Becoming Three

by Cameron Dane

  His hat was knocked to the ground, and a hand yanked his head back by his hair. “You think you're too good for your Simmons blood now, little brother?” Samuel hauled Jasper to his feet and cuffed him one in the jaw. His tiny, booze-reddened eyes blazed at Jasper in the darkness, and years of fear made bile surge in Jasper's throat. “You think I'm gonna let you get

  away with putting a black mark on my name so no one will hire me? You think I'm just gonna walk away when you go crying to the cops and get them to run me out of town without having to face me yourself?” Samuel twisted his hand in Jasper's shirt and started dragging him across the parking lot. “I got news for you, you little pussy bitch; you ain't ever getting rid of me.” He shoved Jasper over the hood of his truck, wrapped his beefy hand around Jasper's neck, and started to squeeze.

  “Hey!” a male voice shouted. “Leave that boy alone.” Footsteps echoed in the packed dirt,

  and seconds later, Samuel's weight and hand disappeared from Jasper's throat. Jasper sucked in air and watched with horror as Samuel turned on a gray-haired man. “This ain't your business.” Samuel lifted his arm and backhanded the guy into the side of another truck. “Stay out of it, or I'll smack you down again.”

  Samuel turned back to Jasper with a smug twist to his lips, and something in Jasper snapped. His brother came at him again, and all the fear inside Jasper coalesced into a giant ball of power and rage.

  “No more!” He kicked at Samuel's gut, knocking him back a half dozen steps. “You ain't the boss of me!” Jasper charged, and this time snagged Samuel by his shirt. “You ain't my brother no more!” He threw a punch like some of the guys out at the ranch had taught him and connected with Samuel's mouth. “You ain't gonna mess up my home”—he hit a second time— “my friends”—a third—“or the people I love!” He took a staggering Samuel to the ground and held him there. “No more, Samuel!” He looked into his brother's eyes, felt nothing that resembled family, and Jasper ran out of steam. His heart felt more bruised than his face or neck. He stared at this stranger who couldn't accept that they were nothing more than that now, and whispered, “No more.”

  “It's not up to you, Jassy.” Ignoring that name, Jasper held Samuel down on the ground. The man struggled mightily, and Jasper had to use every bit of his power. He looked up and found the man who had tried to help leaning against the wall some dozen feet away. “Can you call the sheriff's station for me?”

  “Already did it, son.”

  “Thank you. You okay?”

  The gentleman fingered his bloody lip. “Nothing a little sugar won't fix up just fine.”

  Jasper stared into Samuel's face once again, and for a moment, he drifted back to being a kid. “I was always afraid of him,” he murmured as he looked at the other man again. “Got things more important to me now.”

  “So I've heard,” the guy said. Jasper tilted his head, and the man added with a knowing gaze, “News in this town still travels fast.”

  “Right.” The burn crept up his neck, but Jasper figured he would get used to folks knowing he was in an odd kind of relationship soon enough. “I'm Jasper Simmons.”

  “I know. I'm Jarvis Hammett.” The man walked over, put a boot on Samuel's stomach to help hold him in place, and stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, son.”

  Acceptance brought a smile to Jasper's lips. “You too, sir.” He shook Jarvis's hand.

  Right then, a red truck screeched to a halt, and Cade flew out of it and into the scene. “I'm on call, and Ren and I were having dinner in town.” He quickly got Samuel turned over and cuffed. “What happened?”

  Oh no.

  A call went out to Cade, Jace's closest friend other than Hunter. “You didn't tell Jace anything, did you?” Jasper asked.

  “Yes, I did,” Cade answered. “Your name was in the call. I figured he and Sarah would want to know. I'm sure they'll meet us at the station.”

  Oh no.

  “In the meantime,” Cade added, “what am I charging this man with?”

  “He attacked me and Mr. Hammett here,” Jasper said. “I would like to file a report.” “Yes,” Jarvis said. “I would like to file one too.”

