by Jillian Neal
Bile churned through his gut. What if she was lost? What if she had an asthma attack from running? She didn’t have her inhaler with her. He shook his head and called himself a dumbass for good measure. When was he going to learn that she didn’t always need him to rescue her? And why did it have to feel so damn good when she did?
Why did he crave her release the way he did? He longed for her to come apart on his hands, on his cock. He needed her to trust him enough to let him have that part of her.
Her words slammed their fists against his skull again. ‘Did it ever even enter your stupid brain that maybe I don’t want to give anything else of myself away? Especially to you.’
He swore if she’d taken a metal baseball bat to him, it would’ve hurt less than those shouted words.
When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he answered it without even checking the screen. Part of that was firefighter training, but most of it was the desperate prayer that she’d call and let him apologize a thousand times. “Charlie? Just tell me where you are. I’ll come get you.”
But it wasn’t Charlie. His daddy’s sigh was audible through the phone. “Well, I was genuinely amused about all this, thrilled if I’m being honest, but now, I’m worried. Why do you not know where she is, son?”
The universe was certainly taking its swings that night. “Hey, Dad.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
His daddy was a lot of things to a lot of people, but patient wasn’t one of them. “We got into a fight.” He weighed and measured his words, afraid of saying too much and repeating his mistakes.
“What did you do?” There was no accusation in Barrett’s tone, just an assuredness that he already knew who’d fucked up.
“So, you just already know it’s me?”
“I did raise you.”
Jamie couldn’t argue that, but it galled him nonetheless. “I don’t know. Things were going okay and then they weren’t.”
“Do you remember the time you wrecked the brand-new truck I’d purchased for you on your sixteenth birthday because you were messing with the radio and spun the truck out in the Mendelsons’ ditch?”
Jamie remembered all too well. “Yeah.”
“Good. Do you remember what I told you when you said that you had no idea how you’d ended up in the ditch? It had just happened.”
Rolling his eyes freely since his father couldn’t see him, he sighed just like his daddy had. “Yeah, you said trucks don’t wreck themselves. But there was a pothole,” he reminded his father.
“Glad to know that occasionally my words stick around. If you’d been looking at the road instead of looking at the stereo, you would’ve seen the pothole long before you were on it. Now, I’m asking you again, what did you do?”
He wasn’t going to get out of this line of questioning and truthfully, he needed some help. He’d just be careful exactly what he told his father. “I kinda talked out of school about the two of us, but it isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.”
Barrett was silent for a long, drawn moment. “That doesn’t sound like you. I was sure it was going to be something along the lines of you deciding to throw yourself into something dangerous and her finally admitting that it scared her.”
“I’m not that dumb, Dad. I know she hates my job. You all do.”
“I don’t hate your job, son.” His father sounded genuinely taken aback by his statement. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
The question triggered a blasting cap of resentment, and he didn’t have the energy to keep it contained anymore. “You and Mom cringe every single time I get a call at your house. When I go with you to Cattleman’s out in Tulsa, you tell everyone I’m a rancher. You never even mention that I’m a firefighter. You hand out chores like my other job doesn’t even exist. I get it, okay? If I’d quit, then I wouldn’t have to work so hard. You’ve made your point a thousand times over.”
A huff of air from his father made its way from Oklahoma to Nebraska via the telephone. “I apparently made a point I never intended to make. I’m sorry I ever gave you the impression that I gave you as many chores as I give your brothers because I wanted you to quit at the fire department. You seemed happiest when you were working. I’m the same way. I didn’t want you to think I believed you weren’t capable of doing both.”
“I like working but not all the damn time. How am I ever supposed to put anything together with Charlie if all I do is ride a horse or ride a ladder?”
“Point taken. Your brothers and I are happy to redistribute the work. I’m sorry. I made an assumption and you know how the rest of that saying goes.”
“Yeah, well. It’s fine. Look, I need to go find Charlie.”
“Just a minute. I’ve had a hand in raising that girl since she was eleven, and I’ll tell you the same thing I used to tell her father when you two ran away. She only runs when she doesn’t think she has any other option. And until she’s ready to be found, you’re not going to find her. If you spun out in a pothole by running your mouth when you shouldn’t have, I’m assuming you had something you needed to talk about. Just how long did you give her after leaving her fiancé yesterday before you had her in your bed?”
Jamie ground his teeth. “You know, I may have hit that pothole when I was sixteen, but I don’t make the same mistakes twice.”
“Few hours, then, I’m assuming. I know I told you boys a hundred times if I told you once that I wasn’t getting involved in your love lives, but you and Charlie have been dancing around this for decades now. I want you to be happy. The whole town knows that isn’t going to happen for either of you unless you’re together. That’s why her father is so up in arms over this. He resents her running to you instead of running to him. That and he was more than a little embarrassed standing up there at his pulpit with no bride.”
“What’s your point, Dad?”
