Braydon (42 page)

“This is Buster. Buster, this is Jessie. Give her a kiss.”

Jessie laughed when Sawyer thrust the little dog near her face. She was greeted by a warm tongue on her cheek. “Buster? A boy?”

“Yeah,” Sawyer said, sounding as though he didn’t like the sex of his dog being questioned.

“Sorry,” she said with a chuckle. She reached out and stroked the animal’s soft fur.

“See, I told you, man. Chick magnet,” Sawyer said, looking over her shoulder at Braydon.

“Got it. Now you go find your own chick. This one’s mine.”

“Come on, buddy. Let’s go find something to make a sign with. High time we try to get some attention from the ladies. I’ve got a hunch that bringing you along to entice them might just draw in more women that way.”

Jessie chuckled at Sawyer’s statement, remembering the stories about how Sawyer liked to stand on the side of the road and entice women. But the attention she offered Sawyer didn’t last long, and that was because her brain finally processed what Braydon had said. As soon as the words replayed once in her head, Jessie stopped short and spun around to face Braydon. Her heart had begun a freakish tap dance in her chest at his admission, and she wanted to ask him to say it again, to assure her that what she was going to tell him was reciprocated. But before she got the chance, he took her hand again and pulled her along behind him until they were in the guest room and he was closing the door behind them.

Jessie turned to face Braydon but found that they were literally just inches away from one another. He was looking down at her when he cupped her face in his big hands, and lo and behold, she did the one thing she didn’t want to do.

She started to cry.

chapter
TWENTY-SEVEN

“O
h, damn,” Braydon muttered when he noticed the first tear fall.

Jessie had her eyes closed when he reached up and brushed the first wet streak, then the second, away with his thumbs. “Don’t cry, Jess. Please don’t cry.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a mess,” she mumbled.

“A beautiful mess,” he replied, unable to help himself. At least it garnered a small smile from her.

When her eyes opened, he was lost for a moment in the glistening blue depths. There were so many things he wanted to say to her right then, so many ways he wanted to tell her that he loved her and that they could work this out, but he somehow managed to keep his mouth shut.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her eyes locked with his.

“About what?” he asked. It wasn’t that he wasn’t capable of filling in the blanks himself, but he really wanted Jessie to come forth and tell him. As Brendon had said, they’d spent so much time not talking, not opening up, that now was the time to do so. Jessie wasn’t the type of woman who would open up easily, and he’d learned from experience that if he started to talk, she would sit back and let him and then, before he knew it, he would’ve divulged all of his secrets and she would’ve kept all of hers inside.

There was no doubt that he wanted her. He wanted every piece of her. But he wasn’t going to make it easy for her. Wrapping her in his arms and telling her that everything would be okay was making it way too damn easy.

“I’m sorry for being a bitch. I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions. I’m sorry for sending you away. I’m sorry for making you hate me. I’m sorry for—”

“Stop,” he ordered softly, placing his finger over her lips. “I appreciate you trying to take
all
of the blame here, but that isn’t how this works. You could’ve started and stopped with the jumping to conclusions piece.”

“But the rest of it is true,” she told him. “I’m crazy; you should know that by now. I’ve got so many crazies living inside of me, and unfortunately, they don’t bother to schedule with me when they’re gonna let loose.”

Braydon couldn’t help himself; he leaned down and pressed his lips to Jessie’s lightly. He didn’t let her move closer and he didn’t try to deepen the kiss, but he needed that little bit of physical contact with this woman.

When he pulled away, he continued to stare down at her. “Jess, I know you’re not perfect. Neither am I. But I don’t want us to be perfect. What kind of life would that be?”

“It wouldn’t be crazy,” she mumbled, glancing away.

Braydon tipped her chin, getting her attention. When she met his gaze again, he said, “It’d be boring as hell, is what it’d be. I’ll live with imperfect over boring any day.”

“I don’t want to be perfect.” Jessie’s gaze bore into his as she spoke. “I just want to be normal.”

“You are normal,” he replied.

“Yeah?” she asked, a hint of frustration inflected in her tone.

Braydon held firm; he kept his hands cupped on her face, unwilling to let this get out of hand. Jessie always seemed to turn to anger, as though getting defensive was her automatic response, and the last thing either of them needed was for this to fall apart. He feared that there were only so many cracks that a relationship could take before it ended up with a mile-wide fissure right down the middle.

“You’re as normal as the rest of us, Jess.”

“I’m the girl who’s been sleeping with two guys. Well, not recently, but you know what I mean. I’m the girl who decided that because I fall in love too much I’m not gonna fall in love again, period. I mean, that even sounds crazy to me, and I’m the one who came up with it.”

Braydon raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

“And look where that got me.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“It got me in the same place, Braydon,” she said, her tone firm, the sadness all but gone from her eyes as she stared back at him.

He knew she had more to say, so he held his tongue.

“I love you. Don’t you get that? I fell in love with you a long time ago. Even after I promised myself that I wouldn’t. I wanted to be friends. I really did.” Jessie took a deep breath, continued, “After I found myself immersed in an untraditional relationship that was supposed to be a friendship with a few added benefits, I knew I’d probably gone a little too far. And look what I did with that. I lost both you and Brendon. I shattered a friendship that had come to mean so much to me.”

“You didn’t shatter anything,” he said.

“That wasn’t quite the part I was hoping you would pay attention to,” Jessie countered hotly.

“Oh, was there something else?” he asked, grinning, pretending to think about what she’d said. He didn’t last long, because he was pressing his lips to hers again, this time cradling her head and moving in closer to her. “I love you too, Jessie. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you.”

“Really?” she questioned when she pulled back. “Why the hell didn’t you just say so?”

