Chasing Bliss

Chapter Fourteen

“You okay back there?” her mom asked, her neck craning around.

“I’m fine, Mom.” Gemma looked out the window of her mom’s sedan. Utter blackness stared back at her. She’d never seen darkness the way it was here in Bliss. The road thudded beneath her, and she wondered where Cade was.

Jesse’s arm settled around her, pulling her close. His scruffy cheek rubbed against the top of her head. She felt him kiss her hair.

When she’d woken up, Jesse had been right there. He hadn’t left her side the whole time. He’d completely and blatantly lied to everyone, telling the staff that he was her husband so he couldn’t be cut out of the loop. Caleb and Ty had gone along with it.

Gemma was surprised at how much comfort he’d given her. She’d been alone for so long that she’d forgotten what it meant to lean on someone. After her father had died, she’d pulled away from her mom. She’d told herself she did it because her mom didn’t need a kid clinging to her while she worked through her grief, but Gemma could see she’d done it because it was safer to be alone.

Nearly dying had made her overly contemplative. And pointed out some harsh truths in her life.

She tried not to think about what she’d figured out. There was time enough to deal with that later. Though she would have to tell Jesse what she suspected because, like it or not, Neanderthal thinking aside, he really was her man. He’d proven it today.

“She’s all right now,” Naomi said, her hands steady on the wheel. “The hospital wouldn’t have released her if she wasn’t okay. She’ll just be tired for a little while. And she’ll stay away from strawberries.”

Freaking strawberries. “It’s not like I said I wanted a taste.”

Her mother’s head shook. “And you without your medication. She’s had that medication on her person every day since she was six years old.”

Jesse’s arms tightened. “That wasn’t smart.”

She shrugged a little. “I haven’t been smart for a while.” The car got quiet for a moment. “Where do you think he is?”

Jesse’s voice was low, meant for her ears only. “I don’t know, baby.”

He’d been frustratingly silent on the subject of Cade. She remembered that he’d been there. Cade held her hand, but then he’d been gone and Jesse had taken his place, and she didn’t know where he was.

“Did you call him?”

“No.”

Well, that told her something. She sat up. “What happened?”

“You should tell her, Jesse.” Naomi made the turn that would take them to the valley. “You would be pissed if she didn’t tell you.”

“Someone better tell me something now.”

Jesse tugged her back into his arms. “Doc told you to rest.”

Stubborn man. “I can rest while you tell me where Cade is.”

She was starting to panic. Would he just leave? Could he have been so horrified by the whole body-bloating thing that he actually fled the county? She remembered how Patrick had spoken. Fucker. But Cade had gotten to his knees and held her like he wouldn’t let go.

Jesse sighed. “Gemma, the last I saw of him, he was being hauled off to jail.”

Gemma sat straight up. “Naomi, you have to get me to the station house. Damn it. How could you leave him there? What’s his bail? How late is it? I think the boys from Creede take the night shift. I don’t like them. They forget things. What if they forget his dinner?”

He could be sitting there in jail, rotting because he’d defended her.

“Gemma, he lost his temper when he should have been taking care of you.”

“Ty was taking care of me. And Cade was with me the whole time until Ty gave me the EpiPen. He held my hand. It might be a little hazy, but I remember that. It was Patrick, right? He punched Patrick.”

It was the only explanation that made a lick of sense. And given the conclusion she’d come to, she kind of wanted to kiss Cade.

“Honey, he didn’t just punch Patrick. As far as I could tell, he damn near killed him.”

“Good for Cade.”

“That’s what I said.” Naomi sounded a little fierce.

“Me, too. Good for Cade. I hope he messed that no-good up.” Her mother typically preached love and understanding, but she slapped at the dashboard.

“Does anyone here understand that what he did was wrong? He should have been taking care of you, Gemma. He made things difficult for the doctor. He could have hurt you.”

The time for honesty was upon her, and it was so much easier because it would get Cade out of trouble. “Jesse, I had my own fork.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Naomi stopped the car and both she and her mom turned.

“What are you saying, baby girl?” her mom asked.

She’d been over this a thousand times while she’d lain there in that bed. From the moment she’d been able to hold a comprehensible thought, she’d gone over and over the moment when she’d picked up that freaking fork and taken a bite.

