Chapter 9Luke
CHAPTER 9
LUKE
“Hailey, wait!” I call, pushing my chair back at the same time I rise from it. The last thing I meant to do was make her run, but my words did serve a purpose. I wanted to see how correct Quinn was about Hailey being scared of me.
“Leave her, Luke. She’ll be okay,” Quinn says from across the table.
I spare her a glance, “Pushing that safety net, you know?”
Quinn might have set a bit of a fire under my ass earlier, after Hailey had all but extinguished it, renewing what my cousin started. She shared how Hailey’s been on more than a couple of blind dates, courtesy of her mom, without any luck. I got a whole run down without any prompting before being introduced to a newly engaged Savanna.
A little quick thinking on my part and I dropped the fact that I could dance to Savanna, something I know Hailey used to love. I knew that once I took Savanna for a twirl around the floor it would bring about others that wanted to dance. It always does.
I have to hand it to my mom; she taught me how to pick up the ladies. Didn’t matter that most of them tonight were old enough to be my mother and already married. My mission was accomplished when I saw Hailey staring at me numerous times from where she sat, alone, at a table.
I’m ten paces behind Hailey as she makes a beeline towards the bar. My long legs, compared to hers, have me closing the distance, but she still beats me there and I hear her order a shot of whiskey from the bartender.
“Hailey,” I say when I stop an arm’s length behind her. “Can we please talk for a minute?”
Her shoulders rise and fall with each hard breath she takes. I can imagine there’s rage and a sliver of adrenaline pumping through her veins at the moment. I’m sure some would question my sanity when it was clear she was angry and wanted nothing to do with me, but I’m not intimidated by this redhead.
She doesn’t turn around. I’ll wait her out if I have to because she can’t stay standing at the bar the rest of the evening. The bartender pours her a shot, glancing at me once he’s done. I smile pleasantly at him then focus my energy back on Hailey. She’s picking up her shot, which turned into a double, and is slugging it back like it’s water.
“Dang,” I hiss out between my teeth. It’s both impressive and sexy. I wish I could appreciate it for longer, but she’s suddenly whirling around on me.
“No,” she says, her voice filled with barely contained fury. “No, we cannot talk. You,” she pauses, takes a step closer to me and pushes an index finger hard into my chest, “cannot talk about dancing. I told you. You don’t get to bring up the past.”
My eyes narrow at her. For the first time tonight, I wonder how many glasses of wine she’s had, and now she’s added a shot. It doesn’t stop me from stepping into her, which forces her back a step, into the bar. Her finger stays rooted against my chest, and dang, it’s the best thing I’ve felt in a long time.
“Why?” I challenge her.
Hailey blinks in surprise. “Because! I told you, this doesn’t work otherwise.”
“Not good enough.” My head shakes, and I repeat, “Why?”
She huffs, and though I don’t see it, I swear I hear her foot stomp. “Because you make the ice melt too easily.”
Disbelief flashes across her features, and I’m sure she can’t believe she just said that out loud. I have to bite back a laugh. She looks adorable. Frustration she has with not only me, but with herself now, her green eyes irate and a little wild. Her freckles are dancing along flushed cheeks, and I’ve got to admit, it’s a good look on her. It’s probably from both the alcohol and a bit of embarrassment, along with her anger. She’s frazzled and she’s never been prettier in my eyes.
Suddenly she spins back to the bar and raises her glass at the bartender, who unfortunately, is doing nothing at the moment. “Martin, another please.”
He glances at me once again and I shrug. I’m not Hailey’s keeper. If she wants another, she can have another. She might regret it later, but that’s on her, not me. Besides, I’m amused by her at the moment.
When the drink is poured and she’s raising the glass to her lips, I step closer, putting a hand on the chairs on either side of her, effectively caging her in against the bar. I don’t let my body touch hers, but I’m close enough that I can feel the heat coming off of her. Putting my lips near her ear, I feel the shiver run through her as the glass freezes near her mouth.
“Why is that such a bad thing?” I ask in a low whisper.
