Deep in the Heart: An Austin After Dark Book Read online

“By Kim,” I murmured.

  Katie Rose’s eyes ran over me. “He’s told you heaps about himself for knowing you such a short time.”

  I nodded, determined not to give away any other information to the vivacious redhead.

  “You want some tea? Mama made it so it’s sure to be good. Cam can cook but his sweet tea is atrocious.”

  “Sure. Um, so you still live at home?”

  Kate’s shoulders stiffened but she kept her voice light as she pulled the tea from the fridge and poured me a glass.

  “I do. I had a bit of a bad situation. And Daddy never managed this place… Well, it’s been stressful a few years since my brothers lit out—and even after Cam came home. Daddy was always out, leaving Mama lonesome. This was before, when Cam was touring pretty much all the time.” She fastened on a bright sunny smile that didn’t do anything to push away the shadows in her eyes. “Moving back home was mutually beneficial—I helped out Mama and Daddy by doing the books, ordering the feed, getting the cattle squared away—that kind of thing. Cam didn’t have to feel so guilty about his travel.”

  “I moved back home after I OD’ed. Granted I didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t change the fact I struggled for a while after the hospital released me.”

  As I’d assumed, Kate knew all about my story—at least what happened in Seattle. She nodded, her eyes clear and not as judgmental as I’d anticipated.

  “There’re times it’s the right move. I’m twenty-four, almost twenty-five now, and I have a business degree from UT, an internship with Boeing, and now I’m working on my master’s back here at UT. But it’s time for me to get out and on my own two feet.”

  “Are both of your degrees in business?”

  “Yep. Operation management, now marketing. I liked finance okay, but decided I’m more of a people-person than a numbers gal.”

  I nodded and took a sip of my drink. “And are you working?” I asked.

  Kate shook her head. “Not outside of the ranch, no. And that’s a shame for me because Cam’s got his business manager handling most of the issues here. If it weren’t for school, I’d be twiddling my thumbs in boredom. I need to be out, sending resumes and hitting up the job sites, but…well, Daddy’s death’s been hard.”

  I pulled my card out of my purse and handed it to Cam’s sister. “I’m not sure it’ll work out, and I’m definitely not sure exactly what the job description entails, but we need a person with the right skill set to move the shop into this century. My grandfather isn’t in as much as he used to be, and I’d like company.” And the safety of numbers. “Maybe we can help each other.”

  Kate set her drink on the counter and stared at me as she clutched the card. I fidgeted, worry pouring over me that I’d overstepped the role I was supposed to play as Cam’s…whatever he and I were to each other. Maybe he wouldn’t want me to offer his sister a job—to further entwine our two families, especially when our relationship was up in the air and in need of labels and parameters.

  “If you don’t want to come by next week, I’ll understand. It’s not a formal interview. It’s just that I know I could modernize the business side of the shop, make it more accessible and welcoming for our clients and do some actual marketing instead of relying solely on word-of-mouth…”

  I stopped talking when Kate threw her arms around me and hugged me hard.

  “Oh my gosh! Are you kidding? This is exactly the kind of thing I want to do! I love your guitars. I love the music business, but unlike Cam, I don’t have any real talent. I mean, I’m passable on the piano, but that’s thanks to sixteen years of lessons. Oh!” Kate stepped back and jumped up and down, her eyes shining with excitement. “Do you think I can learn all about guitar making, too? I mean, I know some stuff, but your guitars are so amazing and I—”

  “What’re you rambling on about, Katie Rose?” Cam asked. He slipped his arm around me, eyeing his sister with concern.

  “She’s going to come visit the shop next week,” I said. “I’m considering—”

  “Jenna’s been nice enough to offer me a tour and show me what she’s working on for you.” Kate cut in, her eyes begging me not to tell Cam the real reason for her visit.

  I picked up my iced tea and drank, unwilling to lie to Cam but not wanting to upset his sister. Crap. What had I gotten myself in to?