“Stella brought me silverware. I unrolled it and put the fork and spoon and knife aside. I got up to go to the bathroom. I talked to Hope and Beth. I came back and my fork was right where I’d left it. Except it wasn’t mine. Mom, seriously? Do I just go around picking up forks?”

Naomi answered that one. “You try to clean the ones they bring you in restaurants. I’ll admit, it can be embarrassing at times.”

She felt an oddly deep satisfaction with her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Oh, it had failed her this time, but only because that weasel, tiny-dicked, no-balls ex of hers had played her properly. “I know how Stella cleans her dishes. I tested the temperature of the dishwater. Ten percent above Health Code. So I feel comfortable eating at Stella’s.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, baby.” Jesse’s tone had changed to what she’d begun to think of as his About to Kick Some Ass voice. It was a slightly less sexy version of his About to Spank Your Ass voice, though Gemma still found it awfully arousing.

“I’m saying Patrick got rid of the fork Stella gave me and put his where I would think it was mine.”

She could practically feel him vibrating with rage. If she’d thought for a single moment that this was all some sort of a fun game for Jesse McCann, those ideas were gone. He really did give a shit about her. He’d been pissed at his best friend when Cade hadn’t behaved the way he thought he should. He’d stayed with her, apparently choosing a rousing night at the hospital over getting his best friend out of jail.

She’d come between them, but in the best way. Not the best way. The best way would be sexually, but they both cared about her. They just didn’t see eye to eye on how they should go about it.

She needed rules. God, she fucking loved rules. Well, the ones she made, anyway.

“Rule number one, always make bail.”

“What?”

“We have rules for this relationship. You want me to be your woman? Well, I like rules and lists and matrices. If we live together, you better get used to a whole lot of whiteboards.”

“She’s not kidding,” her mother said with a laugh. “She made me get her one when she was eight years old and trying to figure out what pet to get. Her father and I watched in utter horror as she made pros and cons columns and then decided after ten days of deliberation that she wanted a houseplant.”

She’d been a mystery to her freewheeling hippie parents. She was so cautious, so unsure. She wanted the world to give her a money-back guarantee on life, but she was rapidly discovering that nothing worked that way—and it was okay. It was fucking okay to make mistakes and need a damn do-over. It was okay to not be one hundred percent sure that she was on the right path.

Gemma sat back, a single moment of her life crystalizing in an instant.

She was twelve and her father was dying. She remembered how cold the hospital was, but she couldn’t leave because this was her home now. Two weeks she’d spent as he choked and gasped his life away. Her mother had never faltered. She’d tried to send Gemma off, but she couldn’t go. What if he died and she wasn’t there?

She’d stood on a step stool and looked down at him, and he’d said three words to her.

“Live. Live. Live.”

She’d thought he was too far gone and didn’t know what he’d been saying. She’d thought he was telling her what he wanted. That he wanted to live.

He was begging her. He was pleading with his too-intellectual daughter.

Live. Live. Live.

For so long she’d clung to that vision of her father, a dying man, clinging to something far gone. It had influenced her life, driving her to goals that had nothing to do with emotion. Her life had been a checklist, devoid of true passion. Absent of feeling. As she’d lain there clutching Cade’s hand and praying for Jesse to come, she’d understood what he meant.

Live. Live. Live.

She’d pursued wealth and cultivated ambition. But she knew what she wanted now. And she knew something else. She was Gemma Wells. And she would get it. Come hell or high water. She wanted Jesse McCann and Cade Sinclair, and she wanted to practice law in Bliss, Colorado, where they had an actual injunction against lawyers.

And that wouldn’t stop her.

“Baby, are you sure?”

Gemma knew he was asking about whether or not her small-penised, couldn’t-please-a-woman-if-someone-gave-him-a-road-map-to-her-clitoris ex had actually intended to kill her, but she meant something else. “Yes. I’m sure.”

There would be no more New York. No big city to conquer. Just Bliss. But she would find her place. She would build her home with a single-minded passion that had been lacking for years.

“Take me to Cade.”

Cade started when the door opened. He’d been sitting there for so fucking long, he’d kind of expected no one would ever show up, but the door opened and Gemma walked though, her blonde hair swaying around her shoulders.

