Jesse's Soul (2) (32 page)

“Na. I think this is awesome. Welcome to the family, Jesse.” Riley held his beer out to tap Jesse’s bottle.

“Thanks, man.”

“Wow.”

“Really, dude? That’s all you can say?” Jesse chuckled.

Somehow talking about getting married was the best feeling in the world. Other than Carter, most men he knew turned as white as a sheet and ran screaming when it came to wedding bells, rings, and forever. Carter had tried to explain it on several occasions
, and although he was happy for him and Molly, Jesse hadn’t gotten it.

Not really truly understood…until he met Emery. When he realized he’d fallen for her and wanted her to be his, the world shifted. When he found out she might be taken from him, by an outside force greater than all of them, he started fighting like hell to keep her. He now understood
exactly what Carter was saying.

Riley opened his mouth and words just coul
dn’t be formed. He smiled, half-laughing.

“Alrighty then, you think on all that. I’m going to go wake her up and bring her down to eat something,” Jesse said as he unfolded himself out of the leather chair, glancing at Riley. “It’s been a couple of hours
, and I don’t want her sleeping through the night without food since they didn’t want anything in her stomach.”

Riley smiled as he got up. “That reminds me, grandma said she’d brought over some chicken and noodles. I’ll go put it on the stove to warm it up. Hey, Jesse,” Riley said as Jesse stepped away, headed for the staircase, “thanks for taking such good care of her. She needed you.”

“I love her, Riley.”

“I know.” Riley smiled, then turned to go into the kitchen.

~

The team was set up temporarily at a small private track outside of
St. Louis for practice until they moved to the stadium the next day. Jesse seemed to like it, although Emery thought it was ridiculously cold. A chilly breeze blew through, sending her bangs right back into her eyes. Swiping at them once again, she practically growled in frustration.

Damn it.

“Em? You okay?” Jesse’s palm ran down her back.

She nodded and added another layer of guilt to the heap of shit piling up on her shoulders. It’d been a long week. Her tension was high, her temper short and being the only woman on the team, the men probably thought she was in bitch mode due to a wicked case of PMS.

Little did they know, they couldn’t be further from the truth.

From morning to afternoon, with every block of time that passed, her anxiety level ratcheted up another notch, to the point she was wound so tight she literally felt like she was going to snap. Poor Jesse, he was walking on eggshells trying to keep her calm, but that just added to her stress. Worrying about him and his feelings, worrying about trying not to take anything out on him. He’d been an angel. She just couldn’t get that voice out of her head. Every time she loo
ked in his eyes or saw the lopsided grin it was a battle. After what they’d gone through and talked about the night before her tests, after he had offered her everything she’d ever wanted, she was repaying him how? With a week’s worth of hell while they waited for a phone call telling them…what?

She’d done her best to pretend everything was fine during the day. She worked even harder behind closed doors when she was alone with Jesse. And damn it all to hell, she thought he’d been asleep when the tears finally broke through last night.

They both woke with purple smudges underneath their eyes this morning. Jesse had held her until there were no more tears left, leaving them both exhausted and emotionally drained.

Emery’s iPhone had been in the chest pocket of her factory shirt all week, but it hadn’t rang once.

Until now.

Millions of tiny pin
pricks rushed over her skin and the blood running through her veins turned ice cold. The wrench she had in her hand fell to the ground below with a clang. Holding on to the seat of his bike, she froze. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t bring herself to answer.

“Jesse,” she said desperately as utter panic set in.

He had spun, looking straight at her on the first ring. Jesse crossed the makeshift mechanic’s area in less than three strides, grabbing it out of her pocket before the third ring finished. Looking at the number, he paused as if he needed more courage first, then swiped the arrow to unlock it and shut his eyes as he pulled her close to his side.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Falson, hi, yeah, it’s Jesse.”

“Good, sir, and you
rself?” He opened eyes and offered her a great attempt at an encouraging smile as she gripped his arm wrapped securely around her tighter and tighter with each word spoken.

“Okay?” he asked.

Emery could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“
So…what does that mean?”

She knew he had to ask the question, but Emery’s mouth dropped open, the air stolen from her lungs as complete hopelessness washed over her. Emery put a hand to her mouth as her stomach clenched, her shoulders heaving as lunch threatened to return.

“Okay, oh, sir, wait. Hold on just a quick second. Em, it’s okay, honey, it’s all right. Reid!”

Her father had been working on Lance’s bike with Nick when the phone rang, and he must not have heard it with all the men talking and bikes being started and turned back off again.

“
Reid!
”
Jesse shouted louder a second time, making her flinch in his hold.

The room spun as she saw her father look up, then she started to shake. Emery knew she had to appear panicked, but she couldn’t hide it. For the first time in front of her team, she didn’t care if they saw her. She knew if Jesse didn’t have his arm around her waist right now, without a doubt she’d be in a heap on the floor.

Jesse pulled the phone from his mouth, pressing it against his shoulder. “It’s Falson.”

The two men guided her into the bike trailer and shut the door to finish in privacy.

Jesse scooted in beside her at the table. The small booth-styled space was not nearly enough room for her to crawl into his lap, so she held both arms tight around his waist, her cheek pressed against the upper part of his abdomen.

“I’m sorry about that. What were you saying?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Okay…”

“Em, honey, it’s okay.” He whispered.

“Uh-huh, so then that will help, really?” Jesse squeezed Emery to his side and rubbed her arm.

She concentrated on that to keep her calm, feeling him beside her, trying not to hear his words. She tried not to think about who he was speaking to. She gripped her arms around his waist tighter, smelling his cologne, focusing on that scent. His jersey wasn’t tucked in allowing her to get her hands on his skin, feeling the warmth from him.

