What Matters More

by Liora Blake

  JT hated the tremor he could hear in his voice, evidence of how truly terrified he was. Alarm bells were going off in his head—the sounds of doubt and fear and failure—all clamoring for his attention.

  He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “Tell me what you need from me. What would change your mind? Whatever it is, I’ll make it happen. I don’t care what it is.”

  There was nothing but silence for what felt like hours. Broken finally by a quiet sob, or perhaps a sigh, he wasn’t sure which.

  “I wish I could,” Anya said. “I just don’t think I’m ready for this, JT. That’s all. I’m just not ready—for you.”

  Then he heard something that broke his heart right in two—Anya crying quietly as she hung up the phone.

  He rode the elevator down to the lobby, walked right past Chris without saying a word, and went straight out to the parking lot. Chris followed him silently, unlocked the doors on the SUV they were using and waited for JT to get in the passenger seat.

  JT stared out the windshield, answering Chris’s question before he asked it.

  “She said she’s not ready for this. For me.” He balled his hands into fists. “I made her cry. How fucked up is that?”

  Chris sighed dejectedly, then began tapping his fingertips on the top of the steering wheel.

  “What else did she say? Did she tell you to leave her alone?”

  JT shook his head. “No. I asked her what I could do to change her mind, but all she said was that she wished she could. Then she said she wasn’t ready for this. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?” He blew out a frustrated breath. “What the fuck do I do now?”

  Chris started the car.

  “Right now, you compartmentalize. Get focused on finishing up this case.” He put the SUV in gear but didn’t back out. Chris sent JT his most mercenary-like expression.

  “Because when we’re done, you’re going home to a woman who is clearly scared shitless about being in love with you. And when she finally realizes that, she’s going to want you in one piece.”

  23

  Anya

  Anya stepped back and tried to determine if her decision to hang all three of these paintings on this wall of the gallery was the right choice. She canted her head and stepped back another two feet. Her heart said that these three pieces belonged together, but the curator inside her wasn’t convinced.

  Hanging the paintings this way left less white space between them than was expected in a setting like this. Going against gallery norms would mean that the stuck-up art snobs—her ex, Martin, included—who were invited to her show this weekend might spend the entire evening sniping about how the new Fenton awardee was nothing but an amateur, the product of a state school art program, and clearly didn’t know how to properly compose a showing.

  While she didn’t much care if anyone called her out for the lack of a private school pedigree, this showing was her introduction to the Fenton community, so she obviously wanted to make a good impression. Only a delusional egomaniac—of which the art world had too many—could put together a show like this and not care what anyone else thought.

  In the end, her emotions were going to win out, though. This was the longest wall available in the gallery, and these three paintings couldn’t hang anywhere but together. The only other option would be to pull them out entirely, and that wasn’t going to happen—not when these paintings were all that she had to show for her time with JT.

  “It’s spot-on. Just as it is,” a voice said from behind her. “Don’t overthink it. You’ll just make a hash of it.”

  Anya turned on her heel and gave the head of the Fenton committee a weary smile. Samuel Brooks was tall and lanky—built like a man who ran marathons for fun, which he did. With a mop of curly brown hair that occasionally fell across his face and mischievous brown eyes, he looked almost a decade younger than his actual midforties. His propensity for pairing red high-tops with his corduroy pants and suit coats also added some youth to his look.

  Over the last week, Samuel had spent hours with Anya detailing what was to come over the course of the next year, including driving her out to the ranch to show her where she would be living and working during that time. His office, though, along with the gallery where Anya’s introductory show would take place, was here in downtown Tucson at the Fenton Institute’s headquarters.

  “I’m not sure about the white space,” Anya conceded with a shrug. “People expect breathing room between pieces, especially when the canvases are this big.”

  Samuel came to stand beside her. He scanned the wall from left to right, then crossed his arms over his chest decidedly.

  “You’re an artist who works from the gut, Anya. Don’t fight what makes you you, whether it’s in your paintings or in the way you show them. Trust your instincts.” He offered her a patient smile. “They are, after all, what got you here.”

  He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, then reminded her to lock all the doors when she was done. After turning off the lights in his office, he disappeared, leaving Anya all alone in the building. And when nothing but silence surrounded her, his words about trusting her instincts weren’t enough to tamp down the anxiety that began to crawl up her spine. She and her instincts weren’t good friends these days. In fact, since leaving Palo Verde Heights and telling JT she wasn’t ready for him, she had spent most her time ignoring her instincts.

  If she hadn’t, she would have called him a hundred times and shown up at his parents’ house a few more times than that, all so she could tell him how utterly, stupidly, completely in love with him she was. But she didn’t. And with every day that passed, it felt like any window of opportunity she might have to fix what she’d done was closing.

  Anya sank to the floor, cross-legged. She dropped her head into her hands and allowed her weary body to rest for a moment. This wasn’t how she was supposed to feel. Not now, in the midst of her greatest professional accomplishment. It wasn’t right, feeling this hollow inside—it couldn’t be.

  But she did. And without JT, she always would.

