Chasing a Dream (7 page)

Compelled to feed Justin, to repay him for saving her life if nothing else, she mulled over the options for food. Having something delivered seemed the best bet since it wouldn’t require her leaving the safety of the room and Justin’s proximity.

She paused, mulling over the idea that his presence gave her a vague sense of security. Maybe she’d had selfish motives for not fighting his decision to stay with her. As crazy as it seemed, she felt safer with this man she’d known for a few hours than she did around the man she’d moved in with twelve years ago when she needed a different kind of security.

Yet she knew better than to let her guard down. If nothing else, the kidnapping attempt showed her Randall’s men could strike at any time, anywhere. That thought sent a fresh wave of chills prickling over her skin.

With a weary sigh, she opened the phone book and found the number of a pizza store that delivered. She reached for the phone but paused with her hand suspended over the receiver, a haunting memory seeping through her mind.

She’d been in her kitchen, cutting up raw chicken for a casserole just two days ago when the phone rang . . .

If only she’d never heard that incriminating call
. She shook her head. No, that call and the events that followed, all the wretched things she’d discovered about Randall, had been the catalysts to make her act. She’d finally screwed up the nerve to walk away from a miserable existence, and she would never look back. Now she could only pray she lived long enough to find the new life she craved.

A loud thump from the bathroom jolted Tess from her reverie, and adrenaline spiked her pulse.

“Ow!” Justin yelped. “Damn that hurt!”

She glanced toward the bathroom door. “Justin?”

“I’m all right. Just clumsy is all.”

She put a hand over her racing heart and dragged in a calming breath.

When she called the pizza store, she ordered by rote the same sausage pizza Randall liked but she’d learned to hate over the years. Just before she hung up, she caught herself.

“Wait!” she called to the woman on the line. “Change that to a vegetarian pizza with whole wheat crust.”

The freedom to do as she chose, without Randall’s censure, caused a ripple of joy to flow through

her. For tonight at least, she could breathe easier, do whatever she wanted. A small victory.

She sighed and lay back on a pillow, stacking her hands under her head to stare at the ceiling. She listened to the voices that passed outside their door, the rumble of traffic on the highway, the distant wail of a siren. Somewhere out there, Randall’s men were looking for her. Closing in on her. She had to remember that, had to stay alert and be cautious. Her life depended on it.

A moment later, Justin’s voice carried loud and strong over the sound of the shower. His singing was so incongruously lighthearted in contrast to the ominous track of her thoughts that she started at the sound. After a moment, Tess cracked a grin as she listened to him croon. His rich, mellifluous tenor voice gave her a measure of comfort, and she closed her eyes. His cheerfulness helped her keep her mind from dwelling on her frightening past and uncertain future. The familial ease that he displayed with his shower concert took the rough edge off her nerves.

An image of Justin naked, rivers of water streaming down his lean body as he showered, flashed in her mind’s eye. Startled by the sensual picture, she quickly opened her eyes again. Her heartbeat accelerated. Still, his voice skimmed over her like a lover’s hand, leaving a tingle on her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself, dismayed by the path her thoughts had taken. Allowing herself to feel any attraction to her rescuer would only complicate things for her. She needed to keep her association with him as emotionally detached as possible. Objectivity would make freeing herself from him easier.

The water cut off, and Justin whistled now.

Tess stared at the ceiling with wide eyes, afraid to close them again because of the graphic vision she’d conjured before.

When the bathroom door opened, she refused to look at Justin, uncertain what she’d find or what he might read in her eyes, but her peripheral vision followed his movement around the room.

“No TV, huh?” he asked.

“No.”

“I never watch much, anyway. How about you?”

“No.” Listening to the whisper of cloth, his soft tenor humming, and the thud of her heartbeat, she searched for a distraction. “I ordered us a pizza.”

“Oh, yeah? Cool. What kind?”

“A large vegetarian with whole wheat crust.”

The rustle of clothing stopped, and the shadows on the ceiling stilled.

“You’re joking, right? You didn’t really ruin a perfectly good pizza with vegetables and whole wheat, did you?”

Teasing laced his tone, yet she tensed.

“Yes.”

She heard a snort-like sigh then a low chuckling, and she relaxed her muscles again.

