Passion in Bloom (Hometown Heartstrings #2)

Chapter 1

Heather

“S he’s home right here .” Roarke’s fingers dug into my side, giving a physical sign that he wanted me to stay right next to him. “And she’s not going anywhere.”

“She’s not?” David sneered, glancing from me to Roarke.

In all my nightmares, his face stayed the same. Cruel smile. Narrowed eyes. Harsh lines of anger. David Kenning looked like my worst enemy in my mind. My memories weren’t pretty. In the flesh, a couple of feet away from him, I saw once more how sinister he was with that malicious expression. Even worse was his smile. It was never an expression of simple joy. Only a display of wicked intent, of his nefarious moods.

He grinned now, slowly and smugly at Roarke, and that wouldn’t bode well. I knew what that smirk meant. I’d experienced the agony of seeing this man smile like the bad guy.

Because he was the bad guy.

“No,” Roarke said. His voice was calm and clear. Firm and confident. No one would be wise to broker an argument with him, but David didn’t seem bothered. He remained where he was, sizing him up, then looking me over.

“Heather is staying right here.”

I’d never intended to be here . This cabin wasn’t what I had in mind when I left Chicago. But since I’d settled in, I couldn’t imagine leaving. Returning to Burton had been a struggle, and it would continue to be one, but I agreed with Roarke’s statement. He had a lot of balls to declare where I should be. This was precisely what I wanted to avoid. Another man calling all the shots. Someone else trying to determine what I should do and where I should be.

But in this context, he was so damned right that I was tempted to lean against his side and nod.

I did want to stay here. Maybe not in this specific cabin for good, but my home town was the best option for me at the moment. Perhaps I’d need more time to decide if Roarke was a man I could trust to keep in my life, but he was a solid support who spoke the logic that I wanted to defend.

I did not belong with David. That was the fate I’d run from.

And I’d be damned if anyone suggested I should go back to him.

Never.

“According to you?” David asked with a nasty snarl. “ You think you can decide that she should stay here?” He emphasized a slow look around, as if scorning the rundown scene. “Heather is supposed to stay here, in this dump?”

“According to her,” Roarke said. “ She decided to be here, and that’s where she’ll stay.”

David tipped his head to the side, narrowing his eyes more. It was a clue of his escalating wrath, and instinct took over. I wasn’t aware of moving. All I could focus on was the basic need to breathe. In and out. In and out. I tried to remain steady in the face of fear, but it locked me down. Stiff and silent. With the roar of my pulse in my ears and the tight vise of my chest feeling too tight, I couldn’t do anything but be a spectator to this nightmare coming true. My body reacted involuntarily though, in some sense of animalistic reflex. I moved toward Roarke, almost tucking myself completely against him as David’s anger scaled hotter.

“I fail to see who you are to determine her future,” David said evenly. His tone sounded calm, but it was, again, a trick that I’d learned to expect. He balanced himself to project a peaceful patience, but he was livid beneath the surface. I’d lived through it to know it.

Roarke huffed a deep bark of laughter, almost incredulously. “See if I give a flying fuck about what you see or don’t see. I’m telling you that she’s not going anywhere with you.”

“Oh. I see—”

Again, Roarke laughed once, a gritty and taunting sound. “See whatever the hell you want, asshole. She’s not leaving with you.”

David’s lips twitched as he shut them tightly. No one ever cut him off. No one interrupted him. It was an expectation he’d honed over his years of being a lawyer, yet it didn’t seem like Roarke was the kind of man to care about such a mind game like that.

David exhaled through his nostrils. “Are you trying to tell me what to do—”

“I’m not trying,” Roarke said. “I am telling you. Get the fuck out of here.”

David seethed again, his back going straighter as he tried to look down his nose at us.

I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart beat even faster. My breaths came shorter, and the threat of a dizzy spell overwhelmed me. I hadn’t eaten much today, too stressed to have an appetite. Too many coffees and note a lot of food to help it. I was full of nerves, jittery, and pushed to the ugly edge of panic—again.

“If you think I’m going to—”

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” Roarke snapped. “Or what you see. I’m telling you how it is.”

David’s jaw slid as he ground his teeth again. “ You fuck off, asshole. This is between me and my girlfriend.”

Only now did Roarke turn to me. He did so slightly, not taking his eyes off David. He was keeping himself between me and my ex, like a solid, unwavering obstacle.

“Is that true?” Roarke demanded. “This is your boyfriend?”

No.

No.

A thousand times no.

The answer was clear. David was nothing but my ex, and I wanted nothing to do with him ever again. But saying that, in front of him, was too damn difficult of a feat for me to open my mouth and say so.

