Undeniable (A Country Roads Novel)

by Richard, Shannon

  Jax stared at the screen, trying to blink back the red rage that clouded his eyes. His first instinct was to drive over to Grace’s, to talk to her, to comfort her, to throw back a couple of beers, and rip into Bethelda. Stuff that they’d always done. But that wasn’t an option anymore, not after the stunt he’d pulled that morning.

  Yup, his day had been freaking-phenomenal.

  * * *

  Grace was going on a week of not seeing Jax. She hadn’t gone that long without seeing him in years. He came in regularly to get a cup of coffee from Café Lula, either at the beginning of his shift or just after it ended. Grace and Lula Mae would always load him up with food before he left. But for the past week there’d been none of that. What there had been was this massive void in Grace’s heart, a massive void that was the absence of Jax.

  At first she’d been sad about it, moping around the kitchen every day because she missed him. Now she was just pissed.

  “We’re going out on Saturday,” Mel declared one night when they were holed up in Grace’s apartment. For Grace it had been the seventh night running. She’d had absolutely no desire to go out since the whole disastrous episode with Jax, or that awful post from Bethelda.

  But the truth was, she was getting tired of seeing the walls of her tiny apartment. Granted they were pretty walls, Grace had painted them the instant she’d moved in. Light blues and citrus greens in the kitchen and living room, periwinkle in the bathroom, and a bright sunshine yellow in her bedroom. She had woven rugs on the hardwood floors, jeweled green drapes hanging in the living room, and a wooden rack that Brendan had attached to the minuscule ceiling space in her kitchen where pots and pans hung. It wasn’t her dream kitchen by any stretch, but she’d made do with what she had.

  “I’m fine, Mel,” Grace said, shaking her head. She might be sick of hibernating in her apartment, but she was not going to have her friends throw her a pity party.

  “This isn’t about Harper and me feeling sorry for you,” Mel said, reading Grace’s mind like she always did.

  Grace and Mel had been together since they were infants. Mel’s mother Corinne had been Claire’s best friend, so by turn, Mel was Grace’s best friend. Mel was older, having come into the world exactly two months before Grace. Maybe it was because they’d shared everything growing up that they were able to share brain waves. They’d never been able to hide anything from each other. Ever.

  “I want to go out,” Mel said, winding one of her corkscrew blond curls around her finger. “I don’t know if you remember this, but I deal with teenagers on a daily basis, and I need to unwind,” she said as she let the curl loose and it bounced up around her face. “Not everything is about you,” she said as she raised her eyebrows.

  Grace had a flashback to when she’d said those exact same words to Jax a week ago. Mel had said it playfully, but it still made Grace wince.

  “What?” Mel asked, her mouth falling into a frown.

  “Nothing,” Grace said, shaking her head.

  “I don’t believe you,” Mel said as her eyebrows bunched together. “Look, Grace, I’m not stupid, so don’t try to play off your avoidance of the world as something besides Jax.”

  “It isn’t about Jax,” Grace lied.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. Let’s go out Saturday. What’s the plan?”

  “Dinner and then drinks at Shep’s,” Mel said.

  Grace knew that Mel was waiting for her to back out. Odds were fairly good that Jax would be there.

  “Fine,” Grace said, not caving.

  So on Saturday night, Grace stood in her bathroom, leaning over the sink as she applied her mascara. She wasn’t nervous or upset. No, she was in full hell on heels mode, and if Jax was there, she was going to show him exactly what he was missing.

  * * *

  Jax walked into the Sleepy Sheep just after nine. He’d had a day that felt like it just wasn’t going to end. There’d been another burglary the night before. Since Jax was the lead on the investigation, he’d been called in at four that morning to go down to a specialty shop on the beach where over five thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise had been stolen. After that he was called down to the high school because a kid had been caught smoking a joint behind the gym, and then he was needed for backup to a traffic accident.

