Chapter Seven – Old Soul #2
He watched me carefully as he buttoned the shirt.
“Look. I love you, Fallon, but asking me to deal with your dad, his trophy wife, their two kids, your mom, and her nurse both before and after the ceremony is just too much. After everything you told me about your family, I’m surprised you want to see them at all. ”
Fury burned through me, but the only thing I could get out was, “Sadie is not a trophy wife.”
“She’s twelve years younger than him. What do you call that?”
“I call it true love.”
“I’m not fighting with you right now,” he said, pulling on a pair of black slacks and buttoning them. “It’s an important day. I thought we’d have multiple things to celebrate.”
“What exactly does that mean?” I demanded.
His eyes went to the tampon box again, and my breath evaporated. When it finally flooded back into my chest, I was able to stutter out, “You wanted me to be pregnant?”
He met my gaze with sure ones. “Yes.”
“What in the actual hell?” I stormed. “First, how would that even be possible when we always use a condom? And second, you know how I feel about this. I want kids, but I’m not anywhere near ready to start a family.
I’m not even ready to be married, as I clearly told you when you proposed, and I definitely want a ring on my finger before I go down that road.
I won’t repeat my family’s mistakes. Not my mom’s or my grandmother’s.
I won’t have a baby be the only reason I marry someone. ”
“And my feelings on it don’t matter?”
A knock on the bedroom door had him snapping, “Go away,” just as I said, “Come in.”
The door inched open, and Rae darted a worried look between us. “Fallon, your phone’s been going nuts for the last twenty minutes.”
I looked at the spot on the bedside table where I usually left my phone charging at night. I could have sworn I’d plugged it in. Instead, I could hear the tone jingling down the hall from the kitchen.
“Fallon,” JJ warned, and I ignored him, pushing past our roommate into the hallway.
My insides were too torn up, my rage too strong, to have a conversation with him now.
Most of my anger was self-directed. This was my fault.
Getting back together with JJ after that first painful breakup years ago had been wrong.
I’d let my need to be loved, to be the center of someone’s attention, draw me back to him.
And I’d gotten what I wanted, his complete focus, and now it had spun entirely out of control until he was actually hoping I was pregnant.
I stormed past the sleek, black dining set JJ had bought in March to the counter where my phone had gone silent.
I looked down at a series of texts, and when my heart secretly hoped to see one particular name among the others on the list, I grew even angrier with myself.
That single reason, the wish to see Parker’s name there, should have kept me from ever starting a relationship with JJ, let alone living with him.
I was the asshole here. JJ should hate me. I hated myself.
The first text was from my best friend.
MAISEY: Where are you? Your parents are worried.
The others were from Mom, Dad, and finally, my stepmom.
SADIE: Everything okay there? We’re at breakfast, and you’re not here.
ME: I thought JJ told Dad we wouldn’t make it.
SADIE: We weren’t sure if that meant just him or both of you.
“Is it him?” JJ demanded, leaning against the arch from the bedroom hallway.
With his tie draped over his shoulder and his shaggy, golden-retriever-like hair slicked back, he looked more like a banker than the beach bum I’d first dated.
Those bold blue eyes that usually twinkled with charm were dark with emotions I didn’t understand.
Annoyance, still more self-directed than at him, curled up my spine and had me spitting out, “Him who?”
We both knew it was a stupid question.
“Don’t play games with me. Will he be here today?”
“ He is on a mission. I have no idea when he’ll be back. You don’t see me complaining that Tina will be here today, do you?” I tossed back .
“You and I were broken up when Tina and I were together,” he bit back. “I haven’t been pining after her from the time I was born. I don’t go all doe-eyed when she texts me.”
“Are the two of you really having this same argument? Today? Of all days?” Rae demanded. Her graduation robe was on but unzipped, showing off a marigold-colored dress that set off her warm skin.
I wasn’t sure how she’d put up rooming with JJ and me over the last couple of years, or how she’d remained so neutral.
“No. We aren’t.” My chest grew tight, and my voice was thick as I said, “We aren’t ever having this argument again because we’re done.”
JJ went completely still. “What?”
