Page 61 of Hendrix

The second time I saw Hendrix, he came into the salon with his biker brother for a haircut. Bowie was trying to charm my receptionist, Layla, and used Hendrix to engineer a meet-cute.

I sat him in my chair and pushed down my nerves in a bid to be professional, trying to make small talk while I ran my hands through his soft, healthy hair.

Hendrix didn’t say much with his mouth that day, but he saideverythingwith his eyes, and they tracked my every move. In those fifteen minutes, I went from a confident, professional woman to a bag of nerves. My fingers tremored—not good for a hairstylist—and my stomach flip-flopped so badly that I thought I was going to throw up.

By the time he left, I was a mess but fascinated by him all the same.

The next time I saw Hendrix, I’d been out with my friends, and one of them had their drink spiked with a date rape drug. As we were leaving the hospital, Hendrix pulled up on his motorcycle alongside his club president, Dagger Stone. Somehow, we got into it, and I gave him some of my snark, which, of course, made me think I’d blown any chance I had with him until the next time I saw him, about two months later, at a honkytonk bar just outside town. We talked for hours, and he showed me how much more there was to him than just muscles and tattoos.

That night, our conversation went deep, and he cast me under his spell so quickly and so completely that before the night was over, we ended up in bed together.

That was when I fell profoundly, passionately, head-over-heels in love with my beautiful Jameson ‘Hendrix’ Quinn, and it wasn’t just because he rocked my world that night. It was because he rocked the very foundations of my entire universe, and it had never shifted back into place.

Hendrix crept inside my soul like a thief in the night, stealing my heart and, later, my dignity. Nothing had been the same since. He’d changed me fundamentally, and the girl I was no longer resembled the shell of the woman I became when he left me.

Later, I tried to be a good wife but what I had with Antoni didn’t come close to what I had before. I knew within a month of getting married that we’d rushed into it, but still, I was determined to do my best and make it work. That may have been why I was so blind to Toni’s chess moves; I was desperate to do the right thing, and inevitably, I put up with more than I should have.

A twig snapped from somewhere behind me, and goose bumps ran down my arms. My belly clenched, and I knew Hendrix was there. That was the effect he had on me. It wasn’t just my emotions he affected; it was always physical too. Whenever he was close, my stomach flipped, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“There’s no need to hide from me, Hendrix,” I called out softly. “I know you’re there, honey.”

“Wasn’t hidin’, woman,” his deep voice called back. “Was keeping guard.”

“From what?” I asked, craning my neck to try and catch sight of him, my heart exploding as he came sauntering out from the trees, looking like a dream in his jeans, tee, and leather cut, his hair gathered up in his signature man bun.

“Nothin’. Everythin’. I dunno, Freckles. Maybe I just wanted to watch you for a while. You seemed at peace.” He approached and nodded to the ground beside me. “This spot taken?”

My eyes lifted to meet his. “Be my guest.”

He dropped down onto his ass, situated dangerously close to me, and his eyes softened on mine as he muttered, “We gotta talk, baby.”

I wanted to scream no. My head was full of everything that had happened over the last few weeks. Hell, I was still trying to figure out how to feel about the night before.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

A pain shot through me, and I closed my eyes.

“Tell me what I can say or do to make it up to you,” he urged.

“Make it up to me?” I asked, my tone filled with confusion. “We haven’t been together for years. What the hell do you think you’re supposed to make up to me now?”

He clamped his mouth shut and turned to face the river.

“You don’t have to make anything up to me,” I continued. “It was okay to end a relationship that didn’t work for you. You don’t need to keep dragging it up; all it does is open old wounds, and I don’t want to be wounded anymore.”

“It did work for me,” he protested. “You know it did. Never met a woman like you before or since. It was just circumstances that made me leave town. I know it sounds cliché, but it wasn’t you. It was me.” He scraped a hand down his face and exhaled deeply.

I leaned sideways to gently shoulder-check him and breathed, “Liar.”

He hung his head. “It’s always been you, Anna.”

I rolled my lips together to stop myself from calling him a liar for a second time.

He talked the talk so well, but when it came to walking the walk, he was distinctly lacking.

We both knew why he left me. I came on too strong, and he didn’t know what to do with it. The final straw for him was when my period was late, and I told him that if he’d gotten me pregnant, I’d keep the baby whether he was in or not. It wasn’t a shock to him that I yearned to be a mother more than anything. He already knew because we’d talked about it in our heartfelt conversation on that fateful first night.

Hendrix stated that kids weren’t in his future, and at the time, it dug deep. He knew he was hurting me simply because I never hid my pain. But that was the person I’d always been. I didn’t want to play games or hide my feelings. It worked both ways because I gave him the good stuff too. Every day, I showed Hendrix how much I loved him because I wanted him to have that from me, even if we never said the words.

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