“Unless he’s on the run.”
“That would tell the story too, wouldn’t it? He’s always around somewhere. He’s like fungus, he flourishes where it’s dark and dirty. If he can’t be found at any of the usual locations, then something’s up with him.”
“Think we could check out any of those locations?”
Ghost’s dark eyebrows, always with a bit of a sardonic arch, arched higher. “You and me?”
Jared didn’t know what he was thinking; he was sort of flying on autopilot here. The cops should be left to do their job. He damn sure didn’t want to do it for them with this guy, of all people. But police officers were overworked, and this wasn’t their only case. Who knew how long it would take them to locate a person of interest if that person of interest was lying low? The sooner they could find this creep and get him off the streets, the sooner everyone’s lives could go back to normal. The sooner Starla wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. But then she’ll probably be gone.
He knocked that thought aside. “Yeah. If you’re thinking of going to look for him, then I want in.”
“I don’t need backup.”
“Did I say you do? I want to see for myself. No way am I gonna sit back and let him terrorize someone I care about.”
“Hey, I told you—”
“I’m not talking about Macy. You tell me she’s covered. All right, I believe you. I’m talking about Starla.”
Ghost fidgeted. He rubbed a hand over his bald head. Looked helplessly at the doors again, blew out a breath, looked back at Jared. In those mannerisms, Jared saw a guy itching to get shit done, maybe even to work out some pent-up aggression. “I can’t do anything tonight. We have baby duty. If you’re right—and I’m not saying you are—but if there’s even a chance, then fuck if I’m leaving Lyric and the girls alone.”
“Good.” That was what he’d wanted to hear. He dug his cell phone out of his back pocket. “Give me your number, and I’ll text you mine. When you’re ready to move on this, let me know.”
“This is some shit I can’t believe,” Ghost muttered, then recited the digits as Jared typed them in.
Jared’s chuckle deserved the award for least amused sound ever to be formed with human vocal chords. As soon as this was all over, the guy didn’t have to worry about Jared contacting him ever again. He’d wipe that number from his contacts like a filthy secret. But right now, allies weren’t a bad thing to have—the more, the better.
The enemy of your enemy was your friend. “You and me both, man.”
***
Starla sat in silence on the way home. Jared stared straight ahead at the road between glances at her, letting her brood in the peace he knew she so desperately needed. Whatever turmoil was going on behind her soulful brown eyes, it was hers, and she would think he could never understand it.
She might be surprised. He’d also witnessed someone he loved lying broken in a hospital bed. Macy, with her spine fractured. Those horrible moments when they didn’t know if… When they just didn’t know. Would she make it, would she be okay, would she come back from it, would she ride? Would she walk? The only time he could remember being truly terrified in his entire life was the moment he saw her horse throw her off during her championship barrel race, when he saw how hard and how brutally the ground twisted her back. Everything was muddled after that. He’d been there watching her race, cheering her on, and in an instant, life had constricted to a tiny black hole and exploded into a universe full of chaos. He’d been the first to reach her, but he couldn’t touch her. She lay limp as a rag doll, and all he’d wanted was to yank her into his arms, to fix her. And he couldn’t. Even later, after they knew everything would be okay, she wouldn’t let him near her. She’d told him to get out, and he had. She’d shed everything about her life like an old skin, him included.
Loving someone you couldn’t have; damn, he had a degree in it.
One thing he had absolutely no fucking clue about was how it might feel knowing there was a monster out there hunting you. Waiting to pounce on you or someone else close to you. He couldn’t take away Starla’s pain over the guy she loved—he’d never had much luck treating that particular pain himself. But he could do something about the monster.
He’d texted Ghost his number earlier and gotten a thumbs-up emoji back in response. An unlikely partner, that one, but whether he liked it or not, Jared didn’t have much doubt that Ghost would do anything to keep Macy safe, and probably any of his other friends too. He really couldn’t ask for more than that.
“Are you hungry?” he finally asked Starla, sensing her shift in her seat and look over at him in the darkness.
“I haven’t really thought about food since this morning,” she admitted quietly. Then, sighing, she pulled the elastic band from her high ponytail and let her hair fall in voluptuous waves around her shoulders. “I have such a headache.”
“Probably because you haven’t eaten all day,” he said lightly. “Do you feel like going anywhere, or throwing something together at home?”
“Are your cabinets stocked?”
“Pretty well.”
“I’d rather throw something together, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I didn’t mean you had to. Obviously I’m not much in the kitchen, but I can, like, boil water and throw some macaroni in it or something.”
She laughed. “Cooking calms me. It’s okay.”
“You won’t hear me complaining.”
“I’m so…fucking furious.”
He clamped his jaw shut, feeling her gaze fully on him now. Let it out, he thought. Now the brooding was over, she needed the outlet. Giving her all the space she might want so that she could gather her emotions into words, he only looked over at her and nodded.
“I don’t know how I can even express it. Usually I lash out at people who piss me off, but this is such a deep, deep hatred that it might destroy me to talk about it. I’ve never hated anyone this much. I fucking want to fucking explode and take that sonofabitch out with me by his fucking throat.”
