Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  He cradled his imaginary wounds to control the pain and tried to measure his strides as he ran. If he screwed up, he’d be the one knocked out cold instead of Benery. When he made it to the pivotal location between two tall pine trees, his legs almost failed him. But he pushed on, barely hurdling the trip wire in his path. Every instinct shouted at him to turn and watch for Benery’s approach. But his and Maggie’s plan echoed through his head.

  Keep running so he’ll keep chasing you.

  His legs feeling as if they weighed two hundred pounds apiece, Jonah stumbled and rolled. Oh, shit. The plan hadn’t worked. Benery was past the point where he should’ve tripped the wire. And Jonah was lying here like a fish just waiting to be scooped up in a net.

  He scrambled up and the impact of a bullet train hit him in the chest. Unable to help himself, he looked down to find a hole gushing blood—down his torso, over his grasping fingers. Was it real?

  If so, he was a dead man.

  His mind shorted out except for one thought. Tessa.

  Benery kept coming at him, arm extended. But with Jonah’s wavering vision, he couldn’t spot a damn gun.

  Then the crack of real gunfire reverberated through the trees, and Benery’s advance on Jonah stalled. The guy took one step, two steps before his left leg folded. His right didn’t fare any better, somehow bending the wrong direction and sending Benery pitching to the ground.

  Weapons drawn, Maggie and her deputies swarmed into the trees and cautiously approached the man lying on his side. Maggie hunkered down and touched Benery’s neck. “He’s out, but he’s not dead.”

  The deputies quickly cuffed him and called for medical assistance.

  Jonah tried to shove the goggles off his face, but hands weren’t working correctly. “Wha…what the hell just happened here?”

  Maggie looked over her shoulder and lifted her chin toward someone behind her. “Your girlfriend just saved your ass.”

  31

  She shot him. Tessa stared at Keith’s body on the trail, then at his gun dangling from her fingers. She stopped him. She did it.

  Jonah crashed toward her through the trees and skidded to a stop. His cousin pushed him aside and took the gun from her.

  “I shot him,” she said.

  “But you didn’t kill him,” Maggie reassured her. “How did you get the gun?”

  “He had to set it aside to put on the gear. I just reacted, grabbed it and ran, hoping he was so focused on Jonah that he wouldn’t come after me. When I heard him moving in the other direction, I followed.”

  “Tessa, why the hell did you risk yourself like that?” Jonah tried to gather her in his arms, but Tessa wiggled out of his hold. Right now, she couldn’t afford to lean against him. Soften toward him.

  “Because it was time for me to do the protecting. The saving,” she said softly. “Now you know what it feels like to have the choice taken out of your hands. Now you know how I feel about what you did.”

  The look on Jonah’s face broadcasted his anguish, his apology. “I didn’t want you to find out about the shit I pulled with Shaw and the others because I knew you’d look at me exactly this way.”

  When the EMTs tried to load Jonah and her into the same ambulance, she balked, telling them she wanted to ride alone. Soon she was lying in a St. Elizabeth’s hospital bed with five leads snaking from her chest to a telemetry monitor. Apparently, Jonah had given the doctor the background on Benery’s technique for trying to kill her, so that meant a full cardiac workup for her. And although she’d been given instructions to rest, that was impossible with a blood pressure cuff inflating every fifteen minutes.

  The damn thing was just starting to pump again when the door opened and Jonah walked into her room wearing a hospital gown. The vee neck revealed burn marks on his upper chest. His face was as scratched as hers, and a bruise was forming on his left elbow. They were a pair all right.

  Her heart seesawed in her chest, with love and resentment each trying to slam the other into the dirt.

  “We need to talk.” His voice was low and slightly slurred, probably from painkillers.

  Talking was the last thing she was interested in doing. What she wanted was to go to sleep and wake up in the morning to discover none of this had ever happened.

  That she’d never gone to Tucci’s and opened herself up to being hurt by this man.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Tessa could feel tears forming, but she’d be damned before she cried right now. “No. If I could wrap this blood pressure cuff around your neck, I’d happily do it. You tampered with people’s lives.”

  His hazel eyes took on the sharpness of brass tacks. “I did, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Tessa, Shaw and the others didn’t just tamper with your life. They damn near destroyed it.”

  “So you felt like you had to step in and do something about it?”

  “They needed to pay.”

  “That’s what the legal system is for.”

  “A system you and your parents didn’t use.”

  “So you took things into your own hands. Did you even think about how I would feel about you getting revenge for me? For manipulating my life?” She sat up and the leads pulled at her skin. Minor pain compared to what she was feeling inside. “Why? Why would you undermine me that way?”

  “You’d been awarded some scholarships, but not enough to cover everything. I just topped off what the school had already provided.”

  “So you stole money to send me to college. Jonah, my parents would’ve helped me with the rest.”

  “But you wanted to do it on your own, didn’t you?”

