by Nicole Helm
“This is a huge secret, but I have to tell someone, and I know you’ll keep a secret.”
“Sure.” Though Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to be anyone’s confidante right now when she was sucking so bad at just about everything.
“It’s just, well, the whole pregnancy thing wasn’t happening.”
Something in those words hit Rose a little funny, but Summer was chattering on in a breathless, excited way.
“Which the doctor says is normal for the first year of trying, but you know, I started reading about other options, and…” Summer’s smile spread across her face and she grabbed Rose’s other arm, clutching both in an exuberantly tight grip. “We’re going to try to become foster parents. Maybe adopt, or just help kids out who really need it.”
“That’s great.” And would be perfect for Summer and Thack and whatever kids were lucky enough to come across their path.
“So, anyway, we’re having our first home visit, and then they have to do a whole bunch of other stuff, but we all have to be here, and she’s supposed to be here any minute, so I can’t give you a ride. I can call over to Shaw though and—”
“I’ll walk.”
Summer didn’t let Rose bolt, holding on tight. “No, don’t walk.”
“It’s a beautiful day and not very far. I think I need a walk.”
Summer’s expression immediately softened. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m…” She blew out a breath. Confused. She felt confused for the very first time in she didn’t know how long. Her whole life, she had been sure of what she was doing. Sometimes what she’d been doing had been wrong, but she’d been sure of it nevertheless.
Jack was somehow right and wrong all at the same time.
She forced herself to not smile, because that wasn’t very Rose-like, and she smirked instead. “I’m fine, and I’ll walk over to Shaw. You stay here and have your perfect home visit. I cannot think of a better thing for you and Thack. I really can’t.”
Summer pulled her into another hug, tears shimmering in her hazel eyes. “I’m going to call you later.”
“Be sure that you do,” Rose returned, stepping out of Summer’s arms and heading back down the stairs, another walk ahead of her.
All in all, the way the Lane and Shaw houses were situated on their intersecting land, it was kind of funny to think how close her little house was to all of them. And she’d never told them.
Why that caused the lump in her throat to grow exponentially, she didn’t know. When a tear slipped over, she figured to hell with it.
She climbed across the Lane/Shaw fence line and had herself a good cry. Once she got that out of her system, she could figure out how to get Jack out of it too.
Chapter 18
“So are we going to talk about the fact that you didn’t sleep here last night?”
Jack had spent most of the day avoiding Gabe, but he’d had to come to the bunkhouse to shower off the manure he’d been hauling before he took his family to dinner. When he’d stepped out of said shower, there was Gabe, sprawled on his bed, pretending to read.
Jack decided to ignore him and walked over to his dresser to pick up his wallet and keys.
“What’s going on, Jack?”
“On?” Jack repeated, looking as bland as possible.
Gabe frowned and tossed the magazine as he got out of his bed. “Did you sleep with Rose?”
“Wow, that’s none of your business.”
“Look. It’s not that I don’t like Rose.”
Jack’s jaw clenched tight and he had to purposefully relax it. “Be careful where you go with that line of thought, Gabe.”
“I just want you to be careful. You’re not Mr. Casual, and Rose Rogers doesn’t strike me as Ms. Serious. I don’t want you thinking there’s something more serious going on.”
“I’m not some stupid, lovelorn idiot who doesn’t understand how the world works.” He hated that Gabe’s words made him question that. He was a grown man, and yes, he’d once been cast aside fairly easily, and no, he hadn’t done much of anything in the interim, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what he was doing.
Rose was special. One way or another.
“Look, I don’t want to play big brother or—God forbid—Alex, but the fact of the matter is you’re young and you’ve just had the one relationship. You never even had a drunken one-night stand when we were on furlough.”
“I was engaged,” Jack replied through gritted teeth.
“And good for you, but you’re… The world doesn’t always work like it did in Podunk, Indiana.”
“Would you like to be a little more insulting?”
“Shit, I should have had Alex do this,” Gabe muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “I’m not trying to be insulting. I’m trying to protect you. I’m worried you’re going to get yourself into the same position you were in not that long ago.”
That awful tide of emotion from this morning’s run-in with Madison was rising over him, hot and impossible to beat back. “Well, I’d have to propose to Rose first. Then she’d have to fuck my brother, and you know, I don’t think he’s her type.”
“All I’m saying, as your friend, is to have a care, Jack. Rose is great. She’s smart and she’s funny, but she’s all sharp edges, and you’re…”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “What? A marshmallow?”
“Already wounded,” Gabe said all too carefully.
Which was the last thing Jack wanted to hear or be reminded of. These past few weeks… Yeah, his leg still hurt, and his family crap was still crap, but he’d felt something close to whole for the first time in years. He didn’t need anyone telling him it was a mirage. “Mind your own business, Gabe.”
