Dave turned around and grinned at him. “Come on there, Weston! Are you actually telling me that you can’t keep up with me?”
“Aw, I like to give the senior citizens a nice head-start, so they think that they have some chance of beating me.” Jake grinned back. “You haven’t got a prayer, old man.”
The truth was, of course, that at fifty-three years of age, Dave Reid was not anywhere near old. The other truth was that he had kicked Jake’s ass in a horse race on more than one occasion.
Dave turned around again on Pepper, stroking his mane and murmuring to him. He seemed to listen, as he always did, and Jake could see his flanks tightening, getting ready to start galloping. He tightened his grip on Rocket, his own stallion, and waited for Dave to call it.
Suddenly, Dave’s whole body changed. He sat up straight and quivering, like electricity was moving through him. He jerked and twisted, seeming to have no control over his movements.
“Dave?”
Even before the name was out of Jake’s mouth, Dave fell off Pepper. Straight down, he didn’t even reach out with his hands to break his fall. Pepper reared up, shocked and confused, and for one panicked second, Jake thought he’d step on Dave’s body lying underneath him.
Jake vaulted off Rocket, ran to Dave’s prone body. He turned Dave over gently. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the sky and his face was paper-white. His breathing was shallow and raspy.
Oh, my God. Jake dug in to his jeans pocket and found his cell phone. He called 911.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“I’m with a man who I think is having a heart attack. We’re about three miles north of Open Skies Ranch – you know it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“OK.”
“Help will be there in about eight minutes.”
“Hurry. Please hurry.”
Jake hung up the phone and cradled Dave’s head. “Dave. Can you hear me?”
Dave Reid’s eyes moved slightly, down and away from the sky, and he stared up at Jake. They were mint-green eyes, clear and amazing. Normally, they were filled with humor and joy and intelligence, but right now they were scared and confused and hurting.
“Jake? What happened?”
“You fell,” Jake said. “But the ambulance is on its way, OK? You’ll be fine. You just hold on.”
Dave’s light eyes were locked on Jake’s dark ones, and as the two men gazed at each other, they both knew.
Oh, no. No, no, no.
“That is not going to happen, Dave. You hear me? You’re young and healthy and strong. It’s all going to be fine.”
Dave shook his head, his eyes no longer bewildered and frightened and lost; now they were calm and open to what was coming. In his gaze, he silently asked Jake to accept that, to not make these last few moments a fight.
Jake looked down at the man he had come to respect more than anyone else in his life and knew what he needed to do for him. He wrapped Dave in his arms and held on. And he told him that he was there, that he wasn’t going anywhere, that Dave wasn’t going to die alone.
Dave looked up at the sky, seeing it for the last time. He smiled.
“I should have known her. I should have known my daughter.”
Those astounding green eyes closed.
Jake cried out, certain that he’d never see them again.
**
Jake cried out.
He sat up in bed, his broad chest heaving and the sheets tangled around him. The dream left him shaky and shaken, as it always did. He tried to catch his breath.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, pushed both hands through his sweaty hair. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table: almost 1 a.m. He sighed and got to his feet. There would be no more sleep for a while, he knew.
He stood by the window, staring up at the mountains, thinking about those last few moments with Dave. He was still glad that he’d been there for them and that Dave hadn’t passed on alone and scared. It was the biggest honor of his life to have been there for Dave when he needed Jake the most.
His gaze wandered up to the Big House and he was surprised to see that the entire lower level was lit up. He blinked. Julie must be awake. Maybe she was having trouble sleeping. His lips twitched up in a rueful grin; well, he knew something about that.
He thought about those green eyes, looking at him with respect and kindness and pride from Dave’s face; with desire and heat and lust from Julie’s. He looked up at the Big House again.
Then he pulled on his jeans and a t-shirt, his boots and his heavy coat. He brushed his hands through his hair a bit, trying to make it lie flat. It would do… nobody looked hot at 1 a.m. Except maybe Julie, now that he thought of it.
Chapter Six
Julie jumped about two feet in the air when she heard the knock at the Big House door. She looked at the clock in the living room, just to make sure that it was, actually, one o’clock in the morning. What the hell? That must be Jake. Why is he up now? Is something wrong at the stables?
“Jake? Is that you?” she called.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
She wrapped a blanket from the sofa around her thin silk pyjama top and opened the door. She blinked up at him. “What’s wrong? Is one of the horses sick or something?”
He stood there, impossibly handsome and huge. His black hair was sticking up in the back and his gray eyes were warm as he grinned at her. “Nope. Nothing wrong. I just couldn’t sleep, and I saw that you were having the same problem. Thought I’d join you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He held up the bottle he had hidden behind his back. “I brought some whiskey. Maybe a shot will help us both sleep? Sorry I don’t have any white wine.”
“Well, I was about to make some tea. Is whiskey good in tea?”
“Sure is. Better than white wine, for damn sure.”
“OK, then. Come on in.”
He stepped in to the warmth and the firelight and took a deep breath. Her home smelled of cinnamon coffee and roses and lemongrass and some kind of pure, clean scent. Maybe it came from her: her hair was down and fell loose over her shoulders and it smelled of flowers and vanilla.
