“That’s not—no.” He leaned forward and scrubbed his face. “I was sitting here all night because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I didn’t want to touch you like that. I don’t—I was so angry. I don’t ever want to do anything to make you feel like you need to run away from me and hide like that.”
“No, I wasn’t hiding. I’m not.”
“But you were scared of him, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” she finally admitted. She hated to say it out loud. Dane didn’t deserve that kind of power, but it was true. He let her down, but when he kept pushing her to come back, something shifted and she didn’t know how to describe how it made her feel. It was fear. “I thought he was just full of shit. I mean—I didn’t think he actually cared. I thought he just thought he missed having access to me or my body. He cares aboutyoubeing close to me.” Lily-Grace fought the sudden urge to sprint out of the room and drive full speed back to her father’s house. She tried to blink them back, but tears rose to her eyes. She wasn’t sad or even upset. She was angry. So fucking pissed that Dane would even think that sending people afterJessewas something that made sense. That he would hurt people she cared about just because he didn’t get his way—his way that told her that her feelings, her life, her career, anything she wanted for herself didn’t matter.
Jesse looked up at her suddenly and she knew she should go. He was doing such a great job working out his own shit. He didn’t need her stuff to pile on.
“I love you,” he said, his voice so clear it shocked Lily-Grace right back to the present. Miles away from the last year, from a few hours before. He said it again. “I love you, and if Lilah hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t been armed, I was ready to rip three men apart with my bare hands. And I would have done it. You, Evie, thebaby—I’ve been sitting here considering if I need to get dressed and drive up north and put my fist through Dane Locklear’s face. Fuck his whole shit up. I—” He looked down at his hands, opening and closing his fists. They were still trembling.
Lily-Grace knew he was serious. She’d managed to cross into that group of people Jesse truly cared about, that he loved. People he’d kill for, in a very literal sense, the same way she was willing to burn a whole bitch down for her father. But Jesse wasn’t proud of it, the literal part. The part where he was really considering getting behind the wheel with the express purpose of beating the living shit out of Dane. He didn’t like that he was so close to losing control. But he hadn’t. He was still there with her. Talking to her, thinking things through before he did anything he’d regret. He’d come a hell of a long way. She was so proud of him.
A strangled laugh bubbled from Lily-Grace’s throat, the tears spilling over. “Did you miss the part where I was ready to go full Tiger Woods on whatever was waiting for us in the dark? You, your family? You mean so much to me. I would have bitten ears and poked out eyeballs, kicked some serious shins if any of them had gone near Zach’s house, or Evie. Or Miss Leona. But I still should have told you that he was ... harassing me. I should have told you and I should have told my father. He doesn’t know any of it.”
“Is there anything you left out?”
“That night, when we had our little picnic in my car? It was him who kept calling. It wasn’t spam.”
Jesse stared back at her. She didn’t know how to read the look on his face. The anger was still there, but there was pain too, and something close to helplessness. “You know you can tell me anything, right? And I’m positive the same goes for your father.”
“I do and I can. I was ... trying to ignore it. I was done with him and I thought if I just pretended it wasn’t happening when I was with you, he would just go away. Guess who was wrong?” she said with a mirthless laugh.
Jesse stood and pulled her into his arms. She could feel how cold his hands were through the fabric of her T-shirt, but all she could think of was how badly she wanted to warm them. She didn’t want him to let go. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said against her temple. Then he leaned down and kissed her. For the first time in hours Lily-Grace felt like she could exhale.
“I thought you were about to dump me.”
“No. Hell no. We’re getting married. We just survived a B and E together. We can get through anything.” She laughed at the lightness that had returned to his voice. Dane was lucky his plan had failed. She’d be on her way up to San Francisco to do some tearing limb from limb of her own if anything bad had happened to Jesse Pleasant.
Chapter 23
Jesse pulled the trigger on the nail gun, securing the final board to the frame that formerly held up his back door.
“That looks good,” Zach said from the other end. They both stepped back and examined their handiwork. He’d have a new patio door installed by the time they got back from their quick trip up to Golden Gulch.
“Yeah, it’ll hold,” Jesse grumbled in response. He couldn’t shake the cloud that had settled over his brow. Lily-Grace was back home with her father. They’d managed to get a few hours of sleep, together in the bed. Holding her helped, but even after she’d called him to let him know she’d gotten back home okay, he was still tight as hell.
He’d spoken to Mike again and the police were already in the process of getting everything in place to scoop up Dane Locklear. The rest of Jesse’s family was fine, and Clementine was knocked out, happily lying in the sun on the other side of the pool deck. Everything was fine, except it wasn’t.
He thought cleaning up broken glass, taking a drive into town for plywood, even doing a little manual labor, would help ease the tension rolling off his body, but nothing worked. If he was still carrying it all around by Tuesday, he could at least talk to his therapist about it.
Sam came around the side of the house, shoving his phone in the back pocket of his jeans.
“Amanda and I are gonna stick around a few extra days. She doesn’t need to be back to LA for work until Wednesday.”
“You guys are more than welcome to stay here,” Jesse replied.
“Thanks, man, but we’ll stay up at the ranch. Things—uh—it can get loud. We appreciate it though.”
“Say no more.”
Zach finished stacking the few pieces of leftover wood, then looked hard at Jesse, squinting under the brim of his Stetson. “You alright?”
“Senior should be here.” As soon as the words were out, Jesse felt that telltale tingle in his chest. His palms started itching, like things wouldn’t be right if he didn’t punch something. The instinct kicked in, to hold his breath, or worse, start yelling at Sam or Zach, but luckily he had a new voice of reason, one that sounded a little like Dr. Brooks and a little like Lily-Grace. He looked over at Zach. There was no judgment on his face, he was just waiting for Jesse to go on. He rubbed the center of his chest through his shirt, like that would help make sense of what he was feeling. He had to get it out.
“He should be here,” was all he could say. The words were filled with bitterness because that’s all he had in him. Bitterness and irrational fear. “I can’t explain it, I just—I’m pissed he’s not here right now. Like, as our father.”
“No, I’m with you,” Zach said. “The thing with the Gulch, I told Evie I was pissed about what he put in the email, but I was more pissed about him being all up in our shit, but refusing to behere.I didn’t know how to act with him at our wedding.”
