A pain blossomed in her chest as the decision weighed on her. What did she risk by sending Him away? She’d make it maybe two weeks before losing her mind. Jason had no idea what that meant. None.
She screamed as bottles of perfume shattered, one after the other. Wild-eyed, she was caught between being unable to tear her gaze away and hiding her face from shards of glass flying across the room.
“Please don’t make me…please…”
“No! I’m not making you do this. This is your decision. I will stand by you no matter what you decide, but, baby, I need you to hear me. I will not leave you alone. No matter what, I will not leave you alone.”
A sob tore from her mouth, tears flowing freely now. “You can’t guarantee me that.”
“I can. I swear to you, I can.”
111
Dee Carney
You.
Need.
Me.
“Sabrina, baby. Take my hand. Send it away.”
Her entire body shook and she hugged herself tight. Through water-filled eyes, she looked on the man who’d come to mean so much to her.
Like he’d said, he was the man who’d rescued her every single time she’d needed him.
And maybe, just maybe, all she needed all of this time, was to be rescued.
Slowly, like reaching into a fire, afraid of the burn, she grasped Jason’s hand.
112
Intimate Whispers
“You doing okay?”
“Can you tell me why sitting behind a horse that’s dropping stink bombs into a basket is anyone’s idea of a good time?” Sabrina’s nose wrinkled. She continued to grumble, “I don’t care how romantic people say it is.” Jason glanced at the aforementioned contraption beneath the horse’s tail and grimaced. “Woman, you have a way of putting things.” She laughed.
Sometimes she made noise just to fill the air with some type of noise. The first month had been a test of their relationship, definitely of Jason’s love, but he pulled her through it. As he’d promised, he never left her alone to face the voices by herself.
“You’re supposed to be enjoying the mood, if nothing else. Totally relaxing,” he continued.
“I’d be more relaxed if I could feel my freakin’ toes. It’s gotta be ten below out here.”
He grinned. “Such a whiner! It’s only in the twenties.” Still, Jason huddled closer beneath the blanket and that had been her goal all along.
His ruddy nose looked as cold as she felt, so she put a gloved hand on the end of it.
“Tell that to your nose,” she murmured, before tilting her face toward his.
The kiss he returned could have melted an ice cube.
“Why are we out here again, when we could be back at home, beneath a blanket that affords just a little more privacy than this?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“Naughty girl.”
“Can you blame me? I know the kinds of moves you’ve got going on. And despite the frat-boy look you try so hard to perpetrate, you’re a freak.” He laughed this time.
The worn blanket had a faint smell of animal and old cologne—not hers or his—and the horse stink wafted up from time to time. Still, Sabrina sat back and watched the colorful display of lights around them. Pedestrians on the sidewalks hurried from building to building, coats pulled up around their ears and collars turned up against the wind. She wished her family was still alive, enjoying the holiday season and its merriment with her, but Jason did his best in keeping her spirits elevated all by himself.
“Has it been finalized yet?” she asked, pointing with her numb chin toward a window display. A mannequin family of four huddled around a Christmas tree, the two children with excitement in their eyes as they loomed over presents.
113
Dee Carney
A storm crossed his features. Just a flicker, but she saw it. “No. Reid and Mom don’t like the idea of the two of us going over to Felice’s for Christmas Eve, while they spend the twenty-fifth with her and the baby. Gibson, the jackass, won’t agree to spending any time with all of us.”
He had such a nice way of phrasing it. All of us. Meaning, Gibson still had no intention of spending any time with her and Jason. He didn’t mind blacks, he’d said, so long as one wasn’t dating his son.
Asshole.
Throat tight, she said, “Just go with them, baby. You and I—”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
Was it any wonder where he got his stubbornness? One more try. “It’s a family occasion.”
“You’re my family, too. Hell, you’re more my family than he is.”
Can anyone hear me?
Sabrina huddled closer to him, pushing away the voice and narrowing her concentration on what he said instead. She loved looking at him. For that matter, she loved him.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, “I would move heaven or earth for Mom, Reid or Theo. The same for Gibson. But he’s going to learn that if he wants to be a part of my life, he’s going to happily deal with of all of it. I have no intention of giving up the most important person to me.”