“Hang up your coat there,” she said. “I’ll grab you a glass.”
“OK.”
He watched her walk away and admired the rolling curve of her butt in a pair of green silk pyjama shorts. Her legs were curvy and strong and bare, her toes had some soft pink nail polish on them. She was just so beautiful, and even in the wee hours of the morning, without makeup or elegant clothes or high heels, she just took his breath away.
Julie came back, offered him a tumbler. “Will this do?”
“Yep.” He poured out two fingers of whiskey. “Where’s yours?”
“One sec.”
She went back to the kitchen and took the kettle off the stove, poured the water in to a large mug. “I’ll give that a minute, then you can put in a bit of whiskey. Not too much, OK? I don’t want to be drunk.”
“No problem.”
“Sit down, Jake. Get comfortable.”
He sat down on the floor in front of the fire and leaned back against one of the sofas. He stared in to the flames and sipped his drink. She came over to him now, and gave him her cup of tea. “OK, bartender. One small top-up.”
Jake poured a bit. “Enough?”
“Let me see.” She stirred, took a sip and handed it back. “Maybe a bit more.”
“OK.”
She sat down on the floor opposite him, leaning against the other sofa, the flickering fire between them. They regarded each other.
“Did you have the dream about my father again?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Jake took a sip of whiskey. “His eyes, Julie. His eyes just looking up at me.”
“I’m sorry, Jake.”
“Yeah, me too.” He shook his head and tried to smile. “So. Why are you up?”
Julie looked in to the fire. “Oh, I don’t know. Just thinking, I guess.”
“About what?”
“My Mom.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “It’s the anniversary of her death today. Well, it was yesterday.”
Jake sat, horrified. “I’m sorry, Julie. Why didn’t you tell me when I was up here for coffee yesterday?”
She shrugged. “It was eleven years ago now. That’s a long time.”
“Yeah. But your mother dying. That’s one of those things that doesn’t really go away.”
“No. It doesn’t. But it does get easier as time goes on.” She took a small drink. “Huh. This tea isn’t so bad.”
“Good.”
“So, anyway. I guess I’m just up because I was thinking about her.”
Jake looked at her sitting there across the room from him, her bare toes peeking out from under the blanket she had wrapped loosely around her shoulders. The sight of her naked feet struck him as both innocent and provocative.
“Remember a couple of months ago, when I asked you to tell me about your mother?” he said. “When we were in your office?”
She glanced at him, her eyes guarded. “Yes.”
“Will you tell me about her now?”
Julie looked at him and thought how gorgeous he was, sitting in the firelight all relaxed and unknowingly sexy at this ungodly hour. The muscles in his arms and chest were clearly visible through his white t-shirt as he casually leaned one elbow on a raised knee. She found that she wanted to tell him. She looked down again, surprised at the urge to talk.
“Julie? You know you can trust me, right? I mean, I won’t tell anyone. Not even Mattie. I swear.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. And I want to tell you. It’s just that – I’ve never told anyone the whole story, out loud. All at once.”
He leaned forward, his eyes concerned. “Is it a bad story?”
“I guess parts of it are, yeah.”
“OK.”
“OK. So. You know my Mom raised me alone. I think that she gave it her best shot for a while… I can’t be sure, but I do remember a time when we went to the park and I had Christmas presents and we had peanut butter in the cupboards all the time. Never anything much, you know, since we lived off government assistance and her parents had nothing at all to do with us. But she tried.”
“Things changed when I was about five, I guess. That was when there was less food in the house, all of a sudden, and Mom always seemed to be sleeping on the sofa. She smelled bad, too. Then bottles appeared, all over the counters in the kitchen. I suspect that she’d always been a drinker, but I think it got out of control when I was five. Maybe four. I can’t really remember. Or maybe it was always that way, and I just got old enough to notice.”
“Anyway, I was in school all day, and I’d come home to find her passed out and no food in the house and the lights or water or heat would be turned off sometimes. I got taken away from her three times in two years, I think. I was in some kind of foster care and then I’d be given back to her. Back and forth, back and forth. Between schools, and homes, and agencies. No predictability or stability at all. And I had no choice in the matter… every decision was made for me, without any discussion with me. Everything was just chaos, all the time.”
Julie was staring in to her cup now, staring down in to the amber liquid. It was beautiful in the firelight – warm and comforting. She took a sip of her tea and whiskey.
“Everything changed again when I was seven. That was when I figured out how to stay with her. I knew that all those child welfare agencies and social workers were looking for a few basic things from us: food, heat, light, water, bills paid. For me to be in school. For me to be clean. For Mom to be vertical when they came around to check up on us. I knew that if these things were in place, I’d be allowed to stay.”
“So every morning, I got up and wrote a list of things to do that day. I’d force her out of bed, force her in to the shower, force her to get on the bus and we’d go get the food stamps, or pick up the assistance check, or stand in line to pay the bills. I had everything written on a calendar, and so I’d keep track of what was due and when, and the days to pick up money. I figured out how much was left every month after bills for food that wasn’t covered by the food stamps and I’d write a list and go shopping with her. I’d make sure we got bread and bananas and cans of soup, but I had to keep her happy, so I also made sure there was money left over for her to drink.”
