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It had felt just like this—exciting, scary, overwhelming, powerful. And then—like now—Chloe had been helpless to do anything other than accept.
Helpless.
The word jarred, going through her like nails on a chalkboard.
She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed. Blake clearly hadn’t anticipated her refusal as he stepped back, slightly off balance at her rough shove.
“I’m going inside.”
He smiled. “Running away isn’t going to save you.”
Her pride piqued. “I’m not running. I’m finished with the conversation. I’ll text you later this week once I’ve found a place to take your photo for the calendar. We’ll get it over with and then, this,” she waved her hand between them, “is over. Again.” She stressed the last word, letting it punctuate her sentence like an angry accusation.
Of course, Blake didn’t acknowledge anything she’d said. “We’ll see.” Then straddled his bike, put his helmet on, fired up the engine and pulled away.
Chloe balled her hand into a fist, wishing she had something—anything—to punch. Blake infuriated her, pissed her off, left her struggling to keep her wits.
She released a loud “argh!” then muttered every bad name she could think of as she returned to the house. The front door had only just closed behind her when she heard her mother calling out for her to come to the kitchen.
She sighed. The kitchen window faced the front yard, which meant her mother had no doubt witnessed the entire scene with Blake. Great. Her Sunday just kept getting better and better.
“Did you need help with something?” Chloe asked, half-heartedly hoping for a reprieve. She didn’t get it.
Her mother was sitting at the small kitchen table, sipping a cup of coffee and looking wearier than Chloe had ever seen her.
Mama shook her head, then pointed to the chair across from her.
Chloe decided to take the bull by the horns. There was no purpose to beating around the bush. “I guess you saw Blake kiss me.”
Her mother didn’t reply at first. “Actually, no. I didn’t. I didn’t think it was my place to spy.”
Chloe bit her lip, wondering if there was any physical way to kick her own ass. “It didn’t mean anything.”
Her mother smiled, though the expression certainly didn’t depict happiness. “Aren’t you tired, Chloe?”
Chloe was. Exhausted. But she couldn’t understand how her mother knew that. “What do you mean?”
“Anger takes a lot of energy to maintain. You’ve been holding on to your Blake fury for nearly a decade now. Doesn’t that leave you drained?”
Chloe swallowed heavily. Truthfully, until running into Blake this week, she thought she’d let go of all those old hurts. If someone would have asked, Chloe would have laughed and sworn she didn’t have any feelings for the man one way or the other. This past week had proven that belief false. She was harboring more pain and rage than she’d thought possible. And her mom was right. It was wearing her out…dragging her down.
“I was just surprised to see him again. It sort of knocked me back to a bad time. But it’ll pass soon.”
“No. It won’t. None of this is going to go away until you forgive him.”
Chloe’s temper sparked. “Forgive him? God, Mama. At some point, you’re going to have to stop being a doormat, stop letting people take advantage of your kindness.”
“I don’t think it makes me weak to try to find the good inside people. That’s not being a doormat. It’s being compassionate.”
“And look what that compassion got you. Blake stole two hundred dollars from your purse. That was our grocery money for the week. Maybe you don’t remember how tight times were back then, but I do. We barely made it until payday at the end of the month.”
Her mother reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a wad of money, tossing it onto the table between them.
“What’s that?” Chloe asked.
“Blake just gave it to me. Five hundred dollars. To replace the money he stole and to make restitution for the platter.”
“That doesn’t cover it. Grandma Jeannette’s platter was a family heirloom—irreplaceable. It was the only thing that survived the fire that destroyed everything your family owned. You were just sixteen and you lost everything. Everything except that platter. Maybe you think three hundred covers it, but I don’t.”
Mama sighed. “Chloe, you’re not mad about the money or the platter.”
Chloe wanted to deny it, but couldn’t. In some ways, it was easier to maintain her fury over tangible things. That was simpler to explain to her mother. To herself. If she delved deeper, she’d have to admit to things she couldn’t find the words to express.
“He said he loved me. Then he left without a word. Just disappeared for ten years. I guess in some ways he did me a favor. He taught me not to be such a sucker, not to believe everything someone tells me.”
“Have you ever considered there might have been a good reason for his departure? Have you asked him why he left?”
Chloe shook her head. She wasn’t interested in exploring ancient history. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Mama reached across the table and took her hand. “Of course it does. As long as this is hurting you, the reasons matter. It’s time to swallow your pride, Chloe, time to put aside your anger and get some answers. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’re destined to be tired for a very, very long time and I couldn’t stand to see that.”
“I’m sorry I called you a doormat. I didn’t mean it.”
Her mother grinned. “I know. Now…about this plan to have Ned posing nude…”
Chloe laughed, then spent the next hour reassuring her mother she and Justin were joking and that the calendar would be perfectly respectable.
Chapter Three
Blake leaned against the wall of the building, watching the front door of the Blue Note. Chloe was inside the bar, taking photographs of one of New Orleans’ most talented and lusted-over jazz musicians. He wanted to pretend he was here to simply keep an eye on her. After all, one of the men posing for the calendar had apparently tried to manhandle her, and while he knew Chloe was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to be close by…just in case.
Unfortunately, he knew the truth. He was so jealous, he could hardly see straight.
He’d never been a possessive lover with any other woman in his life. The only one to ever evoke that emotion had been Chloe. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a tattered picture. He’d carried the photograph around with him for a decade—clinging to it like a lifeline through some of the darkest times of his life.
The image of Chloe, riding his back, piggyback-style, as the two of them mugged for the camera never failed to help him find his way. Though she wouldn’t believe it, Chloe had helped him become the man he was today. She’d fallen in love with a boy who’d always thought himself unlovable. After all, his father declared him worthless on a daily basis and his mother had split when he was just six months old. From the day he’d been born, no one had ever looked at him the way Chloe had. Like he hung the moon. Like he was a hero. Like his life mattered.
So…whenever he got lost or started down the wrong path, he’d pull out this picture and clean up his act, find a better direction. He wouldn’t be where he was today without her. Until he’d seen her again last week, he’d been content to maintain his distance because that was safer. For both of them.
He had considered looking her up the second his feet hit the pavement of New Orleans almost six years earlier. After he left her, Blake had spent four years on the road, the first couple with his father. Sometimes they traveled alone, other times, they would ride with a motorcycle gang. He’d done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of during that time—petty thievery, vandalism, smoking pot and drinking heavily. He’d even participated in several fight clubs as a means of making money. He’d beaten up a few of his opponents badly, the images of their bloody faces haunting him too many nights.
However, he’d walked away from it all the night his father and a few of his friends cornered a waitress in a bar parking lot where they had all spent hours getting wasted. Blake had sat with them, nursing the same whiskey, fed up with his life. He’d spent hours watching his father as the realization he was turning into his old man dawned hard. Looking at himself in the mirror behind the counter, he saw the same hard eyes, tight lines by his mouth and haggard expression. It was as if someone had dumped a cooler full of ice water over his head, forcing him to wake up, covering him with a freezing cold numbness that almost made his teeth chatter.
When his father threw the struggling waitress onto the hood of a car and started to lift her skirt, the other men holding her down and tearing off her clothes, his dead soul came to life. He didn’t remember grabbing his father or pulling him away from the woman. There were only brief flashes of recollection in his memory. Of him pounding his old man into the asphalt. Of him beating the shit out of the other three men. Of the crying woman running away—her eyes reflecting absolute fear even though he’d just saved her. He didn’t blame her for being afraid. He could only imagine what he’d looked like in that moment. Too many years’ worth of rage had found their way to his fists and he was a man out of control.
