Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
D ella startled awake to bright sunlight, rough hands and a barked command.
“Up.” Ward sounded like he’d been trying and failing to wake her for a long time.
She blinked her eyes open and tried to focus. “Are we late? Shit. What time is it?”
“It’s time to wake up.” Ward stalked over to the dresser and yanked open a drawer.
The urgency in his voice sent a spike of fear through her that didn’t fit with her memories of last night. Her thoughts were still wrapped up in his arms. Her dreams had revolved around another day at the festival, followed by another night with Ward.
She took in the rigid set of his shoulders, the quick movements of his hands as he pulled clothes out of the drawer, the utility belt around his waist, and the gun. She was suddenly wide awake.
She sat up, tugging the covers with her.
“What happened?” Her voice crackled. “Did you find the stalker?”
“No.” The sharp edge in his voice made her flinch. “He found you.”
Her hand found the panic button he’d given her. She never took it off, at first because Ward had insisted she wear it and now because it reminded her of him. She had the sudden urge to squeeze it. “How?”
Ward tossed a bra and underwear on the bed near her feet. “Ken the Idiot recorded you and my brother and posted it for the world to hear. It’s a small town, Ms. Bellamy. There’s always someone listening. I told you that. I warned you.”
She winced as the memory of Ken walking down the hallway came back to her in vivid detail. “Oh. Shit. He was recording.”
She regretted it the second the words were out of her mouth.
Ward froze on his way to the closet. “You knew someone heard you. You knew someone recorded you.”
The look of utter betrayal on his face was familiar. She’d seen it on her sisters’ faces all those years ago. “I…yes, but…”
“You lied to me.” His voice was cold and controlled, but his eyes flashed with anger. “I trusted you and you used it to manipulate me. Life’s just a game for people like you.”
She should get up. She should move. She should do something , but she couldn’t make herself let go of the blankets.
“That’s why Aunt Martha winked at you last night.” He rubbed his jaw. “You played me, and I fell for it. I have to hand it to you. That’s a first.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Her voice came out too high, full of panic. “I didn’t?—”
“Yes, Ms. Bellamy. You did.” He shook his head. “And I let you. I did exactly what I reamed Greg out for, which makes me a hypocrite as well as a fool.” He stalked the rest of the way to the closet. “This is why rule one exists in the first place.”
“Ward. I’m sorry. Let me explain. Please.”
“Don’t bother.” He reached into the closet and grabbed her go bag. “Done is done. You can’t suck that video back off the internet. We have to focus on next steps. Time to relocate and regroup.”
He tossed the bag onto the floor.
“Just…wait.” She untangled herself from the blankets and crawled out of bed. “I sang harmony for one chorus. That’s it.”
“It’s more than enough.”
She dragged on the underwear. It was a flimsy barrier, but it was better than facing him naked. “It was only a few seconds.”
“Try twenty-nine. Twenty-nine seconds featuring an unknown hick and world-famous pop star Della Bellamy.” Ward emerged from the closet with a pair of jeans. “Congratulations. You’ve gone viral. Again.”
Regret and shame burned her cheeks as she pulled on the T-shirt. “I was just trying to help.”
“If you were really trying to help, you would have told me.” He tossed the jeans at her.
She managed to catch them before they hit the floor. “I screwed up. I know I screwed up.”
His gaze drilled a hole right through her heart. “You didn’t just screw up, Ms. Bellamy. Accidentally humming a few notes would be a screwup. What you did went way beyond that. You lied to me about something that affects your safety. After everything—” His voice broke off. “You knew better. You knew why it mattered, but you did it anyway.”
She drew in a ragged breath. “I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. I should have told you the second it happened, but I didn’t because I didn’t want this to end.”
“It was always going to end, Ms. Bellamy.” He turned away.
“It doesn’t have to.” She reached for him, but he was too far away. She dropped her hands to her sides. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. Because I knew you’d react this way. I knew you’d make us go away and…I didn’t want to go.” Tears threatened the corners of her eyes. “I like being Lucy. I like living in this town. I like being here with you. And last night…”
He spun to face her. “Last night was a lapse in judgment. Nothing more.”
It sounded so final. Like the lights coming up at the end of a show.
“No it wasn’t. It was more than that. You know it was.” Desperation made her tongue thick and heavy. She’d finally found someone and something she hadn’t even known she was looking for and hadn’t expected to find and it couldn’t end like this. “Last night was…it was everything.”
He stood like a soldier, all rigid lines and harsh angles, his feet anchored in place. “I’m not your friend, your lover, or your boyfriend, Ms. Bellamy. I’m here to keep you safe. That’s it.” He glanced at the wall. A look of anguish flashed across his face so fast she almost missed it. “The price of failure is too damn high.”
