Chasing a Dream (9 page)

His need to understand what had compelled his fiery, confident sister to stay with her husband had led him to numerous experts. He’d learned plenty, but more questions
and
his guilt remained.

He scanned Tess’s body again, this time looking for tell-tale bruises or scars. He saw none but knew better than to assume anything from the lack of visible evidence.

Plowing his fingers through his hair, he watched her vigilantly for another minute. When he felt certain that her nightmare had passed, he straightened her sheet and re-covered her.

As he placed a light kiss on her brow, an ache filled his chest that he recognized from the days he’d watched Rebecca go back to her abusive husband time and again. His protective, possessive machismo had done Rebecca no good when she’d needed it most. Why should he think he could do any better for Tess? He’d screwed up the most important job he’d ever faced, and Rebecca had died.

He’d let her down.

But he’d been given another chance, and he damn well wouldn’t blow it again.

CHAPTER
SIX

A loud squeak woke Justin the next morning. He opened his eyes, squinting against the early morning sunlight that flowed in through the open motel room door.

The door closed, throwing the room into darkness. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and shaking off the cobwebs of sleep. When what he’d witnessed registered, he jolted awake faster than if he’d downed a double shot of espresso.

With a glance to the other bed, he confirmed that Tess was gone. Across the room, her suitcases had disappeared.

“Aw, hell,” he grumbled. He threw back his covers and snatched his jeans from the foot of the bed. Jamming his legs into his pants, he stumbled out the door.

He heard Tess crank the truck engine and watched in stunned disbelief as she backed out of her parking place. She was ditching him.

“Tess!”

His shout drew a startled look from her. Biting her lip, she turned away.

Barefooted, he hurried across the pavement to her truck door and slapped the window with his palm. “Where are you going?”

She didn’t even spare him a second glance. Engine roaring, her Jimmy rocketed toward the parking lot exit.

Justin gave chase. He bolted across the lot with an athlete’s speed. His bare feet pounded the rough asphalt. “Tess!”

Traffic on the main road required that she stop and wait for an opening to pull out. He caught up to her and grabbed the driver’s door handle. Yanking the door open, he braced a hand against the edge, blocking her from closing it again. “What the hell are you doing?”

Tess planted a hand in the center of his chest and shoved. He didn’t budge.

“Get out of my way, Justin. I’m leaving, so don’t try to stop me.”

“Not without me, you aren’t. Have you forgotten about the guy with the gun who grabbed you yesterday?” He wrapped his fingers around her upper arm, and irritation flashed in her hazel eyes.

“The man with the gun is exactly why I have to do this by myself. If you stay with me, you’ll be in as much danger as I am. I can’t live with that.”

Her chapped, worry-abused lips pressed into a thin line of determination, while a bleak vulnerability dimmed her eyes. The contrast of stubborn resolve and fear in her expression made his heart turn over.

“Nice try, sweetheart, but no dice. Out of the truck. Now.” When he tugged on her arm, she pulled it back. She flattened her hands on his chest again and shoved. The warmth of her fingers on his skin didn’t escape his notice, but he had more immediate concerns that kept him from savoring the contact.

“Justin, please! Let me go!”

Tears puddled in her eyes, wrenching his gut. “No can do, babe.”

He stretched in front of her, reaching for the keys in the ignition while she battled him, swatting and grabbing to impede his progress. One of her fingernails caught him in the eye.

“Yeow! Watch it! That hurt!” He clapped a hand to his injured eye and scowled.

“Justin, I’m sor—” She swallowed the rest of her apology as his arm wound around her waist, and he hauled her from the front seat. “No! Stop it!” Her fingers clung fiercely to the steering wheel. “Justin, I’ll scream if you don’t let go right now!”

He began prying her fingers off the steering wheel.

“Justin, I mean it!”

“Then let it rip. But when you wake the rest of the motel with your hollering, I’ll tell them you were stealing my truck.”

Tess growled her frustration. His perseverance, or perhaps her dismay over his threat, finally allowed him to take control of the steering wheel and pull her from the Jimmy. The truck rolled when her foot came off the brake, and he quickly slid in and mashed the pedal again.

