Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8)

by Christie Ridgway

  Maybe Beck didn’t deserve those connections. How could you have been so damn careless? After that failure, he’d done as ordered and kept his mouth shut. Kept his distance too. Doing his best, after the fact, to protect them from that tragedy by staying separate. Surely Ren should get that.

  He’d been there when it happened.

  You can never speak of this. You can never speak to each other about this.

  Shit. What had he been thinking, coming here today? He should have stayed at the compound and communed with the alligator lizards.

  “Can we move on to another subject?” Beck asked, trying to divert the conversation. “Before you break out in a folk song and want to hold my hand.”

  “Asshole.” But Ren grinned, then drained his water. “So what’s going on with you and Jewel? I saw you run after her when she left the bar the other night.”

  “Why the fuck did I come over here?” Beck asked, addressing the ceiling.

  “You said you were sick of your own company.”

  “Yeah, but have we ever shared our thoughts about women?”

  Ren gave a shrug. “I recall conferring when it came to a tie during those nude model relay races.”

  “What were we? Fourteen and fifteen?”

  “Lucky little bastards,” Ren said on a grin. “I remind myself it wasn’t all bad.” The other man two-pointed his empty bottle into a nearby can marked for recycle. “She’ll be at the wedding. Jewel, I mean. She’s our cover bride. All the arrangements are made in her name.”

  “Fine.” Maybe between now and then there’d be some natural disaster that would necessitate Beck’s taking on an immediate assignment. He was freelance, but hey, it would be the perfect excuse. The woman wouldn’t miss him.

  Jewel wasn’t interested in him.

  I told you that back then, too. There’d been sparks, she’d admitted. More likely fire, because that kiss they’d shared wasn’t anything less than blazing, but she’d walked away then, just like the other night.

  Who could blame her? She was a woman with a kid. He was a short-timer not interested in any kind of domestic scene.

  Likely she’d been involved with the father of her baby when they’d met before. A commitment to someone else didn’t preclude the kind of hot physical attraction that pulsed in the air between them. But she’d stayed loyal to the other man.

  Beck wondered where the idiot rat bastard was now, because every word she’d said and every instinct he had told him there was no man in her life now.

  Wherever that fucker was, he hoped he rued the day he’d left her.

  “Beck?”

  He glanced over, saw that Ren was staring out the window, his gaze directed at the grassy front yard of the house across the street. A couple of small kids ran around it with a soccer ball. Yeah, suburbia writ large.

  “What’s your earliest childhood memory?”

  Uneasiness tip-tapped down Beck’s spine on icy toes. “Why do you ask?”

  “Those photos Gwen left me. They were of us when we were little kids. Playing. Collecting eggs on Easter. Dressed up on Halloween.”

  Skeletons. Little skeletons. That final time they’d trick-or-treated as a group, the boys had worn matching costumes to gather candy. That disaster of a Velvet Lemons bash had been a Day of the Dead party on November 1st. They’d been back in those black, stretchy outfits. The painted-on bones had glowed in the dark.

  “I don’t remember any of it,” Ren said now. “Playing together like that. Doing things with each other on the holidays.”

  Beck stilled. The event that was seared like a brand in his memory wasn’t burned into the other man’s head as well?

  Because he recalled it, as clear as if it happened last night. The boys all cavorting—Cami and Cilla not yet born—high on sugar from their trick-or-treat bags. The toddler that had shown up with someone-or-other. Hop had brought the child to Beck and charged him with keeping an eye on her.

  Then his father had gone back to drinking and toking and fucking. Just another fun night at the Velvet Lemons compound.

  Beck already had some experience with riding herd on his younger brothers. Hop rarely expressed an interest in any of them, and sometimes it was left to the big brother to make sandwiches for dinner. So he hadn’t complained or objected to the new responsibility.

  How much trouble could some little dab of a kid be?

