Home To You (5 page)

Jaime’s eyes widened at that. “Hell, maybe I’ll marry her myself.”

Jax opened his mouth to tell Jaime to leave Kendall the hell alone, but stopped before he’d formed the words. No matter how much he disliked the thought of Kendall and Jaime together—shit, he hated the thought of Kendall with any man, actually—he had no right and, without question, no reason to feel that way.

Jaime didn’t bother hiding his irritating grin. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”

“I didn’t say anything.” At least he thought he hadn’t. Had his injury messed him up more than he realized?

“You didn’t speak the words, but, brother, you didn’t need to. The death glare you gave me made words unnecessary.”

“I didn’t—”

Jaime waved away his rebuttal. “Now that I know how you feel, I’ll keep your little secret, and I’ll fix Kendall’s Jeep. Slowly. I just have to remember to call you Jack. I think even I can handle that.”

“Thanks.” Jax didn’t bother arguing over what Jaime saw as interest in Kendall. He wasn’t interested in her at all, but that didn’t mean he wanted anyone else to be either. He took the last swig of his coffee and stood. “I’d better get back before Kendall wakes up.”

K
endall awoke with the morning sun shining in her eyes. She rolled over to wrap around David’s bigger, warmer, and usually welcoming body, only to encounter a cold sheet. That second, it all came back. She remembered everything that had happened in the past two days, and her swollen eyes burned with fresh, industrial-strength tears. The echo of residual pain from a battered and badly bruised heart made itself known. It was like whiplash; the seriousness of the injury didn’t reach its peak for a few days.

All she wanted was to draw the shades, pull the covers over her head, and allow sleep to envelop her like anesthesia overtaking a surgical patient. Oh, to be happily oblivious, to float painlessly on the calm, warm sea of dreamless sleep. But instead of sleeping, her mind spun like a whirling dervish.

She remembered the expression on her boss’s puffy, pale face when he’d broken the bad news. The man had looked over her left shoulder the entire time, never once meeting her gaze. He’d known they’d done the same job, but that she’d done the job far better than he ever had.
He’d also known that the only reason he hadn’t lost his position and bloated salary was because of his seniority.

Returning home to find David packing all of his belongings had hit her like a hard punch to an existing bruise. She remembered so clearly the second David’s words broke through the fog of utter disbelief.

“I’ve been transferred to the San Francisco office. I’m moving,” he’d said in his oh-so-superior tone. David hadn’t even bothered to turn to look her in the eye. She’d never noticed it before but now had to admit that David was a coward. Jack had been right about that.

“You’re moving?” Her fight-or-flight response had been effectively triggered, and she was a fighter. “I suppose the fact that you never mentioned it to me answers any other question I might have.” Except maybe what happened in their relationship that brought them to that point, and how she, a psychotherapist, could have been so blind.

Things had been strained between them for the past few months, but she’d attributed that to David’s stress at work, their inability to reach the monetary goal he’d set before they would marry and return to Harmony to begin the life they’d planned, and the ebb and flow of any long-term relationship.

She’d taken a deep breath, cemented her resolve, and raised her chin before confronting him. “Since you failed to mention the transfer, I gather you don’t want me to go with you.” It wasn’t a question.

David had turned away from his side of the closet, and his look of derision knocked the wind out of her. Even in memory, it brought a fine sweat to her chilled brow. “As if you would. I’m a smart man, Kendall. I attained a perfect score on my SATs, remember?”

As if he hadn’t reminded her at every opportunity. For the first time, she hadn’t hidden her eye roll.

He’d stabbed a finger in her direction. “You are so dead set on going back to our backwater hometown, you refuse to see any other way.” His voice had risen. Pent-up vitriol spewed from his mouth, contorting his features. She almost didn’t recognize him.

She’d curled against herself and wondered what she’d done wrong, but the cloak of timidity had not rested easy on her shoulders. It had scratched like a rough wool sweater on bare skin. The fact that he’d made her feel timid, even for a second, only increased her anger. How was this her fault? “You never asked me to even consider a move. How dare you assume anything—not to mention be angry for something I’ve never said or done.”

