“Then the chopper touched down, and she died. She was just…gone. I felt it first, deep inside, like something inside me had died, too. But then the vitals came up as straight lines on the machines, and she was gone.” He closed his eyes and shuddered.
Her heart went out to him. Watching her die from a bullet meant for him… She touched his cheek, and he leaned into her caress, eyes still squeezed shut. “What did you say to Chase? He must have been horrified.”
He shrugged, struggling for control with a twitch of his jaw. “I never told Chase. I couldn’t. That pain would have killed him. He comes across as strong and invincible, but he’s not. Not about Kate. And it had almost killed me before. I couldn’t do that to him.”
Before?
What did he mean? She wanted to ask, but Jake moved on.
“That incident put a lot of things into play. Bad things, and I hadn’t even told him. Chase hated me after that, because he was jealous of how close Kate and I had become and thought we were sleeping together behind his back. But eventually he saw the truth, that we were just second cousins who would fuck each other if he joined us. And the funny thing is, he trusts me now, and it’s the stupidest thing he could ever do.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “So to answer your question, when I think of Kate, all I can think of is how she died. And how it was my fault. All of this is my fault,” he whispered.
“But she lived. Jake, you saved her life.” Tia stared at him, thinking, realizing she’d hit on something huge. This was why Jake was Jake, the man whore, the player that haunted the club, living the fast life with adrenaline and bad guys. This was it, and there had to be something more to the whole thing, because he had saved Blondie. He should be thrilled. Ecstatic. He’d never admit to it, but he spent his whole life running from something. Tia knew it—she saw herself in him.
Before…
He’d said before. That was the key. “Who else died? In your life? Your dad? You never mention him.”
He turned his head to glance at her, shocked. “What?”
She rose on one elbow to look at him better. “Who else in your life has died? Because Kate lived. You should be thrilled. You were a hero. Yet how she died is how you think of her. So why? Who died?”
His brows creased, his jaw worked, and he closed his eyes on the pain she saw flare there, agony so rich, so deep that her own heart echoed it.
“Oh.” His eyes then flew open wide with understanding. A shudder passed through him, shaking her. “Oh, God.”
“Tell me,” she commanded. If he went somewhere that painful, he’d need her to be strong, just has he’d been for her.
“Maria,” he breathed reverently, and his face took on a youthful look, one filled with hope and sadness and pain. Such pain, more than she’d probably ever sought in her life.
“Who is Maria?”
Jake sucked in a deep breath. “She was my first girlfriend. My fiancée.”
“How did she die?”
“Please don’t,” he whispered, his voice graveled. So lost. He gripped her closer, as if afraid. “Don’t make me go there.”
“Did she look like Kate?”
“Maybe a little.” He shrugged, his mind obviously mulling over the question. “More like Kate before she had surgery.”
She understood that association too well. She touched his chest with her palm, spreading her fingers wide, hoping the contact kept him in reality with her. “Were you with her when she died?”
“No.”
“I’m so sorry.” And that was the connection. She pictured him holding a lifeless Kate, subconsciously thinking of his first love, wishing she had lived, too. The image battered her heart like a bad caning, and she shuddered along with him, holding him closer.
He was quiet for a long time, his breathing a little ragged. “I try not to think of Maria.”
“Maybe it’s time to think of her again.”
“Maybe.” He shuddered again. “I just…don’t. It hurts to think of her.”
“More than it hurts to think of Kate?”
He nodded and closed his eyes. He rubbed away a glimmer of moisture, and Tia held him closer, hugged him harder. She understood this pain. He’d made her feel a whole truckload of that pain earlier, but she sensed this was way more than her eleven.
“I couldn’t bear the pain anymore. So I left. Went to college. Became a pilot. Got recruited as an agent before I left the service. I hated the service. And here I am. I can go home to Texas now, but it was hard to do that for a long, long time.”
He sounded so sad, broken. She’d give anything to turn back the clock to take that away. “Oh, Jake. You’ve run from her memory all these years.”
“I guess.”
“Maybe it’s time to stop running. For both of us.”
He shrugged, and she held him. The moon changed locations, sweeping the room, and finally, she felt him give a sigh as he gave in to sleep. She continued to hold him, though.
