Watch Me Fall(37)
“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 words 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?”