Watching You: KJ Elite Inc. (18 page)

“I know sweetheart but it will all get better. I promise you. This freak has no idea who it’s dealing with. They chose the wrong one.”

We laid in my bed, side by side, above the blankets and on our backs staring up at the roof. It was only 4AM and I was getting real tired of being awake so early because of one shitty psycho. We stayed laying in the quiet until I had a chance to replay the morning’s events in my head. I let everything sink in.

“Hey Matty…” He turned his head to look over at me and gave a weak smile. I had the faintest tickling in my mind that he already knew what I was going to ask.

“You wanna know how I know about PTSD?” Of course. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.

I just nodded my head and turned to look back at him.

“I’ll tell you one day.” That was all he had said and to be honest, I didn’t like it, but I sure couldn’t blame him. I had been doing the same thing to him for years.

Closing my eyes, I reached for his hand and found comfort in his presence, allowing the security of it to let me drift off to sleep.

When I finally managed to drag my butt out of bed hours later, I heard the doorbell chime ringing throughout the house. I slid my legs around to the side of the bed, hopped down and padded to the open door, reaching the hallway when the voices I heard stopped me dead in my tracks. The blood in my veins turned ice cold and my heart nearly stopped.

“Tommy, may I come in?” The familiar female voice drifted up to the double doors, slightly ajar due to my spying.

“Ma’am?” Tommy sounded nervous and it reassured me that he was indeed human still.

She came in anyways and I heard her walk across the wooden floor toward his kitchen. That was her spot, no matter whose house she was in.

“May I get you a drink?” He asked her, back to the southern gentlemen he was raised to be.

“Don’t be silly baby. Let me get you something to eat, I’m sure you’re starved. Look at you, you haven’t been eating well like you promised. Have you been getting sleep?” She asked sounding like the mother hen she was. “Well, at least it looks like you’re off the bottle like you promised.”

The bottle? Had he been having issues with drinking recently? That was definitely something I was going to have to look into.

As I heard her moving around Tommy’s kitchen, the door opened again and just as I thought, in came another woman but she wasn’t alone.

“Look who I found runnin’ along the main road.” The second woman announced cheerfully.

“Matthew?”

“Hello Mrs. Jameson.” Matt greeted sweetly with a hint of unease in his ragged breath.

Served him right, running in plain sight. Of all the acreage he had to exercise on, he chose to do it right near our families’ houses. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she pulled him in by his ear!

“Oh, how are you honey?” Mama exclaimed with a new sense of relief.

Surely she thought that if Matt were here, I would be too. I heard shuffling and by Matt’s grunt, my mother had hurried to him and wrapped him in one of her hugs. She always gave the best hugs.

First mistake he made was being found, the second was hesitating a microsecond too long. Mama and Cyn were going to eat him alive. I smiled wide, at his misfortune but then mentally smacked myself. They really were going to cut him down and make him talk. The beauty and sweet southern charm wasn’t all they were. These women could be ruthless.

“I’m wonderful, how are you? And who is this gorgeous friend of yours here?”

Leave it to Matt. Thick with the charm as he was with the looks, he was good at getting out of jams… Up until he met the Kane and Jameson women.

“That’s my mother.” Tommy warned.

He wasn’t much of a sharer, never had been. I think it started in grade school.

“It’s a pleasure Mrs. Kane.” I was certain his eyes were twinkling. Matt certainly had a way about him.

“What brings you to our little ole’ town, sweet pea?”

Ever the hostess and belle, Mama would not show her cards until he was properly greeted and introduced. This gave Matt and Tommy both a chance to lie through their teeth, which meant I expected doom to come knocking at my door in no less than five minutes.

“Sit down, we’ll get you both some fresh, hot breakfast whipped right up.” Mama demanded instead of offered.

“Oh, that’s not necessary ma’am, I need a shower anyway.”

If Matt thought he was getting away that easily, he was blonder than I thought possible.

“Sit,” was all they said and I heard two stools pull out from the island.

At least neither man was too stupid or stubborn yet to get hurt by two mama grizzlies.

“Tommy we’ve come to talk to you about a problem we are having.” His mother spoke now. “I know you mentioned that that was your specialty in the Army.”

“Uh, yes ma’am, sort of. How can I help you ma?” I heard the sincere smile and love in his voice.

They knew just how to get his attention, short of beating him.

He should have been named Curious George.

“We want our baby girl back and you are going to go get her.”

Someone choked and began coughing to cover it. It didn’t work.

“This is no laughing matter Thomas James Kane.” Cynde reprimanded.

I laughed and whispered, “Amateur.”

“And what makes you think I can get her to come home?”

“She loves you. That ought to be enough.”

I suddenly did not want to hear this conversation and would much rather be found out.

“I doubt it ma. It’s been six years and if she was going to come back on her own, that time has passed.” His words hit me like a train and I was floored. No more did I want to hear this conversation than could I stop.

“Love is all you need baby, you know that. Taylor has always been yours and our little Annie Oakley needs a little reigning in sometimes. You have allowed her to be gone far too long.”

Allowed? I’d be damned if a man allowed me to do anything.

Yet, here I was. Hiding from a man who threatened everything I loved, someone I tolerated and my way of life. Hell, my life. Tommy also found this funny and chuckled, again.

“If you think that Tay has ever let a man make her do anything, you’re both delusional.”

THWAP.

“I’m sorry ma’am.”

