“It wasn’t that you snore, and just so you know, I wouldn’t call late at night to talk to you about snoring. Though, also just so you know, I really hope you don’t.”
“I hope you don’t either,” he returned.
“I don’t snore!” I snapped.
More laughter with his, “Good we got that straight.”
“Jacob—”
“Talk to me, Emme.”
“I can’t—”
“Emme, I’m lying in bed lookin’ at your kaleidoscope sittin’ on my nightstand, knowin’ you’ve been with me every day for nine years. Which means I wanted you with me every day even when I didn’t realize it. Which means you mean something to me and not a little something. You think I’d make that play tonight if I thought makin’ it would fuck us up?”
“No,” I whispered because I didn’t. He wouldn’t do that. Ever.
And he was lying in bed and my kaleidoscope was there.
Have mercy.
“So, I made a decision and carried it out but I know what’s at stake here and I’m gonna bust my ass to lead this careful, gentle so it doesn’t get fucked up. I know this is fast, but from here we don’t have to go fast. We just gotta go forward. And we gotta do it honest. So talk to me.”
“I know you’re a good lover,” I blurted.
Jacob said nothing.
So I called, “Jacob?”
“And you’re wound up about me bein’ intimate with Elsbeth,” he said.
“No,” I contradicted.
“No?” he asked.
“Well… no.”
More nothing from Jacob then, “So, fill me in here.”
“It’s just weird,” I shared.
“It’s weird,” he said.
“Don’t you think so?”
Again, nothing until a murmured, but it was a very intensely murmured, “Fuck me.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothin’, baby,” he said quickly. “You’re right. It’s weird. I don’t know how much she shared, but yeah, you hearin’ that from her is weird. But this isn’t me and her. This is me and you. And we haven’t even kissed, Emme. So, honey, don’t get wound up in this shit. You said one step at a time with McFarland, that’s the way we’re gonna take it. I’ll lead but you tell me the speed. You want slow, that’s how we’ll go. That work for you?”
“I don’t want us to get screwed up,” I told him.
“So we’ll take it slow,” he told me.
“I don’t want to lose you again.”
Jacob fell silent.
“I missed you,” I whispered.
“How bad?” he whispered back.
“I wouldn’t allow myself to think about it, that bad.”
“Baby—”
“Maybe we should just be us,” I suggested.
“And maybe this was the us we were always meant to be and we should be that.”
At his words, words that spoke to me deeply, my shoulders jerked forward with the force of my lungs hollowing out.
“Emme, you with me?” he called.
I closed my eyes tight, put my forehead in my hand, my elbow to my knee and I whispered, “What if you don’t like the way I kiss?”
“I’ll like the way you kiss,” he whispered back.
“What if you don’t?”
“You’re the smartest woman I know, baby, you’ll learn to give me what I like.”
That was an excellent answer.
“What if you don’t like the way I do other things?” I pressed.
“I will.”
“Ja—”
“You’ll learn, and just sayin’, honey, so will I. That’s the way it goes.”
Not in my experience.
“This is an important part of us takin’ it slow,” he carried on. “Said it before, I’ll promise it now, Emme, we’ll go at your speed. But I want us finally to go where what we got has always been leading.”
“Do you really think so?” I asked.
“Babe, would we be having this conversation if I didn’t?”
We wouldn’t. Absolutely.
I opened my eyes, sat up and admitted, “I’m a psycho.”
“You care about me, have for a while, don’t want to lose me. That’s not psycho, Emme. That’s real. And it’s smart. And it means a great deal to me. What you need to get from all I’m sayin’ is, because it means that much to me, I’m gonna handle this with care. You just gotta believe in me.”
“Do you believe in me?” I asked and got nothing so I felt my heart squeeze.
Then I got something.
And it was huge.
“Emme, what you’re worried about, I get. I like it. It’s sweet. It’s you. But outside of us makin’ our way in that, discovering that part of the relationship we’re gonna have, nothin’ else about you makes me think for even a second I don’t believe in what I could have with you. That’s somethin’ else you gotta get. I missed it. For years. There are three people in this world I trust with everything about me: my father, Chace and you. And I finally figured out I don’t give you that because you’re my girl but because you’ve always in a way been my girl. I felt it again last night. You feel it too. You just gotta admit it then we’ll sort the rest out.”
It was my turn to say nothing.
“Emme, baby, talk to me.”
“I want this,” I whispered.
And I did. Badly. And I might have done for a very, very long time. I just wouldn’t let myself think about it when he was with my friend and definitely not after I lost him.
“Good. You got it. Starting Sunday,” he replied immediately.
“There’s things to know about me,” I admitted.
“You’ll tell me and you’ll do that at your pace too.”
God, he was so nice.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“You gonna sleep now?” he asked.
No way.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Bullshit,” he muttered, a smile in his voice.
“Uh, reminder, Jacob, it’s just over twenty-four hours since we met in town and things have progressed at light speed. Since I’m the first human being in history to travel at that speed, I think it’s okay that I allow myself a moment to process the feeling.”
