Crushed Ruby, page 24
But that had to change.
If he wanted a relationship with the woman who owned his heart, he had to find a way to like himself again. He needed to put the past in the past just as much as Ruby did. Maybe because they had both been to that same dark place, they could help each other.
“You ready to do this?” Zeb asked.
“Ready.” He and Ruby had the rest of their lives to figure things out and find a way to make things between them work. Today he had to make sure this case was sewn up.
Together he and Zeb went to the room where Nicole Trent was waiting for them. Given that she was pregnant and had some injuries from Jimmy Weston beating her for saving the Kendrick baby, she had spent the last couple of days in the medical ward at the jail.
“We have a visitor for you,” Judah told the teenager as they walked into the interview room. The sixteen-year-old looked so young in her prison wear, without makeup, and her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Of the four kids, he felt like Nicole was the one who wasn’t truly evil. She was dragged into a situation she hadn’t known how to get out of, and now she was going to spend the rest of her life paying for that.
“My stepdad?” the girl asked. So far, her family had refused to come and visit her, and Judah felt sorry for her.
“No. Wilson,” Zeb said as the door opened, and a cuffed Wilson MacAvoy was led in.
“Wilson.” Nicole’s eyes lit up, and if she hadn’t had her cuffs attached to the table, he was pretty sure she would have thrown herself into his arms.
“Are you okay?” Wilson asked as the guard led him to the table and sat him down beside Nicole, then attached his handcuffs to the table as well.
“Uh-huh, are you?” Nicole asked.
“Fine. Why are we here?” Wilson demanded, turning his attention on them.
“Here’s what we know,” Judah said, taking a seat. “DNA evidence connects you, Wilson, to the crimes. And, Nicole, at the very least, we have you for the attack on Ruby. We also have Jimmy Weston and Stephanie Dwyer in custody. We know the four of you were the gang that was breaking into people’s homes and killing them. Right now, Stephanie has written a statement implicating all four of you and claiming that she was pulled into this by Jimmy, who threatened her, but we know that’s not how it happened. We know that Stephanie was the mastermind. What we want from you two is proof that you all committed the crimes, so she doesn’t make a deal and walk away from this.” He laid all of their cards on the table.
“What’s in it for us?” Wilson asked.
“We’ll put in a good word for you when it comes to sentencing,” Zeb replied. “We’ll tell the judge that you cooperated, and that will work in your favor. Maybe you’ll get out in time to see your baby get married and have kids of their own.”
The teenagers exchanged looks, and when Nicole nodded, Wilson sighed but started talking. “We have proof that all four of us were involved. It was our insurance policy.”
Perfect.
That was exactly what they wanted.
“What is it?” Zeb asked.
“We have the gloves. The right ones from the pairs we all wore for the first murder. They’ll have DNA, right? Our DNA on the inside and blood on the outside because we all touched the victims. Jimmy and Stephanie have the left ones.”
“Where are they?” Judah asked. They would send officers there immediately to pick them up and take them straight to the forensics lab.
“They’re in a plastic bag inside a box in the tree house at Nicole’s house.”
“We also need motives,” Judah said. He wanted this case to be a slam dunk when it went before a judge.
“Stephanie wanted to punish her parents for only wanting her to save her sister; Jimmy wanted to punish his dad for the way he treated him, and Nic just felt like she didn’t belong anywhere. She wanted to find her dad, and her stepdad wouldn’t let her, so she wanted to punish him.”
“And you?” Zeb asked when Wilson didn’t mention himself.
Wilson said nothing.
“You may as well tell them,” Nicole said, touching her shoulder to her boyfriend’s.
He rolled his eyes but averted his gaze. “Just angry, I guess. Some stuff went down at summer camp a couple of years ago. I was tired of being the victim. I wanted to be in control, I wanted to be the one to inflict pain and cause fear for a change.”
The teenager didn’t need to elaborate. Judah could assume that the “stuff that went down” was that he had been sexually abused and humiliated, probably in much the same way that he had tortured the Kendricks and Lanelys. They had motives. They had forensics. All they needed was confirmation that Stephanie was the one in charge, so she didn’t use her sob story when it came to sentencing. “Whose plan was it?”
“Stephanie’s,” Nicole said immediately. “We’ve been friends for years. We used to live next door to each other before my family moved. She’s been talking for as long as I can remember about killing herself to punish her parents. Then, it changed to killing others and then ourselves, because then our parents would know what we’d done when the gloves were found. That way, there was nothing they could do about it. They’d have to live the rest of their lives knowing what their children had done. I guess Wilson, Jimmy, and I all had our own reasons for wanting to end our own lives, and that’s how this all started,” she finished softly.
Four angry kids, all with their own reasons for wanting to die, had caused more pain and suffering than they could ever understand. So many lives taken, so many forever changed. It just went to prove how destructive anger could be.
He should learn something from this.
