Mistake (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  Oh my god. Jenna felt her mouth drop open, but before she could say anything Bryce finally looked in her eyes. “Shut it, Jenna.”

  Her breath stuttered in her chest and she blinked in confusion. Jason chuckled bleakly in her ear. “You gotta keep a thumb on her. See you figured that out early, detective. She’ll try her temper on you, try to tell you what to do and a man doesn’t stand for it. Maybe we got something in common besides our taste in women.”

  When Bryce didn’t reply, merely transferred his gaze back to Jason, her ex-husband spoke again, his voice quiet and scary. “You’ve been fucking her, Meadows. I’ve been watching you with her. I’m gonna fix it so you won’t be with my wife anymore. And teach her who she’s married to.”

  Jenna couldn’t even swallow. The tension in the room was cloying. Bryce kept his indolent pose in the doorway and she didn’t know how he managed it.

  Abruptly, the pressure at her neck and waist released and she was spun toward the bathroom. Using the momentum of Jason’s push, she stumbled in and whirled to shut the door. She yanked open the top drawer on the vanity and scrabbled for her manicure scissors, wracking her brain for another weapon, any weapon, and snatched up a can of hairspray. The murmur of male voices had receded and in its place were strange, grunting sounds and then a heavy thud punctuated by a shout of pain.

  Heart in her throat, Jenna threw open the door and froze mid step. Jason was facedown on the floor, his head at an odd angle—forced into position by the way he lay—jammed up against the nightstand. His wiry form squirmed like an eel on land. Bryce crouched over him, big hands manacling Jason’s high up on his back, Bryce’s knee on his spine pinning him down. The entire scene was dusted with white and gray feathers, the disembowelled pillow crouching near Jason’s feet.

  Jenna’s knees unhinged and she fell to them, hitting hard, the scissors still held tightly in her right hand but the spray clattered free to roll wildly out of sight beneath the bed. The bed that required she take a little hop just to get into it because it was so high. The same bed that Bryce would lift her onto by dint of grasping her waist and giving her a little hitch as he took her down beneath him. Hysterical laughter bubbled up and over, spilling from her lips as she realized Jason had hidden beneath her bed, like some bogeyman or childhood monster.

  “Jenna!” Bryce’s demanding voice helped her focus. “Jenna!”

  Raising her hand to press it against her lips and smother the sounds she was making, she lifted her eyes to his. “My cell. Hit the contact for Darren,” he ordered.

  Fearing her legs wouldn’t hold her, seeing Jason still struggling beneath Bryce’s hold, she crawled to them and carefully extricated Bryce’s cell from his belt. It took a couple of tries but she scrolled to Darren’s number and called him. He answered immediately and she told him the situation, hearing herself speak calmly and quietly as if from a great distance. Darren told her to “wait one.” She backed away from the two men on the floor until she came to the wall, curling in on herself, clutching the phone as a talisman.

  It felt like less than a minute before her house was filled with police. Darren was the first to arrive, followed by a lithe brunette who changed course and crossed to her. Jenna watched it all like a movie unfolding. The woman gently coaxed the cell from her hand, crouching beside her.

  “Are you okay?”

  Tearing her eyes from Darren assisting Bryce in cuffing Jason, who was grunting and bleating like an animal, arching his body in a remarkable show of strength against someone probably fifty pounds heavier than him, she looked at the other woman.

  “Your throat is bleeding, sweetie. Your shoulder, too, a little. Can you get up?”

  Jenna gave her head a little shake and looked back at Jason who was now up on his feet between the vastly larger men, his eyes no longer flat affect, but wide and flashing, his face crimson. There were flecks of foam on lips drawn back in a snarl as he even then tried to struggle for freedom. Her eyes were drawn to the bloody sleeve covering Bryce’s left arm and her breath failed. She glanced from it to his face—he met her gaze and his face filled with concern.

  “Blad!” He spoke to one of the uniforms crowding at the doorway and the man instantly moved to take Bryce’s place. “Get him out of here.”

  As he approached her, Jenna found the strength to raise her hand, palm first. “I’m fine.”

