Rockstar Untamed: A Single Dad Virgin Romance by Michelle Love (10)

Chapter 26

REED

With Arizona far behind us, Jenna and I relax as we sit in a bathtub full of hot water. The trip home went pretty fast and now I’m feeling much better, as I have her back in the mansion.

I told her about my parents and their take on the whole Rod thing. She thought we should stop by after we left the police station and talk to them to see if they had changed their opinion at all, since he showed his true colors and kidnapped her.

But I just wanted to get her home. I think if their opinions had changed they’d have given me a call.

Her hand runs over my leg as she lies back on me in between my legs. “I’m glad that old lady was taken to the hospital and then to a nursing home. That was very nice of you to pay for all that.”

“Well, she was kind of like your crazy angel in the middle of the desert. It’s the right thing to do. She’ll like the nursing home much better than that shack, I bet.” I run my hand through her wet hair and kiss her neck. “I’m so glad you’re back in my arms. I was a fucking wreck when I found you gone.”

“You a wreck,” she says with a light laugh. “Never.”

I run my hands down her arms. “Yes, me. A wreck. Jenna, I still think it would’ve been best to press charges on him.”

“Reed, please. The whole thing is so upsetting. I just want to forget about him and all of the things that were going through my mind about what I would have to do if he made it to that room before I could get away are haunting me. I just have to push it all away. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t.” Her body shakes as she shivers.

“Okay. Don’t think any more about it.” I kiss her neck and lay my head back on the cool porcelain.

What she must’ve been getting ready for as she was thinking about what he was going to do to her once he got to her had to be horrible. I can’t imagine. Or I don’t want to, anyway.

I lean up and take some shampoo and wash her hair. I’m going to pamper the hell out of her. She must have been getting ready to get her ass beat for hours. Thankfully, she got away, and I got to her in time, so she’s enjoying a nice hot bath instead.

I think Rod needs his ass beat for what he did to her. And for what he was going to do to her again if she hadn’t managed to talk that other girl into helping her escape.

Her hand is shaking as she reaches out to take the glass of wine I poured her. I put my hand in the water to get the suds off. “Let me.” I get the glass instead and put it to her lips.

She takes a drink, then says, “Thank you, Reed. Thank you for everything. I don’t think I can ever repay you for all you’ve done for me.”

“Your love is more than enough. And I should be the one thanking you. Thank you for making me the happiest man in the world.”

And then she starts really shaking as I rinse her hair out. “Reed, I was so afraid I would have to have sex with him to get him to trust me. I was so damn afraid. But I was ready to do whatever I had to, to get him to trust me and think I was going to go back to him willingly. That way he’d let me have a bit of freedom and then I could run. Run back to you.”

My heart aches, and I hold her tight to me. “Jenna, just put it all out of your mind for now. I’m going to hire a therapist who deals with things just like this to help you. You will never be alone to handle this on your own. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

She turns in my arms and I see the unshed tears in her pretty eyes. “Reed, what happened to him to make him the way he is?”

“I wish I knew. Rod has always been wired differently. I’m pretty sure he has some kind of disorder and my parents didn’t help anything with the way they treated him. He should have had some kind of evaluation done when he first started exhibiting that type of behavior.” I kiss her forehead. “Ready to get out of the tub and into bed? I’ll bring dinner up and feed you. Then we can do whatever you want to. Sleep, watch television, talk, whatever you want to do, Angel.”

She looks up at me and sighs. “Do you know what I really want to do?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I want you to take me to the bed we will share forever and make love to me.” She moves her hands up my arms and then she takes my face in them and kisses me.

It’s an easy kiss, and I can tell she’s gathering strength from our connection. It’s deep and magical and healing.

I run my hands over her back and pull her to me even more. Her mouth leaves mine, and she smiles. “I knew that would make me feel better. So what do you say? Want to take your fiancée to our bed?”

Without uttering a word, I get up and pull her up with me. Then I take her in my arms and get out of the deep jetted tub and wrap her in a fluffy white towel.

She is mine to protect now. And now that I know the extent my brother will go to hurt her, I’ll have to amp up just what all I need to do to protect this woman from him.

Lying her back on our bed, I look down at her and smile. “Ready to let the magic happen?”

“More than ready,” she says with a moan.

Normally, I would think sex was not the right thing to do after an ordeal like she’s had. But we never have just sex. We have amazing chemistry that defies explanation. So I think making love to her will help her.

Her arms open and I go into them. Her lips brush my shoulder as she says, “Make it all go away, Reed, like only you can.”

Her body fades into mine as we connect at our junctures. She and I become one and I send my energy to her to help her get through this. Her breathing is soft as I enter her. Her words come out quiet.

“Yes. There it is.”

I move slowly as I stroke her and hold my weight off her body. Her hands move over my pecs. Then her eyes meet mine. “Press your body to mine, Reed. I need to feel you entirely.”

Skin to skin, I move my body to cover hers. Leaning only a little on one arm to keep some of my weight off her, I move with slow strokes into her soft core.

Her hands run over my back and her lips press against my chest. “Yes, Reed. I love you, Reed.”

“I love you, Jenna. Nothing bad will ever happen to you again. I swear that to you.”

Her hands move up my arms. “I believe you. I do. I’m safe with you. Always safe.”

“You are safe, Jenna.” I move so slowly that I can feel every last inch of her canal as my cock slides through it.

The vibration of our energy fills me. I have to heal as well. This took something out of me too.

We both have to get through this. We both were afraid of what might happen. And, thank God, she was left unhurt.

Her legs wrap around me as she moves up to me with a low moan. Softly she makes a purring sound. Then her lips touch my neck, and she kisses me.

I move to catch her lips with mine and kiss her. Our tongues move around together in lazy circular patterns. Our bodies glide over each other and it’s all very peaceful.

Her chest rises and falls as she takes in a deep breath, then I let her mouth go and look down at her. Her blonde hair is fanned out on the pillow, beginning to dry.

“Reed?”

“Um hm.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Her green eyes move back and forth rapidly.

I run my hand over her forehead. “Not a thing.”

“I love this. I love how you and I have this tender way of handling each other. So why did I ever think I liked what Rod did to me? I must have something wrong with me.” A tear falls down her cheek.

I kiss it away. “You were young, Jenna. And I promise that I’ll get you the help you need to understand it all.”

Her red bottom lip goes between her teeth as she bites it. “I hope whoever you get can help me understand myself.”

I kiss her lips then say, “Don’t worry. Just relax.”

She closes her eyes and arches up to me. “Faster.”

As she’s asked, I move faster, thrusting into her harder, making her feel more. Her knees bend to take me in deeper and I groan as I feel her beginning to tremble inside.

“Yes, Reed.”

The way she moans out my name makes my dick jerk. She arches up and wraps her legs around me as her body starts to climb with the orgasm that’s coming. “Reed! Yes!”

I thrust into her as her body shakes with the orgasm. Then I follow along with mine and find myself screaming her name as I do. My cock jerks and spurts inside her squeezing walls.

Our ragged breathing is all I can hear until she whispers, “I love you, Reed. I love you so much.”

I kiss her forehead. “I love you more than you’ll ever know, Jenna.”

Then I roll off her and pull her to lie on my chest. Her heart is still pounding hard in her chest and I can feel it against mine. Her lips touch my chest as her hand runs over my chiseled abs.

“I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

I rub her shoulder. “And I am the luckiest man in the world.”

“And our life together will be like a fairy tale,” she says, then sighs.

“It will. You’re my angel, and I’ll always treasure you.” I run my fingers along her backbone.

She shivers with the chill it gave her. “Hold me all night, Reed. Don’t let me go. Okay?”

“I will hold you. Don’t worry. Just sleep. I won’t leave you for a second. I swear it to you.” I kiss the top of her head.

Her heart slows down to a normal rate and her breathing gets deeper and slows too. My heart aches for her.

What she must’ve thought when they busted into that room, waking her up so she found four people there to take her. No clothes on. And I was nowhere in sight.

I should’ve never left her there alone without telling her a thing. And now the burden of that is on my shoulders.

I don’t know how I would’ve ever lived with myself if he’d have gotten to her. It would’ve destroyed me for sure.

Thinking about what might have happened isn’t a thing I usually do. But to know she would’ve been beaten and that, although she was preparing herself to give her body to Rod, she didn’t want to do it.

And it would’ve been all my fault for leaving her alone in the first place.

From now on I’m keeping her right by my side until I figure out how to get Rod permanently out of the picture, hopefully without taking his life. I’m not a murderer. But if he had managed to get to her and hurt her I think I could have easily killed him, brother or not. I don’t think I’d have been able to stop myself.

Thankfully, it didn’t happen like that, and I can fall asleep in this near fortress of a mansion and know I have her safe in my arms. Safe and sound and sleeping like a baby.

And now I can fall asleep too and tomorrow I’ll start to look for someone to help us both mentally and physically to rid us of Rod and his threat to us.

Chapter 27

JENNA

Two months have passed since the ordeal Rod put me through, and thankfully, we’ve heard nothing about him. I talked Reed into calling his mother, a thing he fought me on. She told him that Rod had left with his gang a week ago and she had no idea where he was again.

With his whereabouts unknown, Reed hired a bodyguard for me so I can lead a somewhat normal life and don’t have to cling to him all the time. Also, our therapist said it was very unhealthy for me to become so dependent on Reed. And it was she who came up with the bodyguard idea.

