The Stubborn Love Series: Books 1-5 Contemporary Romance Series

by Wendy Owens

  My mouth is watering, my heartbeat quickens, and my head is now spinning. I pull back, the distance giving me a slight bit of clarity. The idea of this kind of pleasure is tempting. The bulge in his jeans tells me he is interested.

  In an attempt to casually conceal the pink rubber shaft, I use the toe of my platform sandals to kick it under a nearby chair. Dean cocks a brow, his face shifts, and he laughs softly.

  “What?” I shrug innocently.

  “Did you just kick a dick under a chair?” He’s still laughing.

  “Watch it, or I might make a habit of it.”

  “Ouch,” he hisses, then winces, grabbing himself as if he were imagining the attack.

  My eyes dart past his shoulder, where Storm is coming up the stairs. She has on her headphones, staring at the face of her phone. I nod my head at Dean, indicating we’re no longer alone. I shift, moving to walk past him. He grabs my hip, pulling me into his grasp.

  “We’ll continue this later,” he promises. He takes my hand and leads me past Storm and out of the bus without a word. I wonder if she can tell what had been transpiring from the look on my face.

  As we move around the side of the bus, I feel his hand shift to the small of my back. It’s like he knows all the places to touch me to drive me absolutely insane. Seemingly out of nowhere, my chest begins to ache, my head feels hot, and I double over, trying to catch my breath.

  “Are you okay?” he gasps, taking my arm, pulling my hair back from my face.

  “I don’t know,” I reply honestly. What is wrong with me?

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, bending over, his face now next to mine.

  “I can’t —catch —my breath,” I say between heaves of air. “My heart’s … racing.”

  “Calm down.” Dean slips into the role of caretaker, a knight in shining armor. With one hand on my arm and his other around my waist, Dean leads me over to the nearby cargo van. He opens the passenger door and instructs me to take a seat. “Okay, now I want you just to focus on taking a deep breath. Can you do that?”

  I shake my head wildly, my chest growing tighter and tighter with each attempt.

  His hands are on my cheeks now, gently tracing the lines with his fingertips. “Baby, close your eyes and just concentrate on taking one good breath for me.”

  I do what he says, squeezing them shut, and his hands never leave my face. I’m able to steal one breath, and then another. Soon, I’m breathing normally again. I open my eyes and find his looking back at me, the pools of blue full of concern.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I cry.

  “I think you just had a panic attack.”

  “What?”

  “It’s okay,” he assures me, pulling me close to his body, my head now pressed to his chest. Did I really just freak out over the thought of having sex with Dean? What is wrong with me? He’s perfect. “We can take our time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I say nothing, leaving my head buried. I close my hands, clutching the fabric of his shirt in my fingers, and, shutting my eyes, I focus on breathing. This new journey is going to be harder than I thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “So you’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?” I press, leaning forward and adjusting the air conditioning vent.

  “How about this … you answer a question of mine, and I’ll answer a question of yours. Sound fair?”

  I think about his proposition for a moment, then nod. “Fine, but I get to go first.”

  “I can agree to that.”

  “Who are we going to visit?” I ask.

  “My mom,” he answers, keeping his eyes on the road. This surprises me, since I had assumed his mother was dead.

  “But I thought your grandma raised you.”

  “Nope, you’ve had your question, so now it’s my turn.” He grins. “What was the deal when we were leaving the bus this morning?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.

  “Oh, come on, I hang out with you every day, and I’ve never seen you bug out like you did back there.”

  “Honestly?”

  “That’s why I asked.”

  I glance out the window, biting my lip. I’ve shared with him, been vulnerable, so why hold back now? “I’m starting to freak out a little about us having sex.”

  “Mac!” he gasps. “I’m so sorry. Do you feel like I’ve been pressuring you?”

  “No,” I huff. “Just the opposite. I feel like you don’t want to have sex with me.”

  “Oh God,” he moans, leaning over and squeezing my leg. “You have no idea how much I want you. I’ve been trying to let you go at your own pace.”

  “I don’t know what that is. Maybe I’m ready, but I don’t know.”

  “Trust me, I’m happy to try.”

  I blush. “Okay, my turn. You said your parents were dead.”

  “No,” he says, shaking his head. “I said my dad died when I was little.”

  “Right, and your grandma raised you.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean my mom’s dead. My turn. Why do you still wear your wedding ring around your neck?”

  “I didn’t get to ask my question,” I protest.

  “You need to learn to ask more clearly. You used your turn.”

  I huff and cross my arms.

  “Come on,” he presses. “It’s the rules.”

  I think about it for a moment. “I don’t want to forget.”

  “Baby, I can assume you would never forget someone you love.”

  “Not him.” I look down at my hands, anxiously hooking my fingers together. “I don’t ever want to forget that I’m cursed.”

  I can feel his eyes on me, looking from me to the road and then back to me. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. My mom dies, then I survive a crash that my husband and daughter don’t. Oh, and let’s not forget my dad dying recently. You tell me … does that sound cursed?” I have to laugh to keep from crying.

  “People die, but it’s not our fault.”

