All the Way (18 page)

“Nothing came of it? You never got closure?”

“Not the way I’d hoped, but there were some decent things that came out of the loss. I learned to appreciate the people in my life, and to live one day at a time.
As Tanner can tell you. He went into AA after the accident. He’d been an alcoholic and addict for years, but never recognized it until a drunk driver killed our parents. Their deaths probably saved my brother’s life in the end. He got sober and we created our business the following year.”

“That’s a very Zen way of looking at things,” she
said. “When Kenny died, I wasn’t nearly as benevolent or enlightened. It destroyed our family.”

“You were also a lot younger,” he reminded her. “At first, Jack’s deception ate me alive. I couldn’t let it go. Then Will told me about this young guy who’d gotten picked up for underage drinking. Will heard he was a good kid, in need of some direction—whose dad had died in a motorcycle accident. Will believed that if I focused on helping someone else, I’d start to heal.” Blake nodded. “That’s how I met Rob.”

“For which I am eternally grateful,” she murmured.

“Me too. Because that’s also how I met you.”

Something soft and beautiful shone in her eyes. Peace settled inside him. Then she cut her gaze, slid her hand away from his. “Blake, when I started seeing Jack, I didn’t realize everything that had happened—”

“I know that,” he intervened.

She looked down at her hands. “I guess what I want to say is, I’m sorry.”

“Are you sorry about being here with me now?”

“No.” Her features softened into a stunning smile that made his chest expand.

“Then there’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“You and me, going on this trip, can’t make up for everything—everyone—we’ve lost.”

“Nothing can replace them. But when new people come into our lives and surprise us in amazing ways, it reminds us why we put our hearts on our sleeves, why we put our emotions on the line again and again. Because love is worth it.”

Their gazes met and held. Layla’s face took on a stunning expression. She whispered, “When I’m with you, I start to believe that again.”

Touched by her honesty, Blake honored the words. “Layla, I don’t think I ever told you this. But my belief returned because of you.”

This time when her hand returned to his, he turned his palm to her, lacing their fingers together. She didn’t pull away.

If Blake never kissed her or touched her or held her again, this moment of shared connection might be enough to last him a lifetime. It might need to be, he admitted sadly, since he was about to shake up her world one last time when he introduced her to the world of motorcycle gangs in order to save Rob, and hopefully shake Johnson loose from Layla’s past as well.

As if she sensed the change in his mood, she scooted to the edge of her seat. Her knees bumped into his. “Want to start heading back?”

He nodded. “You might want to shake your clothes when you get up. These swings are old. Our swaying made some rust flake off.”

“Shoot.” She stood, dusting her arms and jeans. Flakes floated like red glitter from her, the bits of aged metal sparkling in the moonlight as they drifted to the ground. “Rust stains are hard to get out.”

“So are other things when they become embedded in you. That’s why now it’s your turn.”

Layla blinked down at him. “What do you mean?”

“Your turn to dig deep and purge the past. Do I have to ask the question, too?”

She twisted her hands around the chains, her expression wary.

“Then I will.” He needed to hear her fears, how Johnson had treated her. Though morbid curiosity had rarely interested him, he wanted the whole story, like she’d needed to hear it from him. “Tell me, Layla. What happened between
you
and Jack Johnson?”

Blake held his breath, braced himself.

Every nick to his pride and futile hope and jealous frenzy he’d suffered since she’d chosen Jack over him was about to unfold before him large as life. He’d just bought himself a front row ticket to his own personal horror flick. Willingly.
Deliberately.

Eyes blank, Layla looked at him like she hadn’t understood the question.

Then her features tightened. Her eyes pinched, forehead creased, pupils narrowed despite the darkness. The storm gathered, the same fear he’d seen on her face when he’d come through the door of the motel room.

And just as quickly the storm of her emotions halted. Her skin smoothed. Her face let go of its tension. But her eyes told a different story, of clouds that darken and filled with the weight of their own rain awaiting release.

She turned away from him quickly, stepping off the swing. Blake followed.

They moved together, she the guide, he her shadow, away from the two-story jungle gym toward the parking lot and his motorcycle.

He was about to say her name, to make her stop and face him, when a flash in the distance caught his eye. By the time his glance darted to its source, it had disappeared. An orange glow pricked the darkness, arced, then vanished. A second later Blake swore he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. But a breeze came by and snatched the scent. Darkness restored itself along with the dewy smell of night air. Quiet reigned.

So Blake kept moving. “Layla.”

She whirled on him. “What do you want to hear, Blake?” Her voice wavered with unspent emotion when she said his name. “That I made the biggest mistake of my life when I dated him, instead of trying to work things out with you? Well, there. You’ve heard it. Ego all patched up now?”