“Fine.” Gabe grabbed his hat off the hook and pulled it onto his head. “Hope you were smart enough to have safe sex,” Gabe muttered, striding out of the bunkhouse.
Jack stood stock-still at that parting shot, which hit like…well, like a grenade. Maybe not as painfully, but with that same loss of sound and the feeling that everything had stopped.
Because it suddenly dawned on him, far too late, that they had very much not had safe sex. At all. Not even a little bit.
“Jack?”
It was Vivian’s voice, and Jack realized he’d been standing frozen for more than a few seconds, panic pumping through his veins—a real and very serious panic. Somehow, he had to focus. His family was here. He was taking them to dinner. All while knowing he’d forgotten to wear a condom during the first time he’d had sex in years. Years. There’d been a few times where he and Madison hadn’t used one, but she’d been on the pill, and they’d been engaged.
Well, maybe Rose was on the pill and this was no big deal. No big deal.
“Jack?”
“Yeah, sorry.” He shook his head and turned to face his sister with the best smile he could muster. “I’m ready.” He stepped outside the bunkhouse to where his family had congregated.
“We’re going to take the RV down, so we can all drive together,” Mom said brightly.
“I need to drive separately,” Jack blurted.
His family looked at him strangely, and he couldn’t say that he blamed them. He tried to act natural, but that only made him feel more uncomfortable. Still, he gestured toward Rose’s car. “I have to return Rose’s car. So, um, I’ll drive down there separately, and you can drive me back.”
Which sounded like hell on earth, but at least he had a reason to not do it both ways.
“I’m going to ride with Jack,” Vivian announced.
“But…I have…an errand.”
Vivian shrugged. “That’s fine. I’ll come with. I’m not taking no for an answer.” She linked her arm with his and started tugging him toward Rose’s car. “So much to catch up on,” she said, patting his arm, grinning widely. He’d never truste
d that grin when she’d been a little girl, and he really didn’t trust it now that she was a grown woman.
They climbed into the car and Jack watched as the rest of his family piled into the RV. His heart was beating rapidly. How was he was going to have a chance to talk to Rose with all this going on? He’d have to find a way.
“Why are you acting nervous?”
“I’m not nervous,” Jack replied, turning the key in the ignition.
“Good. I only cornered you into giving me a ride because Mike and Dad are driving me nuts, and I wanted to tell you how much I like Rose. She’s so much better than Madison.”
“Vivian, you shouldn’t say things like that.”
Vivian shrugged as he turned around and headed down the drive. “It’s just the two of us, and it’s true. You know, Rose actually asked questions about my business instead of getting huffy that we weren’t always talking about her precious baby.”
“Rose doesn’t have a baby,” Jack managed to choke out.
“And I can tell Rose likes you, not just the idea of you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” Vivian sighed, her gaze on the mountains outside her window. “I always got the impression Madison was more into the idea of our family and being a part of it than…well, you specifically.”
“And you never thought to say anything?”
“Come on, Jack. We’re not a family that says things. Even if we were, you loved her, and how am I going to tell my big brother who’s joining the navy I don’t think his girlfriend is quite as in love with him as he thinks she is?”
It would have been hard enough to process if he hadn’t already been reeling from the whole lack of a condom thing, but now Vivian was sitting here telling him that it had been obvious Madison wasn’t in love with him.
“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad,” Vivian said, touching his arm lightly, another thing their family wasn’t big on—easy, affectionate touches. “I just know that I like Rose because she seems to really make you happy. And not only that, but when she looks at you, it’s like she sees you. And when you look at her, it’s like…everything you want out of two people who love each other.”
Love. Christ. “Love takes time, Viv. To be in love is complicated. Rose and I…we haven’t been together all that long.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“I like her a lot. But…”
“But what? You like each other a lot. She’s great and funny. What else do you need?”
Jack parked Rose’s car in the Pioneer Spirit lot. He stared at the bar and tried to work out any of this.
He glanced at his sister, who was an adult woman, talking to him about love and a family that didn’t talk about their feelings.
“I love you, and I’m proud of you,” he said out of nowhere.
Vivian startled and looked away for a second before she looked back at him. “Is that your way of throwing me off the scent?” she demanded, her voice scratchy.
“It’s both that and the truth. Our family doesn’t say things like that, and we don’t talk. And I love you all, but I think maybe I need to talk. And say things.”
Vivian nodded. “I know that feeling.” She took a deep breath. “What did you say to Madison this morning?”
“I told her the truth. How’d you hear about that?”
Vivian sighed. “Mike was mad. He was telling Dad you’d upset her.”
Jack scowled. “She wouldn’t let it go and was trying to, I don’t know, explain herself. Maybe she needed to do that, but I gave her the truth. I can’t magically forgive her for what she did, even if I’m moving on. Quite honestly, that was more than generous.”
