• • •
Rome nursed a bottle of beer in a shithole bar off the highway. He’d been at this shithole every night this week, mostly since the TV in his equally shitty motel room was broken, and the entire place smelled vaguely like musty sweat socks. Still, it was only twenty-two dollars a night, and since he was doing under-the-table construction for about forty dollars a day, he couldn’t complain.
It was a living. Kind of.
A woman at the far end of the bar was giving him a few hot glances, but he ignored her. She looked nothing like Elise. He’d never had a type before, but now he could officially say that if he ever showed interest in another woman, she’d have to have long, silky brown hair that fell over one side of her face, and a shy gaze that made him feel like he was a f**king king instead of some ass**le convict who couldn’t get a real job outside of flipping burgers.
Then again, with the economy the way it was, he couldn’t even get a job flipping burgers. Now he was having to compete with people with degrees and college students for that sort of thing. If you were going to hire someone to prep your fries, did you want the guy with the bachelors in liberal arts, or the guy who served four years in Huntsville? It was a no-brainer, and he’d had no luck finding a job—any job—for days.
He’d driven his motorcycle aimlessly through a few towns, looking for a cheap motel and any place that seemed to be hiring . . . and ran across a bunch of guys standing around in front of a corner store early one morning. He recognized that kind of grouping. All the people who couldn’t get hired at normal, decent-earning jobs? They stood in front of a corner store and waited for someone to come by and offer a low-paying, back-breaking crap job that would offer money under the table and off the records. It was horrible work and it paid shit.
But it was work.
The next morning, Rome had stood with the guys and they’d gotten work, all right. Some rich bigwig building himself a lake house wanted construction on the cheap, so Rome found himself hauling lumber across the site, moving stonework to lay a ridiculous quartz-stone walkway to the gazebo, and returning to his shit motel room every night, exhausted. He’d eat something off the dollar menu at the nearest drive-thru, shower, and then collapse into bed.
Rome had done this sort of lifestyle before. Hell, he’d done it for two years before passing through Bluebonnet. He told himself he could do it again, but for some reason . . . it was different now.
Now, it felt like torture.
He knew what he was missing now. He knew what it was like to have a job with decent friends (well, excepting Grant) and buddies who weren’t looking at you wondering if you were going to somehow score them their next hit. To have his own roof over his head and a place where he belonged and could earn a decent wage.
He knew what it was like to wake up next to a woman you couldn’t get enough of, a woman who adored you back, and hold her close. To kiss her and make love to her and think that maybe, just maybe, the world held a little hope after all.
Rome shook his head and took another long pull on his beer. Now he was just getting all maudlin.
His phone buzzed and he internally winced. The only person who texted him was Elise.
He’d thought—hoped, really—that once he left, she’d be hurt enough to internalize his leaving for a few weeks. That’d give him enough time to make the mental break, he hoped, and not feel every day like he was the world’s biggest douche bag.
But she texted him every day, wanting to talk to him. Wanting to know if he was okay. Just wanting him, in general.
And part of him was upset that she didn’t seem to be paying attention to his grand plan of “love her and leave her.” She didn’t seem to realize that he’d dumped her for her own good, because she constantly called, just trying to reach out to him.
The other part of him secretly liked that she hadn’t given up on him. So many people often did. Even though he never answered her, it made him feel a little better inside to know that she was out there, waiting for him.
Which was shitty of him, of course. He’d set her free to find someone new. Someone better than him. Someone she deserved. His hand clenched tight on his beer bottle. Not that he wanted any ass**le touching her . . . other than him.
Yeah, he was pretty messed up.
He didn’t pick up his phone to read the message, though. He delayed checking it, so when he got back to his place—his decrepit motel room—he could savor it, mentally imagining her beautiful mouth forming the words. Just thinking about her, and knowing she was out there thinking about him, made his chest ache all over again. Damn it, he missed her.
For the first time in years, he hadn’t felt lonely when he was with her. He hadn’t felt completely, utterly adrift. She’d accepted him for being nothing more than a broke, tattooed and pierced guy that rode a beat-up Harley, and she’d loved him. For a moment, he was fiercely glad that he’d never given Grant Markham an excuse to tell Elise who he really was. He didn’t want to see that love in her eyes flicker out and fade as soon as she realized he was an ex-con.
So Rome finished his beer, paid his tab, and headed out. He swung a leg over his bike, and hesitated. His phone pressed against him in his back pocket, reminding him of the text waiting for him. It called to him. Unable to wait, he pulled his phone out and clicked on the screen, her message lighting up.
I’m pregnant.
Fierce joy shot through him, followed by a gut-wrenching twist of horror. Oh god.
He’d ruined her life.
Shoving his phone into his jacket pocket, Rome turned his bike onto the highway, heading in the opposite direction of his hotel and straight toward the tiny town of Bluebonnet.
SEVENTEEN
A few hours later, Rome pulled into the parking lot of the bed-and-breakfast. It was past midnight, and the lights were off. He didn’t care. He needed to talk to Elise, and she deserved more than a text. He’d been going over everything in his mind.
Somehow, some way, he’d make this right for her . . . no matter what she decided. He’d support her no matter what, even if her answer was just to slap him across the face.
The door to the bed-and-breakfast was locked, and for a moment, Rome was confounded. Why was he locked out? Emily never locked the damn place. He hammered on the door, then held his finger down on the doorbell. He was not waiting until morning to talk to Elise.
A minute later, a light came on. Rome heard footsteps coming up to the door, and his entire body tensed, waiting.
He wasn’t prepared to see his brother Jericho standing there in the doorway with a sleepy look on his face, dressed in nothing but a pair of flannel boxers and a white T-shirt.