  24

  JT

  JT’s desk phone rang just as he shut his computer off for the day. He hesitated before answering and seriously considered letting it ring over to his office voicemail. It had been a long day of nothing but paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. And paperwork always put him in a bad mood, even when these reports detailed a successful capture in El Paso.

  Plus, he was supposed to meet with the landlord of a house he wanted to rent in less than an hour and he had hoped to grab a quick shower before. He didn’t want to show up looking like the stereotype of a worn-out cop, even if it was because he was functioning on two hours of sleep and had spent the last eight hours trapped behind a desk squinting at a computer screen.

  But his conscience wouldn’t let him walk away. For every fugitive captured, there were thousands more still out there, and there was always a chance that whoever was calling had a lead for him.

  JT grabbed the phone and blew out a breath as he answered. “JT Maxwell.”

  He immediately heard voices on the other end of the line, but the caller wasn’t talking to him. Multiple voices talked over one another, including whoever was holding the phone. JT rolled his eyes. If this person was calling in with a tip, they weren’t leaving him with a stellar first impression.

  “Unless she’s mapped out a small molecule inhibitor that addresses malaria, tell the minion I will be with her in one freaking second,” a woman said as a door slammed loudly in the background. “Great fucking Goddess, I swear I will butter your little southern biscuit if you don’t stop telling me not to screw this up, Alec. How am I going to screw it up? I’m inviting the man to a party, not negotiating an arms treaty. . . . Yeah, well it’s not my fault that the smart-ass who answers the phone for the Marshals Service acted like it was a matter of national security to give me the man’s extension. And you didn’t hear me threaten him with bodily injury, did you? No, I resisted that urge. I’m the v
ery picture of decorum and gentle breeding over here. You can practically hear my petticoats swishing under my fucking dress.”

  Something in her voice teased at JT’s memory, and for a moment, he tried to place why. Then he heard the caller mutter another curse word and blow an air-kiss to someone before finally speaking directly into the phone.

  “G.I. Joe? Are you still there?”

  JT snorted. Everything made sense now. Except perhaps why Anya’s bestie, Tara, would be calling him, which he assumed wasn’t a good thing. Despite years of self-defense training and weapons instruction, JT suspected that an unhappy Tara would give him a run for his money. And since the last time he had spoken to Anya, he’d made her cry, there was a good chance he was on Tara’s shit list. Chris had advised JT to give Anya some space, which was what he was doing, but from Tara’s point of view, it might not look like that.

  “I’m here,” he said with a chuckle. “How can I help you, Tara?”

  “You can start by telling me that you’re free next Saturday night.”

  His social life wasn’t exactly buzzing these days, so he was definitely free, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be. Especially if Tara had arranged a firing squad for that night and JT was their guest of honor.

  “Yeah, I’m free next Saturday night.”

  Tara blew out a relieved breath. “Good. Alec and I are hosting a little get-together after Anya’s showing at the Fenton gallery. The fancy-pants donor types will probably linger until about eight, so we’re thinking she’ll be ready for a drink and unstuffy people by around nine. That work for you?”

  JT froze, slowly putting together what Tara had said. “Did you say the Fenton gallery? Did she . . . ?” His voice drifted off as each piece fell into place. “Jesus, did she get that artist thing she applied for?”

  “Do you mean did the Fenton committee award Anya with the most prestigious artist-in-residence program in the Southwest? Why, yes, they did.” Tara paused for a beat. “She didn’t tell you?”

  He swallowed thickly. Pride, joy, and pain battled inside him.

  Pride, because Anya made it easy to feel as if just knowing her was the privilege of a lifetime. Joy, because the woman he loved had earned the one accolade she’d desperately wanted.

  And pain, because she hadn’t thought to share it with him.

  “No,” he admitted. “I’ve been out of town for ten days, though. Maybe she found out while I was gone or something.”

  “She’s also doing her best impersonation of a woman who doesn’t realize she’s worthy of being loved. That might be part of it, too.” Tara’s tone was both wry and gentle. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, like I said, nine o’clock. And this fete is a potluck and BYOB, so don’t show up empty-handed unless you want to see a bunch of starving artists and poorly paid academics run you out of the house with our plastic sporks. We aren’t exactly an athletic bunch, so you’ll get away pretty easily, but you can save us from getting short of breath by remembering to bring a covered dish.”

  JT grinned. “Bring a covered dish and no one chases me with a spork. Got it.” Tara started to say goodbye, but there was still a question in JT’s mind, one he couldn’t ignore in good conscience.

  “Hey, Tara?” he said, just before she hung up. “Before you go, can I ask you a question?”

  “I don’t know, can you?” she countered dryly.

  “Does Anya know about this? That you’re inviting me?”

  Tara scoffed. “Of course she knows. This is not some idiotic romantic comedy in which I play the meddling best friend who supposedly knows what’s best for the plucky heroine despite her protests, okay? Even if I was born to play that role,” she mused before letting out a sigh. “I made a list of people to invite and she approved it. I even double-checked with her about you specifically, and she said she wanted you to come. Does that put your big, manly mind at ease?”

  A surge of hope ran through him. He might be getting ahead of himself, but fuck it, he didn’t care. Anya wanted him there. Fingers crossed that this was her way of telling him she had changed her mind.

