“You’re incredible, and have nothing, nothing to be ashamed about,” Jackson told her as she collapsed in his arms.
I WANT TO BELIEVE HIM. Julie stood under the warm pelt of Jackson’s shower, wishing, when it came to revealing the truth about her past failings, she wasn’t such a coward. As long as her nights were disrupted by Maci and Candace’s screams reverberating in her head and the image of their knife-slashed, bloodied bodies burned into her memory, she’d never be able to forgive herself for not stepping in when they had taunted Evan to the point he broke. The added stress of Jackson’s continued insistence that she deal with her past by talking to him only worked to increase her nightmares. She’d never told anyone about that afternoon, the verbal cruelty of her friends that led to their brutal deaths hours later, not even the shrinks who had insisted she talk about that night over and over, until she couldn’t stomach speaking of it again. Guilt had become a constant companion, and not a friendly one.
One more night, that was all she wanted, she vowed, flipping off the shower and reaching for a towel. She could tell by the gleam in his eyes Jackson had something planned for this evening. Julie didn’t much care what it was, as long as she could have one more good memory to carry with her if she did end up losing him. Later, when they were in bed, in the dark so she couldn’t see his face, she’d tell him how she’d stood by as Maci and Candace tormented the young man who had been ridiculed his whole life. Her decision made, she towel-dried her hair, dressed quickly and sought him out in the great room where she found him flipping through the mail she’d left on the counter.
“You never answered my question. What did you have planned…” Her cell phone pealed, interrupting her as she veered toward the desk where she’d left it. When she spotted her attorney’s number, her abdomen clutched into a tight knot of irritation. Not now, Bart. She could only handle one person pulling at her to do something she didn’t want to do at a time. Snapping her phone off, she tossed it down in a fit of pique. Turning back to Jackson, that knot rose to clog her throat at the look on his face and she knew what was coming before he spoke.
“Speaking of unanswered questions. Your lawyer again?” He crossed his arms over his chest, his stance and look both portraying annoyance.
“Yes, he can be as persistent as you. So, about tonight…”
“Damn it, Julie, what the fuck do I have to do to get you to talk to me, to trust me?” he snapped, anger swirling in the dark depths of his eyes, his rare loss of temper a telling sign that set off Julie’s own ire.
All at once, the accumulation of uncertainty and stress surrounding her reunion with Jackson took its toll. Between her startling introduction to his alternative sexual preferences and walking a constant tightrope between the past and present, she’d had it with his and her attorney’s constant demands. Julie tried reining in her annoyance by recalling all the ways he’d embraced her sudden reappearance in his life and the benefits and enjoyment he’d given her with some of those demands, but when her gaze skittered away from his accusing glare and landed on the desk drawer where his own past was kept locked away, cold fury swept through her.
Clenching her hands into fists, she whipped her eyes back to him, not bothering to hide or stem her accusing tone. “You have a lot of nerve,” she ground out, her voice a raw whisper reflecting her frustrated outrage. Crossing to the desk, she yanked open the drawer holding all his mother’s unopened letters. She pointed to the stack with a sneer. “You can’t even bring yourself to read your mother’s letters, let alone answer them, yet you keep insisting I have to tell you everything, nothing can be kept from the big, bad Dom.”
Jackson felt the cold brush of fury sweeping away the instant flare of satisfaction her first sign of defiance had given him. That he could have worked with if she hadn’t brought his own failings into the equation. The fact she was right didn’t sit well with him, which accounted for a portion of his growing resentment of this entire cluster fuck.
“My issues with my mother have nothing to do with us, aren’t keeping a fucking brick wall between us and going forward with our relationship.” That sounded lame even to him, but her defiance had caught him off guard. He’d wanted to see some fire in her instead of the constant fear that had kept her tossing and turning the past few nights, but not at the expense of bringing up his parents’ sorry past which had led to the breakup of his family.
Julie cocked her head and regarded him out of narrowed eyes, as if she’d just come to a sudden realization. “Really? Can you tell me discovering everything you believed in and grew up with was a lie didn’t have something to do with cutting me out of your life six years ago?”
Jackson saw red, unable to believe she’d even think that, let alone say it aloud. Even after his life had crumbled around him and he lost everything, he’d managed to be there for her whenever he could. How could she have forgotten all the late-night visits, the times he’d snuck away from his grandmother’s house on the other side of town and trekked on foot to bring her the fast food she craved? He’d carved out time for her while holding down a job and going to college and even managed to get away periodically from the grueling schedule of veterinary school. Leaving her had ripped a hole in his heart and he never would have cut their ties for anything other than the complete change she’d undergone after moving to New York. If there was one thing he was sure of in his relationship with Julie, it was he’d never allowed his wrecked home life to come between them.
The extent of his anger kept him from closing either the physical or the emotional distance between them. Fisting his hands and clenching his jaw against the remorse now reflected on her pale face, Jackson knew he had to get out of there and cool off before they could unravel this mess. “I’m going out. The guys will be here soon, if you need anything. Don’t wait up.”
