Wrecked (3 page)

The van for the catering business was in the drive as well. As he jogged up the steps, he debated about letting himself in. He’d had a key pretty much since the day he’d arrived in town, but that didn’t mean he went walking in whenever. Was now a good time to use it?

Muttering under his breath, he rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the door. “Okay. Knock first,” he told himself. That was what he’d do. If he knocked first, and she didn’t open, he’d let himself in.

* * *

As the third knock echoed through her empty house,
Abigale pressed her face into the pillow. She didn’t need to look to know who it was, and she didn’t need to ask.

There was only one person who’d be there just then.

Zach.

She loved Zach dearly but she just couldn’t handle him right now. She couldn’t handle
anything
right now. She could barely handle the silence of the house. Thinking. Breathing.

Just
existing
hurt right now.

“Damn it, Abs, if you don’t open the fucking door, I’m going to let myself in,” he shouted. If she hadn’t left her window open a little, she never would have heard him.

She closed her eyes. “Just go away, Zach.”

“You’ve got thirty seconds, sugar!”

Groaning, she hugged the pillow tight and she huddled in on herself. He wasn’t going to go away, she knew that. But if she got up and tried to go down there to let him in, she’d just shatter. Or explode. She was barely staying in one piece as it was.

He had a damn key. He could use it. Assuming he remembered it. The bum barely even remembered to keep his phone charged. He didn’t like to check his e-mail. The ache in her chest spread and the sobs she’d been fighting crept further up her throat as she heard the beep from her alarm.

“Time’s up, Abs,” Zach called from downstairs.

* * *

He reset the alarm and locked the door. The quiet of
the house gutted him. Abby didn’t do quiet. She loved music . . . it didn’t have to be loud or anything, but she loved music and if she was home, it was almost always playing.

Silence greeted him. Cold, brittle silence.

His first stop was the kitchen. When she was sad, happy, pissed, whatever, Abby cooked. That was just her thing. Like he went to his sketchbook and worked on new designs. But the kitchen was empty, silent.

The ache inside him spread just a little more. He paused by the hook just inside the door and touched the apron hanging there. Simple and efficient. Just like her. Sexy as hell. He had it bad. Groaning, he curled his hand into a fist and left the kitchen before she found him pawing the damned apron.

He’d managed to hide how he felt for more than seventeen years. Granted, it had started out as a bad crush that he’d kept hidden and it had just grown and grown. Still, it was what it was and he wasn’t going to let any clues slip now, of all days. Maybe later—

Stop, Barnes. Find her. Help fix it. Then worry about your own shit.

Being there for Abby had been all he’d ever wanted to do with his life. It wasn’t going to change now.

Since he was there, he checked out back, but the pretty little space she’d designed for herself was empty as well. She wasn’t in the library and as he moved through the painfully quiet house, dread curled through him, tightening his gut and sending goose bumps crawling across his skin.

That feeling increased as he mounted the stairs and then he looked inside her room.

For a hard, awful second, everything in the world stopped. Color drained, his heart ceased to beat, and everything just ended.

She lay on the bed, the bright banner of her hair spread around her like a cape. Her eyes were closed and her skin was unbelievably pale.

“Abby?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. The soft, dark brown eyes were dull. Lost.

Broken
 . . .

Then she closed her eyes. Not a single word was said.

Crossing the floor, he kicked off his boots and then settled on the bed behind her. He didn’t touch her, although everything inside him screamed for it. He wanted to wrap himself around her and rock her, hold her, stroke away the misery he knew was inside her. The raging beast of want that lived inside him wanted to strip her naked and fuck her, but that was something he’d lived with for a long while and he could deal with it.

Her pain was harder to handle and he didn’t know how to fix it and make it go away.

The misery he sensed inside her made him want to howl and break things but at the same time, he needed to comfort her and just find a way to make it all better.

But he didn’t touch her.

He could wait until she was ready.

* * *

The soft, sad little sniffles started about a minute
after he lay down. Two minutes after that, she rolled toward him and squirmed closer until she could settle her head on his chest. Once she’d done that, he let himself wrap his arm around her and the soft, sweet warmth of her body against his was both agony and ecstasy, the best kind of pleasure and pain known to man.

He kept his other hand on his belly and a minute later, Abby reached out and started to trace the tip of one shell pink nail over the barbed wire design he had entwining his wrist. Now, if she’d just keep that up . . . he had tats going up his entire arm and she could stroke him all damn day—

“Roger left me,” she whispered.

Don’t say anything
, he told himself.

Abby sniffled again and shifted her finger to the next tattoo, an eastern dragon that wrapped around most of his forearm. “He says he can’t marry me because I’m not being true to myself,” she said.

