by J. D. Mason
Eventually she stopped in front of a row of electric razors. Farrah just stopped and stared at them and then raised her hand and raked her fingers through her hair. Her whole life had fallen apart. Standing here now, all of a sudden it dawned on her that it had fallen apart years ago, only Farrah was too stupid, too caught up in Mateo and every lie being with him represented. Farrah felt hollow inside and shadows of paper-thin memories hardly filled the space anymore because they were never real, never tangible. She was never real.
For reasons even she didn’t understand she needed one of those razors, so desperately that it unnerved her. Farrah looked at the price. The cheapest one would cost her everything, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the store without it. It was the most important thing in the whole store. Without thinking, she looked up and down the aisles, and then started to stuff the package into her purse when someone grabbed hold of her wrist and stopped her. Her heart pounded. Farrah squeezed her eyes shut, her lips fluttered with words that never passed them. She’d been caught. Stealing.
She looked up and saw that it was Jackson. Humiliation washed over her, threatening to crumple her to the floor. He never said a word. Jackson took the package from her and the basket she was carrying and then he took hold of her hand and led her through the store, stopping periodically in front of things that he thought she might need.
Farrah couldn’t speak. All she could do was nod or shake her head. She couldn’t pay for these things. Did he know? Of course he knew. He even stopped in front of a display of women’s jeans and told her to find her size. Farrah picked out a T-shirt, underwear, and a pair of sneakers. She couldn’t look at him as they stood in the checkout line. Jackson paid for everything, and Farrah choked back tears.
As they left the store, he pointed to his truck. “I’m over here,” he told her. “Follow me.”
Farrah was like a puppet. She walked over to her car, climbed in, and followed him as he pulled out of the lot. Jackson pulled up to beautiful bungalow with a huge wraparound porch and waited for her to follow him. He carried her bags inside and led Farrah through such a lovely home, then out the back door and down a path leading to a small carriage house inside the fenced yard.
Jackson handed Farrah her bags, then pulled a key off his key ring and used it to open the door.
“It’s small, but I think you’ve got everything you need.”
He gave her a tour. “Kitchen.”
It was tiny, but there was a microwave, small refrigerator, and a two-burner stove.
“Bathroom’s in here,” he said, opening a door and turning on the light. “Towels are in the closet.”
He walked past her and pulled on a handle on the wall. “It’s a Murphy bed,” he explained, pulling it out. “My pops says it’s pretty comfortable.”
He came over to her, took the bags, set them down on the small table in the kitchen, then held out the key to her. “Stay as long as you need to, Farrah.”
Farrah still had on her shades, but they didn’t stop the tears from falling. His kindness was everything. Did he understand the magnitude of what he’d done? Farrah was too overwhelmed to even talk.
Jackson brushed past her, left, and closed the door behind him. Now … she could fall apart.
* * *
When she was eighteen, Farrah thought that she knew everything and that Blink, Texas, was too small for the kind of life she wanted to live. She drove until that used car of hers broke down in Tucson. She had six hundred dollars to her name, enough to rent a small room, but not enough to get her car fixed. So, Farrah got a job working as a waitress at a restaurant and that’s where he found her.
“I loved you the first moment I saw you, belleza,” he’d told her time and time again, a reminder that he’d staked his claim long before she’d even realized it. He was older than she was by a decade, drove a nice car. She’d never seen him wearing a pair of jeans or sneakers. Mateo dressed like a businessman, in slacks, leather shoes, and button-downs. Young Farrah had been so flattered by her handsome Mexican lover that she didn’t even realize that she was handing herself over to him little by little, until he owned all of her.
Farrah peeled out of that dress she’d worn for the last three days and placed it in a plastic garbage bag. She stuffed her shoes and panties into the bag too. She cleaned the sink, and then she stepped into the shower and let the water run as hot as she could stand it.
She relished the feel of the water running over her and down her face. She scrubbed herself, literally from head to toe, so hard that she felt raw. She was filthy from sleeping in a car, from driving for days, from living with Mateo, fucking him, selling herself to him, losing herself to him, and from having nothing left of herself to salvage. Jackson Burris had no idea what he’d done for her. He’d saved her. Farrah broke down just thinking about his kindness and how he’d never asked her what was going on or why she was stealing a thirty-dollar razor.
She remembered him from when he was a little boy, gawking at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, blushing when she said his name. She used to babysit that boy. The thought was sobering. Had she really been gone that long?
Farrah stayed in the shower until the water ran cold and when she finally got out, she wrapped herself and her hair in towels, crawled onto the bed, closed her eyes, and fell into a deep, deep, death-like sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
It didn’t take a genius to see that everything was all wrong with Farrah Hart. Jackson knew that something was up the first day he saw her at the house, but when he saw her shoplifting in the store that day, well, he knew that he needed to step in before she messed up. He didn’t know what to make of her, though. On the one hand, she looked like everything expensive, but on the other, she was desperate and acting as if she had no idea of what to do or where to go. The more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that Farrah had planned on staying in that house. She’d probably spent a night or two there before he showed up. He felt bad about making her leave, but the place really was uninhabitable, with no electricity or running water, and it was infested with mice and roaches.
