She stared out the window as Jon pulled the truck into her driveway. When he didn’t shut off the engine, it drove home the notion that something was seriously wrong. Yes, Jon had a bad day, but that had never stopped him from coming inside. In fact, he’d always been the first to the door, eager to get inside and close out the rest of the world.
That he didn’t do that this time set off warning bells inside her head.
“Are you coming in,” she asked softly, twisting her hands in her lap.
“I shouldn’t,” Jon said, his deep, tortured voice tearing her up inside. “I have an early day tomorrow.”
“I have an alarm clock,” she shot back, smiling despite herself.
Jon continued to stare blankly out the windshield. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Patti snapped. Grimacing, she softened her voice again. “Jon, please. Come inside. We need to talk…and I’m not ready…” She swallowed tightly and Jon’s head swiveled to look at her. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t ready to let him go. She wasn’t ready to end things, not now, possibly not ever. Instead of saying all of that, she simply repeated, “I’m not ready.”
He stared into her eyes, his expression pained beyond her comprehension. Desperate, Patti slid across the bench and took his hand in hers. “Please, Jon,” she whispered. “Come inside.”
He was looking at their joined hands, their fingers woven together, lost deep in thought, when he finally nodded. “Okay.” Turning off the engine, he pulled out the keys and opened the door. Reaching up, he took Patti by the hand and helped her down from the cab, then stood back to let her lead the way.
Deep, unforgiving sadness filled Patti to the point of rupture, but somehow she managed to keep herself from breaking down as she stepped into the living room and felt Jon’s presence at her back. She stepped out of her shoes and busied herself with putting them away. She couldn’t bring herself to face him. Not when she knew what was coming. She felt it all the way to her soul.
“Would you like something to drink? Or eat? I can heat up some soup or something…”
Her voice hitched as Jon came up behind her. She felt the heat of his body sear her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight. With firm but gentle hands, Jon turned her around. Patti could feel the sting of tears pricking her eyes, and when she opened them, they spilled down her cheeks. Jon’s thumbs smoothed them away.
“Jon.” His name left her on a shuddering breath.
Without any words, he cupped the back of her head and lowered his mouth to hers. They kissed slowly at first, their lips pressing softly against one another, and then growing in desperation and hunger, until they were both grasping at one another as though their lives depended on it.
Bending down, Jon slipped his arm under her knees and scooped Patti up. Her arms looped around his neck as she returned to his mouth, pouring her love for him into every kiss, hoping he could feel what she felt for him.
She didn’t want to let him go.
As he carried her to the bedroom and laid her out on the bed, her hands grasped frantically at his shirt, dragging him down on top of her.
She didn’t want to let him go.
Even as Jon undressed them both, tearing at their clothes like a man possessed, she never let him out of her reach, out of her sight. She drank him in. His bulging arms, his defined abs, every hard muscle that twitched and flexed, dancing before her eyes. Just thinking about all the things he had done to her body, all the things he was about to do now, made her heart race.
She didn’t want to let him go.
When Jon slid into her, she clutched him tightly, inhaled him deeply, taking every part of him into her and committing him to memory, because she didn’t want to let him go. And after Jon spilled inside of her, his body shuddering, his skin damp with sweat, he lingered at her mouth, stroking her lips with tender, almost reverent kisses that hurt her more than words ever could.
But, then, maybe he knew that.
Rolling on to his side, Jon pulled her against his chest and held her until she drifted off to sleep, and when she awoke, she found herself cold and alone.
He had let her go.
19
He’d hurt plenty of people before, broken plenty of hearts in his time, so why, then, was Jon so bothered this time? Oh, that’s right, because he was in love. Love was a complication he’d never thought he’d have to deal with again, because he’d purposely designed his life to avoid it. A lot of good that did.
The bed felt particularly empty now that he didn’t have anyone to share it with, more so now that he lay there staring at the ceiling with only his thoughts to keep him company. Morning was coming soon, which meant that Patricia would be waking up to find him gone.
It took everything he had in him not to stay, but he’d already screwed up by sleeping with her. Just one more time, he kept telling himself when they’d pulled up to her house last night. He just wanted to hold her in his arms, feel her body against his one more time. The memory would be all that he had left come morning, and he wanted to savor every second.
It was the most bittersweet moment he’d ever experienced, and he was still questioning whether it had been a good or bad decision. Of course, he loved her, and he knew he’d be letting her go. She knew no such thing. While he prepared himself to leave, she had pushed closer, and he had let her because he was selfish. He couldn’t stand not having her one last time.
He thought of her distraught face, her glistening eyes, and the tears he wiped from her face, made him realize that maybe she had known what was happening, after all.
It still didn’t excuse him from taking advantage of the situation, but he couldn’t walk away from her at that moment any more than he could ignore someone injured on the side of the road. In his mind, he was soothing them both, seeking solace in one another’s arms. Saying goodbye.
What would she think of him when she found him missing? What would she do? A heavy pounding startled him from his thoughts and Jon sat up, listening. When it happened again a moment later, he realized it was coming from the front door.
