by Devney Perry
Fuck.
My shoulders fell. She was right.
“I’m used to making the decisions without input. At work. With my mom. I wasn’t trying to walk all over you.”
“Then stop doing it,” she said. “You have to talk to me or this is never going to work.”
“I will,” I promised.
I’d been going about things all wrong with Georgia. She wasn’t like my mother. She didn’t want to have things done for her or to be left in the dark. If I was going to keep her in my life, make her happy, I had to start including her in making decisions.
She stopped pacing and planted her hands on the island, dropping her head toward the floor.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”
Was she going to try and break up with me just because of this? She was fucking wrong if she thought I’d let her. She was mine and I wasn’t letting her push me away.
“I’m not strong enough for you,” she said. “You need to be with a woman who can live with the threats. The stories about drug dealers and . . . whatever else comes along. Someone who won’t freak out.”
My hands fisted on the island. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. What the fuck did she mean she wasn’t strong enough? She was the strongest woman I’d ever met.
But I took a deep breath and calmed my temper, reminding myself to be patient. She was just scared and this was just another thing she could use to push me away. She just needed time, time to see that I wasn’t going to hurt her.
To see that she was the only woman for me.
“Georgia, look at me,” I ordered from across the island. “You are strong enough. When I need you, you’re there. Not once have you let me down.”
“Yes, but—”
“No,” I said. “You are. You might not see it now, but you will. And besides, this will all settle. Things right now are . . . crazy. It’s not like this normally.”
“But Jess—”
“Stop,” I said, rounding the island.
Taking her face in my hands, I pressed my forehead to hers.
“Please just give it time. Please? You’ll see,” I whispered.
Her breath whooshed out in a long sigh. Her shoulders relaxed and she leaned her head into my hands.
“Okay,” she whispered.
I bent lower, brushing my lips against hers.
Time. We needed time. And I needed to take back control of Prescott. Then she’d see that her fears were for nothing.
We’d get back to the boring times. To the days when we’d be lucky to have two traffic stops in a week. I never thought I’d miss those days but fuck did I ever.
Georgia wouldn’t have anything to worry about as soon I put an end to all of this shit with the pill dealer and with Wes. And I would. Now more than ever, I was determined to pin Wes down. He wasn’t going to get away with wrecking my town and scaring my girls.
The days of November went by in a happy blur.
I was giving Jess the time he’d asked for, trying not to worry and trusting that he would keep Rowen and I safe.
Jess had spent the majority of his working days in the mountains, searching for signs of traffic to Wes’s meth house. He’d put in grueling days, hiking trails and searching for signs in the snowy hills. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found a trace. Yet.
Thanksgiving was the only day he’d taken off, so I’d put together a huge feast. We’d had Noelle over to spend the day with us. I’d been happy to have her there to visit with because apparently, Thanksgiving also meant watching football. Though I had come to enjoy the social aspect of the Mustang games, watching football on TV was excruciating.
So while Jess had lazed on the living room couch, us girls had planned where to put my Christmas decorations. Today, for the first time ever, I was skipping my honored Black Friday morning shopping tradition. That’s how excited I was to decorate my farmhouse.
“It’s bullshit. You know that? Complete effing BS. These big box stores keep trying to shove it down our throats earlier and earlier every year. Christmas displays up before Halloween. They can’t even leave Halloween alone! I mean, at least wait until November. And then take them down in January. These people that leave multicolored lights up in their windows and on their gutters until Valentine’s Day are nuts. I mean, it’s just pure effing greedy that stores put Christmas stuff up too early and pure effing lazy when people can’t get their stuff down when the holidays are over.”
I was talking to myself about the appropriate timing of Christmas decoration and un-decoration.
While I was blabbing to no one, I was standing on a very tall ladder, holding a huge, heavy evergreen garland that I was stringing up on the overhang of the front porch. The garland matched the big wreath I’d already put on the front door.
Since I was talking to myself and carrying a heavy garland and a hammer all while standing on a very tall ladder, I wasn’t paying much attention to my footing.
And because I wasn’t paying much attention to my footing, I soon found myself no longer standing on the very tall ladder. Instead, I was on my ass, on the ground, in the snow. The bottom of the ladder right in front of my face.
My wrist throbbed because I had used it to break my fall. The heavy garland and hammer were no longer in my hands but in the snow, along with my ass.
Eff.
“Aren’t you women supposed to be shopping on Black Friday, Gigi? Not falling off ladders?” Dr. Peterson had just finished wrapping my sprained wrist in the ER.
“To hell with Black Friday. I take my Christmas decorating very seriously, Dr. Peterson. Shopping must wait.” I smiled.
He grunted a laugh. “I guess so.”
I had learned my lesson from the rattlesnake incident and called Jess as soon as I could drag my ass off the ground. He’d had Roe with him at the sporting goods store downtown. They had left shortly before I started decorating to pick out a sled for Rowen.
So I’d waited on the front porch, clutching my wrist until they’d gotten home.
When Jess helped me pull the Christmas decorations out of the attic last night, I absolutely should have listened when he’d said he would hang the tall stuff.
