Her Release (One Night Stand Book 3)

by Toni J Strawn

  “What, you think we’ll do something stupid?” I pulled up a wide-eyed, innocent look. He was so damned straight-laced; I couldn’t resist teasing.

  My joke was met with restrained silence.

  I poked at the bag. “Here’s the thing.” I looked back at my cousin, ready to come clean. “We’re going to pull out. We’re not competing.”

  “I see.” Some of the tension left Thomas’s shoulders, but I couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment. His next words signaled the answer. “That is a relief. I was worried about you or your friends getting injured.”

  “Just because I have an injury…” My automatic response was to bristle—even though I’d come to the same conclusion myself last night about Jayne and Tash.

  “It’s not that.” Thomas put up his hands, trying to soothe the waters. “I’m surprised Van is letting you attempt something like this, that’s all.”

  “Van?” I managed to choke out. “How the hell do you know about Van?”

  Thomas frowned. “You’re part of his treatment program, aren’t you?”

  “No. Well, kind of. How do you know that?”

  “I’m on St. Mathew’s Board, remember?” Thomas looked slightly confused. “They’re keen to be the flagship hospital for more cutting-edge rehabilitation and Van was invited to talk to us last week about his proposed extension program. He discussed a case study he’s working on.” Thomas leaned in, his voice dropping. “I recognized your injury. You’re his poster girl. Aren’t you?”

  Thomas may have kept talking after that, but if he did, I didn’t hear it. I felt sick. Numb.

  I was just a statistic. A part of Van’s treatment program.

  A client.

  I tried to suck in a breath, nausea causing my stomach to roll. Van had been lying to me all along. Lying about everything. I gripped the edge of the table, scared I would topple off my chair if I didn’t hold onto something solid.

  “Jess. Are you all right?” The sharp tone of alarm in Thomas’s voice jolted me out of my downward spiral.

  Was I all right?

  “No. Yes. Shit.” I jumped up from my chair, ignoring the pain in my knee as it twisted sideways. I couldn’t sit still anymore. I wanted to punch something. Something beginning with the letter V. “I-I have to go.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help?”

  Thomas followed me up, darting quick glances around the restaurant, probably concerned about the scene I was creating.

  “Oh, you’ve helped, all right.”

  I snatched up the bag of T-shirts, anger cutting through the gut-wrenching disillusionment as the bottom fell out of my world.

  I clung to my growing rage. Anger was better than feeling sorry for myself.

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Thomas tugged me to a stop before I escaped out of the door.

  “What? Scared I’ll send your political career up in flames?”

  Hurt streaked across Thomas’s face and I felt like the prize bitch I was.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, understanding then that he hadn’t been worried about himself at all. “I am sorry. It’s not you.”

  “I know how you feel right now.” There was genuine concern in Thomas’s voice as he pulled me aside, intent on having his say. “Please. Just know that I did something once…and I still regret it. Every day.” There was a raw edge to his words that made me look up.

  “Cole?” I ventured.

  Thomas nodded. “It drives everything I do. Every decision I make. I’ll never let myself forget, even though it’s the one thing I wish I could take back.”

  I didn’t say anything. I could see regret eating away at him, wearing him down, caging him in. But I had nothing to offer Thomas right now. I hurt too much to be able to take away his pain. And as much as I felt sorry for Thomas, at least he’d had the opportunity to make his own mistakes. I never got to do anything without someone trying to control me. Manipulate me. Pull at my strings.

  “Thank you, Thomas.” I brushed my lips across his cheek, glad in some ways it was Thomas who had opened my eyes to the truth. Of anyone in my life, he was the person who probably did understand.

  “Can I take you home?”

  “No. I need to walk.”

  I started down the pavement, digging into my pocket for my phone. I brought Van’s number up onto the screen, then swiped it away again. I had nothing to say to him right now. I felt like someone had punched a hole in my stomach. I felt raw. Exposed. And there was still a tiny part of me that wanted Thomas’s words not to be true. Maybe he’d been mistaken.

  I found myself outside the clinic without knowing I was going there. It was late in the day now, with only the last few appointments left in the waiting room. Van’s session with his group would be well over.

  This clinic had formed a big part of my life in the few years I’d been in Wellsford. I knew my way around, and the staff knew me too, so they didn’t think it was strange to see me here. I let myself into Van’s office, making straight for the filing cabinet under his desk.

  My fingers were shaking when I pulled the bulging file with my name out of the stack. I hardly dared open it, knowing even before I did that everything Thomas had said was true.

  And more.

  Irrefutable evidence of Van’s ultimate manipulation. Here were all my stats, my measurement, my fucking progress, all hand written in meticulous detail. He was pleased with my progress…I hung my head.

  I’d been so fucking stupid.

  The air in the room started to close in on me and I scrambled for the door, feeling sick to my stomach. I still had my folder with me. I intended to throw it in the trash where it belonged, then changed my mind and slipped back into Van’s office to replace it. Better he didn’t find out I had it, otherwise he was likely to talk his way around it, find some way to explain it so I’d change my mind about him.

  I wasn’t going to let that happen. No. By the time Van realized my discovery, I intended to be far, far away.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Van

  Jess was late for her appointment. No surprises there.

