Run To You (15 page)

Beau hung his head. He didn’t know why he’d called the old man thinking he might be of some help. Maybe because
he
could use a bit of help. Something he hated to admit, even to himself. From “womb to tomb” was more than just something the brothers said to each other. It was their bond created at conception. In good times and bad. A responsibility that lived in their shared souls. Sometimes difficult, but doing the right thing wasn’t always easy.

Beau got off the phone with his father and made some calls to a few men he knew in the Veterans Administration. Tension pulled at the back of his neck and tightened his skull. He glanced at his watch and rolled his head from side to side. It was eight
A.M.
, and by the time he got off the phone, a dull ache pulled at the center of his forehead. The master bedroom door opened and he turned as Stella stepped into the hall wearing her blue shirt, little shorts, and boots. Her damp hair curled under her left breast.

Stella. He couldn’t let himself get sidetracked by the smile on her lips. Lost in the scent of her throat. Not like every other time she was near. Not like the time he kissed her in the pool and casino. Or when he’d stood on a balcony in New Orleans or last night, when they’d made love, knowing what that meant to her. He could have tried to stop her. Before it had been too late, but he hadn’t, knowing what that meant to him. Knowing what he had to do now.

“I used your toothbrush. Considering where you’ve had your mouth, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

He could feel her sucking him in, with her smile and blue eyes, and he took a step back. Both physically and mentally. He liked Stella. She was funny and smart and beautiful. “I don’t mind.” He rubbed his forehead and tossed his phone on the couch and he wished like hell he’d pulled on his pants. He hadn’t meant to have this serious conversation in his boxers. “Last night changed everything.”

She agreed. She stopped in front of him and folded her arms beneath her breasts. She loved him and that changed everything. Like Colbie Caillat, Beau gave her feelings that she adored. Tingles that started at her toes and bubbled upward to her stomach and heart. He looked all buff and airbrushed this morning in his boxers. All tight skin and hard muscles, and she was a little sorry she’d bothered to get dressed—until she looked up into his shuttered gray eyes. He held himself tight. Once again hiding behind a stony face.

“We’ll get married as soon as I can get a license,” he said as if he was ordering a ham sandwich, but with less passion. “Do you want to do it here or Vegas? Vegas would be easier.”

“What?”
Married
?
Easier?
Her arms fell to her sides and shock dropped her jaw. “You want to marry me?” She hadn’t even thought that far ahead.

“We have to now.”

Have to?
Typical, he didn’t
ask
her to marry him and he obviously wasn’t very happy. “We don’t have to do anything.”

“I believe we do.”

All her tingly feelings started to feel like nauseous bubbles in her stomach. “Because we had sex?” She hadn’t been thinking about marriage. Only about how much she loved him. “We don’t have to get married, for God’s sake.” Dinner and a movie would be a good start. “When I said I love you last night, I meant it. I love you, Beau.”

He looked at her through his Sergeant Junger gaze and said quite reasonably, “You’ve known me eight days.”

But love wasn’t about reason or apparently days on the calendar. “Yes, and I know that I’ve fallen in love with you. You’re my Superman. I feel safe around you. You have my back and I have yours.”

“I don’t need you to have my back.”

“I do anyway.” She raised a hand toward him as she felt the first crack in her heart. “You make me feel safe. Like I can do anything. I can stand up to bullies and run through flashbang.” She dropped her hand to her side. “I can stand in front of my sister in my father’s house with courage and strength.”

“You can do those things by yourself. You don’t need me.”

“I know, but I want you.” The crack in her heart spread a little more and she placed a hand over the tumble in her stomach. Confusion spun her head around. He asked her to marry him because of last night? Wait. Wrong . . . he
told
her to marry him because of last night. She loved him and could easily see herself spending the rest of her life with him, but there was only one question really. She swallowed and could barely get it out. She didn’t want to know. She had to know. “Do you love me, Beau?”

He folded his arms over his bare chest, retreating even further. “I care about you.”

Oh God. She loved him so much it consumed her heart and soul, and she felt sick inside. “I care about stray dogs and cats but I don’t want to marry them. Do you love me, Beau? The kind of love that makes your heart ache all over? Like you can’t keep it all in? Like it’s too big?” She lifted her arms wide, then dropped them to her sides. The backs of her eyes stung and she blinked back her tears. “I love you. I chose to have sex with you because I love you.”