She drew back in surprise. “Who…me?”
He dipped his head for a quick kiss. “Second to that horse, yeah you.” His thumb stroked over hers and she wished for a split second that leather gloves didn’t separate their skin from touching. “Don’t you know that yet?”
“I…I need to be reminded sometimes.” Her head ducked because she couldn’t look at him when he got like this. Words of affection fell easily from his lips, as if his heart overflowed with emotion.
He said he loved her with a soft touch when they both reached for the popcorn at the same time. He said he cared when he caressed her cheek while she lay in bed pretending to be asleep, before he tried to quietly sneak out the door in the mornings.
He promised he wouldn’t leave her when he held on tight as she came shuddering within his arms, his body ever so slowly pumping into hers.
Every time she went to whisper to him that she loved him as fiercely, with just as much passion as he showed her almost daily, her courage faded. She wanted to, with everything in her she felt the push to admit how deeply she’d come to need him in her life, but always, something held her back.
114
Intimate Whispers
She’d tell him today. It would be easy. Deep breath and just tell him. “Jason, sweetheart…”
Please help me.
The voice rushed into her consciousness, pushing aside—again—her attempt.
Sabrina tried to stifle a shudder at the loud intrusiveness of it, but didn’t catch herself from starting in time to keep it from Jason.
He pulled her to him. “What’s it saying?” he asked softly.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she breathed him in, focusing on how to send the voice away. Think about Jason. Think about her next freelance project. Think about cuddly little Theo and his mischief.
All the things her new mentor, Felix Stevens, taught her to do. She’d almost thought the trip to Cassadega, Florida—a self-proclaimed spiritualist camp inhabited by mediums, psychics and others possessing certain supernatural gifts—had been a bust.
Then a stately gentleman wearing sandals walked up to her. Despite the way she’d tried to jerk it away, he picked up her hand and held on to it as he spoke. “You’re an open door, young lady and you’ll burn yourself out if you don’t learn how to shut them out.
Every spirit looking for a voice will flock to you, so you better learn how to control the volume. May I be of assistance in that?”
After four months, she wasn’t sure everything he insisted she try to deflect those trying to reach the other side through her worked, but she had to grudgingly admit to a little success.
With a shaky voice, she replied, “The same thing they always say. I feel so bad that I can’t help them. And it makes you wonder what’s on the other side. What is so horrible that they reach out for anyone they think might be able to help?”
“But it’s not necessarily about wanting help to stay away from the other side, baby.”
The horse continued its casual stroll through the city. Lights, which had seemed so bright before, became incapable of sustaining her attention. Every facet of her concentration stayed on her man. “I don’t know if I believe that,” she said.
“Well, what about Teddy? He didn’t reach out to you because he was afraid of being dead or trying to stay away from heaven or hell or whatever. He wanted your help in making sure the rest of his family knew about Felice and the baby. I mean, thanks to you, Theo has a nice little bit of money set aside for him. Everything that Teddy left behind saved up and put away for Theo’s future.”
“But what if he hadn’t found me? What if I’d failed him?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t…for two years I thought I’d failed him. I blamed myself for my brother’s death because I’d made a choice on his last day. I gotta tell you, baby, every time I look at little Theo, I get angry. I realize I wasn’t the one who failed.”
“Of course not. It’s what I tried to tell you the very first time.” 115
Dee Carney
“You’re right. I just wish he’d chosen his family, the one who already loved him and the one just beginning, over himself. But he didn’t. So don’t you ever think about being a failure. You’re not. Who knows? And maybe that’s why they try so hard. If you’re their only help, why not go for broke and do whatever it takes to make you listen?”
“I can’t help them all.” She reached for his hand, finding comfort in the way it wrapped around hers, squeezing tight.
“No, you can’t. You may not be able to help another one for the rest of your life.
Not one. But neither is it your responsibility to save anyone. If you can, great. If you can’t”—he shrugged—“not your problem.”
