“If she’s found the one for her, then God bless her,” Jared said, waving his free hand dismissively. “Y’all don’t have to worry about me.” I’m not made of fucking fine china, Jesus.
“That’s what I keep telling Jen. And since you’re probably sick as hell of hearing about it, when do you think we can get this done, and, more important, what’s it gonna cost me?”
Thankful for the swift change of gears, Jared drained the rest of his tea and grabbed his tape measure off his belt to get back to work. He wasn’t thinking about Macy and what could have been. He was only wondering what Starla was doing and counting the minutes until he could call her, but warring with that need was the echo of his dad’s earlier words, casting a pall over the lingering glow from last night. Nothing could ever be simple, could it?
Before he could climb into his truck an hour later, his phone rang from his pocket—Shelly. No doubt calling to heap her own brand of bullshit on top of the pile already sitting on his head. When he answered, her words were as short as his half-barked greeting had been. “The girls have a softball game tonight at six.”
Fuck. He’d forgotten, as if he didn’t already feel like shit. Softening his tone, he said, “All right, I’ll be there.”
“Will you tell me what’s going on? They’re asking why they can’t come to your house anymore, and I don’t know what to tell them, Jared, but I refuse to be the bad guy in this. You need to explain it to them.”
“I’ll have a talk with them tonight.” He cranked his truck and let the blessed air-conditioning blow directly in his face, cooling his thoughts for what was coming next. “It’s wrong of me to keep things from you. I’m sorry. What’s going on, Shell, is that Starla has a stalker, and this guy makes yours look like friggin’ Mary Poppins. He’s probably the guy who attacked Brian Ross, and she’s staying with me until he’s caught. My idea. I thought it best if the girls stay away while she’s there. It isn’t permanent. Soon as the cops get him, she’ll go back home and it’ll all be over.”
Shelly was silent for a long time, longer than he liked, but just as he began to think she was going to hang up on him, she said, “You never can resist a damsel in distress, can you?”
“It has nothing to—” He bit off the words, and the back of his head met the headrest. Protesting would do no good; it never had, and besides, she had too much evidence to back up her claim. Let her say her piece and she’d be done. She didn’t say anything, though. The song on the radio ended and another began, and all he could hear over their connection was her breathing and, finally, her sigh.
“Thanks for telling me the truth.” Her words were halting, careful. “I just wish you had from the start. Ashley’s all right, but Mimi…”
Mia was Daddy’s girl. “I know. I’ll do something special for them. Maybe after their game tonight, I’ll take them out to dinner.”
“I guess you’ll be bringing Starla?”
Jared chewed on that for a minute. It probably wasn’t something Starla would want or feel comfortable doing, but if she did, why not? “Would you have any objections?”
“I guess not. They talk about her so much, I know they’d be happy to see her.”
“Thanks, Shelly. Again, I’m sorry.” He drew a breath. “I know this hurts you.”
She injected that familiar brave steel into her voice, the tone he’d heard time and again during their arguments when she was trying to hide her pain. “I’m done being hurt. Now I only want to keep my kids from being hurt.”
He heard the silent by you she added to the end of both those statements. He chose to ignore them. “Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-one
If someone had told her even a couple of months back that she would be attending a pixie softball game tonight, Starla would have bet them a million dollars they were full of shit. As she strolled into the town softball complex at Jared’s side, she would have owed someone a million fucking dollars.
Kids were everywhere, running, rolling down the hills that sloped toward the playing fields, careening madly down the sidewalks on kick scooters. Parents were everywhere too, milling about and chatting before the games began. The air smelled of hot dogs and cheese sauce, and damn, she was hungry. Stress had been catching up with her, wrecking her appetite for most of the day. After breakfast and Jared’s departure, she had gone to the hospital and visited with Candace. One of her regulars had texted her just after noon asking for a cover-up, so she’d met the girl at Dermamania and spent a welcome couple of hours working—although being there in Brian’s domain had been painful. It felt wrong somehow. Financial need had won out over sentiment, though. She needed all the money she could get.
