by Jayce Carter
And yet he didn’t soften at all. “That’s what you think right now, Jas, but that’s just right now. What happens in a week? In a month? Hell, what happens in a year when you get scared and take off because this isn’t so fun anymore?”
She opened her mouth to tell him that wouldn’t happen, but the words didn’t come. No one could promise what would happen years from now, least of all her. Instead, she closed her mouth and waited for him to continue.
He sighed, as though her not being able to deny it proved the point. “I can’t live my life waiting for that, waking up every damned day in a panic to see if you’re still there, fearing every time you’re gone that you aren’t coming back. It’s not fair to ask me to suffer through that for a third time.”
Jasmine set the cups on the counter, afraid her trembling hands would spill the hot liquid, despite their lids. “But I love you.”
The words were so simple, but she couldn’t think of a single more important statement, a fact that mattered more than that. She loved him. Okay, so she’d gotten things wrong before, but she hadn’t run this time. He couldn’t blame her for getting coffee. He couldn’t end things this way just because of their past.
It wasn’t fair. She was finally all in and there he was, pulling away.
Was this how she’d made him feel before? It really sucks.
He met her gaze with so much regret in his dark eyes, and that was worse than if he’d been unfeeling. She’d have preferred he look at her as if she were some useless bug he could squash, because at least she could be angry then. “I know you do, and you know I love you too, Jas, but that isn’t enough, not this time.”
She wanted to argue with him, but the look on his face said he wouldn’t budge. Besides, she was finding it difficult to breathe right then.
The entire time they’d known each other, it had always been the same. She ran, he chased.
When she’d finally realized she didn’t want to run, that she needed him, when she stood still, he didn’t want her.
“Right,” she said, her voice quiet.
His expression softened, just a bit, but not the resolve in his eyes. “It would be best if you moved out. I know a few landlords, so I’ll find you a place, same rent.”
And he’s kicking me out?
Jasmine rubbed the heel of her hand against her sternum as if that could ease the hurt there. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll find something.”
“I’m not going to just throw you out, sun—” He cut himself off, as if the endearment he’d used for her no longer felt right.
“It’s fine. I’ll send someone to get my things.”
“Don’t be like that, I’ll—”
“Stop it!” Jasmine shouted, her hurt boiling over and transforming into anger. She shook her head, then lowered her voice. “Just stop it. I don’t need you to be the good guy, here, to fix things. I’ll take care of it. I’m not your problem anymore.”
His shoulders slumped, and he looked as if he’d say something else.
What else could he say? Nothing that wouldn’t further shatter her heart, so she spoke over him. “I told you love destroys, Finn. Looks like I was right.”
With that she turned on her heel and left, the cups of coffee she’d gotten as some bonding gift sitting on the counter.
She’d lost everything again, and worse?
This time she really cared.
Chapter Ten
Finn stared at Jasmine’s truck in his shop, the last connection he had to her.
She’d gotten her things while he was gone, and he couldn’t help wondering if she’d needed help moving the heavier items.
Having the guest room empty felt as though something were missing. When he’d spotted her coffee cup, beside his where they sat in front of the coffee pot, a strange longing had started inside him. He’d put the second cup back in the cabinet, since he didn’t want to see it each morning.
It had only been two days and already he found himself regretting his choice. Each time his hand itched to call her, he reminded himself of that crushing feeling when he’d woken to find her gone.
Even if it hurt now, it had to hurt less in the long run to end things instead of letting them drag out.
Or so he told himself.
His general lack of sleep and headache said perhaps he’d chosen wrong.
“Aren’t you a mess?” Gretchen, his sister, came into the small office behind the main entry.
“If you’re here just to insult me, get it over with.”
She sat on the corner of the desk. “If I’m insulting you, you’ll know it. Actually, I came by because Darren learned to ride a bike and wanted to show everyone here.”
“This is a business, you know.”
“Yes, and your precious business now has all the workers out back watching a six-year-old ride a bike. I blame management.”
Finn sighed softly before giving in to the tired smile at the thought of his nephew managing to get all the hard-asses who worked for him outside and, no doubt, cheering.
“So, I’m guessing she’s gone?”
Finn nodded. No need to use names. They both knew who they were talking about. “Last thing is for her to pick up her truck. Had a flat tire.” He’d also given the thing a full once over and checked all the fluids. He really was pathetic, wasn’t he?
“I can’t believe she ran off again.”
“She didn’t,” Finn admitted. “I just can’t go through that again.”
“So, you’re afraid she’ll leave you, and to avoid that, you’re leaving her?” she asked slowly.
Finn pressed his lips together. “That’s oversimplifying it.”
“Is it?”
“She never was going to settle down, not really. Do you want me wasting more years on a girl who will only end up breaking my heart again?”
Gretchen didn’t respond at first, her gaze tracing around the small office. “You know, I thought you getting that house was a mistake. I told Mom, this was just a reaction to Jasmine, nothing more. You were going to throw yourself into fixing up that house, and it was going to kick your ass.”
