Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  Her warning was cut off when Jonah executed a flying dive over the bench, hitting the person behind the right shoulder. From the force of the momentum, a jumbled ball of arms and legs crashed the gravel path in front of the bench, and the birds took off in a flurry of squawks and feathers.

  Tessa’s view went topsy-turvy, flipping over and over, then bouncing to a stop. The camera had come loose from Jonah’s goggles.

  Everything seemed to slow as if Tessa were watching the scene through sorghum syrup. She blinked, trying to clear her vision so she could understand was she was really seeing. Small feet wearing white thick-soled tennis shoes. Birdlike, mottled hands. Wisps of gray hair peeking out from the stocking cap.

  Jonah reared up and straddled the person, pulling back his arm for a punch.

  “Jonah, stop!”

  “You SOB, I’m gonna—”

  “Don’t hit her!”

  “What?”

  “Take off your goggles.”

  “Tessa, this guy—”

  “Do it. Now.”

  He shoved them to the top of his head and looked down. “Oh, God. What the fuck did I do?”

  That told Tessa all she needed to know. That wasn’t the person they’d been trying to find. She pressed the door lock and fumbled with the handle. It took three tries before she was able to shove open the door and jump out. She dashed toward the bench as Jonah scrambled off the prone form.

  She skidded to a stop and looked down. Jonah’s head was bowed and the woman he’d attacked lay unmoving on her back. Her eyelids fluttered and she blinked, flooding Tessa with relief.

  “Are you okay?”

  The woman’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  Tessa yanked out her phone and dialed 911. She gave them location details and all she knew, which wasn’t much. Once she was sure they were sending help, she knelt down next to the woman and took her frail blue-veined hand.

  One glance at Jonah told her that he wasn’t doing much better. His eyes held a faraway glaze and his throat was working as if he couldn’t swallow properly.

  “Ma’am, can you tell me your name?” she asked.

  A tiny head shake was the only answer.

  “Don’t let her move,” Jonah ordered. “She could have a spinal cord injury. I probably snapped her in half.”

  When he looked up, a fist of emotion rammed into Tessa’s chest. Tears filled his eyes and he didn’t even try to blink them away.

  Tessa stroked the older woman’s white hair. “Do you know her? Who is she?”

  “Eva Vanderwinkle. One of the nicest ladies in Steele Ridge. Does stuff like make blankets for foster babies and read to sick people at the hospital. Hell, she didn’t even bit…gripe about having to change her address when I bailed out the town.”

  “Mrs. Vanderwinkle,” Tessa said softly. “Help is on the way. Jonah didn’t mean to hurt you. He thought you were someone else.”

  The woman’s mouth lifted a tiny bit. “Those Steele boys,” she whispered. “Always stirring up trouble.”

  14

  It took the ambulance less than four minutes to arrive at the park, and Jonah had never been so fucking glad that he lived in a small town.

  He’d body-slammed an old lady. Shame made him want to turn his head away to keep from looking at her tiny body splayed out there on the path, but that would be a chickenshit move. So he hunkered down near Mrs. Vanderwinkle, but didn’t touch her. Didn’t let his ham hands near her.

  Of course, the emergency personnel put a C-collar on her and were extra careful when they transitioned her to the gurney and lifted her into the ambulance. It was a small comfort to Jonah that one of the emergency responders was Maggie’s brother, Cash.

  Before Cash could swing into the cab of the ambulance, Jonah grabbed his arm. “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “I can’t tell you much now, but it’s a good sign that she never lost consciousness. We’re taking her to St. Elizabeth’s if you want to check on her later.”

  Cash climbed in, and the ambulance took off with lights whirling and siren whooping.

  Jonah sank onto the bench where he’d attacked poor Mrs. Vanderwinkle. This was just proof that he couldn’t control the aggressive impulses inside him.

  She’d be fine if he’d stopped to really look at who he was taking down. If he’d called out instead.

  But no, he’d let loose and hurt a sweet lady.

