Made in Nashville: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance (22 page)

The flashes hit her the second she burst from the doors but she didn’t see anything, she just kept walking.

‘Miss Blackwood, any comment to make?’

‘Honor, would you like to tell us how you found out about this revelation?’

‘ … incarcerated for two years … like a wild animal … ’

‘ … killed in cold blood … didn’t call 911.’

She pulled up her dress and started to run.

She sat on the ground, propped up against the front window, the metal shutters harsh against her skin. She’d known it wouldn’t be open but she couldn’t go home. Target, open or closed, was where she felt safe.

She’d run two blocks before she’d hailed a cab, stopping only at a liquor store for a bottle before coming here. She’d drunk half the wine already and it wasn’t making her feel any better. The tears just wouldn’t stop. Still silent tears, still quiet tearing of her insides as the news swirled around, slowly taking hold, fermenting, building up, reaching every part of her.

For a few short weeks she’d had everything again. More than everything. She’d had her career back, her love of music, a joy in her heart, a desperate will to live life again, not hide behind her past. And a man she’d adored. A person she’d instantly felt connected to but had grown to love more deeply than she’d ever loved before. Now she felt hollow, disconnected, angry and sad all at the same time.

She put the bottle of wine to her mouth and took another swig. Drinking to numb the pain. That’s what she’s done after her attack. This time she might not be physically injured but she felt it just as much. He’d lied to her. He knew how much she’d trusted him, believed in him and he’d taken that trust and abused it. How could he have done that to her?

She heard the truck and closed her eyes as its headlights swung across her line of sight. She didn’t care who it was. She’d been half expecting the cops anyway.

‘Byron, get a blanket or something.’

Mia’s voice. Her friend Mia had come to rescue her. She would tell her everything was OK and stroke her hair. She would take away the wine and fill her up with coffee. But it wouldn’t change anything. She would still be the idiot who had fallen for a murderer.

‘Honor, come on, doll, let’s get you up. Byron, have you got something? She’s cold and the ground’s wet!’

She couldn’t speak. She didn’t have the energy and, after all, what was the point? What could you say? What did she really want to say? It was best to just give in.

She let Mia help her up and she swayed, banging an elbow against the shutters, the wine consumption affecting her movement. Mia wrenched the bottle from her grip and held it out to Byron who was offering a plaid rug.

‘Listen, we’re gonna take you home and we’re gonna ply you with coffee until it hurts and then in the morning we’re gonna get to the bottom of all this,’ Mia told her, beginning to pull out the pins in her hair and stroking it out with her fingers.

She looked up at her friend, suddenly reconnecting with the occasion. She swallowed, trying to push the taste of wine to the back of her mouth.

‘But …  you have a room at the Vanderbilt.’

She watched a lone tear fall from Mia’s eye as she smiled and shook her head at her. ‘It’s cancelled. But, hey, I heard they didn’t even have guavas in the fruit basket.’

Byron opened the back door of his truck and Mia shepherded Honor towards the vehicle.

Warmth, leather seats and the blanket around her shoulders. With her head spinning, she climbed up into the truck and shuffled over to the far seat. She pulled the blanket tighter and rested her head against the window.

His knuckles were bleeding and there were five empty beer bottles on the floor next to him. Right now, he’d never hated himself more. He kicked out at the coffee table, upturned and broken and it fell to the left, scattering CDs, music magazines and a coffee mug into the debris around it.

The living room resembled the aftermath of a tornado but it was all him. He was the hurricane, the hazardous material, the person who destroyed everything. He’d broken his family back then and now he’d torn Honor apart just like he knew he would. That was why he never got involved. That was why he never let anyone get close. He hurt everyone in his life. He was bad karma personified.

‘Jed! Open up!’

He ignored Byron’s voice and put another bottle of beer to his mouth, only to find it empty. He threw it to the wall and watched it smash to pieces.

‘Jed! C’mon! Open the damn door!’

He didn’t want do-gooders trying to talk things better. That was never going to happen. Not now, not even in this lifetime. He’d fucked up. His past had come out and he’d messed up by holding things back from Honor. He put his hands to his head and brought it down to his knees, curling, hiding, wanting to feel as small as he knew he was.

‘Jed, you either let me in or I’m gonna bust the door down and give unrestricted access to the entire press pack sat on your front lawn right now!’

He shook his head. Right now he didn’t care what happened. They could ask him every question they could come up with. He wasn’t answering. What was the point?

‘Jed …  I’ve seen Honor.’

His stomach contracted at the mere mention of her, forcing another shot of pain up to his heart. He lifted his head and took a breath. He wasn’t stupid enough to think there would be a second chance. Truth was, he didn’t deserve one. His lies were enough to condemn him in anyone’s eyes.

