Wife Me Bad Boy (42 page)

I pulled over and it was everything I could do to hold in my tears. It was embarrassing. I’d brought myself to the verge of crying just by thinking of Jackson. I almost felt unfaithful. I
belonged
to Jackson. I’d told myself I didn’t, on the tenth anniversary of our meeting I’d released myself from my pledge to him, but somehow my heart hadn’t received the message. I’d promised myself to Jackson Jones. He was the one I wanted.

This guy had no right getting into a car with me and reminding me of the feeling Jackson had given me.

I still hadn’t even seen his face and I never wanted to. I just wanted him to get out, to leave me alone. God, would I never get over Jackson? I was cursed. He’d been right all along. He’d told me, the very moment I first set eyes on him, that I’d regret ever meeting him. How was it possible that Jackson could be the very best thing, and the very worst thing, to ever happen to me?

“What’s wrong?” the man said. “Look. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Get out,” I said.

“This is my fault,” he said.

“Just get out of my car.”

“Look at my face,” he said.

But for some reason I couldn’t. It was dark, I’d been driving, I still hadn’t gotten a good look at him. But something inside me refused to look.

“Get out,” I said again, keeping my eyes glued to the steering wheel.

This man was a betrayal of everything I’d stood for. The feelings he brought to the surface were a betrayal of Jackson’s memory. Only one man had the right to push my buttons, and it wasn’t this guy.

He was still sitting there, next to me.

“Get out,” I said again, still resolutely refusing to look at him.

“All right,” he said. “I understand.”

He took something from his pocket, and for a second I was afraid it was going to be a weapon. It wasn’t. It was a trinket. A stupid trinket. A chain of some sort.

He hung it from the rearview mirror, a pendant of some sort dangling from it.

What was that supposed to be? A memento?

“I understand, Faith,” he said, and then, just like a ghost that appeared in the dead of night, he was gone.

I watched him walk off into the darkness, my headlights illuminating his back.

How had he known my name? I hadn’t told it to him.

He was getting farther away.

I grabbed the pendant from the rearview, hanging on a cheap, silver chain.

It didn’t look like much, a heart shaped pendant, and then, in a flash, it struck me. How had I been so blind? How had I refused to see what was right in front of me?

It was my pendant, my chain.

The one Jackson had snatched from my neck the very first time we met.

I sat there, quivering, and then I pulled into the road and fled.

Chapter 25

Jackson

W
HAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH ME?

What the ever-loving-hell was wrong with me?

What was I afraid of?

Why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I tell her who I was?

She’d know now. She’d see the chain and pendant and remember everything. It would all click. The filthy traveler she’d just kicked out of her car was Jackson Jones, the man she’d given a son to.

But what would she think? What would she feel?

One thing was certain. I was still in love with her. That hadn’t changed.

There was an electricity between us that was off the chart. My body yearned for her. It hadn’t forgotten what my heart and soul had decided long ago. That I was in love with Faith Shepherd.

She didn’t recognize me, or at least I didn’t think she did. Twelve years. I was a different man. I wasn’t the man who’d left her. I wasn’t the man she’d loved.

She hadn’t seen my face, but I’d seen hers, and it was every bit as beautiful as I remembered.

She woke up something inside me, a part of me I was afraid had died. I’d been through so many horrible things. I’d done such terrible deeds. That changed me. I’d been afraid that when I saw her, I might not feel what I’d thought I’d feel. I was afraid my heart wouldn’t remember how to respond, that I’d have lost my capacity to love. But that hadn’t happened.

My heart pounded in my chest like a galloping horse. It was burning with a passion that threatened to consume me. There was nothing wrong with my heart. It hadn’t lost a single ounce of its strength. If anything, my love for her had grown. She’d been loyal to me all those years.

But I hadn’t revealed myself. I couldn’t. Something stopped me. For the past twelve years, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of coming back to Faith. Now that I was back, she terrified me.