  14

  Cam

  After I finagled my sister to leave, still unsure what she’d cooked up with Jenna, I changed into my board shorts. I led Jenna down to the water. The narrow pool wasn’t deep—barely four feet, but with the current churning through, I used it as a natural, tepid equivalent to a hot tub.

  I helped Jenna into the water and we both sighed as we leaned back against the rock ledge I’d had built into the side.

  “Thanks for bringing me down here,” she said after a long silence. “I needed this.”

  “No problem. Though, I’m sorry to have caused the need for relaxation.”

  “Not you. The situation—your fame. But.” She bit her lip. I wished I could see her eyes behind the tinted lenses of her sunglasses. “I like spending time with you.”

  “Mmm, I’m glad.” I pulled her closer to me, liking the way she let her legs float up as if she trusted me to never let her go.

  Strange that I had no problem with that thought. I should.

  I eased back. “So, tell me something new. Something interesting about you.”

  She settled back, her head against the edge of the pool. “What did you want to know?”

  “Middle name?”

  “Marie.” She shrugged. “Not very interesting.”

  “I’ll be the judge of what interests me, Jenna Marie.”

  She crinkled her nose, and I laughed at the death look she shot me.

  “What’s yours?”

  “Bexar.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Your parents named you Bear?”

  I shook my head, smirking. Even though we’d both grown up in the area, Jenna didn’t have even a hint of a Texas accent. Her mother wasn’t a born-and-bred Texan, though, so maybe that accounted for some of the difference.

  “No. Bexar. Like the county near San Antonio.”

  “How’d you end up with that for a middle name?”

  “It was my great-great grandmother’s surname. She was one of the county’s first families.”

  “Wow. You said you’d been here a long time. Those roots are dug deep.”

  I pressed my shoulder against the side of the pool, lifting my right leg up with a grimace.

  “You need to get out?”

  “Nah. That actually makes it stiffer. The water here is supposed to be good for it. Something about the minerals. Why guitars?”

  “Because I like them. Always have.”

  “I liked singing but it wasn’t my first career choice. Just one I fell into.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “How do you fall into being a famous musician?”

  “Not dying in a war. Getting wounded just enough to make me a hero. Losing my wife in such sad circumstances. And Chuck’s knowledge of YouTube.”

  “Chuck?”

  “My head of security. He posted videos of me singing for his friends back here. They liked it, so they shared them. Soon, I was the singing warrior. I hated that moniker, refused to use it. I’m me, just like you’re you. Nothing too special.”

  She grimaced. “I’ll beg to differ. Being around you is like me trying to do geometry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re more than just you. It’s like…I understand we’re talking about angles and circles but that’s about it.”

  I shifted again, trying to ease the ache in my calf. “But you build guitars for a living. You have to make the pieces fit together.”

  She swiped a long tendril of hair back from her cheek. “You’re being literal now. And there’s a template.”

  “Do you ever give yourself credit for anything?” The words blasted from my mouth, harsher than I intended, proba
bly because she just wouldn’t see herself as I saw her.

  “I’m a mess. Like a lava pool kind of hot mess. Get too close, I won’t just burn you. More like strip your bones and say ‘ah’.”

  I snorted. “Quite the image you created.”

  She shrugged. “A special talent to confuse and scare people with just my mouth.”

  My gaze dropped to her lips. Oh, I could think of some things to do with her mouth. None of which involved scaring me. Those berry-stained lips parted and she inched in. Yes, she’d noticed my attention.

  “Look, Jenna, you’re making this awful damn hard.”

  “What am I making hard?”

  “Dating you. I don’t tend to spend time with the ladies just for kicks.”

  “I could kick you. You could see if you liked it.”

  “Thanks, no. I’m not much for violence.”

  “Says the man who shot a really big gun.”

  I smirked but managed to control my retort. “From the gal who wields a really big bat.”

  I tried to hide my next grimace, annoyed by how much my leg hurt today. Getting comfortable proved near impossible.

  “His name is Gerald. You’re in pain,” she said, startling me. “Here. Lean into me and let your legs float.”

