She was amazed he could find any humor. Hell that he could even function. It was like a novel. A horror story.
“I tried to get her to stop so we could talk. Which was code for run like hell. But she didn't stop. She said that we'd stop when we got there and she wouldn't tell me where
there
was. I was praying that we'd run out of gas. In my brain I was trying to reconcile the fact that my best friend’s sister was my stalker. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. But she started getting agitated because I was trying to reason with her. And when the reasoning didn't work, I started getting angry. And…”
He bit down on his lower lip and she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. JJ held him tighter, raking her fingernails through the hair at the nape of his neck, trying desperately to sooth him. “What, darling?”
Those gorgeous blue eyes met hers again, crinkles around the edges and a deep line between his eyebrows. “I was scared,” he whispered. “She wasn't sane. Not the least little bit and I had no idea what she had planned or what she was capable of. She could have had a gun or a Taser or drugs. I had no idea. I couldn’t believe that Carson’s little sister was the person who’d been tormenting me for so long. All I knew was that I had to get away from her. I, six foot four two hundred pounds of NFL wide receiver was terrified of a woman. I asked her again to let me out and it set her off. She started screaming and swerving as she hit me.”
His muscles jerked. “And I’ll never forget her voice as she got calm and quiet again. She said if she couldn't have me, no one could. I was ready to take my chances with diving out of a moving vehicle but she saw me reach for the door handle. She started swerving again and slapping my arm. I grabbed her wrist and somehow saw a sign flash by for a bridge ahead. She managed to snatch her hand back and I saw it on her face, plain as day. She meant to run us—” He paused and licked his lips. JJ held her breath. “I grabbed the wheel.”
“The car flipped. When I came to, I was on a gurney. My leg hurt like it was missing. And she was still screaming. I wasn’t sure if the sound was in my head or not, but then I saw the officers and paramedics were trying to calm her down. Find out what had happened. I was so traumatized... I could barely talk. I had a business card in my wallet for the detective in charge of my case. I got them to take it out and call him. Later they told me I’d kept saying the word stalker. And that she was telling the cops that we were together. She was my wife. She was pregnant. We had to be together. She was going to find a way for us to be together again.”
He was quiet for several moments and JJ couldn’t stand the pain etched on his face any longer so she tucked her face against his throat.
“It sounds like a bad movie, doesn’t it?”
“A scary book.”
“If it hadn’t lived it, if my damn knee didn’t ache like hell every time it rained, I wouldn’t believe that it’d happened to me. That I’d lived through it. These days the whole experience seems like a really bad dream.”
“What happened after they took you to the hospital?”
“I passed out cold and when I woke up at the hospital the next day they told me she’d died from internal injuries.”
She felt something wet hit her cheek and looked up to see twin tears coursing down his face. She kissed them away.
“My very first thought was thank God the nightmare was over. But my second thought was for Carson. She was still his sister.” He swallowed. “The police in the Hamptons are good at keeping scandals quiet. And I later learned that Carson's family shut down the story. They knew about her mental issues, just not how deep they went. And he knew about her crush on me. He never came to my bedside. Never answered my phone calls. And after all that… hell, I lost my best friend. All because I'd said hello to Stephanie at a party years earlier.”
Trevor pulled back on the memories, the anguish, and stuffed them back into a dark corner of his mind. Julia clung to him as if her life depended on it. It was a brutal story; he knew that all too well. He just hoped that she didn’t think less of him for—
“That bitch,” she ground out, suddenly coming back to life. “I can’t believe Carson’s family knew she was crazy… he knew how she felt about you. And he never said anything.”
Her cheeks flushed with anger and he thought she’d never looked prettier. Then she pegged him with eyes that were more gray than blue.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, leaning back into the circle of his arms. “You don’t need me adding to the crazy.”
“You’re rather endearing when you’re mad.”
She shook her head. “I’m not mad. I’m…” She seemed to grapple for the word. “Furious. The thought of anyone hurting your momma. The thought of anyone hurting you…”
She closed her eyes and he saw her collect herself.
