Lead Me On (25 page)

That man—that big, gorgeous, scary-looking man—would be Jane’s if she had the courage to claim him. He could
belong
to her. And it had nothing to do with his degree. None of these people knew about that, but Jane felt proud all the same.

As she walked out, the tiny little kernel of bravery she’d hidden beneath layers of fear began to burn and grow. If she wanted a chance to lick that man’s tattoo again, she was going to have to find a way to resuscitate her courage completely. She was going to have to set aside decades of guilt and shame and anxiety and learn to live.

It seemed an insurmountable task, but Billy Chase’s skull might be the only motivation in the world strong enough to help her overcome her terror. Maybe there was hope for her after all.

For a while after she’d stopped sleeping around, Jane hadn’t been able to go to the shop to see Mac. Too many times his customer would be some biker she’d hooked up with at one of the bars. Too many times she’d had to hurry out and hope Mac hadn’t noticed the knowing gleam in the man’s eyes.

When she thought about it now, she couldn’t quite believe she’d escaped that life so safely. She’d gotten a second chance, and she’d clutched at it with desperation.

Jane looked back to the picture she’d been staring at for the past fifteen minutes. Most of the photos were posed family shots, but this one had been taken when she wasn’t paying attention. Instead of staring boldly at the camera with a smirk or a pout, she was sitting on the hood of Mac’s old truck, looking into the distance. Her knees were tucked up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs. Without the camouflage of a defiant glare, she looked very young. And sad. And lost. She looked like a girl grown men should have gone to jail for touching.

She traced a finger around the edge of the photo. Chase was right. She’d been a kid. And if she saw this young girl hanging around Ryders today, Jane would feel sorry for her. She’d think this was a girl who needed help, not a girl who could never be forgiven.

If I forgive my mother, I’ll have to forgive myself
.

The motorcycle started again, a roar that would’ve carried through the window even if it hadn’t been open.

Jane could hang out in Mac’s shop with him now if she wanted to. No one would recognize her even if they knew about Dynasty’s new name. But it was a catch-22. If she wanted to remain separated from her past, she couldn’t hang out with her stepfather. She couldn’t be Mac’s daughter. She couldn’t be Jessie’s sister. She couldn’t be herself or she had to be Dynasty, too.

The hinges of the front door squealed. “Jane?” her mom called.

“I’m in here!”

“Mac said you were waiting for me.” She walked in with two shopping bags clutched in each hand.

“Let me help,” Jane offered, jumping up to grab a bag.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

She helped her mom put the groceries away, surprised that she remembered the exact spot for each item.

“Jessie called me,” her mom said. “Did you hear they’re charging that locksmith already? Jessie’s so relieved they caught the guy. He was worried about you living alone. We all were.”

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Are you sure? You’ve been acting a little odd. Is everything okay?”

Jane stared into the cupboard, hand frozen on a box of cereal. The same kind of cereal Mac had eaten twenty years before. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry for what, baby?”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t face her own mother. “I’m sorry for the kind of person I’ve been.”

“What?”

“And I’m sorry I’ve been so awful to you.”

“Honey, you haven’t been awful to me.”

Jane couldn’t just stand there with her hand on a box of cereal for five minutes. She finally closed the cupboard and turned to meet her mom’s troubled eyes. “I’ve been mad at you since I was twelve, and I’ve stayed away so I wouldn’t have to think about it, but you don’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you’ve been busy with your own life, baby. It’s okay.”

“No, Mom. Don’t make excuses for me. I live twenty minutes away. I haven’t been
that
busy.”

Her mom looked down before giving a small nod.

“I’m trying to make some changes, but first I wanted you to know that I thought I was mad at you, but mostly I was mad at myself. It was easier to resent you than it was to admit the truth. That I hated myself.”

“Oh, Jane,” her mom said, reaching out to pull her into her arms. “Don’t say that. You’re so smart and pretty and strong.”

“It’s okay.” Her throat burned, but her eyes were dry. It felt good to admit it. “I hated myself, but I think I’m going to give up on that, too. I was just a kid. Teenagers do dumb things. It’s part of the job description.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

Jane shook her head. If her mom wanted to pretend she hadn’t known anything, then Jane would let her have that. “Just growing pains, Mom. It doesn’t matter now.” She tightened her arms. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. But you know that. We always had each other, didn’t we?”

