From Rags by

At the end of her tether and feeling an inexplicably big need to defend Connor, Jaxxon spun on Bruno. “Do you know what, Bruno? I’m getting sick of your remarks about him.”

“Whoa, whoa, I was just joking around.”

“Jokes are funny.” And it was never just what he said, it was the spite and bitterness that was always in his tone.

“Ah, come on, Jaxx.”

“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was deadly. She could tolerate Dane doing it because she knew he was doing it to wind Connor up, but the way Bruno had said it so intimately as if he had that same level of familiarity and closeness with her that Connor did ticked her right off. Wisely, he didn’t follow her any further. Ollie was also wise; he didn’t comment.

As Connor pulled up next to Jaxx’s Audi in the car park outside of his apartment building later that day, he smiled. He had liked the idea that when he got home it would be to find Jaxx there, waiting. He liked that idea even better now that he was finally back. So did his dick.

“I come bearing gifts,” he announced as he entered his apartment with a giant-sized pizza. Yeah it seemed counterproductive to spend hours on his fitness levels and then devour a pizza at the end of it but sod it. When Jaxxon swerved her head and smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder from her spot on the couch where she was watching T.V., something twisted in his chest.

“Mmmm, pizza. Good thinking, McKenzie.”

Having dumped his gym bag on the floor he went straight to the living area and kissed her. He’d only meant for it to be a brief, greeting-type kiss but his control around her was as piss-poor as ever. “You’re dessert, Carter.”

“Please tell me that’s Deep Pan Margarita,” she said when he finally released her lips.

“Of course it is, I know it’s your favourite.” He sat on the armchair near the sofa and placed the pizza on the table in front of them, liking how it felt to lounge around while eating pizza out of the box like they used to; no plates, no cutlery, no prim crap.

“Good memory.”

“I could hardly forget that, it was all you ate back then. How you could eat something that often and not get sick of it always amazed me.”

“Well you forgot that I didn’t like dark chocolate.” Seeing the confused expression on his face she slapped her leg. “I knew it wasn’t you.”

“What?”

“I told Kieran that’s just not the kind of thing you’d do.” She was torn between being pleased with herself for being right and being agitated that someone else had sent them and she didn’t know who.

“Jaxx, elaborate.”

“Today I got a bunch of red roses and a box of dark chocolates sent to me.”

The slice of pizza in his hand slipped from his fingers and dropped back into the box. “You what?”

“On the card it was signed ‘C’ so everyone assumed you’d sent them, but it just seemed too out-of-character for you.”

“Where are they?”

She shrugged as she finished chewing on the food in her mouth. “I left them in the studio so no doubt someone’s took them home.”

“I bet you’d have felt like a right bitch if it had turned out that I had sent them then, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I’d have told you it served you right for sending me corny crap.”

“Christ, Jaxx.” He shook his head. “I don’t like this stalker-stuff.”

“You telling me you’ve never had some kind of obsessed fan? God, if you’d seen some of the fan mail I used to get you wouldn’t be so bothered. Anna would spend hours reading it either laughing her head off or blushing purple. There’re some proper odd people out there and, for some reason I’ve yet to understand, I seem to draw them to me.”

He snorted. “Wrong, babe, you draw everyone to you, always have. It’s just that it’s mostly the odd ones who have the nerve to do something about it.”

“It makes me shiver thinking someone might be obsessed with me though. I don’t get it.”

“I’m obsessed with you. You’re obsessed with me though so I can cope.”

She laughed. “You tell yourself that if it’s your coping mechanism.”

“You deny it to yourself if that’s your coping mechanism.” He cringed when Bronty slobbered all over the sofa at the sight of the pizza. “Does he eat this sort of stuff? I thought dogs were more meat-eaters.”

“Ah, but like I’ve said I’m not convinced he’s aware he’s of the canine line. Bronty will eat just about anything but I think it’s because before I found him he was living off whatever scraps he could find out of people’s bins. For the first week of him living with me he was eating out of my kitchen bin, I had to train him to stop it. Observe and note that your apartment is in tip-top shape despite Scooby Doo here having spent the day in it.”