I like Sam, my bodyguard. He’s quiet and unobtrusive. And very huge!

I believe those are good qualities in someone you want to keep you safe.

He’s sitting in the hallway like he does every day I do student teaching at a small private school in Bel-Air. I’m working under a teacher who’s been doing this for fifteen years, Lila Peterson.

The kindergarteners are out to lunch, leaving us alone for a bit. We clean up the messes while we wait for them to come back and mess it all up again.

“So I saw your wedding announcement in the paper, Jenna. You sure do stay tight-lipped, young lady,” she says as she picks up all the Barbie dolls which are strewn all over the classroom.

I roll the large toy dump truck back to its place with the other trucks and say, “I have my reasons for being so quiet about my personal life, Lila. I assure you. I wasn’t happy that it made it to the paper. That was Reed’s mother’s doing.”

“Reed Manning is a well-known real estate billionaire. So why are you still planning on being a teacher? I mean, you don’t have to.” She kicks a small soccer ball back to the ball bin.

“I want to, though. I want my own thing. I want to have my own interests. I’m not looking to become a spoiled housewife.” I spot a wad of pink chewed up gum underneath a desk and shake my head. “How do the little imps manage to get gum past us?”

Lila hands me the butter knife she keeps in the desk drawer for just such an occasion. “Here, use this to get it off. And what I would give to be a spoiled housewife. My husband works at one of the oil refineries and has since we married seventeen years ago. Our three kids are all in their teens now and wreaking havoc, most likely as we speak. They all remind me of my rowdy brother, Spike.”

The thought of our kids having any of Rod’s ways makes me shake. “That can happen? Kids can come out like your sibling?”

“God knows my husband and I never acted the way they do. My brother was always doing whatever the hell he wanted to, no matter the consequences. And all three of mine do the same damn thing. I just hope none of them go as far as he has and joins a motorcycle gang.”

My heart stops. “What?”

“My brother, Spike. He joined this motorcycle gang based out of Ohio. He found them at some biker rally in Sturgis, Wyoming, about three years ago.” She takes the knife I hand back to her and places it back in the drawer.

“Really?” I try not to look like I’m freaking out and, truth be told, I don’t know why my insides are quivering. “What’s the name of the gang?”

“The Brothers of the Scarlet Dragon,” she says, and I stumble backward.

“You sure?” I ask, as I hold my hand over my heart.

She looks at me with an odd expression. “Yes. Why do you look like that? You just went about five shades of pale, Jenna.”

I shake my head. “Nothing. No reason.” I sit down on one of the tiny chairs and my knees go up to my chin. “You don’t happen to know where that gang is right now, do you?”

Her eyes move over me as she says, “I talked to him last week. They were about to go on a road trip.”

“Did he say which direction they were heading?” I ask, and look at her to find her looking quite confused.

She shakes her head. “I didn’t ask. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Maybe I’m coming down with something. I should probably call it a day. Do you mind?” I get up, realize I’m shaking, and run my hands up and down my arms.

“No, you should go. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says as I grab my purse out of the closet and leave without saying another word because if I open my mouth again, I think I might cry. I look at Sam as I walk out and he gets up and follows me. He drives me everywhere I go to alone now.

He opens the car door so I can get in. “Where to, Miss Foster?”

“Home, please,” I manage to get out without falling apart.

My hand shakes as I pull my cell phone out of my purse and call Reed.

“What’s up, my angel?” he asks as he answers.

“Can you come home?”

“Of course I can. Are you on the way there already? School’s not out yet.”

“I left just a minute ago. I don’t feel well. I’ll talk to you about it at home.”

“I’m on my way now. Have Sam stay there until I get there.”

“I will.” I end the call and try to stop shaking, but can’t.

I don’t know how long I can live this way. Part of me wants to confront Rod and tell him to leave me alone and let me live my life. But another part knows that won’t work anyway.

The fact that I’m with his brother is the thing that’s pushing him so far over the edge and I know that. If I had moved on with anyone else, I doubt he’d have gone as far as he has.

Traffic isn’t bad at all in the middle of the day, so I find we’ve made it back to the mansion as Reed is pulling in right behind us. Sam comes around and opens the door for me. “I’ll make a quick check around the grounds since Mr. Manning is here.”

I give him a nod and he goes to talk to Reed for a minute, then takes off on his walk around like he always does to make sure there have been no breaches.

I lean into Reed as he comes to me and wraps his arm around me. “Okay, what has you all upset? I can see it written all over your gorgeous face, Jenna.”

“The teacher I’m working under has a brother in the same gang Rod’s in.” I watch his face go red.

“Damn it! You’ll have to find another place to work.”

He takes me inside and we sit on the sofa just inside the door. He pulls me onto his lap and I bury my face in his wide chest. “I hate this, Reed. I hate that he has this much control over my life. It’s not fair.”

“I do too, Jenna. But we have to play it safe all the time where he’s concerned. If he ever got to you …” He stops talking and sighs.

His lips press against the top of my head. “I know.”

My heart pounds as his hands run over my arms. “I know the therapist told me to stop blaming myself, but how can I when I know if I would’ve just moved sooner then you wouldn’t be in this state?”

“No reason to do that to yourself. We can’t go back in time. Remember that little thing she told us to say to ourselves every time we go to that place in our head where we think about the past and what would’ve happened if we’d done things differently?” I pull my head off his chest and look at him.

His blue eyes are stormy looking as he runs his hand through my hair. “I know. I’ll stop.”

“The fact is that I should’ve left when he asked me to sign that damn paper. I knew that’s what I should’ve done. But when that little slut showed up, I went and made the wrong decision. I brought this all on myself. And someday I will have to figure out how to end it. Once and for all, I will end this shit with Rod.” I get off his lap and take his hand. “I haven’t eaten a thing today. Want to take me to lunch?”

He nods and takes me out to his car. Sam comes walking out of the shrubs next to the front entrance. “It’s all clear, sir.”

“Sam, you can take the rest of the day off. I’ll have Jenna with me.” Reed opens the passenger door and I get in, then he closes it behind me.

The two talk for a minute, then Reed gets in the driver’s side. “He’s going to talk to that teacher you work under and tell her you won’t be going back. He’s also going to get her brother’s phone number and try to track his phone with some software he has. That way we’ll have an idea where the gang is most of the time.”

The thought of having to track people just to feel safe bothers me. “That’s kind of invasive to do to someone who knows nothing about that. Don’t you think?”

“Jenna, I don’t care about how invasive it is. I need to keep you safe, and I will do whatever it takes to do that. If Rod gets you, it will kill me.” He reaches out and takes my hand as he pulls out of the iron gates that have slid open for him.

“This is really no way to live,” I say. “For either of us. You shouldn’t have to live this way, Reed. If we weren’t together you’d be able to live normally. None of this crap would be happening in your life. You could live without a bodyguard on your payroll. No invasion of anyone’s privacy would be necessary.”

“Don’t even talk like that. I lived a life without you in it. It wasn’t as good as life is with you by my side, Jenna. I don’t regret making you part of my life. Not for one second have I regretted it.” He squeezes my hand. “Do you?”

How do I tell him that I do have regrets, but only because of how I’m affecting his life?

Instead, I shake my head. “Of course I don’t have any regrets about you, Reed. I love you, and my life has been so much better with you in it. A thousand times better. But you have to admit this is difficult.”

“Nothing worth it is ever easy. I can take all that comes with having you in my life, Jenna. Whatever it takes, I will do it. I will deal with the fallout. I would walk through fire for you.” He looks at me with a very serious expression.

“But you shouldn’t have to,” I say, and it makes him frown.

“But I would,” he says as he pulls my hand up to kiss it.

And only one thought goes through my head when he does.

How did I get so damn lucky?

“Do you think if I found a way to call Rod and get him to meet with me that I could set him straight?” I ask, and immediately know the answer I’m going to get.

Reed’s head shakes fast. “No! There is not a way in the world that’s safe for you. Please never go behind my back and do that. Please! I know if you were talking about a sane person it would be the smart thing to do. But Rod is a little off the beaten path where sanity is concerned.”

“But this is no way to exist, Reed. I’m always looking over my shoulder, even with you or Sam around to protect me. I need to figure out how to deal with this threat myself.”

A red light has him stopping, and he looks at me. “Jenna, you are not alone. You and I are together in everything. You don’t have to deal with things alone. I’m here for you. Let me be. Let me help you.”

The light changes and I gesture to it with a nod of my head. “The light changed.”

He looks back at the road. “Promise me you will never try to contact him.”

“I promise you that if I feel it’s very important to then I will talk to you about if first.”

He nods. “Good. That’s settled then. No contacting him at this point, anyway.”

I nod in agreement, but inside I still think I have to do this on my own. The same way I made the decision to sign the damn paper on my own, I can make Rod understand what we had is over.

But Reed will never allow that!

Chapter 28

REED

My eyes open and all I see is the darkness of our bedroom. Then a light shines from my cell phone on the nightstand beside me. The vibration of the phone must’ve woken me up.

I pick up the phone and see my father is calling me. I also see that it’s three in the morning.

This cannot be good.

Phone calls at this hour from one’s family are always of the utmost importance. No one calls just to say hi at three in the morning.

Jenna stirs beside me. “Who’s that, Reed?”