Zach closed his eyes. He never thought there would be a day when he actually agreed with that tightwad. Why in the hell did they have to agree on the one thing that would cause Abby pain? Turning his head, he rubbed his cheek against her soft, crazy curls. “Roger is an asshole,” he said.

“Yes. And he’s fucking
wrong
,” she said, heated fury slipping into her voice.

He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point. It wasn’t up to him to tell Abby how to live her life. Even if she was stifling herself. Even if she was miserable half the time. Even if—

“He started rambling on about how I’m
supposed
to be an actress. I belong in that world and I’m denying myself and if I can’t be true to who I am, then he can’t expect me to be true to him,” she said.

Zach opened his eyes. “He what?”

She sat up and shoved her hair back from her face. The red curls tumbled right back into place and her dark brown eyes sparked with fury. “You heard me.” She pulled away from him and slipped off the bed. “That dipshit honestly thinks I
miss
that life.”

She started to pace, the slim-fitting skirt she wore clinging to a world-class ass. Mentally slapping himself, he drew one knee up to hide his hard-on. “Lots of idiots in this world can’t get the idea that we don’t miss that life.” He shrugged, not too worked up about the
idea
of that. What pissed him off was that Roger had hurt her. “That’s their problem. He actually called the wedding off over this?”

“
Yes!”
she wailed. Then she started to cry.

It was another punch to the heart. He went to her and she tried to push him away. “Damn it, I’m fine,” she said even as she tried to catch a breath. “I just . . . just need to . . .”

“You just need to get this out,” he said, swinging her up into his arms.

“Zach! Put me down. I’m too heavy . . .”

“No, you’re not. And hey, I’ve always had this fantasy . . . sweeping a damsel into my arms and all that shit,” he teased, trying to make her smile. And he wasn’t even lying, really. He did dream of doing things like this . . . with her. Only her. Always her. As he settled on her bed, his back against the painted doors she’d used as her headboard, he stroked a hand down her curls. “You go on and cry, sugar. You need to do it.”

“Crying doesn’t solve anything,” she whispered. And tears continued to run down her cheeks.

She wasn’t a pretty crier. Her nose was red, her eyes were puffy. And all he wanted to do was wipe away every damn tear. Kiss her. Then go strangle Roger, beat some sense into him, whatever it took to make her happy. Hell, if he had to, he’d drag the fucker to the church for the damned wedding. Except Roger couldn’t make Abby happy. Not the way she deserved. That was the real bitch of it all.

“Not everything has to be solved. Not everything needs to be a solution or an answer.” Guiding her head to his chest, he hugged her. “Cry. Scream. Talk to me. Whatever you need to do, sugar.”

Chapter Two

The woman who shall not be named was calling
again.

Abigale eyed the phone with acute dislike as she finished working on her list. She’d already contacted just about everybody regarding the now-cancelled wedding. The only thing she hadn’t done was cancel the honeymoon.

A trip to Alaska.

Roger had balked. He’d wanted to go on some world tour, but she’d wanted to go to Alaska. It had been a dream she’d had for several years, but the timing hadn’t ever been right. Until now. Why not for a honeymoon?

In the end, they’d compromised. She’d promised him a longer trip for their one-year anniversary if he’d do an Alaskan trip for their honeymoon. Now she wondered why he’d even bothered.

You’re not being true to yourself—

Groaning, she dropped her pen and pushed back from her desk.

Those words kept echoing through her head, over and over.

Even after nearly a week, she was still hearing those words. It was weird that she heard
them
more often than everything else. Those words chased her in her sleep. She’d been in the middle of putting together a dinner menu for a client and all of a sudden, nothing else in the world would matter, because she’d find herself remembering those words.

Those words.

The hell she wasn’t being true to herself. She’d gotten away from a life she’d hated. How much more
true
could she be? She’d been living her life exactly as she’d wanted and had been walking right down the path to the happy goal she’d set.

Until he derailed it.

And yet, here it was nearly ten o’clock on Friday, five days after the dismal, depressing end to her engagement, and she was
still
thinking about those words. Those words actually seemed to bother her
more
than the fact that he’d ended things, the bastard.

“What I need to do is make another plan,” she mumbled.

Her life, once more, had been thrown into chaos.

She left her office and headed upstairs to her bedroom. She hadn’t looked at her business plan since she’d marked the wedding off the list but it was time, she decided.

Grabbing her journal, she went back down to the office and settled on the couch. There was a pen tucked in a little loop and as she started to think, she pulled the pen out and tapped it against her lips.She didn’t start to make any notes. Not yet. Her thoughts needed to settle. Needed to focus.