It was time for him to let go of the anger he still harbored toward those who had bullied him. He had a bright future ahead of him, and he wasn’t going to let anger steal it from him.
* * * * *
9:58 P.M.
She stifled a yawn as she parked her car in the garage and climbed out.
The stress of the last few days and knowing that someone might want her dead, had drained her. Ruby hadn’t really realized how much until it was all over, and the kids were all in custody. Now she just wanted to put on her pajamas, curl up in bed, and start on her new book.
Well, okay, maybe that wasn’t all she wanted to do.
If Judah was still here, there were some other activities she wanted to try out in bed.
If he was still here.
They hadn’t spoken since this morning, and she didn’t know what his plans were. When she walked inside, she could find him sitting in the living room waiting for her—maybe with a candlelight dinner prepared or with a beautiful bouquet of flowers or a box of her favorite chocolates. Or she could find that he’d already packed up his things and gone back to his place.
While she hoped it was the former, she knew that just because Judah went back to his place didn’t mean things between them were over. It just meant that they were very early in their relationship and that she’d been the one who wanted to take things slow. He was just doing what she’d made clear she wanted.
Only now, she wasn’t sure it was what she wanted.
“Be smart,” she told herself as she grabbed her bag, closed the door, and locked her car.
It was smart to take things slow, right?
She wasn’t sure.
If she wanted something, shouldn’t she just go for it?
After all, she had spent so many years hiding in the shadows. She didn’t want to waste any more time. Her parents had stolen enough from her, but they couldn’t steal her future.
With a mess of nervous fluttering butterflies in her stomach, Ruby opened the door that led directly to the laundry room, slipped off her shoes, and headed for the door that opened onto the living room. She liked doing the evening shift at the nursing homes. Since it was later at night, there weren’t as many of the high care residents, and most of the ones that stopped by the hairdressers were the ones who still led active lives, and they usually chattered away with her and made the hours fly by.
Tonight, though, she’d spent the whole time counting down the minutes until she could come back home. That wasn’t necessarily unusual. She often craved the quiet safety of her home when she was out in the real world, but tonight, the reason she wanted to leave had nothing to do with that. Tonight, it was all because of Judah.
It was kind of scary how important he had become to her in just a few days.
But scary, in a good way.
It was nice to have something good in her life; it was nice to feel like the shackles of her past were loosening, and it was nice to feel like after so long thinking that all her life would consist of was books, work, and her sisters, she just might be about to get her own happily ever after. As a girl who had read literally hundreds of fictional happily ever afters over the years, it was beyond exciting to be teetering on the edge of hers.
A HEA.
Her own HEA.
She was buzzing with excitement.
Too many romance books read over the years, when she opened the door to the living room, she expected to see the room filled with thousands of twinkling candles, rose petals strewn all over the hardwood floors, music playing softly in the background, a home cooked meal he had prepared especially for her and set on the table, and her prince charming waiting for her with a bunch of roses in his arms.
But that wasn’t what she found.
When she walked into the living room, what she saw was a stack of dirty dishes sitting in the sink—a clear indication that Amethyst had cooked dinner—the TV playing some reality show she didn’t know the name of since she didn’t watch a lot of TV and her twin lounging on the couch.
Amethyst looked over. “There’s fried rice in the fridge if you want to heat some up.”
“Why are you watching TV?” she asked, trying to hide her disappointment. Usually, her twin was working out in her gym on the nights where she wasn’t at the fire station. For her to be lounging on the couch meant something was wrong. She really didn’t want any more bad news right now, but she steeled herself for it.
“Just didn’t feel like working out tonight; no big deal.” Amethyst shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but failing. Still, if her twin didn’t want to talk, she wasn’t going to push her.
“Where’s everyone else?” she asked, now she was the one trying to be nonchalant.
“Sapphire and Gideon are at their place, and Diamond is teaching a late class. Judah packed up his stuff, so it’s just the two of us tonight. Want to watch TV with me?”
So, he had gone.
Ruby knew her face fell, but there was little she could do about it. How could he just leave without telling her? It wasn’t like she didn’t know that he’d be going back to his place now that he didn’t need to be here to protect her, but for him to just pack up and leave without a word … that hurt. And it immediately made her doubt him, herself, and the choices she had been making the last few days.
Had she just gotten caught up in the moment, romanticizing the whole Judah being her protector idea?
Had she misread things with him?
Had she made a fool out of herself when all along, he was just being nice?
Maybe he felt sorry for her.
That made her angry. She didn’t want anyone’s pity.
“I think I’m just going to go up to bed,” she told her sister, already turning and hurrying for the stairs. She didn’t want to cry, but tears were burning the backs of her eyes, and if she was going to cry, then at least, she wanted to do it alone.
“Okay, night,” Amethyst called out after her.
“Night,” she mumbled back, already on the second floor and running for her bedroom door. Just a couple more steps and then she could let go, maybe shedding a few tears was just what she needed right now
Ruby threw open her bedroom door and froze.