  “All right.” Cade helped Samuel to his feet, amid his shouts of protest. “Both of you follow

  me to the station.” As he led Samuel away, Jasper heard Cade reading him his rights. Jasper knew Sarah didn't need any more stress. Certainly not while she was still recovering.

  And Jace… Hell, Jasper didn't know how much more that man could take.

  * * * *

  “I'm fine.” Jasper stood as soon as Sarah and Jace burst into the station. “I promise; I'm fine.” Thank goodness the serious bruising from the punches and finger marks around his neck wouldn't show up until tomorrow.

  Sarah ran to him, and Jace went to Cade, steering his colleague across the room. Jasper grabbed up Sarah when she reached him and hugged her tight. Feeling her helped him know everything would be all right.

  He held her against his front and pressed a kiss in her hair. “You didn't have to leave your brother to come get me.”

  “Hunter isn't at the house. He's staying at a motel.”

  “What?”

  “Don't worry about it right now. We'll talk about that later.” Sarah kissed him all over his face. “What about you? Are you sure you're okay?” She ran her hands over his rumpled shirt, fussing over him, and she made him smile as he remembered her chastising him and Jace for doing the same to her. “Who the heck jumped you?”

  “Samuel.”

  Sarah growled, sounding a lot like Jace, and had Jasper grinning again.

  “I got control of him this time,” Jasper shared, pride filling his voice. “He saw in my eyes that I ain't—am not—scared of him anymore. No matter what happens from now on, I know he isn't gonna bother us. I showed him.” He shifted his shoulders and stood up straighter than he ever had in his life. “This time I showed him who I am now, and he saw he can't make me go back to how I used to be.”

  Before Sarah could respond, the slam of a fist into a metal desk had everyone in the bull pen jumping. Jasper and Sarah immediately noticed Jace rubbing his hand, and Jasper's worry for Jace increased.

  Jace left Cade and joined them. “Are you all right?” he asked. His body looked strained on all corners, and his hands were tight fists at his sides. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Not in any way that matters.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch asshole is not getting near you again.” Jace's gaze slid to where Jasper knew the holding cells were, and his eyes grew colder with every second he stared. “He's going to jail this time. You don't have to worry about him hurting you or Sarah.”

  Jasper hated the worry on Jace's and Sarah's faces, and he would love to never mention Samuel's name again. “You know what I want right now?” he said softly.

  Sarah brushed her hand soothingly down his back. “Tell us, and we'll make it happen.” “I just want to go home.”

  Jace nodded tersely. “Then let's go.”

  He led the way. In front of them.

  Only Sarah held Jasper's hand.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Sarah held the papers in her hand, and Jasper looked at them from over her shoulder. “Medical documents,” Sarah said as she scanned them. They were Jace's, and the overall assessment appeared to be that he was in good health and free of any STDs. “I remember seeing this envelope when I set the mail down on the desk two days ago.”

  “But he ain't—hasn't—said anything about it,” Jasper finished.

  Sarah didn't feel guilty or like she had snooped into Jace's personal business. She'd gone to straighten the desk where they kept their bills, and there the sheets of paper sat, out of the envelope. Pair this new development with how distant Jace had been acting in the last week and a half… Sarah started to pace.

  She chewed on her nail and threw a glance at Jasper as she passed him. “I'm worried about him.” Jasper nodded, his eyes solemn. “I have been since the night yo
u got hurt,” he shared. “I thought he would work past it, but I think he's still stuck.”

  Sarah also knew from the buzz at the station that Jace had been put through an emotional wringer in order to get Peter Robbins to confess to Ginger's and Sonya's murders. The DA in Billings wanted answers about the other people Peter had hinted at murdering while confessing to Jace. Only the man refused to talk to anyone but Jace, so the DA had brought Jace in. For two days in Billings, Jace had relived whatever mind games he'd played to get a murderer to talk. He had gotten the guy to give the names of three of his other murder victims, going back four years ago to his first, and even confessed that one innocent person had been arrested and convicted for one of his crimes. Jace had come home withdrawn, but Sarah and Jasper understood and gave him some space. That had been a week ago, and he only seemed to be getting worse.