“My father,” I say, then answer his call. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?” I try to sound casual, like I’m not internally about to freak out.

I prepare myself to hear bad news about my brother, as he’s the only wildcard in our family.

“Reed, I’m with your mother in the hospital. She fell earlier this evening, and she seemed confused. So I took her into Prescott to the emergency room.” He stops talking and then he clears his throat. “She’s got a brain tumor, son.”

My world stops and spins backward. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. They did a CAT scan a little while ago and found one about the size of a golf ball. They’re going to do surgery tomorrow morning. Rod’s here. I called him when I brought her in around five earlier this evening. Your mother wants to see you before she goes into surgery, just in case she doesn’t make it.” Then he just busts out crying, and I nearly do the same thing myself.

“Dad, everything will be fine. I’ll get on a plane within the hour and be there as soon as I can. You have to have faith. And we will do everything she needs to make it through this. Don’t worry.” I take Jenna’s hand to steady myself.

“See you then, son.”

I hang up and look at Jenna. “My mother has a tumor and they’re going to take it out in the morning. I need to go to her.”

She nods at me. “You want me to come?”

“Rod’s already there. I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

She looks down. “I understand.”

My mind is numb with the news and the fact I need Jenna with me is weighing on me. But my family doesn’t need any more drama.

“I’m going to take a shower. Do you think you could pack me enough clothes for a few days?” I get out of bed and my legs are shaking, so I fall back on it.

“Reed! Are you okay?” Jenna sits up and looks at me.

I shake my head. “No, I’m not. My mother might die, Jenna. I’m not okay at all.”

She gets off the bed, walks in front of me, and runs her arms around me. “She’ll be fine. You’ll see.” She hugs me tight.

She holds me as I grip her body. I need her. I need her to be with me.

But I can’t force her to see Rod again, after all he’s done to her.

She lets me out of her hug. “I’ll start the shower for you. Then I’ll pack while you take one.”

I watch her walk away from me and the ache begins. I won’t be able to go through this without her.

But somehow I have to find the strength to anyway.

She comes back and takes me by the hand and leads me to the shower. “Here you go. It’s all warmed up. I’ll go pack now.”

I step into the shower and barely feel the water on my skin as my body is numb as well as my mind. There’s just no way this is happening. My mother is healthy.

She can’t have a brain tumor!

I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the tiled wall. Scenes from my childhood flash through my brain. There’s one of my brother and me on a small boat with our parents. We’re all smiling as he holds up a tiny fish he caught.

Another of us with them on the first Christmas I can remember. Another as we all laugh and watched Dad lighting up fireworks. So many happy times.

They kind of drown out the bad. Funny that, when faced with a death, you can recall so much happiness that the bad fades so far back you can barely recall it at all.

The bathroom door opens and Jenna comes back in. “Oh, Reed, you haven’t moved since I left you.” She steps into the shower with me and pours shampoo into her palm.

Her hands move through my hair, massaging in the soap, and she hums a little as she washes my hair. Then she leans my head back and rinses it out.

She pours some body wash on the poufy pink thing she uses for herself and moves it all over my body. Still, she hums, and it makes me feel a little peaceful.

I catch her wrists up as she moves her hands up my arms. She looks at me and stops humming. “I need you, Jenna. I know it’s selfish of me to ask this of you. But I need you. I need you with me through this.”

“Then I will be there for you, Reed.” Her words come out soft and without hesitation.

Her selflessness is amazing to me. I know I shouldn’t take her into such a dangerous and terrible situation. But I feel like I can’t do it without her.

“I love you, Jenna.” I move my arms around her wet body and pull her to me.

My lips touch hers and for a moment everything else goes away. She’s my personal safe zone, where nothing can hurt me.

Her hands slip over my back and my cock stirs. I’m aware of how inappropriate it is to think about sex when your mother is facing death, but I need Jenna so bad right now it makes no real sense.

Pulling her body up, I slide my cock into her wet depths and her moan vibrates my mouth. I press her back against the tiled wall and thrust into her as she wraps her legs around me.

Hard and quick, I make deep strokes into her. My movements are kind of savage as I ram my cock into her as deep as I can.

I need her body to take me away from this horrible nightmare I’m having. This has to be a nightmare. My mother can’t really be facing death.

She just can’t be!

If that was true, I’d never be making love to Jenna in this shower. I’d be crying and pleading with God to save my mother. Not stroking my cock into my girlfriend.

Not slamming into Jenna so hard I can feel her body smashing between mine and the hard wall. Not pounding her until I feel her legs shaking and her body going into convulsive spasms as she has an orgasm but doesn’t take her mouth from mine to groan with the pleasure or shout my name like she does most of the time.

My cock stiffens and I cum in a long burst. I pull my mouth away and say a string of curse words as my semen flows into her, “Fuck! Shit! Fucking shit!”

Then it hits me like a brick upside my head. I hold Jenna to me tight and let it happen. A wave washes over me and I cry as I hide my eyes in her shoulder.

Her hands run softly over my back as she says, “It’s okay. Let it all out.”

My body is shaking. “Jenna, what if I lose her?”

“Don’t think like that. It’ll be okay,” she whispers.

I’m crying so hard that my words come out in hiccupped bursts, “I haven’t talked to her since that day. Not really talked to her like we used to talk. What if she dies and this is how it ends?”

“You can fix it, Reed. Don’t worry. Everything can be fixed. You’ll see,” she says as she runs her hand over my head and I do feel somewhat better. “You can hire the best doctors for her and get her the best treatment possible. You can help her. Have faith, Reed.”

My crying slows and I pull back and look at her. Running my hands over her wet hair, I push it back. “What did I do to deserve you, Jenna?”

She smiles. “No telling. So let’s get you out of this shower and into some clothes. I’ll call the charter service and let them know it’s an emergency.”

As she turns off the water, I grab her from behind and hug her. “You are amazing!”

“No, I’m just good in a crisis.” She turns in my arms and looks at me with shiny green eyes. “And I love you very much and hate to see you in pain.”

“Seems we have that in common. Jenna, are you sure you can handle seeing Rod?” I look deep into her eyes to find the real truth in them.

She blinks and smiles. “For you, I can handle anything that’s thrown at me. Even a big asshole like Rod. Put that out of your mind. This thing with your mother is bigger than the shit with me and him. I can put the asshole in his place now with ease. I love your mother too.”

“And she does love you too. I know she has her opinion that you were a willing participant in the things you did with Rod and all, and I don’t like that. I don’t like it one bit. But she does love you. And she doesn’t judge you about what you did.” I run my hands up and down her back.

“Reed, the fact is that I was a willing participant. He never chained me up where I couldn’t leave. I could’ve walked away if I had wanted to. At that time, he was all I knew. And I know it’s hard to believe or understand, but I loved him and thought I was helping him in some way by showing him that I could be what he needed. He could hurt me and I would still be there. It was stupid and naïve of me to think I wouldn’t suffer any harm from the abuse. But thanks to you and our therapist, I can see the past for what it is and learn from it instead of letting it hurt me any longer.”

I watch her talk and know she thinks what she’s saying is true. And in her mind, I suppose it is. But I know that when she has to look at Rod, things will hit her hard.

I should leave her here and not make her deal with this yet. She hasn’t had enough therapy to be able to handle him yet.

Sometimes life makes things happen before we’re ready for them, though. And this seems like one of those times.

“I’ll be there for you, Jenna. You won’t have to do anything alone. I’ll stay with you every second so he can’t do anything to hurt you.” I reach out, grab a towel, and wrap her up in it then take one to dry myself off.

Jenna smiles at me as she dries off. “Hopefully, I won’t have to use it, but I have a bottle of pepper spray in my purse. If he touches me, I’ll use it on him.”

“Smart thinking.” I pull her into my arms again. “We have to face this sometime anyway, don’t we?”

With a tweak to my nose, she says, “We do. We’re going to be married in May, only six months from now. Rod’s going to be my brother-in-law. You and I have to learn how to handle the dastardly man.”

With a hug, I kiss the top of her head. “We really have no choice. We have to face him head on and just be more stubborn than he is.”

I let her go, and she takes my hand and leads me to the bed where she has my clothes laid out for me. “I was reading the other day about facing what you’re afraid of. When you hide from it and show it you’re afraid, it gets stronger. That’s why I was talking to you about talking to Rod and letting him know I’m not afraid of him anymore.”

I watch her pull on a pair of little blue silk panties and a matching bra and listen to her talk, but I know Rod is a danger to her. He kidnapped her, and God only knows what he planned to do to her.

But I have to wrap my head around the fact we do have to confront him at some time about this. I just hope he cares more about our mother than he does with his obsession with Jenna, so we can begin to put things in the past and move forward.

If not, then this whole thing will get very messy, and I don’t want that. For my family’s sake, I don’t want that.

But people don’t always get what they want!

Chapter 29

JENNA

The sun has still not lit up the sky as Reed and I walk into the hospital his mother is in. It’s six in the morning, and her surgery is only hours away. The Intensive Care Unit nurse leads us to her room and tells us each visit can only be ten minutes long.

Sue’s eyes are closed as we walk into the glass room full of monitors which are hooked up to her.

“Mom,” Reed whispers.

Her eyes open and she smiles. “You made it.”

“Of course I did.” He lets my hand go and hugs her as best he can with all her attachments. “How do you feel?”