  The accident was on the main road in Mirabelle, blocking both lanes. A truck had plowed into a little two-door Honda. The truck hit the empty passenger side, and the driver of the car suffered a broken arm. Which was pretty lucky considering the fact that when the vehicles crashed the Honda caught fire. The passengers got out before both car and truck went up in flames. But for two hours traffic stood still until the charred remains could be towed off the road.

  But ever since Jax had seen that accident, he’d been anxious. It brought him back to last September, to seeing Lula Mae’s SUV in the river, to pulling Grace and Paige out just in time. Jax hadn’t seen Grace in over a week, and he felt like he was drowning. Without Grace in his life Jax couldn’t breathe.

  The Sleepy Sheep was packed, as per usual on a Saturday night. Jax pushed through the people and made his way to the bar. There was an empty seat next to Tripp Black and Baxter McCoy. Tripp was Mirabelle’s new fire chief. He moved over from Panama City a couple of months ago to take the job. Jax had seen Tripp earlier that day when he’d been called down to the accident. Baxter was a deputy for the county, too. He and Jax had joined the force in the same class. Baxter also played baseball on the county team with Jax, Shep, and Brendan.

  “Hey.” Tripp nodded as Jax slid into the seat next to him.

  “You look like you need a drink,” Baxter said, leaning forward so he could see Jax. “Tripp just told me all about the accident.”

  “It was a freaking disaster,” Jax said, shaking his head.

  “Sounds like it.” Baxter nodded before he took a sip of his beer.

  “Here you go.” Jax looked forward as Shep set down a frosted mug of beer. “You’re going to need this. Drink up.”

  “You heard about the accident?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not why you’re going to need that,” Shep said, pointing to the drink.

  “Then what is?”

  “That,” Shep said, pointing to other side of the room where the pool tables were.

  Jax turned in the direction Shep was pointing and had the weirdest feeling as two opposing emotions ran through his body.

  The first was relief at seeing Grace. Her head was thrown back and she was laughing loudly, the smile on her face making him feel warm. The constricted feeling around his lungs loosened and he was able to breathe for about a second. Then the rest of the scene registered and he felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. All that warmth turned into a boiling anger.

  Grace was standing next to a pool table, pool cue in one hand, while her other hand rested on the arm of Preston Matthews. There was a crowd of people around them, and someone bumped into Grace, pushing her into Preston. His arm shot up to her waist to steady her. His palm pushed up the side of her shirt and his fingers traced her bare skin.

  The top of Jax’s head was going to blow off.

  To make matters worse, she was surrounded by a group of Preston’s friends. They were probably from law school because Jax didn’t recognize any of them. To be fair, it wasn’t just Grace they surrounded. Harper and Mel were with her, too, and all three had pulled out all the stops tonight.

  They stood in towering high heels, which put Grace on more of an eye level with the guys. Harper and Mel weren’t as short as Grace, but their heels sure did add to both of their figures. Mel and Harper were both in tight jeans and tank tops. Grace had gone for a miniskirt and some kind of flowy shirt that exposed her shoulders and showed just a hint of her stomach and back when she moved.

  Damn she was hot.

  “I’m going to need a shot,” Jax said, spinning back around to the bar.

  Preston freaking Matthews, stupid little prick that he was, wa
s genuinely a good guy. A genuinely good guy who currently had his hands all over Grace. So naturally Jax hated him.

  With his sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes, Preston was the golden boy in every sense. He’d been a star basketball player his last three years of high school and he’d gotten a full ride scholarship to Florida State University. He’d then gone on to FSU law, where he graduated with honors. He’d moved back to town three months ago and was now practicing at his father’s law firm in Mirabelle.

  Preston and Grace had never dated, much to Jax’s relief, not that she hadn’t dated other guys Jax had never liked. But those other guys didn’t matter at the moment, because none of them had their grubby golden hands on Grace.

  Shep put down a shot glass and flipped a bottle of Jack Daniel’s over it. When it was full Jax reached across the counter and poured it down his throat.

