Because of You: Just Because Series, Book 1, page 9
She’d spent a year around well-meaning people who censored their words carefully in regards to death. She appreciated that Caleb didn’t attempt to pretend the truth didn’t exist.
“You can keep an eye on me in the guest room.”
He grinned. “I’m not finished yet. There are dark circles under the dark circles beneath your eyes and —”
“Gee thanks,” she said. “Look that good, do I?”
“You look good enough to eat, but damn tired, Jess. There’s some asshole tormenting you and until he’s caught, I don’t anticipate getting much sleep. I can see in your face you’re afraid, that you haven’t been sleeping well. I’ll rest a whole hell of lot easier if I’ve got you within reaching distance and maybe you will too.”
She was floored by his concern, touched by it.
“And the last reason is a purely selfish one,” he continued, “but it’s probably the main one.”
“What reason is that?”
“I want your clothes in my closet and I want you in my bed.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I mean, we barely know each other.” She repeated the words weakly, but he merely dismissed them for the lie they were.
He shrugged, his smile the perfect blend of mischievous boy and confused male. “Didn’t say it made sense. Just telling you why you’re staying in this room. Besides, if none of those reasons work for you, there’s always the fact that I’m bigger than you and I can make you stay.”
She laughed at his threat and rolled her eyes. “Ah, the macho male shit has emerged. Terrific,” she added. “You know after a few days in my presence, I have a feeling all of those reasons of yours are going to seem like pretty cold comfort and you’ll beg me to move back to the guesthouse. I’m not a woman who is easily commanded.”
He laughed. “I never thought you were.” He rubbed his hands together as if in anticipation. “This is gonna be fun.”
She grinned. Fun. Yeah, it was.
* * *
Jessie pushed her chair back and stared at the computer screen. Her mind raced in a thousand different directions and no matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to calm it down. She’d hoped starting back to work would help and she’d tried to concentrate on the web design before her until the pictures and words began to blur together.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, trying to head off the headache building in her temple. Guilt assuaged her as she thought about her actions this past week.
There was no other way to say it. She’d become an utterly horrible person since moving into the James Ranch. Her emotions were riding on some sort of never-ending, hellacious roller coaster and she was aggravated by her complete lack of control. She’d always prided herself on being level-headed, easygoing. This week, she’d fluctuated between acting like a screaming banshee and producing enough tears to flood a town, and she couldn’t believe the James brothers hadn’t tossed her out on her ear.
A loud sigh escaped as her frustration bubbled to the forefront.
“Trouble?” Caleb asked. He was lounging on a couch in the corner of the office reading a medical journal, and she bit back her annoyance at his overprotective, hovering tendencies. He had become her personal shadow.
At first, she’d been touched by his concern, but lately irritation had taken over. Every time she raised her voice to him, he responded with a serenity that made her want to shake the living shit out of him. She was an emotional wreck since losing the baby—their baby—and it infuriated her to see him walking around like Dr. Calm, Cool and Collected.
To make matters worse, every time she tried to call the police to see if any progress had been made, he distracted her, telling her to give them some space and more time. She was beginning to suspect he was trying to curb her attempts at finding Tommy’s killer, their baby’s killer. Prior to the car accident, she’d planned to stop looking for the villain. Now, in light of yet another loss at the hands of the same asshole, she was out for blood. She wouldn’t rest until she uncovered the man’s crimes and saw him locked in a jail cell for the next three eternities.
“Jess, is something wrong?” he repeated when she failed to answer.
“No,” she said sharply, hoping her short, terse answer would deter him and he’d leave her alone. She desperately wanted to call the police officer from the hospital again. Surely they had some idea what sort of car had run her off the road.
No such luck. Caleb continued speaking to her.
“Maybe it’s too soon for you to try to jump back into your work,” he suggested. He’d made the same comment several times in the last few days.
“Gee, Caleb, you think?” she said, her tone bitchy and piercing.
As always, he let her angry comment pass without response and she squeezed her eyes shut against the uncontainable fury brewing in her chest. She’d bitten his head off no less than twenty times since breakfast and every time he met her insults with infuriating silence.
“I just don’t want to see you push yourself too hard too soon, Jess. Give yourself some time to—”
She cut him off with a sharp hiss. “Shut up!” she yelled.
She rose from her chair so quickly it fell backwards, crashing against the floor, but she ignored it, crossing the room to stand in front of him. “Shut up.”
He rose slowly from the couch and for the briefest moment, she saw a flicker of anger in his eyes before he shuttered the emotion away.
“Jess,” he began calmly, but she was too far gone to appreciate any of his conciliatory attempts. She was itching for a fight. Itching to tell the heartless bastard what she thought of him.
“Don’t,” she said, pushing her finger into his chest. “Don’t tell me to calm down, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, and don’t be so fucking nice to me.” Her voice was loud, piercing and for a moment she wondered what the hell she was saying. Her breathing was labored, hard, but she couldn’t contain the hateful harpy she’d unleashed within herself.
She watched his eyes go hard with fury and felt an irrational relief at the heated look.