He stopped in his tracks, surprised at the heat in her tone. He’d expected anger, denial, the silent treatment, even a refusal. But not resentment. “No,” he said, his chest tightening. “I can’t begin to describe the look of pure terror on your face when you thought I was Jack coming through the door. It’s frozen in my mind. It’s enough to drive me to edge of a death threat if you leave the truth up to my imagination.”

Silence filled the air between them. Finally she spoke. “It’s not what he’s done. It’s what I know he’s capable of doing.”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“I don’t want to,” he admitted. “But I need to.”

Layla closed her eyes. When her lashes lifted, she gave a single nod of acceptance, maybe even understanding. “Can we keep walking, though?”

“Whatever makes you comfortable.”

He shot a glance at the place where he thought he’d seen the flash in the night. Nothing stirred. So he fell into step alongside her, putting a mandatory lockdown on his emotions. He wanted to be here for her like he hadn’t been the past year. Ready to listen.
Because he’d made a huge mistake, too. He’d surrendered her, when he should’ve fought for the one thing he wasn’t willing to lose. He’d gone too easily, when she’d pushed him away. He’d converted disbelief into denial, then bitterness.
Too stubborn and self-righteous to believe that Jack could replace him.

“Layla, tell me what it was like. How you felt. What made you choose him. And then what made you so afraid. Tell me everything.”

She did. It spilled out like that storm he’d pictured. Though the deluge flooded his body with resistance, frustration, anger at himself and the situation, and though the compelling rain of her words pelted him painfully at times, he clamped his lips shut and just listened.

They walked through the flatter areas of the playground, working their way across the obstacle course of equipment as she worked her way around the choices and pitfalls of her past with Jack.

“He seemed like everything I’d never known. His life went smooth as clockwork. Came into the diner at the same time every
day. Always had a good joke or a cheesy new pickup line that made me laugh. He had a secure job with reliable hours. Knew all the customers at the counter by name.
Asked about their lives.
Asked me about mine. He really paid attention to what people said, had this empathetic way about him. And he could remember the smallest detail of a conversation. Seemed like an all around steady, dependable guy. Then, the better I got to know him, I began to see the shadows…”

“What do you mean?” Blake asked as she wove in and out of the plastic rings that dangled in a row from the wooden beam above the boardwalk she traveled. Meanwhile, Blake walked steadily on the pebbles beside the path Layla took over the maze of obstacles, his steps solid, consistent, matched to her pace. “What shadows?”

She ducked into a short tunnel and her voice sounded far away as she explained. “You know on a sunny day when a huge cloud suddenly passes over, the sunlight gets snatched away, and things go dim? That’s what I saw sometimes when Jack thought no one was looking. Shadows passed over his eyes, and I glimpsed some deep, dark sadness, a secret loneliness inside him. Then the moment disappeared and he’d grin again. But it was the shadows that drew me to him. The darkness brightens a little when someone looks at you and just
knows
. It means so much to be understood. Because I get those shadows, too.”

“I know,” Blake said quietly, cramming his hands deep in his pockets. He’d seen in her eyes exactly what she’d described. Maybe she’d wanted to sweep away the moments of darkness for Jack the way Blake had wanted to do for Layla. He supposed he could understand her connection to him. He didn’t have to like it.

But he listened. The description of
her initial draw that deteriorated into suspicion about Jack was like a hash mark on self-built prison walls for Blake. Marking all the days he should’ve had with her. All the moments that should’ve been his. Pain and regret gnawed at his stomach like hunger pains. He’s starved himself of her presence for so long. He didn’t want to live in that emotional poverty anymore.

Little by little, she opened up. And more and more, he wondered if, by the end of this trip, he could prove himself enough to overcome his past mistakes and she’d let him back into her life.

This time, he wanted nothing less than forever.

“Jack wanted more out of the relationship than I did. He began to pressure me for more dates. More time together. More talk about the future.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “Until finally I told him I needed a break.”

Blake almost faltered in his step. A pattern began to emerge. Layla dates a man who falls for her, offers a serious commitment—a future—and she retreats.
Fascinating
. “What did he do?”

“He didn’t take it well, but he came around less. Once we spent a whole week apart, and I thought he’d given up. When I didn’t miss him at all, I knew there was no hope for a future. I needed to end it between us.”

“I’m betting Johnson wasn’t wild about that idea.”

She shook her head. Fixing her gaze on a low balance beam, the final obstacle, she stepped onto its narrow width. “That’s when things deteriorated, and the threats started. I think he considered our similar pasts like some sort of totem carved in stone. When I ended it, something happened to him. Like he’d lost his inner balance and—”

Deep in concentration, Blake suddenly realized she’d stopped talking. His head snapped up. He saw her teeter on the beam and reached out just in time to steady her.

He didn’t let go of her hand. She didn’t pull away.

Their eyes met, held. She whispered, “Thank you.”