Candles.
Rose petals.
Music.
And Judah standing there with a bouquet of beautiful white moonflowers.
How had he found out that those were her favorite flowers?
Tears had already been brimming in her eyes, and they started to tumble out, but now they weren’t tears of pain. They were tears of happiness.
“Are you all right?” Judah’s brow creased with concern as he hurried over to her, setting the bouquet down on top of her dresser.
“Mmhmm.” She nodded, brushing away the tears.
“Then, why are you crying?”
“I thought you left without saying goodbye,” she admitted. She needed an honest relationship, and she needed Judah to know that there wasn’t anything they couldn’t say to each other. They both needed a safe place, and she wanted to be that for Judah as well as wanting him to be hers. That safe place had to be based on honesty, so she wasn’t ever going to hide how she was feeling—not when she had someone who actually understood.
“You know I’d never do that,” he rebuked.
“I know, but when I came home, and you weren’t waiting downstairs, and then Amethyst said that you’d packed up your things, I thought I must be wrong.”
“I did pack up my things,” he said, pointing to his bag sitting in the corner of her room. “I wanted to surprise you, sorry. If I’d known it was going to upset you, I wouldn’t have done it.” He hooked an arm around her waist and drew her against him, and then touched his lips to her cheeks, catching her tears.
“No, this was perfect,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and pressing closer. She couldn’t have planned this out any better if she was writing her own romance novel.
“I don’t want you to think this is me trying to pressure you,” Judah told her. “This is just me showing you how much I care about you, and how special I think you are. We can make out a little or we can go straight to bed or we can just sit here and talk. Whatever you want.”
She knew exactly what she wanted.
She wanted to not be afraid anymore.
“I don’t want to talk, and I don’t want to go to sleep,” she told him, her hands moving to his shirt, where she began to unbutton it.
As though knowing that he didn’t need to check with her that she was sure, Judah’s hands also moved. One settled on her bottom, and the other began to stroke her back. She appreciated so much that he didn’t baby her, coddle her, treat her like she was some broken doll that had to be handled with the utmost of care.
She wasn’t any of those things.
She had been crushed by what life had thrown at her, but she was fighting her way out of that place.
She was fighting for her future, and her future very prominently featured Judah Willow.
When she finished unbuttoning his shirt, she took a moment to just look at him. Okay, he was pretty drool worthy, and she had read about a lot of drool worthy heroes, but none of them were as hunky as the man standing before her. Her fingers traced over those rock-hard abs. She’d always thought it was a little weird when heroines did that in romance books, but there was no way she could look at that chest and that six-pack and not touch it.
Letting her hands run up to his shoulders, she pushed his shirt off and let it fall to the floor. Then she unbuckled his jeans. Her fingers curled into his waistband as she tugged his jeans down his legs. When she had them down around his ankles, she undid his sneakers and he kicked them off. He stepped out of his jeans, leaving him in just a pair of boxers.
Ruby didn’t even hesitate.
The time for hesitating was gone.
She was seizing her future with both hands and making it happen because that was the only way she was going to get what she wanted.
She shoved his boxers down and then just stood and looked at him.
He was naked.
She was standing in a room with a naked man.
And she didn’t fell even a little bit afraid.
“Things seem a little unbalanced,” Judah said, a bemused smile on his face.
“I guess they do,” she agreed, reaching around to unzip her dress.
“Uh, uh, uh.” Judah stopped her. “You had your fun; now, I get to have mine.”
Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her around, brushed her long blonde hair over her shoulder, then very slowly unzipped her dress. His fingertips lightly brushed along her bare skin, making her break out in a mass of goose pimples. She liked this—undressing each other—she hadn’t thought that would be sexy, but it was.
Judah’s hands went back up to her shoulders and slid her arms out of the dress, letting it join his clothes on the floor. He unzipped her knee-high boots and lifted her legs one at a time, slipping the boots off. Then he knelt in front of her, his fingers tugging on her stockings as he very slowly inched them down over her hips. She wanted to grab his hands and make him hurry up, but the slower he went, the more that tingly feeling in her stomach grew, so she sucked in her bottom lip and let him tease her.
When he had her stockings down around her ankles, instead of letting her step out of them, he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her pink panties and took his time pushing them down, leaving her naked.
He was naked.
She was naked.
This was the first time since she was seventeen that she had voluntarily been naked with a man, and she had expected that her pulse might be rising and her heart hammering in her chest, but still, she felt more excited than anything else.
Judah would never hurt her. That was the difference between her and the men who had paid to use her. This was voluntary. She wanted to be here doing this. She wanted to be doing a whole lot more than this.
Judah lightly kissed her stomach, making her shiver, and he grinned up at her. Standing up, he cupped the back of her head in his hand as he walked her backward until she was up against the wall. Without pausing, he moved his lips to her neck and began to nuzzle as his hands explored her body. He teased her nipples before going between her legs and teasing her there too.
