“I thought if you knew, you wouldn’t help me.”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Ghost sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. He started to walk away, but then turned back to look her in the eyes. “There’s one thing you still haven’t told me.”
“What’s that?”
“Why you left Seattle in such a hurry with just the clothes on your back? What really happened, Jess? The truth.”
“Things with Kyle were starting to go from bad to worse. His music career wasn’t going anywhere, and he was starting to take it out on me. The final straw was when he beat me up.”
Ghost looked ready to kill. “He beat you?”
“Just once. You know me, Ghost, once is enough for a girl like me. I wasn’t about to take that shit.” Her chin came up. “Not from anybody.”
“What’d you do?”
“He hurt me pretty bad, but when he finally turned his back on me, I hit him in the head with his guitar. He went down like a ton of bricks. Then I got the hell out of there. I wasn’t about to stick around waiting to see if he got up, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be there when he realized what I’d hit him with. That Fender was his prized possession. And I’d busted it clean in two.” She couldn’t help the smile on her face, but Ghost wasn’t smiling.
“Sounds like I got a trip to Seattle to make.”
Her smile faded. “No, Ghost. That’s done. He already got what he deserved. Let it go. Please?”
“Not promising you shit on that one.”
She could tell he was still pissed at her.
“Are we good now?”
He shook his head. “No, we’re not good. How can I help you, Jess, if we don’t trust each other?”
She didn’t know how to answer that one. When she stayed silent, he turned and slammed out of the room.
She hesitated only a moment before following him out. If he thought she was going to sit in that room like a chastised child, he had another thing coming. She moved down the hall into the common room. He was standing at the bar talking to Shades, but his eyes lifted to her as he spoke, and he watched her as she crossed the room to where Skylar and Tink sat at a table.
“You okay, doll?” Tink asked her.
“I’m fine.”
They all watched as the men started to head off down the hall, probably to have another one of their meetings. Shades patted Ghost’s shoulder, nodding for him to follow the men, while he headed over to the table where the girls sat.
His eyes landed on Skylar’s, and his chin lifted toward Jessie.
“Why don’t you take her back to our place. We got some shit to sort.”
The way he said it made Jessie realize that the shit they had to sort was her. Or at least the fact that she possibly had a closer connection to the Death Heads than any of them had suspected.
Skylar nodded, and Shades bent, catching the back of her neck in his hand, his mouth coming down on hers for a brief kiss. Then he was gone.
Skylar turned to her and Tink. “Let’s go for a swim, girls.”
Jessie frowned at that odd remark, but Tink clarified.
“They have a cabin on Lay Lake.”
“Oh,” Jessie replied.