“How’s your leg?”
“They said I’d never run as fast again… that it was a miracle I kept my leg and don’t walk with a limp. Luckily, I’m a fast healer and they said that worked in my favor. But between the gimp leg and all the other injuries from the field…”
He didn’t want to add that he feared making himself a target again.
“You gave it up and stepped out of the spotlight.”
He nodded.
She stared at him for a long moment, running her fingers through his hair. “You’re the bravest guy I know.”
He grunted. “Hardly. Firefighters are brave. Cops are brave. Soldiers are brave. I’m just a guy who got paid millions to catch a damn football.”
She hopped off his lap so quickly he was surprised she could move that fast. Kneeling between his thighs, she reached for his hands. “Don’t you dare play that card Trevor Wyatt. Yeah, you got paid crazy amounts of money to throw a football around. But didn’t you once tell me that you saw yourself as an entertainer? A person who exists to make others happy? That you believed in football as more than a game but as a tradition, a past time that brings friends and families together? Bonds fathers to their sons? That it gives people something to root for and believe in?”
Her gaze was hard and assessing. Damn she was beautiful.
“And didn’t you tell me that you hoped that your career would inspire others to follow their dream?”
She remembered all that?
“Of course I remember it,” she said and he realized he’d spoken aloud. She went quiet, thoughtful. “I remember almost everything you’ve ever said to me. Which is why I’m going to say this to you… Fire fighters and cops and soldiers may not get paid as much as you did. But they have a job to do. A scary job that they signed up for. I’m not going to argue the money card but I want you to remember that they step into scary situations, eyes open. Guns and fire hoses drawn. They know the risks. They accept them. They meet the challenges they’re tasked with because that’s their
job
. That doesn’t mean they’re not brave. But they
are
trained for fear and chaos.
You
…were not. You didn’t volunteer to be the victim of some crazy stalker woman. You weren’t trained in psycho warfare. You didn’t ask to be terrorized.”
She reached up and pushed his hair off his forehead. “But the fact that you went through it and handled it as well as you did, protecting yourself and your mother as best you could… and the fact that you can even face the world knowing how crazy people can be… I think you’re very brave.”
Trevor swallowed the lump in his throat, never so touched in his whole life. She looked deflated and out of breath and absolutely gorgeous. Even though his mom and brothers had lived through the whole experience with him, he didn’t think they understood what it had cost him the way Julia did.
She was a warrior goddess… who would have known? Fierce and loyal, he made a mental note never to get on her bad side. And man, did she have a way with words. Once again, she’d turned his upside down world right side up again.
He leaned forward and cupped her cheeks. Staring back and forth into her eyes he knew without a doubt that he’d never love anyone the way he loved her. She knew his deepest, darkest, scariest secret. And there wasn’t a fleck of pity in her eyes.
Dipping his head, he brushed his lips across hers, wishing he could put into words what she meant to him. But she was the writer.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered against her lips.
“Right now?” She stared at him with a startled expression.
“Right. Now.”
She rocked back on her heels and stood up. “Let me, um, freshen up first.”
He stood. “Sure thing.”
He grabbed her luggage and the shopping bag from Neiman Marcus. “Let me give you the nickel tour. Den’s the first door on the left as you come in. Living room. Dining room,” he said, leading the way toward his bedroom. “Kitchen’s over there. Guest bathroom’s up on the left.”
He pushed open the door to his office. “My office. Guest-room’s across the hall… and
here
is my bedroom.”
He sat her bag down at the end of the bed. “Bathroom’s just through there. Make yourself at home.” Funny how those words didn’t scare him as much as he’d thought they would. In fact, they didn’t scare him at all.
When she emerged from the bathroom five minutes later, Trevor almost swallowed his tongue. He’d settled onto the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom door and listened to her moving around in his space. He’d loved hearing her hum.
She’d brushed out her hair until it fell in soft, silky looking waves that just brushed her shoulders. The black nightie was somehow demur and sexy at the same time, just like the woman wearing it. Clinging to her breasts, dipping at the waist…
“I was going to be all cheesy and tell you that your outfit was missing something,” he said. “But that outfit isn’t missing a thing.”