That much was true. It wasn’t as if her mom had been out on the town with a new boyfriend every week. She’d worked and spent time with Jane and that had been it.

Her mom stepped back, taking hold of Jane’s hand to pull her toward the kitchen table. “You are so much smarter than I ever was. So much more determined. Do you know why I married your father?”

Jane held her breath for a moment, trying to calm her galloping heart. “No.”

“My stepdaddy…You never met him, but he wasn’t a nice person. He beat my mom when he was drunk. Screwed around on her when he wasn’t. And sometimes…sometimes he paid too much attention to me, if you know what I mean.”

She squeezed her mom’s fingers in answer.

“I didn’t trust men. I liked them, but they made me nervous. I never knew what to expect from them. Like your dad…I knew him before he was sent away. He was reckless and arrogant, but charming as hell. We went out once, but he had lots of girlfriends. I knew he’d never settle for me. I was too…small, I guess.

“But when he was arrested, I wrote to him. I figured he could use a friendly word. And he wrote back, Jane. He wrote me so many letters. He said he loved me. Asked me to marry him. I guess he figured I was small enough that I’d marry a man who was about to be sent to prison for twenty years. And I was. I was scared of men, but I so wanted someone to love, and this wild and handsome man had chosen
me
.”

“So you married him,” Jane said past a tight throat, fighting against the sad need she could hear in her mom’s words. Jane knew how it felt to feel worthless and still want to be loved.

“I married him. And I got you out of the deal, and I was so happy. But your dad started getting mad that I wasn’t writing as often, and I made too many excuses not to come visit. I got tired of the arguments. The woman next door was married to an inmate, too, and she had a brother in a Texas prison, so I started writing to him. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I kept on looking.”

Jane nodded.

“And then I met Mac and you know what happened after that.”

“Why’d you stay with Mac? After he got out, I mean. I kept expecting that one day he’d go to work and we’d just pack up and leave.” Her mom frowned, and Jane saw wrinkles she’d never noticed before.

“Did you want to?”

“At first, yeah. There’d never been a man around. I was scared of him.”

Her mom laughed, but it turned into a tiny sob and she pressed her fingers to her mouth. A few tears leaked from her eyes even when she managed a smile. “I was, too. I was so shocked at first, I didn’t know what to do. I told myself, the moment he lays his fist on me, we’re out of here. When that didn’t happen, I told myself I’d leave if he said one mean word to you. But he didn’t. He was just like his letters—thoughtful and fair. And sometime later I realized I felt safe with him, even though he wasn’t behind bars anymore.”

She shook her head, sniffing back the last of her tears, and she managed a watery laugh. “I don’t know what would’ve happened to us without Mac. But I…I’m sorry for everything that happened before him, baby doll. I thought I was keeping you safe, living without a man in the house. I thought that was best for you, but…I guess I just didn’t understand.”

“You did your best,” Jane whispered, finally believing it.

“I did, but my best was nothing compared to yours. I’m so proud of you.”

They hugged and cried a little more before Jane walked over to the shop to watch Mac work. It had been one of her favorite hobbies before she’d turned into a sullen youth, and it was the perfect place to find the strength she needed before her next stop.

“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes falling away from Chase’s gaze.

“You can’t do this on your own, Dad.”

“I’m not giving it up to a higher power!” he snapped. “It’s not a disease. It’s a defect.”

“All right. Fine. Call it whatever you want.” Chase opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of brochures. “There are other programs besides AA. You don’t have to do it that way if you don’t want to.” He put the brochures on the coffee table, but his dad just eyed them as if they were contaminated with nuclear waste.

“Will you think about it?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“You helped to catch a killer, Dad. You could still do something with your life. It doesn’t have to be like this forever.”

When Chase’s phone beeped, he pulled it from his pocket with a hard stab of relief. That relief swelled to happiness when he saw there was a text from Jane.

Her car pulled up five minutes later and Chase rushed outside, a smile tugging at his mouth before she even got out of the car. “That was fast.”

“I was at my mom’s.”

“Oh?”

She shrugged and stopped ten feet away from him.

This was it, he thought, tension winding through his muscles.

She glanced toward the west, where the sun was beginning to sink behind ragged peaks of snow-covered mountains. She tilted her head toward his truck. “Want to sit with me?”

“Sure.” He thought she’d meant in the cab, but Jane boosted herself onto the hood and settled against the windshield. Chase raised an eyebrow.