For a moment, she doesn’t move. I don’t think she even breathes. Then she tilts her head back, the glass with it, drinking the amber liquid in a few swift chugs.
With her head bent like this, it touches my chest. I angle myself so I can watch her down her second double in three minutes. She’s damn gorgeous like this. So close to me that I can smell the coconut and vanilla scent of her perfume, see the dusting of makeup she has all across her face, and feel the silky strands of her hair as some of it slides across my neck.
I dang near feel drunk as she moves the glass away from her mouth and slowly turns and tilts her head towards mine. I can feel her soft breath against my face, the smell of whiskey on the tip of her tongue as she gazes up at me. The alcohol is warming her, I can tell by the look in her eyes. I won’t let this go any further than it already has, but dang it, it feels good to be right where we are.
“Because it’s easier to hate you,” she whispers back to me. Shadows line her green eyes that dart to my lips and linger for a second longer than they should before they come back to mine. “Because anything less and I wind up here.”
“Where is here?” I urge.
“In your arms, wanting to kiss you,” Hailey murmurs.
For a moment, I think she might actually kiss me. I know I definitely wish for it. Then I realize what that would mean and how much she would probably hate herself for it in the morning when she sobers up. Her hating herself is the last thing I want.
Even though I don’t want to step away from her, I know I have to. She gasps as she stumbles backwards, but I catch her by the top of the arms to keep her from falling. When she growls, I know the trance has been broken and whatever little bubble we’d put ourselves in is completely gone.
“I think you should probably get home,” I tell her quietly as I release her and take a step back.
Twisting around on me, she snarls, “You should probably go home. All the way back to Texas where you came from.”
Darting around me, she looks like a woman on a mission as she heads straight for Savanna. I frown as I watch the two women, Hailey interrupting a conversation the former was having. They step away from an older couple she was speaking with, Savanna putting a hand on Hailey’s forearm with a deep look of concern etched in her expression. Hailey keeps shaking her head, but then she looks in my direction and Savanna follows suit, her unease deepening.
It's another few moments of what looks like questions from Savanna, and head shakes from Hailey, before the two are hugging. Then Hailey is headed for the doors, and dang it, I’m headed right after her. There’s no way I’m letting her get behind the wheel, and it would be a pretty penny to pay for a cab up to Bear Creek, where I’ve learned Hailey is still living.
I glance at the table where the others were sitting to find Liam getting to his feet. I hold a hand up to say I’ve got this, but I’m not sure if he’s going to listen to me. Not until Quinn grabs his arm and I see her say something to him. Whatever she says appeases him enough that he’s hesitating, but I don’t see what he does next because I’m out the door.
I wish I could have said a goodbye to Nate, but at least I got to congratulate him earlier. I think he’ll understand that making sure one of his paramedics gets home safe is more important.
When I’m out the door, I look left and then right, spotting Hailey already on the sidewalk next to the bar. Shaking my head, I sigh, wondering how difficult she’s going to be. Jogging over, I give her a wide berth so she doesn’t turn around and try to hit me for following her.
“Hailey, stop. Let me take you home.”
“Leave me alone, Luke,” she retorts.
Rolling my eyes, I try again. “What are you going to do? Walk to Bear Creek without a jacket?”
This causes her to stop abruptly, but I don’t realize it for a few steps so I’m well ahead of her when I turn around. I can see a glassiness starting in her eyes as they narrow at me. “How do you know where I live?”
“You just told me,” I point out dryly. I’m not about to inform her that I’ve seen her a couple of times up there. “It was a good guess since you’re from there.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, obviously cold in the late February weather. I have the urge to take my shirt off and wrap it around her, but I don’t want to know what she’d do if I got that close to her again.
“I can make it to Liam’s house. I’ll be fine,” she says, passing me as she starts walking again.
“Fine, but I’m going to follow you all the way there. Or you can get in my Jeep and I can take you home. Your choice,” I tell her, following after her. She turns to look at me and in doing so, she’s so close I can see the goosebumps popping up on her flesh everywhere. “Where is your jacket?”
“In my car.”
I give the parking lot a glance, looking for her car. “Where? I can go get it.”