Did she need a man? That was the question. She wasn’t one of those women who believed a man was necessary to fulfill or complete a life but Abby
wanted
a man. She
wanted
marriage. Her throat tightened a little as she thought about the other things she wanted . . . kids, at some point. Not just to have that happy, stable life she’d never had for herself, but she wanted a family. She saw a mom at a baby shower and her heart ached with envy.

Some women didn’t want to be mothers and she completely respected that; she understood. Hell, some women should never
be
moms. Her mother sure as hell didn’t need to procreate but she’d done it and made Abigale’s life hell.

Abigale would love whatever child she had.

“Maybe I should just think about doing it on my own.” But that thought left her cold. She wanted a
family
.
With all that entailed. A father for her kids . . . a partner. Somebody who would make her laugh. Make her think. Keep her company when she wanted it and if she was in a bad mood, leave her alone. Somebody who could blow her mind away in bed and still be a friend.

“You want a fairy tale.”

Roger had been okay in bed, but he hadn’t exactly been a friend, something she could acknowledge . . .
now
. The only guy who had ever really made her laugh, made her think, kept her company when she needed it, and left her alone when she wanted . . . hell. That was Zach. But he was her best friend.

When the alarm sounded sometime later, she yelped in surprise. Panic surged through her, until she realized it was the regular alert.

The annoying little computerized voice announced, “Disarmed.”

There was only one person it could be. She’d deactivated Roger’s code and even if she hadn’t, he wouldn’t come by this late without calling.

Zach, on the other hand . . .

He appeared at the door, gold-streaked brown hair falling into his eyes, five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw. The faded black t-shirt he wore left much of his arms bare, leaving his tattoos visible.

She’d never, ever tell anybody that she absolutely adored the way those tattoos looked.

Not in a million years.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. He was one of the very few people she didn’t mind seeing right now. Maybe even the
only
person.

The phone started to ring again.

Without saying anything, he ambled over to it and glanced at the display. A sneer curled his lip and he glanced at her. “She who shall not be named is calling.” A wicked smile danced across his face and he asked, “Can I talk to her? Pretty please?”

A laugh bubbled out of her and she grinned at him. “I don’t care. As long as
I
don’t have to.” She wondered just how in the world her mother had gotten her number. Again.

Zach grabbed the phone halfway through the second ring. “Heya, Blanche!”

Abigale propped her arm on the back of the couch and watched as he leaned against her desk, one arm folded over his chest. It had his bicep bulging and the scrolled design there caught her eye. Something warmed inside her. Shifted. Frowning, she looked away from his arms and watched his face.

“Yes. She’s here . . . Nah, I can’t put her on the phone. Why? Oh. She doesn’t want to talk to you. As in . . . ever. Remember that deal about how you kind of, sort of tried to keep her away from all the money she’d earned? How you tried to whore her out for any and every damn part that you could get? Expected her to go weeks living on nothing but water and salads because she was getting too
female
?” He didn’t look so happy now. Fire snapped in his blue eyes and a growl had edged into his voice.

Okay. Maybe she should—

“Then there was that shit about how I caught one of your fucking boyfriends trying to paw her. Remember that? Oh, you fucking bitch, don’t you tell me I don’t know what I saw—yeah, you do that. Crazy piece of work.” He slammed the phone down and then looked over at her.

“Your mom doesn’t remember me,” he said soberly.

Abigale lifted an eyebrow at him. “Really? I can’t imagine how she could ever forget you.”

He grinned as he came to flop down on the couch. He settled down and stretched out long, jean-clad legs in front of him, crossing them at the ankle as he rolled his head over to look at her.

He had something in his hand. A book, she noted. He glanced at her journal and then up at her face. Some of the heated anger had faded from his eyes. Some. Not all.

Abruptly, she reached out and touched his cheek. The rough stubble abraded her palm as she said quietly, “Always my knight in shining armor, Zach. Thank you.”

A dull red flush crept up his cheeks. “I’m no knight, Abs.”

“You’ve always been mine.” She shrugged and pulled her hand back. Tucking the pen back into her journal, she closed it and tossed it onto the table in front of them. “You and I both know what that boyfriend of hers was trying to do when you showed up at the house that day.”

It had been nearly seventeen years since that day. An awful day. Every once in a blue moon, she’d find herself waking from a nightmare where Zach hadn’t arrived in time and—

Stop it
.

It hadn’t happened.

Once her mother had started making merry with her money, she’d started making merry with lots of other things. Like drugs, booze, and her wedding vows. Oh, she’d probably been sleeping around before, but as Abigale got older, it was more obvious just how screwed up her mother was.