“I’ve called in a painkiller prescription for you to the pharmacy. But you know the drill. Ice if it gets swollen. Hot compress if it’s achy. Try not to use it for a few days,” Dr. Peterson said.
“Will do.” I hopped down from the ER bed. “Thanks, Dr. Peterson.”
Jess and Roe were sitting in the lobby waiting for me. I aimed my feet in that direction and headed to meet an angry-at-Georgia-because-she-didn’t-listen-to-me Jess and a mad-at-her-mother-because-she-hurt-herself-and-now-we-couldn’t-go-sledding Rowen.
Jess didn’t speak to me on the way back to the farmhouse. Neither did Roe.
Roe’s silence ended when we got home and she asked to play with the cats. Jess had created an area in the garage for Mrs. Fieldman, Rose, Peony and Captain Lewis. He’d even put in a cat door so they could go in and out at their leisure. Roe thought it was amazing because she could fit through it too.
While Rowen’s anger was short-lived, Jess’s lasted much longer. He had disappeared somewhere after we’d gotten home and come back in right before lunch. He’d eaten in complete silence, not even talking to Roe.
“I’m sorry, honey. I should have waited for you,” I said as Jess brought his lunch dishes into the kitchen.
“Yeah, you should have.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident.”
He pulled in an angry breath and let loose what he’d clearly been keeping inside these last few hours.
“You know, I’ve been taking care of people my whole life. My mother. My sister. This town. Because if not me, then who? So why is it that the one person who I actually want to take care of won’t let me?”
I didn’t get to answer before he started yelling.
“Fuck! I’m so fuc
king mad at you, Georgia! You could have broken your neck! And then what? What would have happened to Rowen? To me?”
I hadn’t thought about it that way. Tears flooded my eyes as the realization dawned. I could have left my daughter today with no one in the world to care for her.
“I see it’s sinking in,” he snapped before walking away.
I’d taken on so much these past few years. Not that I’d had much choice. I guess much like Jess, if not me, then who? The only other people I’d had to depend on were my mom and Ben. Now both were gone. And even when they had still been with us, Mom had been sick and Ben’s aging body couldn’t have done everything his mind thought it could have. So that meant everything had fallen to me.
Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Grocery shopping. Yard work. Holiday decorating.
Everything.
What else was I supposed to do?
But Jess was right. I couldn’t afford to be reckless with my safety or my life. I was all Rowen had. I couldn’t risk abandoning her just to hang up a Christmas ornament.
And I had Jess. Why hadn’t I let him help?
Because I was stupid. Extremely stupid. And stubborn.
My stomach rolled. Anytime Jess and I were fighting, I got sick. And, along with my throbbing wrist, I was getting a headache. It was time for a pain pill and a nap.
I set Rowen up with a movie and changed into some comfy lounge pants and a sweatshirt. My pill kicked in shortly after Tangled started playing and I fell into a deep sleep on the couch.
I woke up a little fuzzy, my eyes dry and foggy, and saw the clock on the mantel. I had slept for five hours. No wonder the movie was over and Roe was no longer on the couch.
My girl’s sweet voice echoed from the kitchen.
“Jess, can you give me my bath and read me my stories tonight?”
“Uh, Roe, I don’t know what the rules are with little girls and bath time,” he said.
“There aren’t any rules, silly.” She giggled. “You just have fun! Except Mommy doesn’t let me splash water outside the bathtub.”
“Roe, that’s not what . . . I, uh, tell you what. Go put on your swimming suit. You can wear that in your bath tonight,” he said.
“Yay!” she yelled, jumping up and down.
I laughed from the doorway and both of them turned to see me standing there. Roe came bouncing over and hugged me as she screeched, “Jess is giving me my bath!”
“Great,” I smiled, bending to kiss the top of her hair. When I stood back up, Jess was grinning, my signal that he was ready to forgive me. I squeezed Roe before she scooted out of the room. Then I walked straight to Jess, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“I’m sorry. You were right. I was stupid and reckless. I’ve gotten used to doing things myself. It’s a hard habit to break.”
“Me, Georgia. You depend on me. Okay?” He pulled me tighter into his chest.
I relaxed into his body and nodded. I was glad he had accepted my apology and we could stop fighting. The knot in my stomach started to loosen.
“You know, I want to take care of you too. If you’ll let me,” I said.
He let out a long, frustrated sigh. “You do, Georgia. Every day. Creating a warm place for me to come to every night. Letting me unload after work. Pushing back when I’m an asshole. Arguing with me. Calling me ‘honey.’ Being my girl. All those things are what I need and how you take care of me. And if you’d get outta your head, stop doubting me, you’d see that I’ve been letting you take care of me all along.”
Damn.
He was right. Again.
“Well . . . I guess I’ll just keep doing that then,” I muttered.
He chuckled while we held each other. I looked up and locked my eyes with his. I’d never tire of that bright blue color.
Roe came bounding back into the kitchen, wearing her pink ruffled swimming suit and her orange goggles.
“Are you going to kiss Mommy?” Roe asked Jess.
“I was thinking about it. That okay with you?”