What if she’d changed. She was still sexy. She was really fucking sexy. But she wasn’t the girl who’d turned up desperate at a roadside motel, willing to do anything for help. She was a real woman now, grown, respectable. She drove a Mercedes Benz. What if she didn’t want me? I was sure she didn’t have a man. Nothing would convince me otherwise. I’d felt it. I’d felt it like birds feel a storm brewing.

But that didn’t mean she’d be ready to shack up with me. She was a mother now. Even if the kid was my son, it would still take some convincing for her to allow a trained killer into the house. What if she wanted a different kind of life than the one I could offer? What if she wanted all the things that I wasn’t? Why wouldn’t she want a respectable, responsible man? Someone who’d pay the bills on time, drive a station wagon, wear a shirt and tie?

Wasn’t that the kind of life women wanted these days? Didn’t they want men who knew the difference between a tax bracket and a write off? Who drove hybrid cars? Who recycled their garbage?

There’s nothing wrong with all those things. But they’re not me. I’m the polar opposite of all that shit.

I was a criminal, a grade-A asshole. I had more blood on my hands than a serial killer. I couldn’t lie about it, not to Faith. Even if I tried, she’d see right through me. She knew the man I was. The man I would always be.

She’d been shocked the first time she saw my scars. I’d never explained to her how I got them, but they’d frightened her. I could tell. What would she think now? I had gun shot scars, knife scars, shrapnel scars from a motorcycle accident. I even had scars from the attack dogs Wolf Staten kept around his villa.

I was tattered and torn. What if Faith wanted a man that was new and clean? Didn’t she deserve that?

I was crooked, and a tree that grows crooked can never grow straight. That’s what my father always told me.

What good do I do? What happiness do I bring her and my child?

I’d killed Los Lobos. That was it. Maybe she didn’t even care about that.

If I was to disappear from the face of the earth right at that instant, what difference would it make to her? Would she miss me? If that last Lobo had gotten the draw on me. If he’d killed me before I killed him, would Faith have been better off? Would she and my kid be better off without me?

I watched the taillights of her car recede into the darkness. Was that the last time I’d see her? Would she refuse to see me again? She’d made a life here, and she didn’t need me coming back to upset the balance she’d created. She was trying to achieve something with her life.

Fuck it. The truth was, I couldn’t change who I was. For all the talk about being the man you want to be, the fact is, you’re born who you are. You can’t change that. You can’t change the past. Faith and I had our chance. It was over. Whatever I’d done, whatever I’d been to her in the past, that was gone now, and I couldn’t take back twelve years of absence.

Why try to be something I couldn’t be? I knew what I was good at. I was good at killing criminals. That’s who I was. That’s what I knew.

It was almost ten by the time I reached the old mansion and I forced myself to stop agonizing over Faith. Whatever was going to happen would wait till morning. A light was on over the porch. I stopped for a moment to look at the place. The vine-covered slopes of the valley rolled gently down to the house. The white barn was still where I’d left it. Vehicles were clustered in the arcade. A giant redwood shaded everything.

They say you can never truly go home, because even when you do, you’re not the man you were when you left. It’s not true. The truth is, you are who you are. You’re always the same man.

And it felt good to be back. I didn’t know how long I’d stay, I didn’t know what Grant and the rest of the Brotherhood would say when they saw me. They hadn’t heard from me in so long.

At that moment, all I knew was that the full moon was looking down on me, the crickets were chirping, and the fireflies fluttered up from the lawn like minuscule fireworks. I let the feeling of the place wash over me.

After twelve years of longing, I’d finally seen Faith. And she was better off without me.

Chapter 26

Jackson

I’
D BEEN BACK AT THE BROTHERHOOD
for a week, and needless to say, they welcomed me with open arms. I’d never really doubted they would, membership was for life, but I was still apprehensive when I walked up to the porch and knocked on the door.

Lacey was the one to answer. She was holding a glass of wine, and when she saw me standing there, she dropped the glass and it smashed all over the porch. Then she threw her arms around me and hugged me so tight I thought she’d hurt herself.