“You ask too many questions,” she snaps. Her tone isn’t any less harsh when she asks, “Why would you take me all the way up to Bear Creek?”
I shrug at her, fighting off another wave of wanting to give her my shirt. “I’m a nice guy.”
Her eyes narrow at me before she tosses her red hair over her shoulder, only for it to fall back over because it’s too short to stay behind it. “Fine. If you want to waste your gas taking me all the way up there, you can drop me off at my mom’s house.”
“Perfect.”
I don’t mention to her that I’m not wasting my gas because I live five minutes away from there. One day she’ll figure that out herself.
“Hailey?” I say gently, a hand on her upper arm, giving it a light squeeze.
Once I confirmed her mom lived in the same house I remember, the trip was silent. It helped that she passed out beside me five minutes in, the alcohol taking hold of her. While I know Liam would have gone after her if I hadn’t, I’m glad she didn’t slip out of the bar unnoticed.
When she does little more than sigh, I frown and glance up at the house. A split-level nestled in one of the few neighborhoods within Bear Creek. A short distance from my own home that I bought further up the mountain. My cousin was right. I did come here thinking of her.
Hailey’s childhood home looks almost the same as I remember it, though it’s got a fresh coat of paint on the shutters and trim. A light blue house with white accents all around, plants in the flowerbeds, and back then, at the end of summer there would have been flowers all over.
Man, the memories.
Hailey soaking me with the hose after watering those flowers. Her squeal of delight as I grabbed her and swung her around the front lawn. The passionate kiss we shared when I shoved her against the side of the house because she made me so dang desperate for her I couldn’t stand it.
Inside this house is where Hailey gave herself to me, a few weeks into our summer when her mom was on an overnight trip to San Francisco. I still think of that night, and how she looked at me, scared but willing, full of trust and innocence.
What the hell happened after I went home to Texas? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times. When I left, things were fine. We were sad and the goodbye at the airport was excruciating, but we were solid. We had a plan. She was going to go to Stanford, and I was going to do a year at Houston University since I was already committed there. I was going to apply everywhere I could near Hailey with the hopes of getting in at Stanford myself with a contingency of San José State University. But anywhere in California would be better than being halfway across the country in Texas.
I’ve never understood how things went so awry when we hadn’t even spoken. Hailey wouldn’t take my calls. She didn’t answer my texts. Emails never got a reply. All traces of her vanished from social media. I couldn’t even get Cindi, her best friend back then, to talk to me. When I sent Carter to her mom’s place, no one was here. For weeks.
One day her mom finally picked up the phone. I think to put me out of my misery more than anything. Debra told me to stop. Leave Hailey alone. To move on with my life so Hailey could too. A few days after that, Cindi finally answered one of my calls, and she told me the same thing. Give up. Hailey didn’t want me.
I still didn’t understand, and I didn’t come away from either conversation with any more answers than I had before I’d gotten through to someone. If anything, I had more questions.
Bringing my eyes back to the woman who has caused all those questions, I sigh. I could have pushed her for answers at the bar. Maybe she wouldn’t have given them to me, but I have a feeling that when we were lost in that moment together, and she was confessing she wanted to kiss me, she would have also told me anything I wanted to know.
Which is exactly why I didn’t push. It would have been taking advantage of her liquor induced state, and that’s one thing I’ll never do. To her or any woman, for that matter.
“Hailey,” I squeeze her arm again, but she does little more than give a small moan that shouldn’t sound as sexy as it does. “Dang it, Freckles. If I carry you, you better not kick me in the nuts.”
Getting out of the Jeep, I walk around and open her door, stepping into the space of the passenger side, close enough I can feel the heat coming from her body. A body cloaked in a hoodie I had in the back seat because she refused to go get her jacket from her car, even though we weren’t far from it.
Something tugs hard inside my chest seeing her in my Waco Fire hoodie. At how right she looks with it on. Many women have tried to steal my fire hoodies over the years, but none have ever succeeded. With Hailey, I have zero problems giving it away.
