Until We Fall (Trust Duet Book 2)

by Edyn Michaels

  As I spoke the words, I knew they were true. I was already madly in love with my little family, even though I was equally terrified of the future.

  She curled into me, all warm and soft. Her sobs had died down to sniffles and hiccups, and even though she was getting snot all over me, I thought she’d never been more beautiful than she was in this moment.

  I would love her until the breath was ripped out of me.

  “How may I help you?”

  A tall man in what had to be a very expensive suit sneered at me, looking as if he had just gotten a whiff of fresh dog shit. I leaned against the counter and wiped my hands with a dirty rag, taking my time as I studied him. He looked familiar somehow, but I had no idea who he was.

  “Are you Jamison?”

  He spat the words out, as if my name was too dirty to take up room in his mouth. I immediately hated this guy, whoever the fuck he was, he clearly considered me beneath him without even knowing me. I glanced out to the parking lot to see a shiny black Maserati waiting in front of the entrance.

  Fuck me.

  “Yes, sir. That’s me. How can I help you? Oil change?”

  I threw that in just to see the look on his face. He physically recoiled at the thought of my touching his car. I had to keep from laughing at his reaction. It was priceless and never got old. Although, I can’t say that I’d ever been this close to a Maserati before. Usually the best I saw was a Mercedes or BMW, and only because someone’s GPS failed them, and they needed directions.

  “I’m Alicia’s father.”

  Shit.

  I looked around quickly to see if there was something I could use to protect myself in the event he was carrying a piece and planned on taking me out for soiling his baby girl. Hell, I couldn’t blame the guy. I already felt crazy protective of my unborn child, and if it were a little girl, I would kill whoever knocked her up.

  “I see.”

  I looked down for a second, not sure what to do. Should I offer my hand for a handshake? Apologize? Saying ‘nice to meet you’ seemed inappropriate.

  I realized I probably looked like a fucking wuss, so I stood up straight and looked him in the eye.

  “Thank you for coming out to see me, sir. Would you like a seat?”

  He took a step back, seemingly surprised at my response. He looked around at the offered seating and got that weird look on his face again. Yeah, it probably wasn’t the cleanest or most comfortable seat he’d ever been offered, but it wasn’t going to bite him. Then again, the suit he was wearing probably cost at least a month’s pay, so I figured that made sense.

  “No. I won’t be staying that long.”

  “Okay.”

  The word hung in the air between us. Acknowledgement, and an unspoken question: why are you here?

  “Jamison, you will not be seeing my daughter again.”

  He never laid a finger on me, yet I felt as if I’d been slapped across the face. His calm demeanor belied the threat that lay under the surface of his words. ‘Or else’ remained unsaid. Somehow, we were having a conversation within a conversation.

  “Sir, all due respect, I will be a father to my child. Which means I will see your daughter again. I hope to someday marry her, and raise our child and future children together, as a family. You have every right to want me to stay away from your daughter, but I have every right to see mine.”

  I was proud of myself for my stance, standing up for Aly and myself while showing him the respect he deserved.

  His face darkened, and he took a threatening step toward me.

  “You have every right to see the bastard half-breed you forced on my daughter? Why, so you can teach it to belch the alphabet, crush beer cans on its forehead and drag its knuckles on the ground like you and your Neanderthal motorcycle buddies? This is the life you would force on my daughter and my grandchild? No, that won’t be happening.”

  He turned to walk away as I found my voice.

  “You can’t legally keep me away from my child. I have my rights.”

  If looks could kill…

  “Jamison, there is no child. This morning my daughter made the first smart decision she’s obviously made in a while and had that useless group of cells sucked out of her body. She realized that you were not good enough to provide the life she deserved, so she terminated her pregnancy. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? She had an abortion. Which means that you will not be a father to anything with my daughter. You will not call her. You will not see her. You are through with her. If you even attempt to see her ever again, you will be arrested for statutory rape.”

  As his words settled around me, my blood turned to ice.

  “She wouldn’t do that. She wanted our baby.”

  But did she?

  I remembered her tears. I remembered holding her body as it shook with her sobs.

  “You think she wanted to live in a run-down trailer and live paycheck to paycheck? You think she wanted to quit college to raise your children while you ran around with any stray piece of skirt, drank and gambled your laughable excuse of a paycheck away? No, my daughter was raised to expect certain things out of life. And what Alicia wants, Alicia gets. And she no longer wants you.”

  He walked out of the shop, and once his black car pulled out of sight I let go of the counter that I hadn’t realized was holding my weight and collapsed to the ground.

  Carl must have heard something because he came to the front and looked around, a shocked yell falling from his lips when he damn near tripped over me.

  “Boy, what are you doing on the ground? Get up.”

  He pulled me into a chair and propped me up when the tears came. Hot, angry tears that mourned every fucked-up thing that ever happened in my life.

  “It’s gone, Carl. She killed my baby. She fucking killed my baby.”

  I just kept repeating the words, louder and louder until I was screaming them, my fists pounding the chair, the wall, anything they could reach they were hitting, because I needed the physical pain to drown out the pain inside of me that threatened to explode and take me down with it.