  The sound of the front door opening and closing stopped Sarah in her tracks and drew her gaze to the hall. Jace has come back from his run. An activity he'd taken up very recently.

  Seconds later, sure enough, Jace paused at the archway, soaked in sweat. “Let me take a shower, and maybe we can all go out and get some dinner.” He disappeared down the hallway before Sarah or Jasper could say a word.

  Sarah's chest hurt as she stared at the empty space in front of her. Lately, every time she saw Jace, she just wanted to do something to wipe away the exhaustion and grim lines making him look like a different man. They all ate together, lived under the same roof, and had sex in a shared bed, but for all the proximity, Sarah sensed Jace wasn't really with them half the time. Jasper had let it slip that he felt the same. She knew Jace hadn't fallen back into drinking and that his abstinence from alcohol itself was a battle he fought and won every day on top of all the other stuff in his life. She loved him for that strength; she loved him period, and that was why this step backward in their always-tight friendship broke her heart.

  If he saw this kind of change in me, he would dog me until I spilled every bit of my fears to him.

  Shoot. He already had done that very thing a thousand times over when she missed her mom or brother so much, she sometimes thought her pain would bleed right out of her pores.

  I have to do something to help him.

  The water in the bathroom stopped running. Sarah stood, new resolve giving her strength. She found Jasper still leaning against the desk, and the concern in his eyes boosted her choice. “I think it's time to try something else with Jace,” she said. “Embrace him in a more…forceful way.”

  Jasper pushed away from the desk and held out his hand. “Let's go.”

  * * * *

  Jace toweled dry his hair and body and then wrapped a bigger towel around his waist. After brushing his teeth, he headed out of the bathroom and jerked to a stop at his bedroom door. Sarah and Jasper were inside, and they both glanced up the second his frame shadowed the carpet. His heart started pounding, and nerves ate up his insides, both producing a sheen of perspiration on his freshly washed body.

  Just be cool. Don't let them see the mess fucking you up inside.

  He tore his stare away from Sarah's mile-long bare legs and Jasper's sleek, firm torso in a snug black T-shirt. “What do you guys feel like having?” he asked as he walked to his dresser and busied himself pulling out underwear and a pair of jeans. “Barbecue? Maybe Italian?”

  Sarah spoke softly but clearly. “How about we stay home, and you tell us what is bothering you?”

  His back quivered with awareness, and he knew she was very near to where he stood.

  “Yeah.” Jasper's voice followed with more bite. “Are you quittin' on us or somethin', man?”

  Jace breathed and forced himself to let his towel fall to the floor as if he weren't shaking inside. “Nothing is wrong.” He put on his underwear and even turned around to face them. “And no”—he made quick eye contact with Sarah first, then Jasper—“I'm not quitting on you.”

  Sarah crossed her arms under her breasts and looked up at him through eyes that were far too wise for her age. “Maybe you haven't walked away physically, and maybe you never will, but that's not the same as being here, and you know it.” She moved in closer to him, and with each step, the knots in his stomach grew. “I've been with you for a lot of years, Jace; I know your moods, and I know when you're pretending. Ever since the day you and Jas brought me home from the hospital, you've looked a whole lot like the guy who used to tell me everything would be just fine when Hunter got shipped to Afghanistan.” She watched him and, without even touching, nailed him to the wall. “I always knew you weren't sure that was the truth and that you were hiding your own fears that your best friend would die.” She put her hand on his stomach, and the gentle touch went all the way inside him to his core, nearly buckling his knees. “What are you hiding from me now?”

  “From both of us.” Jasper took a place next to Sarah, and between the two of them caged him in more effectively than metal bars. “I ain't known you nearly so long, but maybe somethin' about you bein' inside me and us sharin' a woman means we got a fast connection, so I think I know how to read you too. Somethin' ain't right, and if we're your partners, that means you're supposed to tell us what's hurtin' you so we can fix it. Otherwise it's just fuckin'.” Jasper shook his head, and his mouth turned down in a hard frown. “I ain't interested in just fuckin' anymore. I told you that already once before.”

