Chapter 9

I solemnly swear I’m going to rock your world until we’re old and dead.

-Rafe to Janie

Rafe

I knew a few things.

One, I knew why I was where I was.

Two, I knew that Angelina Jolie, I mean my fake kind of real fiancée, Elspeth, was playing me just as much as I was playing her.

Three, I knew there was something there with Janie, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

Which happened to be why I was where I was.

I needed to talk to my sister.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would’ve told her what was going on.

Ever since she’d let me back into her life, I hadn’t held a single thing back.

Not one single thing.

At least, I thought I hadn’t.

“I’m sure, Rafe,” my sister, Raven, promised, looking guilty as hell about something. Yet, I knew from experience that she wouldn’t tell me what that something was. If she wanted to share, she would. Obviously, she didn’t want to share, otherwise the words would’ve been out of her mouth the moment I’d walked in the door. “I don’t know anything about any girls. Nothing.”

I growled under my breath and rubbed my hand over my heart.

“You’re going to get it back,” Raven promised. “And when you do, if it was meant to be, whoever the girl is will still be waiting for you.”

My sister’s words felt like sandpaper against my soul. She may be saying all the right things, but I still couldn’t quite believe them.

“I don’t know anything that has happened in the last six months,” I said, staring pointedly at my sister’s belly.

Raven started to grin. “Four months ago, brother. And I hadn’t actually told you about this one. I was waiting for you to come see me…and you never did.”

I grunted and looked out at the parking lot.

We met for lunch—halfway between her and me—and she’d chosen the spot.

I hated Mexican food—yes, I know. I can hear your shouts of denial and dismay from here—but it was what it was.

And it wasn’t even the taste that I didn’t like.

It was the smell.

My father had once forced me to drink an entire bottle of hot sauce—one of those small jars that you get at the grocery store—because I’d wasted the food he’d bought.

And me, being young and impressionable at the time, had done it despite my monumental dislike of the sauce.

After drinking it, I’d immediately thrown up.

All over the floor and half the couch.

My father had back handed me so hard and fast that I’d landed on my back in the middle of my vomit and learned a very important lesson.

It would never do to show weakness.

Hence the reason I did what I did hours later when Elspeth showed at my door.

I took the pecan pie inside, allowed Elspeth to follow me, and choked down two pieces of the vile crap with her watching.

Once she’d gone, I’d immediately tossed the rest of the pie. Then brushed my teeth to get rid of the taste.

All the while I wondered if Janie knew I didn’t like pecans.

She probably did.

Yet, I couldn’t quite figure out why I cared.

Yet, every single time I found my mind wandering, I found it centered on her.

On what she was thinking. Or feeling. Or even doing.

Anything about her would suffice.

Which was why I’d also hacked into her computer and started watching her through her webcam installed on her laptop.

A laptop that she spent an exceptionally insane amount of time on.

There wasn’t a single instance that I’d logged in that I didn’t see her on it. Didn’t watch her every fucking move.

It was seriously starting to get to the point where I felt sick—at myself.

I was invading her privacy.

I was watching her work.

I was reading things that I shouldn’t be reading.

Yet I couldn’t stop.

I couldn’t stop because there was this compulsion inside of me that was urging me to do it.

Like right this second, I was watching her bite her lip as she watched a Hallmark movie—which I could hear running in the background. She was switching between playing on Facebook and Instagram, intermittently glancing up at the TV when something caught her attention.

I couldn’t figure out if she was crying because of what she was watching on the TV or if there was something else that she was thinking about.

Whatever it was, I felt sick to my stomach.

I didn’t like to see her cry, and I most certainly didn’t want her doing it in the dark of her living room while she sat there looking so sad and lonely.

I wanted to ride over there and wrap her in my arms—even though I didn’t understand why.

Which made me mad.

Every single thing there was to know about this woman—Janie—was gone. None of it was there.

Apparently, according to Trace, I’d known Janie for a really long time.

Really long meaning years and years.

But that was all Trace had given me.

He’d clammed up the moment I’d tried to dig for more.

In fact, everyone had.

I’d even gone as far as to ask James, Janie’s father, and I was left in the dark.

It was really starting to irritate me.

Speaking of irritants, my phone rang, and I lifted it up off the couch at my side and placed it to my ear.

“Yeah?” I muttered, recognizing Trace’s ringtone.

“You got a bug in the church?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know I do.”

After my accident, I’d been busting my ass to get myself up to speed with the investigation I’d started—one that was very near and dear to my heart.

Layton Trammel, the man who had singlehandedly left me a near eunuch. My balls were very near and dear to me…literally and figuratively.

And Layton had been such a dick about it.