His brows lowered over the tempest in his eyes but his voice remained calm, reasonable when he said, “You didn’t give me a choice, Stella. You didn’t give me time to think of the responsibility.”

Responsibility. He felt an obligation to marry her. She’d worked hard not to be any man’s obligation and his words hurt worse than if he’d hit her. As if his hog’s tooth pierced her chest. “Responsibility,” she choked past the stab to her heart. The weight of her pain pressed the breath from her body. “Oh.” She tried to breathe and not to cry and breathe. Her eyes stung and her chest hurt. “Okay.” She headed past him to the door.

“Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” He reached for her and missed.

Away. Away from him. Fast, before she fell apart and he felt responsible to put her back together again. “I don’t need you. Remember?” She opened the door and stepped out into the morning light. The sun burned her eyes and she quickly moved down the concrete steps.

“Stella! Get back here.”

She stopped by the front of a maroon minivan. The woman loading kids in the vehicle blurred as the first tear spilled from her lower lid. She turned and looked up the steps at Beau, standing at the top in his black underwear. “Get your pants on.” She turned and headed in the opposite direction from the Escalade. She moved around the side of the building and sat on the steps leading to another complex. Her hands tingled, her ears rang, and she thought for sure she was going to pass out. She shook her hands and put her head between her knees. She breathed in and out as she stared at a black gum spot on the concrete. A tear splashed on the ground next to the gum. Oh God. She didn’t know what to do. She was stuck in a town where she knew no one. No one besides the man who’d just shot her heart. No one but Sadie.

Two more tears dropped to the concrete as she concentrated on her breathing and options. She couldn’t fall apart now. On the steps of the Casa Bella Apartment Complex in Lovett, Texas. She sat up and brushed her cheeks. She had to think. She didn’t have time for tears. She’d been in bad positions before. With Carlos in Vegas. Singing on a stage while brawls broke out. Getting grabbed by Ricky and pursued by the Gallos. This felt worse than all those times. Crying in a stairwell, her heart shattered, was a lot worse then getting hit in the head with a flying bottle. Several more tears ran down her cheeks and she brushed them aside. She didn’t have her phone or ID or cash or credit cards. Her backpack was at the JH. With Sadie.

Sadie. Even if she had her cell phone, she didn’t have her sister’s number. Beau did. She rose and rubbed her shoulder against her face. He was the last person she wanted to see right now, and she’d rather chew off her arm than knock on his door. She might not have a choice though. She retraced her steps to the front of the complex and looked around. Beau’s Escalade was gone, which was somewhat a relief.

The pregnant woman closed the back hatch of the van and waddled to the driver’s side door.

“Excuse me,” Stella called to her, and brushed her face with the back of her arm. “Do you have a cell phone I could use for just one call?”

The woman watched her approach and opened the driver’s side door to dump her enormous cowhide purse inside. She looked across the parking lot, then back at Stella. “Your man tore out of here in a hurry.”

He wasn’t her man.

The woman smiled and pulled the phone out of her purse. “He’d put his pants on, though.”

Stella managed half a smile. “Thank you so much,” she said, and called 411. Sadie had a cell phone but the ranch had a landline. She’d seen it in the kitchen.

“Verizon 411. What city and state?” the operator asked.

“Lovett, Texas.”

“What listing?”

“JH Ranch.”

“Just a moment.”

The pregnant woman rubbed her big belly. “You headed to the JH?”

Stella wasn’t sure she wanted to give out that information to a stranger. Not even one who looked as if she was about to give birth on the sidewalk.

“I can give you a ride. I’m on my way to my in-laws about ten miles past.”

“Oh, I don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s on the way.” She waved away Stella’s concern. “I’ve known Sadie forever. We went all through school together. Lord, we were on the dance squad at Lovett High. The Beaverettes. What a time we had.”

The operator came back on the line. “Connecting. Thank you for using Verizon.”

“Her daddy just died a few months back, poor thing.” The woman shook her head. “I just saw her at the Gas and Go last week. She looked good.”

The phone rang once and went to voice mail. Great. Someone was using it. She hung up and handed back the cell.

“I’m RayNetta Colbert.”

Stella looked into RayNetta Colbert’s brown eyes. The woman had three little kids strapped in her minivan and was so pregnant she could hardly walk. “Are you sure it won’t be a bother?” Normally Stella wouldn’t even consider a ride from a stranger. But today was anything but normal and what torturous thing could the woman possibly do? Make Stella babysit?