“Awful. Can you believe I have a golf-ball sized tumor in my head?” She looks at me and a frown covers her face. “You know Rod’s here, right?”

I nod. “Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry, there will be no trouble. I promise.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Promise me that, Jenna.”

“I promise, Sue. I’ll leave if there is any.”

She nods. Reed looks back at me with his lips held tightly together. Then he looks back at his mother. “Don’t worry about a thing except getting better.”

“I wish I could just stop worrying. Maybe it’s the tumor that has me so riled up all the time. I just worry over everything lately. And Rod and Reed and their relationship is at the very top.” Sue looks at me again. “If I die …”

Reed stops her. “Mom, don’t even talk like that.”

She pats his hand he’s holding hers with. “I might die, son. It’s a fact, and I have little time to get this out there. I want my family back. I want you two boys to kiss and make up. I want it back. I can’t stand how things are. If you two can’t come to some middle ground where Jenna’s concerned, than I expect your blood to come before anything else.”

My heart stops, as I know what she’s saying. If they can’t figure out how to get along with this, then I need to step out of the picture.

Reed looks at her. “Mom, I won’t ever let her go.”

“I know that. Neither of you will. That’s why I’m talking to Jenna. Woman to woman. You understand me, don’t you, Jenna? I love you, and I don’t want you to think I don’t. My family is the most important thing to me. My sons are all that will be left of me, and I want them to be able to have a relationship. If they can figure things out, great. If they can’t stop playing tug-of-war over you, then I expect you to take care of that. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. The Manning boys are not the only men in the world, you know.”

“Mom, don’t,” Reed says.

She pats his hands again. “I have to.”

I nod. “I understand and respect you, Sue. I will get out of the way if that’s what I have to do to honor your wishes. I promise you.”

Reed turns back to me with a terrified look on his handsome face, but says nothing. The nurse comes back in. “Time is up. She can have another visit in twenty minutes.”

Reed kisses his mother and I give her a wave, then we leave. Reed’s hand is shaking in mine and I know that was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

A waiting room on the left is open and empty and he pulls me into it then shuts and locks the door. I’m pulled into his arms as his whole body shakes and he cries even harder than he did when he first found this out.

“Jenna, you can’t walk away if Rod and I can’t come to terms over you! You can’t!”

“I’ll do all I can to make sure you two can come to terms, for her sake. She just wants to keep her family intact. I completely understand her.”

It’s so hard not to cry when he’s so hurt and afraid, but I feel I have to shove my fear aside and only show him strength at this time. I can go off when I’m alone and cry my eyes out. But for now, I have to be strong for him.

“Mom doesn’t understand how deeply I love you. If I lose you because of him, I won’t want a relationship with him, anyway.” He pulls back and looks at me with tears running down his face. It makes my heart hurt. “I can’t handle this thing with her and this thing with you too.”

“What do you want me to say? If I’m a source of friction, then I’ll be making things worse for your family. You are part of something, Reed. You are a part of a family. And I may be a thing that breaks you all apart. I can’t do that.”

He holds me tighter and squeezes me. “Jenna, please just stay the hell away from Rod and things will be okay. I’ll make sure they are. Please.”

“Of course I’ll stay the hell away from him.”

And just as the words leave my mouth, I see Rod walking by the room we’re in. The lights are off and the window is tinted, so I can see him, but he can’t see us.

My heart begins to pound as I recall that the last time I saw him he was pulling the nightgown over my head and then binding my hands together while another guy bound my feet. Then he placed a gag in my mouth and threw me over his shoulder, then tossed me into a tiny trunk.

Suddenly, I feel bile welling up in my throat. “Fuck! I have to go to the bathroom, Reed. Sorry!”

I run out of the room and don’t look back as I take off toward the place I saw the ladies’ room sign. I barely make it in, then throw up in the trashcan.

The nerves have finally taken me over and I keep throwing up until all that’s left are dry heaves. A knock comes on the door and Reed pushes it open.

“Is anyone else in here?” he asks as he holds his hand over his eyes.

“No, only me. You can come in.”

He pulls his hand away. “Are you okay?”

“I will be. I just had to toss my cookies with all the nerves, you know.” I try to smile, but it’s hard.

“I’m running to the car to get you a mint to help you. I’ll be right back. Meet me at the ICU and we can go back in and see Mom. It’s about time again.”

I nod. “I have to wash my face anyway. I’ll meet you there.”

He leaves me alone, and I lean against the wall and try to regain my composure. I have to figure out how to fix this, and I have no real clue how to do that.

After washing my mouth out with water and rinsing my face to ease the flush on it from the puking, I walk out and head toward the ICU.

“Jenna!”

I look up and Rod is right there. I’m grabbed up before I realize how close he is.

“Rod!”

He moves us into a small closet and closes the door. He’s crying and shaking, and I don’t feel like he wants to hurt me.

“Jenna, what am I going to do? If Mom doesn’t make it, this is going to kill me. I can’t help but blame this on myself. She’s been so worried about me, and she has every reason to be. I’m living hard. Harder than I ever have. When I lost you, I lost my way. I need to find my way back, Jenna. I need you back.”

He pulls back and looks at me, but doesn’t let me go. “Rod, I don’t know what you want me to say. I can be there for you as a friend, but that’s all. I want us all to get along.”

He shakes his head. “No. No, Jenna. I need you. I need you more than I ever have needed anyone. Please. Please, Jenna, I’m begging you.”

“Rod, I love Reed. I can’t be any more than your friend,” I tell him as I look into his steel-blue eyes that are filled with more tears than I’ve ever seen in them before.

“Jenna, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I did to you. Every last bit of it. I’ll never hurt you again. I swear to you I won’t. You loved me once. I know I didn’t let you say the words, but I know you did. You can find that love for me again, especially when I treat you the way I should’ve always treated you. Give me a chance, Jenna. I’ll be dead in a year if you don’t take me back. I know I will.”

I’m in a trance. I don’t know what to tell him. “I love Reed. I’m marrying Reed. I need you to come to terms with that.”

“I need you to come to terms with this. I love you, Jenna. I always have.” His tears stop falling as he looks into my eyes. “I need you. I love you. I want to make it all up to you. Make up for all the wrong things I’ve done to you. All of it.”

My head is spinning. “Rod, I need to go.”

“I’ll prove it all to you. You’ll see.” He lets me go. “I will let you go because I know you will come back to me. You may think you love my brother, and you might love him. But you and I loved each other first. You and I have history. You and I began a life together and we can finish our lives together. You’ll see. I tore up the contracts I had with you and that other girl. I set her free too. You’re both free. I don’t want her back. I want you back. I want us to pick up where we left off. Things were good before I had to leave. You know they were. We were in love, girl. You know we were. If I hadn’t gotten myself into trouble than we’d have gotten married. You know that.”

“Rod, I have to go.” I turn the knob and leave the closet, feeling like I might faint. When I look up I see Reed walking down the hallway toward me. “There you are. Are you okay?” he asks.

Then Rod walks out behind me and Reed stops dead in his tracks. Then he starts coming at Rod, fast and furious. I hold out my hand. “No! He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t do anything to me. He just cried and hugged me. No reason to fight. No reason to fight at all.” I take a step to the side and turn to walk away.

Reed calls out, “Where are you going?”

“To the car.” I walk faster, as I feel like I might pass out. “I have to get away from here.”

“I’ll be out there in a minute, Angel,” Reed says.

Then I hear Rod say, “Reed, you and I need to talk.”

I run the rest of the way until I get outside. Then I sit on a bench and try desperately to catch my breath. My world is turning upside down, and I can’t find the right direction I need to be going in.

The fact is, I’m ripping this family apart. Rod wants me; Reed wants me; and neither will give up.

I waited a long time to hear Rod admit he loves me, and I thought that, with my love for Reed, it wouldn’t affect me. But it did.

Not in the way I expected. It made something inside me happy he finally admitted it. And I found I do still have love for him buried deep in my heart.

His pain hurts me too. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that. Our history has affected me. I guess that love I found for him all those years ago was strong. So strong the small flame sparked up when he finally told me he loved me.

But the fire I have for Reed is huge, and it runs deep. And in a perfect world, Reed and I could get married and have babies and all would be right. But this world is far from perfect. With Rod’s stubborn refusal to let me go and do what’s best for me, I will never have what I crave with Reed.

No family functions will go smoothly. His mother will most likely die from the stress their feuding will cause her. And there I’ll be, the big catalyst who single-handedly destroyed a family. A once very happy family.

A car pulls up and their father, Jason, gets out of it. His face is pale with worry and he looks down. He doesn’t even see me.

As he passes me, I say, “Hello, Jason.”

He stops and turns back. “Jenna? Why on Earth would you come here? This is all your fault. You know that, right?”

His accusation has me cringing. “No, I don’t think this is from me. Rod said himself it was he who caused her stress.”

“Only because of you. I never knew you to be selfish. But you are one selfish woman, Jenna. My family has fallen apart, and you did that.” He turns back and takes two steps, then stops. He doesn’t look back. “When are you going to stop being selfish?”

I look down as his footsteps fade away.

When will I stop?

Chapter 30

REED

Rod takes me by the shoulder and steers me to a waiting room. “Reed, you and I need to talk. I can’t take life like this anymore, and Mom obviously can’t either.”

I go along with him, in a very odd state of mind. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. This situation is beyond odd and confusing. “I agree. We have to work things out. Jenna was nearly hurt because of this.”