Before she knew it, five p.m. had come and gone and she hadn’t so much as eaten lunch. Now it would be at least another hour and a half before she could eat. Little girls ran about in their brightly colored uniforms with their wild knee-high socks and adorable ponytails, excited for the games to start. Starla wanted to recoil in horror at the sight, but she kept her head high.
She’d been here before; she used to do this. But as one of those excited girls, not alongside one of the parental units. And, she began to notice, she and Jared were getting looks.
For perhaps the first time, reality slapped her in the face. In the cocoon of Jared’s safe house, nestled in his safe arms, nothing could hurt her. But he was popular, his name and family were well-known in town, and these—these softball moms in their sparkly team T-shirts—were his people.
They weren’t hers, and it showed in the way some of them looked her up and down as she walked at his side. Some of those gazes were blatantly hostile, some merely curious. But she felt each and every one. She was probably overreacting. Most people didn’t pay her much attention at all, but whenever someone stopped to chat with Jared, she almost always got a once-over. Usually from the wives.
He always introduced her as his good friend—she wanted to really shock one of these bitches and clarify it was the mutually shared orgasms that bound them. And the murderous psycho who was chasing her, of course. But she wouldn’t be back if she started alienating people.
Did she want to come back?
“There’s Shelly and the girls,” Jared said, and all her internal organs seemed to freeze up at once. She’d known the moment was approaching—coming face-to-face with the dreaded ex—but she damn sure hadn’t been looking forward to it.
He led her to the field on the left, to the dugout on the far side where a gaggle of neon-green-suited girls were clustered around their coach. Immediately, Starla picked out Ashley and Mia from the group and grinned. They were adorable in matching pink headbands with their names written on the front. Jared tapped the cyclone fence a couple of times to get the attention of the brunette woman standing in the dugout watching the team with her hands on her hips, and she turned and smiled, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Made it after all.” Her voice was clear and honey sweet.
“I said I would.”
“We might need you to coach third, if you would. Andy has the flu.”
“Whatever you need.”
As they talked, the sinking feeling in Starla’s stomach turned into a black abyss. One thing had become staggeringly apparent on first sight: Shelly was quite possibly a more beautiful version of Macy. But she was a little thicker and had a bodacious ass.
Starla had never had hang-ups about her own ass, but suddenly she felt lacking in that area. Jared probably missed having that to grab on to. She wanted to throw up.
He didn’t miss it that much, or he would still be with her. Right? Suddenly, the other woman’s clear voice sliced through her agonized thoughts. Shelly was speaking to her.
“Hi, you must be Starla.”
“Yeah, hi. Nice to meet you.”
She had direct dark eyes, but honestly, Starla detected no hint of animosity there—and she was looking hard for it. “I know Ash and Mimi will be glad to see you,” she said. “They talk about you all the time.”
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Wow, really? She was touched. Her gaze wandered to the girls, who hadn’t noticed her yet. They were warming up on the field now, chasing ground balls, ponytails bouncing. If Starla had seen them beforehand, she would’ve loved to put their team colors in their hair. “They’re awesome girls. I think the world of them.”
Shelly gave Jared a glance and moved closer to the fence, propping a knee on the bench to bring her face as near as she could. “I am so sorry about what you’re going through. I’ve been there. Maybe not like you have, but I know the fear. Anyway, you probably don’t want to talk about it, especially here, but I wanted to say that.”
Starla blinked twice, swallowing a lump in her throat so she could speak. “I… Thank you. Seriously, thank you so much.”
“Hang in there.”
“I will.”
Feeling scrubbed raw, she found an empty spot in the bleachers and sat on the warm metal by herself as the girls’ team came back to the dugout and Shelly began the impossible task of putting seven- and eight-year-old girls in lineup order. Jared walked out to take his place at third, looking entirely too fine with his ball cap pulled low and those jeans hugging him in all the right places. Ashley and Mia were both waving at him, calling, “Daddy! Daddy!” and the grin he flashed them started a small fire in Starla’s panties. Holy shit, he was a miracle worker to get her turned on while she felt like a slab of meat surrounded by bloodthirsty sharks. She might want to have his babies after all.