  But she’d gotten into the candy bags and started running around, enjoying her own baby high. To wear her out, he’d chased her around the big entertainment room at the house. Squealing in glee, she’d run in circles and then pushed her way out a door that Hop or another guest had left unlatched. Beck had been a few steps behind, but that little bugger was fast. He’d told her to stop, but she kept on going, going, going, eluding his capture.

  She hadn’t escaped the sports car racing up the drive, though.

  The shriek of brakes and the scream of a woman had drawn people to the scene. Hop. What the fuck, you stupid little shit? How did you let this happen? How could you have been so damn careless?

  Then five-year-old Ren was at his elbow, eyes huge. His cold hand had clutched Beck’s arm as someone loaded up that lifeless little figure into another car and zoomed away, leaving a few women weeping and the men who weren’t too stoned to stand around wearing grim expressions.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d turned up the music and the party was back on.

  Heedless.

  Heartless.

  But Mad Dog and Bean had grabbed hold of Beck and Ren, squatting on their haunches to stare into their sons’ eyes. You can never speak of this. You can never speak to each other about this.

  They never had. Beck had found excuses not to hang out with Ren after that, the Rock Royalty prince who had been his best friend. He’d withdrawn from his little brothers for the most part too.

  It had seemed the best way to put the entire night from his mind.

  The night he suspected that little kid was killed on his watch.

  And the Velvet Lemons had covered it up. Paid off doctors, paid off cops, who knew.

  Those details? Beck didn’t know them. He’d never spoken about it with his father, either.

  “Beck?” Ren was looking at him strangely. “You with me, man?”

  He coughed. “Sure. What did you want to know again?”

  “Your earliest memory as a kid.”

  Good for Ren that he’d blacked that episode out of his mind, Beck thought. For his part, he was going to continue keeping that secret to himself. And when he left the Canyon after the wedding, he’d make sure it stayed buried forever by never coming back.

  “My earliest memory?” he said now. “Big, wet tits.”

  Jewel pushed the stroller with Soul inside and a car seat propped on the canopy along the narrow, sidewalk-less road toward home, a diaper bag strapped across her chest. Her daughter made a babbling sound, part question, part expression of boredom. Jewel paused to take a peek at the sweet little face. “Just a bit longer, baby girl. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Then she blotted her damp forehead with her wrist, pushed back the wisps of hair clinging to her skin, and continued to trudge onward. At the sound of a car approaching from behind, she edged closer to the side of the road.

  When the vehicle slowed, she glanced over. Then swallowed a groan as she recognized the man behind the wheel. More bad luck.

  The passenger window glided open.

  “Can I give you a lift?” Beck asked from behind the wheel.

  “No, no,” she answered in her breeziest tone, pasting on a carefree smile. “I’ve got it.” At that moment, one of the stroller’s wheels hit a pothole, and the car seat tumbled from its perch.

  Beck guided the SUV to the side of the road ahead of her as she bent for the plastic carrier and attempted to re-situate it atop the stroller.

  Maybe if she ignored the man, she thought as he climbed out, then he would go away.

  But when the car seat fell again, he swiped it o
ff the tarmac and turned toward his vehicle.

  “Hey!” she called to his back.

  He turned, one eyebrow raised.

  Damn him for being so good-looking! Sunlight glinted on the lighter strands of his hair and caught on the day or two’s growth of gold whiskers along his jaw. She used to rub the back of her knuckles along that line of bone, loving the velvety texture of his morning beard.

  “Well?” he said now. “You look hot, your expression says you’re exasperated, and I’m offering to get you and your daughter home in three minutes or less.”

  As if on cue, Soul made a noise that any mom would recognize as a baby at the end of her patience.

  “All right,” Jewel grumbled with ill grace. A good mother wouldn’t refuse a ride when her child was uncomfortable, would she?

  It took a few minutes for her to install the car seat and collapse the stroller. It was a hand-me-down from a friend, and one of the metal latches was half-broken. She had to carefully avoid its sharp edges. Maybe it was time to buy one better suited for a toddler.