  I thought we’d had a date to go for a walk in the Appalachians. While I hadn’t confirmed the details with her, I was under the impression after her phone call on Thursday night that we’d reached an understanding. Jess had been quiet the last few days, and I’d put it down to her being angry with me for forcing her to decide whether Jayne and Tash should compete in the challenge. It was obviously a decision she’d found hard to come to, and I’d admired her for it all the more.

  I went to her apartment and scaled the fire escape, balancing a twenty-pound picnic basket in my hands, to knock on Jess’s window.

  The curtains were wide open and showed the horrendous state her room was in. She’d obviously had friends staying, because there was a mattress on the floor beside her bed. Scrunched-up sleeping bags. The sight made me feel better. Jayne and Tess couldn’t have taken the news too hard if they’d come together for a sleep-over.

  No movement from inside. I huffed out a breath, deciding on my next course of action. I’d missed Jess. Had been looking forward to seeing her. The fact she was with her friends wasn’t a deterrent, even though Jess hadn’t exactly been quick to shout about our relationship from the rooftops.

  I grinned. Jess would have to get used to it. I had to state my claim in public if my plan to involve her in the new program came to fruition. After thinking I’d lost everything with Jess the other night, there was no way I was driving away without at least exploring what was between us.

  My declaration of what I wanted had shocked me more than Jess, when I’d come out and admitted we had something special together. But Jess was someone I could see in my future. Short-term, at least. And while I hadn’t figured out the intricacies of exactly how it would work, all I had to do was take a week or so packing up my mother’s house, then I could get back on the road.

  First stop?

  Jess.r />
  If everything panned out with my extension exercise program, there was no reason why I couldn’t get the clinic in Wellsford to support me as its flagship facility. The association would boost their standing in the multi-billion-dollar rehabilitation business and attract a bigger slice of the government-funding pie. I had already enlisted St. Mathews, and I knew a lot of other hospitals would soon follow.

  The patio door was locked, so I left the basket on the balcony and went around the front. I half expected to hear squeals of girlish laughter and the pounding of bare feet when I knocked on the door.

  Instead I was greeted with silence.

  I checked my watch. Nine o’clock. It seemed early for three university students to be out and about after a night of movies and pillow fights.

  Surely she wouldn’t have gone ahead with the assault course?

  I stopped myself. There was no reason to think the worst. Jess was probably just out for weekend coffee and pancakes.

  I called her cell, listening to it ring and ring. The call clicked through to voice mail and I hung up without leaving a message.

  The longer I stood here, the more certain I became. And as much as I tried to reassure myself that Jess had agreed not to do the assault course, I couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling in my gut that it was exactly what she was doing right now.

  I took a deep breath to ease the tightness in my chest. There was no reason for Jess not to take my call. No reason for her not to be here.

  So why wasn’t she answering?

  A quick search through my contacts yielded Jayne’s number. I programmed all of my clients’ numbers in, in case of emergencies, but this was the first time I’d ever resorted to calling one. Of course, it had to be over Jess.

  “Hello?” Jayne answered with her usual tentative manner.

  “Jayne, Van here from physio. I wondered if you knew where Jessica Langford was? I-we had something booked for today.” I felt bad for using Jayne as my conduit, but if Jayne was competing in Mud, Sweat and Tears, I believed she would need my help against Jess, the force of nature.

  “You don’t get to call me about her,” Jayne’s response wasn’t what I’d expected. Pissed off. Forceful. So not like Jayne.

  “Jayne, is everything all right? What’s the matter?” My heart thudded hard as I thought the worst. I started jogging down the stairs, back to my car.

  “You’re asking me that? She knows everything, Van. We all do. She read her file.”

  I stopped in my tracks, staring at the bottom step but not seeing it.

  “Shit. I need to talk to her—”

  “You can’t. Her cousin has taken her to Buffalo to see her brother.”

  “I can explain everything. Please. Jayne. Can you get her a message for me. “ I said urgently.

  “No. You need to leave her alone.” Grit stuck to Jayne’s every word. Then she hung up.

  I shook my head, hoping like hell I’d just dropped into a parallel universe, but knowing I hadn’t.

  I closed my eyes. I’d hurt Jess.

  I dropped into my car, glancing at the offending pile of papers I’d placed on the back seat. Jess’s file was among them. I’d had some stupid idea that laying out my plan while we’d been stuck in the mountains would force Jess to hear me out. She wouldn’t have been able to run when I’d suggested she join me as part of my team.

  I flicked the file shut, a huge weight settling across my shoulders. I bowed my head. Without an explanation, the evidence appeared damning.

  Fuck! I thumped the steering wheel. Didn’t Jess trust me?

  Stupid question. Of course she didn’t.

  Why would she when I’d treated her with equal distrust? Keeping things from her. Manipulating her. I had done the one thing Jess hated. I had handled her like she was fragile, as if my every move would send her bolting from me.

  And it may well have—but at least she would have made that decision knowing the truth.

