by Maisey Yates
She was fascinated by that. By the way he was. By the way that interacted with who she was, and how she had always seen herself. By what she had thought about marriage and what she thought of it now.
Her parents had had a particular sort of marriage. One she had never wanted to emulate. And still, even though she had ended up in an entirely different situation, it had been a bad one. She had started to think it was marriage.
She rolled over onto her side and looked at Jackson’s silhouette. She was so different with him. There was no expectation of a future between them, and maybe, because of that, she hadn’t held pieces of herself in reserve so that they couldn’t be hurt. Couldn’t be destroyed.
But she had told him about herself. About all her failures.
She had been married to her husband for five years, and other than him using it to insult her at the very end of everything, they had never discussed the fact that she hadn’t orgasmed before in her life. Why hadn’t they talked about that? And why had she been able to talk about it with Jackson?
She had a feeling the answer was complicated. A little bit her. A little bit him. A little bit of them together. Just like his reaction to what they’d shared earlier.
Maybe it wasn’t marriage that was wrong. Maybe it was sometimes just the person. Because she could imagine forever with Jackson. With Jackson and Lily in this cabin on this beautiful ranch. In this adorable town. Yes, she could imagine that. More than that. She wanted it.
She loved him, she realized.
The thought was terrifying. Enough that she sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the covers to her chest, breathing hard.
She had fallen in love with him.
It had been nothing like her previous experience with love. It had just...happened. And it wasn’t as simple as wanting companionship. Wasn’t as simple as wanting to live in the same house and build a life that looked a certain way. It was something deep and terrifying. She would live with him with no wedding ring, it wouldn’t matter. Whether he was her lover, boyfriend, fiancé, husband. All that mattered was that it was him.
What she wanted went deep. An ache in her soul she didn’t know she’d ever find the cure for. She suddenly felt terrified, panicky, like she would never have enough of him.
She wanted it all. All and everything. This man. This life. This baby she had grown to love with everything inside of herself.
All of her life she had kept walls up around her heart. Her parents had placed her at a distance, and she had wandered around the world doing the same to other people ever since. She had learned to carry everything she needed in her chest, self-contained and protected, and never wounded by the people around her. Because they could never get inside.
Not even Darren.
But in Jackson’s house, in his bed, she had found intimacy. The reason that people couldn’t get enough of each other’s bodies. She had discovered the meaning of sex. And what it meant when two people found pleasure together.
It wasn’t just nice to be close.
An orgasm wasn’t nice. It wrenched down your defenses. Made you scream, contorted your face into expressions that would be humiliating if you weren’t sharing it, glorying in it together.
She’d had sex with one man for five years and it hadn’t made her love him. But sex with this man...
Oh, it had made her love him.
The sex, the closeness. That it made her understand making love. The way he was with Lily. The way he was with his family. The ranch. Her.
She loved him.
It was novel. New and terrifying. She didn’t want it. But she needed it.
She brushed her fingertips over his bicep and he moved slightly.
“You’re not a slave, either, are you?” she asked softly.
“No,” he said.
If she’d been on the outside looking in she would have thought it was insane. To fall for another man less than a year after her divorce would have been insane. If she’d ever really fallen for her husband in the first place.
The fact of the matter was, she was falling for the first time.
With Jackson. Only with Jackson.
“I...” She cleared her throat. “Jackson.”
He turned over, and she couldn’t see his face in the dimly lit room. “You sound serious,” he said.
“I feel serious.”
He shifted. “I’m not sure you really want to have the conversation you think you do.”
She flashed back to that moment in the kitchen at his brother’s house. To the things that Chloe had said. And the way that he’d denied them.
She knew that he had been avoiding talking to her after that. That his kiss had been to shut her up, to distract her. To reroute her. But that was okay. It didn’t scare her. Well. It did. But at this point, it all did.
“Don’t tell me what I want,” she said. “I spent too many years telling myself what I wanted, instead of just letting myself want it. I’m not going to let anyone else tell me a damn thing.”
“Savannah...”
“I love you,” she said. “I do. This whole life. Living here with you. With Lily. I love you.”
She felt him get stiff beside her. “No,” he said firmly. “You love what you just said. The life. But eventually, honey, that’s gonna wear off. And it’s not going to be fun for you. When it quits feeling like playing house, you’re not going to like it anymore.”
“What is it you think of me?” She adjusted so that she could see him better. “Have I ever acted like a person who just gets tired of her responsibilities? Do you think that I’m someone who says that I love someone else? I’ve told you about my life. About my marriage.”
“And I already know that you’re willing to walk away from a marriage.”
“That’s not fair. You know how awful all that was for me. You know that he wasn’t a good husband.”