  “If you say so,” I say dismissively. He won’t understand, so why bother trying to explain it to him. Nobody who hasn’t been bathed in death could understand. “My turn,” I say. “So your mom’s alive—”

  “She is,” he says, slowing to take a turn onto a country road.

  “But your grandma raised you?” I continue. “What’s the story?”

  “She did, because my mom wasn’t around,” he says, picking up speed. “It’s not much farther.”

  Glancing around at the fields of grass, I take a deep breath. It’s obvious his past is just as hard to talk about as mine.

  “I miss Grams.” His words are tender and sincere. I touch his arm, running my hand up to rest on his shoulder.

  “When did she pass away?”

  “It’s been a couple years. That was the first time I saw Mom since I was little; before that, it was too much on Grams.” The way he spoke of her, I could tell he loved her in a very special way.

  “She meant a lot to you,” I comment. I can see a smile tickling the corners of his mouth, and I wonder if he might be lost in a memory.

  “I wish you could have met her,” Dean continues, letting out a sigh. “She was a baker, just like my mom. She used to tell me a cupcake had magical powers that could cheer up anyone.”

  “I could see that.”

  “It never failed. If the kids at school would say something about my mom that upset me, she always managed to fix it with some sort of sweet treat.”

  “Did you grow up around here?”

  “Mom did,” Dean starts. “But I think it’s time for another one of my questions.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Would you ever consider getting married again?”

  A breath catches in my throat. A bittersweet question such as his can only be answered with humor. I smile and tease, “Why, you asking or something?”

  “Come on, I’m curious. After
watching how much my mom and dad hated each other, I swore I’d never get married, but my views seem to be softening lately,” he explains, the van slowing as he flicks on the turn signal.

  To our right is a large concrete building, surrounded by barbed wire. It looks like a—

  “Well, we’re here,” he huffs. I’m relieved I don’t have to answer the final question.

  My eyebrows lift as I ask, “A prison?”

  “Yup.” He doesn’t look at me as he drives down the long dirt road toward the gate. I realize there is so much I don’t know about this man, and the mystery that once seemed sexy has my stomach twisting itself into knots.

  I consider what words to say next, but none seem appropriate. We’re here to visit his mother, and something tells me that she isn’t a guard. We slow to a stop, Dean leaning to one side to retrieve his wallet from his back pocket. He presses the switch to roll down the window, handing his identification to the guard.

  “Visitors’ lot is to the right, and you take the—”

  “Doors on the left, yup, I know the drill,” Dean interrupts. The young gentleman nods at him, then walks over to activate the gate.

  “Are you all right?” he asks, glancing in my direction.

  “Uh-huh,” I say, though I’m so far from all right.

  There are a lot of firsts Dean is bringing into my life. He gave me the experience of life on the road with a band, my first ride on a motorcycle, and now my first visit to a prison. I’m not sure if I can handle any more firsts from this man.

  “You’re going to love her,” he comments, putting the van in park and releasing his seat belt. “And I know she’ll love you.”

  “Wow, meeting the mom. This is so soon.” As soon as the words come out of my mouth I want to smack myself in the forehead. Did I really think that was going to be funny?

  He gives a soft laugh, opens his door, then makes his way around the front of the van, pulling open the passenger door. When he reaches to take the mac-and-cheese from my lap, I wrap my arms tightly around it. “I’ve got it.”

  “Afraid I’ll steal credit? Don’t worry; she knows I can’t cook worth a damn. I might love food, but that doesn’t mean I can cook.”

  He takes the handles of the stay warm pack from my arms and then, with his other hand, helps me from the van. What are you doing? So his mom’s in prison, you’re not exactly the perfect package. He cares about you. I realize what a complete and total jackass I’m being. Dean will tell me more when he is ready. He’s patient with me, so the least I can do is be the same for him.

  I link my arm around his elbow, and we cross through the parking lot. I notice there have to be a couple hundred other cars parked around us. The facility is out in the middle of nowhere, yet there seem to be so many people here. The landscaping is crisp and well done, and aside from the barbed wire it doesn’t look like a scary place. There are trees along the perimeter, with gardenias planted all around them. To the far left I see a second chain-linked fence, and wonder what might be in that area.

  “You sure you’re okay with this?” Dean asks me again. “You can wait in the van if you don’t want to do this. I’d understand.”

  I shake my head, even though I’m not sure, insisting, “I’m good.”

  We enter through the large doors on the left; a woman with two small children enters just ahead of us. I look at the little boy who appears to be around eight or nine, and I can’t help but wonder if Dean had to see his mother like this when he was that age. We wait patiently at a window, and when it’s our turn, a female prison guard greets us, handing Dean a form to fill out while we wait some more. She asks if we have items to be passed through security, and he slides her the carrier with my delicious meal inside. She takes it from him, moving it to a small table behind the counter where another guard begins searching the contents. Unzipping it and pulling out the mac-and-cheese dish, my heart sinks as I watch him place his latex-wrapped hand through the dish, mixing it all about.

  “So much for presentation,” I mumble.

  Dean starts laughing, nearly roaring, and I feel my cheeks grow hot. “You’re pretty damn cute, you know that?”