“Observed. Noted. Appreciated.” What he didn’t appreciate was the knock on his apartment door mere seconds later. Cautious for Jaxx, he glimpsed through the peephole. He shot Dane a frustrated look as he opened the door but his mate only smiled in response as he walked passed him.

“Alright Con. Mmm, what’s that smell?”

“Smells like junk food,” said Niki as she waltzed in behind Dane with Little Dane hanging off her neck. Quick as anything, he threw himself at Connor.

“Alright Little Man,” said Connor as he perched the toddler on his arm so he could cling to him like a chimp the way he always did. “You been a good boy for your mum and dad?”

Chewing on his thumb, he asked shyly, “Who’z that gwirl?”

Dane was already in the living room. “Hey Jaxx – Jaxxon, this is my wife, Niki, and my boy, Little Dane.” Although all she did in response was smile and offer a ‘hi’, it was so warmly delivered it was like an embrace.

Niki had expected to feel threatened as a woman while being around someone so gorgeous but strangely she didn’t; there was something reassuring about Jaxxon Carter. It should have seemed contradictory seeing someone so perfect to the eye munching so commonly on a slice of pizza. “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet ’til now but I didn’t want to risk seeing you when Anita might have found out.”

Waving away the unnecessary apology, Jaxxon smiled. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her for Connor. She’s a witch that one.”

After chasing a very put-out Bronty off the sofa, Connor plonked himself next to Jaxx while Dane and Niki each commandeered an armchair. “This is my very good friend, Jaxx,” he told Little Dane. “Jaxx, this is -”

“Let me guess,” she drawled. “Are you the Fat Controller who’s friends with Thomas the Tank Engine and all his mates?”

He giggled and shook his head while Connor, Niki and Dane all exchanged a look that said ‘How did she guess he loved that programme?’

“Really? You look so much like him,” continued Jaxxon. “Have you ever met Thomas?” Little Dane shook his head again. “I know a place where you can.” His eyes bulged. “Tell your mummy and daddy to take you to a place called Wales in August and he’ll be there. You can ride on him and Annie and Clarabel.”

“And Percy?”

“Oh yeah, definitely him.” Seeing the questioning look on Connor’s face she said, “All little boys love Thomas. I learnt about the Wales thing years ago when I was helping the local nursery teacher find excursions, she was a sister of a mate of mine.” She didn’t elaborate that this mate had been coming off drugs and both Jaxxon and the young teacher had been taking shifts helping her get through it. Filled with excitement, Little Dane hit her with one question after another about this August event until finally he’d crawled onto her lap while she gave him all the details.

As Connor watched Jaxx win shy Little Dane over so effortlessly he was overcome with a contradictory mixture of awe and anxiety. Awe at her naturalness with children, and anxiety at the idea that she would be a great mum and he wouldn’t be around to see it. There was no way he could watch her being a mum to a kid that belonged to another bloke.

“You’ll be pleased to know that Anita’s gone,” announced Dane before biting into the slice of pizza that he had helped himself to. “Left for L.A. this morning, fully admitting that the baby she’s having isn’t yours, Con.”

Thank God for that. Then something occurred to him; if Anita was gone but Jaxx was still being tailed, it had to be someone else. But then maybe Jaxx was right and she wasn’t being followed. Maybe he was just being paranoid as she said. Stuck in his thoughts, he didn’t realise Jaxx’s phone was ringing until she gently placed Little Dane on his lap before skipping to their room to take the call. A few minutes later she reappeared, her olive skin pale. Immediately he was on his feet. “Jaxx, what is it?” She said nothing, just stared at him. “What’s wrong? Who was it on the phone?”

“Richie,” she replied. “Louisa’s in hospital.”

“Louisa?”

“She’s one of the hairstylists. He was with her going over some things when she started vomiting, he said it was like something off the Exorcist.”