  “It was an accident.” Tessa sat beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  He didn’t want to be soothed. Didn’t want to be forgiven for such a dumbshit move.

  A cop cruiser pulled up and Maggie got out. Her face one huge scowl, she strode up to Jonah and Tessa and planted her hands on her hips, emphasizing the utility belt around her waist. Too bad she couldn’t just pull out her service gun and put him out of his misery. “What the hell happened here?”

  “It was a mistake…” Tessa started to explain, but Jonah shrugged out from her under hand and stood.

  “I jumped Mrs. Vanderwinkle.”

  “Is this what you do when you get bored up there on the ridge—come down and wreak havoc on innocent citizens?” Maggie nudged the VR goggles, still lying on the ground, with the toe of her boot. “What’re these?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Handy, since I have all the time in the world to hear it,” she said. “You want to do this here out in the cold or come back to the office where you can have a cup of shitty-ass coffee?”

  Turning to Tessa, he said, “You can take my car back to the house and Maggie will drop me off later.”

  “Not happening,” Tessa said, her mouth pinched stubbornly.

  “She’s right.” Maggie scooped up the goggles. “I’ll need to talk to her, too.”

  “Keys still in the car?” he asked Tessa.

  “I didn’t take the time to pull them out.”

  “Then I’ll ride with Maggie and you can follow.”

  Something flashed in Tessa’s dark eyes, something that looked like hurt. But Jonah couldn’t comfort her right now. Hell, he didn’t deserve to comfort her or to be comforted by her.

  It was late afternoon and evening was creeping over the mountains to shadow Steele Ridge by the time Jonah and Tessa finally walked out of the sheriff’s office.

  Maggie had ripped him a new asshole. Said Jonah should’ve come to her the minute he suspected this guy was on her turf.

  But in the end, the only crime committed today was by Jonah. Bodily assault.

  Mrs. Vanderwinkle had kindly decided not to press charges, and he needed to make amends. He would track down this bastard, one way or the other.

  “I’ll drop you by the house,” he said to Tessa, hearing and hating the clipped tone of his own voice.

  Still, she reached for his hand and he let her lace her fingers with his. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “Tell Mrs. Vanderwinkle that.”

  “You’re going to see her, aren’t you? I could go with—”

  “No, I need to do this alone.”

  “I understand.”

  She couldn’t. Not really. No one in Jonah’s life had ever completely understood him, not even Micki. The youngest of four brothers, he’d just wanted to be a protector like them.

  Yet the first time he’d had the chance to truly help someone, he’d done a completely half-assed job. A real hero would’ve stayed with Tessa, protected her from that last son-of-a-bitch who used her. A real hero wouldn’t have left her—alone and bleeding—on her front porch because he was too damn afraid of getting into trouble.

  He was still doing a half-assed job at protecting people he cared about. When they drove up to his house, he pulled the door key off his ring and held it out to her.

  “Maybe…maybe I should just go back to Asheville.”

  Anger tried to boil up in Jonah again, but he wouldn’t let it. Tessa didn’t deserve that. “No.” He pressed the key into her palm. “This guy is still out there somewhere
. You’re safer here than you’d be in your condo.”

  Indecision flickered in her eyes, stirring up all Jonah’s feelings of lack of control. So he took her hand and looked at her, really met her gaze the way he’d been avoiding since he’d ripped off the goggles to find he’d almost killed Mrs. Vanderwinkle. “Do this for me, please. I don’t know what’s going on here, not completely. But this guy is playing a dangerous game, and it’s obvious he’s not above using the weak to get what he wants.”

  “I’m not weak.”

  Hell. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I can’t just sit around and play the damsel in distress. This all started with me, and I won’t cower away while you’re trying to find whoever is responsible.”

  Jonah dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. Damn, it felt as if he hadn’t showered or shaved in a decade. “I think he’s using you to get to me.”

  “Even if that’s the case, he compromised my files, spray-painted my home, and made threats that may have caused Davey to kill himself. I can’t let that go. I’ve been thinking about who could be behind this.”

