Wild Irish (Book 1 of the Weldon Series) (34 page)

“
Well, you know what? I don’t really care. It’s the same old story all over again and I ended up with the blame. But this time, I’m walking away before I pay the price for somebody else’s sin. It’s not worth it.”

She recoiled as if he’d hit her, and he almost called back his words. But he didn’t. Damn it, he’d gone out of his way to be there for her. He’d proved over and over that she could count on him and the first bump in the road she’d painted him black. Just like before.

She straightened her shoulders, as if she’d come to a new resolve. “This isn’t about me. You’re looking for an excuse and you’re bailing out. I think you’ve been looking for a way out ever since I told you I love you.”

Jesse sucked in air and gave her a sarcastic smile. “Some love. It didn’t take you more than two minutes to believe the worst. You either trust and believe in somebody, or you don’t. I know where I stand with you.”

“
No you don’t, because you haven’t stuck around long enough to know that. You’re running.”

“
I’m not running, sunshine. I’m just facing the facts. Something you don’t seem capable of doing. It’s over. Me and you weren’t meant to be.”

“
As you would say, that’s bullshit. I bought that line at seventeen, but now I can see it for what it is--a lousy excuse so you don’t have to face yourself.”

“
Why in the hell do I want to be involved with a woman who doesn’t even believe in me?”

“
My heart is telling me one thing and my head is questioning the facts. I doubt. I’m human, but at least I’m not afraid to admit that. You’re pissed because you do care. Only you won’t let yourself realize it. Love is real, but love isn’t perfect. Someday you’re going to have to accept that, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’ll come collect my things later.

“
Don’t bother. I’ll have your things delivered. You’re going to stay with your father, right? You’ll stay there until we find out who is behind the vandalism?”

“
Don’t concern yourself. I don’t want your duty. I’m not going to let you hide behind your sense of responsibility. You know why you suck at relationships? It’s because you won’t let yourself believe in one.” A cry of pain followed her words and he almost reached for her but he didn’t. He got into his car and left instead.

Only, he didn’t leave. He went around the building and, turning off his lights, he slid into a parking space. Alexi still stood where he’d left her, staring in the direction he left. Jesse fisted his hands as his gut twisted
. Go back inside where you’re safer
, his mind shouted. He saw the hotel door open behind her and a tall, broad-shouldered shadow emerge. Jesse jerked his car door open, cursing himself for leaving her vulnerable. Then the man approaching Alexi walked through a stream of light and he recognized Alexi’s father.

Forcing himself to stay put, Jesse watched Alexi and her father together, thinking that in twelve years all of his successes hadn't changed much of anything when it came to the Jordans. He was still the bad guy and they the injured.

Once he turned her over to Paul and established a safety net for her then he’d walk away and say good riddance. She was messing up his life anyway. He'd supposedly been on vacation these past two weeks, with just a little bit of business he needed to see to on the side. He’d found the property and put in motion the wheels to purchase the property, but he’d neglected everything else. It was time he got his nose back into his own groove and out of Alexi’s.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“From the way you’ve been acting this past week, you’d think everyone around you was a freaking punching bag. Why don’t you just admit you screwed up and ask her to forgive you?”

“
Shut up and play ball,” Jesse sniped at his brother James and snatched the ball from him. Then he shoved roughly passed him, setting up the basketball for a perfect shot. It hit the rim rolled around it then fell to the outside.

“
Shit.”

“
Your bad is our good.” Jared snatched the ball up and looped it though the hoop to score another point. He and James were beating Jesse and Jackson by two points now.

James came up and shoved him from behind, paying him back. “I’m going to make a score with more than the damn basketball you missed on. I’m going over to Southern Lights Art Gallery this afternoon and reintroduce myself to a gorgeous woman. I hear she’s great in bed.”

Blind rage coursed through Jesse and he planted his fist in James’s face. James punched back with a right upper cut and they went at each other like rabid wolves. Jackson and Jared shouted on the sidelines, egging them on. Jesse bounced on his feet wanting like hell to pound James’s grin off his face. The need ran red hot through his blood just as burning and dark and consuming as his need for Alexi. He went at James again.

“
What in God’s heaven are you boys doing out here?” Jesse heard his mother yell, but he kept after James. His little brother wasn’t holding back on his punches and must have been in several brawls over the years because he wasn’t a greenhorn anymore. James was giving him hell.

“
That’s enough, boys.”

Jesse thought about lowering his fist, but then James grinned and said, “I like hot women. Is she as good as you said?”

“
You touch her and I’ll kill you,” Jesse roared, going after James. Suddenly a cold blast of white foam smacked him in the face. He wiped the foam from his eyes to see James yell and get a mouth full of foam. Jesse swung around to see his mother brandishing a fire extinguisher at them. He held up his hand to deflect the spray from his face. “Okay, I’ll stop.”

“
You’re damn right you two are going to stop and unless you tell me what in the hell is going on, neither of you will be allowed back here for a good long time. I won’t put up with this kind of behavior. I raised you boys better.” Emma Weldon’s blue eyes were blazing and it was hard to picture that this outraged, avenging angel ever wrung a dishtowel around her hands praying.

In thirty years, it was the first time Jesse had ever heard his mother curse. He and his brothers had fought as kids, but they’d always--at the advice of their father--kept fighting out by the creek or on the far side of the pasture. She didn’t hold ken to physically hammering out problems.