“I’m getting there, but quite honestly you just made my point. I know you feel like you’ve waited a lifetime for this chance with her but try to be patient. That isn’t your virtue, and I say that because it’s not mine either. Charlie has lost more in her life than most of us could even fathom. She cherishes people the way all of us should, because she knows how delicate this whole damn world really is. That’s the worst of it all, if you ask me—broken people love bigger and harder than any of the rest of us are capable of doing. They can’t help it, and she cherishes you most of all.
“You’re going to have to make her feel secure before you try to alter the relationship you’re both comfortable with. Give her a safe, warm place to lay her head at night before you’re rolling her underneath you. To be blunt, talk to her before you fuck her. You’ve always been her safety net, but you don’t think you need one. You’ve created a trust dynamic that does nothing but leave her vulnerable. Show her that you can rely on her as well, because that’s what cements a relationship. Stand up and prove yourself. Her heart is already broken over her mother. You’re asking her to hand it over to you. From what it sounds like, you’ve already almost dropped it. Stop trying to earn her love by being a hero and start earning it by being her partner and letting her be yours.”
“So, tell her I need her? That’s what you’re saying.”
“That and a thousand other things. You’re going to have to go to the places she feels vulnerable and instead of leaning on your own bravado to bandage them, show her that you’ll be vulnerable with her. Instead of telling her that everything is going to be fine if you go from friends to lovers, tell her you’re worried too.”
Jamie let that idea settle on him. “How’d you know I was worried?”
“Because I was scared to death.”
“What? When?” That was the first time in his thirty-plus years of life that Jamie had ever heard his father admit to being afraid of anything. He was Barrett Holder, head of Holder Ranch, legendary cattle rancher, the baron of the entire county, respected by most and feared by the rest.
“When I thought your mother was going to marry so
meone who wasn’t me, and when I finally had the balls to ask her to reconsider. Then I had to become the kind of man who deserved someone like her, which I hadn’t always been before. If you want to be the guy that Charlie does meet at the end of an aisle someday, then go to her, be where she’s the most afraid, and exist there with her. Show her you’re not any more afraid of emotions than you are of fires.”
“That’s…really good advice, Dad.” Jamie hadn’t intended to sound shocked but he kind of was.
Barrett chuckled. “You know, your Uncle Gentry isn’t the only cowboy on this ranch with life experience.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, listen, somebody’s knocking on the door. I’m hoping it’s Charlie.”
“Good luck, son. You can do this. I know you can.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Well, what do you want to happen with Jamie?” Natalie asked.
Charlie considered the question. “I’m not entirely sure.”
Instead of helping Mrs. Camden bake bread, Charlie was seated at the kitchen table chatting with Natalie, Holly, and Mrs. Camden, enjoying girl talk with the added bonus of tortilla chips and the best salsa she’d ever tasted.
Holly studied her. “You’re not sure or you’re afraid to admit to yourself?”
“Probably that,” Charlie confessed.
Natalie shook her head. “I know it’s hard, but try to do things before the fear gets a word in. It took me so long to finally ask Aaron out, and it ended up being nothing but wasted time that we could’ve been together.”
“You asked him out?” Charlie grinned at that. She loved Natalie’s cowgirl spunk, and that she’d gone after what she wanted.
Holly rolled her eyes. “She asked him to teach her the finer points of riding, dirty cowgirl style.”
Jessie cringed. “I am sitting right here, and I did not need to know that.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Holly giggled.
Natalie shot her sister a glare that Charlie had used on her own sister numerous times. “You’re a sex therapist. You’re not supposed to say stuff like that.”
“I’m not sitting in my office, now am I?”
Charlie enjoyed their banter but there was more she wanted to know. “What did he say…when you asked him to teach you?” She needed exact details and also to borrow a little of Natalie’s spunk because that’s exactly what she wished she could ask Jamie. If he’d just get over the whole orgasm thing.
Jessie grinned. “He’s male so he likely didn’t say anything. He just started undressing.”
Everyone at the table cracked up. Charlie couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like this, but her fight with Jamie robbed the time of some of its sweetness. She’d shared so much with him in the past two days, and she still couldn’t believe he’d told someone else about it. “I’m still mad at him,” she informed her new friends.
Jessie nodded. “I’m not sure what he did, but I can tell you what I know about men. They have a goal. Most of their good sense and reason go right out the window of their truck because the goal has to be met. Now, sometimes this is a good thing. But sometimes it’s a disaster. I doubt Jamie intended to upset you, but he got something in his head and he wanted to make it happen come hell, high water, or hunting season.”
Just then the kitchen door swung open and Ev Camden stepped inside. He was followed by Jamie. Relief that he was right there in her proximity mixed with the volatile anger still residing in her bones and made her uncertain whether she wanted to run to him or slap him. Or both.
He looked like a puppy who’d been scolded, and he opened with, “I’m really sorry.” Glancing around the table at all of the Camdens, he cleared his throat. “You wanna go somewhere and talk?”
“I think you’ve done enough talking,” Charlie informed him.
His head fell and so did her heart. “You’re right. How ‘bout we go somewhere and I’ll listen, then?”
Jessie gave her a reassuring nod, and most of the fight bled from Charlie. He looked devastated, and she couldn’t stand that any longer. “Okay.”
