To Each Her Own Page 14

  Jay. Call Jay. Jay was safety. He would help her. He would know what to do.

  She held up the phone, squinting at the smooth black surface of its small screen. It reflected the glow of the porch light behind her and her own reflection: an eerie, soulless, ghostlike apparition. She closed her eyes to shut out the image and let her hand fall to the ground, thinking that maybe, if death found her, it wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

  Chapter 16

  There was a giant mosquito buzzing in Jay's ear. Figured. Here was the first night in a while his back pain had been tolerable, but it wasn't in the cards for him to actually get a good night's sleep.

  The buzzing was followed by a deep, throaty woof from Chopper, who was lying near Jay's bed on his tan papasan cushion. Jay realized the giant mosquito noise was the annoying ringtone of his cell phone—a practical joke from a coworker he hadn't fixed yet.

  He was lying on his stomach, and he buried his face in his pillow. The mosquito buzzing stopped for a few blessed seconds and then started up again. “Gotta change that fucking ring,” he muttered irritably.

  Reaching over to his nightstand, he grabbed the phone. “'Lo?”

  A pause and then, “Uh, yeah. Hey. Is this Jay Bon—Bon—Bonsomething?” It was a man's voice. It had a slightly musical cadence similar to Luis's.

  “Yeah,” Jay answered with a frown. “Who wants to know?” He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was 5:02 a.m.—not the middle of the night, like he'd thought. He was supposed to get up in an hour anyway.

  He could hear a disturbance over the phone, someone yelling and what sounded like someone crying. “What's going on?” he said, starting to get uneasy. “Who is this?”

  “Uh, my name is Hector Mendoza. Uh . . . you know a girl, kind of crazy, long brown hair, small body, green eyes?”

  Jay's heart rate picked up. “You mean Erin?” It sounded like her, except for the crazy part.

  Hector spoke to someone, his voice suddenly sounding distant, like he'd taken the phone away from his mouth. “Hey, he knows her. See if her name is Erin.” There was shuffling and the commotion in the background seemed to die down for a minute. “It's her,” Hector said back to Jay. “She your girlfriend or something?”

  “No. My roommate. What's going on? Let me talk to her.”

  “She's freaking out, man. She's fucked up on something, all paranoid and shit. You want me to call 911, or you want to come get her?”

  Jay was utterly still for a split second, hoping maybe this was a bad dream. “Is she hurt?”

  “No, not that I can see. She's just flipping out. She won't let no one touch her or help her.”

  “Okay. Don't call 911. Give me your address.” When Hector complied, Jay said, “I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

  His arm muscles vibrated with adrenaline as he swung his ass from the bed to his chair. Twenty minutes was pushing the envelope timewise, considering all the stuff he had to do just to get dressed. It wasn't like he could just jump out of bed and throw on a shirt and jeans.

  He had to cath, for one thing, and then he had to drag on his jeans while lying on the bed—not exactly easy, since he couldn't lift his hips. It usually took him thirty-five minutes, minimum, to get dressed, and that was if he didn't take a shower or do his bowel routine. He should do it today, but fuck it. Erin needed him. He hoped he wouldn't crap his pants before he could get her home.

  Breaking a personal record and several neighborhood speed limits, he made it to Hector's house in twenty-six minutes. As he pulled up in front of the house, he could see a semicircle of people surrounding a bare-footed Erin, who was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth.

  The area was lit enough by streetlights and porch lights that he could see her face, tear-streaked and smudged with dirt. A few neighbors in various states of dress and undress were standing on their lawns, watching the scene. At the sight of Erin, Jay's worry ratcheted up a notch. “What the fuck, darlin'?” he muttered to himself.

  He saw a stocky Hispanic man squat down next to her and place a hand on her shoulder.

  She flinched and shoved his hand away. The man—probably Hector—said something to her, and she looked up at Jay's car. Then she started rocking again, eyes darting down and resting her chin on her knees.

