Chapter Three
Jason
I understand when to tread carefully, so I study the suddenly panicked look on Faith’s face and decide to tackle things from another direction.
“Okay, you obviously don’t trust me … yet. So let’s start this way. I’m going to get your business back up and running.” I’ll prove to her she can believe in me, and I won’t let her down.
She frowns, shaking her head. “I called everyone in the area and some beyond. People are booked up.”
I raise an eyebrow at the challenge and pull out my cell, dialing one of my contractors who does work at Club TEN29 and who owes me a favor.
“Sam? It’s Jason Dare.”
“Hey, man. How are you?” Sam Fremont asks.
“I’m okay. You? How are Lisa and that princess of yours?” I ask of the man’s daughter.
“Doing well. The doctors say just two treatments left,” he says, his relief obvious in his voice.
“Good! Listen, I’m sorry for the short notice, but I have a friend with an issue.” I go on to explain about Faith’s graffiti and the glass on the door. “How soon can you get someone out here to fix both?”
Sam has access to glass cutters, window cleaners, and anything else Faith might need.
“I’ll come over myself to assess the situation and handle what I can. What I can’t, I’ll call in reinforcements to fix. Be there in an hour. Just text me the address.”
“Great. I owe you one. I’ll be here to meet you in an hour,” I repeat for Faith’s benefit, whose eyes open wide.
“How did you do that?” she asks, as I type her address and store name into my phone for Sam.
I don’t find it easy to talk about this, but it’s a step toward building trust, and if I’m going to keep her safe, I need to understand what she’s up against. It’s more than neighborhood kids. That much I know.
I clear my throat and look into her pretty green eyes. “Sam’s daughter was diagnosed with childhood leukemia, and he panicked. He was a freaking mess.”
“I can’t even imagine,” she says, her heart in her voice.
“Well, my sister lived through it when she was young. She had a bone marrow transplant.” The necessity led my two-timing father to reveal to his wife that he needed to have my full siblings tested to see if they were a match. Our lives all blew up at the time.
“Jason, I’m so sorry.” Faith reaches out and holds my hand. “How is she?”
“Fine now. Healthy. A mom.” I grin at that. “But I got her in touch with Sam and his wife, Lisa. She talked them through the process, kept them calm, reassured them when she could.” I shrug. “Sam feels like he owes me.”
I shake my head, and when things come back into focus, I realize Faith has tears in her eyes.
“You have a big heart,” she murmurs.
“It just made sense,” I say, uncomfortable with the praise for something so minor. “Sienna went through the same experience and I knew she could help them. And now Sam will help you. This place will be back to itself in no time.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she murmurs.
“I do. Go on a date with me,” I say, back to my pushy, what I hope is charming, self. Am I playing fair? No. Do I care?
Not one bit.
I start to rise before she can answer me, deciding that I’ve effectively backed her into doing something she wants to do anyway.
“Jason—” she says, warning me with her tone she doesn’t like being pushed into a corner.
“I know. It’s not a good idea.” I meet her gaze. “I’m just waiting for you to explain why the hell not?”
“Fine. Sit back down.”
I do as she says and wait patiently, understanding whatever she has to explain is obviously difficult for her.
“My mom passed away without warning a little over a year ago.” Tears fill her eyes and I reach out, clasping her hand in mine.
“I’m sorry.”
She sniffs. “Thank you. Me, too. Anyway, I lived in Iowa, where I grew up. My dad left when I was almost eleven. I have no idea what happened to him, but Mom somehow made it okay. She worked to make ends meet, and I went to a local college, worked in a store in town. It was my brother who was the problem. He acted out after Dad left, and eventually he was doing drugs, selling with a local dealer. Mom threw him out.”
I listen, sad for the little girl who lost her dad and whose brother didn’t man up. “What happened?”
“After Mom died, Colton showed up, demanding his share of the inheritance. There wasn’t much, but Mom had saved money from her parents, and she’d taken out a life insurance policy. Everything went to me.”
“She disinherited him,” I say, and Faith nods.
“She had no choice. He would have spent it all on drugs. Where he lived, who he hung out with … he was strung out all the time…”
With a shake of my head, I reassure her. “I’m not judging her. Go on.”
