Page 38 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)
Clay
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but when I’m startled awake by the ring of my phone, I blindly reach out toward my nightstand to snag it into my hands.
I have to blink several times before I can see the name on the screen, but when I see Incoming Call Josie , adrenaline surges into my veins and I’m more awake than I’ve ever been in my life.
With the way she was when I left the coffee shop last night, I thought I’d have to run ten marathons before she’d ever pick up the phone and call me, even to curse me out. When it comes to me, Josie Ellis doesn’t confront—she avoids.
“Josie?” I answer, my voice the kind of desperation most men would try to hide. Not me. I want her to know how much I love her every single fucking second, even if it makes me sound pathetic. “I was hoping you—”
“Bennett got arrested!” she interrupts.
“What?” I jump off my bed without even thinking, the words a shock to my system.
I wasn’t expecting her to tell me she loved me or anything, but I sure as fuck didn’t think she’d say this either.
“What the fuck do you mean, he got arrested?” I pace the hardwood floor of my bedroom and run a hand through my hair.
“Sheriff Pete took him into custody a little while ago. Apparently, Norah’s ex is back in Red Bridge, ready to stir up trouble. Breezy called me first, but Norah just got a call from Sheriff Pete to come down to the station too. We’re all on our way.”
“Fuck!” I shout at the top of my lungs as I shove a pair of jeans on over my boxer briefs.
This is the last thing Ben needs right now.
Summer is in her final moments, and he’s down at the police station dealing with that slimy fuckwit Thomas Kingston or whatever the fuck that rich prick’s name is?
“I’m gonna be honest, Jose, I want to kill that motherfucker. ”
“Get in line,” she says, not the least bit shocked by my admission. I snag a T-shirt and toss it over my head, maneuvering it around my phone and grab my keys off the kitchen counter after I shove on my boots. “We’re about five minutes out. You’re coming?”
“I’m already on my way,” I tell her and head out the front door. “Meet you guys there.”
“Thanks, Clay,” she says, and the call ends after that.
I jump into my old truck and start it up with a roar of my engine, not waiting at all before shifting into gear and flooring it. A spray of gravel flies behind me, and I squeal out of The Country Club’s parking lot on two tires.
The drive is quicker than it should be—probably because I’m going exactly forty miles over the speed limit, and I see Breezy’s rental fly into the parking lot from the other direction right ahead of me.
I turn in and hit my brakes on a hard skid as I pull my truck to a stop in a parking spot right beside them.
Norah and Josie get out of Breezy’s car at the same time as I hop out of my driver’s side door.
I kick it shut with a slam and meet the three women on the sidewalk that leads to the front doors of the station.
Norah and Breezy are ahead of me on a jog, but I hang back to fall in beside Josie. Her body is tense, just like mine, and the stress permeating the air might as well be a warning on the weather station about dense fog.
“I’m worried,” Josie whispers. They’re the first words she’s spoken to me without prompting in years. I place a gentle hand on the small of her back for a brief moment—seconds, at most—but old feelings of being her protector flow through me like hot lava.
To everyone else, Josie’s a fireball, a go-getter, and a confident, secure woman who can handle her shit. But behind closed doors, she’s soft and vulnerable and affectionate.
Her giving me a touch of that hidden side now is a gift I don’t take for granted.
“It’s going to be okay,” I assure her confidently. Whatever it takes to make it that way, I’ll do it.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
I love her. I’ll never stop.
I grab the door and keep it open for all three women to walk inside the station, Breezy leading the charge toward the viper den that’s brought Bennett down here in the first place.
Pete, Bennett, Josie’s cunt of a mother Eleanor Ellis, and Norah’s piece-of-shit ex are all squared up in the middle of the pit, right next to Deputy Rice’s desk, and Bennett’s face is a mask of feelings I haven’t seen on him in a long time. It’s not anger; it’s rage.
And I can’t fucking blame him.
“What the hell is going on here?” Breezy shouts, her voice a harsh demand and her face a steel-toed boot that’s ready to kick ass.
“Thomas…Mom?” Norah cries as soon as she sees Eleanor Ellis and her asshole ex. “This is your doing?”
I immediately walk over to Ben’s side, positioning myself to get involved physically if I need to. “You okay, man?”
He nods, his jaw grinding. “Just want to get home.”
His words stab like a knife, knowing what he’s missing—precious moments with his little girl that can’t be replaced or made up for. I clap a hand to his shoulder. “I know.”
“You’ve truly lost your mind, Eleanor,” Josie spits unchecked. “Siding with an abuser ?”
Her mother scoffs, her face a pinched-up expression that reeks of her usual self-entitled demeanor. “Thomas is hardly an abuser, Josie. Be serious.”
“I am serious,” Josie snaps back. “He put his hands on Norah and left a mark. Nearly dragged her out of my shop and would have if Bennett here hadn’t stopped him. He’s a piece of shit, and everyone here knows it.”