He hadn’t seen her in two days since he’d run across her in the store, but he’d seen the lights going on and off in the carriage house, which satisfied him that she was still among the living. Jackson figured she needed time to sort out whatever was going on with her, but now he needed to go check on her to make sure she really was all right. He loaded up a container with some of the beef stew he’d made a few days ago. Jackson was no gourmet cook, but even he had to admit that his stew was everything. He rapped lightly on the door.
“Farrah?” he asked, lowering his head, and waited for her to answer. He knocked again when she didn’t. “Farrah. It’s Jackson. Thought you might want something to eat.”
All of a sudden he started to get a bad feeling. “Farrah? You good?”
He took a deep breath and tried not to think the worst but it was kind of hard not to, considering how she was acting. Jackson turned the knob on the door, but of course it was locked. Jackson regretted giving her a key too. He had another one in the house, though, and decided to go back and get it but just as he started to walk away, the door opened. Farrah peeked at him through the narrow opening.
That bad feeling of his crept up his spine like a snake. “Thought you might need to eat,” he said, holding out the container to her.
Farrah just looked at it, and then finally, she raised those light brown eyes of hers to connect with Jackson’s.
“Can you help me?” she asked, softly.
He wanted to help her, but the longer he stood there, Jackson started to wonder if he was the person who could give her the kind of help she obviously needed. “Maybe I should call somebody,” he said, more to himself than to her.
She shook her head, pulled the door open wider, and reached out to him. “Please?”
Farrah answered the door wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of panties. It wasn’t polite to stare, but he r
eally couldn’t help himself. Farrah’s nipples pressed against the white cotton shirt that hugged every part of her. Her panties rested low on her hips.
Jackson nervously cleared his throat. “Maybe I should get you a doctor, Farrah,” he managed to say. She needed the kind of help he couldn’t give her.
Farrah reached for his arm and gently coaxed him inside. “Please, Jackson.” Her eyes flooded with tears again. Jackson followed her like he was powerless to do anything else, as she led him into the bathroom, and handed him the razor he’d bought for her the other day. “I can’t do it on my own,” she whispered, and positioned herself between Jackson and the mirror.
The bathroom was tiny.
“What are you asking me to do?”
Farrah let loose the hair she had pinned back on her head. Jackson watched it fall past her shoulders and cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to cut it?”
Farrah slowly nodded.
Oh, hell! She was crazy. Farrah Hart had lost her damn mind. What else could make a woman want to do some mess like that and to trust a man she hardly even knows with a razor?
He put the razor down on the small counter. “Nah, Farrah.” He shook his head and backed away. “You need to talk to somebody. I can make a few phone calls and—”
She picked up the razor and shoved it back at him. “I need you to do this for me. I can’t.” She started crying harder.
“Why?” he asked, dumbfounded. So what if he did cut it off? And then what if she woke up tomorrow pissed that he’d cut off all her damn hair? Nah. This didn’t make sense.
“Jackson, please,” she begged, following him into the living room. “I need to do this.”
“What the hell for?”
“I just need to do this and I need your help.”
“The stew’s pretty good, Farrah. You need to eat.”
Jackson was a step away from the front door.
“He would never let me cut my hair,” she cried out.
He stopped. He? He who?
She stood in the middle of the room, trembling. “He would never let me pick out my own clothes. He never let me go anyplace without him.” Farrah slowly stopped crying, but the sadness weighing down that woman was dark. “I wanted to leave so many times.” She shrugged. “But he knew and he just made it harder.”
Jackson stood there like a big rock, processing in his mind what she was telling him. “He hit you, Farrah?”
Farrah stared at him, but she never answered because she knew that she didn’t have to.
“Why do you want to cut your hair?”
“Because it’s brown,” she said cocking her head to one side. “Mateo wanted it blond, and I hate being blond.”
Mateo was obviously a motherfucker. All Jackson had to do was to look at this woman and listen to how she said his name to know that. Cutting off all that pretty hair still didn’t make sense to him. Jackson knew plenty of women who paid good money to have hair like that, but Farrah seemed convinced that it needed to be done.
She held out the razor to him again. “I promise.” She swallowed. “I won’t ask you for anything else. You’ve done more than enough already.”
So, he took the razor, followed her back into the bathroom, and begrudgingly ran it along one side of her head and watched Farrah’s beautiful, golden locks fall to the floor while she stood in front of the mirror and watched. Ten minutes later, a thin layer of brown hair was all that was left of Farrah’s long hair. Jackson stared as mesmerized at her reflection as she did. Without having all that hair to hide behind, Farrah’s features looked more exaggerated and beautiful.
She slowly turned to him. Her body brushed up against his as she blinked up at him with those eyes of hers and whispered, “Thank you.” She reached for his hand, raised it to her face, and pressed it flat against her cheek. Farrah let her eyes close slowly. “Thank you so much.” She kissed his palm.