“I should have said it when I first came back from Rivers. I can’t do this anymore, JJ. It’s clear we want different things out of this relationship. It’s better if we call it quits now while we still like each other.”
“Like each other.” He seemed stunned. “So Sadie and your dad have true love but not us?”
Guilt washed over me, not only for breaking up with him like this—with an audience on the day we were graduating—but for letting it go this long.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step toward him, and he stopped me with a shake of his head.
“No. Don’t. I need to calm down before I do or say something I’ll regret. Let’s just pin this entire conversation until tonight when disappointments and family pressures aren’t getting the best of us.”
I bit the inside of my cheek while he stalked down the hall toward the bedroom.
I turned to Rae. “I’m sorry to put you in the middle of this.”
“I’m glad you finally ended it,” she said, a frown between her brows. “You know, ever since Ace spent a few weeks here while you were in Rivers, JJ has been edgier than normal.”
My mouth fell open. “What? Ace stayed here?”
Surprise coasted over her face. “JJ told me you said it was okay.”
A shudder went up my spine. “Ace did eighteen months in federal prison because I testified against him for assaulting his wife and damaging national park property. His wife returned the favor by stalking me for months. Why on earth would I ever let that man in my apartment?”
“I’m sorry.” Her face crumbled. “I should have known better. I was in a hurry to leave for spring break, and you were with your mom, and things were so dicey there. I didn’t want to bother you with one more thing. He insisted he’d cleared it with you.”
It only cemented my decision further. JJ knew how I felt about Ace and his wife.
I’d gone to battle for Celia, and she’d returned the favor by turning my life into a bit of hell before she’d just up and left San Diego.
The only reason Dad hadn’t sent a bodyguard to trail me was because JJ had moved in, and Parker was minutes away whenever his team wasn’t deployed.
This was not a forgivable offense. If JJ really loved me, he should have wanted to keep Ace as far away from me as possible, not invite him into our home.
It was bad enough they’d been working together again at the surf shop since Ace had gotten out of prison.
Worse that JJ insisted Ace was a good guy who’d just made a few mistakes.
I felt like I’d just had blinders ripped off my eyes.
We’d both been living a lie—JJ and me.
And I was tired of it. Tired of this pretend life and the pretend girl I’d become.
It was time I went back to Rivers.
It was time I went home.
? ? ?
Our apartment was stuffed to the seams with family and friends.
JJ’s family couldn’t afford the flight from back east, but his surfing buddies and some of the staff from the clinic he’d befriended mingled with my equestrian teammates.
Everyone was laughing. The mood was light, but I hadn’t been able to shake the darkness from this morning.
Not even standing up and getting my master’s degree with my family cheering in the stands had really removed the heavy veil clinging to me.
I watched JJ as he laughed at something a friend said.
He didn’t even look like the surfer I’d first been entranced with anymore.
The suit jacket he’d slid into before we’d left for the university was expensive—more expensive than he could afford working at the surf shop.
Just like he couldn’t afford the slick, modern furniture and oil paintings he’d slowly replaced our cheap thrift store finds with this year without ever asking Rae or me if it was okay.
I was suddenly drowning in regrets. Things I’d done wrong. Things I couldn’t change but would haunt me in a different way than the blood and death I’d seen in Sadie’s bar that day had. My throat closed. I needed air.
I slipped out the front door onto the long balcony that traveled the length of our apartment.
I was surprised to find Mom already there in her wheelchair.
People used to think we were sisters because we looked so much alike, but her blond hair was now edged with gray, and her hazel eyes looked worn and tired in a white face paler than I’d ever seen it.
Concern spiked. Was she hooked on painkillers again?
“You okay?” I asked and then winced. She wasn’t okay. She’d lost her leg. Her Jeep had been run off a cliff, and she’d almost died. And worse, they’d never found the person or the vehicle who’d nearly taken her out with one careless drive across a solid yellow line.
Mom reached out, grabbed my hand, and squeezed it. “Stop taking care of me, Fallon. It’s not your job.”
I wished I could believe those words. I’d been looking out for her for most of my life.
Except, I hadn’t been doing that for the last six years, had I? She’d stepped up, stayed clean, and ran the ranch’s resort smoothly and competently while I’d been away playing pretend.