Mr. Stevens insisted she talk about her fears and her capabilities aloud. No holding them back. No keeping them a secret from him or, as much as she wanted to, Jason.
“I’m just afraid…”
Afraid the voices would gang up on her again. Afraid she’d get so desperate for Him, that she’d summon her one-time savior from whatever void had taken Him. A few months of quiet didn’t necessarily mean the voices wouldn’t gather as a singular force, raining down on her with a fast-and-furious vengeance.
Sometimes at night she dreamed. In those dreams they did come for her. They overwhelmed her—voices crushing her on all sides until she drowned beneath them.
Always in those dreams she called for Him. Always, He came.
Always, she woke up screaming.
“Sabrina, look at me.” Jason’s voice cracked like a whip.
Startled, she looked at him, at the concern etched across his face. At the command in his eyes. The nights she awoke shivering and crying, grappling for safety, Jason demanded her focus on him. He was there for her after every dream, holding her tight, calming her rioting nerves.
Always.
She must have stopped listening. The malevolent spirit’s seductive lure called to her with the barest thought. “I’m s-sorry.” Tears filled her eyes, a swell of self-pity staking claim. “Why do you put up with me?” she whispered.
“Because I love you.” The reply never changed, this time spoken with enough confidence to almost drown out horse hooves rhythmically beating against concrete.
“And I’m here for the long haul.”
Reaching for him and then snuggling into his embrace was natural. Sabrina brushed her lips over his chin, his jawline. He hummed a soft noise as she bit down on the pulse jumping beneath the skin of his neck. Her body went tight at the noise, recognizing with an instant response the beginning stages of arousal in her man.
“Jay?” She raised her gaze to meet his.
“Yeah, baby?” Gravelly. Just shy of hoarse.
Breathing hard, she sought—and found—her courage. “I love you, too.” 116
Intimate Whispers
While it felt as if the world would explode into a billion pieces with that confession, it didn’t. Instead, his lips tipped at the corners into the most mesmerizing smile. “I would have waited forever to hear you say that.”
“I shouldn’t have made you wait. I’ve known it for a long time.”
“I know.”
She believed him. He knew her better than she did more days than not. After a pause, she asked, “How would you feel about cutting this date short and heading back home?” Placing her hand at the bulge in his crotch added emphasis. There were many things she wanted to do when they were alone together, first and foremost being showing him exactly how much she loved him.
He chuckled. “Now who’s the freak?” The bulge grew. Mercifully, at the same time the carriage slowed to a crawl. He looked around. “I think the tour is done anyway.
Good timing.”
Jason climbed down first and held out his hand when she exited behind him.
Despite his support, her foot managed to catch on a jutting lip. Pain rocketed through her knee as she pitched forward, her purse flung to the ground in the process. “Shit!”
“Whoa.” Jason’s unoccupied hand shot to her waist, catching her before she could tumble down the steps. With shaky legs, certain the throbbing knee would give way any at any second, Sabrina managed to descend the rest of the way. “You okay?” he asked, breathless.
“Yeah.” Her heart hammered. “Graceful as always.” After studying her, making sure she could stand on her own, Jason reached for the discarded purse and a few of the items that had fallen from it. Gritting her teeth, Sabrina crouched down next to him, reaching for coins and receipts littering the damp sidewalk.
“Here,” he said, handing over a few more papers. Pedestrians stepped around them, heedless to the couple kneeling low to the ground. “And this too.” Absently, she opened her hand. He deposited the items he’d picked up and her fingers curled into a fist. Something managed to dig into the glove enough to get her notice, drawing her attention. “What’s th—”
Her breath caught.
“I love you, Sabrina,” he said softly.
Heart leaping, she stared at the brilliantly dazzling diamond ring. Dazed.
Surprised. Her thoughts scattering in forty different directions at once. Tears blurred her vision, but she looked up, managing to see him through them. “Jay?”
“From the very beginning, I knew it was you.”
A flitter of images raced through her mind—their passings in the hallway as strangers, the morning he’d brought her the greasy egg sandwich, now one of their favorites, his tenderness at caring for her after His assault. Above all, she thought about his promise.