He’d said true stories weren’t pretty. His was ugly, just as ugly as hers, and that he’d wiped a tear from his eye spoke of no greater truth. Maybe his truth was uglier, because he had been a helpless victim. She’d been an active participant. Though she had to admit, he had more strength than she did. He was still a really nice guy, despite having a horrible first taste of love, while she had turned into a twisted bitch.
Tia closed her eyes and focused on his even breathing, the rise and fall of his strong chest. This, unfortunately, changed things. It made it easier to let him in. This made it easier for all of her to love him, because down deep he was maybe just a little twisted, too. God help her, she didn’t want to love him.
And as she drifted off, she realized all she wanted was to love him.
****
The next morning Jake woke at dawn, sliding out of bed carefully so as not to wake Tia. Now he understood how she must have felt after telling him about her past—vulnerable, sad. Less than human. She had been braver than he, though. She’d made love to him under his tree and then suffered through wedding vows. She’d held up under his interrogation like a true spy, so brave until she broke, and he sensed she’d never break like that under a real interrogation.
Jake glanced at her, tranquil and beautiful as she slept. He wasn’t brave, which was why he was sneaking out, so he could be alone. Find his balls again.
He grabbed clothes, pulled them on in the kitchen, and scribbled a hasty note.
Gone riding. J.
Then he went to the barn, saddled Tonka, and headed out in the morning mist.
He didn’t have a clue where he was going, so he let Tonka have his head, the horse deciding which path. The gelding chose the trail that went out to the lake, and Jake clucked to him, urging him to something faster than a meander. Before he knew it, they were galloping, branches whipping at his face, cobwebs in his mouth.
Then the path got a little rocky, so Jake did the responsible thing and told the gelding to stop. They walked, both of them breathing hard, Jake’s mind on nothing, everything, then he thought of Tia, and all he wanted to do was run again if the gelding was able. But Tonka wasn’t, so he forced his mind to slow down, too.
They reached the lake. Jake checked Tonka—he was cool now, his breathing normal. Jake dismounted, unbridled the horse and tied him to a tree with the halter and lead rope he’d brought. He sank down next to a tree to stare out at the water. The sun had just risen and fish were jumping, eager for mosquito breakfast. Jake swatted at a few and then gave up—the pain was worth the solitude.
A noise of rustling brush sounded behind him and he turned his head. Tia stood twenty feet away on the bank of the lake, Jessa’s reins in her hands, unsure as she stared at him. “I hope it’s okay that I followed you. You didn’t look so good this morning.”
Jake wanted to be pissed. Wanted to yell, scream, something, but felt nothing. “You’re fine.” He assessed Jessa. “You rode bareback?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t haul ass up the hill like you did.” Tia brushed the hair from her eyes, her ponytail askew. She led Jessa next to Tonka, secured her, and returned to sit beside him. “Why don’t you tell me about Maria, Jake? You loved her. Why does it hurt so much?”
Just like a woman to bring up emotions and feelings. He hated them. Would rather be numb. “It’s stupid to revisit the past when I can’t change it.”
“I think it’s more stupid for you to not go there. You’ve run from this memory since you were eighteen. It’s kept you from having any sense of a normal life, which is why, despite the wild ways and adventurous job, you still come home, here, to your asinine rules and horses. She drives you here. So tell me about her.”
Tia was right, and he hated that. Why were the women in his life always right? “Guys don’t do this whole feelings thing well.”
“Then don’t tell me how you feel. Tell me what happened.”
Jake closed his eyes reached for Tia, needing to feel her as he travelled back in time, to the ranch, to a simpler era. “Maria lived on the ranch next door. Her family and my family were good friends, and we spent a lot of time together—picnics, roundups, holidays. I loved picking on her. She was so cute and spunky and would stuff frogs in my shoes. She’d steal my bridle if we rode out and stopped somewhere, so I’d have to figure out a way to get my horse home.
“And then we turned fifteen and suddenly, she went from being a stick figure with frogs to this gorgeous creature with breasts and hips. We first kissed behind the barn and, a few months later, I was looking to my older brothers for advice. She was more than ready to take our relationship to the next level.
