by Katee Robert
And there was the sex. Good lord, the sex. It really wasn’t fair how out-of-this-world good it was.
He was kind of prickly, but he had a dry sense of humor that she adored. And Aubry didn’t scare him. That alone was a big point in his favor. Not to mention, since her best friend hadn’t hacked into his cell phone or something else insane, she’d pretty much given her seal of approval. That mattered.
Adam brushed her hair to the side and kissed the back of her neck. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m just as sure that you do.” He grabbed the blanket on the other side of her and covered them both with it, settling down again at her back. “It’ll all still be there in the morning, sugar. Obsessing about it now isn’t going to change a damn thing, except you’ll lose sleep.”
Easier said than done. She turned in his arms to face him. “Can you do that? Just turn it off?”
His face was little more than a shadow in the darkness. “Some days I’m better at it than others.” There was a world of…something…in his voice. Something she didn’t have a name for.
She couldn’t ask if he was staying. It wasn’t the right time, and if he said no, it would just hurt her. So she went with an equally dangerous topic—but one that had nothing to do with her. “You never mention your dad.”
“Not much to mention.” He sighed. “He was a leaver, as my mama likes to say. He managed to stick around for four years after I was born, but it killed a part of him to be stuck inside these town limits. He rolled back through a couple times as I was growing up, but Mama was never all that happy to see him, knowing she’d see the back of him again before too long. I’m just like him.”
He didn’t say any of it with anger, more with a quiet fatality she didn’t know what to do with. “Adam, there’s no such thing as fate. You make your own future.”
“You don’t understand. I have this…I don’t even know what to call it—restlessness, for lack of a better word. It starts in my chest and builds and builds until I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. It’s been there ever since I was a kid, and the second I was old enough to get out, it eased the feeling. The only thing that takes it away completely is being on the back of a bull.”
How could she compete with that? She’d heard stories about rodeo widows, women who loved a man who loved the rodeo. How could a flesh-and-blood person stand against the roar of the crowd and the adrenaline rush of trying to stay on a rage-filled animal’s back for eight seconds? It didn’t sound all that wonderful to Jules, but she was unforgivably biased.
Adam leaned against the tailgate. “And now with my mom sick… I just don’t know how it’s going to end up.”
Meaning the cancer could take her.
If it did, not only would Devil’s Falls lose one of its favorite ladies, but Adam would lose the last anchor drawing him back to this place. She didn’t fool herself for a second into thinking Quinn and Daniel were enough to bring him home, not when he’d be faced with memory after memory of his mother.
And, no matter how she was starting to feel about Adam, she would never be enough for him. That was startlingly clear.
“It’s okay, Adam. It will be okay.”
But the sinking feeling in her chest wouldn’t go away. The only thing that had kept him in place for more than two weeks was his mom. If she lost her battle with cancer, he would run as far and fast as he could and not look back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adam woke up with a naked Jules in his arms, and hell if that wasn’t a way to start the day. He blinked at the bright sunlight and shielded his eyes. She lifted her head. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know.” He eyed the sky. “Still early. Maybe seven.”
“Crap, I have to get going.” She sat up, giving him the view of a lifetime, and grabbed her dress. “I open the café today.”
As much as he wanted to pull her back down and lose himself in her for a few hours, she was right. Responsibilities waited. His mama had a doctor’s appointment today, and he was determined to bully her into letting him go with her. He sat up and stretched. “Let’s get you back to town, then.”
Jules pulled on her dress and sent him a grin he felt right through his chest. “Last night was something else.”
“Yeah, it was.”
Her smile dimmed. “But we do have to talk about Grant at some point. He was a jackass last night, but you can’t just go around manhandling him because he said something…ill-advised.”
Ill-advised about summed it up. “Sure I can.” When she frowned, he relented. “Sugar, I’ll mind my p’s and q’s, but I’m not civilized enough to sit back and let him insult you. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’m not your man.”
She yanked on her boots. “Just try not to get arrested, okay? Sheriff Taylor is getting close to retiring, and having to haul you in will do a number on his blood pressure.”
He finished buttoning his jeans and pulled her into his arms. “You know, Quinn said the same damn thing to me back at the bonfire. Clearly I have a reputation if you all are so worried I’m going to give the good old sheriff a heart attack.”
“Well, if he caught sight of what kind of trouble we’ve been getting into in your truck, I think that’s a very real risk.”
Adam laughed. “You spend an awful lot of your time taking care of other people.”
“Some people don’t have anyone to take care of them.” She ducked out of his hold when he went for a kiss. “Morning breath!”
“I think we’ve already established I have a solution for that.”
“Good point.” She bounded around the side of his truck, reappearing a few seconds later with the fresh bottle of water he’d put in there yesterday, toothbrush, and toothpaste. “You know, I’m not really a fan of camping out, but this has been fun.” She shot a look at the bed of his truck, covered with rumpled blankets. “Or maybe I’ve been listening to too many country songs.”