“I get you but I don’t want you losing sleep over this.”
So nice!
“Not sure you can do anything about that,” I told him. “But I’ll be okay.”
“Faye’s having a boy,” he announced, and I blinked.
Then I asked, “Pardon?”
“You in bed?” he asked back.
“Yeah, kinda. Sitting on it.”
“Get under the covers, Emme.”
His deep voice saying that started that pulse beating in that awesome place and I did what I was told.
“Light out,” he ordered.
I did that too.
“You in?” he asked.
“Yeah, but—”
“They’re namin’ him after me.”
“Oh God!” I cried. “That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah,” he replied.
And that was when Jacob talked to me about a lot of things, none of them taxing, none of them earth shattering, all of them how we always used to be except sweeter, and he did it for a long time. He did it until he heard my voice get sleepy.
Then he said softly, “Gonna let you go now, baby.”
“Okay, honey.”
“Sleep good.”
“You too.”
“ ’Night, Emme.”
“ ’Night, Jacob.”
I disconnected, put my phone to the nightstand and stared at it in the dark for three seconds.
Then my eyes closed and I fell asleep.
* * *
Twelve hours, seven minutes later…
I hit Jacob’s contact button and hit go.
It rang once.
“You okay?”
Feeling weird when I called him, at his question, I felt weird no more and laughed.
“Yeah, honey. Just that, you’re bringing boys over, I need to know how many and what they want to eat.”
“Manual labor. Beer, chips and brownies.”
“I was thinking more along the line of homemade burritos.”
“You’d be thinkin’ wrong ’cause, one, you lucked out on the Shake ’n Bake, but it’ll be important to keep those boys fed, and your stove gives up the ghost, I’m not gonna wanna take a break to try to fix it or go out and buy a camp stove.”
I started laughing softly again and Jacob kept going.
“Two, they need to expend their energies rippin’ out insulation, haulin’ it down, luggin’ new up and staple-gunning it to beams. Food that requires silverware is an unnecessary expenditure of that energy.”
“Got ’cha,” I murmured. “Beer and munchies.”
“Right. And now that I got you, insulation is ordered. Delivery window is one to four tomorrow. That good for you?”
I blinked at my desk. “You ordered it?”
“Yeah.”
“Already?”
“Babe, need it Sunday. No time to fuck around.”
“But you didn’t measure,” I reminded him.
“You gave me a tour, didn’t you?”
I sat up straight as it hit me, like it sometimes did, how very sharp he was. I knew without a doubt he’d ordered enough, not too much. And he calculated the amount of insulation I’d need by walking through my house.
“Yeah, I did,” I answered. “And I’ll be there for delivery during the window.”
“Good,” he replied then asked the question I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask, “McFarland being cool with you?”
He was. And, in Dane’s way, he also was not. And I figured Jacob wouldn’t see the part where he was, only the part where he wasn’t.
I had to answer so I decided it was safe to share some of it, but not all of it.
“He came up to the office and asked if we could talk. I told him to come by the house at one on Sunday and I’d say what I had to say then.”
“And?” Jacob prompted.
“And, well…”
Crap!
I didn’t know whether to tell him or not.
Because I was psycho, I told him, “Then he asked who owned the black Dodge Ram that was outside my house last night.”
Silence.
I shouldn’t have told him.
“Ja—”
“He was at your house last night?”
I’d never heard him use that deep, rumbly, controlled-but-barely tone of voice and I wished I’d still never heard it because it was more than a little scary.
“He, well… does that sometimes when he’s, well, we’re not… when we don’t have plans,” I stammered. “He does it because I live up there alone and he wants to check on me. Make sure I’m good.”
“He does it because he’s creepy into you, Emme.”
I was getting the feeling that might be true so I said nothing.
“We need to get around to having a conversation about this guy, babe,” Jacob told me.
“It’ll be over Sunday, honey,” I told him.
“Yeah, but evidence is suggesting he’s not gonna like that and he’s also not gonna like you movin’ on, and you work with him. So we’re gonna have a conversation about him and soon. What’d you say about my truck?”
“I told him you were over.”
More silence then, “Straight up?”
“Well, I didn’t share about your earth-shattering shift in the path of our relationship but, yeah. I said you came around for dinner. Why?”
“And how’d he react to that?”
“He’s always been weird about me with guys,” I admitted.
“Creepy. Fuck,” Jacob murmured.
“He gets over it,” I told him.
“No he doesn’t, Emme. He hides it. And Sunday, after the boys go, we have that conversation. Yeah?”
“Okay,” I mumbled.
“I also want you spending the night at my house tonight and tomorrow night.”
My entire body spasmed.
“Pardon?” I breathed.
“I got work, I won’t be there. I’ll drop the keys at your office with directions. But, he’s doin’ drive-bys, you’re not gonna be there.”
“Jacob, you said we’d go slow,” I reminded him cautiously.
“Babe, job I’m on, I’m not gonna be in my bed until Sunday night.”
At the mention of his bed, I got another full-body spasm.
