Leonora had expected that when Josh opened the door, she would feel some kind of relief. That all her problems would be solved as a great wave of contentment washed over her, that she could put all her worries right into his hands.
But as he looked at her with an expression of utmost surprise, relief never came. Instead, she thought, Oh shit. What have I done?
It was too late though.
She curled her fingers into her palms. “Hey. I figured I’d find you here.” As far as greetings went, it was pretty weak, but in her defense, she was trying not to give in to her sudden attack of regrets.
“Hey,” he said back. Which was just as useless as her greeting. They both were in shock.
Her eyes half closed for a moment. Oh God, this was… He needed to do something and soon because she was starting to reel. What had she done?
Josh held up a finger. “Can you wait just a minute?”
What the hell else was she supposed to do? “Sure.” She rolled her eyes to let him know how ridiculous his request was. She’d just sit out here and quietly panic while he did whatever inside.
“Just… Just one minute.”
And he shut the door in her face.
As she waited for him to come back, she finally took a moment to ponder what she had done, which she’d studiedly not done on the walk over.
She’d basically said fuck you to her entire family. Her lungs and stomach shuddered in unison at the thought. And for what? For him? She’d walked all this way, thrown off her family, all to come see him? Then he’d shut a door in her face. And she wasn’t even sure if she liked him.
Wait, that wasn’t exactly true. She’d needed to see him. If that wasn’t liking, it was at least close to obsession. Which wasn’t much better.
Was this what they were doomed to do—chase each other until they self-destructed? Really self-destructed this time?
She shook her head, and the ache within rattled around her skull. That was only her injury talking, that whirling paranoia. It would be fine. It had to be fine. She’d made a big romantic gesture—and big romantic gestures always worked out. That was what she’d learned from a lifetime of watching rom-coms.
She was running to him, not from them.
Last night, last night had been good. Great, even. She needed to focus on that, on what they could be together if their families would just let them. And she also needed to focus on her own anger at being held back by her family.
She deserved better from them. She did. And Josh believed she deserved better too, which was why she was going to be with him.
Shaking out her hands, she began to pace the porch. This wasn’t ill thought out or rash—this had been a long time coming. She was justified in feeling as she did. Acting as she had.
But the kernel of doubt simply wouldn’t flatten under the applied pressure of repeating those thoughts.
When Josh opened the door again, he had a smile. “Sorry about that. Hank… He doesn’t want to see anyone just now.”
That smile helped to steady her. If he was smiling, things could be fine.
“When does Hank ever want to see anyone?” she asked as she stepped across the threshold. “Where’s his dog? Why isn’t it barking?”
“His dog’s with him.” Josh didn’t elaborate on where Hank was. “And that dog never barks.”
Leonora shivered. The dogs that never barked were the ones you had to be most wary of; they’d attack without warning.
She followed Josh into the main room. The door to the hallway where the bedrooms were was shut tight, and there wasn’t a whisper of sound from behind it. The living room was filled with cardboard banker’s boxes stacked up almost to the ceiling. It wasn’t disorganized exactly, but there was still too much stuff here for such a small space. No wonder Hank was skittish—Leonora would be too, waiting for all those boxes to collapse one day. She tried not to think about it as she went past them.
Josh took her hand and led her through to the kitchen. It was a narrow, old-fashioned space with the desert cooler in one wall and a wood-burning stove in one corner. And on the table sat two glasses of liquor.
She pondered the glasses for a moment, one empty and the other full. She picked up the full glass, the glass heavy as ice and cold as frost under her fingers. “Is this yours?”
He nodded.
Without a word, she took the glass to the sink and dumped the contents down the drain. She set the glass on the sideboard with a heavy thunk.
“Thanks, babe.” He said it softly, but the words were weighty with gratitude.
She wouldn’t ponder the fact that he’d poured himself a drink and might’ve taken a sip. He hadn’t, and he’d been glad she’d poured it out. That was all that mattered. But still she rubbed her arms, trying to erase the chill the touch of the glass had put into her.