This is the woman I wanted to marry. It’s ridiculous, I know, because I was just a kid, but I was so sure of it the second I met her. My feisty little redhead who had no problem putting me in my place or battling every fear that lived in her heart. The former still seems true. The latter… I’m still deciding on how much fear rules her life.
Reaching to her face, I pause just before I touch her because I know dang well I wouldn’t have this permission if she weren’t passed out in my Jeep, and that kills a part of me I’ve kept buried for so long.
But I’ve longed for this. How was I to know that the last kiss we would ever share would be in an airport before I got on a flight back to Texas? How could I have known that was the last time I would get to kiss lips that are now parted, the bottom one slightly poutier than the top. The last time I would hold her in my arms and inhale her vanilla and coconut scent.
The last time she would look at me with love in her eyes.
Sucking in a breath, my fingertips graze the strands of hair covering her face, sliding them back towards her ear so I can see more of her. They’re as silky as I remember them, but I don’t linger on the copper. Instead I take my fill of her freckles, a smattering of them all over her cheeks and forehead. They might not be as pronounced after winter, but they’re still there, and they still do it for me.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I whisper to her, the words surprising me. It’s not that they aren’t true, they are. But to admit them out loud isn’t something I would do in any other situation.
Mostly because I don’t know that she’d believe me.
There’s a lump in my throat that I swallow around to offer her one more piece of truth. “I never got over you, Freckles. I don’t know if I’ll ever be over you.”
Even though I shouldn’t do it, I lean in and press my lips to her forehead. Her skin is warm and smooth, and I linger in the moment for a long second, breathing that familiar vanilla and coconut in.
It brings a smile to my face when I realize that the airport is no longer the last time I got to relish in her scent. Even if doing so makes me a creep.
“Mmm, Luke?” Hailey murmurs, stirring in her seat.
For a second, I freeze, cursing myself and what I’m doing. Crossing so many frickin’ lines. If she kicked me in the nuts now, I’d deserve it. But as I move back, her hand catches my shirt, pulling me forward. I’m an inch, maybe two, from her lips as her eyes open and she peers up at me leaning over her. Glassiness watches me, and I know the alcohol is raging in her veins right now, know that not a single thing can happen between us, even if all I want to do is kiss her.
“The world doesn’t usually spin this bad in my dreams,” she half mumbles, half slurs, and for a second, I don’t think I heard her right. Then she adds, “But you smell right. And you feel right. And you only come in my dreams.”
Frickin’ heck, words I didn’t need to hear. Lately my dreams are the only place I’ve been coming, too.
“Okay Freckles, time to get you inside, yeah?” I mutter, trying to erase thoughts of coming in her dreams out of my brain because I know she didn’t mean it like that.
With my shirt still fisted in her hand, I reach over and undo her seatbelt, then slip an arm around her back, and under her knees. When I pull her from the Jeep, she snuggles into my chest, her forehead resting against my neck as I give the car door a kick to shut it.
We’re not even at the front door when it opens, and Hailey’s mom, Debra, steps out, a hand clutched to her chest, her other around her midsection. There’s panic in her voice as she asks, “What happened?”
“She’s okay,” I assure her, carrying Hailey up the steps. “Just too much to drink.”
She looks at me then, eyes widening as she gasps. “Luke?”
I dip my head to her in greeting, a little surprised myself. She’s acting like Hailey hasn’t told her I’m back, which doesn’t seem very Hailey-like. She and her mom were always close. “Miss Debra. Ma’am. Should I put her in her old room?”
Debra stutters, grasping for words that seem to be escaping her, finally just nodding as she points inside.
Like I’m some kind of vampire who now has permission to enter, I step over the threshold of the split-level and take the stairs up. Debra wasn’t my biggest fan, so I imagine if Hailey didn’t tell her I was back, her surprise is justified.
Turning left at the top to go down the hallway, there are two bedrooms on either side of the hall. One belonging to Debra, the other Hailey’s old room, plus the bathroom.