Wretched memories came back to me. Those times I’d told David that I was breaking up with him. Those conversations where I suggested taking a break. Each and every time I’d opened my mouth, he’d overpowered me and argued, using his damn lawyer speak and acting like we were on trial. Then, after those instances where I’d bravely spoken up to say that I wanted to leave him, there were “punishments.” Being drugged to sleep too much and miss work, where I’d be stuck at his apartment so he could lecture me over and over again how lucky I was to have a man like him, that I owed him gratitude for taking care of me and providing for him. Then the withholding—of sex, affection, food, even communication.

The times I’d looked at David in his face and tried to stand up to him had never turned out well for me.

That was why I ran. That was why I escaped, returning to my home town because I had no idea where else to go.

“Heather?” Roarke prompted. His tone didn’t hold anger, not for me. Never toward me. He was mad though, at David and this situation, and I couldn’t blame him one bit for feeling like this.

“Who is this asshole?” he asked.

“I’m her boyfriend,” David replied, “and it’s time for her to cut out this immature behavior and come home—”

“No.” It left my lips in a rushed whisper, hot with fear and quietly brave.

“Hear that, fucker?” Roarke shook his head. “She said no.”

“I won’t accept that as an answer. I am her boyfriend and I say—”

“ You’re her boyfriend?” Roarke smiled now, a mean, mischievous grin. “Then it would’ve been you licking her pussy yesterday, not me.”

Oh, fuck. My eyes opened wide and I stammered on with who-knew-what. I couldn’t argue with that claim. I couldn’t lie and tell David he was making that up and I wasn’t in the mood to scold Roarke for saying something like that. Shock pushed me to verbalize something, but I couldn’t manage a single coherent word.

“Oh, so you’re trying to make a move on my girlfriend?” David sneered.

“She’s not yours,” Roarke replied.

“Because you think she’s yours now?”

For fuck’s sake. This male posturing and trying to look like they were bigger and stronger. With every line they volleyed back and forth, they stood taller, chests puffing up, arguing with incensed furies. Like I was a damn thing to be owned.

“No. She’s not mine,” Roarke growled, staying between me and my ex, “but she’s not some fucking possession for you to order around either.”

He spoke the truth—what should be the truth, but I couldn’t muster the courage to nod and stick with what he said. There was just no hope. No hope lingered for me to think that another alternative could happen.

Roarke was stronger. He was leaner, rugged, and not afraid to face another man.

David wasn’t used to fighting with his fists, but he was no less effective when he wanted to be combative. Against me, he used mental warfare. It didn’t matter though. I’d seen too many episodes that proved how David always got his way.

He was too sneaky. Too calculating. Worst of all, he knew how to bend and trick the law. If he was foolhardy enough to try to take on Roarke and actually fight him, he’d do so knowing he’d end up immune to the law. He was a damned “good” lawyer, and he never got in trouble with the connections he’d forged.

It wouldn’t matter that he wasn’t in Chicago. It seemed that he always knew someone higher up, someone mightier to dismiss any issues.

“Let’s go,” David said, reaching out to grab my arm. “I don’t have time for this.”

Roarke sidestepped, physically blocking him again. “I don’t have time for you. Fuck off.”

My stomach tensed, cramping with anxiety. Bile rose up my throat the longer David didn’t leave. The longer he stayed, arguing and facing off with Roarke, the more scared I became.

Fleetingly, I dreamed of just going. Of running again, of extracting myself from this mess. To go and be gone, far, far from here where David couldn’t see me. Where I wouldn’t see him and witness the ugly snarls of anger.

The small peace I’d found here was shattered. Here, in my hometown where I’d never been welcome, I lost the hints of solace and serenity I’d lacked in Chicago.

“Let’s go, Heather!” No matter how many times David reached out for me, Roarke remained there to block him. He tired of trying to get around my neighbor, my ally, and it appeared that he wanted to count on me to move toward him. Expecting me to be obedient and come to him, as though the bonds he’d held over my head were still intact.

Like I was the meek puppet he ordered to do as he bade.

Again.

And again.

I shivered, wracked with a physical reaction to the supreme threat posed here. Chills gripped me. A clammy sweat coated my skin, and the results of being pinned by David’s furious glare triggered too many recollections I wasn’t strong enough to resist.

PTSD didn’t recede. I was stuck, trapped in my unmoving body, too tense to think, to rationalize, to speak up.

“Tell him, Heather,” Roarke urged. “Tell this fucker to leave.”

I wished I could. I wanted nothing more than to have David be gone. I’d never wanted to suffer the sight of him again. To have to hear the slimy demand in his voice again.

“Tell this asshole to fuck off,” Roarke said.

I can’t.

I swallowed, paralyzed in panic and fear, on the cusp of drowning under the swarm of ugly memories.

I can’t. I’m not strong enough to overcome this. I can’t.

I couldn’t do anything.

Tears stung in my eyes as I wished Roarke could understand without me telling him.

I can’t...

And I couldn’t find the strength to know, deep down, that he could save me, that he’d be the hero I didn’t want to want.

Because I’m not his to save. His help is not mine to expect.

That would just be repeating the cycle of debt all over again.