“I wouldn’t be a good husband. It’s why I never plan on being one. My father wasn’t a very good husband. I can tell you that for a damned fact. If he were, he wouldn’t have had to try with so many different women.”
“Why did your stepmother stay married to him?”
“She had grit. More grit than desire to be happy every day, I guess.”
“You just don’t think anyone could possibly be happy with you? Because I’m happy, Jackson.”
“Honey,” he said. “That’s the sex talking.”
“That is the most insulting, ridiculous thing you could’ve said.”
“We both know you don’t have experience with this kind of thing. Not with anyone else.”
“Jackson...”
“I am not crazy enough, I don’t hate myself enough, and I sure as hell don’t hate my daughter enough, to sign her up for the kind of life that I had growing up. I won’t do it. The only reason I ever started anything with you, Savannah, is that I knew you were temporary. I already knew you were going to leave. Move on to your real life. I’m not going to promise Lily a mother and then let her lose it.”
“That’s what you think I would do?”
“It’s maybe not what you think now, but nobody starts serious relationships thinking they’re going to end. I think you know that.”
“No. I know that who you’re with matters. How do you not see that?” She rolled over, the sheets and blankets rustling. “Staying married is not the be-all and end-all. You have to compromise, make yourself vulnerable. Expose parts of yourself you wish you didn’t have to. That was where I failed in my marriage, Jackson. I never let Darren know who I was. That’s not what this is.”
“No.” Jackson shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, honey. You might not believe it, but you have made me into an ideal. If you hadn’t, then you wouldn’t be trying to get me to change my mind right now. You don’t want me. You want the husband you think you could make me. But I’m not built
for it.”
“You didn’t think you were built for being a father, either. And look at you.”
“Yeah. So I could marry you, Savannah. I can make this little arrangement permanent. Pretty damned convenient for me, don’t you think? And how would you ever be sure it was real?” He reached over, grabbing her arm, squeezing her tight. “How? I didn’t want any of this, and here I am, doing it. Is that why you want a man to marry you? Because he wants a permanent nanny?”
She took a deep breath, sliding out of the bed. “I’m not your nanny, Jackson. I never have been. What I want from you has nothing to do with that.”
She started to collect her clothes, her hand shaking. Then she stopped, turned to look at him. “Tell me you don’t love me.”
“I don’t love you,” he returned. Easily. Lightly. As if it cost him nothing to say it.
She nodded, her heart splintering in her chest. She stood out in his living room for a long time after that, debating going in and kissing Lily on the cheek. Lily felt like part of her. A part of her heart. As necessary as air to her existence. What would she do when she couldn’t start her day by picking her up from her crib and feeling that precious weight against her chest? Resting her cheek against that soft, downy head.
She couldn’t go back in there.
She would fall to her knees and howl over the loss and never get back up.
It occurred to her, when she walked on numb feet back to her bedroom and began to pack the minimal things she had brought with her, that she had never once asked Darren if he loved her.
Because she hadn’t cared about the answer. Not in the end.
This was love. This was what it meant to be vulnerable to another person. What it meant to open herself up.
It was terrible.
It hurt.
But she had a feeling that in the end this would be the only way she would ever heal. From the life she had been born into that she ultimately couldn’t control. This was her taking control. She wasn’t going to let the way other people treated her determine what she could have. Not anymore.
Not even him.
She walked out the front door, tears pouring down her cheeks. The thought that echoed in her mind as she got into her car and drove away from Jackson’s house was that the worst part about all of this was that Lily could have been hers. Jackson could have been hers.
And now they wouldn’t be.
Now she was alone. Again.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN HE WOKE UP, she wasn’t there. He hadn’t slept, not really, but he had stayed in his bedroom and waited for her to come back. Waited for her to cool down. Apparently, she had done neither, because when he woke up early in the morning and went into her bedroom, her things were gone. He went into Lily’s room, hoping Savannah was just there, and that for some reason her room was just uncommonly neat.
But she wasn’t there.
Lily was sleeping peacefully on her back, her fisted hands up over her head, her expression serene. She wasn’t aware that she had lost the woman who had been taking care of her for the past month. Wasn’t aware that anything had changed at all. How many times had that happened in his life? Too many.
He whirled around and went back out into the living area, pounding his fist onto the wall. How could he have let this happen?
How could he have put himself or Lily in this position?
He had to remember that he could never care about anyone. Could never trust anyone. There was only himself. That was all there would ever be. Lily would be able to depend on him, he would be sure of that, but he wouldn’t expose her to this ever again.
He looked around, still somehow unable to fully take on board the fact that Savannah had left. She’d said she wouldn’t.
And you said you didn’t love her.
Pain exploded in his chest, bursting behind his eyelids. Yes. He had said that. He hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t. But this was the problem. He wasn’t supposed to love her.
