Watermark (The Emerald Series Book 3)

by James, Kimberly

  “I promise this is enough," he said. "Nothing more for tonight and I’ll give you your divorce. That’s what you want isn’t it?” He couldn’t quite keep the edge from creeping into his voice. His fingers pinched on either side of my jaw, forcing me to look at him when I tried to turn my head away. Jamie had never touched me in anger before, but I felt the anger and the hurt in his grip, saw it in the violent turmoil that was his eyes.

  I nodded as the weight of him pressed down on me.

  “That’s not good enough. You have to say it. If you say it, I’ll know you mean it. And if you say it, you better mean it. Don’t fuck with me about this.”

  And here I’d thought he was going to let me off easy. I’d hoped. Couldn’t he see how much this hurt me too? There was nothing easy about saying goodbye.

  “I want a divorce Jamie.”

  He went completely still. He didn’t breathe. His eyes stayed on mine but the light in them vanished. I’d hurt him. Erin Shaw, a mere human girl, had wounded this seemingly impenetrable man. Not just wounded. He looked gutted. He held himself over me and stared at me for what seemed like forever.

  “But I get tonight?” His voice ghosted over my skin, leaving a tingle in its wake.

  “We get tonight,” I said.

  His head descended and his mouth claimed mine, his tongue hot and wet. And now it seemed silly what we’d agreed upon. What I’d made him agree to.

  We lay on the blanket entwined, kissing, touching, and I thought this was worse. This was worse than having sex. We were making love anyway with every touch and with every endearment he whispered in my ear. And when his hand slipped between my legs and pressed into the center of me he groaned. I arched my hips but he wouldn't take the touch any deeper than to press his fingers over my jeans.

  "I can't even touch you like I want," he said, his voice full of self-loathing. "They're right. I'm a monster."

  "No Jamie, don't say that. You're not." I took his hand and brought it to my mouth and kissed his fingers, skimming the soft webbing with my lips. He wrapped me in his arms and held onto me as if I were the one link that held him to this world above the surface.

  Sometime during the night, after I’d dozed, I woke to the feel of him against my back. He ground his hips against my bottom. My hands fisted in the quilt.

  “Just do it.” I rolled over and faced him, slipping my hand under the waistband of his shorts. “One time. Just one more time.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Please,” I gasped as he rocked into my touch.

  “You think I would let you leave then? That I could let you go?”

  So we were at an impasse. I was denying him forever, and he was denying me tonight. The sweetness of the hours before turned into something else. More intense. More urgent. More desperate as dawn loomed and with it the end of us.

  In the pre-dawn hour, he wrapped his arms around me and held tight. “What will I do without you? Who will tell me my name?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged his arms to my chest. I had no reply.

  The next time I opened my eyes the sun was up and Jamie sat beside me, staring out over the water. He took my hand when I turned over and helped me to my feet. Neither of us spoke. What else could be said other than an unvoiced goodbye?

  I had another life to start. My afterlife.

  I looked into his face, his eyes so clear and honest as if his soul was an open wound laid bare.

  “I came back for you,” he said.

  A tear swelled over the rim of his eye. It slid over his cheek, and I watched as the green rivulet of moisture transformed into a perfect pearl. My heart contracted to the point of pain. The last time I’d seen this had been our wedding day. That pearl had been lost at the mercy of the Deep.

  This pearl fell into my palm, the heat from it almost burning my skin. I wished it would. Then I could take a part of him with me and keep it forever.

  “Jamie…”

  “Keep it.” The trail of his pearl gleamed on his cheek, like a smear of pain. “I want you to have it.” His hand closed over mine, trapping the pearl inside. His fingers squeezed around my fist. He might as well have been squeezing my heart.

  “Jamie I…” His lips stole my words. How could I be doing this? How could I leave him?

  When he lifted his head, he cupped my face, eyes searching mine. “This is the right thing to do, Erin. I want you to be happy. You’re doing the right thing.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it.” It felt like I was ripping my heart out.

  “I know, but it will. In time it will.” He pulled me close and all I could think was this was it. This was the last time he would ever touch me.