The other three were all there, Grant, Forrester and Grady. They’d aged a little but were the same old sons of guns I’d known and loved. They knew I was alive, they’d watched with interest as, one by one, the Lobos were assassinated. They respected me for finishing the job. They all agreed something had to be done about Los Lobos, but they couldn’t believe I’d given up so much time to do it.

Twelve years, while I had a baby and a woman waiting for me. Lacey was the hardest on me. She couldn’t understand how I could leave Faith alone that long.

“She had to raise that kid without you,” Lacey said. “How can you ever hope to repay her for that? Twelve years, Jackson. You’re mad. All four of you are mad.”

The guys were more understanding.

“It was for Faith’s safety,” Grant said.

“And the baby’s,” Forrester added. “I’d have done exactly the same thing.”

They knew there was no way I could return until every last Lobo was gone.

“Rule number one,” Grady said, “tie up loose ends. You know that, Lacey.”

Lacey just shook her head. She was the one who’d remained closest to Faith. They all saw Faith and Sam on holidays and special occasions. The brothers all showed up for little Sam’s birthdays, things like that. But Lacey saw Faith all the time. The two had become best friends.

“No matter how difficult it gets,” Grady went on, “no matter how long it takes, you do not sow the seeds of your own destruction. Whatever you do, you do it right. If you start a job, you finish it.”

They’d always known I’d return when the job was done. They knew I’d return for Faith. I wasn’t the kind of guy to walk away from something, especially a woman I’d purposely made the mother of my son. I’d never have sent her to the Brotherhood if I didn’t intend to come back for her.

When I told Lacey that I thought Faith would be better off without me, she called bullshit. She said Faith was still waiting for me, even if they didn’t talk about it like they used to. She knew it. Faith couldn’t even think of dating other men. She’d tried and failed, every time.

Me and Lacey would sit out on the porch, discussing my thoughts long into the night.

“You’ve got to promise me you won’t tell her I’m back,” I said to Lacey for the thousandth time.

“Jackson, you’re crazy. That woman’s been waiting for you for twelve years, and now that you’re here, you don’t have the guts to call her?”

“I told you, I already saw her.”

“That doesn’t count. She didn’t even know it was you.”

“I don’t know, Lacey. I’m a changed man. I’m not the guy she fell in love with.”

“You’ll always be the guy she fell in love with, Jackson. I know that girl. She’s as loyal as they come.”

I felt my heart throb for Faith when Lacey said that.

“Just let me approach her in my own way,” I said. “I’ve got to figure out what I have to offer her, now that the Lobos are dead. Now that she’s safe, I’ve got to figure out what I have to give that she needs.”

“She needs a man, Jackson. She needs a father for Sam.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s just, everything was so clear before. I was killing the men that posed a threat to her. I could understand that. Now, I’ve got to change gears. Just give me a few more days.”

Lacey didn’t agree with me. She said I was stalling. She said I was full of shit. But she swore not to tell Faith I was back until I was ready.

“Aren’t you desperate to meet your son?” she said.

“Of course I am.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

I didn’t have an answer so I said nothing. I’d been spending my days working on my daddy’s old place. It was a beautiful vineyard with an old homestead on it, the place I’d grown up. I thought if I could fix it up, I’d at least have something real to go to Faith with. I had to go back to her with something. I couldn’t just walk up and say I was back, not after so much time had passed. I couldn’t expect her to drop everything for me. She deserved more than that and I knew it.

“I’m fixing up the old farm,” I said.

“And how long’s that going to take?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I’d accomplished a lot in the week since my return, but there was so much left to do.

“Too long, that’s what.”

My father had lived on the old vineyard till the day he died. That was the last time I’d set foot on the place. It had been empty twelve years and even though it was beautiful, it needed work.

It was a ramshackle old hacienda, the porch rotting, the paint peeling, the roof in need of more than a few tiles. If it ever rained, it got washed out. Of course, if it ever rained, the vineyard would be doing a lot better too.

Grant rode down with me the next morning and we got to work, stripping out old, rotten wood.

“Why don’t you just live up at the mansion with the rest of us?” he said.