“You’ve been by my side since the start, so you know how I like things done. I need someone like that over there because I’m going to be close to home most of the time. And Ghost damn sure isn’t going anywhere, and I wouldn’t wish him as a supervisor on anyone. But I know you seem to need a change of scenery, so you’re my only hope to get this shit off the ground. Candace and I will always be around if you need us for anything.”
“But…um, Brian.” All her protests could be summed up in only three words: “You know me.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I do. I’ll let you have a higher commission and give you say over who we hire, since you’ll be working with them more than I will be. You’ll be my eyes and ears.”
“Stop talking about this like it makes any sense.”
“It’ll be a few weeks before we’re ready to open, though, so until then, you’ll be stuck with us, but I hope you can hang in there in the meantime. If you can’t, though, and want to do something else until then, I would understand.”
“Brian.” By now, she had pushed her hair back, holding it away from her flaming face. Freaking the fuck out inside. She opened her mouth to go on speaking, but he held up a hand.
“Don’t say anything else. Take a few days and think about it. I won’t accept ‘no’ today. I just won’t.”
“And Candace is okay with this?”
“Candace was more upset that you feel like you have to quit than anything else.”
To her supreme embarrassment, Starla felt tears fill her eyes. Again. Hadn’t she depleted her supply by now? “I love her so much. I hope she knows that.”
“She knows. She loves you too. We both do.”
“I want you to know I am so sorry that…about what happened. It’s my fault and—”
“Stop. The only one at fault is the fucker who did this to me.”
“But if not for me—”
“If not for you, it would have been someone else eventually. He’s off the streets now, and he won’t hurt anybody. I’m just glad he didn’t hurt you too. If I had to take this so you didn’t, that’s fine with me.”
Now she was a blubbering mess again, hiding her face behind a swath of her hair so he wouldn’t have to see her trying to get a grip on the fat, ugly tears falling freely from her eyes. He was a husband, a father, and still willing to lay down his life for her. How did she get so lucky, to have such wonderful friends? No…family. These people were her family. Her own had never been there for her, never understood her, judged her, tried to change her. These people accepted her for who she was, fuckups and all, and loved her anyway, crazy-ass mess that she was. She didn’t deserve it, but she would damn sure start appreciating it more.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her teary gaze back to his. “I accept your offer. I will work my ass off for you. I will do everything I can to make sure that you don’t regret this. I’ll start proving it to you right now, today.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said gently. “And I’m done lecturing you. I’m sorry for all that shit I said. It wasn’t right.”
“No, I pretty much needed to hear all of it, even if I didn’t want to listen.”
“So…I didn’t want to ask, but Candace told me you were here with Jared Stanton when everything first went down, and he helped Ghost track down Max. How is that going?”
Starla swiped both index fingers under her eyes, hoping to repair any wayward eyeliner. “Oh, horribly, as usual. I blew it. He helped me through this whole thing. He’s been there since the night Max kicked me out of the car—he’s the one who took me home. I didn’t want to tell anyone about it in case it turned into another disaster, and look at me now. The first really good, decent guy I actually had a chance to have a solid future with, and I got pissed and let my mouth get away from me and treated him like shit. So, this job? Change of scenery, like you said—new town and everything—yeah, it’s good for me.”
“Girl, I’ve seen you chase after some sorry motherfuckers since I’ve known you. They could treat you like shit, ignore you for weeks, cheat, whatever the hell else…and you still wouldn’t write them off. I know thirty seconds ago I said I was done lecturing you, but I have to ask. What in the fuck could be so wrong with this guy that you wouldn’t go after him if he’s as good as you say?”
Starla’s chin trembled as sick shame churned in her stomach. Everything he’d said was true. How could she? How could she give all those other idiots the time of day and not afford the same consideration to the man who’d done so much for her? How could she let him go without a fight? “I think I love him.”
There it was. So simple. So easy. It just came out.
“And that scares the hell out of you,” Brian finished for her. In the past, she might have expected him to scoff, toss a “whatever” at her, not take her seriously at all. Whether it was the circumstances or something he heard in her voice or saw in her face, he didn’t do any of that. He only nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “Been there. You know I have. I think you also know what my advice would be.”
Starla’s gaze drifted to the hospital door through which Candace had exited earlier. “I’m pretty sure I do.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Daddy, is Starla coming to our game?”
“No.”
“Why not? She didn’t come to the last one either.”
Dammit. When would they give it up?
Sighing, Jared hit the blinker to turn into the softball field parking lot. He didn’t know what to tell his two eager little girls. Crush their spirits with the fact that Starla probably wouldn’t ever come to one of their games again? Or keep giving them false hope and wait for them to eventually forget about it?
No such luck with these two.
“Do you not like her anymore?” Mia asked, meeting his gaze directly in the rearview mirror. Looking so much like her mom when she was sad, with her big brown doe eyes peering at him from underneath her headband. He wanted to give her everything she wanted in life, but he couldn’t give her this.
“I do like her.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“Something like that.”
“Tell her you’re sorry,” Ashley said.
“Send her flowers,” was Mia’s advice.
Ah, the innocence of youth. If only things could be that easy.
He thought about her often enough. Shit, that was putting it lightly. Whenever he looked at his couch, he saw Starla sitting there. Felt her phantom at his side every time he slid into bed. He should never have allowed her in there with him, should have kept her at arm’s length, kept the pace between them slow. He should have been stronger. For her, if not for himself.
“Dad, just tell her you love her.”
Jared could almost laugh at Mia’s exasperation, but her words cut him to the bone. He considered and rejected about a dozen responses, finally settling on sullen silence. By the time they parked, the girls had moved on to a different topic.
Shelly told him they needed him on the field again tonight, which was the last place he should be given how scrambled his thoughts were. He tried to keep his head in the game, but his gaze kept straying to the bleachers where Starla had sat. Her voice had no doubt carried across all three fields when she’d yelled at that umpire. Hell, they needed her out here.
They lost the game, their first loss this season. All the girls on the team had pretty much played like he felt. Shelly handed out consolatory high fives in the dugout, but after receiving theirs, Ash and Mia plopped down on the bench and pouted.
“Can’t win ’em all, kiddo,” he said, lightly prodding Mia’s Nike with his much larger boot. In seasons past, she’d always taken the losses harder than her sister, and it appeared nothing had changed.
Ashley looked up at Shelly, her eyes alight with a sudden idea. “Can you and Dad take us for pizza?”
Shelly shifted uncomfortably. Jared, who had begun packing the girls’ gear away, paused and glanced at her. They had made plans to swap the girls after the game, so he would leave it up to her, though it was the last damn thing on this earth he wanted to sit through. They tried to do things like this occasionally, but tonight was not the night. “Baby, I have a lot of stuff to do at the house,” Shelly told her. “You both still have homework. Some other time, okay?”
Mia chimed in. “Please?”
“Mimi, listen to your mom.” He hitched their bags over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Within a minute, the girls had run ahead to join a group of their friends on the way toward the parking lot. Feeling awkward as hell, Jared fell into step beside his ex-wife, both of them strolling a few paces behind the group of giggling girls.
“Sorry,” Shelly muttered. “Just not in the mood.”
“Me either.”
“How are things?”
He shrugged. “Fine. You?”
“Fine. I figured you might have plans with the girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Trouble already?” Suddenly, she waved a hand in front of her face as if to slap that thought aside. “None of my business. Never mind.”