When I’d tried to file malpractice after I’d recovered enough, I’d gotten a strong lecture from my CO that I needed to ‘forget it and move on.’

When I’d pursued, I’d been given another lecture, this one consisting of me being told that if I didn’t ‘cease and desist,’ I would regret it.

I almost did because I’d tried to pursue it, nearly receiving a dishonorable discharge for my efforts.

And so, the feud had been born.

“Yeah, well, Layton just made a stop over there. He’s talking with a deacon for their church, and he’s got a lot of good stuff to say about you. He thinks you’re going to be the ‘perfect goat.’

“Goat,” I repeated, making sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Goat,” he repeated, “As in ‘scapegoat.’”

I gritted my teeth. “Scapegoat for what?”

“I don’t know. But they’ve been talking about a few things for about seven minutes now. They want to meet up later on to confirm details. That later on being some time tonight after dinner with you.”

“I wasn’t aware I was having dinner with him…”

“Well, I’d wait and not make any plans. I’d also play nice and say you can come despite your immediate reaction of ‘go fuck yourself.’ Okay?” Trace added gruffly.

I snorted.

The man knew me so well.

“Yeah,” I grumbled, my eyes going to the laptop again. She’d gotten up and moved out of the screen. “Did you find out anything else about the girl and our engagement?”

“You weren’t engaged the last time we spoke before your accident,” Trace answered hesitantly. “But you also said you’d found out something, so maybe in order to get that information, you got engaged to the chick. I don’t know, man. I’ll keep an ear to the ground, though. We’ll get you out of this.”

I heard him say something else under his breath, and I strained to hear what he said, but I could barely make it out.

He’d been doing that a lot. Saying things softly, as if he wanted to tell me something but couldn’t quite work up the nerve.

Him, and everyone else.

I could’ve sworn it had something to do with ‘stubborn girls,’ though.

“All right,” I finally sighed. “But Trace, if there’s something you need to tell me, you should tell me now. I know I’m missing something here.”

“Did you ask your sister?”

“Yeah,” I grumbled. “She had no clue I’d even had a girl in my life. Which then pissed her off all over again because I wasn’t coming home enough.”

Trace started to chuckle, then sobered. “Don’t beat yourself up. You’ve bridged that gap with her, but it’s her that has to take that last step. You can’t do it all.”

No, I couldn’t.

But the guilt was never-ending.

My sister had been in a bad situation…then again, so had I.

It was either leave her behind, where I had the promise that she would be happy and healthy or take her with me and run.

And running was no place for a child.

She grew up happy—ish. She grew up healthy.

And she’d found the love of her life…which was more than I could say for me.

The doors to my room pushed open and my doctor appeared, smiling at me as he came.

His eyes took in the laptop in my lap, as well as the phone to my ear, and he frowned.

“All right, man,” I said with a sigh. “I’m about to get sprung. You decide to tell me what I’m missing, I’d love it.”

Trace hung up laughing.

I hung up pissed off.

Which didn’t bode well for the doctor when he told me he wanted me to stay another night.

“No,” I refused. “I’m not running a fever, I have a very mild concussion, and I have shit to do that doesn’t include me staying here.”

“It’s okay, Ross.” Another man pushed through my open hospital door. “I’m taking him home with me tonight.”

Layton Trammel.

I’d know that pretty face anywhere.

I wonder if he knew that I wasn’t going to be sprung today without supervision.

Did he have anything to do with this or was it all his daughter’s doing?

The questions that sprang to mind nearly made my head spin.

Did he recognize me? Did he know that his girl and I were ‘engaged?’

Dr. Ross sighed. “As long as he’s under supervision, I don’t mind him going home.”

I would’ve gone home whether he wanted me to or not…

“He’ll be with me, and my girl. My girl is exceptionally worried about him,” Layton drawled, his eyes coming to me.

I felt like an oily hand had just run down my arm, causing the hair on my arm to be rubbed the wrong way.

Yay.

I got to spend time with my worst enemy. The enemy. And the icing on the cake was that he has no fucking clue that I was someone he knew.

As if he’d fucked over so many people that I wasn’t even on his radar any longer.

It was goddamn annoying, was what it was.

Common decency would’ve been him at least remembering nearly taking a man’s ability to reproduce.

To give the man credit, though, I’d changed a lot from that little grunt that I’d been as a new recruit. The one he’d known.

This Rafe, the new Rafe? Nobody knew this Rafe.

And I’d be keeping it that way.

She knows you.

That stray thought felt like a lead anvil hitting me straight in the chest.

Nobody would ever know me like that—which was why I slammed the laptop shut and didn’t bother opening it back up again.

Not for a very long time.

Which was a huge fucking mistake.