  I was leaving him and he was comforting me, the stroke of his hands reassuring, the feel of his mouth a promise. He took a step back, leaving me cold and exposed to the wind.

  “You should go,” he said.

  “Jamie…”

  “Go.” His hands on my shoulders turned me toward the house. Thankfully, he gave me a gentle push. I wouldn’t have taken that first step otherwise. I fought the urge to turn around and tell him this was all some stupid mistake. Instead, I clutched his pearl, knowing I would have a part of him with me always.

  I stopped at the top of the small rise at the back of his house and gazed back over my shoulder. He was watching me. Perfectly still. Perfectly at home. This was where he belonged.

  And right now, I belonged somewhere else.

  32

  Jamie sat at the table in his kitchen. It didn't feel like his kitchen, his house. Nothing about the place he used to live felt right anymore. He'd tried to make it work. Without Erin, what did it matter?

  He should never have come back. She was right. He didn't belong here.

  “Hey man, rough night?” Noah smirked, taking a bowl from the cabinet.

  Jamie felt the confounded weight of his brother's stare as he lifted the beer to his mouth. It was the strongest thing they'd had in the house, and he had a nice line of empty bottles going across the table. For all his trying, he'd been unable to get a proper buzz going. He couldn't even get wasted anymore. Another thing to add to his list of failures.

  Noah took the seat across from him, and Jamie kept his eyes on Noah as he added the empty bottle to his collection and opened another. Noah's brows rose as he poured the cereal into his bowl. It was an effort for Jamie to not reach over and knock the pity off of his brother's face. Nothing had pitied him in the Deep. He'd been feared.

  “You could say that.” Jamie slammed his bottle on the table.

  “I told you she wasn't big on tuna,” Noah said, stuffing his mouth with a spoonful of cereal.

  Before he could stifle the impulse, Jamie exploded out of his chair on a harsh growl. With one sweep of his arm, he knocked the table over. Noah vaulted to his feet, but not before the corner of the table banged against his shin.

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” Noah glared at him over the upturned table. Milk ran over his stomach and blood oozed from his shin. His bowl of cereal scattered over the tiles along with Jamie's beer bottles. They spun across the floor, the glass clinking hollowly until they finally rolled to a stop.

  "What's the matter? I'll tell you what's the matter. I didn't realize it would be such a damn inconvenience on everyone for me to not be dead." He could feel every one of those patches on his body tingling with just enough of the monster left to keep him from feeling completely his old self. He knew, as he stared at his brother, that Noah saw it too. The beast preying under the surface of his skin. Noah might not know what he was looking at. He might not understand the shimmer in the air. They all tried to hide it. They all tried to tell him it didn't matter. That he wasn't a monster anymore. But he knew they were wrong. And Erin knew too. That's why she was leaving him.

  And no matter how many times she told him his name, he still didn't know who or what he was anymore. That's why he had to let her go.

  “Jamie.” His mother's voice admonished from the d
oorway.

  For two years he’d wondered what his name was and every time he heard it now, it was someone else's name he heard, someone who didn't exist anymore.

  “You know that's not true."

  But it was, and she couldn't hide the lie in the subtle shift in the color of her eyes. The lie in the slight acceleration of her pulse. The lie in the slight inflection of her voice. None of them wanted to admit the truth. This would never be home again.

  "Isn't it? I screwed things up with you and Marshall. Noah cringes every time I tell him what to do. Hell, he's the real man of the house now. And Erin—" It hurt to say her name.

  I want a divorce, Jamie.

  The words still cut like a thousand knives. She might as well have spilt open his chest and yanked his heart out with her bare hand.

  "What’s going on, Jamie?”

  Stop it.

  Jamie wanted to yell as his mom sidestepped a dribble of spilled beer and made her way over to him.

  God, don't touch me. Please don't touch me.

  “Erin’s leaving.” He clenched his hands to keep himself from picking the table off the floor and smashing it through the wall, ripping the whole house down.

