Chasing a Dream (16 page)

“This time,” she said morosely, sagging against him.

He kissed her cheek and remained quiet for a minute as he calmed her with soothing strokes on her back. His mind strayed to all the implications and contingencies he’d blindly avoided up to this point. He didn’t want to consider that Tess could be involved in something more sinister than straight domestic abuse. But she had men after her, and she jumped at her own shadow. He couldn’t ignore the simple fact that Tess’s circumstances rang with an ominous note. Ignorance of what they faced put him at a disadvantage. Whether he wanted to face the truth or not, he needed to know what Tess knew.

He sucked in a deep breath, trying to dispel his disquiet. “Tess, don’t you think it’s time you told me what happened with Randall? After living with him for years, what made you leave now?”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“You said Randall was evil. What did you mean by that?” Justin kept his voice gently coaxing, but she still stiffened at the mention of Randall.

She didn’t answer right away. He waited patiently for her to sort her thoughts and decide what and how to tell him. When she spoke, her hushed voice trembled. “I hadn’t been happy with him for a long time. I never loved him, but when he took me in years ago, I was so young and scared I didn’t look to see what I was getting into. I was so grateful to him for providing me a way out of a bad situation that I didn’t realize how much worse my life could be with him. I was blind then to what kind of man he was.”

“What kind of situation did he get you out of?” Justin brushed a wisp of ash-brown hair away from her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.

“Dismal poverty. My sister, Angie, took care of us as best she could, but when she was killed, I had nowhere to turn. Or so I thought.”

“This was after your parents died in the car wreck?”

She nodded. “We didn’t want to be separated or get sent to foster homes. Angie quit school and started working to support us. We hid the truth about our situation pretty well, but we were so poor . . .”

Tess paused and sighed, and the emotion that flickered across her face twisted his heart.

“Angie worked a minimum wage job for a while, and then . . .” Her face crumpled, and tears welled in her eyes.

Apprehension tightened his gut. Instinctively, he reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“One night Angie came home really late. She was crying and . . .” A shudder raced through Tess. “She’d sold herself to a guy at the diner where she worked. She could earn more money hooking than any other way, she said. I argued with her about it, but she said it was the best way. She wanted me to have money for college.”

“Your sister prostituted?” Disbelief made his voice hoarse. Squeezing her hand harder, he tried to absorb the revelation. He tried to picture Tess as a frightened teen, struggling to make ends meet and watching her sister turn to prostitution to support them. A heavy sorrow weighted his chest.

“Her pimp killed her when I was sixteen. Randall showed up right after Angie died, and he said he was a friend of Angie’s . . .” Tess bit her lip, and when she closed her eyes, fat tears spilled down her cheeks. “I trusted him. Blindly trusted him. He paid the rent and groceries until I turned eighteen. Then he offered to marry me. I jumped at the chance to marry a rich man. Until then, he’d been nothing but kind and generous to me.”

“When did you realize he wasn’t what he seemed?” Justin brushed his thumb on the underside of her wrist, hoping to comfort her.

“In the first couple of months, after I moved in with him. He never married me like he said he would and . . .” Her eyes held a distant look, her thoughts clearly lost in painful memories. “Once we were in his house and I was under his control, he showed his true colors. He set out in no uncertain terms how he expected me to behave. I was to obey his every command like a trained dog . . . and perform for him sexually whenever he wanted it. And if I showed any resistance, he . . .”

When she paused, Justin’s breath stilled. “He what?”

His throat tightened. The wrenching pain he’d experienced when he learned about Rebecca’s suffering returned in force, bolstered now by the anger and guilt that were the legacy of Rebecca’s death.

“He hurt me.” Tess glanced up at him with a hollow, haunted expression. “Not brutal beatings like you said your sister’s husband gave her. He slapped me around a little. It was nothing really. Not compared to—”

“Nothing?” Incredulity and frustration sharpened his tone. “Nothing, Tess? God!”

He slammed his fist down on the mattress with a bitter curse, and Tess tensed. Turning a pointed gaze on her, he pled his case. “No man has a right to hit a woman. Ever. A slap is not ‘nothing’! Do you hear me?”