Josh pulled out the chair next to the empty glass and gestured for her to sit. “What happened?”
She shook her head at the offer. There was too much nervous energy running through her to sit. “Jackson and Luke were waiting for me when I got home from work. They told me you told Benedict everything.”
“Benedict found your lip gloss. I… I couldn’t lie anymore. I did tell him everything.”
Crap. Of all the stupid things to be caught over. She bit her lip, crossed her arms, and let her temper fly. “And you didn’t think to check with me before spilling your guts? Or even warn me about what had happened?”
Were they together in this or not? Some kind of warning, any kind, might have made the conversation with her siblings go better.
Or maybe not. Maybe this confrontation had been years in the making.
“I should have,” he said, “but I didn’t think Luke would tell Jackson.”
He’d lived in this town his entire life and he still thought anything could be kept secret? “Well, he did. And you’re lucky he did—Luke talked Jackson out of coming over here to beat the crap out of you.”
She rubbed her brow, wrestling her anger back under her control. If there was a bright spot in any of this, it was that. Jackson hadn’t actually said anything about hurting Josh, and if he hadn’t rushed off to find Josh the moment he had heard, he wasn’t likely to do anything rash now. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about her brother being arrested for assaulting her… well, whatever Josh was to her now.
Josh opened his mouth, no doubt about to say something stupid about her brother, and she held up a hand to stop him. “Please don’t say you deserve that. Jackson doesn’t need to be getting in fights to prove a point. Or to defend my honor.” She’d had it with men trying to martyr themselves for her. They could all just stop it yesterday as far as she was concerned.
“All right.” He turned his chair around and straddled it. “What else happened? I don’t think you’d be here if the three of you had just talked.”
She snorted. “Well, like usual, I flew off the handle.” She sent her hands flying wide, her rage over the situation still not entirely worked out. “I told Jackson off, and I told your brother off. Told him I could make my own damn decisions about you.”
Josh wore an expression of impressed amusement, the slope of his shoulders easing. “And?”
“And I came here to find you. I told them they couldn’t stop me from meeting you, so here I am. Doing whatever the hell I want.” It sounded really petulant, especially with how she was pacing the kitchen—even she could see that. Guilt and shame and resentment bubbled through her stomach. But damn it, she’d been good for five years and never gotten anywhere with them. Might as well be bad now.
“You got Sasha to drive you?”
“No, I walked.” Her feet were killing her. Another issue she should have pondered before she’d set out.
He smashed his fist to the table, making the remaining glass jump and rattle. “What were you thinking? That’s too far for anyone to walk, especially—”
“Don’t you dare!” She let her temper fly again, her words soaring to him on wings of flame. “I’m here safe and sound, aren’t I? Don’t treat me like I’m made of glass.” She jabbed her finger into his face. “Not you.”
She hadn’t run all this way to hear more platitudes. For Josh of all people to start that… It would make all her reasons for running to him wrong, and she couldn’t have that.
His shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. It’s just… It’s a long way and on unlit roads. It’s not that I don’t trust you—I don’t trust the damn fool drivers out there.”
She laughed and finally sank into the other chair, her foul mood burning out. “You really think I could get hit by lightning twice?” She sobered and picked up the empty glass on the table. The alcohol fumes wafted up to her nose as she rolled the glass between her fingers. The glass wasn’t so cold now. “What happened with Benedict? I’m assuming he kicked you out.”
Josh’s being here confirmed it, but she wanted to hear the story from him.
“Oh yeah. I think he’s been waiting for an excuse to do that for a while, and I gave him a dandy one.” He was watching the glass in her hands with an unfocused stare.
“Are you fired too?”
“Yep. That too.”
She continued to roll the glass between her hands, watching the light as it ran across the surface. They were in a situation now, make no mistake. He had no job and no place to live.
She had a job, but after this, she didn’t think she could continue to live with her sister.
Her sister. She dropped the glass and put a hand over the ache in her belly. She might have lost her sister. Certainly things wouldn’t be the same after this.