  Her mouth might spout a huge pile of cow patty, but she was observant. And caring. I did as she suggested, my head positioned in the cradle between her neck and chest. She was soft and smelled delicious. Something girly and fine. Not the best time to notice that—if I didn’t get the image of her wet flesh out of my mind soon, I was going to embarrass myself.

  “Back to us,” I said, trying to refocus on something other than how good she felt against my back. “I don’t mean to confuse you. And, yes, we’re dating. Exclusively. Again, we decided that yesterday.”

  “What if you change your mind?” Her voice trembled.

  “You always need to do worst-case scenario?”

  She took such a big breath, her breasts pressed against my back. “You asked why I don’t like crowds.” She swallowed, her body tensing beneath mine. “I was at a concert. I told you, Ben decided he wanted me, so he cozied in close. We weren’t dating, but we were…always together.”

  I nodded my understanding of what she didn’t want to say. I picked up one of her hands and laid it on my stomach, my palm on top of hers, and waited.

  “Robbie made noise about us getting back together. He didn’t love his new girlfriend like he loved me. It was a mistake. You get the idea. By then, I’d been through the shitstorm. I was struggling to attend classes, sure everyone was laughing at me behind my back. That everyone had chosen Robbie’s side.”

  She fell silent. I linked my fingers through hers, keeping them resting on my stomach.

  “We—Ben and I—went to this concert. It was kind of a senior class thing. Most everyone was there. Robbie showed up. Ben lied to him, and Robbie—he called me names, bad names. Everyone heard.”

  I made to turn, but she laid her other hand on top of my stomach. The muscles there clenched at her touch and I sucked in a breath. Fine. I could let her talk like this though I’d prefer to see her eyes.

  “What he said, that’s on him, not you.”

  She huffed out a sardonic sound, not even a laugh.

  “I tried to leave, too, but Ben… He slammed me against the wall and told me I’d teased him long enough.”

  Her breathing escalated as she relived those terrifying moments. “I was scared. So scared. I screamed. At first no one heard me over the music.”

  “Where was Robbie in all this?” I asked.

  “He left. Ben said we’d been hooking up the whole time Robbie and I were together. That I liked Ben more because I was with him now. That I liked it rough and Robbie didn’t do it for me. He said he’d prove it.”

  15

  Jenna

  This was why I didn’t want to talk about my past. The pain, the fear, even the betrayal bit sharply into my chest, nipping at my throat.

  “What happened?” Cam asked, his voice softer than it had been. He rested against me, waiting.

  “A few people turned around. But no one came to help me. They just watched. Some were curious, others whispered.” I shrugged. “Finally, I yelled ‘fire!’”

  I paused, my throat too dry to continue. Finally, I croaked, “There’s a reason you don’t do that.”

  Cam’s heart thudded, hard and staccato against his ribs. “Stampede?”

  “Ben let go of me and I fell. The police found me on the floor.”

  “You were trampled?”

  His shock was palpable. He did turn around. I stared into his wide eyes.

  “Yeah. Broke my arm and sprained both my ankles. I was lucky.”

  He absorbed my words, his mouth flattening.

  “The police were involved. They wanted to charge me.”

  “Did they?”

  “No. The video cameras caught it all, but I was sent to the psychiatric ward for observation and therapy.”

  He tightened his arm a little. “I bet this is the incident that’s sealed on your boy’s record.”

  “Not my boy. Never, ever mine.” I sighed. “Well, my mistake, clearly.”

  We were silent, listening to the soft rush of water.

  “You want to finish telling me?”

  No, I didn’t. But I knew all about curiosity—and where it took my brain. “I told you, I had a hard time with going to class anyway, so, in a sense, I liked the mental health facility my parents found for me to go to. It’s in New Hampshire, in an old barn. It was…it was a cocoon. I did my work and graduated before I left the facility.”

  With a careful hand, he pulled off my sunglasses, forcing me to meet his eyes. “And then?”

  I shrugged. “I went to college. Against my parents’ wishes. Two years later, I was home after another hospitalization.”

