Straight to you, p.1
Straight to You, page 1
STRAIGHT TO YOU
By: Jordan Marie
www.jordanmarieromance.com
Copyright © 2022 by Jordan Marie
Cover Created by: Sarah Hansen with Okay Creations
Photographer: Wander Aguiar
Model: Travis S.
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This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Foreword
Dedication
Blurb
1. Katie
2. Katie
3. Jake
4. Katie
5. Jake
6. Katie
7. Jake
8. Katie
9. Jake
10. Jeff
11. Jeff
12. Jake
13. Jake
14. Jake
15. Jake
16. Jake
Epilogue
Epilogue
Sneak Peek
Jordan’s Insiders
Social Media Links
Also by Jordan Marie
Foreword
Please Note You Need to Read Broken Road before this book, as this is the conclusion of Katie and Jake’s story.
Dedication
To my readers:
When my home was destroyed in a flood, I came so close to giving up. Due to obligations I had to write books in a mere week that I wanted to spend months with. I was just about to give up. Then, I would get notes of encouragement and understanding.
That kept me from throwing in the towel.
For those of you that have stuck with me, my promise to you is that with the coming year I am going to do my damnedest to make sure that my new books are filled with stories you will love and not me having to rush the characters to get the story. That begins with Jeff’s story, and I’d love to see what you think after reading his sneak peek!
Xoxo
J
It Took Coming Home To Find Where I Belong
I was filled with anger when I came back to Macon, Texas.
I wanted nothing more than my son and to make those that betrayed me pay.
I ended up pushing vengeance aside.
I needed to concentrate on my kid. He was priority number one.
Being close to Katie again was like lightning in a bottle.
Old memories, emotions, and feelings came storming back.
I want my family—the family that should have been mine all along—back.
I’m on the verge of getting it all.
Then, my brother shows up again.
If he thinks he can take what’s mine—he’s wrong.
I’m back, and I’ve learned from past mistakes.
This time, I’m not stepping aside.
CHAPTER 1
Katie
It can’t be good for your body to go from the ultimate high to a horrifying reality within the blink of an eye. Yet, when I see Jeff standing at the door, his face cold and filled with hate, that’s exactly what happens. The change is so sudden that my knees go weak.
“Shit,” Jake hisses, coming over to pick me up as my knees buckle under my weight. He carries me over to the couch, and I sit—all without taking my eyes off Jeff. He looks like a caged lion, the anger inside of him is that palpable. In all my years with him, I was never afraid to leave Lennon alone with him, but now, my instinct is to get my son away from the hostility shining on his face.
“Jeff! You came back! I knew you would!” my son yells, unaware of all the angry undercurrents in the air.
He runs into Jeff’s arms, and Jake lets out an inhuman sound that should terrify me, but instead, I just hear his pain—pain I am responsible for. I guess it’s never too late to be punished for your sins.
“Yeah, little man, I’m back,” Jeff answers, his voice gruff.
The anger may be thick and written on his face, but he’s at least gentle as he returns Lennon’s hug. Jake, on the other hand, is not handling his rage at all. It’s slowly sucking all the air out of the room. On instinct, I reach over and wrap my hand in his. There’s every chance in the world that he will knock my hand away, stomp out, and disappear. He could even tell me to fuck off. I’m worried, but I fight through it. I squeeze his hand. He looks down at me. Anger may be vibrating from him, but it’s anguish that is telegraphed on his face.
“So?” Jeff prompts. “Are congratulations in order?”
“Now’s not the time, Jeff,” Jake responds, his voice a rumbled mixture of anger and frustration.
“I think it’s the perfect time. Besides,” he adds with a shrug, “it’s a simple question. Are you marrying my fiancée.”
“Hey, Lennon? Can you go with Grandma into her room and help her find a pretty outfit for our celebration?” I ask, all too aware that the interaction and tension in the room is confusing my son—even if he’s clueless as to what’s going on.
“But, Mom,” he whines.
“Please?”
“But Jeff’s back, and I want to show him all the things he missed. He hasn’t even seen my new dinosaur,” Lennon insists.
“You can show him later, baby. I promise.”
“You aren’t leaving again—right, Jeff?”
“I’m not planning on it, Lenny. I have unfinished business here,” he says, staring right at me.
“Okay,” Lenny pouts as Mom uses her chair to go to him.
“Climb up on my lap, baby,” Mom says.
“I don’t see why I have to leave,” he mutters, but does as she asks.
“Sometimes, grownups have to talk about stuff they let build up too long,” she says wisely.
“I don’t want to be a grown up,” he says. “They’re dumb.”