“You’re a real supportive sibling, you know?”
“The thing is, I saw you overcome everything for that house. You worked there every damned night, and no matter what happened, you kept going. It was one hell of a fixer-upper, but you didn’t let any of the disasters there stop you. Even when you found out all the water pipes needed to be replaced, you didn’t think for a minute about giving in. You stuck with it.”
Finn blew out a loud breath. “Yeah, well, those jobs hadn’t already run out on me twice.”
“I saw you when the first big rainstorm hit and you ran around that house putting bowls down everywhere. You can’t tell me that house didn’t break your heart a time or two. The thing is, you knew what you wanted and you didn’t let anything stop you. And now? Now I see you at your house, and I get it. I get why you were obsessed, and I get why you kept at it. You saw something in that place that no one else saw at first, but you were right.” She hopped off the desk. “And when I saw you with Jasmine, I saw it then, too.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
She tucked her hands into her pockets as she headed for the door. “That’s up to you. I just can’t imagine you’d put in more dedication to a building than you would to the woman you love.”
Finn frowned as his sister walked out, as he was left with her words.
It was easy for her to say, and no matter how much he wanted to do what she suggested, he just didn’t think he had it in him anymore.
* * * *
Jasmine hated the idea of leaving town. She’d found herself again in the trees, in the familiar mountains of the place.
Still, the idea of running into Finn made her have a mini-panic attack each time she considered it. There was no chance she could live there, going to the store, eating at the restaurants, always knowing that Finn could walk in at any time.
Or
, god forbid, him with some other woman.
Jasmine could talk about the higher road all she wanted, but that didn’t stop her being pretty sure she’d scratch the eyes out of any woman she saw on Finn’s arm.
It turned out that Jasmine made for quite the jealous woman, something she’d never thought of herself as before.
So, leaving was her only option, even if it killed her.
At the very least, she was doing better financially. Her love life might be in shambles, but her budget had improved dramatically. It had worked out well that Aaron had refused to sign the papers, because the lawyer that Finn had connected her with had already bared his metaphorical teeth at Aaron and his father, getting the case taken to another county where his father lacked sway.
Aaron’s calls had instantly stopped, and she’d even had some of her assets made available—probably a goodwill attempt by Aaron when he realized he’d have a bigger fight than he wanted.
It meant Jasmine had the ability to go anywhere, something she’d wanted so badly just a few short weeks ago, and yet now she wanted nothing more than to stay.
The last messy thing to deal with was her truck. She’d considered calling the thing a loss and just mailing the pink slip to Finn as a ‘thanks for playing’ parting gift. At least she wouldn’t have to see him, then.
That seemed extreme, so she decided instead to go early in the morning. He tended to arrive later and work into the evening. If she showed when they first opened, she should be able to pay her bill, get her vehicle and leave without ever having to lay eyes on him.
And she needed that, because seeing him would break her heart.
* * * *
Finn hated mornings. His mother had always gotten on his case when he’d been younger about how sleeping in was lazy, how all days should start bright and early.
He’d bought into that, for a time, and forced himself up at the crack of dawn for some stupid early-bird-getting-the-worm nonsense. Eventually, as he’d grown up, he’d realized worms were a stupid prize, and likewise, waking up before dawn had little point. He was far more productive if he considered his normal preferred schedule, which meant getting to the shop by ten or so and working until eight.
However, sleep hadn’t been his friend in the days since he’d turned Jasmine away, and the only thing worse than forcing himself out of bed too early was lying in a bed awake because he couldn’t sleep.
Which had meant he’d dragged his exhausted and generally unpleasant ass into the shop at six in the morning, a time he felt should be taken out back and shot. Hell, his manager didn’t even get there till eight most days.
Three cups of coffee hadn’t improved his energy or his attitude. They’d only managed to put him on edge.
“You’re here early.” Trent walked in, one of the last people Finn had any desire to see.
Which wasn’t even a little fair, so Finn forced himself to be nice. “Couldn’t sleep. You on your way to work?”
Trent nodded, a strap over his shoulder. A backpack? That was not at all Trent’s normal style.
Sure enough, when he closed in, Trent pulled the bag off his shoulder and set it beside Finn.
Jasmine’s laptop case.
There went that stupid ache in his chest. “Why do you have that?”
“She left it in my car.”
Not even jealousy swirled inside Finn. Maybe he was just too tired to feel it. It was just another example of how right he was and how he wished things were different.
“Well, she moved out, so I won’t be seeing her, but her truck’s here. I’ll put the bag in the office and make a note on her file so they’ll give it to her when she comes in.”
Trent huffed, then shook his head. “Should have listened to you about her. That girl is trouble.”
Don’t I know it?
“I think some women, they’re just bigger than life, maybe. Can’t be tied down, no matter how much you want to.”
Trent lowered himself into a chair beside Finn. “That’s bullshit. Some just think they’re too good. They like the game, the chase, but they don’t want to give the prize away at the end.”