“But it’s my car!” Her hands balled into fists, and she stomped her sandal-shod foot.

Shifting into reverse, Justin flashed her a smug grin. “Technically it’s a SUV or a truck, not a car, and if you’ll just step away, I’ll put it into the parking place.” With a hand on her shoulder, he nudged her away from the Jimmy. She narrowed a glare of indignation and disbelief on him. He could feel the quiver of unexpressed anger roiling in her body. He backed her away from the vehicle and closed the door.

Once he’d parked the Jimmy, he glanced in the rearview mirror to find her still standing beside the road, her face buried in her hands. Her wilted posture reflected a sense of defeat. Contrition for his bully-like tactics tightened his chest. He deserved her fury and fully expected to get an earful of her displeasure for his overbearing treatment. Under the circumstances, forcefulness seemed his only option, but he hadn’t considered how his bossiness might wound her spirit.

Bouncing the keys in his hand, he stepped out and locked the Jimmy. He waited for her to walk back across the parking lot. But she didn’t.

“Tess,” he called to her, but she made no move to join him.

Fastening his jeans as he walked, making his way toward her, he watched her flex her fingers and draw slow breaths. “Hey, aren’t you coming?”

She lifted her chin and gave him a look of cool control, devoid of emotion. Pivoting on her toe, she brushed past him without a word. As she stalked back to the room, he followed. The stiff jerky movement of her body belied the calm in her expression.

“I know you want to yell,” he said, “so go ahead. Let me have it.”

Silence answered him. She turned the doorknob to their room and found it locked. “Do you have a room key?” she asked without facing him.

Sighing, he shook his head. “You mean you don’t either?”

“I hadn’t planned to be back. I didn’t need one.”

“Wait here. I’ll go get one from the office.”

She angled her head, casting him a blank stare, and he frowned.

“Come on, Tess. I know I ticked you off, but I told you I couldn’t turn my back on your situation.”

She didn’t even blink. For a moment, he had the sensation she’d left her body and he talked to a shell. Clearly, she’d withdrawn. His chest wrenched tighter.

With an eerie, dark certainty that caused a chill to spiral inside him, he understood that he witnessed her defense mechanism. Shut down, show no emotion, avoid confrontation.

When he stepped closer to her, she backed against the brick wall of the motel and eyed him warily. Justin held up his hands, palms toward her. “Easy. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He propped his hands on his hips and cocked his head. “It’s okay to yell at me, Tess. I suppose I deserve it.” He paused and grinned. “But would you have turned the truck around and waited for me if I’d simply smiled and said please?”

Nothing.

Blowing a gush of air through pursed lips, he shook his head and turned his gaze toward the road. “I’m not your husband, Tess. You can get mad at me without worrying that I’ll strike back.” Facing her again, he found her eyes wide and her lips parted in surprise. He flattened his hands on his chest and bent his knees to bring his head eye-level with hers. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Tess. Scream at me. Give me hell for acting like a bully.”

When she turned away, he dropped his hands to his sides and straightened. “Okay. Whatever. I’m sorry, though, for scaring you and overpowering you to get my way. I apologize. I was desperate and didn’t have a lot of time to think it through.” He wedged his fingers into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “But that’s not a good excuse, and I’ll try to do better next time. Okay?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, still giving him the silent treatment.

Turning, he headed toward the office. “I’ll be right back as soon as I get the key.”

He scowled as he walked past the row of motel room doors toward the front building, wondering what he could do to bring Tess out of her isolation.

Humor had worked well the day before. Music had always been healing for him. But he could imagine Tess’s wounds were deep. From what he’d learned after Becca’s death, women with abusive partners coped in whatever way they could. Sometimes that meant detaching themselves from their situation, losing a part of themselves.

Becca had blinded herself to the truth. She’d been so stubbornly optimistic that her love would change Mac.

Tess hadn’t said much about her husband, but Justin would give her time. When she was ready to talk, he’d give his support.

After retrieving a room key and opening their locked door, he gathered his possessions and threw them in the back of Tess’s Jimmy. “Okay.
Now
we leave. Want me to drive first?”

