NEXT TO ME (A Love Happens Novel Book 1) (14 page)

That incident was the first time the police had ever been involved and the last time Danny ever hit her. Her husband, a well-respected, experienced attorney and upstanding member of the community, was taken away in handcuffs, and she hadn’t laid eyes on him since. To make the more serious charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon go away, Danny agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of felony assault, and being the Harvard educated lawyer he was, bargained his way to a reduced sentence of six months in the county jail, knowing he would be out in four or less. He’d sliced deeply into her flesh with a professional grade butcher knife, cutting through skin and muscle and nicking her bone—not to mention her fractured elbow—and a judge believed sitting in county lock up for a few months was punishment enough.

Ali had been on a Greyhound bus heading west the day after the fight, not getting off until it stopped in Pittsburgh, a city large enough to hide in while she recovered, both physically and mentally. She’d stayed locked behind numerous hotel room doors for months, never in one for longer than three days, while her lawyer processed a speedy divorce and restored her maiden name, effectively removing any ties to Danny. It was a valiant attempt to correct a colossal mistake in judgment—one the ugly scar on her hip would never let her forget, no matter how far west she went.

***

Self-reflection had its benefits and a significant reality dawned on Ali as she relived the worst moment of her life while staring out a dirty windshield, eating up miles of narrow country highway. Even though Danny had been out of her life for months now, he still controlled her, both in thought and action. Every move she made was done with his threats to find her, to hurt her and then kill her, echoing in her mind.

Yes, Danny might come looking for her. Or he might not. And whether she lived her life in fear as she had been, or in love as she could be, that fact would remain. It seemed stupidly simple. Obvious, even. But until this moment, the liberating realization hadn’t occurred to her. Pain, Ali acknowledged, whether it be physical or mental, was a vast and cruel oppressor.

Cracking a smile so wide it almost hurt, she sped past her small hometown’s faded and peeling welcome sign and turned left onto the maple tree lined street of her childhood home, rolling down her window and breathing in the fresh, lilac scented air.

Ali wanted to live her life in love. Madly, truly, deeply. With the very kind, very generous and very hot Sam Gleeson. And she hoped to high heaven that he was also very forgiving, too, because confession, as her mama had always told her, was good for the soul.

***

It looked exactly the same, as if someone had pressed a stopwatch, stilling time.

Ali stared at the white farm house where she’d grown up, the purple petunias recently planted along the cracked sidewalk camouflaging the neglected facade. The grassy field that surrounded it on three sides was parched and brown. The weeds were low this time of year, the dry summer months and years of ongoing drought denying nourishment to anything that dared to rely on mother nature for moisture.

As a little girl, she would spend hours running through that field, wearing her favorite yellow romper and Jelly sandals despite the yucky and painful blisters that would form on her feet from the cheap, hard plastic. The grass was almost waist high on her then, and filled with all kinds of critters that wanted to nibble her bare toes right off, her daddy would tell her, but Ali didn’t care. She wasn’t afraid of a field mouse or a silly spider. She would run through the tall grass, imagining she was Laura from re-runs of Little House on the Prairie during the opening credits of the show. She would fly her favorite kite, a pastel colored butterfly with blue streamers, the wind whipping it loudly through the air as she struggled to hang on to the bridle, hoping the dollar store toy wouldn’t break. She would play hide and seek with her best friend, Milo—the mutt her daddy found lost and wandering a roadside ditch the day Ali turned two. From sun up to sun down, her childhood days were spent outside while Mama worked her beloved vegetable garden, planting everything from tomatoes to kale. Mama had been making her eat kale for dinner long before eating kale for dinner was cool. Of course, trying to grow anything in Oklahoma took an iron will. If a hail storm or a tornado didn’t wipe a garden out, the deer and rabbits surely would. Ali had learned how to swear like a seasoned sailor on those dew dampened mornings when her mama would wake up to find the garden had been eaten away by wildlife during the night.

That was where Ali found her now, planting a myriad of vegetables that miraculously originated from the few dozen tiny seed packets strewn on the ground nearby.

“Mama?” Her voice was raspy, more emotional than she’d like.