  Bryce halted, and for the first time since she’d known him, he looked diffident and cautious, hardly the determined, certain man he usually portrayed. Two EMTs jockeyed for a place in the crowded room, and Darren took charge, ordering people out and to the side as they dragged the still-struggling Jason out. Her ex had resorted to screaming profane threats but they barely registered. She had nearly gotten Bryce killed.

  The female EMT, her name tag read Walker, crouched beside the brunette cop and between the two of them blocked Jenna’s view of Bryce. She shivered in reaction, grateful and deprived at the same time. “Let me see those cuts.”

  Something cold passed across her throat and Jenna hissed with pain, no longer numb. A dab at her shoulder stung a little. “You won’t need stitches. I’ll put some butterflies on this one at your neck and it probably won’t scar, but they’ll check you out at emergency. The other one is deep but the blade must have been really thin. You might have that initial forever, but it’ll be fine, hard to see.”

  She closed her eyes. Marked forever by Jason. Inside and out. Her soul had been terrorized and she’d see his initial on her body each and every day. But that was nothing compared to the fact he could have killed Bryce because of her. And Jason was still breathing, so it was just a matter of time until he came for her again. She would have to do her best to hide, and this time she’d ensure no one was connected to her that he might see as competition or as anyone aiding and abetting her. She only prayed he wouldn’t come after Bryce again. Maybe she should just move closer to the prison and visit him. If she could convince him she was still his wife then maybe he’d keep his focus on her—

  “I’ll see my own doctor for stitches!” Bryce was angry. She could hear it and it saddened her. He hated to be fussed over, although she wished she had the right to do so—to tell him to obey the EMT and have his injury taken care of. She assumed it wasn’t life threatening if they hadn’t taken him away in an ambulance, and was lightheaded with relief.

  “Hey!” Walker shone a flashlight in both her eyes with a practised flip of her hand and Jenna blinked. “You stay with us, lady. Looks like you need to come with and be under observation for a while. You look kinda shocky.” Fingers felt at her wrist for her pulse and the EMT hauled out a portable blood pressure cuff.

  “What’s wrong?” Bryce loomed over them and the brunette eased away to stand, allowing him in closer. His sleeve was gone, the edges frayed from being cut away, and a huge white bandage decorated his forearm. To Jenna’s fascinated gaze a spot of blood bloomed in the middle and spread like a fractured star. She had to pull herself together!

  “Nothing.” Her voice sounded strong and determined. “I’m fine. Please take care of that arm, Bryce. This…” she gestured, “Uh, Ms. Walker is going to fix me up and I don’t need stitches. So go, please. Thank you.”

  Eyes narrowing, Bryce stared at her hard and long before his lips set and he nodded. She watched him move to the door, wrenching her eyes away when he began to turn back. After another moment she sensed he was gone and her heart cracked once again.

  Without comment, Walker applied the butterfly bandages and Jenna focused on being as cooperative as possible while the movements around her indicated her house was being emptied of the police presence. The silence was nearly deafening and she fancied she could hear the blood running through her veins and pulsing in her temples. But she wasn’t going to any place where Bryce was.

  “Your tetanus shot up to date?”

  “What?”

  “No telling where those blades were, ma’am. Box cutter the cops took out of here looked new but no telling. And that
honking knife? Get a tetanus shot. And maybe some antibiotics. You sure you don’t want a ride in?”

  Shaking her head, Jenna replied, “I’ll check but I’m sure my shots are up to date and I’ll see a doctor.”

  “‘Kay. Let’s get you up.”

  Walker helped her stand and after a moment the dizziness went away. Her towel had withstood all the action and remained tucked together at her breasts, although now was dappled with her blood. She followed the EMT to the door and ensured it was locked and shut behind her, once again refusing to go to the hospital. She must have convinced Walker because the woman had hustled out. Bryce needed her help more than Jenna did and she didn’t look for him, although knew the ambulance was at the curb. The break had to happen immediately no matter how badly she wanted to go with him and hold his other hand.

