Broken Justice (Justice Brothers) (37 page)

Cam’s chest heaved as he answered, “She means everything to me, Drae. I don’t even know how or when that happened, but it’s the truth. Believe me. I know she deserves better than someone who’s irretrievably broken, but that’s the way it is.”

Draegyn nodded at his assessment but added, “You might be a little banged up but you’re not any more broken than I am. Or Alex for that matter. We’re survivors Cameron. That’s what counts, not how we got to this point. And the hard truth of the matter is that the lady in question doesn’t think you’re a lost cause. How often in life do you think something like that’s gonna happen? You’d be a fool to let her go without a fight. It’s something that would haunt you forever and then you really would be a broken man.”

He flipped his sunglasses on and turned to walk away. “To answer your question,” he said while striding to his truck, “she’s confused. Mad as hell, yeah, but she really got hurt by what she walked in on. To be honest, I think she’ll probably bolt. If that’s what you want, then by all means stay here. If it’s not, I suggest you get your shit together and go try a bit of groveling.” With that Drae climbed in the truck, started it up, and drove away with a cloud of desert dust coming from under his wheels.

It was awhile before Cam finally made ready to leave the secluded cabin for the ride home. He’d had a lot to think about and he needed time to let some of the whiskey-haze fade away. He wasn’t surprised by what she’d said about the past being the past. She was proving the truth of that statement by just being who she was.
Why did he presume that his painful childhood had more importance than the years of neglect and abuse she’d suffered?
Lacey had survived a mountain of challenges and managed to stand tall. He, on the other hand, wore his challenges like a hair shirt. Never letting any of it go, living his life as though a difficult beginning was the only thing that defined him.
God dammit.
He’d been such a complete ass.

Lacey hadn’t felt much like having dinner, so she settled on her back patio with a cup of yogurt and a spoon. Anything more substantial would probably make her gag anyway. How she’d held herself together and stayed busy in the office all afternoon was a mystery and a miracle. After the dreadful scene earlier with Cameron speaking about her in such a degrading way, she’d been numb with shock and heartbreak.

Right before she closed down the office for the day, she’d spied Draegyn slipping into Alex’s bat cave, but no sign of the man he’d been sent to bring back. Just as well, she figured.
What was the use in trying to fix this mess?
Even though Alex had asked her to trust him, she’d spent a good portion of the afternoon contemplating what she should do now. She certainly couldn’t stay here, no matter how much she wanted to.

By the end of the workday she’d decided to finish up whatever loose ends she could and then clear out over the weekend. She still had most of her nest egg plus the generous salary the agency had provided for the work she’d done so finding other accommodations wasn’t going to be a problem. Registering with a temp service seemed like her best bet for employment so she’d researched a couple of local agencies on the Internet.

It all sounded so simple and easy compared to the heavy, crippling, Humpty Dumpty feeling around her heart. She didn’t think anything could make her feel whole ever again. Losing Cameron felt like a piece of her soul had been ripped, painfully so, from her body. The emotional lump in her throat erased any hope of choking down the rest of the yogurt.

When two fat tears welled in her eyes and ran down her cheeks, Lacey was taken by surprise. She didn’t cry anymore. Life had been too serious to be distracted by boo-hoo thoughts. Feeling the hot tears streak across her face shook her up.
Was she feeling sorry for herself or was she weeping for the man who, by giving up on himself, had broken her heart?

Drawing her knees up to her chest in a protective posture, she huddled in the big wood patio chair and tried not to fall apart. Staring blindly at the stone patio under her feet, she hadn’t noticed another set of boots making their way across the terrace to where she sat.

“Hi.”

Good Lord!
He startled the crap out of her with his silent approach, making her jolt with surprise and almost causing her to tumble from her seat. He looked like she felt. Reflex had her wanting to make room for him next to her and reach out to comfort him as best she could.
Screw that
, she thought. He could stand there until hell froze over.

“Go away,” she hissed. There was no way she could take anymore. Just being around him was smashing even more of her heart to pieces.

“No. I’m not going anywhere, Ponytail. We need to talk,” he said while jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

When she didn’t make any room for him to sit, he sighed heavily and then scooped her up in his arms, striding quickly inside the casita where he dropped her gently onto the sofa.

“We don’t have anything to say,” she snapped at him while arranging her body in a posture that said,
Stay away
!

Letting her have the space she needed, he pulled a side chair close to where she sat and lowered himself into it. “Okay, fair enough. Maybe you don’t have anything to say right now, but I hope you’ll listen to what I need to tell you. Maybe after that you’ll change your mind.”

Lacey tried her hardest not to look at him but his quiet, earnest tone intrigued her until at last she lifted her shrouded eyes to his.

“I am more sorry than you can imagine for what I said earlier. It’s not an excuse but Alex and Drae were yanking my chain and I over-reacted.”

She blinked at him a few times as her belligerent frown turned to confusion.
What did that mean, he overreacted?
Calling her easy was a bit more than an overreaction.

“It seems I have an insane case of jealousy where you’re concerned.”

She punctuated her look of disbelief with a half-sneer. A jealous, possessive guy wouldn’t keep walking away, as he had, over and over.

“Last night…well, last night was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. When I woke up this morning, I hoped we could, maybe, talk. But finding you gone meant I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Well, now you know how it feels!” she bit out. “How many times have I awoke to find you vanished into thin air?” That shut him up.

“Again, fair enough.”

“For the record, I have a job here and a clock to punch. You were sleeping soundly and I didn’t want to disturb you. That’s why I wasn’t there, Cameron. I’m not your beck and call girl and I didn’t need your permission to get up and head off to work!”