  With Soul secured in the back and gumming her own set of toy plastic keys, Jewel slipped into the car beside Beck.

  “Thanks,” she said, as he started the engine.

  “No problem. We’re heading in the same direction.” He glanced over. “I’m sensing car trouble?”

  “Yeah.” She blew out a puff of air. “My van finally, officially croaked.”

  “My condolences.”

  She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s not something I didn’t see coming—and I can use Grandma’s sedan whenever I want. I just didn’t expect to be stranded today at the market.”

  “Do I need to take you back—”

  “No. I only stopped for juice, and it’s here.” She patted the diaper bag in her lap. “There’s nothing else in the van. After the vandalism incident, I pulled out the bins and my tools and have stored them in our garage.”

  “I can call a tow company for you. Payne owns those auto salvage yards. He will know—”

  “I already talked to Gavin.”

  “Right,” Beck said, no inflection to his voice. “Gavin.”

  During the trek toward home, dampness had gathered at the roots of Jewel’s hair and the small of her back. She’d felt flushed and disheveled and at a disadvantage she couldn’t afford when she’d climbed into the car beside Beck. But just the way he said her friend’s name—the syllables deliberate and with no color whatsoever—made her sit a little straighter in her seat.

  Was it like this the night we met? he’d asked, without even bothering to specify what he referred to by “this.” There’d been no need to describe or specify the electric attraction between them.

  It made her feel better now—evidenced by that one single word, Gavin—to remember that when the feeling went both ways they were equally…inconvenienced. If the shoe was on the other foot, if she thought he was involved with another woman, sleeping with her, she’d—

  But Beck had been gone for over twenty months. He’d probably slept with a woman or two since leaving her. Several, maybe.

  She knew the depth of his sexual appetites.

  Jewel slumped in her seat and tried putting all thoughts of it away, just as she’d put Beck out of her life—again—as soon as he got her home.

  It wasn’t thirty seconds later that he was pulling into her driveway. She jumped out of the car and made short work of hitching Soul onto her hip and unlatching the car seat.

  He was opening the hatchback of the SUV to get to the stroller as she came around the back.

  “Thanks,” Jewel was already saying as he leaned in, not caring if her tone was all here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry. “We won’t hold you up any longer.”

  He sent her a quizzical look over his shoulder as he yanked out the stroller, then he grunted, grimaced, and dropped the contraption. It clattered to the ground. “Shit.”

  Alarmed, Jewel stepped forward, her gaze going to the blood dripping from a wicked gash on the pad of his hand.

  “Oh, God.” That broken metal latch. “Hold your arm over your head,” she advised grimly.

  “I’m fine.”

  Instead of arguing, with her free hand she gripped the side of his T-shirt and started towing him toward the front door. “I have disinfectant and bandages inside.”

  In the kitchen, she shoved him toward the kitchen table. “Sit down.” Then she put Soul in her high chair, taking a moment to pour some cereal onto the baby’s tray and place a juice-filled sippy cup within reach.

  “Where’s Mrs. Malone?” Beck asked, taking the paper towel she handed him and pressing it to his wound.

  “Grandma?” Jewel moved away to gather the first aid kit from an upper cabinet, then walked it over to him and placed it on the table’s surface. “On an afternoon outing with her best friend, Doris. There’s an exhibit of jewelry given by Nicky Aston to his mistresses at the Silent Movie Museum in Hollywood.”

  “Nicky…?”

  “Aston. He was a very famous and successful actor in the 1920s. He had a habit of bestowing upon his many lovers extravagant, valuable necklaces, bracelets and rings, and they’ve managed to track down many of the very unique pieces.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Nicky was the classic bad boy movie star of his time. A Brad Pitt? Johnny Depp? I went to the exhibit myself for inspiration, and suggested the ladies might enjoy it too. They adore anything Old Hollywood.”

  She withdrew the bottle of disinfectant from the plastic box and swished the liquid inside it around. “I should have asked. Is your tetanus vaccination up-to-date?”