  He had, too.

  “We know it’s someone with a certain amount of technical skill. Would Carson really be able to do something like this?”

  Part of him wanted to believe Carson was their guy, but that martini dude at Tucci’s the other night had stuck in Jonah’s mind. Who the hell was he and why had he been staring at Tessa?

  “I’ll call Steele Trap’s HR director and see if I can get a line on him.”

  “We. It has to be we, Jonah, or I walk.”

  “If you’ll stay here while I’m gone, I promise I won’t cut you out. But I need to go apologize to Mrs. Vanderwinkle on my own.” He shoved out of the car and went around to open her door.

  “I want to talk this entire situation through when you get home,” she said, stepping out.

  Home. As if she considered his house her home, too. If only.

  If only he could stop blocking every attempt she made to get close to him.

  He took her hand, walked her to the front door, and unlocked it. He handed her the loose key, then framed her face in his palms.

  She was so precious to him. All he wanted was to protect her from ever being hurt again.

  “Don’t wait up, but I promise we’ll talk this out.” He pressed his lips to hers, breathing in her scent, letting it wash over him, surround him. If he could just draw her into his lungs, into his body, he could be a better man.

  Although he hated to, he ended the kiss, and her lips clung to his. “I’ll set the house security system from my phone. If you need to go outside, you can hit pause, then reactivate it with this code.” He gave her a random jumble of numbers and letters, expecting to have to repeat them several times.

  But Tessa closed her eyes, silently recited the sequence, and said, “Got it.”

  On his way to St. Elizabeth’s hospital, Jonah called the restaurant in Charlotte. He was able to get one of the bartenders on the phone. “Hey, I was at your place Saturday night and I thought I saw one of my old college buddies there, but he left before I could catch up with him. Could you check your receipts and give me the name of a guy who was drinking martinis? Three olives.”

  “Dude, I’m not sure—”

  “Do it, and I’ll call your manager and add more gratuity to the bar bill for that night.”

  A sigh came from the other end of the line. “I’ll need a little time to check the system.”

  Jonah gave the bartender his callback number.

  When he arrived at the hospital, he strode up to the information desk and flashed a strained smile. “I’m looking for Eva Vanderwinkle’s room.”

  “Room 212.”

  On the second floor, a nurse stopped him as he tried to enter the room. “Are you family?”

  With no reluctance at all, he lifted a bouquet of flowers and said, “Her grandson.”

  “You can stay ten minutes. They recently brought her up from recovery.”

  Crap. That meant she’d needed surgery. “Thanks.”

  He strolled toward the other end of the hallway and rounded the corner. Thank God for walls because he leaned against the nearest one and tried to catch his breath. He could’ve killed Mrs. Vanderwinkle.

  When he got himself together and found the correct room, he walked in to find Mrs. Vanderwinkle alone and hooked up to all kinds of beeping and flashing machines.

  The sight made his insides go cold. Where was her family?

  He placed the flowers, so damned inadequate as an apology, on a nearby rolling table and went to the bedside to take her hand.

  Her thin eyelids fluttered open, and she pinned him with sharp blue eyes. “Jonah Steele.”

  “Yes, ma’am. How’re you feeling?”

  She waved toward a pitcher sitting next to the flowers he’d brought and rasped out, “How do you think I’m feeling? Like a Yugo that’s been flattened by a semi.”

  With unsteady hands, he hurried to fill a plastic cup with water and shoved a straw in it.

  “Lift the bed a little.”

  He found the button and increased the incline enough so she wouldn’t choke on a sip of water. He held the cup and straw, and she took two halfhearted sips before lying back on the pillows.

  After a few bolstering breaths, she said, “Who was that pretty girl you were with?”

  “A friend.” Seriously? He’d put her in the hospital and she wanted to know about Tessa? “The nurse said you had surgery, but I wasn’t able to get any other information.”

  “Just a pin in my hip.”

  Just a pin? That meant recovery time and physical therapy. He pulled out his phone and sent himself a reminder text to hire her a private physical therapist. “Do you have someone to stay with you here at the hospital?”