Jared wanted to say he got it. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Only if another person had physically put Macy in the hospital all those years ago would he even begin to understand Starla’s anguish. Only the idea of Max somehow getting his hands on Starla came close.
“Yesterday, before he was attacked,” she began, “I told Brian everything. I told him I had to quit, and when he kept pushing me for a reason, I had to tell him why.”
Wow. He sat in amazed silence at that confession. She went on. “I took the step. I’m letting it go. Cutting it loose. I should’ve done it a long time ago. Hell, I shouldn’t ever have gone to work for Brian in the first place. It’s really the safest thing I can do. When he comes back…when he comes back, I have to be gone. I’m getting out entirely. It won’t hurt anymore then because I won’t have to see it.”
How could he argue? Except… “I think you’re fooling yourself if you think it won’t hurt anymore.”
Starla mulled that over in silence. “Well,” she finally said as he turned onto their dirt road, “it has to help a little. It can’t be any worse.”
“To leave a job and people you love? It might be.”
“I can still see them whenever I want. On my terms. I’ll have control.”
“Yeah. How did Brian take it?”
“Like Brian always takes things he doesn’t want to hear. He ranted a little, he told me the thought of us had crossed his mind a long time ago, but it wasn’t to be. Something we both know.”
“How did that make you feel? Better? Worse?”
She was a long time answering. “I don’t know. Neither, I guess. It is what it is. God, I hate that saying. And you know what else? I told my roommate I’m moving out. So I can start that search while I’m staying with you.”
He was proud of her. But he didn’t know how to say it without being patronizing. He also stopped short of telling her she could stay with him as long as she needed to, even though the w
ords were crowding in his throat. Too many complications there. Then she said something that broke his heart. “My life isn’t much, but it’s mine. It’s time I start taking control of it.”
“I think you’re still convinced you have to punish yourself, though. And I think that’s bullshit. You’re perfect the way you are.”
He hadn’t expected to utter those words, and given her silence, she hadn’t expected to hear them. His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as her scent floated over to tease at his senses, reminding him of having her thighs over his shoulders only a few nights ago. It felt like years. And now that his tongue had started wagging, he couldn’t seem to stop it. “You have a lot of love to give someone, Starla. That’s really a rare thing in the world.”
Glancing over at her, he saw her blink several times in the dim glow from the dashboard lights. “I have a lot to give, but no one has ever wanted it.”
“Maybe you only try to give it to people who don’t deserve it.”
“I’ve never tried to give love to anyone. I’ve never loved anyone, at least not in the sense that we were together and they loved me back.”
At the very least, Macy had loved him once. He truly believed she had. Over the years, she’d lost it, or she’d outgrown it, or whatever the hell had happened. He could fall facedown in a rut torturing himself for days trying to figure out where he went wrong. But then he would look at his beautiful daughters and tell himself that everything happens for a reason. Now these lovely little souls were here to bring light into his life, and oh, how they did.
He hadn’t been able to see them today. He didn’t know if he’d be able to see them tomorrow either. Max had taken something away from him too. Any hang-ups he had about teaming up with Ghost would have to take a backseat to their mutual need to deal with a common threat.
When he and Starla had left the house earlier, he’d armed the rarely used security system and left on most of the lights. Still, he did an utterly paranoid sweep through the bedrooms and closets while Starla rummaged through his cabinets searching for anything she could make into a meal. Within half an hour, she’d turned some leftover chicken, a pack of tortillas, a couple of cans of cream of chicken soup and cheese and some other stuff he had no idea he had into a Mexican casserole. Neither of them had realized how hungry they were until half of it was gone.
Jared sat back with a groan and resisted the urge to loosen his belt. “Damn. If you stay for very long, I’m going to gain fifty pounds.”
She chuckled and dragged her fork through the remainder of her portion. “I don’t mind a man with meat on his bones.”
Good to know. Speaking of which, he wondered what he and Ghost would be faced with if they located Max. Scrawny? Beefy? Gargantuan? Ghost knew him, so Jared could find out from him, but curiosity got the better of him. “Brian’s no lightweight. Is Max a big guy, to get the better of him?”
A sneer crossed her face. She’d put her hair up again when she started cooking, but soft tendrils had floated down around her face. Clean of makeup, her skin was naturally without blemish, her lips a gentle pink even without a touch of gloss. “Max got the better of Brian with a knife. Fucker didn’t fight fair. Otherwise Brian would mop the floor with him.”
Of course she thought that. “Yeah, I know. I just wondered if he was particularly strong or just sneaky.”
“He’s a wormy little shit,” she practically spat.
“Wormy little shit. Got it.” Obviously, he wasn’t going to get any useful answers out of her. Which he could understand, given the circumstances. But after a few seconds of sullen silence, she spoke again.
“I guess he’s about average, I don’t know. He’s not as big as he likes to act.”
“That’s a fairly common problem.”
“Common my ass. It’s an epidemic.”
Chapter Nineteen
Something woke her.
Starla didn’t know what it was, but her eyes flew open wide at 3:51—she knew because she was facing the digital bedside clock—and she was wide awake, heart pounding, listening for what might have interrupted her hard-won sleep. Her phone? News about Brian? No, the device lay beside her dark and silent, and checking it revealed no new messages or calls. No news was good news.