“They definitely can be,” Mom murmurs, sparing me a look. She doesn’t tell me, but I can see the message in her eyes, pleading with me not to be stupid.
It might be too late for that.
The door to Mom’s bedroom barely closes when Jake growls, sounding like a wounded animal. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here.”
“That’s rich coming from you. Did you forget you exited out of Katie and Lennon’s life years ago?” Jeff snaps.
I know I need to intercede before this gets out of hand, but right now, I’m not sure what to say—probably because I don’t know what I’m feeling.
“Typical of you to point out how other people fuck up. You’re not saying one word about what you did, are you, Jeff?”
“I did what I had to do to protect the woman I loved. The woman I’ve always loved.”
“You lied.”
“And you didn’t? I just wonder what lies you’ve told Katie since I’ve been gone. I mean, we both know how you operate, Jake.”
“You bastard,” Jake snarls, lunging at Jeff.
“Stop it! Stop!” I yell when they start throwing punches.
They ignore me and keep fighting, each landing his fair share of blows. My body is still shaking, although I don’t think it has anything to do with the struggle it was to use a walker. It has more to do with what’s going on right in front of me—with my son in the next room.
I go to stand up, realizing the walker is still over where Jake carried me from. I lean on the armrest of the couch and force my weak legs to take my weight. I watch as Jake has Jeff down. He’s hitting him continually, and I yell for him to stop again, desperate to end this.
“Jake! Stop it!” I cry, tears stinging my eyes. “Stop it!”
“Stop hurting, Jeff! He’s back and he loves us! You’re going to make him go away again!” Lennon yells, storming into the room. Jake freezes mid punch, and it would take someone completely blind not to see the look of pain on his face.
“Buddy—”
“I’m not your buddy. You hurt my Jeff. I hate you!” Lennon yells. Lennon dives down to the floor, hurling his body on to Jeff. Jeff holds him, blood trickling from his nose, his knuckles scraped from the hits he delivered. Jake holds his head down, and the pain comes off him in waves. I hate it. I caused all this by keeping secrets and hurting the men in front of me.
“Jake,” I whisper. He looks at me, his eyes overly bright.
“I can’t,” he chokes out. Without another word and only a longing glance at his son, Jake walks out of the room. I manage to remain standing until I hear the door slam shut. Then, I slink back down onto the cushions.
“Lennon, go to your room,” I demand. My son looks up at me, his heart in his eyes. Right now, the look on his face is so much like his father’s it hurts.
“I want to stay with Jeff.”
“You don’t talk to people the way you did to Jake—”
“He was hurting Jeff,” he huffs back.
“Sometimes, that happens with adults, even when it shouldn’t, but Jake has been too good to you for you to say those things to him. What have I always told you?”
“That we aren’t supposed to hate anyone,” he whispers as Jeff stands up and Lennon does the same, shifting to stand by Jeff’s side.
&
nbsp; “Go to your room. I’ll tuck you in after Jeff and I talk.”
“But, Mom—”
“Go, Lennon.”
“You better go, Lenny. I’ll be around again, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.”
“This is stupid,” Lennon pouts, stomping out after giving me a mean look.
Jeff looks at me, rubbing his rapidly bruising jaw. My gaze moves up to my mother.
“I’ll just let you two talk. If you need me…”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She leaves, and suddenly I’m alone with the man I thought I was going to marry and spend the rest of my life with not so long ago. That seems like a lifetime ago. He’s like a stranger to me and I don’t even know what to say to him…
CHAPTER 2
Katie
“What gives you the right to waltz in here after giving me nothing but silence? You hurt not only me but my son, Jeff, and now, you just show up like you have authority to question what I’m doing?”
“The right? How about the fact that my fucking brother waltzed in and ruined our chance for happiness once again? Jesus, I come home to find you all just happy as can be, Katie. Did I mean so fucking little to you?”
The man in front of me is not the Jeff I’ve always known. This Jeff is emotional. He’s angry in a way I’ve never seen. I can’t say it is directed at me, but it is jarring to see this side of him after years of thinking I knew everything about him.
“Did you tell Jake about Lennon four years ago, Jeff?” I whisper.
The question hurts. It burns in the pit of my stomach. This man has stood by me through so much. The trust I have in him is akin to the belief I have in my grandmother. That’s how deep it goes. The mere thought that after all this time I’m wrong about Jeff scares me. It terrifies me.
“What?” he asks, looking like I slapped him.
“Jake said he never knew about Lennon until you and I were getting married. That can’t be true, can it, Jeff? You promised me you told him all those years ago when you wouldn’t let me be the one. You wanted to handle it. You said you understood that I wasn’t ready to move forward, that I still had to deal with the past. I know I was weak, and I let you, but you did tell him, didn’t you?”