“No bother.”

“Thank you,” she said, and moved around to the passenger side. She opened the door and sat on a blue M&M stuck to the beige faux-leather seat. “I’m Stella Leon.” It still sounded so strange to say it out loud. “Sadie’s sister.”

RayNetta grinned like she’d just won the Texas lotto and started the van. “Well shit fire and save matches! Welcome to Lovett.”

Chapter Fifteen

“M
aybe it’s Stockholm syndrome.”

Stella looked at her sister in the pedicure chair next to her. “Maybe, except I wasn’t kidnapped and held captive.” It had been two days since she’d run from Beau. Two days of confusion and self-recriminations. Two days of every emotional pain imaginable.

“He phoned Vince this morning.”

The pedicurist inside Lily Belle Salon and Spa in Amarillo scrubbed Stella’s heel with a pumice stone. Stella wasn’t surprised Beau had called. He’d called her phone four times in the past few days. She didn’t answer and he didn’t leave a message. “He feels responsible for me.”

“Maybe.” Sadie giggled as a second pedicurist sanded her feet. “God that tickles.”

The pumice stone did tickle a bit, but not like Sadie carried on. Watching her sister squirm and laugh brought a smile to Stella’s lips.

“He obviously has feelings for you,” Sadie managed.

Feelings. He cared. It wasn’t love and it wasn’t enough. After the pedicure, they drove to Lovett and bought glittery cowgirl belts at Deeann’s Duds. That was the first time they heard the latest gossip flying around town. The wild story about Blake’s twin brother chasing Sadie’s long-lost sister from his apartment wearing nothing but black boxers.

“That is true,” she confessed to her sister on their drive to the JH. “But he chased
after
me. He didn’t chase me
from
the apartment.” She wasn’t used to strangers talking about her. Knowing her embarrassing business. It was bad enough that Sadie knew, but it got worse. A day later they heard a version where Beau had been naked.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie said as they exited the Albertson’s, where a checker had relayed the latest.

“No. I’m sorry to bring so much drama.”

Sadie shrugged. “Everyone in town loves gossip. It was bound to happen.”

That night she heard a third version as she sat in the barn next to Sadie petting Maribell’s forehead as the mare gave birth. Vince stood at the other end next to the vet and said, “Velma Patterson came into the store today and said you were seen running from my apartment building wearing nothing but army boots and a camo bandana.”

“I was naked?”

Vince shrugged. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but I thought you should know.”

“Next they’ll say you parachuted in with a knife between your teeth.” Sadie sighed. “The truth is never quite colorful enough.”

Maribell’s nostrils flared and the big animal groaned.

“Holy shit!” Vince swore as he knelt by the vet. “I see a foot.”

“You’ll see one hoof and then the other,” the vet said as he worked on the business end. After several more pushes, Maribell delivered a gray and white filly. She was beautiful and perfect, and Sadie openly cried as she knelt by the foal, the last link to her father. “She’s beautiful, Daddy.”

Stella bent down by her sister and put an arm around her shoulder. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” she said as tears clouded her vision. “I’ll never forget tonight.” Stella and Sadie sobbed while Vince cleared his throat and stared suspiciously off at nothing. “It was truly a miracle. A treasure to see.”

Sadie nodded and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. “She is a treasure. I was going to name her Cadeau because it means gift and sounds fancy, but I think Tesoro fits her better. Or is it Tesora?”

Stella smiled. “Tesora.” The moment was perfect. A perfect, joyous moment with her sister. But amid all the joy and tears, her broken heart reminded her that her life was less than perfect. She loved a man who didn’t love her. She was homeless and jobless and the small town of Lovett thought she ran around naked in combat boots and a camo do-rag. That night, she lay in bed and thought about her life. She had a few ideas about what she wanted to do next and she ran them through her brain. Mostly she thought of Beau. His laughter and rare smiles. His strength and his touch and the emotionless look in his eyes when he said she was a responsibility.

She’d wanted him to be the first man to make love to her. She didn’t regret it. She loved him and he’d made her first time so good for her. Her only regret was that he felt the need to marry her out of obligation. Not love. Thinking back on it, she guessed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Beau always tried to do the right thing even if it wasn’t right for him. Now, five days later, that still felt like a blow to the chest.

She swallowed past the pain in her heart. Someday, when she started dating again, it was back to skinny boys with black fingernail polish and eyeliner. No chance of her falling for those guys. At least not so hard. Not completely and totally in love.