‘She’s not in great shape, man.’

He wiped at his eyes with his fingers and noticed the space where his daddy’s ring had been. So much hope for the future,
their
future, so many promises he’d made her and he’d let her down. He stood up, kicking his possessions out the way to get to the front door.

Opening it just an inch triggered a thousand flashes from a few yards away. Byron took control of the door and strode quickly inside, closing it behind him. His first step into the den crushed a couple of CDs.

‘Jeez, Jed, what happened here?’ Byron surveyed the wrecked room.

‘I’d offer you a beer but …  I’m all out.’ He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked to the floor.

Byron indicated the sofa. ‘Can I sit?’

Jared shrugged. Byron sat down on the sofa. He watched him put his hands together and look over at him.

‘So what’s going on?’

Jared shrugged again.

‘Come on, Jed. This story is everywhere and your girlfriend is sitting in her kitchen like some sort of zombie. She won’t drink coffee, she won’t talk …  it’s like the life’s been taken out of her.’

He knew that feeling. He was living it. And he had caused it. She was hurt and he was responsible. It was all his fault, not just because of his actions years ago but because of tonight. Giving her the ring, telling her he meant forever, building their relationship then ripping it away.

‘Look, if you won’t tell me about it at least talk to Honor, explain it to her,’ Byron suggested.

Jared shook his head. ‘I asked her to hear me out. I begged her to let me explain.’

‘So? She was shocked, like we all are. But if there’s a reason - if this is all bullshit – then you need to tell her.’

Jared shook his head again and put his hands behind the back of his head. He couldn’t think. He could barely breathe. He didn’t know what to do. What was the right thing? Try and explain it away? Could he even tell her the truth now? That was the only way if he was going to talk at all. But perhaps it was better to just not say anything, keep his distance, forget her, move on.

‘Look, I’m not going to waste my time telling you what to do when I know you won’t listen anyhow.’ Byron got to his feet. ‘But Honor’s a mess, Jed and whether she hears you or not, you owe her something.’

Jared looked at his friend. Seeing the seriousness in his expression, he nodded his head.

‘Think there’s a storm brewing. All those photographers out there are gonna get soaked when the rain comes.’ Mia closed up the blinds and moved back over to the central island. She slipped back onto the stool and pushed Honor’s coffee cup nearer to her.

‘Please, doll, please drink some.’

Honor shook her head. Her hand was at the ring on the end of the chain around her neck, toying with it, rubbing her thumb over the crest, a thousand thoughts speeding through her mind. What had happened to make Jared kill his father? He loved his father, he looked up to him when he was alive and he hero-worshipped him in death. The photo on the mantle, the stories he’d told her about his childhood. He’d painted a picture of family harmony, rodeos and county fairs. Like some sort of mash-up of
Dallas
and
Little House on the
Prairie
. What had changed to cause such animosity? Had there been animosity or had it been some sort of accident? She didn’t know. Should she? Surely the basic facts were enough. He had killed his father. What else was there?

Mia’s phone made a noise like a cow mooing and she snatched it up to read the text. Honor watched her tap out a reply then replace it on the counter.

‘Byron’s in the studio tomorrow. He’s gone to get some sleep.’

Their romantic night at the Vanderbilt, ruined because of her. No, not because of her, because of Jared. This wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault she’d fallen in love with another ass who lied to her. It was just how things were. Ever since she was a few days old there’d been someone pushing her away, hurting her, making her feel as though she’s not good enough.

‘I’ve heard what they’re saying and all, and the stories on the net look damning but …  don’tcha think you ought to hear him out?’ Mia asked.

She widened her eyes at her friend. Could she hear what she was thinking? It was enough that the thoughts were there without Mia adding to it. She didn’t need to hear what he had to say. He hadn’t denied it and so many news stories only meant truth, else it would be Law Suit Central for most of Nashville’s journalists.

‘Doll, I just know, if this were Byron I’d need to hear his side of things. Even if the end result is the same, what have you got to lose by giving him a minute?’

Mia was being the voice of reason. This was something she’d never been before. Usually she was the voice of going out and having a good time and not minding the consequences. Reason, never.

‘He had a chance. He didn’t say he didn’t do it. He answered my questions like a career criminal on the stand.’ Her voice was angry and bitter. The hurt lodged inside was making her chest swell.

‘Come on, doll, you barely gave him a chance.’ Mia picked up the coffee pot and poured herself another cup.

‘What?’ She was shocked.

‘Look, I’m not defending him, of course I’m not and if he did what he did without due cause … ’

‘Without due cause? What due cause is there for murdering your father?’

‘OK, wrong, bad choice of words. All I’m saying is, you know him. You’ve spent these past weeks getting closer than anyone’s ever been to him. Before this story broke you were planning a future together. Unless he’s the world’s best bullshitter with a diploma in dramatic performance, he’s still the guy you fell in love with …  whatever he’s done.’