The pleasure on her face made him happier than he’d been in a long time.
“But since I already bought you a present, you might as well open it.” He handed her the shoe box.
Her smile shifted to a smirk that said she loved surprises. That was good because he wanted to surprise her for a very long time to come.
“Oh—” Her lovely eyes snapped up to meet his. “You got me Jimmy Choos?”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she stared back down at the high heels, trailing her fingertip over them.
“That day you marched into the shoe store you mentioned something about Prada and Jimmy Choos… Consider these a congratulations for selling your book present.”
She said his name on a sigh.
He reached into the box. “They reminded me of the lingerie you were wearing that day. Black. See-through…”
“With scalloped trim,” she finished.
“Want to try them on?”
“Very much…” She stopped him as he bent down to place them at her feet. “But right now, I really want to make love to you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Atlanta
Trevor sat his end of the couch down onto the pavement and glanced up into the truck. He’d been bunked down with Julia since Tuesday and so far, it’d been the best week of his life. Now that she knew the truth she understood why her book had given him pause and why he liked to drive rather than let someone else take the wheel. The tension hovering between them had turned solely sexual. Even moving day was going smoothly.
Her bedroom set was already loaded and he and the guys were toting the rest of the furniture out to decide what to load next.
“She sure doesn’t have a lot of stuff,” he commented as Ronny and Greg draped a thick moving blanket over her desk.
“One of my favorite things about my cousin,” Beau said.
While Julia had been at her traditional Thursday night meeting with the girls, he’d gone out with Ronny and Greg and they’d introduced him to Beau.
Trevor liked the guy’s easy going nature and say-what-you-mean attitude. He didn’t see much of a family resemblance though.
“I like her—”
“Hey now!” Ronny cut in. “She’s our sister. We don’t wanna hear none of that.”
Trevor arched a brow. “I was going to say her smile.”
Even after she’d turned her hair brown and put in those awful contacts, he’d recognized her lips.
“Sure you were,” Greg said, slapping him on the back.
Trevor sighed and rolled his eyes. Greg might be a few months younger than Julie, but he protected her as any brother would. And he and the other Fairchild men ribbed Trevor like he’d been in the family for years, not months.
“We don’t care if you’re having sex with her,” Ronny said and Trevor’s head whipped around. “We only have two rules where our sister is concerned. Keep her happy and keep her safe.”
JJ’s eldest brother gave him a
got me
look and then carried a floor lamp into the truck.
“Safe includes not breaking her heart,” Thomas said as he and Beau loaded one of the club chairs.
“What he means is, that four point whatever second dash you run… it won’t mean nuthin’ if you hurt her,” Beau said, emerging from the back of the box truck.
All movement stopped and Trevor glanced at each of the men. He admired their loyalty and if he had a sister, he’d give her boyfriend the same exact talk. But at the moment he was more worried about Julia breaking his heart than the other way around. Still…
He nodded. “I would never intentionally hurt her.”
“Unintentionally?” Ronny asked.
Trevor sighed. “I’m a guy. I’m bound to screw up at some point.”
Everyone laughed and the tension eased.
“You guys done riding my ass now? We’ve got a truck to load.”
JJ scribbled the word kitchen across the top of the box and then reached for the tape.
“Can’t believe moving day is here again,” Cindy said from across the room where she was stacking JJ’s dishes into a box.
“And I keep telling you guys, I can do this myself or hire movers.” She finished taping the box full of utensils and cutlery, then sent Cindy a grateful smile.
The boys were hauling her furniture out to the moving truck while she, Cindy, Gretchen and Baby finished labeling and boxing stuff from the kitchen and bath.
“You know we don’t mind helping. Plus, you live light.”
She certainly did. Everything she owned, minus a few extra accessories for staging, could fit into one rental truck. She wasn’t sure if that was sad or a case of brilliance. But it sure did make moving day easier.