  Jay opened his car door and pulled the black titanium frame of his chair from the passenger side of the front seat across his body, setting it outside the car. Then he grabbed the wheels of the chair from the backseat and put it together—popping the wheels onto the frame, flipping up the backrest, and putting the special cushion that protected his ass from skin breakdown in the seat. The whole process took about a minute.

  He transferred to his chair and wheeled up the driveway, then balanced on his back wheels and leaned forward to lift his front casters off the ground: They would only get stuck in the thick St. Augustine grass, so it was easier to roll doing a wheelie. He pushed hard across the lawn and soon reached Erin.

  A flicker of surprise crossed the faces of the people around Erin at the sight of Jay's wheelchair, but no one said anything. The Hispanic man stepped forward and gave a crisp nod. “You Jay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I'm Hector.” He turned to the women standing behind him near Erin. “This is my wife, Carla, and our two daughters, Isabela and Tina.” The two pudgy daughters looked to be teenagers, while Hector and his wife looked to be in their forties.

  Jay gave a nod of acknowledgment. He wasn't exactly in the mood for pleasantries, and neither was Carla, judging by the way she had her arms folded over her chest and her lips pressed tightly together in a belligerent pose.

  Resting his elbows on his knees, Jay leaned forward to get as close to Erin as he could get. He was shocked by her appearance: long brown hair mostly escaped from its ponytail and tangling wildly around her face, some of it sticking to her grimy cheeks. “Hey, darlin'. You okay?”

  Erin's eyes were glazed over and bloodshot, their sea-hazel color too bright against red whites. They were almost glowing when she looked up at him, then they welled with tears. “Jay?”

  There was so much infused in the way she said his name—relief, fear, despair—that it made his heart ache. “Yeah. I'm here,” he said in a low tone.

  Her face crumpled and the tears in her eyes slipped free.

  “You ready to go home, darlin'?”

  She nodded like a lost child, still hugging her knees.

  He looked up at Hector. “Can you help me get her to my car?”

  Hector's brows went up, his face doubtful. “Yeah, if she'll let me. She wouldn't tell us nothing or let anyone near her, just kept waving her phone like a crazy woman and yelling your name. That's the reason I called you. Found your name in her contacts. I found her passed out on our lawn earlier when I was leaving for work. I'm supposed to be there by 5:30.”

  It was almost six now. “Sorry, man,” Jay said.

  “Shit happens,” Hector said philosophically.

  “You're lucky we didn't call the police,” Carla put in. She glared at her husband. “If it had been up to me, that's what we would have done.”

  “Shut up, Carla,” said Hector. “Like you can throw the first stone. I seem to remember scraping your ass off the ground a time or two.”

  Carla rolled her eyes and pursed her lips.

  Jay said to Erin, “Darlin', you need to get to my car. Okay?”

  She lifted her gaze to his and nodded.

  “Hector here is gonna help you.”

  She frowned and shook her head frantically.

  “Erin, he won't hurt you. He just wants to help.”

  She shook her head again and started rocking.

  Jay looked up at Hector, who shrugged as if to say, See? I told you.

  When Jay reached forward and cupped Erin's cheek in his hand, she froze at his touch, wary, but didn't jerk away. He gently rubbed her cheekbone with his thumb. “You need to trust me. No one's going to
hurt you.”

  Her eyes skittered to Hector and then she seemed to stare at nothing.

  Jay let out a frustrated breath. Jesus Christ. What had happened to her? What had she been doing for the past week? Who the hell had done this to her? He wanted answers, but first he had to get her home and sobered up, not to mention cleaned up. She smelled foul, like vomit, pot, stale beer, and other things he couldn't identify.

  It took a lot of coaxing, but Jay finally got Erin to let Hector help her to the car. When Jay got her home, she was too wobbly and disoriented to walk to the house, so Jay secured her on his lap, guiding her arms around his neck and awkwardly wheeling her inside.

  He helped her shuck her soiled clothing and then removed the shower chair from his tub so she could bathe in it, since he could maneuver his wheelchair better in his bathroom. She was so out of it that she didn't make even a squeak of protest at undressing in front of him. Then again, he didn't think she even realized she was naked. She was so docile, obeying Jay's every command as if he'd hypnotized her.