  At the time, she had been proud. So gratified at the thought of having somehow paid her own way. Now, the memory of her full ride to U of W made her insides ache. She’d believed she’d earned that scholarship money, but it had been bullshit all along. “God, you were behind my graduate school fellowships, too, weren’t you?”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with those. You earned them.” Jonah lunged forward and reached for her hand, but she slipped it under the sheet. His jaw hardened, and he retreated to lean against the wall.

  “Yay me,” she said, not bothering to cover the cold bitterness of her tone. “Tell me, did you hack the dealership’s system and give me that zero percentage loan when I bought my first car? Maybe you called these companies in North Carolina and blackmailed them into meeting with me.”

  “Now you’re just being ridiculous. You’ve done all that on your own. But after the rapes, you were struggling. I just did what you and your parents couldn’t at the time. Believe me, none of those guys got a fraction of what they deserved.”

  “What about Alex Bledsoe? Did he get what he deserved when he took his own life?”

  “About that… Maggie called her contacts over in Mecklenburg County. They’re already reopening that case, and it looks like it could’ve been homicide instead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s possible Benery was behind that, too. Regardless, he won’t see the other side of prison bars for a long time, if ever.” As if unable to help himself, he approached her bedside again. Touched the edge of the bandage on her forehead and studied the scratches on her cheek. “I was scared shitless to leave you alone with him.”

  She was tempted to lean in to his touch, just let all this go and move on. But she would eventually hate herself and Jonah if she caved. “You only did it because you knew he would follow you.”

  “No, I did it because this time I trusted you could handle yourself if it all went sideways. I won’t lie and say I don’t want to protect you. That’s in my DNA when it comes to you. But just because I want to protect you doesn’t mean I think you need my protection.”

  Tonight, she wasn’t sure what she needed from him or if she could accept anything from him ever again. She’d loved him for years. Loved the man she thought was a hero, only to find his feet were made of clay just like everyone else’s.

  “I don’t
want to rescue you.” His expression was so serious, so sincere. “What I’ve needed all along is for you to rescue me. I know you have feelings for me, Tessa. Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be here.”

  “The doctors are making me stay for observation.” She plucked at one of the leads. “It’s not like I have a choice right now.”

  “For as long as I live,” he said, “no one will ever take away your choice again. Not even me. I choose you and I hope you’ll choose me back. I thought about coming in here with flowers or candy or hell, even diamonds. But I knew that wouldn’t convince you of anything. All I can offer you is the truth. And the truth is that I’ve done things behind your back when what I should’ve done is told you how I felt straight to your beautiful face.” Before she could pull away, he lifted her hand from under the covers and kissed the center of her palm.

  Like a vow.

  Like a promise.

  “The truth is I love you. And I will for the rest of my life even if you can’t love me back.”

  With the pain burrowing into her heart, Tessa knew the problem wasn’t her love for him. It was whether or not she could be with a man who saw her as a perpetual victim. “I don’t—”

  “Don’t say anything now,” he told her. “Mom is having a holiday get-together at Tupelo Hill tomorrow night. Say you’ll come. And if you never want to see me again after that, I’ll get out of your life.” With a gentle kiss to her knuckles, he squeezed her fingers. Then he headed for the door.

  That’s when she knew he was serious, that he cared for her enough to do anything—even if that was nothing—for her. Because he’d apparently walked through the hospital with nothing on under his johnny gown.

  Laughter bubbled up inside Tessa, but before she could release the sound, it turned to sobs.

  This time, Jonah Steele had bared it all for her.

  32

  With a steaming mug of hot chocolate cradled in his hands, Jonah stood with his hip propped against the front porch railing, watching his family decorate a massive red spruce in his mom’s front yard. Only a family the size of his could disturb the peace of a mountain evening. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. This, this nuttiness, was a big part of the reason he’d maneuvered everyone into coming back home and staying here for good.

  Tessa was right when she said he wasn’t made to be alone. But without her, his life would be completely empty.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be here.” Jonah looked over to find Grif holding up a bottle of Irish whisky. “Want some? Makes the cocoa go down even easier.”

  Jonah held out his cup for a generous splash. “This just for the guy who fucked everything up or did everyone get some?”

  “Everyone over twenty-one and not packing a baby in utero.”

  “You’re gonna be a dad, dude.”

  “Again.”

  “You’ll be putting your tricked-out minivan to good use.”

  “I never imagined we’d all live here again.” Grif settled against the rail as if he was planning to dig in and stay here to keep Jonah’s miserable ass company. Looked like Grif had pulled the short straw tonight. “Hell, I sure never imagined you’d save this town. Steele Ridge, North Carolina.”

  “It’s a good place, a solid one.”

  “You helped make it that way.”

  “I’m no fucking hero.” And although hot chocolate, pricy booze, and family were an excellent combo on a December night, a chill had taken up residence in his chest when Jonah had walked out of Tessa’s hospital room. It was a place inside him that might never thaw if she decided she couldn’t live with what he’d done. “I’ve done shit.”

  “Good thing, too.”

  “I’ve lied and I’ve…what?”

  “The women we love may not need us in order to make a life for themselves. Hell, Carlie Beth did it on her own just fine for a lot of years. But that means they choose us. And when they do, that’s when you know it’s gonna all work out.” Grif nodded toward the driveway where a pair of headlights were cutting through the December darkness. “Told you so.”