“Folks, folks,” Pete tries to interject, but the train has already left the station.
“He’s a lot more than that,” Norah cuts in, pulling a manila envelope from under her arm.
Her voice is shaky and nervous, and her eyes keep flitting over to Ben, whose body is strung like a cocked bow.
I move just barely in front of him, readying myself even more.
“I have evidence here of blackmail and coercion and a pretty good feeling that there have been multiple girls the two of you have forced into abortions and other things.”
“Where the hell did you get that?” Norah’s hoity-toity ex asks on a shout, his voice a slithering snake of disdain.
Norah shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter where I got it. What matters is that I have it. And I’m going to pursue it to the fullest extent of the law, even if that means a long, drawn-out trial against you.”
Josie wraps an arm around Norah’s shoulders in both comfort and pride. As it turns out, both Ellis sisters have one hell of a backbone.
“What the hell is she doing here?” Breezy snaps, pulling my attention away from Josie and Norah and over to Pete’s office door. Recognition is immediate, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck.
Jessica fucking Folger. This fucking bitch . A goon in a sloppy suit trails behind her, but I don’t pay him much mind.
“I’m here for my daughter,” Jessica says, making the air leave my lungs in a rush. Josie’s gasp sounds close to the same.
We were there in the beginning, with Bennett, as he navigated his new role in fatherhood. We were there for the stories about Jessica turning her baby away. We were there, and this bitch was nowhere to be found. The fucking audacity of her to come here and say that shit is mind-blowing.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Jessica Folger,” Breezy spits, evidently feeling a lot like me. She points an accusing finger at the woman. “That girl is not your daughter. Your role was giving birth, and that was the extent of it.”
“Because he paid me to leave!” Jessica shouts.
“He paid you a generous sum of money, yes, but you didn’t need any convincing to leave, Jess. You and I both know you didn’t want anything to do with that baby.”
“She’s saying I’m not the biological father,” Bennett chokes out somehow, causing another round of gasps that suck almost all the air out of the station and set me on my toes.
I’ve never hit a woman, but if I thought I could get away with it right now without making the situation worse, I sure as hell would.
“Is that right?” Breezy challenges, unfazed by Jessica’s poison. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we did a DNA test before Bennett ever left the state with her, then.”
“You have DNA?” the goofy goon behind her bumbles.
“Yes,” Breezy declares. “We have DNA, a signed affidavit swearing the money was not a bribe, and a signed transfer of full rights to Bennett for Summer. I don’t know what you think you have, but you don’t have jack shit.”
“You signed an affidavit?” the lawyer questions Jessica, his eyes widening in incredulity.
“I signed a lot of things, but I was coerced!” Jessica wails at the top of her lungs.
“Exactly!” Thomas shouts, and Breezy turns on him like a mama bear.
“You stay out of this!”
Bennett’s laugh is humorless. “He’s having a hard time staying out of it because he’s the one who convinced Jess to come. Right?”
Norah’s slimy ex and Summer’s shitty bio mom are both silent for a long moment, and Eleanor Ellis puts a defiant hand to her hip, anger vibrating off her body. “This is preposterous. Sheriff! This is all lies, every bit of it!”
Josie guffaws. “Don’t act like you’re innocent, Mother. You’ve had your hand in all of it.”
“Listen, folks, from what I’m hearing, Bennett is free to go,” Sheriff Pete interjects. He doesn’t hesitate to walk over to Bennett and remove his cuffs. “If there’s anything else to be settled, I suggest you file suit with the appropriate court.”
“This is bullshit,” Jessica cries, pointing at Thomas. “You said I could get more money! That’s the whole damn reason I even came!”
Her lawyer doesn’t give two shits. He already has his briefcase in hand and is heading for the door.
“The money’s gone, Jess,” Bennet says. “All that’s left is the daughter you never wanted. The daughter I would give anything to keep. So, I suggest you go back to wherever you’ve been because the only place you’re going in the company of this guy is prison.”
Eleanor and Thomas are still spouting bullshit, Jessica occasionally joining in with words that can’t hold water. But Bennett ignores the shitty crowd of people who came down here to try to make his and Norah’s lives hell.
“Pete, I’m leaving,” he says.
Sheriff Pete nods. “Okay, Ben.”
“I’ll drive you,” I offer, already pulling my keys out of my pocket and heading toward the exit.
But Bennett pauses midway to the door, and I turn to watch him as he stops in front of Norah. She looks so sad, so fucking sad. He whispers something in her ear, and her eyes shoot up to his. He says something else to her.
But all I can hear is her response. “I know.”
Bennett heads toward me, and I steal one final look at Josie. She stands there beside Norah, her arm now wrapped around her sister’s shoulder but her eyes on me.
Our people need taking care of, and today, we’re a team.