No Longer Mine (6 page)

Rain had soaked her clear through, plastering her white cotton Oxford to her torso, her wet hair clinging to the shape of her skull. She had practically danced onto the deck, face glowing, shouting that she had unbelievable news.

This is for all the people who said I could do it. And all of those who said I couldn’t.

Wade hadn’t been one of the ones who said she couldn’t do it, but he didn’t know that he’d really expected her to do it.

How many writers tried to make it happen? And how many never did?

But she had done it…and in a big way, it seemed.

What had she been doing in Monticello? Did she live around there?

Hell, why would she be living in the middle of nowhere? He’d moved to the small Kentucky town because he needed to get away from the violence in Louisville—he was approaching burn-out, hard and fast. He needed the quiet, the slow pace.

But why would a successful writer want to live there?

Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was like a vacation home or something. Yeah, that might explain it. After all, the lake was popular. That was how he knew about Monticello. He’d spent more than a few weekends himself fishing down on Lake Cumberland as a teenager with his dad and brother.

Maybe she had a cabin there. Maybe…maybe she had a husband.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

If she
was
married, would he be seeing her and her husband? Hell, what if they
did
live there? Could he handle that?

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No Longer Mine

Dropping down on the bench, Wade stared morosely into the fountain. All around him he heard the babble of too many people talking at once. Crowded malls on Saturday afternoon weren’t exactly his favorite way to spend his time. But he had promised his mother he would bring Abby back one weekend a month when he had broke the news they were moving.

Abby wasn’t happy in Monticello, away from all her old friends, her grandparents and Uncle Joe. He had begun to question the wisdom of this move.

But if he hadn’t moved, he wouldn’t have seen Nikki again.

At this particular moment, he couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad.

It was late Sunday when they returned home. Wade knew he’d be lucky to catch five hours’ sleep before he had to be up for his six a.m. shift. As a paramedic he worked twelve-hour shifts for three days a week. It gave him the rest of the week off to spend with Abby and he loved that.

But it could be exhausting, and on so little sleep it would be worse.

Fortunately, nothing much seemed to happen around here. During his first week on the job, the runs had mainly consisted of chauffeuring little old ladies to the doctor’s from the area’s lone nursing home.

There were some drug or alcohol related issues, but they were the minority here, not the norm. Broken bones, accidental injuries, those were the normal. Once, a little boy had eaten one of his grandmother’s suppositories and his mother had screamed over and over that the old woman had poisoned him.

It was a relief in itself to be away from gunshots and stab wounds. He was off the night shift and far away from the violence of Louisville. Wade prayed never to see it again.

One memory in particular haunted him, and probably would for years, maybe the rest of his life. A four-year-old boy shot by his older brother because the little boy had threatened to tell his parents the older brother was smoking cigarettes.

That four-year-old child had died beneath Wade’s blood-stained hands and Wade had known he had to get out or he was going to break.

It had happened right before his upcoming vacation and when he had come back from vacation, it had been to turn in his notice.

They were getting out.

Shoving those memories firmly to the back of his mind, Wade dressed a sleepy Abby in her PJs. With a soft sigh, she turned on her side, pulled her blanket up to her neck and slipped right back into sleep.

Wearily, Wade dragged himself to his room, checked the alarm and fell down face first on the mattress without bothering to undress.

Dreams awaited him.

They weren’t bloody, but they weren’t pleasant either.

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33

Shiloh Walker

“Aw, shit,” Wade groaned, then instantly wished he hadn’t.

His head was ringing from too much booze the previous night. A thousand tiny soldiers were playing reveille with glee in his skull. Bright early-morning sunlight streamed through shades he had forgotten to pull and the light was killing him. Or at least he wished it would. The inside of his mouth tasted horrible, of stale whiskey and beer, and felt as dry as cotton.

But all of it had been for nothing because he vividly remembered what had driven him to Zack’s—

that fight with Nikki. Shit. He’d been a jackass.

Why in the hell had he gone and picked the damn fight to begin with?