The next morning as Stella and Sadie checked up on Tesora a business envelope arrived for Stella. No letter. No quick message. Just a set of keys and the address to a storage locker in Miami. Beau really didn’t plan to come back. He really didn’t plan to see her. Which was for the best. Her eyes pinched and watered. Even if it felt like the worst.

“I’m thinking of going back to school. Part-time.” A sad smile touched her lips as she ran her hand over the filly’s soft mane. “Maybe taking a few core classes until I figure things out.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” Sadie ran a brush down Maribell’s side and looked at her over the horse’s back. She asked cautiously as if she was preparing herself not to like the answer, “Where were you thinking of enrolling?”

Stella answered just as cautiously, “West Texas A&M.”

From across the horse, Sadie’s eyes smiled. “In Amarillo?”

“If that’s okay with you.”

“I’d love that. You can stay here with me.”

Stella shook her head. No way was she going be the third wheel at the JH. “I thought I’d get an apartment in town.” And a car. The PT Cruiser would never make the trip from Florida to the Texas panhandle. She’d have to sell it.

“No one is staying in Vince’s place and his lease isn’t up for three more months.”

The apartment where she’d given Beau her virginity? “No. Thank you.”

“I understand.” Sadie cleared her throat. “I’ll help you find a nice place.”

Tesora bumped Stella’s palm with her unbelievably soft nose. “First, I need to fly to Miami.”

Sadie’s brow wrinkled. “I thought you were afraid of flying.”

Oh, that’s right. She’d lied about that. A lie that had changed her life and cost her a chunk of her heart. She made a vow to herself not to lie anymore.

She looked down and scratched the foal’s forehead. Well, not as much.

“W
hen I see you again, you’ll probably be a surfer.” Beau raised his hand from the steering wheel of the rented BMW and made the hang loose sign.

“Probably,” Blake agreed. “I’ll have a long ponytail and zinc oxide on my nose.” He pulled a few oranges from a bag of fruit they’d picked up after they’d left the airport that morning. “Probably say ‘dude’ a lot like Trevor Mattis. Did you ever meet Trevor?”

From behind his sunglasses Beau glanced at his brother and the ocean beyond as they drove down the Pacific Coast Highway toward Malibu. “Nah.”

“He was a surfer dude. A real good frogman from Team One, Alpha Platoon. Laid back. Real cool under pressure. The kind of guy you want in the comms center.”

Beau turned his attention to the road. He didn’t say anything. Just let Blake talk if he felt like it. It had taken him almost a week to get him this far.

“Played everything from Nirvana to Neil Diamond on the guitar.” Blake paused and tore at the orange peel. “Until a Toyota packed with explosive rammed his Humvee in Mussayab and took him out. A paratrooper and John Kramer from Delta were killed, too. Along with about twenty-seven civilians just trying to make their annual pilgrimage to Kerbala. Poor bastards.” He dropped a large peel on the leg of his jeans. “I heard they had to scoop Trevor up with a spoon.” He shoved several orange sections into his mouth. “Does this rehab place have a lap pool?”

“I think they have several.” He’d spent the past week sitting on his brother, sometimes physically, at his home in Nevada before Blake had agreed to enter a private rehab in Malibu that specialized in PTSD and substance abuse.

“This whole rehab thing probably won’t work,” Blake predicted, and hit the switch to roll down the window.

“Give it a try. Who knows? Maybe you’ll seduce a hot nurse.”

“If there is a hot nurse.”

“It’s Malibu. I think maybe it’s a law.”

“Maybe it won’t be a total waste,” Blake grumbled like he was only going to rehab to please Beau and their mother, but they both knew he wouldn’t have gotten his ass on the plane if he wasn’t ready for a change. He opened his window and tossed out the orange peels. “Expensive lay, though.”

“What are you doing?” Beau looked at his brother, then back at the road. “You just littered.”

“Orange peels aren’t litter. They’re biodegradable material.”

“Orange peels lure animals onto the road.” His brows slammed together and he couldn’t seem to keep himself from adding, “That’s how innocent critters get killed.”

Blake looked across the car as if Beau had grown fairy wings and sprinkled himself with glitter. “You sound like a girl.”

No. He sounded like Stella, and he wasn’t even surprised when his twin read his mind and asked, “Have you heard from little Stella?”