  “It does.” JT took a deep breath, grinning. “Thank you, Tara. I really appreciate your nonmeddlesome meddling.”

  “Just make sure you’re there. She needs you to keep showing up, even when she’s trying to protect that beautiful heart of hers in all the wrong ways.” Tara sighed. “And don’t forget, BYOB. I am unaffected by your good looks, G.I. Joe. Do not show up thinking that your face, that body, and all those tattoos can be used as currency in my house.”

  JT groaned quietly. “I wouldn’t dare. See you Saturday.”

  25

  Anya

  Tara’s house was as hot as an oven. And not even a full-size oven, either.

  More like a toaster oven.

  The 1920s bungalow that she and Alec owned clocked in at around nine hundred square feet and was currently packed to the rafters with people. All the windows were open, as was the front door, but that made no difference. With that many bodies crammed inside a tiny house, nothing much would help it feel less stifling.

  Anya stared longingly out the front door from her perch on the couch, fantasizing about making a run for it and disappearing into the dark, cool night air. Even though the party wasn’t a wild affair and she appreciated all the effort Tara had put into it, the guest of honor was about to fall to pieces. Between preparing for the Fenton show and then mingling with the donors who were in attendance, Anya’s introverted side was clamoring for some alone time. All she wanted to do at this point was go to bed, curl into a ball, and sleep for the next twelve hours or so.

  But since her bed these days also happened to be Tara’s couch, that was a little hard to do—especially since there were two other people currently sitting on it. At the end of the month, Anya would officially start her residence program at the Fenton Ranch, but until then she was acting as an unpaid nanny for Tara and Alec in exchange for crashing on their couch again. She was still teaching a few paint-and-sip classes, too. Because apparently she couldn’t get enough of punny playlists and rowdy groups of women who unabashedly enjoyed their chardonnay.

  But aside from her waning energy level, there was another reason Anya was staring at the open door and on the verge of crying.

  She was waiting for JT.

  Anya had hoped to see him already here when she arrived, convinced in her heart that his accepting Tara’s invitation had to mean something. Ideally, she hoped that it meant he had been waiting for her to come to her senses. That no matter how stupid she had been, his love was a steady, patient thing. That whether she deserved him or not, JT was still hers.

  But it was nearly ten thirty and he still hadn’t shown up. Every minute that ticked by felt like a reminder of her stupidity. This was her fault; she accepted that. She’d had her chance and she’d wasted it—on fear and doubt.

  Her watery eyes dropped to the plastic cup in her hand, still half-full of the margarita Tara had poured for her an hour ago. And wasn’t that just the shit? She was surrounded by people she adored and who cared enough to come celebrate with her, and she couldn’t even bother with getting drunk. She forced herself to take a long drink. In the kitchen, someone turned up the music and a moody cover of “Stay with Me” began to play. Anya wasn’t sure if the song made her want to fall to pieces, or rally through.

  Which, of course, was the moment JT appeared in the doorway.

  He peered around the room, looking for a familiar face, and when his eyes locked on hers, Anya nearly burst out laughing—half in relief, half in fatigue. Before he even had a chance to clear the doorway, she was already on her feet and heading his way. Throwing her arms around his neck was an awkward undertaking because he was holding a paper grocery sack in his hands, but she did it anyway, uncaring if she was crushing whatever was inside.

  JT shifted the bag into the crook of one arm and used the other to wrap around her waist, burying his face into her hair.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he murmu
red, just loud enough for her to hear. Then he chuckled lightly. “This is exactly the kind of hello I was hoping for when I walked in here.”

  Anya pressed her face into his chest and grinned. The room and everyone in it receded into the background, and she let that wonderfully isolated sensation take hold, even as tears threatened in her eyes. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to lose it entirely, so she took a deep breath and shifted to stand up straight again, but JT tightened his hold on her, dropping his hand low enough that his grip sent an unmistakable message. You’re not going anywhere.

  “Ah-ha! G.I. Joe is finally here!” Tara shouted from across the room.

  Anya managed to turn in his embrace and watched as Tara bounded across the room. She grabbed the grocery bag out of JT’s hands without so much as a please, but JT gave up the bag without protest, which freed up his other hand. He used it to sweep his fingers across Anya’s cheek, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. Then he kissed her forehead gently.

  Tara peered in the bag and began to rummage through it.

  “Well, it seems that you’re capable of taking direction. Oh, yes. Excellent choice on the milk stout brew, I heartily approve.” Tara set the six-pack on the floor and then wrestled out a paper box from inside the bag. She flipped open the lid and scowled. Anya peered over and began to laugh.

  “Is this one of those onion-blossom things?” Tara asked, horrified. She gave Anya a sidelong look. “Who brings this to a potluck? Are you sure about this guy? Because this isn’t a good sign, if you ask me.”

  “It’s a thing.” Anya laughed, her gaze drifting JT’s way. “And, yes, I’m sure about him.”

  JT’s hold on her grew even tighter as he gestured to the bag with a chin tip. “There’s also a pan of my mom’s mac and cheese in there. That’s why I’m late. I wanted to make sure it was heated through before I came over.”