“But she’s alright?”

She nodded. “She stopped spewing about half an hour ago and the doctor in the hospital gave her something to settle her stomach. They’re keeping her in for the night.”

“Hey, don’t look so freaked out.” But then Jaxx held his gaze with such intensity he felt rooted to the spot.

“They think it was food poisoning. The thing is…she’s the one who took those chocolates someone sent me.”

CHAPTEEN SEVENTEEN

The next morning Connor’s apartment was packed with people. Ollie was cursing with frustration because he hadn’t been able to track down who sent the flowers and chocolates. Richie was exploring the theory that the sender may have been someone who was already in the studio building. Tony was relaying stories he had heard before about past fanatic fans in an attempt to pre-empt what might come next and decide how best to deal with things. Lily was making everyone coffee, constantly signalling to her husband to shut up when his stories became creepy. Anna was again insisting that the police be brought into the matter, especially after what had happened to Louisa. Warren was trying to calm Anna, reminding her that Louisa herself didn’t want anyone to know what had happened; she had seen enough obsessed fan situations to know that giving them attention was often counterproductive. Dane was offering his theory that maybe all this had been Anita’s doing and she either hadn’t left L.A. at all or had sent the flowers and chocolates before leaving.

Connor, however, was unusually mute as he witnessed the torment that an equally mute Jaxx was subjecting herself to as she sat on the sofa with her legs hugged to her chest, glaring at the floor. Nothing he or anyone else had said had made any difference. Not even the fact that Louisa – who was now home under the care of her sister – had phoned and spoke to Jaxx, assuring her she was fine, had helped. He sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her as he spoke softly into her ear. “Babe, don’t do this to yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”

Oh she knew that. Jaxxon wasn’t assuming all blame for Louisa having been ill; to do that would be to relieve the oddball poisoner of the blame they were due. The reason Jaxxon was feeling sick to her stomach was because she hadn’t listened to Connor and took this matter seriously enough. If she had, maybe she would have been as vigilant and alert as he had advised her to be and then she wouldn’t have ignored her instincts that something wasn’t quite right about those gifts appearing. Also, if she was now to assume that this oddball would happily see her severely ill, was it such a stretch to wonder if this crackpot was going to do something similar again once they realised their plan hadn’t worked?

It was horrible to think that there was someone out there who might actually hate her so deeply. She knew she was a moody cow but was she really hate-worthy? Or was she dealing with one of those bizarre people who thought along the lines of ‘I love you so much I have to kill you’? One thing she could deduce from all this was that, no matter the motive of the oddball in question, she couldn’t be sure that the people around her were safe.

Hearing Tony and Lily propose that she would be better moving back into their annexe, Jaxxon closed her eyes and braced herself for the bloke who had stiffened beside her to turn into a raging bull. Therefore, his reaction surprised her.

Gently Connor turned her face to his and softly asked, “Would you feel safer staying with them?” No one would ever convince him that they could protect her better than he could. Even though he had, without her knowledge or consent, had GPS trackers planted on her phone and car by his security-expert-mate he was still worried as hell about her and he wanted her to stay with him more than he wanted anything. But it was important to him that she felt safe. He had let her down once before when she needed him, though he still didn’t know what he hadn’t protected her from, whereas the three ‘uncles’ had more or less saved her from her old life.

The fact that Connor, a bloke who by nature didn’t accept an answer that didn’t cohere with his own, was actually putting what she wanted before his own wants almost put a lump in her throat, and Jaxxon wasn’t an emotional person. Connor being self-sacrificing…Well that’s new. Even if he hadn’t been, he was what she needed right now. She shook her head.

He rested his forehead against hers. “Good.” He kissed her gently then raised his head and announced, “She’s staying here with me and anyone who doesn’t like it can come talk to me in the other room, but note that I’ll just tell you to shove your opinion up your arse.” He felt her body shake with silent laughter and noticed that Dane and Warren also seemed amused.