“No such thing.” He waited for her to brush her teeth and then followed suit. “Everything worth knowing can be found in a country song.”
“I thought the saying was that ‘everything I need to know in life, I learned in kindergarten’?”
He grinned. “That, too.”
The drive back into Devil’s Falls passed in comfortable silence, Jules cuddled up against him. The words he’d said—and hadn’t said—last night were a jumbled mess in his chest. He would lose her if he didn’t find a way to say what needed to be said—then actually put those words into action—and he didn’t want to lose her. He pulled up behind her shop and put the truck into park. “Sugar, I have something to say.”
She went still against him. “I’m listening.”
“I don’t know what the future will hold—”
“No one does.”
He waited, and she ducked her head.
“Whoops. You’re saying your thing and I’m interrupting.”
“I know it hasn’t been that long, but I can’t imagine my life without you.” He opened his mouth to tell her that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d do his damnedest to be the man she wanted, but he couldn’t force the words out. Despite everything, they still felt like a lie. Instead, he said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I can only take things one day at a time, but I want you, sugar. Just you.”
When she looked up at him, her eyes were shining with unshed tears, her expression looking almost…worried. “Oh, Adam.” She kissed him, a quick brushing of her lips against his, and then she was gone, slipping out of his truck and practically running inside.
He stared at the door for a long time. “That went…well.” She hadn’t told him to fuck off, but she hadn’t exactly seemed happy, either. He glanced at the clock. Dealing with Jules’s weird reaction would have to wait—he had to leave now if he
wanted to be on time for his mom’s appointment. Thank God Devil’s Falls was so small or he would be late.
The doctor’s office was a tiny little building off Main Street, and Dr. Jenkins had been practicing long enough that he’d treated Adam’s mom when she was a kid. The man was ninety if he was a day, but Mama wouldn’t hear of going to someone else. There was no one else in town, and she didn’t like the thought of going into Odessa more than strictly necessary.
He walked through the door and froze, feeling like he’d just come through a portal into the past. The same faded posters hung on the walls—all cute baby animals with affirming statements—and the same faded blue fabric covered the uncomfortable seats. The receptionist had changed, though. It used to be John’s mom that worked here, but the whole family had moved away after his death.
Not that Adam blamed them. Sometimes it was easier to leave the past behind than to face it, day in and day out, while the walls slowly closed in and suffocated any chance of happiness a person had.
The woman behind the desk smiled brightly. “What can I do to help you?”
“I’m looking for Amelia Meyer.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give out that information.” But the slight shift in her posture told him all he needed to know. His mom had beat him here. Hell, she’d probably moved up the appointment, hoping that he’d miss it altogether.
He eyed the door leading back to the appointment rooms. If he remembered correctly, there were two total. He was so goddamn tired of getting information secondhand from his mama, especially since she tended to sugarcoat everything to the point where it was damn near a lie. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to protect him or herself, but he needed to hear what was going on straight from the medical source.
“Excuse me.” He turned and strode through the door.
“You can’t go back there!”
Too late. He was already past the first open exam room and walking into the second one. His mom and Dr. Jenkins jumped, the former looking as guilty as a sinner in church. Adam shut the door on the squawking receptionist. “Mama.”
“Son.” She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “You’re early.”
“And yet somehow I was almost late.” He ambled over and sat in the spare chair, pinning the doctor with a look. “Bring me up-to-date.”
Dr. Jenkins was a nice man who specialized in pediatrics. He hadn’t known what to do with Adam as a kid, and he didn’t know what to do with him now. He adjusted his glasses, what was left of his white hair standing out against his dark skin. “Now, Adam, you know I can’t do that without Amelia’s permission.”
Her sigh was defeated enough to give Adam a twinge. His mom stood and straightened her dress. “You go ahead and tell him what he needs to know, Matthew. Though you’ll have to excuse me. I don’t need to hear this again.” She walked out of the room with the dignity of a queen, which only made Adam feel even more like an asshole.
He turned to Dr. Jenkins. “I’m sorry for barging in, but she won’t give me a straight answer.”
“Yes, I’m well acquainted with Amelia’s stubbornness.” He gave Adam a look over the top of his glasses. “It’s a family trait, if I remember correctly.” Dr. Jenkins sat back and rubbed a hand over his face. “I won’t mince words with you, Adam. It’s bad. It took her a long time to admit that what she was feeling wasn’t just age, and by that time the cancer had been at work for God alone knows how long.”
Adam had to force the words out. “How bad?”
“She’s got stage-four lung cancer.” Dr. Jenkins’s entire being came across as sympathetic. “She’s refused chemotherapy, and I don’t know that I’d recommend it considering her age and overall health. Unfortunately, the cure for cancer is sometimes worse than the cancer itself, and I believe that would be the case with your mother.”