“At this point, even vegetables sound good. I’m starved.”

When the shifting shadows told her he’d moved across the room toward his backpack, she pushed off the bed. Keeping her eyes averted, she ran for the bathroom.

Her hot shower relieved the physical chill, but she doubted anything could ever remove the icy horror of the past few days from her memory. As she emerged from her bath, her own stomach rumbled for food.

Once dressed, she headed out of the bathroom and found Justin sitting on the bed with his back against the wall. His long legs stretched in front of him, and he held his guitar on his lap. He’d donned a dry pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt, but his feet were bare. His longish hair had been brushed away from his face and curled damply around his ears and nape. The fantasy image of him in the shower she’d conjured moments ago wasn’t nearly as breathtaking as the reality she gaped at now.

“How long did they say delivery on the pizza would be?” He plucked at the strings of his guitar, tuning it.

“I didn’t ask.” Studying him, she found nothing, from his wavy black hair to his narrow, bare feet, that wasn’t beautifully masculine, relaxed and . . . sexy. The moment the word entered her mind, Justin raised his gaze to hers, and her heart leaped. The air crackled with the electricity in his knowing blue eyes, as if he’d read her thoughts. Her body grew warm from the heat in his gaze.

What if she had allowed him to kiss her? She looked at his lips and imagined their sweet caress against hers, the gently coaxing suction—

A staccato knock on the door reverberated through the room like gunfire. Tess jerked, tension thrumming through her as her attention darted to the door.

“Hang tight. I’ll get it.” Justin swung his legs off the bed and shoved to his feet.

Tess shrank back out of view and listened, her heart drumming.

“Evenin’,” Justin drawled.

“Twenty-one sixty-five,” the delivery boy said.

Tess released the breath she’d been holding. The pizza. Not a hit man.

Justin took the pizza and brought it inside as Tess got her purse. She opened it only a crack, careful to conceal the bundles of bills she’d gotten that morning at the bank. Keeping the huge amount of cash in her purse made her nervous, but what option did she have?

She fished a bill out and thrust it at Justin. He handed her the pizza as he took the money, mumbling under his breath, “Expensive vegetables.”

When his gaze dropped to the bill she’d handed him, he gave a low whistle. “I hope he’s got enough change.”

Her gaze flickered to the one-hundred-dollar bill she’d drawn out. Snatching it back, she traded it for a twenty and a five. “Tell him to keep the change.”

While she put the pizza box on the bed and knelt on the floor, he paid the delivery boy and locked the door.

“How is it? It smells fantastic.” He tucked a long leg under him as he sat on the floor beside her, bending his other leg in front of him.

Tess handed him a large slice with cheese strings dripping from the sides. “It’s hot. Be careful.”

They ate in silence for several minutes, demolishing half the pizza in record time.

“So, which way are you thinking of heading tomorrow?” Justin picked up his fourth slice and peered at her over the gooey cheese. “Do you have a destination in mind? A friend somewhere you can stay with?”

She chewed her pizza thoughtfully, shaking her head. “No. I’ll go wherever the road leads, I guess.”

Her response earned her a lopsided grin from Justin. “I like a woman with a sense of adventure.”

Tess scoffed. “Adventure never factored into this trip. A sense of panic is more like it. Now I’m just drifting . . . sorting through things. I’ve got a lot of decisions to make.”

He cocked an eyebrow. Before he could ask more questions, she grabbed for the first topic she could think of to redirect the conversation. “Tell me about the rest of your family. Are they all in Wallerton?”

Chuckling, he wiped his mouth on a napkin. “Wellerton.”

“Whatever.”

“My parents are in Wellerton, but I have an older brother who’s an attorney in Austin. A real hotshot, that Brian. I’m a bit of a disappointment to my parents compared to my brother.”

“Don’t say that!”

Justin shrugged. “It’s the truth, and I’m used to it. Every time I got into trouble growing up, they gave me the ‘why can’t you be responsible like Brian’ lecture. I never finished college and didn’t have a white-collar job like Brian. Instead, I framed houses for a construction company by day and played at a honky-tonk by night. That is, until last week, when I decided to ditch everything for a shot at the brass ring. My parents hated that decision. They thought I should be more settled, more ‘practical about life.’ ” He said the last phrase in a deeper voice, apparently mimicking his father.