Nah.
“Are you and Jared dating?” asked the blonde woman beside her, who was dressed in a clingy, blingy T-shirt version of the girls’ jerseys. She had an equally blonde toddler sitting on her lap, a little girl whose ponytail ribbons cutely matched the team’s colors.
“Just friends,” Starla said.
The woman nodded knowingly, too knowingly, as if to say, “Well, of course, he couldn’t really be with you,” and it pissed Starla off. She bit down on the urge to say, Just banging on the regular. Not really true, of course, but it would be funny as hell.
The game started, and Starla had to repress a laugh at how the parents in the stands acted like the fucking World Series was being played out in front of them. So ridiculous. This whole charade was more for the parents than the kids, it seemed, but maybe she was just cynical. She’d loved playing, but she’d been thrown out of more games than she’d finished.
But then Mia came up to bat in her cute pink helmet, M STANTON written across her back, number eight. Her coach pitched her the first ball; swing and miss. Starla found herself calling out encouragement with everyone else. Jared had his hands on his knees, watching his daughter with a keen eye. “Elbow up, baby, you got this.” Fuck, he was sexy. To think she’d had that last night. She had to tear her gaze away to watch Mia again as she complied with his instructions, lifting her elbow higher. The next ball sailed way too high. She didn’t swing.
“Good eye!” Starla called, clapping. She noticed Jared look at her. He was probably wondering what the fuck she knew about a good eye. She had news for him: the reason she’d gotten thrown out of games was because she’d used softball as an outlet for her repressed, adolescent aggression. She’d played like a rampaging beast, and she’d been damn good at it. And she felt those old urges awakening in her gut.
Of course, she had to remind herself that these were eight-year-olds.
Mia gave the next ball a decent whack, and it sailed over the pitcher’s mound to drop into the infield. The shortstop scooped it up, dropped it, scooped it up again, and threw it to first—way too far to the left. Starla shot off the bleachers, screaming her head off. “Run, Mimi! Go baby go baby!” Mia hustled it to second, saw her dad waving her toward him, and took off for third. The runner ahead of her scored. By the time Mia reached Jared, the other team got the ball back to the pitcher, so he gave her the stop sign. They high-fived each other as Mia hopped excitedly on third base. Jared pointed Starla out in the stands, and the little girl waved to her.
Starla waved back and sat down, laughing—more at herself than anything else. She had a good view of Jared’s ass as he knelt beside his daughter to give her instructions, and she wondered how many other moms out here were admiring that view as well. Glancing around revealed, however, that most of them were looking curiously or amusedly at her.
“Mia’s a good hitter,” said the woman to her right with the little girl, who was getting squirmy on her mother’s lap.
Starla nodded, having known that just from noting Mia’s position in the lineup. “She’s cleanup. I can see why.”
“Pardon?”
Yep. Out here for the glory, not the game. “You want to put your power hitter fourth in the lineup, so they can knock the base runners home.”
“Oh. Sure.”
Ashley was next. With her first swing, she put the ball in front of the pitcher’s mound, so Jared held Mia at third while Ashley raced for first. The pitcher tried to run her down, but with her quick little feet, she made it easily.
Starla figured she would be hoarse tomorrow from yelling.
When the bases were loaded with Mia still at third, shit got real. The hitter dribbled the ball in front of home plate, but Mia had to go. When the other team’s pitcher had trouble scooping up the ball, though, Starla was on her feet again screaming encouragement to Mia, who probably had no chance of making it home before the pitcher got there with the ball, but still. It was a foot race. Both girls reached home. Mia clearly beat her.
“Out!” the umpire yelled.
What the fucking hell?