She swallows hard. “I was sleeping one night and he broke in.” Closing her eyes, her entire body shudders under the weight of the obviously painful memory. “He tried to cajole me into splitting the money, and when that didn’t work, he got angry. So angry.”
I listen, knowing I’m not going to like what comes next. Knowing, too, I can’t go back and prevent whatever it was she lived through.
She wraps her arms around herself, rocking as she speaks. “He shook me and then his hands were around my neck, squeezing—” She forces her eyes open wide. “When he released me, I screamed. He said he’d be back for what was his and he took off.”
A possessive fury takes hold, that anyone would hurt this sweet woman whose smiles come so easily despite everything she’s been through.
“So what did you do?” I ask, my jaw clenched so my own anger doesn’t spill out and scare her. Because at this point I want to kill her brother.
“I ran. I packed up everything I could take with me overnight and disappeared. I figured New York City was the largest, easiest place to get lost. I started in a hotel, found a lawyer, changed my last name … and here I am.”
I blink, knowing it can’t have been that simple. “A name change is public record.”
“Not when it’s sealed because you can show the judge the fading bruises on your neck,” she says, her hands coming up to clasp herself there.
Yep. I am going to fucking kill her sibling.
“So somehow he found you?” I ask, managing not to clench my fists and scare her away from me.
She nods. “I’m guessing the slashed tire was a warning, though I have to admit, I’d hoped that was a freak neighborhood kid incident.
But the vandalism and the brick? He wants me scared so by the time he comes in person, I’ll give him whatever he wants.
” She lowers her hands from her neck, leaving red marks from where she made her point.
I have had enough. I stand up and walk over, pulling her into my arms because I need the connection and feel certain she does, too.
She relaxes into me, her soft curves easing against mine. I breathe in her sweet scent and hold her as the trembling in her body eases. Too quickly, she pulls away.
“You aren’t alone anymore. Got that?” I ask.
She glances up at me. “I appreciate you helping me get things fixed here at the shop, but make no mistake. I’m very much alone.”
I’m not going to argue now. There will be plenty of time for that later, when she balks against what I’m beginning to plan out for her in my mind.
I might not want someone else to find their way into my emotional cocoon, but this woman has done it. There is no way I’m leaving her to fend for herself now that I know what she is up against. And if that means fighting her in order to keep her safe, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.
* * *
Faith
I watch as Sam Fremont, a tall man with hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the workman he brought with him scrub the spray paint from my window.
He called in a glass company, who sent a guy to measure my door.
He then leaves to cut the glass and will return with the right size to fix my entrance.
It’s as if Jason Dare spoke, and all my problems are going away.
If only things were that easy.
I already understand he’s more complicated than his surface grin led me to believe. A sister who conquered childhood leukemia, a college friend who died under mysterious circumstances, a nightclub, and a life I know nothing about. I want to know everything, and that is dangerous.
Still, I owe him, and though I don’t think he truly feels that tit for tat is necessary, I do.
If it is a date he wants, then I’ll go out with him.
At this point, it can no longer hurt. Colton already found me.
He’s probably watching my shop as all this activity occurs.
Does it really matter if I go out with Jason after this?
It’s obvious the man is a part of my life, as my friend, at the very least.
He settled into a chair in the center of the shop, surveying the work going on around him.
He already left once, returning with sandwiches and sodas for everyone.
As the hours pass and he vacillates between returning messages on his phone and talking to the workmen he obviously knows, I grow more confused.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” I ask him.
He raises an eyebrow as if to say, Really? “Nowhere more important. I want to make sure the work here is done correctly and this place looks exactly the way you want it.”
I appreciate his thoughtfulness, but he has to have better things to do than worry about me. “Okay, but I can handle that. I don’t want to take up more of your day than I already have. I can stick around until the guys are finished, lock up, and head home.”
He folds his strong arms over his chest, his olive-green Henley pulling tight over his muscles. “And do you think I’m going to leave you here alone after what you told me about your brother?”
I’ve been pushing thoughts of Colton aside all day. “I have pepper spray on my keychain.” The words sound ridiculous, even to me.
I’m no match for my brother, and if he is strung out? He’ll have a wiry strength I can’t handle. I know that firsthand, memories of my hands trying to pull his wrists off my neck very clear in my mind.