“You always are,” Vivian said quietly, squeezing his arm this time. “Maybe once in a while, you could be selfish. Like a mere mortal.”
He looked at the bar again. “Maybe I’ll try that out.”
* * *
Rose worked the bar with an odd sense of dread in her stomach. She shouldn’t have felt any kind of dread right now, considering she’d talked to Delia about the private investigator this morning. Apparently, Dad barely left the house. Mom ran all the errands, and Dad seemed content to stay far away from all his daughters.
Of course, he could change his mind at any point. Rose didn’t believe for a second that he’d actually changed, but considering all the sisters had restraining orders against him, if he did try to contact them, he’d be back in jail. So maybe that had given him enough reason to finally leave them alone.
It felt so anticlimactic though. It felt unfinished. It felt wrong.
And you’re upset that it means Jack doesn’t need to come and play security at the bar anymore.
God, she wished she could cut the Jack part out of her brain. She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, so why couldn’t she stop thinking about this one?
The door opened, and Rose watched it to make sure it wasn’t her father. It was Jack instead. His blue gaze immediately met hers, everything in his expression grave. Her stomach swooped and she wanted to run away.
You want to run to him.
He strode through the room, not looking at anything else but her, his gaze completely and fully on Rose as if she was the most important thing there. As though she was that precious thing he’d tried to make her out to be last night.
She wasn’t that. She couldn’t be that. And she hated that she wanted to be.
“We need to talk.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she managed, sounding weak and foolish.
“We need to talk. In private. Now.”
She frowned. She wasn’t used to bossy Jack, and she couldn’t say she cared for it. It seemed important though, so maybe it was something to do with his family.
She signaled Tonya that she was going into the back for a few minutes, and Tonya nodded. Rose led Jack into the back hallway, but he didn’t stop there and went right for her little disguised door.
“Can’t we just talk here? I have a bar to run.”
“Private, Rose.”
Pulling her keys out of her pocket, she flipped the panel and unlocked the door and stepped inside. Jack followed, closing the door behind him. She forced herself to look at him, keeping it cool, in control. His grave expression shuttered into something she didn’t recognize and couldn’t read.
“We have to talk about last night.”
“I don’t want to talk about last night,” she replied. She wanted to relive it. She wanted a million more last nights. Since that wasn’t possible, she had to get a little mean. “As far as I’m concerned, last night didn’t happen.”
He stopped short at that. “Why?” There was that undercurrent of hurt she hated to put in his voice, but that’s what she’d always bring him. Everyone she loved ended up hurt. She wasn’t even sure she knew what love was or if that was the awful thing inside her. She only knew she had to save him instead of draw him deeper into her.
“Jack, everything we have is fake.”
“I believe we covered that last night. It’s not. You admitted that to me. You can’t take it back now.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want,” she returned. Losing control wouldn’t get her what she wanted, but trying to deny it? Push him away? It was too hard to do and stay in control at the same time.
“Rose. We didn’t—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, making a move for the door. He stopped her, both by standing in front of her and grabbing her by the shoulders. Her body shouldn’t have reveled in that touch, in him getting in her way, but God, it did.
“Listen to me,” he said, brooking no argument. “We didn’t use a condom last night.”
Everything inside her froze, hard and tight. That niggling thing that she’d been pushing away all day. Jack deep inside her. Jack. Only Jack.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling nauseous, but then she immediately yanked her hand away. No stomach touching. No nausea. No… No.
No, this couldn’t happen. So it wouldn’t. “It’s fine,” she forced herself to say, and she almost sounded certain.
“It is?”
“Well, I’ve never…” She cleared her throat, trying to say it in a way he wouldn’t read anything into. “I’ve never had that particular issue before, and you’ve only slept with the one woman, right?”
“Right.”
“So, disease free. Lucky us.”
“Rose.”
“And as for…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t think it. “It’s fine. You can’t…from once.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite of every sex-ed talk ever.”
Rose blew out a breath. If she refused the possibility, it couldn’t happen. “It’s just…you know I have a friend who’s been married for a year and trying for months and she hasn’t gotten…”
“Pregnant,” Jack said firmly.
She wanted to shush him. To take that word out of the atmosphere. If it sat there in his military-sure voice, it would somehow come to fruition, and no.
No.
“Rose.”
She hated that he kept saying her name in that calm, even tone. That he took her hand in his and squeezed. That he was so handsome and so good.
“Breathe,” he instructed.
So she did. In and then out. She would have been fine with that, breathing and finding some center, some surety, but he reached out and touched her cheek, that gentle, undoing touch.
Why was she fighting him so hard? What was the worst thing that could happen if she let him take care of her? If she let him think she was something worth gentle touches and sweet words?
She thought of that night so many years ago. Dad with a gun to Delia’s head. All Rose’s fault.
That was what happened when she went after something for herself. When she believed she deserved something good.