  His blood boiled with rage when he saw she was bruised on her arms, wrists, and other random places. He prayed to God she hadn't been raped and wanted to kill the son of a bitch who'd manhandled her.

  His conscience told him he should take her to a hospital first, that he might be washing away evidence, but he wasn't sure what she might have gotten herself into. A trip to the hospital might attract unwanted attention from nosy doctors and social workers, might even get her in trouble with the police, and he didn't want to chance it.

  That possibility, combined with his past experience with doctors who could do nothing to fix him and a lifelong distrust of police instilled by his dad, made him wary. He would deal with the rape issue later if he had to, but he wanted to talk to Erin first, after she'd detoxed, to find out exactly what had happened.

  She was lying back in the tub now, her petite, slender body distorted a bit by the warm water submerging part of her. She had small tattoos in places that were usually hidden, like the inside of her thigh up near her bikini line and one just above her breast. He'd also seen one at the base of her spine when she'd clumsily undressed. The tats were just butterflies and cheesy shit like that, but on her, they were sexy as hell.

  This wasn't at all how he'd pictured the first time he would see her naked. Just like any normal, decent dude, he wanted a woman to be a willing, eager participant when things got intimate, not barely conscious and coming off a bad high. Still, he couldn't stop his hand from trembling a little with need as he sluiced a warm, soapy washrag over her collarbone and breasts, between her thighs, and over her exquisite calves. Lust shot through him and he instantly felt guilty, especially in light of the evidence she'd been mistreated.

  “Christ, Jay. Get a grip,” he muttered. He drew in a shaky breath and tried to be more clinical in his touch. The long, raised, dark pink scar that ran along the outside of her right ankle, a souvenir from her car wreck, helped to squelch his desire a little, but not because it marred her otherwise perfect body. It was because the thought of her small bones splintering and having to be screwed back together, of her being seriously hurt, made him queasy. He wanted to protect her, to never let anything bad happen to her again.

  The scar didn't detract from her loveliness, though, and he still wanted her. Badly.

  Erin, on the other hand, was only half-conscious, her eyes hooded and glassy. It was like she had one foot in this realm and one in a place only she could see. One thing was for sure: Wherever she was, Jay's touch had no effect on her.

  Chapter 17

  Someone was squeezing her. It wasn't unpleasant, wasn't cutting off her breath. It was just a heavy weight resting on her waist and hip that felt safe and protective.

  She was home. She knew by the softness and just-right puffiness of the pillow beneath her cheek and the familiar scent of the fabric softener—lavender Bounce—in her sheets. The fake lavender mingled with other scents: the natural smell of her own body (not unclean, just there, just normal), and a male spiciness that she knew without a doubt belonged to Jay. Tentatively, she moved her hand until she felt a warm, masculine hand and then an arm lightly dusted with wiry male hair. Her heart instantly beat faster, a flashing beacon seeking a response.

  Why was Jay's arm around her? Why was he in her bed? She knew she should open her eyes, but she waited just a few more blessed seconds. She wanted to savor the fact that she finally felt clear-headed again, that the nausea, the headache, and, worst of all, the terrifying paranoia she'd felt had subsided. And then there was Jay's body heat wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

  She didn't remember much. She'd smoked the A-bomb and then drunk way too much at Lars Bar before leaving at the end of her shift with Duncan and some of his friends. They'd done more drinking and drugs, and everything after that was spotty. She remembered Duncan on top of her, trying to get her clothes off. She remembered terror and hands gripping her too hard and not letting go. She remembered walking but going nowhere. She remembered hands again, flapping around her like crazy white doves. She remembered more fear, more sickness, more shame.

  She remembered a familiar face—a handsome, chiseled face with dark, blue-gray eyes—a whiskey voice, strong soothing hands, cool water easing down her throat, back rubs, fingers tenderly holding her hair back to get it out of her face as she threw up. She remembered peace.