He nods and looks sad. I’ve never seen my brother look sad in my entire life. “I know. I was crazy with jealousy. I’ll never hurt her again. I tore up the contract she and I had. I know it was just a piece of paper, but to me it was more than that. And I thought it was to her too. Guess I was wrong about that. I’ve been wrong about so damn many things.”

“I’m glad to see you’re coming to grips with things. This will make Mom happy. I know we can put this all behind us.”

He looks at me with a certain grimness in his expression. “Reed, I want you to know that I love you. I know I was a mean little shit, and I hurt you plenty. I’m sorry.”

I about fall out of the chair I’m sitting in. Then I feel like I should do a little apologizing too. “Sorry about breaking your arm.”

He nods. “Thanks. Anything else you feel sorry for, Reed?” His steel-blue eyes twinkle a little.

“I know you want me to tell you I’m sorry for stealing your girl, Rod. But I don’t see it like that and you know it. I liked her a good two years before you even knew she existed. And I never made a move on her until you left her and had been gone a couple of years. And now I love her more than you can even imagine,” I tell him, and look right into his eyes so he knows I’m telling him the God’s honest truth.

He can’t hold my eyes though and looks away. “I know you do. But I do too. And I need her more than I’ve ever needed anyone or thing in my life. I need her to get me off this bad road I’ve gotten myself on. Only she can do it.”

I hold my breath to steady myself. The guy’s talking about the love of my life, the woman I’m about to marry.

I try very hard to say the right words without doing damage to how far we’ve come. And I know Mom’s words to Jenna went deep into her brain. So I have to try hard to make something work between me and my brother.

“Rod, I can’t walk away from her. And even if I could, I don’t think she would go back to you. She’s changed.”

“I know she has. She’s blossomed. And I know you have everything to do with that. I know you paid for her college and kept her going when I left her. I know your pure love for her opened up her soul. She glows with all you’ve brought out in her. I know this, and I’d just walk away if I didn’t have this all-encompassing love and need for her myself.” He looks away as tears start to fall.

Next to me is a box of tissues and I say, “Here you go.” Then I toss the box to him when he looks back at me. “Never seen you cry before.”

He shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t cry. But now I do. Man, I cry all the fucking time. I tried to get my head going in another direction. I got a new chick and treated her like shit, all the while trying to change her into Jenna. I was a real asshole. And I know I was one to Jenna too. But not that last year, I wasn’t.”

“After the incident, you mean?” I ask, as I feel kind of like crying myself.

He nods and blows his nose, making a loud elephant-like sound and I laugh a little. He grins, then says, “Yeah, after I threw her around the front yard and the cop came and she had the chance to be rid of me. But she asked him not to take me to jail. She didn’t do that because she was afraid of me like I thought I needed her to be. She did it because she loved me. It made something snap inside me. I changed that day. If I wouldn’t have been an idiot and sold drugs in the first place, then I’d have married her and we’d probably have a bunch of rugrats running around by now.”

I tap my fingertips on the arm of the chair I’m sitting in. My mind is spinning, and I don’t know what to do. “But you did do those things, and it all stopped for you two. No one but you caused that. I don’t see how you think she will be able to trust you again. I mean, even if she wasn’t with me, I still don’t know if she would take you back.”

I watch my older brother get off the chair he’s sitting in and get on his knees on the floor. A knot forms in my throat as he scoots on them across the floor. Stopping at my feet, he looks up at me with tears in his eyes.

“Reed, I have no idea if she will either, but I need to find that out. All I’m asking is for you to set her free. Who knows if she’ll come back to either of us. But I’m asking for one last chance with her. She is the love of my life, Reed. I know she’s yours too.” He stifles a sob, and my throat clenches as I try hard to hold back my own tears. “Mom told me you guys have scheduled a wedding in May. That’s about six months away. Set her free. Don’t talk to her, and I’ll leave her alone too. But if she attempts to contact either of us and wants either of us back then we agree to accept who it is she picks. And if she moves on to another man, we agree to accept that too.”

“Rod, if I break up with her it will hurt her. I never want to hurt her.” I shake my head, as I don’t think I’m capable of doing what he’s asking.

“Did Mom talk to her? Because she said she did. She said that Jenna agreed to take herself out of the picture if you and I couldn’t come to terms about her.” He looks up at me from his place on the floor with pleading eyes.

“She did. And if I know Jenna, she’s taking Mom’s words very much to heart.” I glance to the side as I see our father walk past the waiting room. Then he opens the door.

“Thank God. Come with me. They’re about to take your mother into surgery, and she’s making them wait until she sees you two.”

Dad doesn’t ask why Rod’s on his knees in front of me. He just holds out his hand to Rod and Rod takes it and gets up. Then we three walk down the hall with clicks and clacks of our shoes to see the woman who has held this family together all this time.

She breathes a sigh of relief as we all walk into her room and find her on a gurney, prepared to leave the ICU to go to surgery. “My men!”

We take turns hugging her and each of us tells her we love her and will be praying for her. Then she gives Rod and me a stern look. “Can I see you two hug before I go?”

I turn to my brother and open my arms and he does the same and we hug. A real hug, not one for show. One that says we can put this bad shit behind us, but it will take some doing. It will take some sacrifices.

And I’m not sure I want to make them.

And I won’t if Jenna doesn’t want to. I will never hurt her. I can’t do that.

We stand back and watch them move the gurney out of the room and wave to our mother. We hold it all back until she gets good and gone, then, collectively, we sniffle as we let a few of the tears free that we all were holding back.

With a clap on Rod’s back, I say, “I’ll go talk to her.”

We walk down the hallway and Rod looks at me. “Can I talk to her after you have?”

My father has been eerily silent, and he turns to us in the hallway. “What have you two decided about that girl?”

“We have a bit of an idea, but I haven’t talked to Jenna about it yet,” I say.

Dad opens the door to the waiting room they told him we needed to wait in so we could be updated about the operation as it goes. “Whatever your plan is, I just want you both to know that if Jenna doesn’t stop being selfish then she has no place in our family.”

Rod gets an angry look on his face. “Look, Dad, Reed and I can work this out. This is our problem. It’s not Jenna’s fault. And I don’t want you talking about her like that. She’s anything but selfish. She’s selfless!”

Dad looks kind of shocked. “Well, I talked to her outside and told her to stop being selfish.”

Rod wags his finger at our father. “Then when Reed brings her back in here you had better apologize to her. She’s not selfish. Reed and I are, but not her.”

I nod in agreement and Dad looks kind of sheepish as I say, “I’ll go get her. For now, we won’t talk about anything. Let’s get through Mom’s surgery. Then we can talk to Jenna. Okay, Rod?”

He nods. “Yeah. Right now all that matters is Mom. Tell her there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll be cool, and so will Dad.”

I leave the room and go outside. She’s sitting on a bench with her head hanging low as she looks at her phone.

“Hey, gorgeous,” I say and she looks up at me.

“Oh, it’s you. How’s your mother?” she asks with a lot of sadness in her eyes.

“They just took her in. I’m here to get you to take you into the waiting room. Dad told us what he said to you and he has an apology waiting for you. Rod jumped his ass about telling you that you’re the selfish one. Rod and I both know it’s us, not you.” I reach out to take her hand and she just looks at it.

“No, he’s right. I am selfish. I want it all, I guess. And that’s not fair, and it is selfish. I was waiting for you to come out so I could tell you that I’m going to go to my parents I think. Your family needs this time alone. This time should be about your mom, not anything other than that.” She looks back at her phone, and I kneel down in front of her.

With a gentle tug at her chin to make her look at me, I catch her eyes with mine. “Jenna, come inside, please. I need you, and Rod has promised he’ll be cool. Dad’s sorry. My parents don’t understand things, but Rod and I are coming to terms with things. And we can talk about it later. For now, I need you to come hold my hand. Rod may need you to do that for him too, and I want you to know that if you feel like comforting him, you can. Don’t do it if you don’t want to, though. It’s all up to you.”

She looks a little stunned. “Are you kidding?”

I shake my head. “No. The fact is, you loved him once, and I could tell by how you looked, the things he told you in that closet had you feeling conflicted. He and I have had our ropes on you for too long now. We’ve pulled and pushed you and that’s going to stop.”

“I don’t know what to do, Reed. I love you, and I’d like a friendship with Rod,” she says as she looks confused. “But right now I feel in the way of your family and your obligations to them.”

“I can see you feel that way. So let me tell you that if I go back in there without you, it will make all three of us Manning men feel terrible. And you can decide what you want to do with that information.”

I wait for her to digest what I’ve said, then she takes my hand. “I’ll go. We can deal with the other stuff later.”

I wrap my arm around her shoulders and take her inside. Jenna Foster has had a place in our family in one capacity or another for a very long time. Now is not the time to toss her aside as if she’s no part of it.

And I hope I have the strength to handle it if she decides not to be a part of it after this.

Chapter 31

JENNA

The Manning men’s faces as I come into the little waiting room are an odd combination of grim and happy. Rod gets up and walks up to me as Reed still has his arm around my shoulders.

He reaches out and takes both my hands in his. “Hey, Jenna. I just want you to know I’m going to be cool about shit. And Dad has something he wants to say to you.” He keeps one of my hands in his, but lets the other go.