“Come on, Blue!” Starla yelled, an old fury erupting. “She beat her by half a step!” Pull your head out of your ass and open your goddamn eyes! Hopefully all the words screaming through her head remained there without erupting from her mouth, but she couldn’t be sure. Signs all over the park assured her that foul language would result in automatic ejection from the ballpark, but this was absolute bullshit. She wasn’t the only one protesting, but she was certainly the loudest.
Once the uproar settled somewhat, she sat down again, fuming. Jared was laughing his ass off at her. Shelly was even looking over with an amused smirk.
“You’d think it was the World Series, huh?” the blonde woman to her right said.
Goddamn right it was.
***
One on each side of her, the girls held Starla’s hands as they crossed the parking lot of the pizza joint they’d requested. Their warm little fingers clutched hers tightly, and she tried to tell herself this sensation of being right where she was supposed to be was horribly misplaced. Jared walked ahead of them to hold open the door, grinning down at his daughters as Starla walked past with them at her sides. Oh, that white smile, framed as it was with his dark beard and all the more gorgeous for the way it crinkled his blue eyes, would be the death of her. Last night hadn’t been far from her thoughts all day, but now, in his presence, the memories swamped her.
The waitress who greeted them was familiar with the family, apparently—Ash and Mia ran forward to give her a hug and tell her all about the softball game they’d just won—so naturally Starla received the thorough once-over from the cute blonde. Then a fight broke out between the twins over who got to sit in the booth beside Starla. It was finally determined by Jared’s coin toss, with Ashley the victor while Mia pouted across from them beside her dad. Jared consoled her by hugging her to his side, and Starla had to laugh at her little forlorn face. “Hey, cheer up, kiddo. She’s right there, and you can sit by her next time. Am I such bad company?”
“No, but what if she doesn’t come out with us again?”
Those heart-stopping blue eyes met Starla’s, shining warmly over the table. “Why wouldn’t she come out with us again?”
“Will you?” Mia asked her directly. “And will you come watch us play again?”
“I’d love to,” she assured her, and swallowed past a lump in her throat. Jesus, had anyone in her life ever wanted her around as much as these kids did?
&nb
sp; “See?” Jared nudged Mia with his shoulder. “Done. Now you guys go wash your hands before we eat.”
The two ran off, a brawl almost breaking out as they raced each other to reach the bathroom first. Ashley won that challenge too, much to Mia’s outrage. Jared shook his head as the door swung closed behind the girls. “Everything is a contest.” Something clouded in his eyes. “And it probably always will be.”
“Yeah? Still competitive with your brother?”
“Not directly, not really. It’s not competition so much as comparison.”
Starla frowned, but the waitress took that moment to appear and deliver their drinks. She watched Jared’s face as he stirred lemon into his tea, but it gave nothing away. “What do you mean?” she asked after the girl was gone.
“Hm? Oh. Jack’s always been the one who’s had his shit together more than I do, at least in our parents’ eyes.”
Starla scoffed. “Jared, please. I’ll introduce you to my parents. In their eyes, I’m from fucking Pluto or something, and I think they wish I’d go back there. I am no comparison.”
“You shouldn’t say that. I’m sure it’s not—”
“You don’t know,” she said a little more harshly than she’d meant to. Softening her tone, she went on: “I mean, I’m on speaking terms with them, but barely.”
“It’s brave of you to keep being you. I’m sure it would be easy to buckle.”
“Not really. For me, it would be harder to buckle. And you know what? It’s not really a big deal. I don’t waste a lot of time thinking about it, and while I wish things were different, and would happily work for them to be different, it’s them with the problem. They need to buckle. Not me.”
He nodded, staring at her thoughtfully. “Healthy way to look at it.”
“I’ve seen Brian go through a ton of shit because of his parents; I’ve seen Candace go through it too. It’s ridiculous. I refuse. If rarely speaking to mine is the best way to keep the peace, so be it. It’s sad, but…” She shrugged. “What are ya gonna do?”