  I shrug as we take our place along the wall, filling out the cards that were given to us. Relationship with prisoner, names, addresses. I hand him my ID, and he returns all of the items to the female guard. She instructs us to move into a processing room. In there we form a line and shift slowly through a security checkpoint, similar to what you would see at an airport.

  “What about the food?” I whisper ignorantly.

  “It’ll be waiting for us,” Dean explains in a whisper. “She’s in minimum security now, but it still has to go through the back-room security.”

  “Really, just for mac-and-cheese?”

  “When I was a kid she wasn’t allowed any food, so this is an improvement.”

  When he was a kid? So he did grow up like this.

  I’m not sure what I expected on the other side of the security checkpoint, but certainly something much more terrifying than what awaits us. Two gentlemen take our group through an outdoor cage area, and on the other side of the big heavy metal doors is a long concrete slab with picnic tables.

  I sigh a breath of relief that the searches seem to be over. Immediately to our right is a table with all of the items that had to go through a more intense security check, including our dish. It’s no longer in the warmer bag; instead, there is just the tray I cooked it in. Even the cover that was on it is missing. This does not seem to alarm Dean. He picks up the tray and starts looking around at the tables.

  I see a woman standing and waving wildly in our direction. “Dean! Baby, over here.”

  He looks at me, slipping his hand around mine. “Ready?”

  I nod, silently, my heart pounding in my ears.

  We head in the direction of the table. The woman’s frame is slight, her auburn hair cut off at her shoulders, sprinkled with gray. She has a smile that reminds me of Dean, but when we get closer it’s the eyes that knock me back. Those pools of blue-gray—it’s as if I am staring into his eyes. Placing the food on the table, he releases my hand for a moment and wraps his arms around his mother. I watch, still silent. She squeezes her eyes closed, and I suddenly feel like an intruder.

  Dean lets go of her and takes a step back. “Mom, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Her eyes shift to me, starting at my eyes and work their way down my body.

  I reach out to shake her hand; her skin is soft and her touch slight. I can’t imagine what in the world this woman has done to be in a place like this.

  “Mom, this is MacKenzie.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Johnson,” I offer quietly.

  She shifts awkwardly when I say this, and I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. “Please dear, call me Patti.” Her voice is as tender as her touch.

  I nod and agree, “Okay, nice to meet you, Patti.”

  She motions to the bench in front of us. “Please, have a seat.”

  We do, and I watch as she leans over and takes in a huge sniff of the mac-and-cheese.

  “MacKenzie made it,” Dean says.

  “It smells delicious, dear,” she says.

  I sit, quietly watching as the two of them interact, hoping for some hint of what I’m missing. Some hint that would help me make sense of the recklessness that brought this family to its knees. She asks how we met, and Dean is more than happy to tell her the story about how I rear-ended Christian in a parking lot, which then led to me applying for the chef’s job. My mind begins to wonder until a question from Patti jolts me back to reality.

  “You were married?”

  I choke on my own saliva. “Excuse me?”

  “Momma.”

  “What … she’s still wearing the ring around her neck.”

  My hand slips instinctively to the trinket, and I nod. “It’s okay,” I reassure Dean. “I don’t mind.”

  “Widow?”

  “How did you know?” My brow narrows.r />
  “I doubt a divorced woman would want a reminder.”

  “I lost my husband and daughter a few years ago in a car accident.” I’m proud I manage to get the words out without my voice cracking. I’m holding it together, that is, until Patti reaches across the table and touches me with her warm fingertips.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine losing a child. I know a mother would do anything to protect her baby.”

  I feign a smile, looking into her eyes. There’s more than pity in her look; there’s a story I wish I could know and understand. Perhaps the entire story is in her statement. Is that why she’s here? Was she protecting her baby?

  “Okay, can we talk about something else?” Dean huffs uncomfortably.

  “Did Dean ever tell you I potty trained him with mac-and-cheese?”

  “Really, Momma? I tell you to change the subject, and this is where you go?”

  Patti leans back, laughing wildly, a light in her eyes that makes me feel warm all over. There’s something about her that mesmerizes me. I hope one day I get to learn her story.

  I quickly join in the laughing. “No, he hasn’t, but I’d love to hear the story.”

  We talk, and as she shares stories, I see a mother who cherishes her son, and a son who would do anything for his mother. Just when I’m getting comfortable with Patti, the guards announce visitation time is up. My eyes shift to Dean. He’s staring at his mother, and they nod to one another, an unspoken code. I imagine it’s a way to tell each other to stay strong.

  As we leave, a million questions are racing through my mind, but how? How do you ask someone what terrible thing happened to put your mother in this place? So, instead, I continue to walk next to him, silent.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We’re only minutes away from the caravan when I ask him to pull over. I thought I could accept not knowing—waiting for Dean to tell me his mother’s story—but as we’ve sat in silence the entire trip back, the anticipation has been absolute torture.

  He nods in response; if his silence lingers any longer, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to contain myself. Why won’t he say something? Anything. Dean pulls over into a parking lot of what looks to be a medical services building—a fitting choice considering I might cause him some bodily harm if he doesn’t start sharing with me soon.