So far his so-called explanation was an epic fail.

“You know what? I just can’t take any more of this. You’ve made your feelings known. Can’t you allow me the dignity of walking away without a post-mortem? It’s the least you could do.”

He reached out and snagged one of her hands in his. “This will be easier if you shut that pretty mouth of yours and let me finish.”

When she started to answer he put two fingers against her lips to silence her. “Shhhh, Ponytail. Let’s do this my way for now.”

She almost bit him when he silenced her with his hand. It would serve him right if she drew first blood. Still - he was being awfully solemn as he tried to explain himself. That in and of itself couldn’t have been easy for a man like Cameron. She doubted if he’d ever had to defend anything he’d ever done. The arrogant prick. She amended that thought pretty quickly to hot and sexy arrogant prick.

He hadn’t let go of her hand and instead turned it over, palm facing up on his thigh, while his thumb drew lazy circles on her sensitive skin.
Ooooh
, damn but he was good.

“As I was saying….. I wasn’t in my right mind when I ran into Drae and Alex. All I could think of was finding you. Hell Lacey, I’m not sure now what I would have said when I did. Something was driving me. It was - well, it was need. I needed you.”

His admission froze her to the spot. He’d told her he needed her last night too.
Damn
, she thought.
Double damn! How could she have been so stupid?
Those words meant a lot and him saying them to her, even in the aftermath of a blinding climax, had been important. Wait, no - not important. They were life-changing words. She hadn’t considered how he would react after revealing his emotions to her, when she crept quietly from his bed and toddled off to work. She hadn’t even left a note.

“They started giving me shit right away. About you. I know now that they were just trying to get me to be honest about what was going on, but in the moment, all I heard was every other word and the next thing I knew Drae was pointing out that you were out of my league and would be better off with anyone else. He may as well have dropped a grenade in my lap. The idea of you with another man pushed me over the edge with jealousy and rage. What you walked in on was me being a king-size dick because I couldn’t deal with the feelings running around inside my head.”

“I’ve never understood why you think that. This opinion you have of yourself as some evil, damaged monster just doesn’t fit with the man I know you to be. Do you really think I would be with someone I didn’t respect or think was an honorable person? There were two of us in that bed last night. It wasn’t just you.”

“I hear what you’re saying honey but there are things in my past, things I’ve done, that weigh heavily on me. The kind of stuff that makes you feel unworthy and spoiled. Like second-hand goods held together with duct tape. Forget the drug addicted mother and the endless group care homes in my childhood. There’s something about a warzone that doesn’t play by conventional rules that can fuck up a guy’s head. Every day I live with regret and nightmares that never let up. You’re so young and beautiful. It felt wrong to drag you into my personal hell.”

“I won’t try for even half a second to imagine that I understand what you experienced,” she whispered. His demons were parading in his head, evidenced by his tensely clenched jaw.
What could she do to ensure he was concentrating on their conversation – important as it was – and not his inner turmoil?
Levering up from her spot on the sofa, she sat on his lap and
BOOM
she got his attention.

Shocked into silence at her unexpected action, he found her bottom sitting on his groin to be totally distracting. He knew what she was doing and for some odd reason, as she was talking, he suddenly laughed. “You’re talking with your butt.”

“What?”

“I know what you’re doing. Plopping down on my lap was meant to keep me focused on what you are trying to say. Planting your sweet little derrière on my, uh … zipper, well, of course that’s going to get my attention. Therefore, you are communicating with your butt. Period.” He paused as his words sank in and grinned at her stupefied expression.

She wanted to strangle him. Here she thought they were having a moment only to learn that his thoughts were entirely on her ass. The man was exasperation in dark jeans.
Well,
she figured,
two could play at that
.

Tossing a bit of faux righteous indignation at him along with a randy squirm of her bottom, she deliberately and provocatively shifted to look directly at him, and paused.
Bingo!
The tense line his mouth adopted when her hip brushed against the hardness she detected let her know how effective her aim had been.

Now
she had his attention. “Cameron. Whatever dark impressions you brought back from the battlefield are things from the past, yes?” At his slight nod and near grimace she knew he understood what was coming next. “Wasn’t it you who has been telling me that the past shapes who we are today and that it doesn’t have to bring us down or define who we are in the present?” This time it was he who squirmed as her words found a way past the barriers he’d erected in his mind. The ‘
yes
’ he mumbled in reply to her question came out in a half-hiss as his movement, slight as it was, brought her rounded bottom into direct contact with his groin.

“So…the man you are today, is he for real? I mean, is he a real person? When you do things like rescue a person in distress or when you bend over backwards for your friends, does all that come from inside you? Or are you just playing a game with everyone? Which is it Cameron? Are you caring and concerned about the people you’ve let into your life or not? You don’t get to have it both ways.” She hadn’t raised her voice a notch even though the passion in her words came through with damning precision as she hit her mark over and over.

Going for broke, she moved her hands to frame his face and looked deeply into his eyes so he could see not just her feelings but also her determination. She wasn’t going to let this go. “You’re not a bad person. You’re a man who has faced extraordinary challenges and somehow managed to survive. It’s the
somehow
that bothers you, and I totally get that. For your friends though, the people who care about you, they’re only mindful of the survival part, not the somehow part.”

“Are you one of those people, Lacey?” he asked quietly as he sat perfectly still. “Even after everything you’ve been through and the way I’ve treated you, is it possible that you
care
?”