Vindicated (29 page)

Emma?

Karly must have felt his gaze. She looked up, an expression of overwhelming happiness on her face that slipped just a little when she saw him. She waved, a polite sweep of the hand, more appropriate for a passing acquaintance than a friend, but they weren’t friends anymore. They weren’t anything. The stilted greeting cut him almost as much as the sight of her turning away and walking the other direction.

Chapter 59

The days he spent with Caleb were more than he could ever have hoped for, and he enjoyed every minute, but Karly stayed in the back of his mind. He just couldn’t shake the sight of her with Emma. She looked happy. She belonged in a place like that, a nice home with a big yard. They wanted the same things in life—their kids, a home, and an education.

So, why the fuck couldn’t he make it happen for her—for them both? He scrubbed both hands over his face and huffed out an exasperated breath. Life was too short for any more of this bullshit. Before he could over think things, he grabbed his wallet and truck keys, and headed out the door.

David had rented a posh penthouse apartment on the courthouse square. The spacious apartment boasted floor-to-ceiling windows, modern furniture, and gleamed with polished chrome and granite. Not so very long ago, Randy had admired David’s reckless abandon and relentless drive. Now they seemed cold and empty. The man lived a lonely life, and it was nothing that Randy wanted.

The housekeeper let him in and ushered him to the office. David sat behind an expansive mahogany monstrosity of a desk. The city skyline loomed behind him, lit with brilliant midday sunshine. He rose from the desk with animal-like grace and shook Randy’s hand.

“Good to see you, man,” David said, a genuine smile of affection on his face. “How do you like my crib?”

“It’s over-the-fucking-top,” Randy said. “Even for you.”

“Five bedrooms. I’m sure one of those has your name on it, if you want it.” David resumed his seat behind the desk, straightening his tie and cuffs as he sat. “But judging by the expression on your face, you aren’t here to discuss my real estate. What gives?”

Randy wandered around the office, trailing a finger over the frame of an oil painting and the curved lines of a modernistic sculpture before he spoke. When he’d covered the entire room, he turned to face David. “I want out,” he said. That was a simple as he could put it.

“What do you mean, out?” David’s face morphed into a scowl. “Out of what? There is no out.”

“Yes. There is. I want out,” he repeated. “I’m done.”

David pushed back from his desk and ruffled a hand through his hair hundred dollar haircut. “What’s wrong? I thought we had things worked out. You always seemed to like this shit.”

“Everything’s wrong, but I want to make it right.” Randy scrubbed a hand over his face and wished he still smoked. A shot of nicotine would come in handy about now. “I want you to buy me out of the books and the loans. I’ve kept all of it going for you while you were away, but I’m done. I’ll be graduating from school next year. I’m ready to do something different. I don’t want to do your dirty work anymore.”

A full minute passed before David spoke. Randy watched the hands sweep around the chrome-and-onyx clock mounted above the fireplace mantle, ticking away his past and the seconds until he could begin his future.

“Are you kidding me? Does Jack know about this?” David’s chair creaked as he pushed back from the desk. He stood and began to pace along the window with his back to Randy.

“Yes. He’s the one who suggested it,” Randy said. He decided to change his approach. “I owe you a lot, man, and don’t think I don’t know it. You and Jack were there for me when no one else was. But this isn’t the life I want. Not anymore. So I’m asking you as a friend to do this for me.”

David let out a heavy sigh and turned to face him with a somber face. He walked around to the front of his desk and sat on the edge. His narrow-eyed stare made Randy’s palms sweat.

“I can’t,” David said eventually.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I can’t. All my money’s tied up. I’ve got the Feds watching me like a hawk. I can’t go doling out cash to people without them coming after me.”

Randy curbed the urge to hit something, overcome with helpless frustration. “If you’re money’s tied up, then how did you get this place?”

“Creativity. And I called in a few favors here and there.” His handsome face lightened with a smile. “It’s all about who you know or who you blow in this city.”

“Right. Well, thanks for nothing.” Randy turned to leave.

“She means that much to you, does she?”

Randy drew in a deep breath but didn’t reply. David studied him then shook his head. He stood and clapped a hand on Randy’s shoulder. Something in his touch gave Randy a mingled sense of dread and hope.

“Can you help me or not?” Randy asked.

David scrubbed a hand over his face, stopping short of his perfect hair. His face split into a smile. “I can’t give you any money, but I might have a solution that will work for both of us.”

Chapter 60

A month later, Randy watched Karly melt into the crowd at Felony, moving away from him. Ally and Jack both looked up from the bar, their eyes flitting from Randy to Karly and back again. Ally slid off her barstool and acted as if she meant to go after Karly, but Jack put a hand on her arm and shook his head. She frowned, threw a look of pure disgust in Randy's direction, and eased reluctantly back onto the barstool.

"Where’s she going? I need to talk to her,” Randy said to no one in particular.

“She’s got a date,” Ally said, still scowling at him in a way that let him know exactly how much of a jerk he really was.

Her words stabbed him straight in the heart. Was he too late?

“What do you mean, she has a date? With who?”

After years of friendship, Jack recognized the look in his eyes and stopped him with a hand on his chest. "Dude. Take a breath." Jack's voice cut through the thick haze of panic clouding his brain. "Randy." He could count the number of times Jack had called him by name on one hand. Instead, he always called him
dude
or
bro
. The unfamiliar address forced him back to reality. "I said take a breath. Don't make me beat you down, 'cause I will.”

He tore his gaze from Karly's back and found Jack watching him with a patient, almost sympathetic, expression on his face.

"Whatever you need to say to her, say it. But if you go at her with that look on your face, you're going to fuck things up even worse than you have already." Jack’s words hovered in his ears, unheeded.