“I didn’t need to ask. I know you better than you know yourself. San Francisco does not fit into your plan of a fairy-tale life.”

Some Prince Charming he’d turned out to be. She lay in the cabin in the woods, remembering, and laughed through her tears.

She wished she’d laughed in his face. At least she’d have stood up for herself. The scene came into focus like a movie on the big screen of her mind. “First of all, I never wanted the fairy tale—I wanted something real, whole, loving, and meaningful. And it was never my plan—it was ours. I didn’t make it alone, David. We shared dreams, goals, expectations.”

“I’ve outgrown you. I’ve outgrown this . . .” He’d held out his hands to encompass their home, their relationship, their shared life. “The rent’s paid through the end of next month. I’ve already had my name removed from the lease. I’ve taken half our savings, most of which I put
in. You can keep the furniture and everything we bought together—I don’t want it. I thought that was only fair.”

“Fair? You think this is fair? And just when were you going to tell me you were leaving?”

“I’ve made up my mind on the matter. Discussing it is a waste of time, and you know how I hate wasting time. I planned to e-mail you.”

She remembered feeling as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. The wind had been knocked out of her. She hadn’t known until that day that words could cause physical pain. “We’ve been together twelve years, and all you were going to give me was a Dear Jane letter?” Her words had come across as breathless, and now she hated herself for sounding so damn weak.

“No, it was a Dear Kendall e-mail. And this is exactly what I was trying to avoid. This drama. It’s as if you can’t get enough in your own small life, so you have to delve into everyone else’s to get your fill. I suppose being a therapist pays better than watching soap operas, although when you consider what you made at the hospital, it doesn’t beat it by much, does it?”

She’d been too dumbfounded to respond. She clenched the sheet in her fists in the hopes it would anchor her in the present. Through the sheet, her manicured nails bit into the tender flesh of her palms. But even that didn’t stop the memories from bombarding her.

David had stood before her, hands on hips, in what she always thought of as his he-man pose. “That’s why you went into psychotherapy, isn’t it? To feed your desperate need to dissect every word, movement, emotion, and trauma?”

“I wanted to help people.” She cringed again at the
memory; she wished she’d sounded forceful and sure of herself, but she hadn’t.

“Yes, it helps feed your need to be selfless, doesn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Kendall, you’ll bend over backward to help any poor sot. It makes you feel superior.”

“Superior? You actually believe that?” Even in the midst of the traumatic event, a little voice in the back of her mind had pointed out that this was a classic example of projection on David’s part.

“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t say it.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. The sobs were coming so fast, she felt lightheaded. Thank God she hadn’t cried in front of David. No, she’d waited until she could fall apart in front of a total stranger.

She remembered the look on Jack’s face when he’d encountered her midmeltdown. He’d looked as if he’d wanted to be anywhere but there to witness her breakdown, but not willing to force anyone, even a stranger, to cry like that alone.

But not David. No, if it had been up to him, he’d have left her to discover him missing, to have no closure, save whatever he’d have written in the damn e-mail. He’d never been a good writer.

“David, we made love just yesterday. You had this all planned. You knew, and you still . . .”

He’d actually had the balls to look smug. “You’re a beautiful woman. No man in his right mind would turn you away. I just need more than a modern-day Betty Crocker with a Carl Jung fetish.”

Pain bloomed in her chest, filling every empty space, and she gasped for air. She felt violated. She wanted to
stop reliving the awful scene, but the vision of his smug face stayed clear in her mind.

“I need someone who can be a partner in my life, someone who can hold her own at cocktail parties and entertain clients, not just point out their personality disorders. I need someone who is my equal—or as close as I can find. Unfortunately, that’s not you.” His voice had taken on a decidedly oily tone that made her skin crawl even in memory. She’d wondered where the boy she’d fallen in love with had gone, and mourned his loss.

Even in the midst of those painful words, she’d taken a deep breath and willed her rational, clinical side to take control. Heat had flooded her face, prickles had risen along her skin, and her fingers had clenched harder into tight fists. She’d taken a slow inventory of her emotions, categorizing them. Fear had vied for first place over hurt and anger, but it was a tight race.

