The Last Second Chance: A Small Town Love Story (Blue Moon Book 3) (28 page)

T
he pieces
of that night that Jax hadn’t known he’d lost came rushing back as he rested his head in his hands. The relief on his parents’ faces when they pulled back the curtain and it wasn’t him in the bed. The overwhelming feelings that swamped him when Joey’s beautiful brown eyes opened, disoriented and hurt, but
alive
. And that sick slide into guilt, knowing he’d put her in that bed, knowing he’d put his family in danger of losing it all.

To read his father’s take on it all was a painful and beautiful kind of therapy. His dad had never blamed him, like Jax had feared he had. He’d been proud. Since that night there had been a nagging question in the back of his mind about why his father had let him go. And now he knew. And knowing meant healing.

A plan began to form in Jax’s mind, and with it, hope in his heart. He scanned a copy of his father’s story with his phone and sent it to the printer upstairs. He fired off a middle-of-the-night email to Ellery. Then he opened his screenplay and got to work.

J
oey was in a bad mood
, and throwing herself into her work didn’t seem to help. At home, Waffles was happy to curl up with her on the couch and in her lonely bed, but at work when she had to deal with the incompetence of everyone, the dog decided he was better off following Carter around than sticking with her.

She’d ripped the bottom drawer out of the filing cabinet in her office when it failed to glide open smoothly. While fixing a loose board on the indoor ring’s mounting block, she’d given her thumb a good smack with a hammer and then rained down four-letter words until the horses were nervous.

High-strung Calypso had chosen that day to give her a swift kick when she wasn’t looking and now she had a goddamn hoof print on her thigh.

When Colby had the audacity to ask her what “crawled up her butt and died” she put the fear of the Almighty in him with a look frosty enough to freeze boiling water and a few colorful, choice words about his genitalia and parentage.

It was at that point that Carter told her that she was taking the night off from lessons so she didn’t “drop kick any paying students” and open them up to a lawsuit.

She didn’t think that lawsuit jokes were remotely funny. Carter, on the other hand, found it hilarious.

Just what the hell was she supposed to do with an evening to herself? An evening alone.

She’d effectively shut down every attempt by Summer and Gia to talk it out or commiserate or whatever else girls wanted to do when their feelings were hurt by idiots with penises.

The sense of betrayal she felt toward her father and Jax was so overwhelming she worried that it would swamp her. The nights since the day the truth had been revealed held little sleep and still so many questions. The main question being: What in the hell was wrong with them?

But there were no easy answers, just disappointment. And hurt. Some rage. And a rawness that just kept getting rawer. What made it worse was the radio silence on Jax’s end. She’d become so used to his relentless onslaught of sneaky, manipulative affection that his absence was noticeable.

She’d tucked his toothbrush in a drawer just so she didn’t have to stare at it every night and every morning. The small pile of dirty laundry he left in the corner of her room that Waffles had used as a bed? She shoved it under the guest room bed because she certainly wasn’t going to wash it for him and coolly return it. That’s what adults did. She preferred to fantasize about setting it on fire in his driveway.

Of course it was time for another Meat of the Month delivery. And she couldn’t even bring herself to open the teriyaki Kobe beef jerky. Of course, she couldn’t just throw it out either. So that went to the back of her pantry until such a time that she could enjoy it hate-free.

Joey felt like her life had spiraled completely out of control in that one moment, standing in front of the stables she’d practically built and between the two men she’d loved. What in the hell was she supposed to do now? There was no way she was just going to sit here and stew all night long.

She looked at the clock on the mantel. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

The lights were on in Gia’s yoga studio and the windows were steamy from the last class, hot power yoga. Joey wasn’t desperate enough to suffer through one of those. But restorative yoga? She could handle that.

She darted past Gia who was deep in conversation with Maizie, the server at Peace of Pizza, and Rob, co-founder of OJ’s by Julia.

Relieved that there was no bikini bottom-clad Fitz, Joey unrolled a mat in the back row and pretended to stare at her phone to discourage anyone from trying to talk to her. It worked until Donovan Cardona flopped down on a mat next to her.