I’m a step past the latter when Hailey perks up in my arms, mumbling a slew of unintelligible words. It’s enough. Years on the job tell me exactly what’s about to happen, and I change course as quickly as I can, dropping my arm from under her knees to turn her away from me while supporting her body weight. We’re in the bathroom a second later, and like Hailey subconsciously knew exactly where she needed to be, she manages to find the toilet before the contents of her stomach are coming up.
Scooping her hair the best I can, I hold it back for her while she’s sick, kneeling down to rub her back.
“Oh Hailey,” her mother says from behind me, and I’d almost swear she sounds disappointed about her twenty-seven year old daughter getting so drunk she’s sick.
I glance over my shoulder. “Could you grab her a glass of water? She’s going to need it. A cold compress too.”
Debra opens her mouth to say something, blinks a few times at me, and then closes it. As though she can’t believe I just ordered her around. After a look at Hailey, she nods, then disappears, just in time for Hailey to start heaving once more.
“That’s it, Freckles. Get it out. You’ll feel better,” I murmur encouragingly.
A few minutes later, her mom is back with both the water and a cool washcloth, and Hailey is slumping backwards against me. Debra sets the cloth over Hailey’s forehead, and when Hailey groans, her mom offers her a sip of water which Hailey greedily takes.
“Easy, Freckles, you don’t want to start throwing up again. Small sips,” I remind the paramedic in the room with a chuckle.
“I’ll get a bucket,” Debra offers, meeting my eyes. “Will you…”
When she doesn’t finish the rest of the sentence, I smile knowingly. “Carry her to her room?”
Debra cringes a little, but then nods. I have the sense that she doesn’t enjoy needing my help, and while she doesn’t want to ask me, she also doesn’t want to leave Hailey on the bathroom floor all night. Even in her disappointment.
“Of course,” I tell her.
We give it another five minutes, but when Hailey seems to pass out against me, we agree she’s probably spent for now, and I maneuver her until she’s back in my arms. It’s an easy walk to her bedroom, but not so easy to put her down, especially when she clings onto me when I try to stand upright.
“Iiiied,” she murmurs on a soft sigh, her words still slurring together. It’s a good thing I’ve learned to speak drunk during my years as a firefighter. Translation, she lied. Then she adds, “I donate you.”
Drunk talk for ‘I don’t hate you’.
I smile. A smile I feel deep down into my soul. The kind of smile I haven’t smiled in months. Real. Genuine. Happy. For the first time since well before I left Waco, I see some kind of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
“I donate you either,” I tell her, pushing her hair off her forehead to put the cool cloth there again.
Hailey giggles. It’s drunk, but it’s as happy as the feeling in my chest. “Good. I’m Sally. You’re Sal.”
It takes me a minute, but then I laugh. “The Salvation Army?”
More giggles from her, but then a content sigh falls from her lips, and she settles, mumbling, “Knew you’d know me.”
“Night Sally,” I murmur, and if it weren’t for her mom right behind me, watching like a hawk, I’d lean over and press another kiss to the top of her head. But I refrain this time, pulling in all my control.
She seems to sink deeper into the bed, and as I stand, she says, “Night Dimples.”
My heart stops, and I rub my chest, both a smile and a cringe warring on my face. Dimples. Dang. I haven’t heard that one since the day I left her at the airport. All summer that’s what she called me. She was Freckles, and I was Dimples, and we were happy.
Turning towards Debra, who is keenly watching me, I drop my hand and shove them both into my pockets. “Make sure she takes some aspirin in the morning. And her car is still at 10-42. Don’t go first thing in the morning.”
Debra’s eyebrows furrow. “Why not?”
“Because with the amount she drank tonight, who knows if she’ll still be drunk in the morning. Make sure she eats something and drinks some water before you let her drive,” I tell her, moving towards her and the door.
“Okay,” she nods her agreement, turning to lead me down the hall to the front entryway. I’m to the door when she says, “Thank you. For bringing her home and staying.”
And even though I don’t think Debra will believe me, because no one ever does, I say it out loud for my benefit, “Years and distance will never change my feelings for Hailey. If there is something that she needs, I will give it to her. No questions asked.”
Debra just gazes down the stairs at me, chewing on her bottom lip.
I nod to her, opening the door. “Night ma’am.”