“And that’s it for now?”

“All right. Well, so that’s good news, right? I mean, really, that is best case scenario…right?”

Every pause he took listening to the doctor on the other end seemed to drag longer and longer. Her pulse had to be off the charts, but she didn’t know how that was possible when her heart had stopped beating with the first ring of the phone.

“So one month?”

“No, off the top of my head I can’t remember where we’ll be, but we can fly back, that’s not a problem.”

“No, I’m positive.”

“Yeah, a Monday or a Tuesday would be best if you can get us in?”

“Sounds good, we’ll see you then. Thank you, sir.”

“We’ll do.”

“Okay, thanks again.”

Jesse ended the call and laid her phone on the table, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Not knowing was better than bad news.

“Em, it’s okay. It’s not as bad as you think. Look up here, honey.”

He put his fingers under her chin to tip it up, but she was holding on so tight he had to loosen her grip first. Emery only heard one word of his last sentence.
Bad.
She wanted to stay tucked into his side, not looking at anyone, not facing anything. All she wanted to do was hide.

Emery let him slowly pul
l her up, bringing them face to face. She tried to hold back the tears, but the instant they made eye contact all bets were off. It seemed like since she had met Jesse, she had either been dizzy, in tears, or plain passed out on the floor. Poor guy, she was sure he was going to be ready to turn tail any day and run like his ass was on fire. Emery never cried in front of anyone—ever. Not that she had been made to feel ashamed or like it was weak, she just didn’t. She had to be strong for her dad, for Riley, but now in front of Jesse, she just couldn’t seem to keep it together.

All of a
sudden, it felt like the tornado she had been watching in the distance was headed straight for her. She couldn’t make heads or tails out of what Jesse was saying. There was a loud buzzing in her ears, her heart was racing and she felt like she was going to lose it. Once and for all.

“Oh, honey. It’s
okay.” Jesse wiped away the first tear that had escaped and was running down her cheek with his thumb. “Here’s the deal. All the scans look fine and all your blood work came back pretty close to what he expected with you still being anemic, there’s a couple of things he’s going to be watching, but the rest was fine. The only thing really wrong right now—”

She sucked in a deep panicked hiss. Emery hadn’t allowed herself to think of any possible outcomes, good or bad. She had tried to ignore the elephant in the room as much as possible, and now…it was charging straight at her.

“No, Em, it’s just some vitamin deficiencies.”

She squinted at him. “Huh?”

“You’re vitamin D deficient, but apparently it’s really bad. It is also partly to blame for the horrible fatigue. So he’s going to put you on a prescription-strength dose for a month, and then he wants to see you again. He’ll recheck it then, but he wants to see how you’re doing at that point since it will work out to be about five weeks since you’ll have been off the other meds. He wants to see how this is all fitting together. So see, not a big deal. I mean, it could be a big deal, but it’s easy to fix. Now, like I mentioned, he did say there were a couple of other things he’s going to keep an eye on, but for the most part he thinks everything should start falling into place now.”

“That doesn’t make sense, it can’t be that easy.” Emery tried to read Jesse’s face, not sure if he would try to sugar coat it in front of her, but then tell her dad something entirely different. “Really?”

Up until now, it hadn’t been that easy. She wasn’t wrapping her head around that stupid simple answer.

“Really. You heard me talking to him. It’s okay, you’re going to feel great in a couple of weeks, or so he said. At least he hopes.” He hugged her tight again,
and she could see he was relieved to have that phone call behind them.

She was sure Jesse expected her to sit up and smile and be comforted, too.

The breakdown probably blindsided him as Emery began to cry uncontrollably. The suspense and fear of waiting on that one phone call, lack of sleep from worrying, and the fatigue from her health issues, was all too much, and she couldn’t keep it in anymore. She could feel Jesse squeezing her tighter into him and rubbing her back, trying to console her. She could hear his soft words trying to calm her down.

Jesse.

The weight slammed into her, knocking the air from her. The thought of what he was giving up…just to be with—her? The sleep they’d lost this week was just a drop in the bucket. The stress, the fear—no children for a man that would be a perfect father. That was too much to ask of someone she loved so completely with her heart and soul. The price too high.

I’m not worth it.

The guilt turned in her stomach, making her want to throw up and making her cry harder.

“Jesse, I can’t. I can’t do this to you,” she said between
racking sobs, “it’s not fair…to…to you.”

“What the hell?” he asked, his voice stern, rising with every word.

“Jesse—“

“
No! No, Emery. No, uh-uh, no! I love you. You are not pulling away from me now!” His voice as he yelled was a growl that bounced off the walls of the semi. “Do you hear me?”

She was trying to do the right thing. No one should give up what he was going to. No one should have to go through this week of hell every three months, six months, or a year, whatever the doctors decided on at the time. Waiting for the other shoe to drop at any given moment. No one shoul
d have to live in that kind of hell. It was one thing for her family to have to go through, but for him, it was a choice.

“I can’t do this to you, Jesse, don’t you see?” Her whole body heaved from the crying, her words choked out. “This is what life will be like
...forever!” Her statement screamed back at him in agony.

“Emery, stop! Listen to—”

He tried to talk, and she cut him off, adamantly shaking her head. “No, Jesse, this isn’t fair to you.”

“We discussed this, Em—“

Emery wrapped her arms around her stomach and curled herself up, her words tumbling out, not letting his attempts to interrupt take. She pressed on, trying to get it through to him.