  “Oh, Jamie.”

  He pulled me in for a hug, one I fought against. His sympathy made things too real. His hug made the pain greater inside of me. I needed to go back to being dead inside, where I didn’t let the shit hand I’d been dealt in life get to me. I needed to be untouchable.

  “I’m so sorry son. You would have been an incredible father.”

  “Really, Carl? I’d have been incredible? I’m a fucking kid with a piss poor excuse of a family life who is having to hide money from his goddamned mother so that she doesn’t end up drinking it or injecting it. So, truth is, I probably would have sucked at parenting, so maybe it’s for the best, maybe not. We’ll never know, though. I’ll never let another woman in, they aren’t worth the fucking trouble.”

  “Jamison, you can’t shut women out because of your first heartbreak.”

  I knew he was trying to talk some sense into me, but that sense was not welcome here. I felt the ice fill my veins and freeze out my heart, anger overcoming sadness.

  Thank fuck.

  “Carl, between my mother and that bitch, I’ve had my fill. So, I’m done. Women are good for one thing and one thing only. But from now on, I will be in charge of birth control.”

  I woke up with a shock, disoriented from my unplanned nap on the couch.

  The memories and the darkness that they brought swirled around me.

  I hadn’t thought about the baby in years. I had pushed its short existence in my life into a mental box, where I wrapped it up tight with barbed wire and heavy chains, keeping it out of my mind and out of my heart.

  Why now?

  I looked around my stark apartment, trying to figure out what the trigger was that brought the past back like a tsunami. I took in the sparse furnishings saw an edge of black lace peeking out from underneath the curtain. I walked over and pulled out a barely there scrap of material that last night was pressed intimate
ly against the most delicious flavor of darkness I’d ever encountered.

  Jennifer.

  The urge to run to her was great. The urge to run away from her was greater. She had walked out, and in being another woman to walk away from me she’d forced the chains to fly off of the memories I’d fought hard to contain. I’d only known her a short time, and she’d shown me that she had the capacity to tear down every wall in my life.

  She had the ability to make me feel, when I’d sworn off all type of feelings and emotional attachments.

  She had the ability to own my soul, despite its absence.

  She would either become my salvation or my deepest regret.

  She terrified me.

  She enthralled me.

  She could destroy me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dane

  Would you like to meet me for drinks?

  I hit send on the text before I lost my nerve.

  Janelle was a friend, a very attractive friend, who I’d spent time with before, but never anything more than someone to hang out with.

  Hang out, never hook up.

  I needed to open myself up to other people, I had to accept the fact that I was a single guy, who wasn’t getting any younger, and that the object of my affections had been missing in action for months now. I texted Kaylie on the regular, so I had an idea that she was doing okay.

  I also knew that she was dating a ‘nice’ guy.

  Kaylie refused to tell me Mr. Nice Guy’s name, but she didn’t think that it was enough of a deal that I should worry about it too much.

  Because he was ‘nice’.

  What the fuck was it with women and the use and abuse of the word ‘nice’? Why did it have to be the kiss of death for some poor sap who was just trying to do the right thing and be a halfway decent guy?

  Sure, usual place?

  Yeah, see you there around eight.

  I smiled, looking forward to spending the evening with Janelle. She was a blast, had a biting sense of humor and could always leave me with my sides splitting from laughter. The fact that she was gorgeous and a phenomenal human being was a total bonus.

  “You look happy today, hot date?”

  Aspen walked into my office at McCallum with a stack of papers and collapsed in the seat across from me.

  Hmmmm. Hot date. Well…

  “Yeah, I guess you could say I do.”

  I felt oddly proud of myself, as if I’d turned some sort of important corner by allowing the boys to fall out of the mangina they’d created and swing free once again.

  “Mari?”

  And there it was. The one word that could put a dark cloud over my sunshine.

  My mouth lifted in a half smile.

  “No, haven’t heard from her, so I’m giving her the space everyone in the universe seems to be intent on letting me know she needs.”

  She kind of narrowed her eyes while looking at me.

  “So, you’re moving on?”

  Was I?

  “I don’t know. I mean, I guess? Maybe?”

  She rolled her eyes at me.

  “What are you, fifteen? Jesus Christ, Dane, this is not a trick question. Are you or are you not over her?”

  She stood up and paced the small office a little bit, like a caged animal ready to pounce at me and tear my throat out, which I thought was an oddly intense reaction considering the fact that my love life was really of no consequence to her.

  Rather, my lack of a love life.

  “Damn, Aspen, want to tone back the bitchiness a few levels? It’s my first attempt at being interested in someone female since my heart was sliced open with blood pouring out everywhere, okay? Is that moving on? I don’t know. I think maybe it’s called ‘I’m trying’. Can you deal with that?”

  She glared at me when I mentioned ‘bitchiness’, but for real. I had enough life experience to know better than mention the fact that a lethal dose of Midol might be necessary, but I had a distinct feeling that there was a red river that had her paddle boat ready to ride.

  “I wish I could find someone who loved me the way that you loved Mari. Even if it sort of blew up in your face on an epic scale.”