  Cam narrowed his eyes. “Did you see Robbie or Ben again—after that night?”

  I shook my head. “No reason to. Plus, the intake psychiatrist called them triggers. As in, if I saw them, I’d trigger back into the panic.”

  “Did you?”

  I kept my eyes firmly locked on his. “No. I was sad for a while that Robbie thought I’d cheated. Especially with Ben. But, no—I don’t want him back.”

  Cam slid his hand behind my head, cupping the back of my neck. He wrapped his other arm around my waist and turned so I draped across his chest, my legs tangled with his. Part of me was surprised he was still here, in the water with me.

  My story didn’t entail the same physical violation many young women faced, but it was sordid and left me feeling unclean for years. A large part of why I didn’t date much.

  “That’s a long answer to your question, but yes, I always do worst-case. After that night at the concert… I was too naïve to think that way. But it’s one of the techniques we worked on during my stay at the Peace Barn.”

  Cam’s lips quirked a little at my quip. Not enough to reach his eyes, which remained dark, serious.

  “Ben doesn’t get to touch you. Ever. I’ll make sure of it.” Cam’s voice was laced with that same commanding tone he’d used when Ben assaulted my shop.

  I touched his cheek, trying to show him there was only one man I wanted to touch me. “I don’t want him to.”

  “I’m getting you another bodyguard.”

  “Whoa. Slow that roll, Music Man. I don’t need two beefy dudes scowling at me and the world.”

  “Yes to the muscles and scowls. Lots of scowling to let the world know I mean to keep you safe.” He tightened his hold on me. “And mine.” He ran his nose along my jaw and down my neck. “You’re mine, Jenna Marie.”

  My pulse leaped. Cam smiled before he pressed a kiss to it.

  “What about what I want?” Putting up this fight seemed important. Cam could—would—steamroll me if I let him.

  He eased back a little. Not enough to give me space. “We’re together. Exclusive. You ease my mind, sugar. I don’t
know how to explain it. But the noise stops. I find peace in our time together, and I don’t plan to give that up. Plus, you’re a looker.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not selling this ‘mine’ business anymore.”

  He grinned. “You like me, I like you. We get to know each other better. Will the past come out? Absolutely. Do I care what anyone else thinks? Not a’tall.”

  “You say that now, but the digs, the comments, they can be so mean.”

  His face turned fierce, his eyes fiery. “We ignore them. None of that—” he waved his hand to encompass the rest of the world “—matters. What you and I think about each other matters. And, I have to tell you, sugar, this right here makes me mighty happy.”

  The rest of my arguments disintegrated after he spoke. I wanted him. I wanted a relationship—to feel secure in someone else’s affection.

  “Okay.”

  “Now, get pissy so we can enjoy the rest of the day.”

  I sighed. “You already set me up with a security contingent, didn’t you?”

  “Smarts and beauty.” Cam nuzzled my jaw, kissed down my neck.

  I didn’t argue. One, Cam would do it anyway. He was stubborn like that. And, two, after Ben’s most recent attack on my place of business, I didn’t want to argue.

  “I’m keeping my bat.”

  “At all times. Plus a Taser or pepper spray. You know how to shoot a pistol?”

  I reared back and let him see my fierceness. “I do. But I will not carry a gun. You can have a guy with me who carries a gun, but I won’t do it.” Much as I didn’t want to explain myself, we were building trust and he needed to understand. “There was a girl. She was Micah—my oldest brother’s girlfriend.”

  “Aw, hell.”

  I nodded because Cam understood my reticence about weapons now. “She carried. She had her permit. She was in a car accident. That didn’t kill her. Her weapon—in her purse—went off. Got her in the temple. She would have walked away from the accident with a few bruises.”

  “Did he love her?”

  My heart warmed that Cam didn’t try to talk me out of my position—and because he worried about my brother, a man he’d never met. “Yes,” I said, my voice soft with the regret as it always was when I thought of Micah and Shannon. “He did.”