Jay Crownover - Riveted

Well, if that wasn’t just a fucking red-hot poker right through the guts. It was also a slap across the face with the reality of everything I’d purposely been avoiding and denying for way too long.

“I bought a Harley. Gonna have to ride it home, so I’ll be there in a couple days.” My homecoming was happening sooner than I’d planned, but there was no way I couldn’t be there for the woman that had always been my true north. When nothing else in my life made sense there was Elma Mae. She was the only safe place I had ever known and if she needed me I was going to be there to return the favor. I owed the woman everything and the fact I’d waited so long to see her after years of deployment was a startlingly clear reminder of why I was correct and considerate in staying the hell away from Dixie.

She lived in the light and I was far more comfortable hiding in the dark.

“I’ll let her know. That will make her day.” He paused for a second, which made me brace for whatever was coming next. “She mentioned a girl. Elma told me the reason you weren’t in any hurry to come home from Denver was because of a girl. That true?”

Son of a bitch. The truth might hurt but the lies I told, and they were more gray than white, were going to outright kill me. “There’s a girl.” And there was, but she wasn’t entirely the reason I wasn’t ready to face Julian or anyone else back in Lowry. She had been one of my reasons for sticking around Denver longer than I’d planned. She was an excuse that would buy me time and one that wasn’t entirely untrue.

“Do me a favor and see if you can bring her with you. Elma would love nothing more than to see you happy, to know you’re finally settling down and moving past the things that happened with your mom and with Caroline. You bring your girl home with you and give all of us some peace of mind. Make an old woman happy, Dash. You owe Elma a few years where she doesn’t have to worry about you catching bullets or ending up alone.”

Shit. I rubbed my temples and kicked at the loose gravel under the soles of my boots. “I’ll see what I can do.” That was bullshit. Dixie would drop everything and come with me if I explained the situation. She was too nice and too sweet to tell me no. Elma Mae was going to goddamn love her after she gave her a ration of hell in order to make sure she was the right girl for her boy.

“If the girl cares about you then she’ll figure out a way to be here. If she can’t figure it out, she isn’t worth your time. Come home, son, we miss you.”

I missed home, too, but I could do without the memories and reminders that had kept me away since the day I signed my life away to my country.

It was my turn to sigh. “I’ll see you soon, Jules.” He hung up and I wanted to kick myself because after all these years and all the time and effort he put into raising me I still couldn’t call the man Dad. He deserved the title, after all it was his last name I carried around with me, not that of the man who had knocked my mom up and run. He had earned it much like I had earned my name, but whenever I tried to say it the word got stuck and I fell back on something that seemed less important. It felt like I was fooling God and everyone under the sun about just how important Julian was to me if I refused to call him the only thing he had ever been to me. I was trying to trick fate so Jules didn’t end up the way so many others I loved had.

I was also going home, and I was going to put some sunshine in my pocket and take it with me.

I’d been working bar hours long enough that it took some major commotion and ruckus to pull me out of bed before lunchtime. Even Dolly had adapted to middle-of-the-night walks and breakfast at noon since I was a worthless and cranky blob of indignation if I was forced to abandon my comfy bed while the morning sun was still in the sky. It was the one and only time I let myself be grouchy and hate everything, which meant anyone that knew me well gave me a wide berth in the mornings. My days and nights had been flipped for as long as I could remember, so when loud voices pulled me from a sound sleep the next morning well before noon, and well before the time that most people got up to start their day, I was livid. I hadn’t slept very good the night before, so it felt like I had just shut my eyes even though several hours had passed, but that didn’t mean I was in any kind of mood to be startled awake or to play referee.

I heard Wheeler’s sharp tone as I crawled out of bed almost pushing Dolly to the floor in the process. I was stunned when it was another deep, obviously angry male voice that replied and not my sister’s. I figured Kallie would show up with her tail between her legs any minute now begging Wheeler to take her back. That’s what she’d done the last time he caught her stepping out on him with another guy. She wasted no time in trying to force him to forgive and forget.

She knew exactly where her bread was buttered and there was no way she was going to let the guy that had taken care of her, coddled her, given her everything she’d ever asked for get away from her. There was also no way in hell my vain, spoiled little sister had the backbone and fortitude to weather the embarrassment of canceling her long-anticipated wedding this close to the date. If word got out exactly why Wheeler had pulled the plug on their dysfunctional relationship, Kallie would wither away from embarrassment. She might want to have her cake and eat it too, but if someone pointed out how gluttonous it made her seem she would fall apart. The girl couldn’t take criticism to save her life, which was why she had kept hold of Wheeler for so long. He loved her and everything about her … at least he had until she’d drop-kicked his heart.

I recognized the rough, growly voice with its southern drawl right away. I couldn’t figure out why Church was at my apartment this early, and I couldn’t figure out why he and Wheeler were barking at one another like two dogs staking their claim over territory in my living room. I thought that maybe I was still dreaming until I stubbed my toe on the back of the couch as I rushed into the front of my apartment to see what in the hell was going on.

I swore loudly and hopped around on one foot, which drew both of the snarling men’s attention to me. Dolly, curious about the early morning visitor, gave me a sympathetic look then happily trotted over to Church, who was standing with his arms crossed over his massive chest while he glared at me out of those amazing eyes of his. People would call them hazel for lack of a better term but hazel didn’t cut it. Hazel was too ordinary a word for a color that was so brilliantly extraordinary. Those eyes of his were something else, pretty much all of him was designed to make vaginas surrender without putting up any kind of fight. There were men that were pretty like Asa, and there were men that stole breath with their masculine beauty like Rome Archer. Then there were men who had the best of both those worlds like Dash Churchill.

“What are you doing here before Starbucks is even open, Church?” I rubbed at my sleepy eyes and stiffened when his gaze drifted down from my messy hair, which I was sure looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket, to the oversized T-shirt I was wearing that had a giant cartoon taco on the front wearing a scowl with the words “I don’t wanna taco about it” scrawled underneath. Obviously it wasn’t something I would have ever worn to bed if I’d known he was going to be my six-foot-four, testosterone-fueled alarm clock, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about my ridiculous sleepwear or my out-of-control hair now. There was also nothing that could be done about the fact I wasn’t wearing pants and even though my taco shirt was big it was still just a T-shirt and barely, and I do mean barely, covered up all the things it needed to in order for me to keep my modesty.