Her anger deflated and the sorrow stepped up a gear as Mia’s words made a direct attack on her heart. That was sense talking, reality, not the gut reaction or fury she’d hit him with back at the hotel.

She put her head in her hands and let the tears seep out of her eyes. She felt Mia’s hand in her hair, stroking it consolingly as if she were an injured animal. She had no idea what she was going to do.

He’d parked down the street and could see the press vans, the reporters on the sidewalk, chatting, waiting, drinking take-out coffee they’d got from God knows where. None of them cared what this story was doing to the people involved with it. To them it was just another day of news, just one more scandal to spread to the world. He rubbed his face with his hands. He shouldn’t be driving, he knew, but what did it matter now? He may as well add a DUI conviction to everything else and just top it off.

It was all one big fucking mess. If he braved the press gang and went to see Honor what good would it do? He couldn’t give her any of the answers she was looking for without taking a huge risk.

There was a light on in one of the rooms at the top of her house. Was she still awake? Should he try, like Byron had said? If she knew the background perhaps she’d be able to see the position he’d been in. He shook his head. But he still couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear without breaking the pact.

The light went out and his stomach dropped. Decision made. He started up the truck, turned it around in the road and drove away.

‘I know you have a dentist appointment. Why don’t you believe that I remembered? Because I don’t have it tattooed on my arm? Jeez! I’ll be there, OK?’ Mia ended the call and dropped her cell phone back on the counter.

Honor carried on buttering a slice of toast she knew she wasn’t going to eat. She hadn’t slept. Every time she’d closed her eyes she’d seen Jared. The sad, scared face he’d worn last night when she couldn’t bear for him to be near her. At four a.m. she’d got out of bed and unpacked the bag she’d had ready for her visit to Alabama.

‘I’m gonna have to go into the store later,’ Mia remarked.

Honor nodded, cutting the toast in half and resting the knife on the worktop.

‘Why don’t you come with me?’ Mia suggested.

‘I don’t think … ’

‘Look, I know if you stay here on your own you’re gonna watch all the news reels and cry and listen to Vince Gill’s greatest hits and I can’t let that happen.’

‘I’m not thirteen.’ She wasn’t sure why she’d said that.

‘No, but it’s what I would do if I was you.’

‘Toast?’ Honor picked up the plate and offered it to Mia. Mia shook her head. Honor put the plate down on the central island and leant back against the worktop, folding her arms across her chest.

‘So, are you going to call him?’ Mia asked. She could feel her friend’s gaze on her, penetrating and waiting for a response.

‘He hasn’t called me.’

‘And you’re not thirteen? This is crazy! You loved the guy! He gave you that horrible ring like it was some sort of marriage proposal and now you can’t even speak to him!’

‘He killed his father!’ She’d yelled the words like an unhinged person.

‘So they say.’

‘CNN are broadcasting the photo with his prison number and talking about a gunshot wound to the chest.’

‘CNN weren’t there when it happened. Jed was.’

‘This isn’t your call, Mia, it’s mine.’

‘I know that.’ She sighed, her hands on her hips. ‘But just hear him out. Just once. Just ten minutes.’

She was shaking her head again. At the moment she was doing that constantly, almost like a reflex action. It was a defense mechanism that was stopping her from thinking rationally. If she didn’t engage with the situation it couldn’t hurt her anymore. Was that what she was doing? Closing her emotions off? Melding the cracks in her armor for the sake of self-preservation?

The doorbell rang and neither of them moved for a second.

‘The security were supposed to stop anyone stepping on your property,’ Mia remarked.

She didn’t care who it was. She didn’t want to see anyone.

‘It might be Jed,’ Mia suggested. ‘Although, realistically, I would have expected him to have been swallowed whole by that bitch from Nashville Newswire last night.’

The humor was lost on her. Nothing was remotely funny when you felt as though the past few weeks had been nothing but a fairytale.

‘I’ll go see who it is then,’ Mia said.

‘Should we go up?’

Jared heard the concern in his little brother Jacob’s voice.

‘He’s tired, baby. We’ll let him rest and we’ll make him somethin’ nice for lunch,’ his mother, Carol-Ann responded.

He put his hand on the door that led to the kitchen, behind which they all sounded so worried about him. He didn’t deserve their pity. He’d turned up just before dawn, scared them half to death ranting and raving and pouring out the whole story. His sister Anna had come downstairs with a sobbing Jacob and he’d had to leave, venting his frustrations on the barn door.

Being back here didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like coming home. He should have been with Honor,
here
with Honor like they’d planned. His heart sped up, still motoring on alcohol and desperation. He took a breath and opened the door.