While her dad was out, still working a job because her mother insisted it provided
a sense of normalcy
, her mother had used those hours to bring countless men into the home that had been built with money Abigale had earned.

When she was fourteen, one of those men had crept into the study where Abigale had been working on a school assignment. He’d been drunk, his hands big and hard and cruel.

Her mother had been passed out on the couch and the housekeeper was out shopping.

Trapped and scared, Abigale had screamed for help.

Help had come in the form of a pissed off fifteen-year-old Zach Barnes who’d had his mom drop him off. He had his skateboard and he’d used it like a club, bringing it down on the bastard’s head.

It wasn’t the first time Zach had saved her.

It hadn’t been the last. He’d been saving her from herself, saving her from a variety of things, throughout their entire friendship. Maybe he didn’t see himself as her knight, but she sure as hell did.

He leaned forward and touched a hand to the stamped leather journal. “Writing bad poetry and sonnets about your unending love for Roger the Rat?” he asked.

“No. I gave up on the bad poetry when you threatened to show my journal to Luke Perry so he could see what I had written about him.” She snorted and drew her legs up, shifting to look at him. “I’m trying to think up the plan for my life now that it’s been thrown off track.”

He groaned and dropped his head back on the seat. Eyes closed, he dragged a hand over his face. “Sugar, you can’t
plan
life.” He looked back over at her and said softly, “Life is supposed to just happen.”

“Hey, I planned quite a bit of
my
life,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

His gaze dropped to her mouth.

Her heart stuttered to a stop for one brief second and then it started to race. Hard and fast, like it did on the rare occasions when she let herself take the Mustang out to the desert and just open her up. The moment shattered as he looked away and she wanted to smack herself.

This was
Zach
, damn it.

Yeah, she was no longer engaged to a guy who’d been . . . well . . . uninspiring in bed and maybe she needed to live a little bit. But this was Zach. Her best friend. Her oldest friend.

“But you tried to plan your personal life . . . who you’d fall in love with. It doesn’t work that way,” he pointed out. “You practically chose him out of a catalog, Abs, and that’s not how it works. Look at
The Bachelor
and see what a fucking joke
that
is.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hey, are they still calling you about that celebrity thing they want you to do?”

“Not after I told them I wasn’t a good fit since I had the bodies of two dead girlfriends stored in my freezer.” He shrugged and started to tap the book in his hand against his leg.

Her jaw dropped. “You didn’t!”

With a sly grin on his lips, he glanced at her. “Now, Abs, sugar. You know me better than anybody else in the world. Would I really say something like that?”

“Oh, shit.” She cringed and covered her face with her hands.

He started to laugh.

“You are insane!” She kicked him in the thigh. Her foot bounced off the muscled length and he just laughed harder. “One of these days, you’ll say something like that and the cops will show up at your door, Zach.”

“Hey, wouldn’t be the first time.” He shrugged.

Glaring at him, she kicked him again. “That’s not funny.” He
had
had cops show up at his door; the first time had been after he’d hit that bastard in the head with his skateboard. The son of a bitch had tried to press assault charges. She’d been hiding out over at the Barnes’ place—a normal thing for her, really—and when the police showed up, she’d almost fallen apart.

He caught her ankle in his hand and turned around to face her. Dropping the book in his lap, he kept one hand wrapped around her ankle and used the other to rub her foot. She jumped as he ran his thumb down the arch, too firmly to tickle, but there was something about the touch that managed to send shivers up her spine. What the hell? He’d touched her plenty and it hadn’t ever hit her like this; she knew it hadn’t.

“So tell me about this new life plan of yours,” he said.

“I can’t.” She closed her eyes. Seemed to be a wise move, she thought. If she wasn’t looking at him, she might stop having these weird, hot little pangs hitting her square in the belly. Except the pangs just kept getting worse.

“Why?” He tickled her.

She yelped and jerked on her foot. “Stop that!” Opening her eyes, she glared at him.

“You used to tell me everything,” he said, smiling at her.

“Yeah, well, I can’t tell you a plan that I haven’t come up with,” she pointed out, still squirming.

“Be still.” He went back to work and despite herself, she all but whimpered as he hit a spot on her arch with his thumb. “So you don’t know what you’re going to do next. That’s got to have you all twisted up.”

Yes
. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.” He smiled as he said it. “You don’t know how to not do plans. What do you
want
to do?”

You
—

Blood rushed to her face and she dipped her head, letting her hair fall down to shield her expression while she tried to figure out just what in the
hell
was wrong with her.