Holly leapt up and opened the door for them. She grabbed Charlie’s arm as they headed out. “If you’re always afraid to tell him what you want, you’ll never get it. And the thing is that he wants to give you whatever you want, but he’s not a mind-reader. He’s just a great guy and he feels really bad for whatever it is he did. I can tell.” She really didn’t know what Jamie had done. Her husband hadn’t told her. Something about that bolstered Charlie a little more. She gave Holly a quick hug. “Thank you all…for everything.”
As soon as the truck doors slammed, Jamie apologized again. “I’m really sorry I talked to Dec. And not just because you’re mad at me. I had no right to do that.”
Charlie considered his apology. She’d already accepted it, but she deserved an explanation. “Why did you do it?”
Jamie knew this was his moment. This was his chance. If he was ever going to be able to put this back together, he had to take his daddy’s advice. He glanced Charlie’s way, drawing courage from her emerald eyes even though he had no right to take anything else from her. “Because I’ve loved you since the first day I met you.”
Her eyes goggled. “I didn’t think we were saying that yet.”
“I shoulda said it years ago. And I suck at saying the right things especially when I most need to, so bear with me, ‘cause I’m going to be totally honest with you. It’s like…I don’t know…it seems like…”
“Like what?” she whispered.
“Like I’ve been making love to you for decades in every other way but physically. Like our hearts or souls or whatever have been loving up on each other forever, and I wanted so bad to get it right for you physically. I felt like I failed you. I still feel like that.” He took both hands off of the steering wheel to hold them up in surrender. “I know you don’t want me to feel that way, but I do. I can’t help it. I want to make you feel the same way you make me feel when we’re together like that. I want to give you that level of release. I want you to feel safe enough with me to let me own that. It’s selfish. I get that now. It just didn’t feel that way when I was talking to him. It felt like I was doing the right thing or I wouldn’t have done it.” He stared straight ahead and hammered the last nail in the coffin. He was sure this wasn’t the right thing to say, but dammit, he was going to be honest. “I wanted you to…love me the way I do you, I guess.”
Suddenly, her fingertips were brushing over his knuckles on the steering wheel. “I was looking for you,” she whispered.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“I kept looking out the window from the bride’s room yesterday, and Becca asked me who I was looking for. I was looking for you. On my wedding day, you were the only person I wanted to see. I knew you would know what to do. I knew you would understand why I had to get out of there because… you were why I had to get out of there. You always take such good care of me, and I’m so sorry I never appreciated that until now.”
Elation exploded throughout Jamie like fireworks on the Fourth of July and the presents on Christmas morning all rolled into one. He never needed anything else but the knowledge that he was who she wanted. “I wish I’d had the balls to speak up long before now. I could’ve saved you from ever having to endure Ed.”
Charlie shook her head. “No. You were right not to tell me. There’s so much I haven’t told you. So many parts of my life I’ve never shared with anyone, and you of all people deserve to know everything, even the parts I know no one wants.”
“Hey, stop that. There is no part of your life I don’t want. I want the good, the bad, the ugly, the parts you think I won’t love. I’ll prove you wrong. Just stand back and watch me.”
Charlie’s delicate neck contracted with a harsh swallow. “Sometimes…I can still smell my mom’s perfume.” Jamie pulled the truck up beside the cottage, shut it down, but didn’t move. He took her hand in his own, and for once in his life, just let her talk. “It’s so weird when it happ
ens, and it shouldn’t ever happen because they reformulated that scent ages ago. It still has the same name, but it smells all different now. But sometimes at my office, and a lot of times at your house.” Her chin wobbled, and Jamie eased his handkerchief from his pocket. “It’s…like this hug from her, you know? When I most need it. It’s this reminder that she can see me and knows when I need her. I know it sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy at all, sweetheart. She loved you so much. I know she did.” In his line of work, he knew that tears were often the most healing thing a person could ever allow themselves. Painful emotions were an internal churning fire that robbed you of air and of sanity. Water was the cure. He wondered if she’d ever really gotten to grieve her mother. It was entirely likely that she hadn’t, not if she’d been rushed to a burn unit hours away from her family. He had so many questions. He wondered if she’d even gotten to attend the funeral, but he wanted her to talk instead of him.
She nodded. “But…the thing is…the thing I don’t want to tell you is…” a violent shudder shook through her, and Jamie swore the earth itself vibrated right along—or perhaps it was only his whole world that shook. He wrapped her up in his arms and whispered in her ear, “Whatever it is, say it. I want to know.”
She continued to tremble in his arms. He cradled her head in one hand and ran the other up and down her back, desperate to comfort her but unsure exactly how. “Sometimes you smell like smoke,” choked from the ashen embers of her throat. He froze. “And,” another quiver, “when you do, if it happens to be one of the times I catch her scent…it’s like it’s all happening all over again. I’m losing her again…in the smoke. I can’t have both of you.” She lifted her head. “I need her. I have to keep every memory of her because…that’s all I have left.” She shook her head as if that might somehow fix this. “I’ve wanted you for so long, but I feel like I have to choose between you. I think that’s why I never let myself consider the two of us.”