  “I’m in no danger of lock jaw, thank you.”

  Soul began babbling, typically inserting herself into the conversation. Jewel reached over to drag the chair nearer, and the baby turned her head toward the man seated at the table and addressed him with more baby talk.

  But he wasn’t looking at the child. Instead, his gaze was trained on Jewel’s face. “You look tired,” he said.

  Her fingers squeezed the bottle of disinfectant. All those nights she’d lain awake since seeing him again, restless with a mixture of guilt and longing, must be showing. Instead of answering, she gestured to him to remove the paper towel and expose the cut.

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth as she poured the liquid over the injury.

  The sound of pain made her stomach tighten. “I’m sorry about what happened. The stroller is a loaner from a friend, and I should have warned you about that hinge.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Soul chattered again, but he didn’t spare her a glance. It registered that he’d not reacted to or engaged with the child at all since picking them up on the road. Some guys were like that, she supposed, right?

  But that thought disappeared as Beck’s voice turned taut. “If you have no man presently, Jewel,” he said, his narrowed gaze snagging hers, “where the hell is the last one?”

  She froze, the bandage in her hand fluttering to the tabletop. “Huh?”

  “Where’s the baby’s father?” Beck demanded. “He should be helping. You should have better equipment. The best equipment. You shouldn’t be settling for hand-me-downs.”

  Her back stiffened. “I don’t need a man to take care of my daughter. I can do it myself.”

  He glanced at the high chair, that had faded cartoon stickers pressed along the lip of the tray, obviously applied by someone a while back. “Hand-me-downs.”

  Angry heat crawled from beneath her shirt and up her face. Trying to ignore it, she picked up the large elastic bandage she’d dropped, ripped it from its wrapping, and carefully placed it over Beck’s cut, trying to maintain her role as a calm and efficient first aid provider.

  An image instantly dispelled when she started talking, her words and tone defensive. “Look, not that it’s any of your business—”

  It took effort to rein in her temper, but she managed to lower her voice and haul in a deep breath. Then she spoke again. “
Loaning baby gear to a new mom is what people do. It’s a generous gesture—and makes a connection. It’s a way to welcome the little one to the world and another parent into the larger community of parents.”

  He stared at her in silence for a moment, then abruptly pushed up from his chair. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “It’s not okay, and it is none of my business, especially as I know nothing about community and even less about connections.”

  She winced, aware she’d struck a nerve. “Beck—”

  “I gotta go.”

  Swallowing a sigh, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you to the door.” She plucked Soul from her seat and deposited her on the ground, expecting the baby to crawl behind them to the front entrance.

  But on a babble, the child pulled herself up to a stand by clutching the legs of the high chair. Then, still continuing with her one-sided conversation, she half-pivoted and stepped toward Jewel, hands-free. Once. Twice. Three times.

  Gasping, Jewel stared at her. “You’re walking!”

  At the loud exclamation, the baby plopped down to her bottom and clapped her hands.

  Jewel clapped too. “What a smart girl,” she praised. “Try again?” Crouching down, she held out her hands. “Try to walk to Mama?”

  On a shout of glee, Soul placed her palms on the ground and rose to her feet, swaying like a tiny drunken cowboy.

  “Oh, I need pictures,” Jewel said, feeling joyful at the accomplishment and yet just a tiny bit wistful at this sign of her daughter’s growing independence. She blinked back a hot sting of tears.

  “I’ll do it,” Beck volunteered.

  “Really?” She glanced around. “My phone—”

  “I’ve got mine.” He whipped it from his pocket. “I’ll text it to you afterward.”

  For the next few minutes he filmed while Jewel coaxed Soul into showing off her new skill. She walked in a semi-straight line, staggered around in a circle, side-stepped like she wanted to learn some dance moves.

  “You’re really walking,” she marveled, and Soul agreed, clapping so hard she fell to her diapered bottom again.