Jacob grinned at once, jumping down from the table to greet him.

‘Hey, Jared, I’ve got a soccer game tonight. Can you come watch?’ Jacob took hold of his arm and practically marched him to the long wooden table.

‘Jacob, what did I tell ya about givin’ your brother some space?’ Carol-Ann interrupted.

‘It’s OK, Mom. Sure I’ll come,’ Jared said, ruffling his brother’s tawny hair with his hand.

‘Awesome!’

Jared sat down at the table and looked across at Anna. ‘How’s Megan?’

‘We call her Meg now,’ Anna responded, not raising her head from her cereal bowl.

‘I apologize. I’d forgotten how awful grown up that pony must be now,’ Jared replied. ‘Tell me, is she too old for sugar cubes? Do you have to monitor her sugar intake?’

Anna let out a laugh. ‘No!’

‘Praise the Lord because I was plannin’ on headin’ on out for a ride on Skipper and I thought you and Megan …  sorry, Meg, could come.’

‘Yeah! Can I go, Mom?’ Anna’s face lit up.

‘They’ve got school, Jared,’ Carol-Ann reminded.

‘Shoot! Of course you have school.’

Anna let out a groan of annoyance and rolled her eyes. ‘School sucks!’

‘Hey, listen up, school’s important. How are you gonna get a job rulin’ the world if you don’t know how to do math?’ Jared asked them both.

‘
You
didn’t finish school,’ Jacob quipped.

Straightaway he was back there, his last year, the trouble at the farm, what had happened to his father, what had happened last night. Honor.

‘Jacob, that’s enough. Go clean your teeth,’ Carol-Ann ordered her younger son.

Jared cleared his throat. ‘It’s OK, Mom.’

‘Jacob, Anna, both of you, time to get ready for school,’ Carol-Ann repeated.

Jared caught Anna’s gaze. ‘We’ll go out on the horses after school.’

‘But you said you’d come to my soccer game!’ Jacob cried.

‘I can do both, can’t I?’

Anna smiled and she and Jacob left the kitchen to thunder back upstairs to the bathroom.

He put his elbows on the table and his hands behind the back of his head, linking his knuckles and inching down his cap. Eyes down, he realized the table was covered by the same familiar gingham tablecloth from his childhood. He felt his mom come and sit down next to him and he straightened up, tried to act like the grown up he should be not the shell of a man he felt.

‘The newspapers have been callin’,’ she stated, pouring coffee into a mug.

‘I’m sorry, Mom. You shouldn’t have to put up with that.’

‘Shouldn’t I? It’s the very least I should have to put up with in my opinion.’

‘Don’t.’

Carol-Ann pushed the coffee cup towards him and put a hand over his. ‘I don’t want you to go through this again, Jared.’

‘It’s too late.’

‘It’s never too late.’

‘It is, Mom, ‘cause I lost Honor.’

With those words, the enormity of the loss hit him full force and he became a shaking mass in his mother’s arms.

‘Corbin’s here to see you,’ Mia stated.

Honor looked up from toying with her fingers to see her friend and the dark-haired roadie entering the kitchen. Self-conscious, she pulled her robe tighter around her and got down from the stool. What was Mia thinking? She was letting a virtual stranger into her house when she was vulnerable and depressed. Apart from Jenna Curran from Nashville Newswire, or Dan Steele, a random roadie was probably next on the list of people she really didn’t want to see.

‘I don’t want to see anyone, Mia. We discussed this.’

‘He’s bought you some flowers. Look, aren’t they lovely?’ Mia took the bouquet from Corbin’s hands and marched them over to Honor.

‘I …  look, this isn’t really appropriate …  to come to my house and … ’ She was actually worried. Here was this guy she’d met a couple of times at the festival, turning up at her house with flowers.
Her stalker
. This roadie could be the person who’d been sending her gifts. She dropped the bluebonnets to the central island.

‘I’d like you to leave,’ she stated firmly.

‘I’m sorry for barging in on you and everything but when I heard the news about Jed Marshall I just …  I had to come …  to make sure you were OK,’ Corbin told her.

‘OK, now this is getting a little creepy. Mia, I don’t know what you were thinking letting this guy in but I want you to take him right back out again!’

‘I’m just gonna be in the lounge if you need anything,’ Mia said, backing to the door.

‘What the hell? Mia, no. What are you doing?’ Honor hurried towards her departing friend, scared.

Before she could reach the door Corbin took hold of her arm and turned her gently towards him. ‘Honor.’

He took a breath and she could do nothing but look back at him, waiting for whatever was coming next.

‘You have your mother’s eyes. I’ve never forgotten those beautiful eyes.’ He smiled. ‘But your hair color …  you get that from me.’