Leonora had only wanted a little bit of freedom to make her own choices, to decide on her own what was good for her and what wasn’t—she didn’t want to lose her whole family in the process. She owed them a lot—almost everything really.
She let her hand drop although the ache remained. She also had the right to be her own person. And after building the life for herself that she had, she was entitled to make her own mistakes again.
Speaking of mistakes… “What do we do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He frowned. “Wait—we?”
“Yes. We. You think I came all this way just to chat?”
Anxiety rose in her throat at the thought that she might have misread this entire situation, that there was no we at all… but then he smiled. Shocked, and pleased, and so damn happy—her anxiety shrank to nothing under the power of it.
And then he frowned again. “No.” He shook his head. “I won’t let you do this.”
“Do what?” The anxiety came crashing back, slamming into her chest. “I’ve already done it.”
“You can’t throw your family away for me. I have no job, no place to stay…” The blue of his eyes was wounded as he met her gaze. “I can’t take care of you. As much as it kills me to admit that. You deserve better.”
She stared at him, his words warped like sea glass as they traveled through her ears. He was doing exactly what all the rest of them had—deciding for her. Frustration clamped her jaw tight, made her hands curl into fists.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed it away, looked at his words again. Sometimes she didn’t understand the first time. And then clarity came.
He was trying to be a hero.
She almost laughed, because she didn’t need saving. She’d already been saved once. She was done with all that.
“I get to decide,” she said, clear and firm. “I decide what I deserve. I choose what I deserve. And I choose you.”
“All right,” he said slowly, the intensity of his expression sealing them in a kind of vow. “We.” The way he said it echoed with all the other times it had been just the two of them.
And here they were again.
“What about your family?” he went on. “You can’t really be cutting them off.”
Leonora picked up the glass again, rolling the edge along the table. Hank really did have some nice stuff—the glass was heavy, probably heavy enough to survive even a hard smack on the table. “I’m not cutting them off,” she explained, never looking away from the glass in her hands. “But if I do this, show them that I’m serious, maybe they’ll finally listen. I had to do something.”
“All right. If you’re sure.” But he didn’t sound sure.
Enough about that. They had things to figure out beyond what to do about her family. “So, where can we go?”
She had some friends she might be able to stay with for a few days, but bringing Josh with her would be dicey. And after she’d worn out her welcome there, what then?
“We can stay here tonight but not any longer than that.” He dropped his voice and gestured toward the closed bedroom door. “Hank…”
“Yeah, I know about Hank.” Even if the entire town wasn’t talking about it, his being out here and never being seen would have told her everything she needed to know about Hank’s problems. “We could go to a hotel.”
“Which one? The one owned by my family?” His mouth twisted sarcastically.
“There’s the casino.”
“Where your sister works and my brother’s girlfriend works.”
Leonora suddenly realized how isolated they were. Their families had the power to make sure it really was just the two of them. “Do you have a plan or just objections?”
“I’ve had literally five minutes to come to terms with the fact that you’re with me.” He reached across the table and took her hand, pulling the sting from his words. His palm was warm and slightly rough—and she realized this was the first time he’d touched her during their discussion. “Besides, you were always the planner.”
She was. And with his thumb rubbing across her knuckles like that, she could begin to see a path forward for them.
“Can you access your trust fund?”
His mouth flattened. “Yes.”
Ah, but he didn’t want to. No doubt he had some noble plan to live off only his earnings.
Well, the two of them weren’t noble. They were rash and impetuous and flew by the seat of their pants. But even rebels had to eat.
“Okay, here’s the plan.” She rapped the table as it all came to her. “I have to be at work tomorrow. One of us should keep their job.”
His mouth twitched. Well, at least he could laugh a little about this.
“Can Hank drive us?” she asked. Transportation was going to be an issue, one she hadn’t quite thought them out of yet.
“Probably not.”
Hank and his problems. She almost shook her head, but Hank had taken Josh in. “Okay, we call Javier then. How many more favors does he owe us for the truck?”
“I don’t want him to get into trouble with his sister.”