  The bedroom was out of the question so she made her way to the couch, shedding the towel along the way, and sank onto it, pulling her legs up and resting her head on a pillow. She fumbled a hand up to pull the throw lying across the back of it down over her and shut her eyes against the memory of the past half hour. Such a fragment of time, but a fragment that would have lifelong effect.

  The shakes started and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t hold herself against them. The tears flowed but brought no relief and the pain in her chest spread until she was desolate. The sharp knocking on the door flickered on the edge of her consciousness and the sound of the key nearly pulled her from the state she was in, but her energy faded.

  “Oh my god. Jenna.” Judith’s worried visage swam into view and her friend’s warm embrace enveloped her. “They left you like this? Bryce left you like this?” Jude’s tone was incredulous and infuriated.

  “I’ll make some tea.” Carla stomped toward the kitchen.

  “Fuck the tea. Get her a shot of tequila.”

  “Tea. With sugar. She’s in shock.”

  Judith tucked the ends of the throw around her and then bounced up, the cushions on the sofa vibrating beneath the weight exchange. Jenna watched as she vanished from view and then almost immediately returned carrying Jenna’s comforter. Feathers floated in her wake and laughter bubbled again in Jenna’s throat. Judith looked like an avenging angel of sorts, but her face was tight, probably from what she’d seen in the bedroom.

  The comforter provided the necessary additional warmth and her shakes subsided, aided by the gallon of hot, sweet tea forced on her by Carla.

  “Bryce called us and told us what happened. He said we should come because you weren’t going to the hospital and insisted you were fine. Wrong. Asshole.” Judith was seething, her ire apparent in the way she held herself and the set of her mouth.

  “I told him to go,” Jenna explained. “And the EMT was still here. A cop, too. I thought I was fine.”

  “Bullshit. He doesn’t just walk out on you, not when he made his…” Judith trailed off and wouldn’t look at her.

  “What, Judith? Tell me.” Jenna ensured her friend knew she meant business, putting something in her tone both women had heard before, albeit very occasionally.

  “He told us both you meant something to him. Actually he told us you meant a lot and he was going to do his best to fix things,” Carla confided.

  “We both believed him, Jenna. But he left you…”

  “Jason cut him, girls, cut him badly,” Jenna said quietly. “He had to go for stitches—I begged him to go.”

  Two sets of eyes stared her way, and finally two heads nodded, solemnly.

  “Well, I suppose there were extenuating circumstances,” Judith allowed. “But his truck’s gone. When’s he coming back? Right after? Or does he have to do reports and shit?”

  “I don’t want him to come back.” The news his truck was gone hurt a little more. She’d have to figure out a way to get her stuff back, too, and hoped her friends would help because she couldn’t see Bryce again.

  Carla found her voice first. “You don’t want him to come back? After he saved your ass from that crazy ex of yours?”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t want him to come back. He could have been killed because of me. Both of you could have been hurt or killed because of me.”

  “Bullshit.” Judith was back in form.

  “You can say that,” Jenna snapped, struggling to sit up and keep her coverings around her, “but you have no real appreciation of what Jason is capable of. I told you some of what he’s done in the past, but he’s gotten worse. He nearly slit my throat today, I’ll have his fucking brand to see every day for the rest of my life, and he cut Bryce!”

  “Okaaaay,” whispered Judith. “But he’s been caught and the system won’t look kindly on an assault on his ex-wife and a police officer.”

  “And they let him out last time after he killed someone! Do you think I can live with the thought of him finding me again and taking out anyone I’m connected with?”

  “Honey.” Carla patted the hand closest to her. “You can’t live your life thinking like that.”

  “He drove past Judith’s, Carla. He might have driven past yours. He knew all about Bryce and found a way to get to me and would have gone through Bryce in the process if he could. Tell me how I can’t think about that.”

  “So what are you thinking?” Judith also raised her eyebrows in query.

  “I’m going to move back to Minneapolis and find a job. I’ll visit Jason whenever I can make myself go see him. And when they let him out I’ll keep his focus so he doesn’t hunt my…Bryce down. Or get it in his head about you two being somehow culpable.”