“You’d better be. Do you think because you’re trained to kill and out on your own that you can talk to your mama like that?” Cynde scolded and I assumed she had whacked him with his very own wooden spoon. Seriously, those things are indestructible and hurt like a mother…

“No, ma’am.”

My mama spoke up again and this time she directed her attention at Matt. “What brings you to our little town Matthew?” Honey ran through her veins and poured into her words as she spoke with love and treachery.

“Just taking a little time off.” At least he wasn’t stupid; it was a half lie he could pull off.

“Taylor told me just last night that she was in New York, why didn’t she come with you?” Oh, they were suspicious. Very suspicious indeed.

“I’ve never been to Tennessee, as you know, and I thought I’d take a vacation and check it out a little bit.”

“How did you manage to meet up with our Tommy here?”

Checkmate. They were busted on so many levels and I’m pretty sure they knew it. But I was the one who was sucker punched with their next words.

“Tommy reached out to me the first year of working with Tay and told me who he was and how he would like to send her some things so I gave him her info and we have kept in contact ever since.”

The whole room fell in silence and I was certain they could all hear my heart beating out of my chest, all the way down the stairs, bouncing off the hall walls and beating down the kitchen.

“Oh.my.”

No kidding Cynde.

“So, you’ve known all along?” Mama asked Tommy, purely bewildered. It must have been a first.

“Yes ma’am.” It was so quiet, I could hardly hear the rest of his answer. “Initially I believed I was corresponding with his assistant but he took up the communication on his own once he found out who I was.”

“Are you the mystery gifter?”

I had once told mama how a fan was sending me tulips and chocolates and she nearly lost her mind with worry.

I would always assure her, “Mama, it happens to all authors. It’s just a fan and they mean no harm.” She was always concerned with how they knew it was my favorite but I just brushed her off onto another subject.

“I think I need to sit down.”

You and me both, mama. It took everything I had not to slide down the door, right into a puddle of ‘what the fuhhhh’.

Tommy must have stood and walked her over to his stool.

“Does she know?”

I do now.

“No ma’am.” He hesitated. “I would be very thankful if you kept it to yourself.”

“Why?” It was one word but he made no mistake what she was asking.

“I wanted her to know that even though we were apart, not one day went by that she wasn’t thought of. That she was loved and special to someone and if I died, I was never angry with her.”

“How could she possibly know that silly boy?”

I pictured him shrugging when there was no answer. The odd thing is, I think I knew that in my gut, every time they showed up. We had a connection like no other.

No one knew we were married or that I carried affections for Tommy, or so I liked to believe; our mothers knew I loved him. I had always denied their wildest dreams and fantasies of this huge country wedding between the only Jameson girl and her inseparable Kane boy. I knew for years but did what I could, dated every guy who looked my way, denied my feelings and was plain stupid for years.

I started planning my departure the summer after our junior year in high school, when he came to me one night and I told him how I loved him. That was the night I gave myself to him, wholly, freely. That summer was the most magical time of my life, when we promised not to talk about the future, just live in the moment. Graduation night, I packed up all of my things and went to say goodbye but asked him to go with me instead. He knew I had to go but told me he had to stay for them. Mike was gone to the Marines by then and Noah had just shipped off to the Navy the year prior.

Tommy said no, but asked me to marry him, with the promise of returning to him and he would keep it secret. I made my promise knowing deep in my heart that I would most likely break it but telling myself that it was right in that moment. He deserved that much, I thought. It was the hardest thing I had ever done but I was beginning to suspect it wasn’t cake for Tommy either. Who knew that by giving him the one thing he yearned for, I was only prolonging my own heartbreak? I was pulled from the memory when my mama spoke again.

“Matthew, you foolish man. How could you let Taylor live in the dark all these years?”

I could actually hear the hamster die and the wheel stop spinning. He was unprepared for this turn of conversation.

“Uh…”

“I’m the one to blame, not him.”

“So make it right then Thomas James. You go get her and bring her home.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can and you will.” Cynde challenged.

“No ma’am.”

It was the stupidest two words ever to come out of that skilled mouth.

SMACK.

His mother had had enough.

“How could you do this to us?”

“I cannot go to New York and get her.”

“Why can’t you? You tell me now, son.”

“She won’t be there.” Matt spoke up and I stood tall in all of my five foot three glory. Wearing nothing but a shirt, I prepared to walk out, announcing, “Because I’m here,” but I was saved by the bell.

Well, sort of.

There was a sharp knock and the front door opened again.

“Ma, Ms. Cynde.” Peyton greeted. “I need to have a talk with Tommy. Alone.” He clarified.

“We’re done here anyway. For now.” Both of our mothers walked out and left a thick cloud of pain in the air behind them.

The front door shut, again, and Peyton walked in further. “We’ve got a slight problem.” The tone of his voice sounded like it was bigger than a little problem.

“We couldn’t just have one day without a problem, could we?”

“Would we be who we are if we did?” Peyton joked and lightened the mood a bit.

“What’s up?”

“I was in town this morning and Tina down at the grocery store told me that some fella’s came in asking about Taylor, looking around suspiciously and asked her to call if she came in. Of course she just had to tell me all about it because why would men come looking for Tay when she hadn’t even been home in years. They slid her this and walked out.”

I assumed it was Tommy who walked over to Peyton while Matt stayed on his stool and asked, “What is it?”

“A clean and crisp, brand spankin’ new, Benjamin.”