I ignored that and asked, “What job are you on?”
“Emme, honey, can’t say, and with my work, you gotta know, I’m never gonna be able to say. As we’re takin’ this forward, you’ll get everything you want from me, anything you ask, just not that.”
I knew this. I knew this because, even back when, Elsbeth couldn’t say. Considering his mind and the company he kept, I’d been fascinated by his work and asked her once what he did.
Her response was uttered on a shrug, “No idea. I just know he busts his hump, doesn’t talk about it and doesn’t get paid much for doing it.”
That said, it didn’t take a genius the caliber of Jacob, what with the policemen, private detectives and bounty hunters that came to their parties, to know it had something to do with the things they did. It just seemed that whatever it was was a lot more secretive.
Which, of course, made it a lot more fascinating.
“So, I drop the keys, you pack a bag,” he ordered.
“Honey, honestly, I’ll be okay at home.”
“Baby, honestly, I’m a town away from your creepy soon-to-be ex and I got a security system. You’ll be more okay there and that’s where you’re going to be.”
This was something else I knew but had never experienced directly. Elsbeth had told me Jacob could get bossy.
“I think you’re worried about nothing,” I told him.
“And I think I got a dick,” he told me and I blinked at his words. “And havin’ a dick, I know how other guys who got one think. I also know you dress great. You got great hair. You got unbelievably beautiful eyes. You got a winning personality. You’re funny. You’re smart. You got that thing goin’ on where you state plain with pretty much everything you do you don’t need anybody, and a man falls for all that the wrong way, you also got problems.”
I was feeling so mushy-happy at these words I didn’t have the ability to speak.
“Pack a bag. I’ll drop the keys,” he repeated his order into my silence.
“Okay,” I gave in.
“You get in, make yourself at home. I’ll call Donna and tell her she doesn’t have to worry about Buford for a couple of nights.”
“Buford?”
“My hound.”
“Your… what?” My second word was pitched higher.
“You don’t like dogs?” he asked but before I could answer, he stated, “I thought you liked dogs.”
I loved dogs. I wanted a dog. I just wanted to start with a puppy and I didn’t want a puppy chewing on exposed wiring and getting electrocuted so I’d start my first tenure as Puppy Parent by digging a Puppy Graveyard in my garden.
“Yeah, I like dogs,” I confirmed.
“Good. Thought so,” he muttered, then, “Buford is a bloodhound. He’s sweet. He loves everybody, but, just so you know, he hogs the covers.”
I started giggling.
Then I asked, “Donna?”
“Neighbor. She looks in on Buford when I’m out.”
“Oh,” I mumbled and stopped giggling, thinking about Donna, neighbor to a man that was all the man that was Jacob and how I’d also look after the unknown Buford while Jacob was out, and even offer to do it when he was in.
“She’s also married to an ex-Bronco defensive lineman,” he went on, telling me he knew why I quit laughing.
The giggle came back and through it I repeated, “Oh.” Then, “You named a bloodhound Buford?”
To that, smile in his voice, I got, “You name a Bronco
Elrod or Cletus. You name a bloodhound Buford. It’s the law.” That got him another giggle and I could still hear the smile when he said, “Now I gotta go. I’ll be around this afternoon with the keys, directions and my security code.”
“Okay, Jacob.”
“Stay away from McFarland,” he demanded.
That wouldn’t be hard to do. That was already on my itinerary for the day.
“You got it.”
Another smile in his voice when he said, “Later, Emme.”
“ ’Bye, honey.”
We disconnected. I put my phone down and grabbed the piece of paper I’d been scribbling on before I called him. I crossed off tortillas, cheese, ground beef and refried beans and added munchies and brownie mix.
Then I went back to work.
* * *
Seven and a half hours later…
The black and tan bloodhound Buford following me, I wandered Jacob’s living space.
I did this lips parted, eyes big, shocked to the core.
I stopped in his sunken great room, the view from his two-story panoramic windows awe-inspiring. And not just the unhindered vision of the purple mountains majesty I could see silhouetted in black against the midnight blue of the starry sky. But also the pool that was heated if the steam coming up from it was anything to go by, and it had a light that gave its tranquil waters a slow shift through a variety of colors including purple, blue, green and pink.
And that wasn’t even getting into the flagstone patio and awesome patio furniture.
It was amazing.
Jacob might not have been paid much before for whatever mysterious dealings he dealt, but he clearly moved up the food chain.
High up.
Buford’s wet nose touched my hand and I looked into his adorable black and tan droopy-eared, droopy-skinned face with its lolling pink tongue.
Then I told him, “You didn’t know her but, trust me, Elsbeth was really, really stupid.”
Buford’s tail wagged.
I gave him a head scratch for doggie-agreeing with me.
My phone in my purse rang.
I dug it out and saw the display said “Jacob calling.”
I took the call by proclaiming, “You live in a showplace.”
“What?” he asked.
“Your house is huge and beautiful.”
“Babe—”
“And you have an unhindered view of the mountains.”
“So do you.”
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