Dragging his weary body out of bed, he made his way to the door and opened it to a very pissed off Patricia. Despite the fire snapping in her crisp blue eyes, he admired everything about her.
She was dressed in a tank top and a pair of yoga pants, her wild blonde hair knotted on top of her head. She wore no make-up, but she looked even more breathtaking to him for it. He loved that she possessed natural beauty. He could stare at her forever, listing all the things about her that he loved, but her waspish words snapped him to attention.
“Is this what you do when you decide you’re done with a woman? You just screw her and leave in the middle of the night so you don’t have to explain yourself?”
Jon expected her to be angry, so this came as no surprise, but he was a little shocked that she had come after him, and so soon. Sliding a practiced mask of cold indifference into place, Jon leaned casually against the doorframe and folded his arms across his chest. “Good morning, Patricia. Did you sleep well?”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “Not very considering my boyfriend crawled away in the middle of the night like a coward.” She slung the words at him, searching his face for any sign that she had hit her mark.
She had, but Jon didn’t let her see how deeply she affected him. “I admit, I could have handled it better, but after seeing your behavior with your ex, I was afraid you wouldn’t be very… reasonable.”
Her head jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “You think I would, what, burn your stuff? You should know me better than that.”
“That’s just the thing,” Jon said, cutting her off. “We’ve known each other less than a month, and we spent most of that time fucking. I don’t know you very well at all.”
“You know me well enough to introduce me to your parents,” she rebutted.
“That was poor judgment on my part,” Jon drawled. “Had I known it would mean so much to you, I would have left y
ou at home.”
Patricia’s voice quavered. “That was a really asshole thing to say. Why are you doing this? Why are you being so cruel?”
It took everything not to reach out to her, but somehow, Jon managed. He held himself rigidly, his fingers biting into his own skin as he fought to keep his distance. In the end, she would thank him for letting her go.
“I’m not being cruel,” Jon told her. “I’m doing you a kindness.”
“How can you even say that?”
“Because you don’t know my past. In a few years, when you’re married and have little ones hanging on your ankles, you’ll be glad to have been rid of me. It’s best to end this now, before anyone gets hurt.”
“You’re hurting me now,” she croaked. A loan tear escaped, and she swiped it away angrily.
“That’s not my intention.” Every moment he stood there, watching her pain grow, Jon’s resolve not to go to her lessened. He needed to get this over quickly before he did something stupid, like kiss her.
“Well, you’re failing miserably,” she snapped back.
“I know.”
Suddenly, Patricia looked tired. “Tell me what happened yesterday. Can you do that at least?”
“Nothing happened yesterday except that I realized that this thing”—he motioned between them—“isn’t going to work.”
“But why,” she asked, pleading for answers. “Everything was going so well before those people showed up. Who were they, and why were they so mad at you?”
The last thing Jon wanted to do was rehash history. He’d done enough of that in the last twelve hours to last him a lifetime. Shoving off the frame, Jon took a step back and grabbed for the door. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Patricia, but we’re done here.”
When he tried to close the door, she jumped forward, slamming her palm against it and at the same time inserting her foot in the opening. “No, Jon, we are far from done. You owe me an answer.” Her light eyes held his in defiance. “I’m not leaving until you tell me why, so if you really want me to go, you had better start talking.”
Jon sighed heavily knowing his only chance to chase her off was to tell her everything. Opening the door wide, he filled the opening, and braced himself for the look on her face when he told her the truth. “Those people were Nora’s parents. Nora was my girlfriend.”
“And I gather from all the past tense references that she’s…”
“Dead,” Jon finished for her.
Patti nodded as if she’d already figured that part out. Jon continued, his thoughts traveling down that dark road once more.
“It was about five years ago that it happened. We’d been dating since high school, both heading into our second year of college, and we were totally in love. I was convinced she was the one, so I bought her a ring. It was just a gold band, nothing special, but to us it was everything.” He inhaled deeply, bracing himself for the hard parts to come. Thankfully, Patricia stayed silent, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to go on if he didn’t get it all out now.
“The night she agreed to marry me, we decided to celebrate. We dressed up and I took her out to a nice dinner, but Nora wasn’t your average girl. She was a tomboy who liked fast cars and cheap thrills. She was the perfect fit for me. No, don’t,” Jon said, stepping back when Patricia reached out to touch him. He couldn’t allow it, not now. He didn’t want her contaminated by him.
She didn’t push the issue, just resumed her quiet stance on his front stoop, and watched him with sadness blanketing her face.
“To celebrate, we got all our closest friends together and went up to the track. It was on the outskirts of this old farm we’d found years before, hidden from the main road by an enormous pole barn and about an acre of mile high weeds.
“Nora loved the races. Sometimes I think she loved them more than I did.” He smiled at the memory of her shouting her head off, jumping up and down as they watched the cars speed around the loop, kicking up clouds of dirt everywhere.