Finn’s hackles rose at the phrasing, but he blamed it on his piss-poor mood. “That’s not Jasmine. She’s gone, though, so what does it matter?”
Trent hit Finn on his back, a playful slap. “Yeah, we can’t let some girl get between us. Pussy isn’t worth fighting over.”
Again, the words ground over Finn’s nerves. Whether he was with her or not, he didn’t care for Trent talking about her as though she were nothing more than that.
But Trent wasn’t wrong about letting a woman fuck up their friendship. He’d have never let that happen with any other girl.
But Jasmine had never been any other girl.
“I really thought this time was different,” Finn said, instead. “She seemed different, somehow, but I realized all of a sudden, she’s the same risky bet as before. She’s like that asshole car dealer who buys junkers and tries to sell them at way over what they’re worth. He shows up here every couple months with some new one-of-a-kind deal and swears up and down this one is different. Every fucking time I take a risk with him, it never works out, which is why I don’t risk it anymore. Jasmine, she’s one of those cars. One big risk that never pays off.”
Trent patted Finn’s back then rose. He never stayed long in the shop, probably because he preferred his nice clean office. It was then that the light caught on his cheek, and Finn noticed it had darkened skin along the bone, and shadows over that eye.
“Someone hit you, buddy?”
Trent touched the spot automatically, which showed he knew it was there. The vain man might have even tried to hide it, given how uneven the bruise coloring was. “Jasmine has one hell of a swing, but, thankfully, not the muscle to go with it.”
Finn drew his eyebrows together. Jasmine hit Trent?
She had a temper, no doubt about that, but she wasn’t a violent person. In fact, probably due to her history with her stepdad, he doubted she’d hit anyone else. Even at times when he’d have supported her putting down some idiot causing her problems, she’d never resorted to that.
The unease he’d had, that lingering ‘something isn’t right here’ feeling in his gut, intensified. “Why’d she hit you?”
Trent waved the question off, as though it didn’t matter. No embarrassment, just the behavior of someone who thought the topic unimportant. “I told you, she likes to play games then back out.”
Back out? Finn kept himself in his seat, since he already was itching to react to that statement in a similar way to how it seemed Jasmine had.
However, Trent was slimy, and a womanizer, but he’d never known him to be an abuser. Maybe it was just Finn’s overprotective nature when it came to Jasmine or his shot nerves. “Well, now I need the story. What exactly happened?” He kept his voice mild, wanting Trent to come right out and say it, and he wouldn’t do that if he thought Finn would attack him.
Trent ran his fingers through his hair. “You know how she is. I mean, remember what she was wearing at your barbecue? She’s a walking advertisement. I was going crazy trying to get her to give in.”
Finn kept silent, even as he ground his molars together.
“Went in for a kiss and she gave me the cheek—twice. Kept inviting her over, she kept coming up with reasons why she couldn’t. I finally got her over by tricking her—” He paused to give Finn some sort of conspiratorial smirk, as if Finn would totally understand his frustration. “You know how some girls are, they need that whole ‘the car ran out of gas thing’ to give it up. So, I go out of my way and offer her a ride home but needed to ‘stop by’ my place. You know the drill. All that work just so she could walk away after it was over not feeling like a slut.” Trent shook his head. “Then she had the balls to hit me when I try to get her to actually pay up. Women, I swear.”
And that was it. That was the line at which Finn’s self-control took a swan dive. He rose from his chair, stari
ng at Trent as if he could figure out how he hadn’t seen this before.
He’d always thought he could spot an asshole anywhere, and yet Trent hadn’t acted this way before.
Then again, Finn wasn’t a woman Trent was trying to sleep with, so how would he even know? Trent had mouthed off in the past, but Finn had always taken it to be just big talk.
“You’re telling me you were being pushy when Jasmine told you no, and you forced her to hit you just to get you to knock it off?”
Trent must have heard the warning in Finn’s voice, because he lost that half-smile he’d had. “No, you aren’t listening. I didn’t attack her or anything. I’m not like that. Some girls, they just want to say no because they need you to prove you don’t give up so easily. You know what she’s like—”
Finn pointed a finger at him. “I’d be very careful what you say next, because I’m about at my limit with you insulting her.”
“I figured you of all people would get it. She fucked you over, too. Twice. How the hell can you stand there and take her side?”
“Because she might have run off, but she sure as shit didn’t deserve you pawing at her!”
“What she needs is someone to put her in her place—”
Finn didn’t bother just laying him out with a punch, as he had with the bastard who had come looking for Ricky. Instead, he slammed into Trent, taking the smaller man to the ground. They hit the hard concrete, the air rushing from Trent’s lungs in a loud grunt.
The fact that he’d gotten the man’s suit filthy pleased Finn in a weird way, like some added insult.
He pinned Trent to the floor. “That girl is worth so much more than you. You want to know why you couldn’t get anywhere with her? Because you are an arrogant, vain asshole who has to trick women into your bed, while she is brave and wild and has more integrity than you’ll ever have.”