So Mr. Detached from the World could have a human moment.
“Fine,” he yelled back. “Fine, Jess. I’ll stop being nice. Stop trying to help you.”
“Help me? Since when is hovering over me like a goddamn cloud helpful?”
He erupted in response. “You know what? To hell with this. To hell with this and to hell with you! You walk around with your fucking anger and sadness hanging out all over the place and nothing I do or say helps.”
“If you want to help me, call the cops, ask some questions. Let’s find this guy.”
“Find him? Christ, Jess. Are you seriously still going to pursue this man? After everything he’s done?”
“Yes, of course, I am. I would think you would want to find him now too.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed and she could see his attempt to control his temper wavering. “I’m trying to be patient, trying to be understanding—”
“Understanding? Is that what you call this stone façade of yours?”
“You want me to behave like you? Chasing every shadow and biting off everyone’s head every minute of the day?” he roared.
“I’d rather be emotional than emotionless,” she taunted. “I’m so sorry if my pain annoys you. All the more reason I would think you’d want to get the hell away from me. Go ahead, Caleb, go ahead and tuck your head back in that hard shell of yours and pretend nothing’s wrong.”
“I’m trying to be here for you. I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Why the hell not? It’s clear I’m an annoyance to you. Why don’t you just escape my miserable presence rather than maintain this irritating stoic hovering of yours?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he yelled.
“It means you’re like a goddamn robot. Doesn’t anything ever bother you? Hurt you? We lost a baby, Caleb. We, not just me.”
He sucked in a sharp breath at her words, and she watched with agony as his angry eyes flooded with pain. “You think I don’t feel that loss? You think it’s not ripping me to shreds knowing that our baby, that we—”
His voice broke and Jessie’s heart shattered. What the hell had she done? She’d felt so alone in her grief over the miscarriage—she’d mistaken Caleb’s calmness for coldness. She’d lost control of herself again—fallen once more into the bottomless pit of grief and anger. Only this time, she’d taken Caleb down with her.
“Caleb,” she whispered when a single tear escaped his eye. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you—”
“Cared?” he finished for her when her voice seized up. “I fucking care, Jess. I just didn’t want to dump my pain on your shoulders. You were having a hard enough time with your own grief.”
“Dammit,” she cried, her anger flaring up briefly. “I’m not fragile. I’m not weak.”
“I never thought you were,” he said.
“Why do we have to grieve separately? Why does it have to be my pain and your pain? Maybe we could just share—” Her voice broke, but Caleb didn’t seem to need to hear the rest. He engulfed her in his embrace, clutching her so tightly she struggled to breathe.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured against the top of her head.
“I thought you didn’t care,” she mumbled against his chest and he hugged her tighter.
“Jessie. When I saw you on that stretcher, when I realized you’d lost our baby and I was helpless to save it, I died a million deaths. I thought I’d failed you. I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to be able to save people, but I couldn’t—”
“Oh God, Caleb. Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. You took care of me. You couldn’t have done anything.”
“You’ve been so angry and I’ve felt like I deserved your scorn, your hate because I couldn’t save our baby.”
“Hate? I don’t hate you. It’s just, nothing seems to bother you and I felt like I was the only one who felt the loss.”
Caleb placed his hands on her cheeks drawing her face up to look at him. His thumbs gently wiped away the tears falling from her eyes. He grinned, but she could still detect the slightest trace of pain in his eyes. “Seems we’ve both been misreading each other.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. Sorry for yelling at you and sorry for thinking you didn’t care. I’m not sure how I could have believed such a thing.”
He kissed her forehead before resting his brow against hers. “I should have told you how I felt. I don’t think you’re weak, Jess. Christ, just the opposite. You’re the strongest, most amazing woman I know.”
She tilted her head up and placed a light kiss on his lips. “No more hiding our feelings. If you’re hurting and need a shoulder, come find me. I can take it, I swear.”
“And if I’m annoying you, tell me to get the hell away from you,” he said and she laughed.
He reached around her shoulders and pulled her close again as she rested her cheek on his chest. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured. “I don’t think I could stand to go through this without you.”
She smiled as she listened to his strong heartbeat. For nearly a year, she’d lived alone with her grief. Having Caleb with her as she struggled to overcome another devastating loss helped more than she could have imagined. Made her pain more bearable. However, as he held her, she realized that she was still alone. She would continue to live with Caleb, but her search for the killer would be a solitary one.
“Feel better?” he murmured against the top of her head.
She nodded and pulled back to look at him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For being here. For sharing some of the load.”
He looked at her closely and she suspected he wasn’t completely satisfied with the way they’d resolved things. He sighed, clearly dismissing his thoughts, his concerns for the time being and kissed her forehead.
“I’ll always be here. And, Jess,” he paused, “I’d like to share all of the load.”
Chapter Ten
Jessie slowly rocked on the front porch swing, overwhelmed by a feeling of contentment, peace. She’d been living at the James Ranch for over a month. During the first two weeks after the miscarriage, she’d fluctuated between extreme grief and anger as her hormones triggered excessive emotions that seemed destined to battle for dominance forever, and Caleb’s assurances that her behavior was normal didn’t make her feel any less out of control.