“But my brothers rode my ass, and the only advice they’d give was don’t get her pregnant. I had two older brothers ready to pound me if I did, and two younger that would just pound on me for the fun of it. I was scared shitless, but she knew what she wanted and, for my sixteenth birthday, Maria was my gift.” Jake paused, swallowing, remembering that birthday. Kate had given herself on his birthday, too. But it had been different. So different.
“Sixteen was awesome. I had Jessa, I had Maria, I had the ranch and the whole world in front of me. I fell head over heels and knew I was going to marry her. I gave her a ring at seventeen, and she said yes. My parents weren’t too thrilled, but they saw what we had and knew it wasn’t something that would go away with time. I loved her. Hardcore, with every inch of my soul. We were going to get married, I was going to help my family run the ranch, and it was going to be perfect.”
Tia hugged him closer, her arms warm around him. “What happened?”
The pain was a sweet ache, deep in his heart. “She got sick. Leukemia, the worst kind a girl could have. And suddenly she lived in the hospital and she was bald—so beautifully bald—and my bone marrow didn’t match. Nothing I had matched. I was useless to her, to keep her alive.
“And one day, she died. I was heading over to the hospital. We were making plans. The adults said we could get married, because that was what she had wanted. As far as I was concerned, she was already my wife. I had married her when she took my engagement ring. When I got there, she had passed, but they let me see her—hold her.”
He stared at his hands. They’d held Maria. They’d once been bathed in Kate’s blood. But he knew for certain that he now wanted them clean. For Tia. “At least when Kate died, I could do something. I kept her alive. But Maria…I just held her.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“I had just turned eighteen. She was a couple months older.” He felt so far from the boy he’d been at eighteen. Jaded. Hard. Definitely old. “So I helped to buried her and ran as fast as I could to college, because she wanted me to go. But that was all I did as an adult that she would have approved of.” He didn’t even want to think what Maria would think of what he’d done to Tia.
“I don’t know about that. You’re a good man, Jake. But deep down inside, I think you’re still eighteen.”
He looked at her sharply. Her face was stained with tears she’d shed for him, and that touched him more than he wanted to admit. “Are you saying I need to grow up?”
“I’m saying you hurt more than you realize.” Tia kissed his cheek. “You want me to ride back with you, or do you want some time alone?”
“Will you stay here with me? I just want to sit. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“I’ll stay as long as you need.”
Jake sat, letting Tia hold him, and wondered what the hell had become of his life. He was crazy. He’d made this beautiful woman indulge in a wedding fantasy that made no sense to him. He’d pushed her, made her say vows, took her to his bed like it was their first time together. It shouldn’t have felt right, given his past. It should have been something so wrong it sent him running for the hills.
But he swallowed hard as he remembered what it felt like to be with Maria, when she had lived. It had been wholesome. Good. Healing. It felt suspiciously like what he had with Tia.
Because…he loved Tia.
Jesus. Knowledge smacked him dead-on in the chest, and his head seemed to spin from the concussion. He loved her, had probably started falling for her at the club, which was why he had been exclusive the moment he’d met her. Except for that one time with Chase and Kate.
But he didn’t love Kate. Only Tia. Kate had been right, as usual. Jake loved what Kate gave his buddy, and maybe he was jealous of how happy she made Chase, and had hoped by loving Kate, he’d get a part of that, too.
But Tia… He’d been drawn to her from the first moment he saw her across the crowded club and had only wanted her more since the moment she knelt in front of him. He’d thought before of asking her on a date after, to see what she’d be like out of bed, but a part of him had pushed it aside. But the thoughts had been there, images of her on his arm, doing things together, laughing together. He’d spent many weekends with her in his private room at the club, her cuddled against him, and more than once, he’d wondered what it would be like to take her home, to his bed.
Maybe he’d been scared, because he loved her, even then. Jake knew down deep he was a foolish romantic. He wanted everyone else to be in love but denied himself the luxury. That’s why he had wanted wedding sex, wanted a fake wedding, felt like something would die when she threatened to become nothing to him on Monday. He loved her. It still made no sense, but if he took his feelings for Kate out of the equation, it at least made him feel less insane.