth twisted into a sardonic frown. “You’re right, Jo-Jo. The man’s a real saint. He gives you two whole nights off a week.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small business card, handing it to her. “How about meeting me after you get off tonight then. I’m staying at the Birmingham Grand. We could grab a drink and a bite to eat at their bar.”
She glanced down at the heavily embossed card from Birmingham’s most expensive hotel. “The Grand, really? Wow.” She grinned up at him. “You and your fiddle have come a long way.”
He grinned back. “Whoever thought I’d get this far, right?”
Now her smile turned softer. “I did. I always knew you had it in you to do amazing things.”
But what was meant as a hearty congratulations on her part became something much more dramatic when he took her hand and clasped it like a prayer in between his. “Then let me help you,” he said. “I know you’ve had a tough time of it since we last saw each other, but you’re better than working for Beau Prescott.”
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