“No. She won’t answer her phone or return my calls.” And he was still semi-pissed at her for running from Vince’s apartment. By the time he’d jumped into his clothes, she’d disappeared. He’d spent a good hour driving around with his nuts lodged in his throat looking for her.

“Too bad you let that one get away.”

Now it was his turn to look at his brother as if he’d sprouted wings.

“Any woman who wades into a fight to save her man is a keeper.” He chewed more orange slices and chuckled. “That was funny as fuck.”

Beau frowned. “She could have gotten hurt.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t.” He swallowed and scoffed, “Invisible Woman. Cute gloves. Ridiculous.”

Beau scoffed, too. “Can kick Batman’s ass.”

“And Superman,” Blake reminded him.

His laughter died. “Yeah.” He didn’t need reminding. He felt it every day, and it felt like a five-foot woman had worked him over—kicked his ass. Hard. Twisted his guts and spun his head around. She’d said she loved him. Really loved him. She’d wanted him to be the first man to make love to her. A decision that she more than likely regretted now.

The wind whipping through his brother’s window irritated him and he rolled it up. He thought of Stella’s face when she’d asked if he loved her. Expectant. Hopeful, almost pleading with him to say yes. He’d almost said it, too. To spare her the pain of his answer. To spare himself the look in her eyes when he said he cared for her.

Blake fooled around with the sunroof, and the smell of ocean air filled the car. In the end, Beau hadn’t been able to say what he didn’t believe to be true. Wasn’t real love supposed to hit like a thirty-eight caliber to the chest plate? Wasn’t it supposed to knock a man back and send him to his knees thinking, “What the fuck.” Wasn’t it a flash and a bang that blew a man apart?

He closed the sunroof. No. It wasn’t like flashbang or a round to your armor. It was feeling like you’d been cursed with an annoying woman for eight days. It was confusion and tunnel vision when she was around. Longing when she wasn’t that blew a man apart. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“What is it?” Blake asked as he busily texted.

Beau turned to his brother. “I might be sick.”

“Have an orange.” Blake glanced up. “You look like you just got hit on the side of the head with a billy bat.”

It felt like it. His chest, too. He looked at his brother. His best friend and comrade from the womb, and heard himself say as if from a long distance, “I love her.” How had that happened? How had extreme lust turned to love?

“No shit.” Blake snorted and tossed an orange into the cup holder.

And when? When had it happened? When he’d watched her bravely walk into her sister’s house? Or in New Orleans when he’d pretended like he couldn’t say no to her? Or before that, under a quarter moon in Tampa when he’d looked up and seen her? The lighted water reflecting in her hair?

What the fuck?

Blake shook his head and it was like looking into a mirror and seeing a disgusted image of himself. “And you’re supposed to be the smart twin.”

T
he Ramada Inn just north of the Miami International Airport wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury, but neither was it a fleabag. Mostly, it was affordable, and now that Stella was on a tight budget, seventy bucks a night was all she could afford. It was a far cry from the hotels she’d stayed in with Beau, but that had been before. Before she’d fallen in love with a super-secret spy Marine. Before he’d broken her heart.

Stella looked out the window of her second-story hotel room and into the empty parking lot. She was all about looking to the future now. No looking back. Looking back still hurt. The wounds still as fresh as they’d been a week ago.

She’d been in Miami three days and had accomplished a lot. She’d sold her car to the manager of her old apartment complex, and had to admit, going there to get the car had been freaky and a little frightening. She’d half expected the Gallos or Ricky to jump out at her, but nothing had happened. She guessed they’d given up and moved on. When she met with the complex manager to give him her apartment keys, they’d worked out a fair deal for the Cruiser. She’d been able to pay off the rest of the loan and still have a little cash for a down payment on her next car. Used, of course.

All that was left to do was drive the ten-foot U-Haul she’d rented to her storage shed tomorrow and pack it up. There was a hand truck in the back of the U-Haul, and she figured if she needed more help than that, she could leave the items behind. Anything of real value to her had been boxed up and taped shut by Beau’s friends.

Stella moved away from the window and grabbed her phone off the bed. She checked for calls and e-mails and text messages. Nothing. Nothing since the last time she’d checked an hour ago.

Beau hadn’t tried to contact her in five days. She’d received nothing from him since the envelope he’d sent in the mail. The jerk-wad. He really hadn’t loved her. He’d spun her head and broken her heart and turned her life upside down. He’d made her love him, but he’d never loved her.