The feeling as both of them touch me is odd and I feel uneasy. Then Jason stands up and I feel very uneasy as he says, “I’d like to apologize for what I said earlier, Jenna. The boys have explained things to me and I am sorry. This stuff with Sue has me on edge. I hope you can accept my apology.”

“Of course. I understand, Jason.”

Rod pulls me along and sits down. I sit in the chair in between him and Reed. Reed’s arm moves from my shoulders and he takes my other hand. Rod still has the one he’s been holding.

So here I sit in the most awkward position I have ever been in. Both know I’m holding the other’s hand, and no one is mad or jealous or anything. Only worried about their mother.

I sit back and do my best to relax as Reed’s thumb runs nervously back and forth over my knuckles and Rod’s hand makes little squeezes every once in a while.

After a while, the phone in the room rings and Jason picks it up. “Yes. Okay. Thank you.” He hangs up and smiles. “They have the tumor out. She’s doing fine. Now they have to close her head back up; they’ll call when that’s done.”

My heart jumps with the good news. Then Reed stands up and pulls me along with him and Rod follows too, as he still has my hand.

He lets it go as I turn to hug Reed and I wrap my arms around him. “I told you it would be okay,” I say as I hug him.

Reed lets me go and gestures with his head for me to turn around. I do, and find Rod there with tears in his eyes. “I was so worried about her.”

I hold open my arms and he hugs me. “She’s going to make it through this, Rod. She’s a tough lady.”

“Thanks, Jenna.” I freeze as his lips touch my ear for a second, then he lets me go.

I look at Jason and say with a laugh, “How about you? Do you need a hug too, Jason?”

He steps forward. “I really do.” He takes me up in his arms in a hug too and I smile.

I really do have a place in this family!

We all sit back down and Jason laughs, then says, “Do you kids remember when we had that last big New Year’s party and Sue did shots with Rod and the cousins? Man, she got wasted. I had to carry her to bed that night.”

Rod laughs. “She downed those shots like a sailor on leave in Singapore!”

Reed starts chuckling too. “The next morning she looked like something that cat had dragged in.”

I add in my memory of that day, “I had to take her to the bathroom and brush her hair. She seemed to have forgotten to brush it with that monster hangover she had, and she whined with every brushstroke I made.”

Reed laughs harder. “Oh yeah! One side flat and one side frizzed all out. Poor Mom!”

We all laugh with the memory, then Jason’s eyes tear up. “Man, I hope we get a hell of a lot more days with her.”

A few tears leak out and then my hands are quickly taken again by Sue’s sons. And now I see how I can be of help. “Hey, remember when the pool was first put in and she slid down that slide hollering wheee all the way down, like a little kid?”

Jason starts laughing. “And she made the biggest splash and her face went all red when she came out from under the water to see us all laughing at her!”

I nudge Rod’s shoulder with mine. “And you had to go and take a video of her with your phone. Remember how mad she was at you when you posted it on Facebook?”

He laughs and shrugs. “It got like a zillion likes!”

“I never told her because she would’ve killed you, Rod, but I saw that video on YouTube a whole year later and the remarks were hilarious,” Reed says.

Rod jerks my hand. “And when you and Mom tried to light the barbecue pit on your own, Jenna!” He laughs so hard he doubles over and Reed joins in.

Reed says in laugh-choked words, “Mom’s eyebrows were gone, and Jenna’s bangs were singed almost completely off.”

Jason struggles to stop laughing as he says, “Then Rod came outside and saw the two of them and laughed so hard he fell off the porch, so Reed had to go help him up.”

Reed and Rod both crack up even harder as Reed says, “Yeah, I did, because he and I had just smoked a little happy weed and I knew he couldn’t get up on his own.”

My eyes roll to Reed in surprise and his eyebrows rise up high as he says, “Oops, you didn’t know that, did you?”

I shake my head and narrow my eyes at him, then look back at Rod and give him a little look too. “You bad, bad boys. That’s why Sue and I were even attempting to light the damn thing, because we couldn’t find you two.”

Rod gives the little impish shrug he’s so good at getting out of trouble with. “We heard you both calling us as you two were wandering all over the place looking for us. We were in the garage.”

“Uh, uh,” I say with a shake if my head. “We looked there.”

Reed nudges me with his shoulder. “Not behind the blue bedspread that was strategically hung up in there.”

“You guys are a couple of real scamps!” I say, and we all laugh again.

Everything is feeling great. Then the phone rings. Jason looks at it. “That seems kind of soon, doesn’t it?”

“Want me to get it?” I ask.

He nods and I get up and pick up the phone. “Hello.”

“Hi, this is Dr. Lexor. There’s been a complication, and Sue’s heartbeat stopped.”

Mine stops at that moment too and I close my eyes so they don’t reveal anything to the three men staring at me. “Is she okay now?”

“She is. She was gone for five minutes though and we’ll have to test her for any damage. So bringing her around will take a little longer than expected. I’ll call when we’re done, unless further complications occur.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lexor.” I hang up the phone. “She’s okay.”

Collective sighs ring out. “What happened?” Jason asks.

I take his hand and look him in the eyes. “Jason, the important thing is she’s okay now. Okay?”

He nods. “Tell me what happened.”

“Her heart stopped for five minutes. But they got it going again. The process of bringing her around will take a little longer because of the time loss of resuscitating her. And they’ll be checking to see if it did any damage to her.” His hand is crushing mine, but I don’t say a word.

Rod sees it though and gets up. “Hey, Dad, want to take a walk with me, since we have some time?”

“Yeah,” he says as he looks up at Rod. “Yeah, I need to walk. Shit! I almost lost her there for five minutes, didn’t I?”

Rod pries his father’s hand off mine and helps him up. “Nah, Mom was just fucking with us. You’ll have her around for a long time. Don’t worry.”

I shake my hand to get the blood flow back and look at Reed as they walk out. His face is really pale and I go to him. “You want to take a walk too?”

He shakes his head. “We need to stay here to answer the phone.”

“I can wait here. You can join them if you want.”

He takes my hand and pulls me down to sit in the chair next to his. “Jenna, thank you for being here for us all. It really has opened my eyes like I never have before. You’re a real part of this family. You know it?”

“I feel like I am, yeah. I’m glad to be here for you all. I’m glad I can help you all, and I think Sue would be happy I’m here for you guys.”

“She will be happy to hear you were here for us all. And I want you to know that we all appreciate the hell out of you, girl,” he says. Then his lips touch mine for only a second.

The rush he always sends through me with his kiss goes all through me. And I can feel something extra. His eyes are hiding a secret. “Reed, would you like to tell me anything? Like maybe what you and Rod talked about?”

“He’d like another shot with you.” His eyes go dark. “And I feel like you should have the opportunity to make a choice. I kind of took you along with me very quickly when I got my greedy mitts on you. So we talked about letting you free for a little while. Letting you think about things and leaving you to pick one of us or move on from us both and find another. We wanted to give you a shot at finding a man that’s not a Manning, if you want that.”

His words should surprise me, but as I was holding both their hands I got the sense they had come to some kind of an agreement about me. And it seems I’m going to be set free of everything and everyone.

“You both want me, huh?” I ask.

He nods. “The deadline Rod and I agreed on is our wedding day. But that’s a little too late if you decide not to be with me. So how about three days before that date? I’ll give you a nice sum of money and get you set up anywhere you want to. Neither Rod nor I will contact you, but you’re free to contact us on your own or whoever you want. You’re really going to be free. No hard feelings on anything you decide. We both swear to take whatever it is you decide.”

“If I pick one or the other of you, the other will be hurt,” I say as I take his hand and run my fingers over the top of it.

“Yep,” is his very simple answer. “But we can deal with it. Your happiness is what’s important to us both.”

I can’t help but feel weird. “So I have this pass, in a way. I have your offer of marriage still on the table. Rod still wants me back. But what if I want to date a man, not a Manning man, to see what it’s like not to date a Manning? What if I have sex with this non-Manning man? You still want me to marry you if I decide he’s not the one for me and you are?”

Reed nods. “It’s more than complicated, and I know that. If you want to talk to Rod and try things out with him, then you can do that too. And if it’s not what you want and you find you still love me, then I will take you back.”

I smile, as these men are fooling themselves. “That isn’t how things will work. I know that. Both of you are possessive creatures. If I’m with either of you, the other will write me off. But with a few dates with another man I might be able to see if anyone can hold my attention the way both of you have.”

I watch Reed’s face go very solemn. “I don’t want to do this, Jenna. If it will hurt you, I won’t allow it. I just don’t want to go into a marriage with you and build a family and one day you tell me you love Rod and our marriage is over. Take the time to think about what it is you want.”

What do I want?

I want Reed. I know I want Reed. But I want a life with Reed that doesn’t mean he and I both lose his family. So I say, “K. I’ll stay with you guys through this, but go back to my parents for the nights. Then I think I can get a student teacher job in Tempe until the middle of May. And then I can make the decision. My final one.”

His mouth forms a half-smile. “I hope you pick me.”

I run my hand over his smooth cheek. “I love you, Reed.”

“I love you, Jenna Foster.” He takes my hand in his and holds it to his cheek. “And now, you are a free woman. Fly away and only come back to me when you know it’s me who you want.”

My heart feels so odd as I look into his love-filled eyes.

What the hell will I do as a free woman? And who will I end up with?

Chapter 32

REED

Two weeks since Mom’s surgery and I’m back in Bel-Air, alone.

