Thrown Down (Made in Jersey #2)(49)

In an instant, everything that happened that morning poofed into a cloud of dust, making way for a rush of pride so thick she couldn’t speak. They were no longer two arguing adults with years of pain on their backs. They were just River and Vaughn, curled up inside his leather jacket, listening to the rain patter onto the roof of his truck. She stood there, hands fluttering with an attempt to communicate her happiness, before she simply threw herself at Vaughn where he still stood on the porch. “I knew he would. Why wouldn’t he want someone like you? I knew.”

Vaughn caught her wrists and eased her away, fire burning in his eyes. “I’m happy, too, Riv. I’m happy because now I can help support my family the way I need. The way we need.” His throat worked with a swallow. “But here’s the thing, okay? Here’s the thing. You’re the only one who ever knew I was capable of…anything. If I’d let myself believe you and I’d failed, it would have killed me.” He shook his head. “But I was doing you a disservice, doll. Because if you loved me, I’d already won the world. You see?”

River’s arms went limp, dropping from Vaughn’s grip, before he picked them back up and rested them on his shoulders, as if he required them to keep going.

“All the times I’ve been quiet, all the times I might slip and be too quiet in the future, I’m just thinking of ways to keep you. Okay, dammit, River? It’s all I ever think about. Even when I was gone, my brain played the what if game. What if she’s crying and needs me? What if I just climbed back into her window right now? Would she let me stand there and look at her?”

River didn’t think she could take any more bald, beautiful honesty all at once, but Vaughn plowed on as if he didn’t know how to cap the flow once it started. “No more what ifs, Riv. I need you. I need my family. If that means saying whatever crazy bullshit is on my mind, so be it. On the way home, I was listing all the ways you could get taken away from me. And how I could combat them. Okay? That’s all I got.”

Ignoring the chorus of feminine sighs coming from the kitchen, she lunged into his hold, pressing and holding her open lips against his neck, attempting to slow her racing pulse. No dice. It rattled on, shaking her body until she felt like a fizzing soda ready to blow its top. “W-why…how could I get taken away from you?”

Vaughn remained silent a moment. “I was in such a bad way that night, Riv. When I left Hook…and you. There was a lot of ugly in my head.” His hand curved to the back of her skull, tugging her into the crook of his neck. “But I was going to you. I was never going to let go, until—”

“Sorry to interrupt.”

It took River a few beats to recognize her father’s voice, coming from the porch behind Vaughn. She cracked the lids of her eyes, taking in the tips of his fishing poles, the unreadable expression on his face. River loved her father like crazy, but in that moment, she wanted him gone, not only because she suspected Vaughn had been ready to shed light on that night at the motel, but because she could feel the stiffness pervading Vaughn’s muscles. Could feel him shutting down inside her hold.

“Dad,” River said finally, stepping back but taking hold of Vaughn’s hand, some intuition telling her it was necessary. “You’re back. Come on in.”

“Mr. Purcell.” Vaughn eased aside, allowing her father to enter the house and set down his fishing equipment. “How were the fish biting?”

“Not as well as they were here, I see.” Her father laughed at his own joke, but no one joined him. “I could use some help bringing in the rest of my gear. Vaughn?”

Wishing away the sense of dread, River moved forward. “I can do it,” she said, doing a double take when Vaughn let go of her hand.

“I got it,” Vaughn said quickly, giving her what might have been meant as a reassuring look, but it didn’t come close to accomplishing the task. Her father and Vaughn walked down the steps without speaking, as she looked on, feeling more in the dark than ever.





Chapter Twenty-One


Vaughn looked down into the empty trunk of River’s father’s car and braced himself for whatever was coming. He could feel River watching from the front window, so he pasted a casual smile on his face. And waited.

Goddammit. Throughout his entire life, Vaughn had given the middle finger to anyone who tried to get in his way. Except for this man. This man who’d cost him forty-nine months of being with the love of his life. This man who’d cost him the experience of his daughter’s first steps, first tooth, first haircut. Why? Why had he allowed River’s father to dictate his decisions, when he would normally have fought any other son of a bitch who presumed to do the same?

He’d just answered his own question. It was River’s father. And Vaughn knew what living without family felt like, knew the absence presented itself at the oddest times. Sitting in a diner on Sunday morning, watching families eat pancakes. Or stepping aside to let a family in identical sports jerseys pass on the sidewalk. Yeah. Vaughn knew all about that void, and saving River that pain—any pain—had been his reason for allowing Mr. Purcell to tread on him. For River’s sake.

Now, with River’s worried gaze tracking his movements, that pattern swallowed him up, forced him to nod respectfully at the man he should hate. Hell, maybe he did. Maybe he hated him more than the devil.