How many times had he argued with Becca over this issue? Why hadn’t she listened to him? His sense of helplessness, battling his sister’s stubborn pride and her blind loyalty to Mac, had nearly killed him. In the end, his failure to take decisive action had killed her.

Tess’s eyes widened, and she searched his face with a stunned and uncertain expression.

Drawing a calming breath, he softened his tone. “Do you understand, Tess?”

She nodded weakly.

“Okay. Finish what you were saying, please.” Brushing her cheek with his knuckles, he quirked a smile of encouragement.

As Tess continued in a voice barely above a whisper, she turned away. He recognized the gesture. Rebecca had been ashamed when she talked of her abuse.

He muttered a nasty epithet under his breath and ached for the opportunity to wrap his hands around Randall’s neck. For Tess’s sake, he tamped down his anger and pulled her into his embrace.

“You’re safe now, baby. Don’t feel bad about it. He did it. He’s the sick one. Don’t blame yourself.”

Tess shivered. “He didn’t always hit me, only sometimes when he was really mad. I learned how to appease him, how to avoid his tantrums, but he kept me under his thumb. He made sure I was afraid of him. And I was. I am.”

“So what happened that finally made you leave him?”

“I found out how truly evil he is. He’s a powerful man. He has so many people who work for him, who’ll do his bidding because they fear him or because they have no conscience or . . .” Tess ground the heels of her hands into her eyes and released a shuddering sigh. “I found out by accident. I overheard a phone call. He had a man murdered. He made sure it looked like a suicide to cover his tracks. He hired a hit man to kill a business associate. I don’t know why or what Fannin did to upset him, but . . .”

Justin’s blood went cold. Involuntarily, he tightened his hold on Tess. “He had a man murdered?

Are you sure?”

She nodded, and her voice cracked as she began to cry. “He killed Angie, too.” Turning to bury her face in his chest, she sobbed bitterly. “My sister. He killed my sister.”

“I thought you said her pimp—”

“Randall ordered her murder. He told me so the night I found out about Fannin. Oh, Justin, I couldn’t stay. I’d lived with him for years but never really knew him . . . never knew how evil . . . I couldn’t stay and live with a murderer.”

He kissed her forehead. “I understand, babe.” He stroked her hair and rocked her in his arms, a million questions running through his head. “Was Randall one of Angie’s johns?”

“Apparently.”

Justin hugged Tess closer. “Why did he have her killed?”

Tess raised damp, red eyes to him, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t know, exactly. She upset him somehow. She resisted him, defied him. Randall hates to have his authority challenged.”

“His
imagined
authority.” Justin tipped Tess’s chin up to make sure she listened. “The guy sounds like a real control freak. But in truth he has no power over anyone. You can’t give him the power, Tess. You have to take control, stand up to him.”

“And get killed like Angie did?” Stress made her voice shrill. She shook her head. “No, Justin. You can’t fight Randall. He doesn’t allow—”

“He only has power if you give it to him, Tess.” Justin furrowed his brow and narrowed a gaze of concern on her. “You have to take back the power when he tries to control you.”

She made a soft scoffing noise and shook her head. “You don’t understand how he is.”

“What I do understand is that the minute you give up, he’s won.” He ran a loving finger from the hollow of her throat, between her breasts, and tapped a finger over her heart. “Draw on what’s in here. You had the strength to leave him, and I’m betting that’s only a hint of what’s inside you if you look good and hard. He’s held you down long enough. Time to fight back, Tess.”

She stared into his eyes with an almost awestruck look on her face.

“Promise me you won’t give up. Will you use that strength that’s inside you and fight back for me, Tess?” Justin searched her eyes for the spark of life he’d seen before, the evidence of the vital, determined woman he knew she was. What he saw warming her hazel gaze went beyond his expectations, and his heart thudded a slow, heavy beat in response. What he saw shining back at him looked a lot like love.

Regret squeezed his chest. He had never intended for things between them to go so far, but a deep bond had developed. All too soon Tess would see him for the man he really was, a man with nothing more than smoke and mirrors. He could say the right words of encouragement, offer the compassion she craved, even provide her the protection and safety she needed. But that was all he could promise. Beyond that, his track record had proven dismal. If Tess was falling in love with him, she was doomed to have her heart broken. Once again, it seemed, in trying to help, he would hurt someone dear to him.