  The lump in my throat threatened to choke me. I stared out the windscreen, seeing nothing but bitter recriminations looking back, knowing I had no one to blame but myself.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Jess

  I sat beside my mother’s headstone, breathing in the scent of Daphne, fresh-cut flowers, and sun-warmed earth.

  My mom and I had always been friends. I had forgotten that for a while, had let the hard shield of my anger leach away the warm, comforting feeling of being with my mom. It had been a long time in the making, but I was finally facing her death.

  It hurt. I would have preferred to have stayed in the state of icy numbness that’d gripped me in the six-hour drive to Buffalo, then I wouldn’t be haunted by the aching feeling when I’d read Van’s file on me.

  To acknowledge that Van had been right about everything. I had always imagined myself as some kind of hotshot who could do anything I wanted, but I’d been hiding behind my injury. Hiding behind my brother. I’d pretended I was just like my mom—not afraid to try anything, the bigger and badder, the better—but the truth was, I wasn’t like that at all.

  Waking up after the accident, it had been easier to turn the physical ache of hurting over my mom’s death into anger. Anger that had pushed me to get better because I felt like I had something to prove. Cole had understood my rage. And he’d drawn it to himself, thinking he was helping me. I swallowed past the thickness in my throat, emotional exhaustion clinging to me. God, the five types of ass I’d been to my brother. It was a wonder he could stand the sight of me.

  “I’m sorry,” I’d said the day after I’d arrived. It had been well past time to make amends with Cole and take responsibility for my actions.

  “For what?” He’d looked up in surprise.

  “Everything.”

  Cole had laughed. “You haven’t done anything.”

  “Yes. I have.” I stood firm. For this to work, we both had to acknowledge my behavior hadn’t been right. “I’ve used you as a scapegoat, deliberately attempting stupid things knowing you would stop me, setting you up as the enemy when really you’re the only thing I’ve got.” I had blinked against the sting of tears.

  Cole’s smile had fallen. “You’re my sister. This is what I do.”

  I knew if he could have scooped up my pain and carried it himself, he would have. I’d always known that.

  And that was why it had to stop. Cole couldn’t keep shouldering my burdens for me.

  “I need you to let me say I’m sorry, otherwise I can’t move on. You’ve spent the last few years looking after me and I really, really appreciate it, but now it’s time for me to be your sister.” I’d laid my hand on his shoulder. “I want to be there for you. To make my own mistakes. But,” I had added when Cole had started to make a face, “I’ll make sure they’re ones you’ll be proud of from now on.”

  “What’s not to be proud of?” Cole had pulled me into a hug. “You’ve fought harder and longer than anyone I know. You never run from anything. You tackle things head first…”

  I’d had to leave before Cole made me start blubbering again.

  I didn’t agree with him. Hadn’t I just run away from Van?

  Van had said we had something special and I had thought so too. But at the first whiff of trouble I’d reverted to the rebellious little girl, throwing my toys out of the cot. In my file, Van had called me courageous. And inspirational. Had written in black and white that I was to be an integral part of his team. Team. Not client.

  It had taken a while for the difference to sink in, after my immediate knee-jerk reaction when reading the cover page. Since then, the heat of the moment had faded and that one word came back to haunt me. Day and night.

  Sitting at my mother’s graveside one last time, I forced myself to let go of the past, push past my bias, and consider the situation again. From my side. And Van’s.

  What if Van was speaking the truth? What if there was a reason—a good reason—for him to have the file on me? That he wasn’t using me, but instead, wanted my help?
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  What if this hollow, achy feeling that gnawed at my chest whenever I thought of Van never went away? My deep well of anger had gone and was now filled with regrets.

  Instead of demanding answers, I had let my suspicious nature and petty dislike for the medical profession to destroy any chance of a relationship with Van becoming something more permanent.

  And I wanted something permanent. I didn’t want to go on living the lie, pretending I didn’t need him. Love him.

  I wouldn’t blame Van for writing me off as too much trouble. He’d told me more than once, that he had no time for people who took no responsibility for themselves, or who were a burden. I should leave him alone. He was better off without me. But…Cole was right. It wasn’t in my nature to run. Now the scalding pain of grief was diminishing, my feelings for Van were back, stronger than ever. Was I about to let him give up on me?

  There had to be another way. There was always another way.

  I loved Van. My heart lifted when he slipped into my thoughts. He made me feel better about myself, not because I relied on him, but because he believed in me. He’d thought I was capable of anything.

  That was who I wanted to be. Who I was. Strong. Resilient. Courageous. Instead of selfish, childish, and self-destructive. Two sides of the same coin. Those emotions had been a defense I used to hide from pain I’d never dealt with. I didn’t need to be that person anymore.

  It all came down to what I wanted. Thomas had asked me that once and I hadn’t been able to answer. But I knew now that I wanted to be someone to look up to. I wanted to help people. People like me.

  Which meant I had to help myself.

  Cole had reminded me that I never ran away from anything. And I was damned if Van was going to be the first. In the past I would have walked right up to him, smacked him in the chest, and told him I loved him. Deal with it.

  This new, thoughtful me was at a loss.

  In the end it was thinking about my mom that provided the answer I searched for. I might not go out in a blaze of glory, but I wasn’t going to live with regrets either.