  How long had she been out of it? Had Jay taken care of her the whole time? She was horrified by the thought. There was no telling what he'd seen. She must have been at her worst, like shitty-butt-wasted worst. Guilt squeezed her belly, along with the embarrassment and fear of what she might have done or said. She suddenly felt tense all over, her shoulders stiffening.

  The arm around her waist tightened and pulled her closer, and then Jay's voice was there, a rich, sleepy vibration in her ear. “What's wrong, darlin'? You need something?”

  She closed her eyes, almost groaning with pleasure at the sound of him. “Um, no. Thanks. I'm okay.” Her voice sounded like someone else's, kind of froggy and craggy; her tongue and throat felt like they'd been sanded and Spackled.

  Jay's arm relaxed but still held her close. It was a nice feeling, but her need to fill in the blanks was overwhelming. Erin rolled over to face him, his arm remaining steady as her body twisted beneath it. When she was settled, he rubbed lazy little circles on her back with his hand. It felt divine and reassuring.

  He was lying on his side, his thin legs covered by loose gray sweatpants, a pillow between his bent knees. She knew the pillow was there to prevent pressure sores from developing where his legs rubbed together—so he must have planned on lying there with her for a while. The sheet and comforter were all bunched up and had been pushed down to the bottom of the bed.

  “You kept getting hot,” he said, seeing where her gaze had stopped. “You finally shoved all the covers off of you.” His mouth was curved into the ghost of his usual smirk, his blue eyes unreadable and unwavering from her face.

  His scrutiny made Erin self-conscious. She glanced down to escape it, but she didn't get any farther than his broad chest. The white T-shirt he wore hugged every muscle. “Why”—she cleared her throat because her mouth seemed to get drier by the minute—“are you sleeping in my bed?”

  “You slept better when I was here.”

  “Oh.” She let that soak in for a second, tingling warmth curling through her at the thought of him watching over her. “So, um, how long have I been out of it?”

  “About two days.”

  Not good. So not good. She closed her eyes and then forced herself to open them and meet his gaze. “And you . . . ” She paused, trying to fight off a blush. “You've been taking care of me?”

  He nodded. “Good to see you're coming back to the land of the living.”

  She felt heat rise up her neck to her cheeks. “I'm sorry. I guess I was pretty messed up.”

  “Yeah, you were.” After a beat, he asked, “You wanna tell me what happened?”
>
  “Just overdid it, I guess.”

  His gaze burned into her. “Just overdid it? Erin, you were sick as a dog, incoherent, and having a full-on paranoid psychotic freak-out. Some dude that lives in the neighborhood behind North Star Mall found you passed out on his front lawn at five in the morning.”

  Erin cringed inwardly.

  “You've been coming down for two days from whatever got you so fucked up. So, yeah. I'd definitely say you 'overdid' it.”

  Shame blasted through her, making her wish that she could just disappear, that the bed would swallow her up. “I'm sorry,” she said quietly. When he didn't respond, she added, “Thank you for . . . helping me.”

  He tilted her chin up with an index finger, as if making sure he had her full attention. “I want to know what happened.”

  “It's really not that big of a deal.”

  A flare of his nostrils told her that was the wrong thing to say.

  “To be honest,” she rushed on, “I don't remember that much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that guy called you and sucked you into my shit.”

  “You'd better be glad that guy called me instead of the police. You could be detoxing in a hospital or the clink right now instead of here with me.”

  She got a cold, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. He was right. She could have gone to jail for public intoxication or something much more serious if the wrong person had found her. There were definitely worse things than having to detox with Jay.

  “Erin,” he said, “you have bruises all over you.” Her hand was resting on her pillow, near her chin, and he caressed her wrist with his fingers. Without looking, she knew he was touching one of the bruises, underscoring his point.

  Jay's touch was gentle and so different from when Duncan had pinned her wrists down, his hands like steel bands. She didn't remember a lot of what had happened the past couple of days, but she would never forget that horrible helplessness or the feeling of stark terror that had cut through her drugged stupor with razorlike clarity.