She followed his gaze to where three of his mother’s paintings waited for the fourth that would never come. Her heart wrenched even as fear closed her throat. He couldn’t be using his mother’s death as an excuse to throw what they had away. “Your mother didn’t die because of you, Ward. It wasn’t your fault. You were just a teenager.”
He stalked to the door. “Annie will be here soon. Pack up. You won’t be coming back.”
“No.” She crossed her arms in a self-hug that didn’t soothe. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere without you. That’s my rule one. Remember?”
He turned to face her. “If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you down those stairs, that’s what I’ll do. Get that through your head. I will keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to just be safe.” Her voice shook with the need to make him understand. “I want to be safe with you. ”
“And that’s all that matters, right?” His stare drilled a hole through her heart. “You always get what you want. No matter the consequences.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You have a pattern, Ms. Bellamy. An MO.” He stepped toward her. They were close enough now that she could see something else in his eyes. Something deeper than just anger. Fear? “You shouldn’t have thrown a pool party, but you did. You shouldn’t have been singing with Mason, but you did. You should have told me, but you didn’t.” He paused, and it seemed as if the temperature between them dropped. “You shouldn’t have dumped your sisters, but you did. Face the facts, Ms. Bellamy. It’s always about what you want, no matter what it costs everyone else. I won’t be your next piece of collateral damage.”
He strode to the door and walked out. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
She tried to take a breath, but he’d taken all the air with him.
She wanted to shout that what he’d said was mean and cruel and a vicious lie. But it wasn’t. It was the awful truth, and it hurt .
“Wait,” she finally managed to choke out.
Too late.
She could tell by the fading footsteps in the hallway that he was already heading downstairs.
It was always going to end.
You shouldn ’ t have dumped your sisters.
An ugly sob erupted from her throat. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, but that didn’t do a thing to stop the wave of raw pain that raced through her chest.
Last night…that first kiss…he’d wanted her. She knew it from her bruised lips all the way to her toes. She’d never felt so transported. So… seen .
Now the warden was back, and his walls were up, all because she’d been stupid, stupid, stupid.
Wake the hell up.
“Dammit,” she told the empty room.
She should have told Ward about Ken. She’d known it the second she saw him sauntering down the hallway with his phone in his hand.
She’d known it the second Mason had caught her singing.
She so desperately wanted to keep being Lucy for just a little while longer that she’d convinced herself it didn’t matter and she’d known— known it like she knew her own face—that it would all come crashing down if she told Ward.
So she’d kept her mouth shut.
It was a stupid mistake that cost so much.
It was all over. He was sending her away and she’d probably never see him again. She’d ruined something precious. Again.
Another tear slid down her cheek.
Did it matter that she was doing her best to make it up to her sisters? Did it matter that she’d tried so hard to be the person Ward wanted her to be?
No , a harsh voice whispered in the back of her mind. Actions are what count .
What she’d done was worse than a mistake.
Ward was right about that.
She’d betrayed him. She’d hurt him. She’d manipulated him.
She stared at the closed door for a long, long time while tears streamed down her face.
But…he wasn’t right about everything.
He’d crossed his own line because he’d wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him, and instead of admitting it, he was using the so-called lapse in judgment to kill the very real thing that had started between them, and that…that was bullshit.
She’d finally found a glimmer of what her sisters had and she’d found it with him and, dammit, she wasn’t letting it or him go without a fight.
She yanked on her jeans and stormed downstairs.
She found Ward with Brick at the kitchen island. “You fucking coward.”
They both looked up, eyes wide with surprise.
“Oh, uh, hi, uh, Lucy.” Brick looked from her to Ward. “I’ll just go, uh, check the perimeter. Yeah. And I’ll take that tablet with me. You know, just in case I need it. Or you feel like throwing it.”
Brick pulled the tablet out of Ward’s hand, then ran out the back door so fast it would have made her laugh if her life weren’t imploding.
“Where’s your go bag and shoes? Are you packed? Annie will be here in a few minutes,” Ward said.
“You might have a point about what I did. I mean, you do.” Her bare feet slapped against the tile as she stalked toward him. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I acted like a spoiled brat at that pool party. I should have told you about Ken. And it’s going to take the rest of my life for me to make up for what I did to my sisters. But at least I own my mistakes and I’m trying to fix them.”
Ward clenched his jaw so tight she could see the muscles ripple along his face. “Get your shoes on unless you want to go barefoot.”
“I’m not letting you turn your back on me.”
“You don’t call the shots here, Ms. Bellamy.”
“You’ve spent your life running toward danger and away from feelings, and that’s exactly what you’re doing right now.” She poked him in the chest to emphasize her point. “You think you know me, but you don’t know everything about me. You don’t even know everything about yourself. You have a massive blind spot, Warden. I know what running away from feelings looks like. It looks like a car ride to upstate New York. It looks like a man who refuses to come home for birthdays and holidays. The second you start to care, you leave. That’s your pattern. I know that because I know you, like you know me. That’s what makes this … us …real . ”
He started to say something, but then just pressed his lips together in a tight line.