“
Now you’ve one minute to tell me what’s going on.”

Jesse shuffled his feet, looking at James, and hating like hell that he felt like a naughty two-year old. “I hit James first.”

“
I provoked him,” said James.

“
I don’t want to hear who did what. I want to know what’s turning my sons against each other.”

Nobody said anything.

“
You’ve got thirty seconds left.”

“
James told Jesse that he was going after Jesse’s ex girlfriend. And Jesse went ballistic,” Jared said. Jesse sent Jared a look that told him they were going to go for a round by the creek. Jared had always tattled first.

“
Interesting,” Emma said. She looked at James. “You’re wanting to date Alexi Jordan?”

James shuffled his feet. “If Jesse doesn’t get his ass back on straight, I will. He’s screwing up his life. If he can’t be man enough to admit that he loves her, he’s going to lose her.” James shrugged. “I figured he’d be better off realizing it now and said something about Alexi that I shouldn’t.”

The bottom of Jesse’s stomach fell out and he sat. James had only verbalized Jesse’s own attitude about Alexi back to him. At least what he’d tried to convince himself his attitude was. Shit.

“
James, you go clean up. Jackson and Jared, one of you go get the fried chicken out of the deep fryer and the other take the truck and go fetch your father. He’s up the road at the McCades’ playing checkers.”

Jesse watched his brothers scatter, wishing like hell he’d stayed at home today instead of coming to Sunday dinner. But his memories of Alexi and her damned picture had chased him out of his house. Nothing had been livable since he’d sent Paul to Alexi with her stuff--minus her camera. That he sent to a lab for fingerprints. Come hell or high water he’d find out who’d developed that picture.

He expected to get a big lecture from his mother. Instead she looked at him sadly. “Are you still running from the man inside yourself, son? Either love her or let her go. Don’t make her and everyone else pay the price of your own insecurity.”

His mother went back inside and Jesse slowly got up and left. He wasn’t fit company for anything or anybody.

When he arrived back home he found Paul waiting for him.

“
Hey, boss. I tried to call, but couldn’t get through to you.”

Jesse smacked his own head. “I left my cell at home.” He couldn’t seem to concentrate or remember anything.

Paul looked closer at him. “What happened to you? Get dragged through a pig sty and stomped on?”

Jesse ran his hand over his face, feeling several bruised and swollen places, especially the same eye that Alexi had nailed with a rock. Damn, a tide of emotion rammed at the memory. “I ran into another door.”

“
Looks like multiple doors and something else, too.”

“
I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my face or my clothes. What’s up?”

“
We have an address for Kevin Taylor. He’s still at that homeless mission.”

“
You mean the man has been down and out there for what? Three years?”

Paul cleared his throat. “Not exactly. Kevin Taylor is now on staff at the mission. He doesn’t go by Kevin anymore. He calls himself Jonah now. That’s why we weren’t able to track him down earlier. I’m going to go have a talk with him today.”

“
Jonah? Why--never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Paul grinned. “Maybe he had a whale encounter?”

Jesse groaned at Paul’s poor attempt at humor. “Maybe you do need to do security for the home and garden expo this spring. Anything else on Roger, Benny, or Andy?”

“
No. All three men have been sticking to their normal routines. I’ll tell you what though, Roger sure does spend a lot of time at home having the Sugar Girls clean his house. They even come on the weekends.”

Jesse whipped his mind to alert status. “What did you say?”

“
That the men have—“

“
No. The Sugar Girl bit.”

“
It’s a house cleaning company that Roger uses.”

Jesse shook his head. He’d given Robert Jordan an invoice from the cleaning company, last week. It’d been the paper he’d found on the mirrored elevator at Alexi’s father’s office. “If you’re here, where’s Alexi?”

“
At the hospital with Nan. She’s planning on being there all day and maybe most of the night. A little girl she knows has taken a turn for the worse. Alexi’s going to call me when she’s ready to come home.”

“
Lucy?” Jesse could barely get the name out. He grabbed Paul’s shoulders. “Is it Lucy who’s worse?”

“
Yes, I believe that’s the name Alexi mentioned this morning.”

“
This morning!” Jesse glanced at his watch. It was already two o’clock. He cussed a blue streak. “Hold off on going to see Jonah Taylor. I may be going after the man myself in less than an hour. I have a few things I want to say to him. Do me a favor and dig up everything you can about the Sugar Girls.” Jesse headed to his car. First he’d go to the hospital and see how worse Lucy was before he went after her father.

* * *

“
I can’t seem to stop my tears,” Alexi swiped at her eyes with a balled up tissue. Lucy’s situation had nose-dived in just a matter of days. This had happened before and Lucy had pulled out of it. It wasn’t like Lucy was in immediate danger of dying, but Alexi couldn’t seem to reign her emotions back in. Her heart kept wringing around in knots and at every moment throughout the day and night, she’d see Jesse and feel Jesse in the minutest detail of her life. Even here at the hospital, she couldn’t escape her memories of him. Even here, she saw images of him giving Lucy balloons.

Nan sighed with concern. “You’re crying more now, because you didn’t cry at all since you fought with Jesse. You’ve been suppressing hurt by throwing yourself into work, and now that you’ve another excuse to cry your body’s making use of it. One of these days you’ll have to admit that you’re being stupid by not going to him and trying to work out your problems.”