Jenna went to Tempe and has already started a student teaching job. I set her up in a small apartment and gave her a new car. But I told her not to think she has to pick me in order to keep them. The car is hers, and so is the bank card I gave her to pay her bills.

I don’t want her to come back to me based on my money. But I do want her to come back to me.

I’ve slept very little without her in my bed. The nights pass by like molasses in the winter. And I miss her with every fiber of my being.

But on the bright side, my mother is doing very well in the rehab facility we have her in. Rod has found a job as a mechanic at a garage in Prescott and already has a small house rented.

Just before I left, we all had a nice day with Mom at the rehab center, and she looked like she was happy having me and my brother back on good terms.

I have to admit, Rod seems to be getting on the right path. I didn’t see any signs of him drinking or doing any drugs. And he maintained very good behavior where Jenna was concerned.

The two had their talk about what he wanted, and she told me all about it and how she does have love for him in her heart. She’s taking this all very seriously and taking the time to be by herself and think things through.

If she picks either one of us, then that’s a forever commitment, a thing the three of us are well aware of.

With a bottle of wine in my hand, I walk up the staircase to the room I used to share with her and pray we will share again. But I’m not fooling myself into thinking she will come back to me for sure.

As a matter of fact, I see Jenna moving on away from both Rod and me. I could see things in her eyes as she looked at us all, Mom and Dad included. A happiness was there, but so was an underlying emotion of guilt.

I don’t know if she can get past the guilt of loving us both. Of being a rip in the middle of our family. She’s a good person, and I don’t know if she’ll be able to hurt either of us by picking one of us.

She hasn’t contacted me or my brother at all since we both kissed her goodbye the same day of Mom’s surgery. Late that night, after Mom was stabilized and we were all able to visit her, Jenna got in a cab and left us behind her.

Jenna saw how happy Mom was and wanted it to end on that happy note. She felt her presence was a distraction. She also felt that Rod and I needed to bond over the situation with our mother. If she was around, she’d get in the way of that.

So we let her go that very night. We’ve had no contact with her since, other than making sure she had what she needs, which I do through her parents.

But my heart hurts, and my body aches to hold her.

The time can’t pass by quick enough for me!

JENNA

Grading papers in the dim light of the small dining table in the apartment Reed rented me in Tempe, I sip on a glass of red wine to relax at the end of a long day. The kindergarteners were in full swing today and wore me out.

With a sip, I think about the proposition I had this afternoon in the school’s cafeteria. The principal, a man named Steven Johnson, asked me out for Friday night.

I told him I’d think about it and get back to him by Wednesday. It’s Monday, and I only have a couple of days to decide if that’s a thing I want to do.

In my jewelry box are both the engagement rings Rod and Reed gave me and I look at them each and every day, placing them one at a time on my finger to look at them and think about which man I want to spend the rest of my life with. Raise a family with.

And the truth is, I know if I pick one of them, the other will be hurt. I don’t want either of them hurt, but I also don’t want their family hurt.

So the idea of moving on from the Manning clan is forefront in my mind. And Steven Johnson may be the first step out of that world and into a new one.

But I’m not sure yet. I’ve been a Manning’s girlfriend since I was eighteen, except for the two years when I was no one’s girlfriend.

There’s no easy choice. But if I had to make it right now, I’d have to say that Reed still has the largest piece of my heart and I ache to hear his voice.

It’s him I miss the most!

The nights have been lonely, much more so than ever before.

Ironically, it’s my complete love for Reed that has me contemplating picking a whole different man so Reed doesn’t lose his family because of me.

I love him so much, I would let him go for him to have a happy life free of the family drama I’ve caused him so far.

But, my God, I miss him!

ROD

Drinking a beer as I look up at the star-filled night sky after a hard day at work, I tip the bottle back and think of having Jenna back in my arms.

It was nice having her back in my life again. Seeing her and having her around, even though it was only for one day before she left, was the best I’ve felt since the night I left her a little over two years ago.

And when I kissed her goodbye, I felt the old feelings flow back into me from the second our mouths met.

Her body melted into mine just like old times. Her tongue moved with mine like it always had. Her breathing went faster and her heart did too.

I know she felt something for me again. Now to find out if it can override what she feels for my brother.

Being the ass I can be at times, I peeked at Reed and her when he gave her his goodbye kiss. He gave us privacy for ours, and I feel kind of crappy for doing it, but it did give me some insight into what my chances are for Jenna picking me instead of him.

There was a significant amount of intimacy in their kiss. A lot of facial stroking by them both. A lot of deep sighs and many, many, loving words were whispered by them both.

The reality is that it made my chest hurt to know I’m coming between them when it seems they have a very deep connection. The thing is, though, she and I also have the deepest connection I’m capable of.

My brother has always been more in touch with his feelings, so it doesn’t surprise me the two connect on a deeper level than she and I do. But it doesn’t make him the right choice for her.

I was her first love, after all. I think Reed is her rebound love and, while that can seem like a true love for a while, those are usually very intense and burn up quickly.

Not to mention that Jenna and I have years of history and Reed and she have only months of it. He rushed to ask her to marry him only a week after they started seeing each other, from what Mom told me.

I think he found the need to rush things so when I came back I’d have no chance of rekindling what Jenna and I had. And that gives me hope that he saw something in her which told him I could get her back if I tried hard enough.

Which I plan on doing. But, since we did agree not to contact her, I have to wait and see if she’s even going to give me a chance to do that.

I gave her my number, and she knows Reed’s. She changed her phone number, so neither of us has it. I wonder how my brother is doing with all this, so I pick up my phone to ask him. It rings a couple of times before he answers, “Is Mom okay?”

“Yes, she’s doing great. I saw her this evening after I got off work. I went to the rehab, and she was up doing some aerobics with a bunch of old ladies. She was wiggling her caboose when I left her.”

“Good. I didn’t call her today like I normally do. My mind was elsewhere,” he says.

“Jenna?” I ask.

“Yeah. I did something really dumb and took out the binder we made of the wedding plans. And it made me all lonesome for her. It also made me wonder about what I’ll do with all the things that are already paid for concerning the wedding if she doesn’t pick me. I came up with an idea, though.”

I take a drink of my beer, then ask, “What did you come up with?”

“If she picks you, then I’d like to let you two have the wedding we planned. Jenna really planned the whole thing. I just showed her the different things that are available. It’s her dream wedding. As such, I’d still give it to her even if it’s not with me. So I’m asking if you plan on marrying her if she picks you, Rod?”

“I do,” I say quickly. “I’ve planned on marrying that girl for three years now. I just got very sidetracked.”

“Then it’s settled. The wedding will go as scheduled if she picks either one of us. And if she picks some other man, then you and I can have us a bad ass party with our family up here. It’s a win, win, win. Don’t you think?”

I think about it for a minute, then laugh. “Reed, you’re something else, little bro. I don’t think I could do what you’ve done. You’d still give that girl her dream wedding even if it’s not with you. That’s very interesting.”

“Well, she deserves it. And I’ll accept whatever she decides to do. I’ll love her forever, of course. You can’t stop that when it’s gone on for so long,” he says.

“How long have you loved her, Reed?”

“Since she was a mere fourteen years old, I have mooned over that girl.”

I take another drink. The fact is, I didn’t know I loved her until I looked into her eyes after she told that cop not to take me in. I knew I wanted her. I knew I wanted something with her, but love didn’t come into play until that day.

“Seems you do have a bit more of a longer love for her than I have, how did you stand it then when you saw her and me?” I ask him, then take another long drink.

“What choice did I have? And, honestly, the way you treated her, and the way she took, it told me there was no reason to try to take her away from you. If she didn’t leave your ass after what all you pulled, then me telling her my feelings for her wasn’t going to change her mind, anyway. She was loyal to your mean ass.”

I look up at the stars and blink back tears. “Yes, she was. And I repaid that loyalty by leaving her with no clue as to why. I left her not knowing if I was dead or alive. For two long years, I left her alone. And all the while you still didn’t have her and you paid for her college and gave her encouraging phone calls to keep her moving forward with her life.”

Reed laughs. “The way you put it, I sound kind of saintly. I’m not a saint, though. My reasons for not making an effort to get her were selfish. I knew in my heart that if you showed back up, she’d leave me. But when I saw her hot ass in the grocery store that afternoon, well, I couldn’t help myself. I had to have her.”

I suck down the rest of the beer. “And you and her made quick plans to cement the deal. Then I showed up and threw a kink in your plans. Dick move, I know.”

Reed sighs, then says, “Talk about your dick moves, I fucking told Jenna I was marrying her after sleeping with her for the first time. I didn’t ask her to marry me. I told her we were getting married. I judged you for controlling her, but I did the same damn thing. Only I left out the whips and chains.”

“She’s probably better off without us, little bro,” I say, and pull another bottle out of the six pack on the ground by my feet.

“She probably is,” he agrees.

Maybe we should let her know that …

Chapter 33

JENNA

Putting on a pair of strappy sandals, I end my preparation for the first date I’ve ever had that isn’t with a Manning.

I’ve accepted Steven Johnson’s offer to take me to dinner, and my heart is pounding in my chest with anxiety. The man is about to turn thirty. He’s five years older than me, and very sure about what he wants for the future.

He’s been a grade school principal for two years, and he’s looking to move into a higher job with the school system here in Tempe as the superintendent. So he’s got a plan, and that’s admirable.