  Ah. My sister was having romantic issues.

  Fuck.

  I had somehow backed myself into a very uncomfortable corner of having to discuss my sister’s romantic life. I could deal with hearing about Phoenix, only because he was my brother. You know, we discussed stuff like a couple of guys in a locker room. It was easier having a brother because I had never had the urge to break some chick’s nose for using him as a one-night stand. One: I would never, ever hit a woman. Two: my brother was the asshole who did the using, so I usually had a greater risk of running interception against pissed off big brothers who wanted to kill him.

  “Shit, Aspen.”

  I sat on the edge of the desk and opened my arms.

  She flung herself in for the hug, and I did my brotherly duties and just held her while she sniffled her way through her problems.

  “I thought he liked me, Dane. We’d gone out a few times, and I really thought he was into me. When it came time to get nake… um… serious, he was more than willing to be a very serious participant. But the next day, I couldn’t get him to respond to a text or anything. Suddenly, he’s letting me know that he wanted to back off, that it was moving way too fast for him. Two days later, he’s with some blonde tramp with his tongue shoved down her throat at the restaurant we usually went to together. It was like he wanted me to find him. When I confronted him, he called me a crazy-ass bitch who was a lousy lay. Like, what the fuck? Who says shit like that?”

  Her tears started fresh and I found myself clenching and unclenching my left hand. I threw right in football, so I’d learned a long time ago how to punch left handed. My hand was itching to make contact with that asshat’s face, to leave it bloodied and battered as he’d left my sister’s self-esteem.

  “No, Dane. He’s not worth it.”

  I hadn’t said a word, so I looked at her with a question in my eyes. She silently pointed at my left hand, clenched tightly in a fist that would have easily broken a nose and possibly knocked out a tooth or two.

  “To protect you and defend you, it would absolutely be worth it.”

  “You’re too pretty to end up in jail, Dane, and trust me, this dickwad would totally claim assault and battery. You’d be taking it up the ass in no time by some big guy calling you his bitch. It’s just best that we drop it.”

  Inwardly I seethed. Mostly because I hated that fucker for using my sister like she was worthless. Partially because she thought I’d be the one playing bitch in prison. Why was it never me making other inmates my bitch in my family’s ‘Dane in jail’ scenarios?

  “Enough about me and my issues. Who are you taking out tonight?”

  “Janelle.”

  “Wait, Janelle Janelle?”

  “Uh, yeah. Why? What’s wrong with that? I thought you liked her.”

  She had crinkled up her nose at the thought of my going out with my friend.

  “Of course, I like her. But you guys have been friends for, like, forever. That’s really creepy and weird, like dating a sister or something. Ew, dude, it’s like you’re an incestuous freak getting it on with your cousin or something.”

  I gagged a little at the thought.

  “Well, I think you’ve just managed to ensure that we will not be having sex tonight, thanks for that. Nothing like a mental image to turn the mighty oak into a limp noodle.”

  I laughed as she swung her hand at me.

  “You nasty fucker, do not make me picture your baby maker.”

  I was bent over laughing so hard I almost started to choke.

  “Baby maker?”

  “I can’t call it anything other than that, you’re my brother.”

  She sat back with her arms crossed, looking more than a little annoyed at me. Good God, trying to keep up with my sister’s emotions was going to be the death of me. Hell, it was bad en
ough when we were growing up, but now that I had to work with her as an adult… torture.

  “Whatever. I’m going on this date, and I’m going to have a great time. Janelle is a really nice girl, fun to be around and not too horrific to look at. If it goes anywhere, fine. If it doesn’t, at least I know I won’t lose her friendship.”

  She shrugged and walked out the door.

  “Just be careful, Dane. Some crazy hoes think you’re irresistible. Would hate to have you go and breaking your friend’s heart.”

  I shook my head at her retreating back, not putting much thought into her concerns. Janelle was a cool chick, fun to hang out. She wasn’t the type to put too much into a night out for drinks.

  Oh. Shit.

  I was in trouble.

  Janelle walked into the bar wearing a tiny dress that must have been painted on her body, it was so tight. Her tits were almost indecently exposed, pressed so closely together that they looked ready to explode out of their confines to proudly announce their arrival. I had to keep reminding myself to not look at them, to look her in the eyes, but my eyes refused to listen.

  As soon as she spotted me, her face broke into an open smile, ear to ear, and she waved enthusiastically before walking over. A mile-long expanse of leg was exposed, and every man in the bar watched her walk by with goofy smiles on their faces, inevitably wondering how those gorgeous legs would look wrapped tightly around their waists.

  “Dane, it’s great to see you.”

  I reached my hand out and she shimmied past it, going in for a hug.

  A full body hug.

  With her body pressed tightly against me, there was no way to hide the way she had ‘inspired’ me when she walked across the room. Don’t judge me, I wasn’t the only man trying to discreetly readjust.

  Maybe she didn’t notice the bulge that was becoming harder by the second.

  Judging by the sharp inhale of breath and lift of her eyebrow, she was aware. Very well aware.