Anna May Ross turned sharply, surprised by the sound. Ali stood near the edge of the patchy brown lawn and they stared at each other for several seconds, as if needing to make sure the other wasn’t an apparition.

“Ali Ann,” she said solemnly, her weathered face softening as she put a hand to her chest. Looking somewhere over Ali’s shoulder, her next words were measured. “Where’s your man?”

Sam
. His handsome face and sinful smile flashed through her mind and her heart pinched. He was her man. But she was asking about Danny. “I left him, Mama.”

“For now?” She was wary, but Ali didn’t blame her. “Or for good?”

Unexpected tears leaked down her cheeks. “For good.”

Nodding, Mama pulled off her dirty gardening gloves and stepped toward her, holding out her arms. They stood there, in the middle of knee-high heirloom tomato plants that would make any commercial grower green with envy, Ali shaking with relief and her mama softly rubbing her back. “Good girl, Ali. Good girl.”

A full minute passed before they separated, her mom gesturing toward the ground.

“Would you look at this? I planted some mint earlier this year and the son of a bitchin’ herb has taken over my garden. Most invasive damn plant I ever had. The Juleps weren’t no consolation, either, even though I had visitors comin’ from miles away to imbibe. And I’m growin’ my potatoes and asparagus too close together, I know.” Slapping the pink gloves on her jeans, she knocked off the rich smelling earth and shook her head, “but that’s a long story. Let’s you and I go on inside and get us some sweet tea. I’ll tell you all about it.”

And just like that, six years of silence, of sadness and shame, faded away.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“You need medication, Sam. Or to get laid. I can probably score you some hardcore anti-depressants if you want them, but I can’t help you with the other. You’ve already broken the hearts of all my single girlfriends. And a few married ones.” Leave it to Caroline Mendoza to say it like it was.

“I’ve never dated any of your girlfriends.” Sam responded absently, focused on the detailed spreadsheet in front of him.

“Exactly.” She shook her head and sighed, turning toward Mike, who was slouched in the chair in front of Sam’s desk. Aiming her thumb back in his direction, she added, “I haven’t slept more than three hours in a row for longer than I can remember and he’s the one in a bad mood.”

“It’s okay, Carrie,” Mike said, making a sympathetic face. “I’ll take the night shift tonight so you can get some extra sleep.” He was careful not to use a pet name for her. The one and only time he’d called her sweetie in the office, at least in the presence of others, he’d walked with a limp for days.

Caroline smirked and strolled out of the room, passing by Asher who was propped up against the doorjamb, observing the situation with deceptive casualness. Sam looked up to see Mike still grinning. He raised a skeptic brow in question, knowing how much Mendoza enjoyed his beauty sleep, and Mike shook his head in response, silently mouthing the words,
no, I won’t
.

“She’s gonna kick your ass one of these days, you know. Probably put you in the hospital for a week.”

“Not hard to do,” Ash muttered, from his spot at the door.

Mike nodded his agreement. “Probably, and I’ll deserve every bit of it, too. And as much as it pains me to say this, she’s actually right. You are in a bad mood. Have been for a few days, now. So, its got me wondering why, since you had that shit eating, smitten look about you for the last two weeks and according to Grady, it was because you finally got yourself a steady honey.”

Sam’s lips thinned and he made an irritated sound, still staring at his laptop. “Grady’s a goddamn clucking hen.”

He’d never said a word to anyone about Ali, much less Grady, who was not only a known gossip but an expert at reading between the lines. The guy would take an extra long look at you and somehow know what you were thinking. Some called it a heightened sense of awareness and intuition. Sam called it the freakiest fucking thing he’d ever seen and while it served to make Grady a valuable asset to Scorpio, on a personal level it pissed him off to no end. Sick of the knowing looks, he’d been avoiding the guy at all costs, sending him out on as many assignments as possible. He was currently leading a team working close protection for a Russian diplomat and his family vacationing in southern California, but that gig was ending later tonight.