He knew better than to love anyone.
He remembered his mother leaving. Remembered what it was like that strange, surreal morning when he had walked out of his bedroom and everything had been exactly where it had been the night before, and yet felt utterly and completely different.
Much like now.
And then after that, his father had brought home a new woman, and Jackson, at five, had hoped that she would be his mother. Had hoped that she would be the answer to that hole in his chest. That open, lonely space inside of him. But then she had left, too. And so had the next one. And the next one. By the time his father had married Ella, he had already known there was no point getting attached to the older man’s latest bride. No point at all. He’d had his heart ripped out too many times at that point. Had already learned that love meant giving someone a piece of your heart to take with them when they decided to head somewhere better to be.
Love meant losing that piece of yourself, without having that other person leave anything behind.
Except Savannah had left too damned much behind. The house might feel unchanged, but his insides had been turned upside down and rearranged. His life was... He didn’t know whose life this was. And he wanted so very desperately to go back to the one he and Savannah had carved out for themselves.
And what an ass he’d been. Asking how she would know it was real.
You’re the one that’s afraid she’s more in love with the idea of being a mother to Lily than she is in love with you.
He gritted his teeth and fought against the sharp, cutting truth of that thought.
He was afraid. That was the bottom line.
Afraid of losing her, and so he had. And no amount of denying his feelings for her made him feel insulated from that. Not even a little bit. But she was gone. And this time, there had been no quiet space beforehand. No lingering questions as to why. Possibly for the very first time, it had been him who had well and truly driven someone away. He had no idea how the hell he was supposed to live with himself now. Had even less of an idea as to how he was supposed to live without her. But it didn’t look like he had a choice.
* * *
“WHY DID YOU bring Lily out this morning?” Tanner asked, looking at the carrier that was strapped to Jackson’s chest.
There was fencing to be repaired and heavy equipment repairs to see to, and if Jackson had to sit at home and think about what an ass he was, he’d lose his mind. So he had gone out and gotten to work.
The appearance of Tanner on the fence line made him regret it.
“Savannah’s gone,” he said simply, keeping his eyes fixed on the layered mountains that surrounded the ranch. Deep green fading back to pale blue. A sight he normally took solace in.
Not now.
“You gave her the day off?”
“Nope,” Jackson responded. “She’s gone.” He figured if he said it enough, maybe he would be able to feel it. Accept it. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
But he doubted it.
“She left?”
“Yes,” Jackson said.
“What the hell did you do?”
“I fucked up,” Jackson said. “Majorly.”
“How?”
“She told me she loved me,” Jackson said. “I told her I didn’t love her.”
“I would leave your ass for that, too. You love her, though,” Tanner said, his words confident. “I don’t know what the hell changed between the time we talked after she got here and you telling me that you were going to keep it professional, and that dinner we had at my place last night, but it’s obvious to me that something did change. And that you love her.”
Anger spiked through his veins. “Are you and Chloe having slumber parties over there? Braiding each other’s hair and giggling and talking about my love life?”
Tanner shrugged. “I didn’t talk to Chloe at all.”
<
br /> “Well, she was up in my business, too.”
“Maybe because you need an intervention.”
“Fuck off, Tanner. It’s not like your life is together. When was the last time you were with anyone?”
“It’s been a while,” he admitted. “But I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Isn’t it in the Bible or something? Don’t worry about the dust in my eye when you have horseshit in your own?”
Tanner snorted. “Pretty sure that’s not in the Bible.”
“Deal with your own stuff, that’s what I’m saying.”
“I’m fine being alone,” he said. “Which is the big difference between the two of us. You’re not fine, Jackson. You’re not.”
“Don’t you think if I went after her it would just be... Isn’t it a little bit convenient, Tanner? That suddenly I want to be with a woman who happens to be a great... She’d be a great mother for Lily.”
“No. I don’t think it’s convenient. But I think the fact that it matters shows that you care. Do you think that Dad ever cared if the women he brought home would be good mothers to us?”
“I don’t suppose. Seeing as only a couple of them were.”
“Don’t you think it would’ve been a better thing for him to consider us with a decision like that?”
“I guess.”
“That’s not convenience, Jackson. That’s being a good dad. Our lives would have been better if our father was that good. And you know it. You weren’t looking for a mail-order bride, just a mail-order nanny. You got more. Why let it get away? Why miss this chance?”
“Because we’ll just get in deeper,” he admitted, his voice rough. “Deeper and deeper until everything in my life, everything in Lily’s life is tangled up in her. I mean, even if it’s not...convenience for me, what if it is for her? What if it’s not...me she wants really?”
“I don’t know what to tell you about that. I don’t think you can have that guarantee. I just think you have to...take a chance.”