"This cannot be happening," Randy groaned. “Not now.”

After a warning look, Jack removed his hand and took a step back with his hands raised in the air, palms facing outward in a gesture of surrender, a dark scowl on his face. "Fine. Whatever. Go ahead and ruin the best thing that ever happened to you." Jack shrugged and went back behind the bar, throwing his hands up in disgust. "Dumb ass."

Karly saw the look in Randy’s eyes when he came around the end of bar. She doubled her pace, but he caught up to her before she left the building. Unable to escape him, she stopped at the door and turned to face him. He looked terrible. The flesh around his left eye was yellow and swollen, blotched with green and black. He had four stitches on his right cheek, and his lower lip was split. Someone had taken a piece out of him. Her fingers curled into fists. She wanted to ask him what happened, to take care of him, but she knew better than to open the door to her feelings again. She had to let him go.

“Just give me a minute, will you?” He grabbed her arm but dropped it when he saw her expression.

"Are you serious, Randy?"

“I’ve never been more serious.” He swallowed hard, the long muscles of his throat working. A cold, hard glint gleamed in his eyes. She recognized it as the same expression guarding her own thoughts and felt a pang of kinship toward him. It vanished with his next words. "Don’t go, Karly. Please." The last word was uttered with surprising emotion, a mixture of pain and confusion.

“What is it?” She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. All she wanted was to get as far away from him as possible, before he broke her heart again.

“I need you to come with me,” he said, taking her hand in his. The touch of his fingers on hers was warm and electric, and she’d missed it.

“Why would I go anywhere with you?” She opened her eyes to find him watching her with heartfelt emotion brimming from his eyes. The change hit her in the chest with surprising strength. She tried to look away but couldn’t.

“Because I’m trying to make things right with us,” he said. “I just need one hour, maybe less.”

“I’m going to regret this,” she replied, closing her eyes again. Even after everything he’d put her through, she found it hard to deny him. “But okay. You have one hour. Not a minute more.”

They drove in silence through the night. Karly tried to ignore the shivers of attraction between them in the cab of his truck. Streetlights flickered past. Stars twinkled in a deep blue velvet sky overhead. The towering buildings of downtown faded into the quiet lawns of the suburbs.

After twenty minutes, Randy pulled the truck to the curb in front of a rambling old Georgian home in a quiet neighborhood. He sighed heavily and pointed to the house. The windows glowed with warm yellow light. A large picture window illuminated the dining room, where a family was just sitting down for dinner. A mother, father, two boys in their teens, and a younger girl about Emma’s age. It was like something out of a fairytale. Karly felt a sharp stab of longing at the sight. She wanted that for herself.

Moved by the scenario, she spoke to cover up her sadness. “So what’s the deal? You brought me out here to window peep on someone?”

“I tried to show you a million different ways, and I fucked them all up,” he said. “And I get it now. I do. You deserve a full explanation, and I’m going to give it to you.”

She heaved a heavy sigh, her patience stretched to the limit. “Can we just get on with this? I’ve got somewhere to be.”

“That’s my dad’s house,” he said, eyes glued to the dining room window. “And that’s his family in there. My half brothers and sisters. I’ve never met them.” Confused, she waited for him to continue. “He left when I was twelve and moved here. A few years later, I ran away and came to find him. I thought for sure he’d take me in when he saw me. That it was all just a big misunderstanding. And then I came here and saw this.” Randy jerked his thumb toward the house.

Karly watched his handsome profile in the light of the house and saw the profound sadness in his features. He swallowed hard, his throat moving with the effort. “What did he say when you found him?”

“I got down on my knees and begged him to take me in. I fucking begged him, Karly. And told him how much I loved him. I’ll never forget the look on his face. Cold. Detached. He patted me on the shoulder, called a cab, and sent me out the door without a word,” Randy said with a shrug. “And then I got it. He didn’t want me. He had a new life and I wasn’t part of it. For years, I kept coming here to sit and watch them. They looked so happy. All I could guess was that I didn’t deserve this kind of life. I wasn’t good enough to belong.”

“Randy, I…” She tried to speak, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“That’s why it’s so hard for me to say I love you. Because I know I run the risk of losing you the minute I say it.” The painful emotion in his voice brought the sting of tears to her eyes. “And I know I’m not good enough to have you or to have that kind of life with you. God knows, I’ve done some terrible things in my past.” He touched the swelling above his eye, his gaze still locked on the family inside the window. “I’ve spent my entire life on the outside looking in.”

“Randy, I’m so sorry.” She swallowed down the lump in her throat.

“I haven’t been here in a long time. He made his choice, and it had nothing to do with me.” For the first time since they’d left the bar, he turned to face her. “But I finally realized that I can have that if I want it. I’ve never wanted anything so bad in my life. And Karly, I want it with you.”

Karly watched his tongue trace the fullness of his lower lip. God help her, she had never wanted to kiss anyone as badly as she wanted to kiss him. It took every ounce of her self-control to keep from throwing herself on him. Her eyes locked onto his. Damn his sexy, black-hearted soul.

“Why do you look like someone ran over you?” She took a deep breath, uncertain. “You say you want that, but your face says something different.”

“I went to see David awhile back,” he said after a minute. “I asked him to buy me out of the books and the loans. He can’t do it just yet, but he set up one last fight for me. I won enough money to get us by for a while.”
Us?
Her heart leaped to hear him say the word. Still confused, she bit her lower lip. “It’s not a lot, Karly, but it will do. And once he gets his finances straight, I’m out for good.”

She raised a hand to cup his cheek and brushed a thumb over the cut on his lip. He winced but didn’t move. “You did this for me?”