The sound of Matt and Mark fighting about some video game drifted out to her and she grinned. The James brothers were a loud, raucous, fun bunch of guys, and she spent most nights in the family room, watching movies or playing board games with them, laughing until her sides hurt. Her life had fallen into an easy routine, and she was surprised by the overwhelmingly welcoming reception of Caleb’s brothers. Jacob made room for her in the family office, and the two of them spent most afternoons side by side working on their laptops, her on web designs, while Jacob tapped away on class assignments or magazine articles. Mark and Matt welcomed her into the kitchen, and as a trio they made all the meals, often challenging each other to ridiculous cooking competitions.
The holiday season she’d dreaded had come and gone. She’d approached her first Christmas without Tommy with trepidation. However, the abundance of new males in her life—the James brothers as well as Todd and Stephen—had kept her so entertained, so surrounded and outnumbered, she’d never had a single moment alone to be sad. As they’d celebrated the New Year, Jessie realized she wasn’t viewing the coming months with fear or uncertainty, but rather with excitement and anticipation.
She called the Denver and Saratoga police departments weekly—much to Caleb’s dismay, but the detectives at both precincts seemed to have hit a wall in the investigation, and she was beginning to suspect the officers were viewing her continual calls as a nuisance.
Nothing new there.
Jordan kept her abreast of happenings in Denver and he’d informed her that Rex had fallen on hard times. The accounting firm was struggling without Tommy’s business savvy and Rex’s attempts at finding a capable partner had failed. According to Jordan, the man’s lack of management skills, combined with the mess of reestablishing the data lost in the fire, had destroyed any credibility the firm had once claimed.
Jordan had been a blessing, checking in weekly, helping her to rehash all the details until she thought she’d go mad. Jordan had befriended Dawnette, recruiting the secretary for her help, but she was unable to shed much light on which of Tommy’s clients could have been up to any shady activities. She’d offered a few names, all of whom Jordan had done background checks on. Jessie spent night after night pouring over the information her friend supplied, frustrated by her lack of success. There was clearly a vital piece of the puzzle missing, but despite her tireless efforts, she simply couldn’t find it.
Since his botched attempt to take her life, the embezzler had been quiet. No more phone calls, no more death threats, but she knew better than to become complacent. The man was nothing if not patient. For weeks, she’d run through the accident in her mind, the man’s voice eerily familiar and yet she still couldn’t put a face to it.
She continued to look for a house to buy, often scanning the classified ads in the newspaper, despite Caleb’s insistence that she wasn’t going anywhere until she was safe from her unknown assailant. Jessie was beginning to believe he would be happy to keep her at the ranch permanently. Unfortunately her feelings about such an occurrence ran the gamut from utter joy to sheer panic.
Caleb had filled his brothers in on her stalker prior to bringing her home from the hospital and although, she couldn’t actually prove it, she suspected they’d worked out a schedule ensuring that she was never at the ranch alone. She’d shared some of Jordan’s findings with Caleb but she sensed his interest was based more on his need to assure her safety than in actually catching the killer.
She sighed as she thought of Caleb. When they’d first met, she’d felt like half a person, and as the weeks passed, she realized he had helped her find the part that was missing. For the first time since Tommy’s death, she felt like Jessie again.
After dinner, Caleb had gone back to the bedroom to change into comfortable clothing and she’d come outside to think. He spent most days and more than a few nights at the hospital and she was struck by his devotion to his work, his dedication to his patients. They continued to share his bedroom—platonically—often talking into the wee hours of night. He was an amazing man, a dedicated doctor and the better she got to know him, the more she genuinely liked him as a person.
“There you are,” Caleb said from the front door. “I’ve been looking for you. What are you doing out here? It’s chilly.”
“It’s not cold,” she said, shaking her head at his endless pampering. It was actually a rather balmy night for early January in Wyoming. “It’s a nice evening and I thought I’d enjoy the fresh air. Come sit with me.” She patted the cushion next to her.
As he approached, she found herself fighting back the undeniable sexual attraction she felt that constantly overwhelmed her senses whenever he was near. While he’d never broached the subject of sex or alluded to the desire to extend their relationship beyond the bonds of friendship, she sensed that his brothers and her friends viewed them as a couple and she struggled with that idea. She embraced their newfound closeness and enjoyed his companionship. The problem was she had enough friends and she wasn’t entirely sure that was all she wanted from her handsome doctor.
There was a large part of her that longed for Caleb to touch her, to make love to her. Her body ached for much more than his casual touches. Every night, he offered her a sweet, rather brotherly goodnight kiss on her brow, and he’d never done more than hold her hand while they watched television.
However, there was another part of her that balked at her growing feelings for him, a small bitter piece of her heart that chastised her for her unfaithfulness to Tommy. There was also the undeniable fear firmly planted inside her that insisted love hurt. By falling for Caleb, she felt certain she was setting herself up for more heartache and pain.
