Chapter 24

The check engine light should be more specific. For instance, do I just need to check the gas cap, or do I need to stop right now so my engine doesn’t explode?

-Naomi’s secret thoughts

Naomi

Life wasn’t the same after Sean and I lost the child we didn’t even know about.

But it wasn’t a bad different. Just not the same as it once had been.

Sean was scared.

He was scared to touch me. Scared to leave me. Scared to let me do my job.

He literally would’ve wrapped me up in bubble wrap if he thought he could get away with it.

I picked up my telephone and dialed my best friend, hoping she’d give me some advice that would help me deal with this crazy, overprotective man of mine.

It’d been four months since I’d lost our baby, and four months since I’d seen the same man that I’d been sitting next to a hospital bed with, discussing what we would name our child when he or she came.

The phone rang, and not five seconds later my best friend in the whole wide world answered with a frustrated, “Hello?”

The sound of a baby crying in the background made my heart pang.

“I need some help,” I said without preamble. “Sean still won’t touch me.”

“What’d he do now?” she asked warily.

“It’s what he won’t do. I don’t know what to do,” I told my best friend. “He doesn’t even look at me the same. He doesn’t touch me unless it’s to hug me, and when he hugs me, it’s only long enough to act like he’s not trying to get away from me.”

I plunked backwards onto the bed, and watched my hot, bearded paramedic mow the front lawn.

Something had to give, and it wasn’t going to be me.

She hummed, then cursed succulently. “Fuck you, cocksucker.”

“Did you just call one of your kids a cocksucker?” I asked worriedly.

“No,” she snapped. “It was Downy’s fucking dog. She ate my banana bread!”

I snickered softly under my breath, and then couldn’t help it, and busted a gut.

“Oh, God,” I wiped tears from my eyes. “She didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to my ass,” she grumbled. “That bitch is a bitch, pure and simple. She watched me the entire time she leaned over my plate and ate it. She knew exactly what she was doing.”

Downy’s dog was a police K-9 officer and really was a good dog…when she wanted to be.

“Hey,” she interrupted my laughing. “I heard that there’s another litter of puppies from the same sire that Mocha came from.”

My eyebrows lifted.

“Did you ask for his number like I asked you?” I asked hopefully.

“Yep,” she confirmed. “And I also got the name of a woman who’s married to a supreme badass. Guess what!”

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and frowned when I saw all of the dust on the blades of the ceiling fan. At least I can say that I’ve never seen the ceiling fan turned off, so how could I know it was dirty?

“What?” I asked, standing up and heading to the wall where the switch for the fan was and flipped it on and off a few times to see if it was just off.

It wasn’t.

Sean had purchased a repossessed mobile home from an auction and had moved it to the land that I now called my own—my own with Sean—a few weeks after I was released from the hospital.

It was the biggest piece of shit that I’d ever lived in, and that was even including my own shitty humble abode where I’d stayed for the first few months of my time in Mooresville. But it was mine and Sean’s, and I loved it.

We’d broken ground on a small country-style pier and beam home that was expected to be finished mid next year.

I could see the level pad from the window I was standing next to, and every time I saw the progress of it, I got even more excited.

Sean passed my window again, his face dripping with sweat.

He was wearing faded tight blue jeans, a brown leather belt, his black motorcycle boots, and a frown.

Sweat dripped down the tight planes of his abs, and his eyes were covered in a pair of aviator sunglasses that were literally so damn sexy on him that I wanted to run out and jump on him.

My luck, though, he’d just push me off of him and apologize for doing nothing like he always did.

“Are you even listening to me?” Aspen growled.

My lips twitched. “Yes, sorry, keep going.”

“The man that does the dogs is actually part of the Dixie Wardens, but they’re out of Benton, Louisiana,” she said. “His name is Trance. There’s a member’s wife that trains the dogs once they’re a little older. Helps them become protection dogs.”

My lips tipped up into a full-out grin as I made my way down the hall to the kitchen.

Grabbing one of the dusting towels out of the drawer next to the fridge, I headed back into the bedroom and stepped up onto the bed.