His lower lip throbbed like a son of a bitch from where Nikki had decked him. He reached up and gingerly probed the area, figured he ought to be glad she hadn’t just broken his nose.

Wade forced himself to roll over, knowing he had to get out of bed. He needed to go find Nikki and apologize, although damn if he had any idea how he was going to make the drive with the marching band he had playing inside his skull.

Eyes wide open, he stared at the ceiling above, wishing he could undo the past twenty-four hours.

Forcing himself to sit up, Wade cradled his aching head in his hands. He waited for the world, and his stomach, to stop spinning before he even tried to stand.

“G’mornin,” a husky, female, unfamiliar voice drawled from behind him.

Wade froze.

His head came up, and he briefly wondered if he was dying and this was an auditory hallucination.

Slowly, dread curdling low in his belly, he turned.

And stared.

Damnation, what had he gone and done last night?

Jamie Sayer, her midnight hair tumbled and attractively disheveled, peered up at him with sleepy, sated cornflower-blue eyes. And she was as naked as he was. Shaking, he rose, trying to get his frozen vocal cords to work.

“What are you doing here?” he finally croaked, headache forgotten as shame and revulsion ate its way up his throat.

She frowned and sat up slowly, tucking the sheet around her as she did. “Don’t you remember?” she asked softly, her eyes darkening.

“Remember what?” he growled. “I might have been drunk, but it would take more than that to invite you here.”

“I drove you home,” she reminded him. “You were too drunk to do it, so I volunteered. Zack was pretty wasted too.”

“That doesn’t explain what you are doing in my bed,” Wade said through clenched teeth. “Or what you were doing at Zack’s. I don’t remember you showing up there, and I doubt he invited you.” He spied 34

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his jeans laying in a tangle on the floor, next to something silky peach. As he jerked his jeans up, it fluttered down to the floor.

Staring at that soft bra, Wade swallowed against the bile rising in his throat.

Damn it, what had he done?

Jamie seemed not to notice his discomfort as she stood and pressed her body against his, arms wrapped securely around his neck. “It was everything I had always dreamed it would be, Wade,” she whispered in his ear. “It was perfect. I always knew you loved me.” For a moment he was frozen, arms held rigidly at his sides as he tried to make his brain function once more. What in the hell had happened?

Carefully, not trusting his temper or his state of mind, Wade freed himself from her arms and moved away. “I don’t love you,” he said calmly, turning to face her once there was distance between them. “And I sure as hell can’t believe I would invite you into my bed. I don’t remember a damn thing, and I sure don’t remember you showing up at Zack’s.”

She smiled softly, shrugged. “You were upset,” she said gently. “You finally broke things off with that…girl. I know you had feelings for her, but she’s not right for you…not good enough for you.”

“Not good enough for me?” he snapped. Shit,
he
was the one not good enough for
her
. “I had a fight with her—that’s not the same thing as breaking things off with her. Although after this she’s going to want to boot me out on my sorry ass. Damn it, how could I do this?” She paled in anger. “You don’t have to sound so disgusted. You can’t talk to me like that. I’m not your little slut from the projects.”

“Sluts aren’t confined to projects, angel,” he drawled. “I may not remember last night, but I do remember other times when I clearly told you I wasn’t interested. In fact, I think I even told you to just stay the hell away from me.”

“You don’t mean that,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “I know it was wrong for me to push it like I did last night, but I just love you so much.”

“I want to know what happened last night,” he said softly, not moved at all by those crocodile tears.

Wade had known Jamie all his life, and he knew one thing very well…she was a born manipulator. “I want to know it now and I want the truth.”

“Well, you were just so upset, and crying over the terrible fight you two had…” Jamie said forlornly, sitting on the edge of the bed. “She had been so mean to you and made you feel guilty over absolutely nothing. You were just so upset. I…I felt so bad for you. I was trying to comfort you and it just happened.”

“Like hell,” he snarled, grabbing her arm and jerking her to her feet. He put his face close to hers and said, “I know a lie when I hear it, Jamie. The truth.”