Sitting back in his leather chair, Sam sighed and stretched his neck, thinking about Ali. Nothing new there considering the woman was constantly on his mind. Nobody knew about her. Not even Donna, who’d left him two voice mails and sent one text reminding him of their monthly dinner date tomorrow night. It didn’t matter how buried in work he was, Sam always made time for her, watching with warped fascination as she stood in the middle of her chaotic kitchen, talking a mile a minute about whatever happened to be on her radar that day. From his niece’s sorely lacking first grade class curriculum to the escalating cost of bacon, Sam listened to her opine while she effortlessly cooked a restaurant quality meal, dipping into the cooking sherry when she thought he wasn’t looking. This was the first time he wanted to cancel, hoping to avoid the potential interrogation that was sure to come when she noticed his mood. Sam knew he was screwed seven ways to Sunday when the tantalizing offer of roasted veal chops couldn’t shake his irritability.

So yeah, he was in a shitty mood, and everyone around him was giving him a real wide berth because of it. But goddamn it, it had been six days. Six fucking days since she had run out on him. Five since she’d finally returned his many messages and dropped her little bombshell about Oklahoma. Why would she lie to him about that? What the hell did he care whether she was from Illinois or Oklahoma? She could be from Timbuktu and he wouldn’t give a damn. It made no sense and left him with a nagging curiosity that was consuming far too much of his time. There was way more to her story and while being left in the dark bothered the hell out of him, it might not even matter. He might never find out exactly what Ali was hiding because she wasn’t sure if she was coming back.

Are you coming back?

I don’t know.

Fuck, that had leveled him. Sent a wave of panic through him like he’d never felt before, and honestly didn’t think he would ever feel, especially about a woman he’d known for such a short amount of time. How the hell had she gotten under his skin so fast? Shit, the better question was, why had he let his guard down long enough to let her?

Sam was used to running things, both in his professional life and his personal life. The orders he’d received while serving had come down from his commanding officer, but Sam had decided everything else. Where his hides were located, whether it be in a hastily dug out berm, partially submerged in a swamp, or on an exposed rooftop, which was the surest way to get yourself tagged and one he’d tried like hell to avoid, was all on him. He decided the distance, the angle, and the timing of the shot. The need to run things, to be in control and in charge, was in his blood and was why Scorpio had reached the level of success it had.

But Ali had been in charge of this—whatever the hell
this
was—between them since the get go. She’d been MIA for six days and counting, and Sam had been on edge the whole time, causing everyone in the office to walk softly and speculate about the reason for his bad attitude. Burying himself in work and barking orders at anyone who approached didn’t make the waiting easier, though, which only pissed him off more. Stalking her house every night like a common fucking criminal was bad enough, watching for her, yet forcing himself not to make contact. The next move had to be hers. Jesus Christ, she had him acting like a fourteen-year-old girl. It was fucking humiliating.

“Holy shit. You got dumped.” Mendoza sat forward in his chair, arms resting on his knees. “I know that hang dog look, dude. I’ve seen it on Grady’s face way too many times. Holy shit,” he repeated, laughter in his voice as he looked to Ash for confirmation. “Sam Gleeson got dumped. There really is a God.”

Sam’s neck itched and he had to stop himself from telling Mike to go fuck himself, which would be all but admitting it was true. “Are you sitting here for a reason? If not, feel free to leave.” He spared a meaningful glance at Ash, the comment meant for him, as well.

Mike smiled knowingly. “I would ask if you want to slash her tires tonight, then eat a gallon of rocky road ice cream and watch Bridget Jones Diary, but I don’t want to get fired today. Got a passel of kids to feed, you know?”

Sam went back to his mind numbing spreadsheet. “Funny.”

Mendoza tipped his head toward the man in the doorway. “You got any ideas over there?”

Scrolling idly through his phone, Ash sounded bored. “We could erase her tax payments for the last decade and send the Feds after her. Or we could go the mock execution route, if she really did you wrong. Take her out to the desert and make her dig a shallow grave while we fire up the power drill. Yank out her back teeth with a rusty pair of pliers.” Quickly tapping out a text before pocketing the device, he looked up and shrugged. “Or we could just toilet paper her house.”

Sam sighed. “You know you’re not helping, right? Don’t encourage him, Coleson.”

Ash snorted, the sound as close to a laugh as he ever got. “And you, my friend, have been out of the field too long. You know the first rule when you’re being questioned is to deny. Even when it’s true, you deny. And you’re not denying anything.”