He smiled. “That’s what I’m here for. If you need someone to hold on to, and don’t want to go it alone.”

Layla’s face took on a wistful glow that squeezed his heart. He recognized that look. The one she wore when she sat on her porch and stared off into a fantasy he’d always wanted to create with her. Without intending to, he’d discovered the tender spot beneath her defenses. He’d caught his first glimpse of who this woman would have been without the years and layers of loss, pain, sacrifice, and forgotten dreams. Layla free of her shadows.

The most stunning thing he’d ever seen.

Blake caught himself right at the brink of this moment, before he skidded over the edge. Into a place there was no coming back from.

Feeling the warm press of her fingertips, an extension of trust, Blake recognized she was testing the sureness of his grip. He held her, not too tight, not too lose. Just steady. He didn’t want to repeat his mistakes, rushing into things and then becoming too prideful and stubborn to hang on when the going got rocky and she tested him. He knew he needed to hold back, take it slow. Because he wanted her beside him when he took that final leap into their future together.

She took a step forward, then hesitated. “If I keep going, all the way to the end… You won’t let go?”

He squeezed her hand. “Not for anything.”

They made it to the end. He stepped in front of the beam, their faces level. Letting go of her hand, he fit his hands around her waist, ready to lift her down. Her hands rested on his shoulders, and the feeling soaked into his skin, into his blood stream. An intoxicating rush came from her touch and made him want to forget logic and give in to lust.

But fate held a different twist.

A powerful spotlight surged through the darkness, beamed at his face. Used to the dark, the light blinded him completely.

He threw an arm over his eyes and tried to get his bearings. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts and Layla he hadn’t heard a car pull into the parking lot near the playground.

That singular beam could only come from a police cruiser.

“Hands up where I can see them,” came the harsh command.

Layla tensed at the man’s low, sinister tone.

Breathing a curse, Blake turned toward the light, slowly raised his arms. “Do what he says, Layla.”

A whiff of cigarette smoke drifted to him. His body went cold with dread. Had someone been watching them?

Instinct coiled inside him, prepared to spring.

The man barked commands. “Move into the light. Slower. Come closer. Right there.
Stop.”

Blake squinted against the glare, trying to discern the make of the car and the license plate. If he read the word Ohio, the police wouldn’t need to intervene again. They’d need an ambulance by the time he finished with Johnson. Or a coroner.

“Keep your hands up!” The voice resonated with menace. Layla started shaking. Blake couldn’t tell if the voice belonged to Jack. Regardless, they were up against a man with a gun at his side. Until Blake found an opening, he had to do as told. “Now turn around. Spread ‘em.”

They were getting frisked? The moment this guy touched Blake, he’d be flat on the ground, his throat under Blake’s boot. Blake wasn’t prepared to take any chances if it turned out to be Johnson.

The man stepped toward them with a cocky swagger. Coiled instincts wound Blake tighter.

White light illuminated all three of them. Blake took in a khaki police uniform with the black stripe down the pants, the man’s wide-set blue eyes, Scandinavian features. It added up to a huge sigh of relief that burst from Blake’s lungs. “Officer Munson.”

“Who the—aw, hell. It’s you two out here?” The officer’s bravado deflated, yet he greeted Blake with a half smile. “I thought I’d stumbled onto something good.”

“Sorry.” Blake lowered his hands and winked at Layla. “We kept our clothes on. I swear.”

The officer clicked the safety back into place on his gun and returned it to its holster. “What’re you doing at the playground this late?”

“You’re right. Normally I would’ve have taken Layla out here. But we needed some air. Couldn’t sleep. I’m sure you can imagine.”

The officer nodded, then addressed Layla. “Sorry, ma’am. We haven’t found anything yet on that stalker of yours.”

Layla leaned into Blake. “I thought you were him.”

“I could’ve been.” He sobered. “You two should be more careful. Never know who’s skulking around this late.” He lifted his cap, scratched behind his ear and fitted it snug again. “I’ve been thinking about that fella. When you,” he said, nodding at Blake, “asked me to check on that unmarked car from Ohio, it dawned on me that those knife marks were similar to those made by a Smith and Wesson SWAT knife, standard equipment for most officers of the law. I went along with your hunch that this guy might be the undercover cop you wanted me to look up. So I did, and found it interesting that the vehicle is registered as on loan to Officer Jack Johnson.”

Blake kept his tone neutral. “That is interesting.”

“Been gone for two days. Johnson was released from local duty temporarily to follow up undercover on something for the DEA.”

“The federal drug unit?” Blake asked.

“That’s them. Unusual, though, since he’s just your average cop. It must be a specific assignment he’s specially trained to handle. He’s heading northwest on official business. Still, the coincidence seemed too impressive to ignore.”

“Does that mean Jack is following us? Have you seen the car? Is he still here in town?” Anxiety threaded through Layla’s string of questions.