Julie waited until she heard his truck start up and roar down the gravel drive before sinking to the floor, bringing her knees to her chest and rocking in agitated self-recrimination. How could I have said that, or even thought it? She’d known as soon as the words burst from her mouth and shocked betrayal crossed Jackson’s face before anger obliterated it that she’d made a huge mistake. By letting her fears cloud her judgement, she may have just done the very thing she’d been so worried revealing the truth would do, ended her tenuous hold on the one person who had always meant the most to her.
The sound of tires crunching over the gravel drive brought her tear-ravaged face up a short time later, her heart taking a sudden leap as she jumped to her feet. Car doors slammed right before the voices of Alex, Matt and Ryan filtered through the open window, dashing her hopes Jackson had returned. Stumbling over to the sofa, Julie curled in the corner, dragged the small throw off the back and wrapped it around herself, preparing to wait up all night, if necessary, for him to get back. She needed to fix this new rift she was responsible for.
It hadn’t been easy getting back into his good graces and she wasn’t confident of earning his forgiveness a second time. Even hinting the trauma of his parents’ secret, illegal business bore any responsibility for their split had been insensitive to the point of being unforgivable. Jackson had always been there for her until she had driven him away, regardless of the emotionally traumatizing upheaval he went through in his teens. To try and shift the blame on him for walking away from her in New York after seeing the shallow person she’d allowed herself to become had erupted out of fear of admitting just how low she’d sunk to the one person whose opinion of her she valued most.
As dusk settled into night and the room became shrouded in darkness, Julie didn’t budge from the sofa, not even to switch on a light or to find something to curb the hunger pains tightening her stomach. Every time she thought of food, nausea replaced the pangs. Memories of how Jackson would surprise her with a fast food meal late at night to appease the constant hunger she was always left with from the diet her mother insisted on would pop up, ratcheting her remorse and guilt. She had to find a way to make amends; she
’d grovel, come clean about everything, beg and plead—he liked it when she did that—anything to earn a second chance. Returning to her barren existence, without her best friend and now her lover, didn’t bear thinking about.
“YOU’VE BEEN GOING at those weights for almost an hour. What gives?” Miles leaned against the wall of his gym and leveled a piercing, black-eyed stare at Jackson.
Releasing the barbell, Jackson sat up on the bench of the weight machine and scrubbed a hand over his face before looking at his best friend. Miles might be the least outspoken of the gang of seven, but very little got by him. He’d known that before coming here, and stopped in at the martial arts gym anyway. Over the years, they’d all used the gym facilities to work off aggression when memories of their piss-poor childhoods reared their ugly heads. The physical workouts went a long way in settling both their disturbing mental flashbacks and the need to lash out against them.
“Women, Miles, they can be a royal pain in the ass.” There was no sense in trying to hide anything from him; Miles would get the truth out of Jackson one way or another. It was just too bad the martial arts champion was also a pro at keeping his own thoughts bottled up, and rarely reciprocated.
“Tell me something I don’t know, bro, like what’s eating you. The little girl next door not toeing the line?”
“She’s not a little girl anymore and she most certainly isn’t toeing the line, at least not enough to come clean about something important.” Jackson snatched a small towel hanging off the end of the barbell, slung it around his sweat-dampened neck then used the dangling ends to wipe his perspiration-damp face before pushing to his feet. “I’m not touching her again until she tells me what I want to know.”
Friday nights in the gym were busy, as the constant smacking against bare flesh with padded gloves, heavy grunts and low moans resounding around the high-ceilinged, cavernous space illustrated. All three rope-enclosed, raised sparring platforms were occupied, with a few people waiting their turn on the sides. Jackson had opted for the smaller weights room to work through his anger and disappointment with Julie, but even after a punishing workout, he still vibrated with lingering resentment over her remark.
Pushing away from the wall, Miles caught his mentor Ed Myers’ attention then pointed his thumb over his shoulder, silently telling the older man he was leaving the gym. “Come on. I’m hungry.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Jackson followed him into the showers where he stripped off his gym shorts then stepped under a scalding hot shower. A few minutes later, with Miles calmly waiting, he got dressed and finger combed his damp hair before asking, “Where to? Madrocks?”
“That works.”
The downtown Miami sports bar was only a few blocks from the gym, with Hope’s Crossing, the homeless shelter run by Sandie’s friend, Hope Wallace, located between the gym and bar. As they neared the converted old department store, Jackson flicked Miles a curious look. “Speaking of troublesome women, are you still keeping an eye on the place?” He nodded to the double glass doors as they passed.
“When I can, and don’t read any more into it than that.” Holding open the door to Madrocks, Miles grumbled, “She needs a guard dog.”
“I can get her one, but any big dog will do, especially if it becomes attached.” Jackson thought of Julie with Betty and his chest tightened. Entering the dim, noisy interior of the bar, they took seats on the bar stools and ordered burgers with the works before he told Miles about the argument with Julie. “How the hell could she even consider I would be so bitter over what happened when I was a fucking kid that I’d let it interfere with our relationship, especially after all I did for her? She’s the one who turned into an unlikable stranger.”
Miles sipped his beer before answering. “But you knew the girl you befriended and the woman you were attracted to was still in there.”