Blue Moon’s most popular sheriff to date, he was also brazenly single and Joey had a feeling he’d avoided the efforts of the Beautification Committee long enough. Once they had hooked Jax and Moon Beam up, they’d probably have Donovan marching down the aisle before Memorial Day.

And now she was back to pissed off.

“Hey, haven’t seen much of you lately,” Donovan said, stretching his legs straight and reaching desperately for his toes.

“I’ve been busy,” Joey grumbled.

“So I hear.”

“What do you hear? That I’ve been busy being betrayed by Jax and my father?”

“Uh. No?” Donovan peaked at her with concerned blue eyes under a muscular bicep. “I was talking about the whole partnership thing. I figured you’ve been busy with the breeding program and all that. I didn’t know anything about any betrayal.”

Joey felt like a jerk. “I’m sorry. I’m just…”

“Hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Bloated?”

“No!”

“Murderous?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Cantankerous?”

That brought the corners of her lips up a little bit. Cardona was a funny guy. In the years between Jax’s disappearance and reappearance, Joey had been invited to the poker table more than once and she’d enjoyed kicking the sheriff’s ass when she had the opportunity. He was a decent poker player, had a smile like a Ken doll, and a master’s in organizational leadership. Why couldn’t she have fallen for a guy like him?

Why did her heart have to belong to Jackson “Love ‘Em and Crush ‘Em Like Bugs” Pierce?

“You’re a funny guy, Cardona.”

“Thanks, but looks aren’t everything. My mama always told me I’d grow into my nose.”

“A real riot. How is it the B.C. hasn’t lined you up with some cute candle-making hippie by now?”

“I’ve threatened to arrest every single one of them on disturbing the peace charges if they try it.”

“Nice try. This is Blue Moon. Disturbing the peace arrest records go on resumes here.”

“Every time I get trapped in a conversation with one of the B.C. members, I fake an emergency and run away like an Olympic sprinter.” He glanced down at his phone.

Joey looked around her. Every one in the studio with the exception of her was staring intently at their phones, typing away with their thumbs.

“This is what’s wrong with society,” Joey grumbled.

“What’s that?” Donovan asked, shoving his phone in his gym bag.

“Look at everyone texting and Facebooking and whatever else they do on a phone.”

Donovan looked guilty. “They’re probably just turning their phones off for class. So, are you going this weekend?”

“What’s this weekend?” Joey asked, still distracted by the thoughts of phones taking over the world.

“The Sit-In. It’s Saturday.”

“God, no. I have too much work to do.” And zero desire to surround herself by an entire town who probably now knew her shame. Besides, Jax would be there. You didn’t live in Blue Moon and miss this event.

Nope. She’d stay at home with Waffles and work. With Apollo’s stud fee finally decided on, she could start reaching out to potential clients for spring.

“That’s a shame,” Donovan said. “I hear it’s going to be even better than last year.”

“Last year the popcorn stand caught fire in the gym. The school smelled like burnt popcorn until summer.”

“Nowhere to go, but up!” Donovan shrugged.

J
oey
, feeling marginally less murderous after yoga, headed home. The heater in her pick-up pumped out warm air in an endless battle against the upstate New York winter. She’d avoided Gia’s well-meaning invitation to go get a drink and talk about the surprise baby shower they were planning for Summer, which was code for “drag information out of you in the name of friendship and then offer completely useless platitudes like ‘forgive and forget.’”

Nope. Joey was going to go home, curl up with her dog and stare at the TV until it was time for bed, at which point she would go upstairs and stare at her bedroom ceiling and try not to think of all the amazing orgasms she’d recently enjoyed in said bed. Yeah, life was just really freaking grand right now.

When she got home the first thing that tipped her off to a break in was the fact that Waffles was enjoying a massive chew bone the size of a cattle leg. The second thing that tipped her off was the note on the microwave that said “Open Me.”

Inside was a Shorty’s to-go box with a burger and onion rings. This was clearly the work of Jax.

She really needed to start locking her doors.