Steven is easy on the eyes, with dark hair he keeps cut short. He wears dark suits, which I think is a bit overdressed for a grade school principal, but I think he must be dressing for the success he’s aiming for.

A knock on my door has me nearly hyperventilating, so I stop and take in a deep breath and say to myself, “Calm down! It’s just a date!”

But it’s a date I don’t really want to be going on. I want to be lying on our bed, wrapped in Reed’s strong arms. That’s what I really want to be doing.

As I open the door, I see Steven wearing a nice black suit and tie and looking like he just left a high-powered business meeting. I stifle a laugh as Reed is a billionaire and only wears suits when he has too. He pulls them off way better than this man does.

“You look gorgeous,” he says as he steps inside. He holds up a bottle of wine. “I thought a drink before we head out would be nice. Where are your wine glasses?”

I step back, as he’s too close to me. “Over there on the counter.”

He walks over, opens the wine, and pours it into a couple of the glasses. “That color green of the dress you have on makes your pretty green eyes stand out. You have a real knack for fashion, Jenna. It’s what drew me to you. Well, that, and the fact that you have a killer body and are sweet as they come.”

“Thank you,” I say, and take the wine he hands me.

He takes my hand and pulls me with him to sit on the sofa. “So tell me your story, Jenna. I’m dying to know how you ended up working in my school.”

My brain nearly implodes. There’s no way I can tell him the truth, so I say, “My family thought Tempe would be a good place to try student teaching. I’m not too far away from my hometown of Jerome.”

His arm moves over the back of the sofa and way too close to me. “And no man?”

Sure, there’s a man. Or men, should I say?

I shake my head. “No man.”

He takes a drink and looks at me with a knowing gaze. “I think there was one. Am I right?”

“Of course I’ve had men in my life before.” I look away and take a drink and am really rethinking this dating thing. When you date someone you don’t know, there’s so just much backstory to catch up on.

And my backstory comes out a little dirty and sinister. Not a thing I like to talk about.

I laugh inside my head as I think about telling this man that I started out with a man who liked to whip my ass and ended up with a man who liked to shower me with love and affection, and it’s his car I’m driving and we’re sitting in the apartment he rented me. I’m wearing clothes his money bought me as well.

I shake my head as I just realized I’ve been a kept woman by both the Manning men. And that’s so not what I wanted for my life.

So I decide to give this guy a real chance and shove Reed and Rod out of my head.

For tonight, anyway!

He drains the last of the wine from his glass. “Ready to go? I made reservations. You do like French cuisine, don’t you?”

I shrug. “I’ve never had it.”

“Oh my goodness. Where have you been living, under a rock? Never had French food!” he says as he ushers me out the door.

No! Bel-Air, Mr. Rude!

My car is nicer than his, I see as we get out to the parking lot. Reed has me in a Mercedes, and Steven is driving a Ford Fusion.

Then I realize he has no idea what I drive, as I mostly walk the two blocks to the school.

He looks over at my car, which he’s parked right beside. He lets out a long whistle. “Now what kind of pretentious piece of work drives this environmental killer?”

I have no idea if I should claim it or not. Then I think maybe I should be truthful with this guy. “It’s mine.”

His eyebrows go way up. “Yours? How the hell can you afford this?”

I can’t!

“It was a graduation gift from my family,” I lie. And I think I’ll find myself lying about more things, if I’m not very careful.

He walks around to the driver’s side, not even attempting to open the car door for me, which Reed always has done. Even Rod would let me in on his side of the truck and I’d slide over, staying in the middle to be next to him.

I get in, a bit disappointed in the man, but still not giving up on him yet. “So where are you from originally, Steven?”

“Florida.” He stops and looks at me. “Well, New Jersey, then Florida. And sometime before that, I lived in Connecticut. My family moved a lot. My mother married three times before I turned eighteen and went off to college.”

“Are you close to your family?” I ask as he pulls away from my apartment and I realize I’m stuck with him until he decides to bring me back. It scares the shit out of me for some reason.

“God, no!” he says, as his hand goes through the air. “I don’t even talk to them. I have four half-sisters, one-half brother, and that’s all on my mother’s side. On my father’s side, I have no real number to tell you. He was a real player. As a matter of fact, that’s what my mother loves. Men who cheat on her. I like to call her a professional victim. She acts like it’s never her fault the men cheat on her. But she picks the same type over and over again.”

“I see. So no big family Christmas parties or anything like that?” I ask as I look out the window at the lights passing by very slowly, as this man drives like an old man.

“No. I haven’t even seen any of them in the last three years. And what about your family?” he asks, then he takes my hand and holds it in the middle console.

I look at our clasped hands and feel nothing. His touch does nothing to me.

Does the hand have to belong to a Manning to ignite anything in me?

“I have a mom and dad and I’m their only child. They were older when they had me. I was a surprise. They thought my mother couldn’t have children,” I say, and look back at our hands and wonder why there’s no spark at all.

“Well, maybe she wasn’t meant to have children. I know there are plenty of women out there who should never be mothers. Mine included.” He gives my hand a squeeze. “I should think, since you want to be around little kids all day with your kindergarten teaching, you have no desire for kids anytime soon.”

My mind is kind of blown that he said my mother must not have been meant to have kids.

Does that mean I was a mistake in his eyes?

“I love kids. I want quite a few of them.”

A frown covers his face that I would call handsome. He’s definitely not ugly, but the way he talks is making him look less attractive than I thought he was before this.

“Yeah, but you’re just starting your career. I know you don’t want kids for at least ten years or so, right? I mean, you have to get your life in order first and then see if kids have a place in it.” He pulls into a parking lot with not a lot of cars in it, and that usually means the food sucks.

“Ten years is a long time. I’ll be in my thirties by then. No, I want kids before that.” I open the door and get out on my own once he parks, as it’s obvious that, if he didn’t open the door for me to get in, he won’t be opening it for me to get out.

He walks up next to me and puts his hand at the small of my back. “That’s interesting that you’d say that. In my ten-year plan, I have no part of it that contains kids.”

“I don’t have a ten-year plan,” I say as I wait for him to pull the restaurant door open, but he’s behind me, so he doesn’t.

I sigh, pull the door open, and step inside, as he looks confused. “No ten-year plan, huh?”

I turn back to him. “Does that disappoint you?”

He shakes his head. “No. No, not really. I can teach you about those kinds of things.” He looks at the hostess. “Reservation for two for Johnson.”

She looks around the half-empty restaurant with a smile on her face. “Oh, you’re the guy who called. Yeah, we don’t usually need anyone to make reservations. But come this way, please.”

Steven looks around then whispers, “It’s eight o’clock. We must’ve missed the dinner rush.”

I nod, but think there never is a dinner rush in this place and plan on filling up on crackers or bread or whatever they don’t cook in this place.

The woman shows us to a table for two under a dim light that hangs from the short ceiling. “Can I start you off with any appetizers and drinks?”

Steven sits without pulling out my chair so I do it myself and think that even the motorcycle gang member, Rod, pulled out my damn chair for me.

“Escargot and Merlots,” he says.

The look on the young woman’s face makes me think she has something she’d like to say, so I ask, “Is the escargot good here?”

“Um, uh,” she stammers.

Steven looks at me. “I’m sure it is. Go ahead and get what I asked for. You said you’ve never eaten French cuisine before. What do you know about escargot, Jenna?”

“I know it’s snails, and I can’t think of a way to prepare snails in a pleasant tasting way at all.” I pick up the menu and look at it as he stares blankly at me.

“Well, they are a refined taste for a palate which is experienced. You will learn to like the finer things in life if you decide to keep dating me, Jenna. I can show you a world you never dreamed of.”

I pull the menu down to look at him. “Is that so?”

He nods. “I am very well read, and have studied a lot about all kinds of things.”

This man is so full of himself!

 

The date goes on and eventually, when Steven stops talking, things get better. And now we’re standing in front of my apartment door and he’s looking at me like he wants to kiss me.

I’ve never kissed anyone else other than a Manning, so I lean in and let him kiss me. It’s kind of a smooshing feeling, as his lips are squishy, and I pull back before any tongue action starts.

“How about tomorrow we go see an afternoon movie?” he asks.

I see hope in his brown eyes and nod. “K.”

“Good. I’ll call you in the morning to let you know what time I’ll pick you up,” he says, then turns and walks away.

I turn and open the door and go inside feeling very odd. It’s only ten, and I find myself wanting to know what Reed’s doing. But I know I shouldn’t call him, so I tap in a text to Sue to see how she’s doing instead.

I text or call her every day, and I seem to have forgotten to do that today.

Evening, Sue. I know it’s late. I just wanted to see if things were good for you today.

She texts right back. I’m up. Just got off the phone with Rod. Things are good today. Feeling better every day. Reed’s coming in tomorrow and the boys are going on a fishing trip together.

I text back. Glad to hear that. Seems they’ve been getting along great.

My heart hurts that since I’ve left them alone they seem to be doing so well with each other.

Her text comes back. They have. Love you. Going to sleep now.

Love you, Sue. Goodnight.

I pull off my clothes and go to bed and know it’s best to leave them alone.

But how long can I do this?

Chapter 34

REED

A woman with long brown hair which hangs in curls down to her tiny waist sits across from me at the restaurant I took her to after days of conflicting thoughts about asking her out.