  “What do you mean she’s leaving?” His mom and Noah exchanged a glance ripe with pity.

  And the monster in him roared, the pressure of it budding in his chest. Don't pity me.

  “She wants a divorce," Jamie said. "She’s going to college. FSU.” He looked around at the mess in the kitchen and his mouth formed a humorless smile. It was all such a mess. He was a mess. “Can you blame her?”

  Tallahassee was a two and a half hour drive, which was as good as going across the world. Charms could be put in place for someone like Noah. Give him the ability to tolerate a few days away from the water. But Jamie knew without asking there wasn't a charm powerful enough to block the cravings of his body. He was as trapped now as he had been in the Facility. As he had been in the Deep when he hadn't known his name.

  “I’m sure it’s not like that.”

  “That's exactly the way it is.” He ran his hands over his head and tried to breathe, but the air seemed to clog halfway in his throat.

  “It’s okay.” She made a move toward him, but he brushed off her attempt to touch him, comfort him. Nothing could comfort him.

  “No, it’s not.” Jamie bent and snagged the bottles off the floor, his movements stiff, like his joints needed a good oiling. The walls were closing in on him, his instincts urging him to run.

  “I’m sorry… I can’t be in here anymore.” He chunked the bottles in the trashcan then turned to his mom. Her pale eyes rounded under the worried line of her brow. He couldn't escape the house fast enough. He couldn't escape their pity fast enough.

  Jamie made his way to the beach, feet slugging through the sand, but he didn't go into the water. He didn't trust himself not to keep swimming and see where the Deep would take him. He still struggled with the compulsion to flee this place. She, the Deep, still called to him. Urging him home.

  Home. He'd thought Erin was home. Home was here. Home was with his family. Maybe if he repeated it to himself enough times he would finally believe it. Right now, he felt about as homeless as Jeb. No, that wasn't right. Jeb was more a part of his family than he was.

  The scrape of footsteps in the sand sounded behind him. Noah had followed him—a pattern he'd established as soon as he was old enough to walk. It had irked Jamie at first, always having his little brother tagging along. Then he'd grown to expect it. At some point, he'd started to like the way his baby brother worshipped him. It had made him feel like he could be anything, do anything. He'd wanted to make his brother proud. Now Jamie felt like the little brother.

  “Hey, man. I’m sorry,” Noah said, settling beside him.

  The sun was too bright today. Too warm. The sand too gritty. Even the breeze coming off the Gulf offended him. The monster in him hated land.

  Jamie clenched his jaw, watching the scuttle of a group of sandpipers chasing the tide. Always chasing and never seeming to catch anything.

  "You've got nothing to be sorry for," Jamie said. He was the one who was sorry. For so many things. Some things he couldn't admit to himself yet.

  "I looked for you," Noah said, his gaze cast out over the Deep. She was calm today, with a slow roll of gentle waves. Simply watching it, listening to it, calmed Jamie.

  "I didn't believe you were gone," his brother continued. "Not after Dad. Marshall wouldn't tell me much, but then he was as stunned as we all were. I mean, this was you we were talking about. Nothing could hurt you. Nothing could touch you."

  Jamie nearly choked on the egg of emotion clogging his throat. He wished Noah would shut up. He didn't want to hear any more about the way his family lost him. Missed him. He didn’t want to feel guilty for dying. He didn’t want to feel guilty for coming back.

  "Mom was doing her best not to let me see her crying all the time. I quit school. I couldn't shake the feeling you were still out there, and one day I left. I was gone for months. So don't think I don't understand a little bit of what it's been like for you. There were days when I forgot my name too."

  "But you came back." And Jamie had stayed away. Too long apparently.

  "I didn't want to. I heard something. A girl. And she made me realize this is where I wanted be," Noah said, and something in his quiet tone made Jamie look at him, the desolation that plagued his voice and the features of his face. "But it was still one of the hardest things I've ever forced myself to do. Give up on you. It was harder than when Dad died."

  "Shit." Jamie swallowed the sticky emotion begging for release.