“Who’s sleeping with your brother,” she reminded him and herself.
She ground her teeth. Again, the fact that everyone was entangled with everyone else in this town bit them in the ass. “All right, we’ll ask him this once and promise never again.”
Josh shifted in his seat, his gaze flicking from the table to her then back to the table. “This won’t solve the problem now, but…” He bit his lip.
She raised her eyebrows.
“The judge said I could drive to and from work.”
So why wasn’t he? She stared at him, trying to figure why he’d say no to such a thing, something cold and hard settling in her chest.
But then she imagined getting behind the wheel now, after what had happened… She shivered, goose bumps pulling her skin tight. Okay, she could understand that.
She cleared her throat, trying to put some sympathy in the noise. “Driving me wasn’t part of the bargain. And tooling around in Hank’s truck, which Hank doesn’t even drive? Yeah, that’s not gonna catch people’s attention.”
Josh was openly grinning. “I told you I’m not the planner.”
She rolled her eyes, but still it was nice to be the one taking the lead for once. Again. Josh really did inspire her to new heights of planning. Before this, she’d never considered moving out, and now here she was, homeless, carless, and surprisingly okay with it.
Recklessness sure could make a person feel alive.
“I can drive.”
She spun at Hank’s voice behind her, nearly jumping out of her chair. She hadn’t seen him in… geez, years and years now. When he’d come home, she’d been kind of busy putting her brain back together. He looked… like hell. If prison had whittled away Josh, military service had taken a chainsaw to Hank. Rawboned was being kind.
He crossed over to the kitchen counter, picked up the bottle of tequila, and poured himself half a glass. “Want some?”
“I can’t. And neither can he.”
Now it was Hank’s turn to be surprised. “Huh. All right then.” He took a sip, studying her over the rim of his glass. For someone who was supposed to be a hermit, he was being pretty open here. “You look…” He pointed to his head, mirroring where her scar was. “You look like hell.”
She appreciated the honesty. “I could say the same about you.”
He laughed. “Well, I feel like it. So I guess my inside matches my outside. Sounds like you two are going full tilt on the Romeo and Juliet thing.”
“Without the suicides though,” Josh said.
They shared a secret grin. So he had read the entire play.
“Can you help us?” she asked.
Hank took a meditative sip. “Wasn’t it a friar who helped them? In the play? I’m not very holy.” He looked at Josh.
“Don’t ask him. He slept through English.”
Josh gave her his killer smile, the one that had first captured her. “Only because you wouldn’t nudge me awake.”
She grinned back because hearing him snore right in the middle of a soliloquy had always made her giggle.
Hank shook his head. “Well, clearly you two are meant to be together.”
She sobered. “We don’t need a holy man. Just a little bit of help.” At Hank’s worried expression, she went on, “Can we stay here? Just for tonight?”
They wouldn’t impinge on Hank’s hospitality any more than that. Just a night, that was all she needed to regroup and figure this out.
“I guess I’ve got the room.” There was reluctance in his voice, but Hank was clearly trying to push past it. “And there’s fresh sheets on the guest room bed.”
God bless Hank. Maybe they weren’t entirely alone.
“But what will you two do after?” he asked.
She looked at Josh, and he looked back at her. Something like agreement passed between them. “We’ll have to find an apartment.”
There was a flash of defeat in Josh’s eyes, but then he was nodding. “I’ll get on that tomorrow. And don’t worry about the security deposit.”
Which would presumably come from his trust fund. That explained the defeat. Well, they would both have to sacrifice for this.
She wouldn’t linger on how deep or lasting the sacrifices might be. Independence would be worth it. Being with him would be worth it.
“Great. Once that’s settled, we can get out of Hank’s hair.” She said it as if this were just a grand, temporary adventure. “And we can deal with the rest later.”
Before, she’d have never worried about the larger details ever. But she wasn’t the woman she’d been before, the one who’d urged Josh to just get into the car and drive.
And that meant this insane thing she was doing wasn’t doomed. They weren’t doomed. Not this time.