“Yep! I like it when you kiss her. It’s just like when the prince kisses the princess. Are you a princess, Mommy?” she rambled.
Jess and I both laughed at my wonderful girl. Then Jess leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. His tongue darted out and the tip touched my lower lip.
“You know, Jess, she’s only four. You can give her a bath without the suit,” I whispered.
He smiled and whispered back, “Nah. She’s excited. Maybe next time.”
Jess walked out of the kitchen, hand in hand with my daughter. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them both, “I love you.” Because I did. I loved them. I loved him.
I had never been in love with a man. Maybe if I’d had more experience, I would have realized it sooner. It felt strange that we hadn’t said the words to each other yet, but looking back, it had been there for a while.
With every touch, every kiss, it was simply unspoken. Unspoken, but never missing.
Maisy and I were sitting at my dining room table, embellishing sweaters with Christmas flair. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas and these sweaters were going to be our attire for the Christmas party I was hosting at the farmhouse in two days.
Technically, it was Jess’s party, not mine. Each year he threw a holiday party at the station for his deputies and their families. Party planning was not his forte, him being a manly man and all, so when he’d asked for my help I’d immediately taken charge.
I’d recruited Maisy to help me in exchange for an invitation to the party on Saturday night. She, like me, was all over it.
“Is Everett excited for the party?” I asked.
“I guess,” she mumbled, attaching a string of lights with a battery pack to the waistband of her sweater.
“Is he not a Christmas party fan? Or is it the sweater? Jess is annoyed about the ugly sweater theme.”
She set down her lights and moped. “Things haven’t been going great these last few weeks. Ever since that night we all went out for drinks, he’s been distant. Always making an excuse at the last minute to cancel our plans. Doesn’t come find me at work to talk like he used to. He’s just been brushing me off. Granted, he makes sure I am there at night. We have sex, which is still great, but then after, he still doesn’t talk to me. Just rolls over and falls asleep.”
“Sorry, sweetie,” I said.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not like he talked much before, you know? Maybe he is just really busy. And this is part of us getting past the new phase.”
“Maybe.”
Jess and I had been together longer than Maisy and Everett and we were still hot and heavy, enjoying the time spent getting to know each other. Though the more we were together, the more I wondered if we’d ever cool off.
“We’ll see. It’s not like I’m going to dump him or anything. I just don’t know how to talk to him about it without him getting mad at me or shutting down even more.” Her shoulders sagged. “What would you do, Gigi?”
I reached out and patted her hand. “I guess . . . try and talk to him. Be honest about how I was feeling. Ask him if there was something I had done.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
“Be yourself, Maisy. If that doesn’t work for him, then maybe he isn’t the guy for you. Okay?”
She nodded.
We went back to work on our sweaters in silence.
I hoped that Maisy and Everett would work through their issues. They made a cute couple and she wanted so badly for things to work out. If he didn’t want to see her anymore, I hoped he would find the nerve to tell her and that this distant behavior wasn’t his way of breaking it off. Maisy was a catch. And if he couldn’t see that, she was better off without him.
Jess and I were having drunk after-party sex. My face was in the pillow, my arms under it and braced on the headboard. I was up on my knees, my ass tipped in the air.
He was pounding into me from behind, pulling my hips into him with each thrust so he could fuck me hard.
Really hard. Amazingly hard and I was effing loving it.
I had already come twice and he was building me up a third time. The first one had come from his mouth when he’d gone down on me the minute we’d gotten to the bedroom. He hadn’t even bothered to get me to bed. He’d just pushed me up against the door and fallen to his knees.
After I came, he’d picked me up and thrown me on the bed. He’d undressed in a hurry, tossing clothes all over the place, and then yanked my ugly sweater over my head, sending it flying in the direction of the garbage can. No sooner had it hit the floor before he was inside me. My second orgasm had ripped through me while I was on my back, Jess’s mouth attached to my nipples and his cock setting a fast and deep rhythm.
And now I was pressed forward, thoroughly enjoying having Jess behind me.
“Oh god, Jess, keep going. Harder,” I said, turning my head sideways on the pillow.
“Yeah, baby,” he said, obeying my command.
As he picked up his pace, he reached around my hips to find my clit with his middle finger. A couple hard flicks and I was done. My eyes screwed shut and I planted my face into the pillow so I could moan through my release, my sex clenching around his cock as he kept going harder and harder.
“Fuck, Georgia,” he groaned as my orgasm triggered his. He bent forward, still thrusting, and let me take his weight as he shot himself inside of me.
We stayed like that for a minute until I couldn’t take his weight anymore and shifted underneath him. He let me go and fell onto the bed, lying on his side, facing me. I turned to my back so I could take a few deep breaths and get some oxygen flowing back into my veins.
“We are totally having drunk sex more often. Even if that means you have to get loaded here on a random Wednesday night, I don’t care,” I declared, still trying to catch my breath.
“Keep the Crown stocked and you got yourself a deal.”
We both burst out laughing before cleaning up and sliding into bed for our post-sex, pre-sleep cuddling.
“Thanks for the party, Freckles.”