  “My daughter’s on her way down from Alexandria. Don’t you worry. I’m eighty-three years old. I didn’t get to my age by being a dainty little flower. I’m a tough old broad.”

  He took her hand again, conscious of the birdlike bones beneath his fingers.

  “Don’t let my size fool you. My Henry used to say I was the hardiest heifer in the pasture.” Her smile reached her tired eyes. “Poor man didn’t exactly have a way with the compliments, but he meant well. Point being that we women are made of sterner stuff than you might think.”

  What would Tessa say if he told her she was the hardiest heifer in the pasture? Based on all she’d said to him lately, he had a feeling she’d take it as a compliment. Maybe Mrs. Vanderwinkle was right. He was still seeing Tessa as delicate instead of strong. “Please know that I never meant to hurt you. I thought you were someone else.”

  “Jonah, you’re a good boy,” she said. “You saved this town, so why in the world would you go around attacking the senior citizens here? That doesn’t make a bit of sense. Besides, your mother raised you better. But I would like to know who you mistook me for.”

  The words Jonah wanted to use to describe the asshole who was using innocent women to mess with him weren’t fit for polite company. So he forced a smile and told Mrs. Vanderwinkle, “No one you need to worry about.”

  Because Jonah was damn well going to make him pay.

  Jonah’s house was warm and welcoming despite its massive size, but when Tessa went to the guest room to change clothes and let Badger out of his kennel, she suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. Since she’d returned from Seattle, she hadn’t yet rekindled any of her childhood friendships. Tonight would be a perfect night to curl up on the couch with a girlfriend to share a bottle of wine and talk about their troubles.

  Brynne Whitfield Steele flashed into Tessa’s mind. Tessa took out the business card Brynne had given her, which listed the boutique’s Facebook page.

  She opened the Facebook app on her phone and brought up La Belle Style. From there, she clicked on Brynne’s profile. Her dark hair and gorgeous face were immediately recognizable in her profile pic.

  Tessa’s finger hovered over t
he friend button. To press or not to press? Was it just weird and pathetic for her to stalk Brynne, friend her, and then message her asking her to come over for girl time, when they didn’t know one another?

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she poked at the phone. Lots of people friended folks they didn’t know very well, and business owners tended to accept all the requests they received. She took a bolstering breath and messaged Brynne through the boutique’s page.

  Hello. I’m Tessa Martin. We met briefly at the Triple B.

  Brynne: Hey there! Did you change your mind about checking out that sweater? Wait a minute. Tessa Martin. You’re THE Tessa.

  Apparently word had gotten around after what had happened today. And they all knew she’d been critical to clearing Jonah last year, which meant they were all privy to her history.

  There went her idea. She didn’t need Brynne to look at her with pity.

  Tessa had started this PM, but now she had no idea what to type back. In the end, it didn’t matter because three dots appeared on the screen.

  Brynne: Maggie called Reid earlier to tell him about what happened in the park today. He’s been hitting up Jonah’s phone for hours, but no answer. He and the other guys went up to Jonah’s place earlier, but the lights were off and the Tesla wasn’t in the garage.

  Tessa: He’s out right now.

  Brynne: Are you at his house?

  Tessa debated. If she said yes, would Jonah’s entire family descend? She had a feeling Jonah wouldn’t be very happy to return and find them all sitting in his living room. Not after the day he’d had.

  Everyone else seemed to think Jonah was such an easygoing guy, but Tessa knew the truth. He was much deeper than his smart-ass smirk and his sarcastic T-shirts. He had an intensity and an edge of darkness that no one else seemed to see.

  Tessa: Yes, but Jonah’s gone to see Mrs. Vanderwinkle. Do you think you could keep everyone away, just for tonight?

  Brynne: Do you know the Steele brothers?

  Not really. Only what Jonah had told her, which wasn’t much. But if they were anything like him, they were forces of nature. Reid, in particular, seemed like a cyclone.