Shit, was that the reason he was so pissed? Because of his own guilt in deserting her, which resulted in him not being there for her right after the trauma of her friends’ murders? Jackson looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar and winced at the raw pain reflected on his face. Julie had him so tied up in knots, he didn’t know what to do next. “Sometimes I hate your blunt come-backs.”
“Yeah, but you love me.” Miles smirked then shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “She’s scared you’ll repeat your disappearing act. Quit telling her, go all Dom on her, and pull the secret from her. Then prove you’re not walking, providing you don’t.”
Their thick burgers topped with cheese and bacon and served with onion rings were placed in front of them and Jackson took a large bite before answering. “That’s what Sean suggested, and I’ve been doing that.”
With a level, point-blank stare, Miles’ simple reply of “Really?” held a note of suspicion.
Thinking back, Jackson realized the scenes he’d indulged in with Julie weren’t as intense as he could’ve devised. He wasn’t a strict Master, like either Dax or Sean, but both he and Miles didn’t mind getting into harsher scenes when the mood struck. The way he was feeling right now, giving Julie a taste of his full dominance warranted consideration.
“They weren’t mild, by any means, but I can step it up a notch. I’d rather she told me without having to go to such lengths though.”
“I see your point.” Miles bit into a crispy onion ring. “But if she’s ruled by her fears, as you’ve said, giving her something else to focus on might be the only way you’ll get your answers. It’s a crap shoot either way. I wouldn’t want to be you.”
“Thanks, bro,” he drawled in sarcasm.
Miles saluted him with his frosted beer glass. “Any time.”
CHAPTER 10
A ngry male voices drifted upstairs, grabbing Julie’s attention from her pity-party. Glancing at the time displayed on her phone, she saw over two hours had passed since Jackson left. A door slammed, followed by footsteps echoing up from the clinic. With Jackson’s living space open to the stairs, sound in the old house carried easily. When she recognized the students’ voices, she tossed the small blanket aside and slipped off the sofa as she tried to decipher which of the three were traipsing around downstairs. Unease slithered down her spine when she crept to the top of the staircase and peered down into the darkness. Another door creaked open and their voices became more hushed.
From the sound of it, they were in the back of the clinic, and Julie couldn’t fathom why until she remembered the storeroom and the locked cabinet where Jackson kept his veterinary drugs. Curiosity overrode caution, and she descended the narrow staircase trying to figure out what they could possibly be up to or need at this time of night. The animals had all been fed, the ones who needed meds already taken care of, and Jackson never allowed anyone to administer the controlled substances he kept under additional lock and key.
As she rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and saw the locked door to the storage room standing ajar and the light on, she halted in sudden indecision, wondering how they’d gotten inside since Jackson had his keys with him. She now recognized both Matt and Alex’s angry arguing, and their whispers sent a cold sweep of dread coursing through her.
“Fuck, Matt. You never said anything about selling this shit. I didn’t agree to that.” Alex’s frustration with his friend came through loud and clear.
“Go pout with Ryan if you don’t want in on the cut,” Matt snarled. “Do you have any idea how much I can get for just a few ounces of ketamine? With Doc and his bitch gone for the night, the timing is perfect.”
“I like Julie, and Jackson. When we copied his keys, Ryan and I only agreed to swiping enough for us, for a couple of hits. That’s it.”
Julie gripped the newel at the bottom of the stair rail as tremors rippled through her tense body. Even though Alex’s voice sounded torn, he wasn’t backing down. These young men whom Jackson had befriended, supported and trusted were about to betray him in the worst way possible. After what his parents put him through, she knew he posses
sed a no-tolerance mentality toward both drug usage and, notably, selling any illegal substance. If they got away with selling the anesthetic that was so popular because its potency was more powerful than speed or coke, it would devastate him. She took a step forward, then halted again as apprehension changed to throat-clogging terror. What could she do against the three of them? How far would they go, especially Matt, to protect themselves and the secret of what they must’ve been planning for weeks?
The sound of the glass vials clanking together told her she didn’t have much time to ponder her decision. Reaching into her pocket, she sent Jackson a quick text then shut off her phone to keep it from alerting the guys. The erratic beat of her pulse increased as she tiptoed down the hall, determined to do something this time. She had stood by once before when an injustice was being played out in front of her, and she refused to do so again. This was Jackson’s reputation on the line, possibly the future of his clinic and shelter, and she couldn’t stand by and let him be hurt. With any luck, he’d send the police before these three could get away. All she had to do was stall them.
“Man, he must’ve just restocked,” Matt breathed with a sigh of reverence that pissed Julie off. “We’ve hit the fucking jackpot tonight.”
Clenching her hands to still her trembling, Julie swallowed down the bile threatening to come up as she stepped into the room. Feigning surprise, she injected a note of relief into her voice. “Oh, it’s you guys. Whew! I heard voices and couldn’t figure out who was down here.” She would’ve laughed at the stunned shock on their faces if she weren’t shaking so much. A muscle ticked in Matt’s jaw and the cold, menacing look she’d seen before entered his eyes.