“I like it up here. And the sun’s setting.”

“Okay.” He scooted up next to her, still teetering on the brink of uncertainty. Serious talks could end in many different ways.

Jane took a deep breath. “I love you,” she said simply.

Chase waited. He steeled his heart against her words. She’d said it, but she was fully capable of following that up with a
but
…

She turned to him and took his hand, a nervous smile playing over her mouth. “I love you.”

“And?”

Her gaze fluttered over his face, and she gave a breathless little laugh. “I love you and I want to be your special gal. If you’re up for that.”

He was squeezing her hand too tight, but when he tried to relax his fingers, he realized it was her squeezing him. “In public?”

“Yes.”

Unwilling to be happy just yet, despite the shout that wanted to rise in his throat, Chase narrowed his eyes at her. “Why?”

“Because I love you. And you know me. And I’m ready. I thought I’d left that girl I hated far behind, but really…really I’ve been sinking deeper into her this whole time. I’ve been a child, hiding from everything that scared me. I’m ready to grow up. I want to not be scared anymore.”

He nodded. “Good. I’m glad. But I don’t want you to use me anymore. I don’t want to be your therapy, Jane.”

Her free hand rose to touch his face, the palm pressing into his skin. Despite his brave words, there was no force in the world that could have stopped him from closing his eyes so he could concentrate on the feel of her hand.

“I won’t deny I need to work through a few things, but I promise I’ll never use you again. I’m sorry for that. I love you so much already, and I’ve been fighting it so hard. I…I want to know how good it feels not to fight you, Chase. I’m sorry for how cruel I’ve been to you. For using you. Can you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he whispered, turning to kiss her palm. “If you hadn’t used me, I wouldn’t love you right now.”

She pulled him down for a kiss. A soft kiss that didn’t hold any of that familiar, desperate need.

When she leaned back, her smile made her look ten years younger. Younger than she’d ever looked back then. “I lied to you about something, though,” she warned.

“What?”

“I actually am a neat freak.”

“That was kind of obvious. Just don’t sneak any fresh flowers into my place and we’ll be fine.”

They smiled at each other like idiots for a few long seconds, then her eyes shifted to a spot over his shoulder. “How’s your dad?”

Chase shook his head and pulled her against his side so they could watch the sun as it darkened to pink. “He’s looking at brochures for treatment centers again. I think that locksmith being arrested…it kind of shocked him out of a daze. He helped to stop this guy. But don’t get your hopes up for Grandparents’ Day. We’ve been here half a dozen times before.”

“Okay.”

Her head settled against his shoulder. Her fingers loosened their death grip and relaxed in his hand. The sun slid lower.

Chase cleared his throat. “I mean, you can use me
sometimes
. I don’t want to be maniacal about that.” She laughed and snuggled closer, and Chase finally felt the last of his doubt fall away. “I’ll start growing my hair out so you don’t have to take a guy with a shaved head out to dinner.”

Her head popped up. She met his eyes and raised a hand to slide it over the side of his head. Shivers tingled down his neck and Jane’s eyes dilated. “No. Leave it. For me? For a little while?”

He felt more than a hint of wickedness in his smile. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of work. I have to buzz it every other day.”

“Really?” She sighed. “Can I watch?”

Oh, yeah. His grin was full-on predator now. “You want to watch?”

She licked her lips. “Yes, please.”

“You have any ideas for making it worth my while?”

She leaned close, then closer. Her mouth touched his ear and Chase closed his eyes at the small pleasure.

He’d met potty-mouthed Jane only once, but he had no trouble recognizing her reappearance when she whispered in his ear. No trouble at all. His face heated. So did other parts of his body.

Her teeth closed over his earlobe, and Chase drew a sharp breath. “How do you feel about paying in advance?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she whispered.

Chase meant to slide her gently off the hood of the truck, but it veered toward a push. Jane landed with a grin.

“Meet you at my place?” he asked, jumping to the ground.

“My place is a few seconds closer.” Jane tore out of there so fast that dust rose from her tires, forming an orange cloud in the last rays of the sun.

Jumping into his own truck, he swung it around, braking when he was lined up well enough to see through his dad’s storm door. His dad still had a beer in his hand, but he was hunched over a brochure, reading. Chase honked and waited for a wave, then tore out of there just as quickly as Jane had.

His future was waiting for him, and this time he wasn’t going to let it go, not even for his father.