No more.
I’d done what Dad had asked. I’d searched my soul for the truth, and all it had told me was what I’d already known when I’d left for college six years ago. I was ready to take up the reins Spencer had left me. My stepdad had given me the ranch and told me to make it mine.
Mine. Not Mom’s. Not Dad’s. But would they be able to step back and let me run with it?
Would either of them be able to truly let go of the reins of a legacy that had slipped through both of their fingers?
It had been Dad’s choice to let go of the ranch and leave it to Spencer, but Mom’s family had been fighting for it since they’d lost it a hundred years ago.
In marrying Spencer, she’d finally achieved that.
We’d never talked about it, but it had to have hurt that he’d left the ranch to me and not her.
Sometimes, I believed it was the real reason there’d always been a barrier between us.
A wall neither of us had been able to cross.
Deep in my thoughts, I was startled when Mom broke the silence, asking, “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation, smiling down at her. “Why?”
She glanced toward the open front door. Dad and Sadie were standing just inside it, love radiating from them.
He had an arm draped around her waist with his head bent to hear whatever she was saying.
Sadie’s silky black mingled with Dad’s dark brown.
Other than a new bit of gray at his temples, Dad looked the same as he had when I was a little girl. Tall and strong and intimidating.
Sadie laughed as my siblings did a silly dance in front of them, and Dad’s lips tilted upward.
Spencey and Caro had inherited Dad’s dark, wavy hair but had Sadie’s bluebell-colored eyes.
At nine and seven, they were two of the happiest kids I’d ever met.
Sometimes, even though I loved them, I was envious they’d never had to grow up wondering if they were truly wanted or just a burden their parents had accepted.
“I hate that you’ve become him,” Mom said quietly, and my eyes jerked back to her face. “Not the Rafe we see now. You’ve become the reserved person he was before he fell in love with Sadie. All ice and no fire.”
Irritation washed over me, but I bit my cheek rather than snip at her.
Mom threw her hands up. “See. That, right there, is proof you’re turning into him.
Where’s the girl who would have stormed at me?
Where’s the teen who fought with everything she had to make sure Spencer’s murderer was caught and refused to believe the ranch couldn’t be saved?
The girl who made the grown-ups in her life return to the ring after they’d all but given up the fight? ”
Pain slashed through my chest. Mom knew better than to bring up the past. We were better off not discussing it.
Did she really want the reminder of how she’d checked out on me?
How she’d given up, and I’d been the only one left in the ring?
I hadn’t had a choice. We wouldn’t have the ranch today if I hadn’t forced Dad to return to Rivers and help us.
But instead of saying any of that, instead of going down a path I knew would only hurt us both, I simply said, “That girl grew up and realized throwing a tantrum or snipping at people isn’t the only way to get what you want.”
“I’d rather the tantrum than the ice.”
Footsteps clanging over the metal steps leading up to the apartment halted my angry retort. For a split second, my heart whooshed, hoping to see a man in military Whites appear, hoping somehow Parker had made it back in time to celebrate with me.
But it wasn’t a muscled, dark-haired SEAL who appeared. Instead, two men in off-the-rack suits emerged on the landing.
“Ms. Marquess-Harrington?” the older white man asked, his bushy, gray mustache moving like a caterpillar along his upper lip with each syllable.
“Yes?”
He flipped open a badge. “I’m Detective Harris, and this is Detective Lake.
” He threw a thumb toward the other man with a shaved head and large stance that made him almost as intimidating as Parker’s SEAL buddies.
“We’re with the San Diego Police Department.
We need to speak with you and your boyfriend, Jasper Johnson. ”
My brows lifted as my stomach fell. “I… We’re in the middle of a graduation party…”
“Yes, we were told,” Detective Harris said. “This can’t wait.”
My eyes found my dad’s just inside the door. He dropped his arm from Sadie’s shoulders to step onto the balcony. “What’s wrong?”
“These two detectives need to talk to JJ and me.”
“What about?” Dad demanded, narrowing his gaze on the two men.
“The drugs they’ve stolen from Walters Veterinarian Clinic.”