  "Yeah, and Mom held me in this very spot while I cried like a baby when I couldn't find you." Noah paused and turned his gaze toward him, and Jamie realized he was no longer looking into the eyes of his little brother. He was looking into the eyes of a man. "You being back is not an inconvenience, but it is an adjustment."

  All Jamie could do for a few beats of time was stare at his brother and wait for his voice to come back to him. Even still it cracked when he spoke. "It was worth it. Even if I had known what was going to happen with Erin, it was worth it to come back and see you all grown-up." Jamie couldn't stop from reaching out and running his hand over Noah's hair. It was better than blubbering, which is what he felt like doing. It wasn't until Jamie had thoroughly messed Noah's hair he drew his hand back.

  "You ever scruff my hair like that again, I'll kick your ass. I don't care if you are a monster." Noah wiped the moisture from his eyes. "And that's what pisses me off the most."

  "What's that?" Jamie asked, the tightness in his chest he'd been suffering from since Erin said the word "divorce" easing to a bearable ache. Jamie had other people to live for, to come home for, his brother being one of them. Somewhere in the night he'd forgotten that.

  "If you'd come back the same, I probably would've been able to take you down. But you have to come back as this beast. And I mean that in a good way. Hell, Jamie." Noah's words nearly choked him and he looked away.

  This time when Jamie reached out Noah ducked his head. Jamie only wrapped his arm around Noah's neck and pulled him into his shoulder. Then he did something he'd never done before. Something his dad used to do to the both of them. He kissed Noah on the top of his head, and Jamie's eyes swelled so sharp he smelled his own tears. Then he let his brother go and they sat for long minutes, both eager for the emotions to pass. When Jamie thought he could speak again he asked, “Did I do the wrong thing marrying Erin?”

  When Erin had told him she was pregnant, he’d been so adamant with his mother and with Marshall, insisting he could take care of her, demanding he should be the one to take care of her. He'd been so sure of himself, so confident. Marshall had said something about not compounding the mistake of a baby by getting married. Jamie had punched Marshall in the face and said what he and Erin had done wasn’t a mistake. Had he been wrong?

  “I think under the circumstances it was the righ
t thing to do,” his brother said, his tone cautious.

  “So now that there’s no baby you think I should let her go?” Like he had a choice. She was leaving and he didn't think there was anything he could do to stop her. And he had to question now whether he wanted to.

  "I didn't say that. But if it's what she wants." Noah put to him gently. And there it was again, that pitying expression on his brother's face.

  “I bulldozed her before. God, I loved her. And I saw the way she looked at me, and I don’t know. Maybe I did take advantage of her.” Jamie ran his hands over his face.

  “That’s not the way I remember it,” Noah said. “Erin may have been young, but she’s Marshall’s daughter. She’s not easily pushed around. Even by you."

  “Still, you think I was wrong?” Jamie kind of wanted someone to come out and say it. That he'd been a douche to go after Marshall's sixteen-year-old daughter. Maybe it would make him feel better about Erin dumping him like so much baggage.

  “I think it’s really none of my business,” Noah said, shifting his foot through the sand.

  “That’s bullshit, Noah. It is your business. You were with her when I couldn’t be. You probably know more about her than I do now.”

  And that hurt to say. Jamie had always thought Noah would be better for Erin. He might still think that if Noah didn't have Caris now. At least one of them was going to get the girl.

  “It tore her up, Jamie.” Noah paused, the slight quake in his voice revealing his depth of feeling. Noah wiped nervous hands on his shorts. They shook slightly.

  "What?" Jamie's eyes narrowed unable to ignore the warnings going off in his overactive mind. "Tell me."

  Noah sighed through his hesitancy and Jamie braced himself, sure that Noah was about to share something he'd rather not.

  "We'd been waiting for weeks, both of us holding out hope that you were still alive. Erin was still staying here, and I was out swimming one night. It was late and the water was rough." Noah lifted his head, chin bobbing toward the Deep. "I found her about a hundred yards out. She looked so serene with her hair flowing around her body, her eyes wide. She hadn’t looked that peaceful in weeks."