He heard the words, but he couldn’t process them. He’d known it was bad. Of course he’d known it was bad. But bad and fatal were two different things. He swallowed, the motion doing nothing to help his dry throat. “If she’d come in earlier, would it have made a difference?”
“There’s no way to tell.”
Which wasn’t a no. His chest was so tight, he couldn’t draw a breath. My fault. If I’d been home, I would have known something was wrong. I would have made her come to the doctor. It would have made a difference.
“It’s not your fault.”
Dr. Jenkins had always seen too much of Adam. As a teenager, he hadn’t wanted the man’s sympathy. As an adult, he didn’t deserve it. He pushed to his feet, weaving a little. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Adam—”
“I’ll see you around, Doc.” He sidestepped the older man and walked out of the room. His mama wasn’t there waiting, but he didn’t expect her to be. She was pissed he’d barged in, probably pissed that he’d shone the hard light of day onto her situation and forced her to face it. His mama had always been great at self-denial. She denied that his dad leaving had hurt her, just went on without a hitch in her step. But when he was seventeen he’d caught her holding a faded photograph and crying like her heart was breaking. This wasn’t any different.
Except heartbreak wouldn’t kill her.
Cancer would.
He hit the door to the outside and started walking, bypassing his truck. He wasn’t in a good place to be getting behind the wheel right now, and walking might help him get his head on straight—doubtful, but anything was better than standing still right now. He didn’t have a destination in mind, but he wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself standing in the doorway to Cups and Kittens. Jules was busy with a few other customers, so he took a seat in the corner—the same one Aubry always seemed to be camped out in. Almost immediately, one cat jumped up onto the table in front of him, and a second made itself at home in his lap. Adam stared down at the long-haired orange cat and gave it a tentative pet. When he was rewarded with a purr loud enough to be a jet engine, he did it again. The monstrous feeling inside him didn’t uncoil, but he managed to draw his first full breath since hearing the news.
His thoughts tumbled over themselves as he tried to come up with a solution—any solution—to this impossible situation. This wasn’t something he could just power his way through until the world rearranged itself to suit him. This was his mother’s health. Even if she was willing to do the treatment, Dr. Jenkins hadn’t seemed optimistic that it would be worth the cost.
Which meant there was little they could do.
“Adam?”
He didn’t look up. If he did, she’d see the pain he couldn’t manage to mask on his face, and then she’d ask him if he was okay, and he’d lose it. “I’ve got to go.”
He carefully set the orange cat on the table and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jules waited all of a heartbeat before she followed Adam out onto the street. He wasn’t exactly a sharer, but she’d have to be blind not to see the pain written over every line of his body. “Adam, wait!”
He stopped, but he didn’t turn to face her. “Now’s not a good time, sugar.”
Her realization last night settled in her chest, feeling like it’d cemented her heart into place. There was no reason to be surprised he was shutting her out. Hadn’t he done it every single time she’d asked him what was wrong? But she took a deep breath, shored up her courage, and said, “You can talk to me.”
He still didn’t turn around. “Talking never did anybody a damn bit of good.”
“You won’t know until you try.” She touched his arm, trying to quell the panic rising with each breath. Please don’t shut me out. Please just talk to me. Please show me that we weren’t doomed before we started.
Adam jerked his arm out of her grasp. “Talking is all anyone in this shitty little town likes to do—except when it counts. Then everyone shuts the fuck up. So, no, sugar, I’m no
t going to pour my heart out to you to make you feel better about yourself.”
She stumbled back a step, her heart dropping to her stomach. “That’s not why I offered to talk.”
“Isn’t it? You want to fix me, and you want reassurance that I fit into the plans you have for your future. Well, I can’t give you either.” He started to turn away. “And I’m never going to be the man who will settle down with you.”
The woman she was a month ago would have let him walk away. She would have mourned the end of things, but she wouldn’t have had the fire burning in the pit of her stomach driving her to chase him down the sidewalk. “No one can fix you, Adam Meyer. Not until you’re ready to hold still long enough to realize that your inability to stay in one place has nothing to do with your dad and everything to do with you. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you could change if you wanted to.”
He glared, his hands clenched at his sides. “Really, Jules? Changing my entire life around to suit your needs isn’t as easy as coming up with some quirky plan to scandalize a small town before you move on with your life.”
“That’s not fair.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Here’s a piece of advice—being the town scandal comes with more strings attached than you want to deal with. It’s better to leave the whole damn thing behind.”
“There you go again, running the second it looks like you’re in danger of putting down roots. Brave, Adam. Really brave.”
He shook his head. “This was a mistake. I should have seen it earlier.”
This is it. He’s not even waiting to leave town to walk away from me. She stared at his back as he moved away from her. “Fine. Walk away from me. It’s what you’re good at.” His step hitched, and for one endless moment, she thought he might turn around, might come back and actually talk to her.