The next note was on the counter and directed her to look at her coffee table. She was tempted to ignore it and just go upstairs and wash away her troubles in the shower. She could just throw the burger in the garbage and warm up whatever the hell leftovers she had in her fridge.

Or she could just eat the burger. No one would have to know. It would be a shame to waste a perfectly good, still warm Shorty’s burger.

She took the takeout box over to her couch, furtively glancing out front and back windows to make sure no one was witnessing her dinner surrender. Satisfied that it was just her and Waffles, Joey flopped down on the couch.

On the coffee table in front of her was a fat envelope topped with a bottle of bourbon and a ridiculous coffee mug plastered with horses and hearts.

There was another note rolled up in the mug.

J
oey put
down the note and slouched as low as she could on the cushion. All the answers to the questions she’d been asking for nearly a decade were neatly packaged before her. And yet she hesitated.

What if the answers she got weren’t forgivable?

Waffles gave up on his bone and hopped up on the couch next to her, his bi-colored eyes watching her pitifully hoping for a bite of burger.

Her indecisiveness lasted exactly two seconds longer when she reached for the burger and the folder.

“Screw it. Right, Waffles?”

Waffles’ tail thumped on the couch as he looked at her adoringly.

O
ne hundred and
ten pages and two fingers of bourbon later, Joey swiped at perhaps the hundredth tear as it sluiced its way down her cheek.

Her guts had been ripped out and shoved back in upside down. He’d given her the answers she’d needed in a way that was wholly Jax. Gutted, she was nowhere nearer to a solution than she had been before she came home that night. But at least she had her answers.

She hadn’t expected to learn so much about the course of their relationship. How long he’d loved her. How long he’d noticed her and yet talked himself out of making a move on the girl his brothers thought of as a sister, the girl his parents thought of as a daughter. Instead he kept her at arm’s length until he couldn’t be without her for one more day. To see the longing that she’d so acutely felt growing up mirrored in his words was indescribable.

And what he saw in her? What he poured into her character? Strength, beauty, single-minded determination. In those pages, she saw herself as Jax saw her.

It clutched at her heart to read about the accident from his point of view, the guilt and the fear, of feeling responsible for nearly destroying the one thing you valued above all else. It hadn’t been an easy decision to live with, she learned. Jax hadn’t just walked away without a backward glance. He’d never stopped thinking of her, stalking her online with news alerts and social media, loving her. Did that help? Knowing that they’d needlessly wasted eight years because of a decision she still didn’t agree with?

She felt raw and open, like a fresh wound. Knowing for certain now that he had loved her as deeply and expansively as she did him, it loosened something around her heart. Something that had constricted years ago. Another wall, another lock.

But what did that mean for the end of their story?

Instead of the final pages of his screenplay, he’d included a photocopy of his father’s account of the evening. A story from three sides that still added up to men who thought they knew better than she did.

It was galling. It was heartbreaking. And somehow, through Jax’s own typed words she could begin to comprehend the why. It was hard to see past her own anger, but the words of two Pierce men had slowly blazed a trail through the hurt.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready to feel anything other than anger toward Jax. Except for a strong desire to find out how his screenplay ended. That she could admit to being curious about.

Joey picked up John’s essay again, stared at the handwriting of a man long lost to this world. He’d seen something deep and enduring in her relationship with Jax. A foundation and a prison. Had she ever thought of their relationship as a prison? Had Jax?

She’d been so certain then that their futures had been twined together. That Jax was a given in her life. And then when he was gone, her foundation cracked and she rebuilt it slowly, independently, determined to never again build a life around someone else. She did what she wanted. She went after her dreams with dogged determination and she built this life and these walls that would keep her safe.

Yet, once again, she’d let Jax in. And, once again, she’d been rocked. That had to mean something. There wouldn’t be so much hurt if they were supposed to be, would there?

There was one person she could ask.

She picked up her phone and dialed.

M
r. Snuffles was pawing
at the door of Phoebe’s townhouse until Franklin opened it. The little dog sniffed Joey’s boot, sneezed, and ran back into the kitchen.