Jake felt a painful squeezing on his heart at the thought of a seven-year-old Julie sitting in a cold apartment, writing lists and shaking her hung-over mother awake to go collect the food stamps. Jesus Christ. How the fuck did she get away from all that?
“See, I just made sure to check all the boxes that the agencies were looking for. I knew how to make our lives look like what they wanted from us, even if none of it was actually true. I just had to be organized and meticulous and vigilant and never, ever drop a single ball that I was juggling. I could never relax, or take a day off, or leave Mom alone for too long, or forget anything. But I learned to be in total control of our lives, all the time.”
“I was out of school a lot, but when I was there, I worked my ass off. I was good at it, and I liked it, and it was the one place in my life that had rules and where things worked on a schedule. I knew what was expected of me, and I knew my place. I had a chair, and a desk, and assignments. It was calm, you know? It was stable.”
Jake nodded but she wasn’t looking at him.
“How long did this go on for?” he asked.
She jumped a bit, as if she’d forgotten he was there. Those amazing eyes looked over at him from across the room. “Oh, about seven years, I guess. A while. A long while.”
“So, you basically took care of your Mom and yourself all that time.”
“Yeah. I did. That’s why you upset me so much that day, you see. When you said that I had no idea what it was like to care for anyone other than myself, or to have anything or anyone depend on me or need me.”
His gut twisted in shame as he remembered those words. You asshole.
“I’m so sorry, Julie. That was unforgivable.”
“You had no way of knowing, Jake.”
Her simple forgiveness overwhelmed him with its sweetness. He gripped the whiskey tumbler in his hand, resisting the urge to fling himself across the carpeted floor and hold her. He wanted to make her feel safe. He wanted to make her to feel good.
“Anyway. When I was fourteen, Mom met a guy. I mean, there were always guys around, it seemed, but none who lasted. Carl actually moved in, and that was a first. He was an alcoholic, just like Mom was, but he was a mean drunk. Mom wasn’t mean, you see… she never laid a hand on me when she was drunk. In fact, just about the only time that she ever hugged me or told me that she loved me was when she was off her face. The rest of the time, she completely ignored me. But Carl... he had a nasty temper.”
Julie paused and took a drink of her tea. She started to shake, and that made her panic a bit.
“Julie?” Jake leaned forward. “Hey, you OK?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s just – Carl.”
“What did he do to you?” Jake’s voice was low and dangerous.
“Oh, not what you’re thinking. Not exactly. I mean, he’d get drunk and start to shout and throw things and Mom would shout back. I’d hide in my bedroom closet and cover my ears and pretend to be somewhere else.”
“Where would you pretend to be?”
“In a blue room.”
“What?”
“I’d imagine that I was in a little blue room, under the water. It was cool and safe and had no sound. It was like a – a little blue bubble. My little blue world.” She looked at him. “I still do it, you know. When I start to feel like everything is getting out of my control, I go back there. It helps. That day that I passed out, that day when everything was just spinning away from me, I just couldn’t get to the blue room in time, and I got –”
“Overwhelmed,” Jake finished, remembering her words.
She smiled. “Yes.�
�� She looked at the fire. “But I thought I’d be able to live with it all, even with Carl, if I could just have that one safe place. But then one night, he came in to my room while I was sleeping and he got in to bed with me. He was naked.” She stopped.
Jake tensed up. He’d been expecting something like this, but now that it was here, he didn’t think he could handle it. His hand shook and he tried to calm down. I swear to God, if he hit or raped her, I will track this fucker down and beat him senseless.
“He – he – well, you know what he started to do. I fought and tried to scream, but he had his hand over my mouth, and he was so strong. Then somehow, I managed to elbow him, right under the jaw. Really hard.”
“Atta girl.” He resisted the urge to cheer.
“Yeah. It knocked him over backwards on to the floor and I was able to get to my feet.” She looked over at him. “I…ummm…I kicked him in the balls. Really, really hard.”
Jake grinned.
She looked in to her glass. “Huh. Empty.”
Jake got up on his knees and crawled over the floor to her with the bottle in his hand. He poured some whiskey. “You want some tea with this?”
“No. I’ll drink it like this.” She took a sip. “I think I may be developing a taste for it.”
He sat down right in front of her now, his leg touching hers, his hand inches away from her bare feet. He stared at her face, willing this story to have a happy ending.
“Anyway, after I stomped on his balls, he howled like a stuck pig. Mom came bursting in, drunk of course, and started shouting at me. She accused me of trying to seduce her man, and she called me a cheap slut and…well. It doesn’t matter what else she said.”
Julie took another sip of whiskey. It warmed her as it went down, burning right through the block of ice that always formed in the pit of her stomach when she thought about that night.
“She kicked me out. I packed a backpack with my school books and some clothes and left.”
Jake started. “She what? But you were – what? Fourteen?”
“Yeah.”
“But where did you go?”
Open Skies Page 14