“That’s the truth,” she whimpered.

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35

Shiloh Walker

“Bullshit,” he said succinctly. “Part of the reason I wanted to get so drunk was so I’d forget I made an ass of myself, picking a fight over nothing. I do remember being drunk on my ass and blubbering to Zack about what I could do to make it right.

“Besides, one small problem with your story? There’s no way I’d go to you for ‘comfort’.” Tears spilled out of her blue eyes and vaguely Wade felt some guilt. Damn it, this was just as much his fault as hers. But what was he going to tell Nikki?

He hadn’t realized he had spoken that final thought aloud.

“What do you mean, what are you going to tell Nikki?” Jamie shouted. “It’s none of her damn business. You’re mine now!”

“No.” Wade shook his head. “No, I’m not. No matter what happens with Nikki, I won’t be yours, Jamie. I’m sorry, but I don’t love you. I’m never going to.” Damn, what had he done?

What had he done?

Wade jerked awake just as the alarm went off.

Years later, that dream, the memory of the shame and dread, could still turn him into a mess.

Dragging himself out of bed, Wade shed the wrinkled clothes on the way to the bathroom. His stiff back screamed at him and his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep. A tension headache was already throbbing behind his eyes.

Hot water was the only cure for this. Lots of it.

Turning his face into the hot spray, he let the water wash away the cobwebs and the oily feel that remembered guilt left on his skin. His stomach churned and burned, letting him know it would be another Rolaids breakfast. Hands braced against the tiled wall, he prayed the day would be better than it had started.

It got worse.

He came face-to-face with a young hazel-eyed man with brutally short ash-blond hair. A man who looked ready to kill him. He topped Wade by a good four inches and was lean muscle from the neck down.

Those shrewd, cold hazel eyes studied him, hate burning in them.

Wade had been gassing up the ambulance when the Harley pulled into the gas station. Wade admired its clean lines, his gaze wistful and a bit envious. He’d always wanted a bike like that, but a bike like that took more money and more time than he had.

He had lifted his eyes to comment on it only to find the rider shucking a helmet and moving to stand toe-to-toe with him, his dislike palpable.

It was difficult to place him at first. But something about the way he moved registered as familiar. As did the way his chin lifted insolently. But it was those shrewd hazel eyes that finally clued him in. Even 36

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back when he had been nothing more than a mouthy hoodlum, this one had been a force to be reckoned with. Of course, back then Wade had worried one day Dylan Kline would end up in prison before he turned twenty.

Obviously not.

One thing hadn’t changed though. Those eyes could cut a man off at the knees from ten feet away.

There was nothing left of the sullen boy he had known. Aside from the color of his eyes, he didn’t resemble Nikki much, save for the spiky long lashes and sulky mouth. He had always been long and lean, but in the past few years he had filled out.

“Dylan,” he greeted, removing the nozzle and replacing it before screwing on the tank lid. “You’re looking well.”
And strong enough and ready enough to rip my guts out.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, his words clear and precise, none of the “gangsta” drawl left.

“I live here,” he said calmly.

“Since when?” Dylan demanded, those hazel eyes narrow.

“Since four weeks ago. I suppose your family is here now?” Two Klines in Monticello pretty much killed his hopes that Nikki was staying here in some vacation home. Damn it.

Dylan just continued to stare at him.

Probably trying to figure out how he’d like to start tearing Wade apart—start at the feet? Or at the head?

“Lived here long?” Hopefully, Dylan would see the sense in not mauling him in broad daylight. He was, relatively speaking, the calmer of the Kline brothers.

If Shawn were here blood would already be flowing.

Wade was honest enough to admit it—very little blood would have been Kline blood.

“Stay away from Nikki, buddy. She’s had enough grief in her life. She doesn’t need you to adding to it. Again,” Dylan warned, his eyes glinting with a promise.
Just give me one reason
, he was saying.
One
good reason.
And then, he turned and stalked away.