Pausing long enough to take another bite, he glanced at her as he continued. “But I can’t settle for something else. I love music. It’s what I was meant to do. I know it is.”

Blue fire sparked to life in his eyes, and Tess grinned.

“I like a man with faith in his dreams.”

Justin flashed a wry grin. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Amy, my ex-girlfriend, thought I was crazy to insist on going to Nashville. We parted friends, but her lack of faith hurt. I’m as determined to prove them all wrong as I am to succeed for my own sake.” He cast her a sideways glance, twisting his mouth. “Petty of me, huh?”

In answer, Tess reached for his hand and curled her fingers around his. The gesture felt right, felt good. Justin squeezed back. “I don’t know,” she said. “Didn’t anyone support you? Encourage you? Respect your talent and your courage to pursue your dream?”

Somber shadows stole over his face, and he slipped his hand out of hers to rake his fingers through his hair. “Rebecca did.”

“Rebecca? Your angel?”

Turning away from her, he locked his gaze on the opposite wall. His expression remained dark, and the muscles in his square jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. The shift in his mood piqued her curiosity.

“That is one butt-ugly picture,” he mumbled.

Tess turned to glance at the painting across the room. “Fits the decor though. The whole room is ugly.”

He swept his gaze around the room, as if seeing it for the first time, and grunted. “You’re right.”

When he fell silent again, brooding, Tess started cleaning up the pizza. He was clearly reluctant to discuss Rebecca, so she let the subject drop. He’d respected her right to have secrets, and she’d give him the same privilege. Rising from the floor with the pizza box in her hand, she moved to put the leftover pizza in the trash.

“She was my sister.”

His admission replayed in her head a couple times before the oddity of his phrasing finally sank in. “Was?”

“She died a couple years ago. Rather, she was murdered.”

Tess numbly set the pizza box on the edge of the sink and stared at him. She swallowed hard before she found her voice. “Oh, my God. Justin, I’m so sorry.”

Lifting a hard gaze to meet hers, he squinted at her. “Why? You have no reason to be sorry. Her death wasn’t your fault.”

She blinked at him. “I just meant I—”

“If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I let her die.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

Tess stared at Justin mutely for the space of several stumbling heartbeats. Pain filled his eyes, and the back of her neck prickled with apprehension. “What do you mean?”

He looked away and ran a hand over his face, sighing heavily. “It’s not pretty. You sure you want to hear it?”

A dark foreboding crept through her, and she trembled. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she sank on the edge of the bed. She’d thought she needed to know his motivation for helping her, but now she wasn’t sure. Did she want to hear the truth? She had enough horror in her life without hearing the ugliness in Justin’s life as well. Still, she heard her voice, weak and raspy, whisper, “Go on.”

He stared at her with a spooky intensity before he spoke. “Rebecca was three years older than me. She met Mac in college, and they got married after dating for just four months. He was an engineering student and kind of conservative. Rebecca was the exact opposite of him in so many ways. I couldn’t understand the attraction between them, but since Rebecca seemed happy, I kept my mouth shut.”

He rubbed his hands on his jeans, and his breathing grew shallow and quick. He stared at the painting across from him, though she knew from his expression he saw nothing. He shuddered, lost in his memories. Clearing his throat, he forged on. “One night she came by my apartment. She’d had a fight with Mac and . . .” Justin gritted his teeth, scrunching his face with the emotion that tortured him. “The bastard had given my sister a bloody lip and a black eye.”

Nausea gripped Tess. She knew too well where his story was going. “Oh, God.” Pressing a shaky hand to her mouth, she watched Justin wrestle with the past, her heart breaking for him. Her mind reeled with the implications of what he told her. After a heavy silence, she asked, “What did you do?”

Justin scoffed. “Not jack shit.” He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head in regret. “Not that night, anyway. I wanted to rip Mac apart. I was on my way out the door to give the jerk a taste of his own medicine, but Rebecca begged me not to. She swore it wouldn’t happen again. She defended the creep and went on and on about how he loved her and how she’d provoked him.”