“Katie—”
That burning sensation inside me rises into my chest, growing in intensity.
“Answer me, Jeff.” My heart squeezes in my chest. I don’t know how I feel. I’m so confused. I need Jeff to tell me he did it and Jake is lying. Yet, at the same time, I’m hoping that Jake is telling me the truth.
“Wow,” he whispers. “You said you loved me, Katie. Is that love so easily forgotten?”
“That’s rich coming from a man who ran away and didn’t even check on me when I almost died.”
“Maybe Jake didn’t tell me you were sick. You ever think of that?”
“Jake didn’t want to tell you,” I admit.
“I bet he didn’t,” he laughs, but there’s no humor in the sound. Then again, there’s nothing funny about any of this.
“But Barb called you, and I know she did.”
“I didn’t get the message until two days ago.”
“Yeah, right. You live with your phone, Jeff.”
“I haven’t for a while. After the mess at the wedding, I just needed a break from everything. I’ve been driving and figuring out what I wanted.”
“Yeah,” I’m not sure what else to say.
“Yeah?” he repeats. “What does that mean?”
“It’s just that you’ve laid all this at my feet, Jeff, but what about you? You wanted to marry me, but you disappeared without a word. You wouldn’t accept calls. You cut me out of your life. Now, you show up like you’re the wronged party, but that’s not exactly true, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I finally believe a Ryan brother completely—at least about one thing.”
“And what would that be, Katie?”
“You didn’t tell Jake. You lied to me knowing I would trust you implicitly, and you didn’t tell Jake anything. You let me believe that Jake knew all this time and just didn’t care. You cheated my son out of years with his father. You knew how guilty I felt, how I couldn’t move on until the slate was clean, and yet, you made it worse.”
The words are thick on my tongue, weighted down and full of pain. Betrayal burns bitterly in my gut. The one man I would have sworn would never lie to me—never willingly betray me—did so much more than that. He betrayed my son.
I’m not blameless. I know that. I should have told Jake from the beginning. I should have handled everything differently…
“Fuck, Katie. What do you want from me? I fell in love with you the minute I first laid eyes on you, and you never knew I was alive.”
“Jeff—”
“Day after fucking day, I had to watch you kissing my brother, worshipping every damn thing he did. You barely gave me the time of day.”
“Jeff…”
“You won’t believe me, but I had every intention to tell my brother he was Lennon’s father. I went to him to let him know everything.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“When I got there, he was drunk off his ass with some woman in his bed, and he didn’t even know her name,” Jeff growls, rubbing the back of his head and mussing his hair. His words hurt. I struggle to keep the pain hidden. Jake and I weren’t together. It shouldn’t bother me, but I’ve always loved him, so it does bother me. “I stood there looking at the brother I barely recognized, and I just knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I knew he didn’t want Lennon. You knew it, too. That’s why you didn’t tell him in the first place. I looked at him, hung over, having spent the night with some woman he didn’t even know, and I realized I had to protect you and Lennon.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“Damn it, Katie. I saw the writing on the wall. Once more, my damn brother was going to waltz in and wreck your life, leaving you broken. I couldn’t let that happen again. I loved you too much then to let it happen, and I would do it all the same again because I still love you enough to want to keep you safe from my brother’s bullshit. I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“That’s not how love works, Jeff. You can’t shield me from life and take away my right to make my own choices.”
“Bullshit. You protect Lennon from pain and bust your ass to make sure he just tastes the good in life.”
“Lennon is my child, Jeff. I’m an adult, and I don’t want someone making decisions that I need to be the one to make.”
“C’mon, Katie. You could barely mention Jake’s name without the pain bubbling up inside of you. You know it and I know it. That’s the only reason you were okay with me telling him in the first place. Do you really think you could have walked in on what I did and told my brother about Lennon? Do you think you could have survived finding Jake like that at all?”
His questions burn deep enough that I can picture images in my mind that I don’t want to see. Tears sting my eyes and I do my best to hold them back.
“I guess we’ll never know because you never gave me a chance, Jeff.”
I look down at my hands, twisting them together and wondering where I go from here. As I look up at the man who I was once prepared to marry, all I know is that, right now, I just want him to leave…
CHAPTER 3
Jake
I yank my shirt off and wrap my hand up in it, ignoring the splinters and mostly drying up the blood. Punching holes into the old barn might not be the best way for me to deal with my anger, yet it’s what I have. I would rather be hitting my brother. That option isn’t available right now. I want to scream at Katie that my son should know who I am. It’s me my son should be yelling to stay with. I feel cheated, betrayed, and stupid. Christ, I feel so fucking stupid.
