Jersey Six - Jewel E Ann Page 0,90
shower and sleep. Then we’ll start sorting through this tomorrow.”
Ian stared off into the distance, squinting against the setting sun. After a few more awkward seconds, he nodded. Jersey picked up Lola and eyed Chris until he got her silent plea to pick up Foxy. They headed toward the Blevins’s while Shane climbed into the SUV to take the bags next door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You can go.” Ian stared at his house, feeling Max’s judgmental gaze on his back.
“It’s insured. No one died.” She tried to reassure him.
“You can go.”
Max waited a few seconds before grabbing Ian’s hand and giving it a squeeze.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For not asking.” He glanced at her.
“About what?”
“My past.”
“Because it’s painful?”
He returned his attention to the house. “Because it’s ugly.”
As promised, Max made sure food was delivered. Jersey and Chris gave Ian the silent treatment, taking their food upstairs to eat while Ian ate in the kitchen with the dogs.
After he took them outside to do their thing, he locked up and climbed the stairs. At the top, Jersey glanced up, with her bag over her shoulder.
“Shane put my bag in the same bedroom with yours. But I’m staying with Chris because I’m not yours. Not yours to touch, to control, to own.”
“I never said you were,” he replied in a defeated tone.
“What you said to Chris was about me. Everyone knew you were pissing on me like I’m some possession of yours.”
Ian stood still, unblinking, with a blank expression. “What I said to Chris was about me.” He ambled toward her, shaking his head while squeezing past her in the doorway to the bedroom. “Stay out of it, Jersey. You’re in over your head this time.”
Within seconds, he stumbled forward, flinching from the sharp pain in his lower back from her foot landing there. He turned toward her, quickly ducking to avoid her fist flying through the air.
“Jersey, what the fuck?” He grabbed her arm.
She used his hold on her to pull him closer, pounding her left fist into his face. Ian took a step back, wiping the blood from the cut along his cheek bone. Jersey held up her fists and gnashed her teeth. “Careful, Coop, I think you’re in over your pretty, little head. But when I’m done with you, there won’t be anything pretty about your face.”
Ian’s head jerked back. “What did he say to you?”
She smiled. “Chris? He said he couldn’t kill you. His conscience is full. But mine has room. I can kill you for taking something of mine. I can kill you for ruining my life.”
“W-what …” Ian shook his head. “What are you talking about?” His heart sank into his stomach, a nauseating pain. “I didn’t take anything from you.” His voice cracked because … he loved her. “Everything is for you. I want to give you the world, the pieces that were taken from you, the life you never had. Jersey, I want to give you back your dreams.”
With blood trailing down his cheek, he shook his head and whispered, “I love you.”
Her eyes turned red with tears. “Why? How?”
Ian didn’t know which would destroy her first, the anger or the pain. He hated how much she blamed him for something. What? He didn’t know. It made no sense to him.
Jersey swallowed hard, refusing to let go of a single tear. “How could you leave them there to die?” She bit her quivering lower lip. “Who … who does that?”
“Leave wh—” Ian’s words died, leaving his mouth open, choking on disbelief.
No.
She couldn’t think he did that.
Ian’s gaze shifted over her shoulder to the hallway. Where was Chris? Surely, he heard them.
“Jersey … just stay here.” He took a step toward her.
Smack! Thunk!
She pummeled his face and torso. He pushed her away to get a better angle and two extra seconds to hug her to him, trapping her arms. Tipping his chin up to keep her head from thrashing into it, he carried her to the balcony of the master bedroom and shoved her onto the floor of it harder than he wanted. But he needed to buy a few seconds to shut the door and lock it.
“Ian!” She punched and kicked the glass.
He knew it wasn’t going to last very long, so he took angry strides to Chris’s room and threw open the door, shutting and locking it behind him.
Chris glanced up from his book, reclined on the bed.
Chris … rage burned Ian to his very core. That wasn’t even the fucking murderous bastard’s real name.
“She’s screaming,