“Whenever I raced, she rode shotgun and she always screamed for me to go faster. That night wasn’t any different, except that soon we would be tied together by more than just a promise. But I got careless that night. One of the guys had just bought a new car, and he’d put a lot of time in under the hood, but he couldn’t drive for shit. We thought it was a done deal, an easy win.” Jon met her eyes and grimaced. “We were cocky about it.”
That was the one thing he knew never to do was get cocky about a race, because that was when you made mistakes. Patricia knew it, too. He could see it in her eyes.
“We were right. On the first and second lap, we left the guy in the dust. He could barely control his car. I guess he wasn’t used to handling it on anything other than hard concrete. But at some point, he started getting the hang of it, and I decided to toy with him a little, give him false hope. So, I slowed down a bit, let him get his nose in front of mine, knowing I had already won. But then in the last stretch, I remember thinking it was time to get serious. I floored it, and so did he. Even though he had a handle on the terrain, he still didn’t have enough experience to account for everything, and as we came around the last bend, he didn’t drift when he was supposed to. Instead, he tried to punch it, and he ended up losing control.”
Jon could still smell the stench of gasoline spilling on to the ground. He could hear the shriek of protesting metal, of Nora screaming hysterically. The curious thing was, even though he’d shattered one of his legs and broken several bones in the other, he never felt any pain.
“Oh, baby.” Patricia was suddenly there, and wrapping him in her arms, while making soft shushing sounds. Jon hadn’t even realized he’d started crying.
It felt so good to have her hold him. He didn’t pull away like he knew he should. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his cheek against the top of her head.
“I woke up in the hospital a few days later with a concussion, half of my body was in a cast and I was hooked up to all kinds of wires and tubes,” he went on, seeing every memory before him as fresh as the day it happened. “My parents told me what happened, that Nora didn’t make it.”
Patricia pressed closer, tightening her hold around his waist. “I’m so sorry, Jon,” she sniffed. “What about the other driver?”
“He lived, but the swelling on his brain was bad enough that he isn’t the same anymore. I got lucky. All I had to do was relearn the basics and I walked out of there with a clean bill of health. After that, I decided to do what Nora and I had always talked about: open a publishing company. She was going to be our first top-selling author,” he said, smiling sadly. “But obviously that never happened.” Standing tall, Jon released Patricia and stepped back.
She wrapped her arms around herself and stared up at him. “So that’s why her parents hate you so much, because they think you took their daughter away from them?”
“They don’t think it, they know it,” Jon returned. “If it hadn’t been for me, she’d still be alive today.”
Fire flashed in her eyes. “You can’t do that, Jon. You can’t take all the blame. It’s like your parents said, it was an accident.”
“An accident that never should have happened,” Jon volleyed back. “I knew the risks and I recognized the warning signs when that kid couldn’t keep his shit together, but rather than stop the race, I chose to take the easy win.” He jabbed his finger into his chest. “It was my fault. I killed her.”
“Then it was her fault, too. She knew all of that, and she didn’t say anything. You said it yourself, Nora liked the cheap thrill.” She tried to come to him, but Jon backed away further, shaking his head.
“I can’t talk to you about this anymore,” he said roughly. “Just please leave.”
Patricia shook her head. “No, Jon. I won’t let you push me away. I won’t let you beat yourself up and shoulder all the blame for something that was never your fault. Your parents said you were stupid kids. I agree. But you’re an adult now, and from the looks of it,
I think you’ve paid enough.”
Furious with her rational thoughts and unwilling to process them, Jon grasped the door, holding it open. “I’ll decide when I’ve paid enough.”
“So you’re just going to kick me out?” Patricia asked, bewildered. “After all of that, you’re just going to turn your back on everything so you can sit here and wallow in self-pity?”
Jon’s lips thinned. He’d had enough self-analyzing for one day. “Yes, that is exactly what I plan to do. I’m going to ‘wallow’ all fucking day for the next month, or year, hell, maybe even the rest of my life if I want, and you don’t have a damn thing you can say about it! Now get the fuck out!”
Her bottom lip quivered, but Jon pretended he didn’t see it. All he had to do was get through another minute and it would be over. Patricia drew herself up tall and marched past him. The moment her foot touched the concrete, she spun around and pointed an angry finger at him. “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. If you think you can toss me out of your life, then you’re sadly mistaken. You made me love you, Jon, and I’m not letting that go just because you decide to throw a tantrum. Got it?”
Jon stared at her, the words ‘You made me love you’ circling his head. He shook his head to dislodge them. “I hear you, Patricia, but you’re wasting your time, because I don’t love you.” With that, he closed the door on her stunned face and waited until he heard the growl of her car speed away.
20
Fed up and angry at the world, Patti floored it. She didn’t care about anything at that moment except feeling the sweet relief of leaving her worries, hurt, and fear trailing in her dust. She jumped lanes, went too fast, and dared anyone to say anything about it.
How could Jon just push her out of his life like that? How could he let his past determine his future? He didn’t even try to fight for them, and she was worth fighting for, dammit!
There was only one person she could rely on, and that was her daddy. The same in death as he was in life, he never rejected her, he never looked at her with pity, he simply listened, and sometimes that’s all a girl needed—unconditional love and undivided attention.