Farrah rose up onto the tips of her toes, pressed both hands against his chest, and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you, Jackson,” she murmured again, kissing him again, this time closer to his mouth.
Jackson couldn’t move. Never in a million years did he ever think he’d be this close to this woman in a moment this intimate. Farrah kissed him on his lips and moaned. She pressed herself against him and slowly let her hands travel down the front of him to his waist.
“Thank you,” she whispered over and over again, lowering his hand to her waist.
Without realizing it, Jackson parted his lips and slipped his tongue in between hers. Farrah welcomed it, and started to unbuckle his belt. She was so beautiful and he wanted her. And now he could have her. He cupped that beautiful ass of hers, and squeezed, pulling her into him. Damn! The flavor of this woman was everything! Jackson’s dick thickened in anticipation of what was about to happen. Farrah fumbled with his zipper until she’d slid it all the way down and pressed her hand against his crotch, wrapping her fingers around his cock until … This was going to happen. Shit, he couldn’t believe it. Jackson’s dick thumped like a drum against her. Jackson wrapped his arms around her small waist and lifted her off the ground, carried her out of the bathroom, over to the bed, and laid her down on her back.
Farrah moaned, raised her thighs, and let them fall open, inviting him in. Jackson fumbled with his belt buckle, kissed her like his life depended on it, and then he heard her. She was crying. He pushed up off of her and stared stunned at her and this whole scene. Nah. It wasn’t right. This beautiful woman was laid out in front of him like a meal, but Jackson knew that this wasn’t right. He started to back away, but she grabbed a handful of his shirt.
“Farrah.” He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled it away.
What the fuck was he doing? But, no. Yes. He wanted her. Hell yeah, he wanted her, but not like this.
She looked as dumbfounded as he felt.
“You don’t want this,” he said, shaking his head, and hating every word coming out of his dumb-ass mouth.
Farrah looked so vulnerable, like she was about to break and shatter into a million pieces. “I don’t have anything,” she said, choking back more tears. “Jackson. I need to…”
“No.” He slipped past her out of the bedroom before he lost what little willpower he had left. That raging hard-on of his was not helping. “No, you don’t. Not right now.”
Meaning that once she got her head straight, if she still wanted it, then it was on. But he couldn’t do this to her now. Farrah wasn’t in her right mind. This Mateo cat had fucked her up and she needed to deal with that. At least, that’s what common sense and reason were screaming in his brain. The rest of him was calling him all kinds of stupid motherfuckers.
Farrah seemed to realize what she’d just done, and wrapped her arms around herself to try and cover up all that fineness. Farrah covered her face with her hands, tucked her knees to her chest, rolled over to one side, and cried quietly. Jackson took that as his cue to leave.
CHAPTER FIVE
Once again, Farrah had made a fool of herself. But wasn’t that the one thing that she did best? Jackson was just … there, and the way he’d touched her, and all the things he’d done for her … Farrah wanted him to know—she needed him to—that she was grateful. That he’d saved her.
* * *
“Nathanial,” she said over the phone when her brother answered. Farrah still had his number from the last time they spoke before their mother passed away.
Don’t hang up!
“Farrah?” he asked.
Nate was older; Farrah’s big brother. It was so good to hear his voice.
“Yeah,” she said, closing her eyes and trying to keep herself together. “It’s me. How’re you doing?”
There was a long pause before he finally answered. “Why are you calling?”
His question was devastating, but Farrah understood why he would ask it and she didn’t blame him. He could ask her anything, as long as he didn’t hang up on her.
“I miss you,” she admitted.
Farrah struggled to maintain her composure. The last thing he needed was his sister crying hysterically over the phone. “I left him, Nate. I left Mateo.”
“Well,” he sighed, “if that’s what you feel you needed to do, then good. I guess.”
He sounded so cold and aloof. Almost as if the two of them weren’t family and hadn’t grown up together. Almost as if he’d never promised to be there for her if any of those knuckleheaded boys ever got out of line.
“Is that it?” he abruptly asked.
It had taken all of her courage to make this call. Somewhere in that voice on the other end was still her brother and he still loved her as much as she loved him. Farrah was sure of it.
“I don’t have any money, Nate,” she confessed. “I don’t have … I was wondering if it would be all right if I came and stayed with you and Lisa for a little while, just until I get on my feet,” she quickly added. “I won’t be any trouble.”
“Are you serious?” he asked after another long pause.
“You don’t know what he’ll do.”
“I don’t, Farrah. I really don’t,” he said coolly. “But he must be one hell of a sonofabitch if he was able to keep you from coming to your mother’s bedside when she was dying, when she needed you the most. He must’ve been an asshole to be able to keep you from coming to her funeral when I begged you to come home.”
Yes! Mateo was all those things.
“She’s my mother, Mateo,” Farrah cried and pleaded. “If it was your mother, you’d go and see about her. I need to go and see about mine.”
He cursed Farrah in Spanish and pushed her into the wall. “Your family doesn’t give a fuck about me,” he snapped.
He was right. Mateo had overheard her talking to her father who begged her to leave that little Mexican bastard.