***

Justin seemed somber. Not that Tess could blame him. If she’d had everything spilled at her feet the way he had this morning, she’d be somber too. She put a hand on his leg. When he glanced at her from the driver’s seat, she gave him a tremulous smile. Scooping her hand in his, he carried it up to his lips for a kiss. “You okay?”

She nodded. They’d been driving for two hours in almost complete silence. Although she’d grown thoroughly sick of being in the Jimmy, telling Justin about Randall had renewed her fears and the need to keep moving. Justin, it seemed, shared her sense of urgency now, and although it did little to calm her, she felt marginally better knowing he understood the danger she was in.

The danger he was in.

Tess sighed at the thought. She’d never wanted to involve Justin in her problems. Yet somehow, because of her inept attempts to leave him, her susceptibility to his charms, and her hunger for the friendship and affection he offered, she’d selfishly allowed him to weave himself into the tapestry of her horrible ordeal.

At this point, just one day of driving away from Nashville, she figured she owed it to Justin to take him that far. For all his consideration and kindness, she could do that much to help him achieve his dreams. Then she would have to cut him out of her life. For good. She would have to make it clear he couldn’t contact her, couldn’t put himself in jeopardy.

Silently, she prayed she wasn’t being foolish, taking an unnecessary risk by delaying their parting until Nashville. How close was Randall to finding her? God only knew.

She was so lost in thought, she didn’t notice Justin pull off the Mississippi highway until he stopped the car in the shade behind a large tree at the side of the road. Scanning the isolated stretch of road, Tess knitted her brow with a curious frown. “Why are we stopping here?”

“Because it’s secluded.”

“Why do we want seclusion?”

“Because I’m not an exhibitionist.”

Before she could respond, Justin pulled his T-shirt over his head. Tess’s heart drummed with nervous and expectant adrenaline. “Mr. Boyd?” She tried to sound lighthearted. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I think I’m hoping to seduce you. I can’t keep my mind on my driving for wanting you. I’m like an addict. I can’t get enough of you, now that I’ve had a taste.”

Tess giggled awkwardly as he leaned across the bucket seat toward her. “You mean here? Now?”

“That was the idea.” He cupped her chin with a warm hand. “Kiss me, Tess.”

“But—”

He smothered her feeble protest with a kiss that melted any reservations she might have had, while stirring a bittersweet ache in her chest. She would miss his kiss so much when he was gone.

His mouth had the persuasive power to awaken the tingling response of her body in seconds. His greedy kiss consumed her, and she returned his fervor. Their tongues mated and danced while he freed her from her shirt and pushed aside her bra.

When he moved his attention to the breasts he’d bared, she wound her fingers in the thick black waves of his hair. Arching her back in response to the tug of his lips on her nipple, she gasped at the rush of pure, sweet pleasure that spiraled through her. She mewled her enjoyment of the light teasing of his tongue on the sensitive swell of her breast and the hollow of her throat. Her hands roamed restlessly across his bare back, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders. After trailing nibbling kisses from her throat to her earlobe, he reclaimed her mouth with an even greater need and eagerness.

Her fingers moved down the path of dark hair on his stomach. Justin caught his breath and raised his head to gaze at her with eyes made bleary with passion. “Sweet mercy, Tess. What have you done to me? I used to be a patient man.”

He rolled away to undo his jeans, and she stripped out of her shorts and panties, mindful only of how much she wanted Justin and the blissful climax her body ached for. He pulled her across the front seat to straddle his lap. While he leaned the seat as far back as it would go, she settled over him.

“Oh, Tess.”

Justin sank into her. He held her hips in place as he thrust upward, and fiery sparks shot through her. Together, they raced toward fulfillment.

Mouthing his name, her laud became a begging for release. Tears of joy puddled in her eyes when the pulsing, shattering sensation of completion rocked her.

She tucked the memory, the precious feeling of completeness, in the corner of her mind. These stolen moments of sweetness would have to tide her through the days and weeks to come.