The silence and darkness of Jared’s house pressed in all around, suffocating her. It was her third night to sleep in this bed, but she still felt like an intruder.
She sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. Her palms came away damp from the sweat broken out on her brow. It had probably been her own heartbeat shaking her awake—her dreams hadn’t been pleasant. Brian’s face kept floating through her mind, one minute laughing and happy and carefree, the next pale and lifeless. Then would come Candace’s, grim and accusing, even though Candace had never looked at her like that since Starla had known her. She would if she learned the truth…that is, if she ever looked at Starla again at all.
As the minutes ticked by, it became apparent returning to sleep was nowhere in her immediate future. She kicked off the covers and found her way to her bedroom door by the dim security lights filtering through the filmy curtains. Every little sound, every creak, even her own footsteps on the carpeted floor sounded horribly magnified. Hell, a pin drop could have awakened her; she wasn’t used to sleeping in such absolute silence and darkness. There was usually a TV on somewhere in her house, if not in her own bedroom, to keep her company.
Aside from the claustrophobic stillness, the house felt empty. It gave her the creeps, and while she knew it was irrational, she actually put her hand on Jared’s closed door and pushed it open just to make sure he was there. Sure enough, she could make out his sleeping form under the comforter. Of course he was there. Where else would he be?
“Starla?” A messy mop of black hair stuck up from the pile of blankets.
And he was awake. Shit. Sighing, Starla pushed the door open and moved to his side. It was dark, but not so much that she couldn’t see where she was going. His face, though, was hidden in shadow. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t need anything, I just wanted to… I don’t know. Make sure you’re here.”
Silence stretched out in the darkness, endless and consuming. She’d expected some kind of reply. His laughter, his comfort, his voice telling her of course he was here, he wouldn’t leave her, not ever. Unbidden dread unfurled in her stomach though she couldn’t say where it was coming from. She was safe here. He was safe. “Jared?”
“Come here,” he whispered.
Heart beating thickly, she bent down. A hand shot out and grasped her throat. Max’s blue eyes burned up at her as she tried to suck in a breath to scream around the crushing grip—
Gasping, Starla shot up from the depths of the nightmare to find herself still in her bed, sweating profusely, her heart knocking erratically in her throat. It took several moments before she realized she was chanting fuck fuck fuck over and over. Unable to sit still, she swung her feet to the floor, a terrible sense of déjà vu haunting her as she ran for the door. She made for Jared’s bedroom, daring Max to be there—she would beat the shit out of him on pure adrenaline alone. Hitting the light switch in the hallway, she cracked opened his door…and the slice of hallway light fell across Jared’s precious sleeping face.
Exhaling her relief, she began to close his door again. Before she could, though, he squinted and lifted his head, prying open one eye. “Starla? You okay?”
Just wanted to make sure you weren’t a knife-wielding maniac. “Yes. I’m sorry.” Quickly, she pulled the door closed and scuttled back to her room, but she should have known putting distance between them wouldn’t be sufficient. Not even two minutes had passed before a soft tap on her door preceded a swath of hallway light falling over her own bed.
“Hey,” he said, voice gentle with concern. “What’s the matter?”
She felt stupid and childish to admit it. “I had a nightmare. Don’t worry about it.”
He was quiet for a long time, and her pulse kicked up. It bro
ught the dream back to her, along with the way he was silhouetted against the light and she couldn’t clearly see his face. Then he said something that made her heart leap for an entirely different reason. “Do you want to sleep with me? I would’ve offered when you first came here, but I didn’t want to come off as sleazy or presumptuous.”
Jesus Christ. Men like him weren’t real. Not in her world. A slow melting began in her chest, and she didn’t think it would stop until there was nothing left of her inside. “The last thing you could ever be is sleazy or presumptuous.”
He pushed her door open the rest of the way. “Come on.”
It was a mistake, she knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop her from getting out of her bed and going to him. “Do you need some water or anything?” he asked as he walked her back to his room. Starla had to force her eyes in front of her and not gawk at his chiseled torso with those low-hanging pajama pants perfectly accentuating his ass. God, how she wanted to get her hands down his pants again, get her lips around that rock-hard thickness she’d felt.
I just need you. “No.”
And she knew she was gone over him as soon as she climbed between his soft clean sheets and his scent enveloped her, reminding her in the midst of her turmoil of everything that was calm and secure.
As he settled beside her, facing her with only inches between them, it felt like home. Only a home she’d never been to before. The feeling shook her like no nightmare ever could.
“Bad dreams,” he said softly after they’d lain in silence for several moments. She’d almost begun to think he was dozing—it was so dark she could scarcely make out his features. “I had them for weeks after seeing Macy get hurt.” All at once, the mention of that name doused her swelling sense of security. It wasn’t hers to have, was it? It probably never would be. Almost as if Jared sensed a shift in the air between them, his big, warm hand found her cold one and held it as he went on: “Not to bring all that up. I just know what you mean.”
“You can talk about her,” Starla said despite herself. “I know she’s important to you.”