  He was a moron. He wanted Grace more than his next breath, but he refused to go and get her. Refused to get off his barstool, march across the bar, grab her, and make her his. She couldn’t be his. Why? Because, well, it just wasn’t in the cards.

  “Again,” he said, slamming the glass down.

  Yup, a freaking idiot. But he was going to have to just get over it, wasn’t he? It wasn’t like she was over there pining away for him. No, she had her hand on another guy. She was laughing with another guy. She was flirting it up with another guy with absolutely no second thought about Jax.

  “You sure?” Shep asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Jax said as he nudged the glass a couple of inches forward.

  “Well, this is going to be an interesting night,” Shep said, flipping the bottle of whiskey over the glass again.

  * * *

  Grace had known the second Jax walked in. She’d seen his red head moving through the crowd before he sat down at the bar. Her stomach had done a little flip, and the fist that had been squeezing her heart since the last time she’d seen him eased up. But her concentration was shot for shit.

  She’d been playing a pretty good game of pool up until about an hour ago when her eyes had landed on a stupid freckled face. Yeah, now she was shooting crap.

  “You okay?” Preston asked, coming up next to her.

  “I’m fine,” Grace said as she grabbed her beer off the table.

  “She’s a liar, is what she is,” Harper whispered to Preston.

  “What’s going on?” Preston asked, turning to Harper.

  Preston had been out of town for the last two weeks. He’d had to go up to Montgomery to deal with his late great-uncle’s estate, and it was a massive estate, so he’d missed all of the tantalizing gossip.

  Grace downed the rest of her beer as Harper filled Preston in on all of the gory details. Grace didn’t care if Preston knew what had happened. She would’ve told him anyway, he was one of her best friends, had been ever since he’d sat down next to her freshman year of Spanish. Well, her freshman year, Preston’s sophomore year.

  And after that first year, they’d made sure they stayed together for the following two years. They’d had to have a companion to battle the bit-shit-crazy that was Senora Darwimple. The woman had dyed purplish red hair, smelled of patchouli, and spoke Spanish like she had a British accent. Yeah, Grace and Preston were bonded for life.

  “Seriously?” Preston asked, looking up and over Harper’s head to the bar. He turned around to Grace with a frown on his face. “No wonder you’re all uptight tonight.”

  “I am not uptight!”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” Preston said, grabbing his own beer. “I thought something was up. Why didn’t you call me when I was gone? Tell me what was going on?”

  “I didn’t want to bother you, and it’s nothing.”

  “How’s the water in the Nile this time of year?” Preston asked. “Warm?”

  “Shut up,” Grace said, punching his shoulder.

  “Ow,” he said, rubbing the spot with his hand.

  “That didn’t hurt you big baby.”

  “I know.” He grinned his megawatt smile. “But seriously, you should’ve called me.”

  “She’s not talking about it,” Mel piped in. “Not to anyone.”

  “Can we not have this conversation here?” Grace whispered.

  “Not likely,” Harper said. “Because you will not talk about here, or there. You will not talk about it anywhere. You will not talk about it in a house. You will not talk about it with a mouse. Or in a boat, or with a goat.”

  “Cute, you’re real cute,” Grace said, snatching the pool cue from where she’d leaned it against the wall and went to the table to take her shot.

  * * *

  Grace and Preston headed up to the bar to get more drinks. They stood in the empty spot next to Baxter McCoy. Grace could feel Jax’s eyes on her from two seats down, but she didn’t look at him. He could be quiet and surly to his heart’s content, she didn’t care.

  “What can I get you?” Shep asked.

  “Two more pitchers,” Preston said.

  “Coming right up,” Shep said as he grabbed two pitchers to fill.

  “Hey, Baxter, Tripp,” Grace said.

  She saw the corner of Shep’s mouth twitch at her obvious attempt at ignoring Jax.

  “Hey, Grace,” Baxter said while Tripp merely nodded.