She pushed his chest with both hands. It was like trying to push a wall. “It’s not a crisis to actually care about someone. Feelings are a good thing. Feelings are what make life worth living. And you don’t get to pretend last night doesn’t matter because it does.”
“Here’s the thing, Ms. Bellamy.” She didn’t like how cold his eyes were or how distant his voice was. There might as well have been a million miles between them. “It really doesn’t. The only thing I’m interested in is finding your stalker before he finds you. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“Okay,” a high, overly cheery voice said behind her. “Sounds like things are going well here.”
Ward’s gaze flicked to the new arrival. “Get her out of here. Take Bridge Road to the highway. The north side and downtown is blocked for the festival.”
Della didn’t bother to turn around. She’d been so wrapped up in what she was trying to ram into Ward’s thick skull that she hadn’t heard the front door open, but she knew Annie’s voice.
The show might be over, but she still had the stage. He wasn’t going to get the last word. Not this time.
“You’d rather face a bullet than admit that last night meant something to you. But that’s okay, right? You’re the mighty warden. You never let your guard down.” She huffed out a harsh, painful sound, half laugh, half misery. “Well I would. I love you. I love the way you looked after me even when you didn’t want to. I love the way you make me feel safe. I love the way you watch me from across a crowded room, like nobody else exists. And I love you even when you’re being an obnoxious hypocritical ass and trying to push me away. But I guess none of that means anything to you since it’s coming from a celebrity like me.”
She turned her back on him and found herself facing Annie and Greg. Greg glared at Ward with murder in his eyes, while Annie gave her a glance that friends would share over drinks when someone’s relationship was tanking.
They’d clearly overheard just about everything, but she didn’t care.
The only person whose opinion she cared about right now was the stony, stubborn man behind her, and he wasn’t saying a damn word to stop her.
“Don’t bother with the bag. Nothing here belongs to me anyway,” Della said as she headed for the door. Annie stepped aside without a word. “The bored celebrity will be in the car.”
Della shoved her feet into her shoes and walked out.
Greg gave her shoulder a quick pat. “Right behind you.”
It didn’t take long for her escorts to join her in the SUV. Annie climbed into the driver’s seat, while Greg joined her in the back seat.
“Buckle up, Dell,” Greg said as he snapped his in place. His voice was gentle, but she knew he was serious.
She buckled her seat belt.
Annie pulled out of the driveway without a word.
Funny, she’d never really noticed before how full silence could be. Maybe because she was usually making sure it was never this quiet.
Della burrowed into the seat and watched the town scroll past her window while her throat tightened around a lump so big it threatened to swallow her whole. All of her anger drained into a pool of bitter unhappiness deep in her chest where her heart should have been.
A tear escaped. She ignored it.
A truck flashed past covered in banners announcing the big festival finale, which would start after sundown.
“There’s supposed to be fireworks tonight.” She didn’t know what made her say it out loud.
Greg squeezed her hand. “He’s an ass.”
“Yeah. He is.” She sniffed. “He’s right, though. I’ve been a real pain. To everybody. And I don’t…I don’t belong here. This was all just…it was a really good dream. That’s all. Time to wake up. Like he said.” She caught Annie looking at her in the rearview mirror. “In case I never told you, I liked what you did with my hair. I liked…being Lucy.”
“You can always be Lucy.” Annie’s voice was matter-of-fact and also kind. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
A car full of people Della thought she recognized zipped by. The high school boys , she thought. Her first table. Would they notice she was gone?
“This op won’t last forever,” Annie said. She glanced to the left and right, then made a turn onto the main road out of town. “When we get this guy and things blow over, try it again with Ward. He’s not the guy he just pretended to be.”
“Yes. He is. He’s not the type to fake anything.” Della laid her head back, closed her eyes, and tried hard not to picture the apple festival, the cider booth, and Ward with his arms around her. She was so tired. So very tired. She crossed her arms over her belly and curled in on herself. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I wanted something real so badly I couldn’t see…what wasn’t…it doesn’t matter.”
“His loss,” Greg muttered.
“No. It’s mine,” she whispered to the window.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to crawl into bed and stay there until her heart stopped aching.
Except she didn’t have a home anymore. She’d sold her penthouse in New York, but even if she hadn’t, it wasn’t what she pictured when she thought of home.
What she pictured was Wires Crossing.
Wasn’t that ironic.
This town, and Ward’s house, had felt more like home than anywhere she’d ever lived except for that silly RV they used to travel in when she was a kid.
And that thing had died a long time ago.
“Brace!” Annie’s shout came a heartbeat before something slammed into the SUV and the world spun.