The ceiling fan had to be cleaned. If it wasn’t going to work, I wasn’t going to stare at that disgusting sight.

“You know who I think you need to talk to?” Aspen asked suddenly. “PD.”

My brows furrowed.

“What?” I asked in confusion. “Why would I talk to him?”

“Because his wife had her arm lopped off with a sword, and she almost lost their child.” She informed me of something I already knew. “If anyone knows what Sean is going through, it’s him. He almost lost her multiple times, and he’s a man. I’m not a man, so I really wouldn’t know what Sean is feeling. I’ve told you all of the things that I would do, and if those aren’t working, then I think you need expert advice.”

I blinked, then nodded my head in understanding.

Putting the phone onto speaker, I thrust it into my bra and stretched my arms up over my head

“That’s true,” I said as I started to clean the blades, gagging slightly when dust fell into my hair. “But I think talking to another man will piss Sean off.”

“It will piss Sean off.”

I squeaked, whipping around, and in the process jolted the ceiling fan, causing every single piece of dust that was left on it to fall to the bed.

My body teetered on the edge of the bed, and he steadied me with two hands on my hips.

It also fell all over me, and I shivered.

“Jesus Christ, Sean,” I gasped, placing my dust rag over my heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Why do you need to talk to another man when you have me to talk to?”

Sean’s words stopped me cold.

“I gotta go, Aspen,” I said, dropping the rag to the floor. “Sean just walked in.”

Before Aspen could reply, I fished the phone out of my bra, hit end, and then tossed it to the now dirty bed.

Sean crossed his arms over his sweaty chest, and I swallowed thickly.

The man was gorgeous, even when he was pissed.

And he was pissed. His eyes were hard, his mouth was set in a thin line, and he was breathing heavy despite being in the best shape of any man I knew.

“What are you doing up there?” he asked.

There was so much inferred calm in his tone, and I narrowed my eyes.

“I’m cleaning. What does it look like I’m doing?” I snapped.

His jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth.

Anything that looked even remotely dangerous to the man had him getting this feral ‘you won’t do it’ attitude about him that was seriously getting on my nerves.

“You ready to go?” he asked, staring at me like I was crazy.

I nodded. “Almost. Should I be wearing my boots?”

He shook his head, and I growled. “Sean!”

“What?” he snapped.

“I want to ride your bike with you!”

He was already shaking his head.

“Sean, I’m not spun glass. You can’t treat me like I’m an infant who’s going to fall over and bump her head around every turn. Treat me like an adult! Please!” I cried out, waving my hand with the dust rag around as I spoke, causing dust particles to float in the air around us.

He waved the dust away from his face.

“Naomi…”

I shook my head. “No. Just no. You either let me ride on the back of your bike, or I’m going to stay with my mom for a few days.”

“You will not be going there alone.”

I was done. So fucking done.

“And, in case you forgot, Walton Whitley is in a medical facility with brain damage. He literally can do nothing to me. If I want to drive six hours to my mother’s house, I’ll damn well drive six hours to my mother’s house.”

“We’ll go to your mother’s house this weekend just like we planned,” he growled. “And this has nothing to do with Whitley.”

Yeah, right.

I’d learned over the last four months what, exactly, Sean had done to the man that was my attacker. He’d punched him in the face for what he had done to me.

Since he’d been what they deemed as ‘stable’ when he was in the hospital, he wasn’t wearing as many of the monitors as he had been. So, sometime after Sean had gone in there and punched him in the nose, the man had started to vomit. He’d suffered irreparable brain damage when he choked on his own vomit. Nobody really knew what had happened for sure since he’d been alone.

I doubted that Sean had noticed that he was in any trouble when he’d left.

Not that I would blame Sean for not helping the man, even if he had known.

I wouldn’t have.

Needless to say, the man was in a permanent care facility for inmates, and would be for the rest of his life due to his brain damage suffered from lack of oxygen.

That, I knew, because I’d gone for a visit that Sean still had no clue about and had seen for myself that this man would never be a threat to me again.

A man whose reasons for what he did to me I still didn’t know, and I probably never would.