  “You are nuts.” Judith shook her head. “If you think Bryce will allow that—”

  “Bryce has no say, Jude. He broke it off with me in no uncertain terms and crushed me the first time around. He didn’t lay a hand on me but he hurt the hell out of me anyhow. Then he changed his mind, said he made a mistake.” Jenna knew she’d revisit that horrible night over and over to help build her resistance again, as wrong as it was. Bryce had convinced her that he regretted his actions.

  “Then he seduced me—oh, right, you didn’t know that—because I’ve been held freaking incommunicado and haven’t been able to think straight, past Mr. Hot Detective’s presence. I’ve been closeted in domestic bliss for a goddamn week! I wasn’t strong enough to resist him past the second day, and then I nearly got him killed. I can’t do it again.”

  Tears once again overflowed the boundaries of her lids and tracked down her cheeks. Her friends moved to the couch and sat, one on either side of her, and put an arm around her shoulders.

  “You also can’t tie your life to a madman, honey. Give it a little time, wait for the dust to settle, and see, okay?”

  Jenna nodded, but she’d already made up her mind. Sometimes you just needed to accept the burden life gave you and carry it. Do the right thing. Carla got up and urged her to lie down and rest while she and Jude cleaned the bedroom. She lay quietly, making lists in her head and ignoring the sadness, focusing on what she needed to so.

  The vacuum started up and Judith returned to scoop up the towel, muttering about soaking it along with the rags that had cleaned up Bryce’s blood. “Throw them out, Jude. I don’t want to think about it.” Her friend changed direction and Jenna heard the garbage can lid open with a clank, and then the sound of the bag being removed. The back door creaked and there was a clatter in the distance. Judith presumably had found the trash receptacle Jenna shared with the neighbors.

  Carla appeared, her hair mussed, a vacuum bag in her hand. “You just missed the trash. Jude took it out.” Carla nodded and hustled away.

  She could hear them conversing in the kitchen before Carla reappeared. “You up to going out or should we make a meal here?”

  “I’m too tired for either, Carla. Seriously. I’m fine. You fixed me up with that tea and now that the bedroom is clean I’ll crash for a while and when I get up I’ll find some dinner.”

  “I found a casserole in your freezer,” Judith called from the kitchen, d
ishes clattering. “I’ll put it in the oven right now, and by the time you wake it should be cooked through.”

  Carla avoided her eyes and Jenna became suspicious. “What are you up to?”

  “We don’t want you to be alone, honey. It’s been a pretty difficult couple of weeks.”

  “You think?” Her quip had the desired result. Both of her friends laughed and she took advantage. “I want you to support me in whatever decision I make, okay? I promise to give it a couple of days and discuss it with you. But I know your opinion. Now let me figure it out. You know I need the space. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Judith answered so quickly Jenna’s eyes shot to her friend but saw nothing but calm acceptance. Carla nodded and patted her on the arm.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, promise.”

  “You do that or we’ll be back to see why,” Jude threatened.

  Exchanging hugs with her, the other women headed out and silence reigned once again, broken only by the compressor on the fridge and the vague sounds of traffic. Jenna curled under her comforter and willed herself to sleep, her throat sore but the pain manageable.

  Chapter Eight

  Arm aching, now that the numbing agent had worn off, Bryce contemplated a beer. His shoulder hurt, too—damn tetanus shot—and the pain meds and antibiotics stood side by each in their matching containers on the counter. The damn ER doc told him no booze combined with pain meds, and certainly not until the round of antibiotics was complete. He could forgo the pain meds but understood the necessity of antibiotics, goddamn Jason Baker. So, no beer.

  The leftovers from their last meal sat neatly on the second shelf of the fridge, mocking his efforts not to think about Jenna. The look on her face when she held him at bay haunted him. He’d needed to go to her, pull her into his arms, hold her and make sure she was okay—after he’d failed her. That blade at her throat and the crimson flow of her blood scalded his belly. He’d never felt so helpless, and if the asshole hadn’t bought into the opportunity to stab him to death Bryce had absolutely no idea what else he might have done.