“What the hell happened?” Beck demanded, running a hand through his hair.
“This is between him and me.” Brook Lynn pointed to Jase. “You guys go inside.”
“Your hand is bleeding.” West frowned and reached for her.
“I’m not your concern.” She stepped away, avoiding contact, and would have toppled back into the pool if Jase hadn’t caught her arm.
With her sex-kitten curves, he was surprised by the slenderness of her bones. Even more shocked by the soft silk of her skin, the warmer-than-melted-honey temperature. She wasn’t chilled, after all, and the longer he held on, the more electric the contact proved to be, somehow cracking through the armor he’d spent years erecting around his emotions, until he practically vibrated with the desire to touch all of her...to hold her...
To devour.
What the hell?
He released her with a jolt and widened the distance between them. His inner armor wasn’t something he maintained just for grins and giggles. It was for survival. As a boy abandoned by his parents and sometimes mistreated by fosters, he’d learned emotions were a weakness that could be used against him. To feel something for a person or object meant he’d placed value on it—whether for good or ill.
Feel nothing. Want nothing. Need nothing. For the most part, the motto had served him well. There had been times the armor vanished, the darkest of emotions consuming him...pushing him to do things he shouldn’t. Trouble had always followed.
Brook Lynn peered down at her wrist, as if she’d felt something she couldn’t explain, before focusing on him, her eyes narrowing once again.
To Beck and West, who’d remained after her command to leave, Jase said, “Get everyone inside. I’ll handle her.”
The two glanced between him and the girl, and he knew they wanted to protest. Tension thrummed from them both. But then, tension always thrummed from them both. They loved him, but when they looked at him, they only saw him through the dark-tinted glasses of a shared past, a trip they’d taken together through hell. Their guilt and shame always radiated below the surface.
They blamed themselves for the worst years of Jase’s life, a time he would have been far better off dead. It was the reason West had once battled a drug addiction, and Beck still refused to connect with anyone for more than an hour, maybe two if the girl was good. Whether they admitted it or not, they wanted to make themselves suffer the way Jase had suffered. The way he sometimes suffered still.
“Get everyone inside,” he repeated. The gossip vine in this town worked faster than a cable modem, and he had no desire to be the topic du jour. He guarded his privacy the way other people guarded their most valued treasures. Maybe because he had a lot more to hide.
Really, in today’s digital world, there was no such thing as a secret, and the citizens of Strawberry Valley would learn about him soon enough. He just hoped they didn’t attempt to run him off with pitchforks and torches.
“Now,” he added.
This time his friends obeyed. Once the backyard had been cleared, however, they returned to his side.
West offered Brook Lynn a towel. She failed to notice, her attention somewhere in the distance, where tall oaks and blooming magnolias stretched across the acreage. The wild strawberries growing along the forest floor were his favorite part of the property, vivid red fruit that sprang from flowers of the whitest white, with sunshine-yellow centers. A landscape more beautiful than anything he’d ever thought possible.
“Brook Lynn,” he said, but still she paid him no heed. Were her hearing aids ruined?
Guilt pricked at him.
West tapped her on the shoulder, and she yelped. When she noticed the towel, she accepted with a quiet “Thanks.”
“You guys head inside, too, like she said.” Jase hiked his thumb toward the house.
West put his back to Brook Lynn and said softly to Jase, “Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
What? That the girl looked good—and would look even better in his arms? Too late. Just as quietly, just in case, he replied, “I’m not going to try anything with her.”
Beck gave Brook Lynn his back, as well. “Jase, you just threw her in the pool. I’d say your chances of anything but a catfight are slim. The only thing left to do is finesse the situation, and that just happens to be my forte.”
Allow Beck to finesse the delicate beauty? A bead of anger rolled through Jase, surprising him. He’d never directed his temper at his friends. The night’s activities must have screwed with his head more than usual.
“Besides,” West added, “you can’t afford trouble.”
No, he couldn’t. He’d endured his fair share already.
“What if she decides to file a complaint with the sheriff?” Beck’s gaze was grim.
Panic prickled the back of Jase’s neck.
“Whatever you guys are saying about me, stop. If you’ll figure out the cost for repairs,” Brook Lynn said, nudging West and Beck aside to peer up at Jase, “I’ll reimburse you for the lamp and nightstand.”
After what he’d done, she thought she owed him? And get serious. As if there was any way in hell he would ever take her money. He’d heard her argument with her sister, knew the two were barely scraping by.
“Go.” He gave his friends a push toward the door. They reluctantly returned to the party, not because they thought it was the right thing to do, but because they felt they owed him. “I ruined your hearing aids, honey. How about we call it even?”