  Tripp was a big man, with big muscles. He had warm chocolate-brown eyes, thick brown hair, and a decent amount of dark scruff across his jaw. He was all man and flat out hot. Grace might be in love with the moronic redhead seated next to Tripp at the bar, but she wasn’t blind. Baxter wasn’t lacking in the looks department, either. He had sandy blond hair, hazel eyes, and a killer grin.

  “You guys know Preston, right?” she asked the two men.

  “I remember Preston,” Baxter said. “Mirabelle’s basketball star,” he said holding out his hand towards Preston.

  “Yeah, not so much these days,” Preston said, shaking Baxter’s hand.

  “This is Tripp Black,” Baxter said. “He’s our new fire chief.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Tripp said as they shook hands.

  “Likewise.” Preston nodded.

  “You done with law school?” Baxter asked.

  “Yeah, graduated in December. So I’m back here now.”

  Jax mumbled something from his seat.

  “What was that?” Grace asked, unable to stop herself. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her, but she apparently really wanted to play with fire tonight.

  “I said, fantastic,” Jax repeated clearly.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a problem,” he said, shaking his head.

  Grace pushed away from her spot at the bar and went to stand next to Jax, getting right up in his face.

  “Yeah, you do. So why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Why would you care what I think? You’ve never consulted me about the guys you’ve slept with before. And you’ve got golden boy over there to keep your bed warm tonight, so what I think about you shouldn’t really matter.”

  Everything in Grace went cold, like she’d been plunged into a tub full of ice water. A shock to her system, and the sudden coldness made her inhale sharply. Jax had pretty much just called her a whore. Grace didn’t even realize what she was doing, but a second later she reached over and grabbed Jax’s full beer from the bar, throwing the amber liquid in his face before she slapped him soundly across the jaw.

  He stared at her in shock, his green eyes going clear and wide as they focused on her.

  “Fuck you, Jax,” Grace said, slamming the glass down on the bar. She turned around and went to grab her things. She had to get out of there and as far away from Jaxson Anderson as possible. She needed to be alone when she lost it, which was inevitable, because she apparently didn’t know the man she loved at all.

  Chapter Five

  No Going Back

  Wake up jack-ass.”

  There was a pounding in Jax’s head, a deep thr
obbing hammer working in tandem with the churning in his stomach. Jax cracked an eye to a sea of navy blue. He was face first in a pillow, but it wasn’t his pillow. He rolled to the side, slowly, and looked up at Shep, who was frowning down at him.

  “What time is it?” he croaked. His mouth was like sandpaper.

  “Eight.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “’Cause your sorry ass couldn’t drive home. I wasn’t going to drive you home just to have to pick you up in the morning so that we could go get your truck at the bar.”

  “What the hell happened last night?”

  “You honestly don’t remember?” Shep asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I remember Grace and…” Jax trailed off trying to picture the night before. It made his head hurt. An image of Grace laughing with a guy came to him vividly. “Preston Matthews,” Jax mumbled, bringing his hand up to rub at his eyes. It was like his arm was attached to a marionette string as it flopped down onto his face.

  “Yup, that was when you started to shoot doubles.”

  “And you didn’t stop me?”

  “Nah, I figured it was about time you got knocked on your ass.”

  “How nice of you. What happened after the shots?” Jax asked, bringing his hand down.

  “You got slapped.”

  And then with picture-perfect clarity Jax remembered everything from the beer thrown in his face all the way to the look of pure loathing on Grace’s face before she told him to fuck off.

  “Shit,” Jax said as he slowly tried to sit up.

  “Yup. Now drink up.” Shep handed Jax a cup of coffee when he became vertical. “You need to take a shower and change, ’cause you smell like a brewery. Then we’re going to pick up your truck at the bar before we go up to your new house where Bennett and Brendan are meeting us.”

  Oh, great, he had to do construction with a hangover. It was going to be a long day.