Braydon laughed at that. “In case you don’t remember, I did tell you. You opted not to listen.”

“Oh, I heard you,” she rattled off. “I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked curiously.

“Because I wasn’t supposed to love you. I think I’m broken. I realized that what I feel for you is so much more than any of that fantasy crap I’ve felt in the past, so maybe I don’t really habitually fall in love. I don’t know, maybe I do . . .”

Braydon covered her mouth with his own to get her to be quiet. He loved that she was opening up, but she was going so fast, he was having a hard time keeping up. The truth of it was, ever since she told him that she loved him, he hadn’t paid much attention to the rest. The rest wasn’t all that important. What
was
important was figuring out where they went from there.

Jessie was the one to pull back, and Braydon let her. He didn’t let her go, but he pulled back far enough to look down into her face.

“What do we do about this?” she asked. “I don’t know where to go from here. If you want to know the truth, every time I’ve gotten to this point, I’ve ended up with a broken heart, and Braydon,” Jessie whispered, her voice hoarse from what he assumed was emotion, “I don’t want you to break my heart.”

“I love you, Jess. I don’t know exactly how we proceed from here, but I know that what we’ve been doing isn’t working. You don’t seem to trust me, and until that happens, I don’t know how to make things right between us.”

Jessie pulled away completely and she paced the floor in the opposite direction. He kept his eyes on her until she looked up at him.

“See, the thing is, I
do
trust you. I’m just prone to worst-case scenarios. I knew, after I’d stopped and actually thought about it,” she said in a rush, “that you weren’t with Cheyenne. I’ve never believed that you wanted to be, either. I think it was just easier to hang on to that. It wasn’t fair to you, but it fed my insecurities, something I’m constantly doing.”

“Jess, I really don’t understand where you’re going with this,” he told her honestly.

“Yeah, well, I don’t, either,” Jessie stopped directly in front of him again. “I want to be with you, Braydon. I want to be with you today, tomorrow, the day after that, the year after that, and so on and so forth. I don’t want to be broken.

“I’ve had shitty luck with men and I take complete responsibility. I ended up in abusive relationships and I made plenty of excuses both during
and
after them. Which was why I actually came here, to Coyote Ridge. I was trying to change myself, to figure out why I am the way that I am and then to fix what was damaged. And then I met you and Brendon and y’all provided me with a distraction.”

Braydon thought she was going to stop, give him a chance to speak. Before he could get a word in edgewise, she kept going.

“I still don’t know if I’m ready for something permanent. No, I take that back. I am ready for something permanent. I’m ready for something permanent with you.”

Braydon wasn’t sure what to say. She was all over the map and it made him want to laugh. Not at her, but at her obvious confusion. He knew how she felt. He’d never been in a single relationship where he had to worry about things moving to the next level, unless of course the next level was a different sexual position. But with Jessie, this wasn’t about sex.

This was about love.

She loved him.

“I love you, Jess,” he told her again.

“Even after all that?” she asked, exasperated.

Braydon chuckled. “
Because
of all that.”

Finally, Jessie didn’t have anything to say, and Braydon took the opportunity to tell her how he felt.

“I’m not perfect, Jess. I don’t pretend to be. Hell, I don’t want to be. As far as relationships go, the most I’ve ever done is friends with benefits. I’ve stayed in Brendon’s shadow all of my life because it was just easier to be there. And then when I wanted to break loose after I met you, I realized it was too late. It was you . . .” Braydon forced his eyes to remain on hers. “I fell in love with you. When the three of us were together, I pretended it was just you and me. It was a fantasy I couldn’t let go of. When I was gone for those three months, I thought about you all the time. I thought about you and Brendon off making a life together without me and it damn near killed me, Jess.”

“I would’ve told you that we weren’t together if you would’ve answered my calls,” she snarked with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes.

“I know. We don’t seem to do well with communication. Not the verbal kind anyway.”

“So maybe we start there,” she suggested.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he told her, closing the gap between them. “But I’m also hoping we can do a little nonverbal communication.”

“You’re bad, Braydon Walker.”

Yes, he was. And he’d be the first to admit it.

But he’d do that later. Because right now, he didn’t want to talk anymore.

WHEN BRAYDON’S LIPS
came down on hers, Jessie didn’t let him get away with a mere peck that time. She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down toward her, their tongues meeting, dueling. There was so much promise in his kiss, and Jessie latched onto it.

She’d opened up to him, and honestly, telling him how she felt actually made her feel lighter.

So, yes, it was safe to assume that she was shitty with communicating. Her sister had informed her of that a time or two. In the past week actually. But Braydon was giving her a second chance, and she knew there was no way she could ruin it for them this time.

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth when he pressed her into the wall.

They were crushed together from chest to knee, and Jessie desperately wanted to get closer.

“I wish you were wearing a skirt,” he informed her, his lips never breaking away from hers.

“Me too,” she agreed. “But I’m not, and we can’t do this in your brother’s guest room.”

As though someone on the outside knew exactly what they were getting ready to do, a firm hand began banging on the door.

Jessie jumped, pulling her mouth from Braydon’s and burying her face against his chest as she giggled.

“Get your asses out of that room,” Travis scolded from the other side. “Everyone’s waiting outside for you two.”

“For us?” Jessie asked Braydon, peeking up at him. “Why us?”

“No idea,” Braydon answered. “We’ll be right out,” he told Travis.

When Braydon stepped back, Jessie smoothed her hands over her clothes, hoping she didn’t look like she’d just had a heated make-out session in Ethan’s guest bedroom. Considering Braydon’s face was flushed and his hat was crooked, she figured it didn’t really matter what she looked like. Everyone was going to know.