She’d felt removed from the situation and wanted to know a few things. “How long have you felt like this?”

He’d shrugged, as if every word hadn’t crushed the small pieces of what was left of her heart. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s been coming into focus since after grad school.”

“For three years you’ve been lying to me?” The roar of the ocean had filled the space between her ears and swamped her with a sense of unreality. She’d felt as if someone else’s life was falling apart, not hers. But it had been her life. She’d known it then, and she had to face it now.

With David, Kendall had shared her hopes, her dreams, and her body—the whole time she’d shared a lie.

She’d realized it then, but right now, lying here crying in the cabin, the truth of it hit her like a wave of ice water.
She should have seen it coming. She was a psychotherapist, and none of her training had prepared her for this eventuality, this moment in time, this kind of utter devastation. Just like when David had first dropped his bombshell news on her, she felt completely, irretrievably lost.

*

Jax heard the sobbing from outside the cabin. He broke into a run and crashed through the door of Kendall’s bedroom seconds later.

She let out a sob-filled, startled yelp.

He found her curled around a pillow. Except for a tearstained, blotchy, and slightly swollen countenance, she looked unharmed, but he still did a quick scan of the room to make sure there were no intruders. She was alone; the only threat to her health were painful-sounding, convulsive gasps.

Jax had heard people say before that they felt as if they had their heart in their throats, but he’d never experienced that particular sensation—until now. He released the breath he’d held in a whoosh, willed his heart rate to return to normal, sank onto the bed beside her, and ran a shaking hand through his hair. “You scared the shit out of me. What’s the matter?”

She hiccuped, shook her head, and tried to dry her eyes on the bedsheet.

“Are you sick?” He asked the question even though she looked as if she’d just woken from the mother of all nightmares.

She shook her head again, still sobbing but trying to hold it back, and was unable to speak through the tears.

“Just upset, then? Okay, I can handle that.” He was a pro at soothing sobbing women. He had more
experience with it than he’d ever wanted. Her racking sobs still made his hair stand at attention and his chest feel as if it were stuck in an ever-tightening vise, but he ignored it. For years, his sister, Rocki, would wake sobbing. The accident that took both their parents had haunted her dreams. “Come here.” He scooped Kendall out of bed like he would a child, sat her across his lap, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Kendall curled her shaking body against his, rested her head against his chest, and buried her wet face in his neck.

He rubbed her back, kneading the tense muscles. “Kendall, I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything or anyone hurt you.”

It took her a while—he wasn’t sure how long—but eventually her sobs quieted to an occasional sniffle and her breathing evened out, the tremors lessened, and she slowly slumped against him, spent, deflated, her muscles relaxing either because of his ministrations or from sheer exhaustion.

“Shhh. Just breathe. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay. I promise.” That was something he could do. He wasn’t sure how, but he’d make sure that no matter what, she’d be taken care of.

After what felt like days, Kendall raised her head and met his gaze with bloodshot, swollen eyes. “I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded raw and brittle. “I’m not usually like this. Honest.” She took a breath and blinked back more tears, obviously trying to rein in her emotions. “It’s just that I woke up and everything hit me at once. One second I was reaching for David, and the next I was watching a horror flick of Godzilla stomping over my whole life.”

“It’s not your whole life—this is a temporary setback.
In fifty years you’ll look back and see this as a lucky break, and thank God for it.”

“I know that—intellectually. But I—”

“Needed another good cry. I understand. It’s not a big deal, really.” Her hair smelled like jasmine and warm, sleepy woman, and felt silky when it brushed against his hand as he massaged her neck and the base of her scalp. “I hiked over to Jaime’s this morning. I needed to tell him I’m ready for more building materials, and we talked about your Jeep. He’s agreed to work on it at his place and keep mum.”

“But I don’t know how much—”

“We’re going to work it out in trade. He needs a hand, and I’ve offered to lend it.” He didn’t feel the necessity to expound upon what exactly Jaime required a hand with—namely filling his bank account with the cost of parts and labor.