“I have a choice?”

He didn’t miss her sarcasm, and he grinned. Sarcasm was good. Sarcasm showed spunk. The spark he’d seen yesterday had returned.

“Sure you have a choice. But . . .” He aimed a finger at her. “The driver picks the radio station.”

She arched an eyebrow. “In that case, I’m driving.” Climbing into the driver’s seat, she haughtily tossed her ashen hair. “All day!”

Justin chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Would you stop calling me ma’am?” Tess cranked the engine, while he buckled the belt in the passenger seat. “I’m only thirty-one. I don’t think that makes me a ma’am.”

“Thirty-one, huh?” He raked her with an appraising gaze. “I’d have guessed more like twenty-five.”

She responded with a short, humorless laugh. “Nice try, but I own a mirror. I look every day of thirty-one.” She glanced over her shoulder to back out of the parking space. “Maybe more.”

As she turned back to the front, he caught her chin. She lifted startled eyes to meet his. “Then buy a new mirror. Yours is broken. You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman, Tess, and don’t you forget it.”

Her mouth worked as if she were trying to speak, but no sound came out. She blinked then pulled her chin from his grasp. She drove to the front door of the motel office and stopped the car. Her hands dropped to her lap, and she whispered, “But I feel a hundred years old.”

He watched her go inside to check out, a sympathetic ache in his heart. He had his mission for the day cut out for him: Help Tess enjoy her life. Fan the spark inside her to a blaze. Give her back some of the joy her husband had stolen.

He thought of his promise to Rebecca to not turn away from abuse again, and for the first time in the two years since her death, the stinging guilt loosened its grip.

 ***

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Tess sighed, though she smiled indulgently across the front seat at Justin. “Why?”

His trademark impish grin spread across his face. “To show the armadillo it could be done.”

She giggled, more because of his devilish expression, the light dancing in his eyes, than because of the lame joke.

And because laughing with Justin felt good. She’d forgotten how good laughter could be. Once he’d gotten her giggling like a school girl, she couldn’t stop, as if he’d pulled the cork on years of bottled-up mirth.

She could remember laughing a lot with Angie when they were young. They giggled and whispered in bed at night until their parents had come to the bedroom with a semi-stern reminder that it was time to sleep. She’d snuggled close to her big sister, and the world had been a happy, safe place.

The warm memory brought a satisfied smile to her lips.

Until she remembered the rest.

Along with laughter, Randall had stolen Angie from her. If she had known the truth sooner, she could never have stayed with him for all those years. Nausea swept through her now at the thought of the months she’d lived with the man who’d ordered her sister’s murder. She clutched the steering wheel tighter.

“Tess? You okay?” Justin’s voice sounded as if it came from a deep well, while Randall’s voice rang harsh and real in her mind.

When she got a notion to hold my business dealings against me, she, like Fannin, learned how I deal with traitors. . . . Her pimp owed me money. . . . A simple business transaction.

“Tess!” Justin grabbed the steering wheel and righted the path of the Jimmy, guiding them off the shoulder in a spray of gravel. “Jesus! Watch where you’re going!”

Tess shuddered. “I—”

“Where did you go just then? Are you all right? God, you’re white as a sheet!”

“I’m sorry.”

He wrapped long, strong fingers around her hand as she gripped the steering wheel tighter. When his thumb brushed her wrist, rhythmically stroking, a calming warmth spread through her. His hand moved up her arm, his calloused palm gently abrading her skin. His soft touch chased the lurking shadows from her mind.

“Want to talk about it?” The husky rasp of his voice took the edge off the anxious quiver inside her. But she’d never be able to put Randall’s evil totally out of her mind. Could never completely relax. To do so could mean getting caught.

“I’m okay. I was just thinking about . . . just remembering—”

“Don’t. It’s behind you now. Focus on the future. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

His reassurances and kind smile filled an empty place in her soul. She’d almost given up her childhood belief that men like her father really existed. Maybe she’d only imagined her father was good and kind and protective to fill a youthful fantasy. She’d dreamed, like other little girls, of a handsome and brave prince whom she could trust and love and have faith in.