  That freezer-burned part of Jonah’s chest thawed a single degree. Tessa was here.

  She got out of the car and freed Badger from the back. He hurtled across the yard like some kind of low-flying stunt plane, those ears almost taking him airborne. Jonah’s heart expanded at the sight of Micki scooping him off the ground and hugging the crazy canine to her chest.

  Gage was in the shithouse if he hadn’t rounded up a Christmas puppy for her.

  Every female in his family clustered around Tessa, hugging and talking a mile a minute. She smiled at them, but her gaze sought out his.

  Gut punch. He would never get used to how beautiful she was. But he’d come to grips with her strength.

  He couldn’t take a damn bit of credit for the amazing woman she was, but he was glad he’d had a small part in it. She, on the other hand, was the reason he was anything. If not for her, he might’ve been satisfied to be a back-room code monkey his whole life.

  His family finally released her and she walked toward the porch. And now that she was here, his vocal cords seemed to have left the building. “You came,” he croaked out.

  With the white lights twinkling around them, she looked gorgeous wearing the sweater Brynne had given her. Even the bandage in the center of her forehead couldn’t diminish her beauty. “Badger wanted to see Micki.”

  “He tell you that?”

  Badger was racing around the huge tree. When Jonah’s mom had insisted that it needed to be gussied up from the top to the low-hanging branches, Britt had borrowed a cherry picker from a friend.

  Tessa frowned, not exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for. “Is that… Wasn’t that tree in the woods where—”

  “My mom has a soft spot for it now. She wanted you to have it, but I wasn’t sure your condo would hold it. You’re the one who really kept my mom safe, but I figured if I tried to put you in her yard, you might protest.” He was teasing, but a part of him wanted to do just that, plant her where she could never leave Steele Ridge. Never leave him.

  But it had to be her decision. She had to choose him and accept everything he’d done.

  “Why aren’t you out there helping?”

  “Because I was waiting for you.” He was trying to control his breathing, but his exhale came out in a long stream of white in the cold air. “Hoping you would come.”

  She nodded. “I’ve been thinking…”

  He wouldn’t have expected anything less. Please say you’ve been thinking about forgiving me.

  “…about why Keith came after both of us.”

  Jonah’s momentary hope deflated. “Britt found some evidence that someone had been camping here on Steele land. We’re assuming it was Benery. That’s how he was watching us.”

  “I was able to talk with his mom earlier today. Apparently, he’d been obsessed with working for Steele Trap since his brother died. Of course, she didn’t understand the connection, but I’m guessing he blamed you all along. He may have been planning this for years.”

  “But why involve you? You had nothing to do with Steele Survivor.”

  “I realized that Keith never came back to see me after that night you and I were together in your office.”

  “He heard the recording of us?”

  “When he hacked into the files, yes. I was so angry at you for keeping things from me, but I never told you the recorder was running while—”

  “—we had sex.”

  “Yes. But I think Keith actually saw us together that night, which he felt was my defection from his side to yours.”

  “So he had no problem hurting you through your clients and using you to hurt me the way his brother’s death devastated him.”

  “People are irrationally wired for revenge.”

  “And you think what I did to Shaw and the others was irrational.”

  “Did…Did you know that when we both had the VR goggles on yesterday, that Keith had programmed it so you
would look like…Harrison Shaw?”

  “Jesus. How could Keith have even known…? The recordings again.”

  “He was trying to bring us both down with things that scare us.”

  “Did he accomplish what he set out to, Tessa? Because I’m scared as hell that everything I’ve done has ruined any chance we had. I treated you like you were helpless. Like you needed me to fix things for you, without thinking about how my actions might also hurt you.”

  “Then be honest with me about something. Anything.”

  “Remember that app I mentioned?”

  “The one you wanted to put a team together for.”

  “I didn’t tell you about it. About why I came up with the idea.” Unable to keep his hands to himself any longer, he reached for one of hers. He wanted to get downs on his knees, kiss her hand, and beg. But only the truth would win her over this time. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what you did. If you’d had some easy way to get in contact with your friends at the party that night… The app will make it possible for a person to communicate with a small trusted circle of contacts if she—or he—ever feels threatened.”

  “Oh, Jonah.” Her gaze softened and she squeezed his fingers, making his heart react in kind. “This… This is the man I’ve been reminding myself that you are. You’re capable of incredible compassion for other people and even if you screw up, it’s because you care so much. Me, on the other hand? I stifled my compassion because I was so scared of screwing up.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I believed I was helping people all these years. Companies definitely need the kind of services I provided, but I’ve realized that I was protecting myself from people’s real problems. Their real pain. I’ve been too afraid it would remind me of my own. But after seeing what you did for the shelter, after talking with Doris, I realized that’s where I want to be. I want to help people recover from trauma. I know what it’s like to be a victim, so I can connect with women and kids who’ve suffered abuse and sexual assault. Plain and simple—I’ve walked their walk.”