  Stop! Just stop trying to make it better.

  Jace couldn't stand the earnest, sincere faces watching him so closely or the incessant biting dialogue running in his head. He put his hands over his ears, pushed through Sarah and Jasper, and stumbled to the bed. “It'll be fine.” His voice was a ragged whisper. “I can work it out in time. I promise.”

  Sarah rushed to him and knelt at his feet. “Jace, please. You don't have to work this out on your own.” She pulled his hands away from his ears and forced his face up to her. Tears—that he knew she didn't let herself shed easily—wet her cheeks and gutted him some more. “It's breaking my heart to see you like this.”

  Jasper sat down next to him and rubbed his back with his big, work-callused hand. “I know we don't have the same life, but I don't want to go back to not havin' anyone to tell my secrets to. I don't think you do either. No man does.” He moved his hand up and stroked Jace's nape and the ends of his hair. “I ain't gonna think you less a man if you let whatever is eatin' at you out.”

  Sarah aligned her arms along Jace's outer thighs and curled her hands around his back. Holding his gaze and hiding nothing in her own, she carved a deeper hole into his already unsteady foundation. “You and Hunter have been my measure of what a good man is ever since I can remember. Nothing you say to me is going to change that.”

  The weight that had been crushing on Jace for over a week continued to push down on him in front and back, and it felt as if someone were pressing the air out of his lungs and breaking his spine. He'd been trying so hard to be a man, to not crumble at work or at home, or fall to drinking. But every moment that he successfully closed himself off just to make it through the day, and every second he spent with Sarah and Jasper, working so diligently to present an image that everything was fine, made it a hundred times harder to crawl out of bed the next morning and psych himself up to do it again.

  I don't know if I can make it through tomorrow without help. A picture of a bottle of beer and a shot of whiskey filled Jace's mind and seized his heart. I don't want to take a drink.

  He looked at Sarah, into the eyes of a woman he knew would never betray or belittle him, and everything inside him started to break apart. “The things that twisted fuck told me he did, and with such disgusting passion…” He shuddered with the memories of his time in Billings, of learning about Peter's zealous thrill after murdering his first victim in Minneapolis, posing him against a bridge, and how much pleasure he received in cozying up to the man's large family. Then there were the victims who followed, all of it so much worse than the interrogation in Quinten. “And the things I had
to let the bastard see in me to get him to talk. I gave him so many pieces of my life, of myself.” Sitting in that interrogation with Peter for two days straight, by the end, Jace had cut open fears of Hunter and of his alcoholic mother and his helplessness that led up to her eventual death, to his fears of becoming just like her…just as a start. “I gave him pieces of us”—he gripped Jasper's leg too—“that are sacred to me.” He flitted the tips of his fingers over Sarah and Jasper's faces. An apology formed on his lips, but he was so full of shame and emotion, he could only mouth the words.

  Sarah put her head on his lap and hugged him tightly around his waist, and Jasper pressed his cheek against Jace's arm. Neither spoke a word, but Jace heard it's okay, it's okay in every petting touch and tear that wet his skin.

  Jace sucked in an uneven breath; he wanted so desperately to stop, but more stuff sat in his throat, fighting to get out. “Ginger, Sonya, and those other people deserved justice, but I should have been more clever than him. I should have figured out a way to get him to talk without giving away my personal life and, worse, the way I feel about the two of you and my deepest fears of losing you.”

  He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling, the only place he could hide from the probing eyes of the people he loved best in this world. He was barely dry from his shower, and he already wanted another one. “I have never felt so dirty as I have this past week,” he admitted, his voice scraping his throat with every confession he made. “I can't outrun it, and I can't stop thinking about it when I'm with the two of you. Fuck”—he released a gritty chuckle—“I can barely stop thinking about it when I'm alone. And in the rare cases when I can stop thinking about it, I'm bombarded with the truth that I couldn't even do the one thing I'm supposed to do in this relationship. Namely, keep the two of you safe.