“There you are.” It wasn’t the greeting he’d expected. She sighed and her eyes narrowed, but there wasn’t any anger in her gaze. There was a soft satisfaction there. “I thought you were still in jail, but the Creede boys said you had been gone for a while. I was just about to go wake up Nate when I saw your bike outside.”

He stood, looking around the cabin. He’d cleaned. Though she kept the place precision-perfect neat, she sometimes forgot to dust. He’d stocked the fridge. He couldn’t stand the thought of her having nothing to eat. He’d busied himself when he should have had the courage to go to the hospital and tell her good-bye. “They let me go. Your ex pissed off Stef Talbot and everyone decided to leave well enough alone.”

Jesse’s eyes became hard. “Where did that little fucker get to?”

“I don’t know. Nate warned me to leave him alone.”

“Nate can bite my ass,” Jesse said on a growl.

Gemma sent him a nasty look. “You promised.”

“Only for tonight. Tomorrow, he’s mine.”

Cade wasn’t sure what that was about. Now that Gemma was all right, it seemed like Jesse wanted a piece of Patrick. And it was Jesse’s right. Gemma belonged to him.

Gemma. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The last time he’d seen her, she’d looked dead. Now she just looked tired. He would never be able to forget that she was fragile. No matter how much of a force of nature Gemma appeared to be, she was just a woman at heart, and she was just as fragile as the other women in his life had been.

He should have left. Gotten on his bike and fled the fucking scene of the crime. But he’d stayed because he couldn’t leave without making sure she was fine. He’d spent hours cooking for her, making sure that at least she would be well fed. And then he would face her. He would see the look in not only hers but Jesse’s eyes, and then he would hop on his bike and go. He wouldn’t look back. He would know that Jesse would take care of her, and he could just fucking drink and party himself to the death he deserved.

Except she walked right up to him and wrapped her damn arms around him, snuggling her head against his chest. “When they told me you’d been arrested, I was so worried about you.”

Worried about him? She was the one who’d almost died. And he didn’t understand a Gemma who didn’t spit and claw like a riled-up cat. Shouldn’t she be mad? “Gemma? Are you okay? What did the doctors say?”

Jesse moved behind Gemma, his eyes finding Cade’s. He frowned, but Cade couldn’t tell what was going through his head.

“I’m fine. Mom and Naomi drove me home, but we went to the station first. They told us that you were cleared and Pat was gone, so no one has to kill him, but we need to figure out why my sad-sack, scared-of-his-own-shadow ex would try to kill me. I don’t want to do that tonight, though.”

He stopped. “Kill you? I thought it was an accident.”

Her chin came up. “Do you honestly believe I would steal his fork?”

Gemma was a little OCD. When he’d cooked what seemed like a week’s worth of food earlier, he’d made damn sure every single dish was sparkling clean. She might not dust the bookshelves, but her kitchenware was immaculate. Even when she never used it. His heart rate started to speed up.

She sighed. “There it is. Did you know you get this little tic over your right eye when you get mad?” Her fingers brushed the place, as though trying to soothe him.

“I never had it before I met you.” Gemma had given him a damn tic. And it wasn’t just when he was mad, though he was pretty freaking mad right now. Before he went off to drink himself to death, he would find that fucker, force a goddamn fork into some soft part of him, and then the asshole would know how wrong it had been to mess with Cade Sinclair’s girl.

Because even though he was leaving, she would always be his girl.

“Stop. I know what you’re thinking, but this is going to require more thought than just beating the crap out of him.” She pulled away just a bit. “I don’t want to think about Pat anymore tonight. I want you to come outside with me.” She pulled on his hand, and he wondered if she hadn’t been damaged by the whole “poisoning by strawberry” incident. He’d cooked her a week’s worth of food, carefully avoiding anything that looked like a berry.

She grasped his hand, tugging him out.

“Gemma, baby, I need to talk to you before I go.” He just had a few things to say to her and then he would leave her to Jesse.

She utterly ignored him, walking toward her front door.

Cade looked at Jesse. “What’s going on?”

“No idea, but I’m going along with it.” Jesse followed them out the door. “Gemma and I have completely different ideas on how you should behave when someone tries to kill her.”

Cade tried to stop. “I still don’t completely understand that.”

“She’ll explain it later.” Jesse followed them. “She’s not up on our vigilantism. I already tried. Tonight, we just need to let it be. Tomorrow we can talk, my brother.”

The fact that Jesse was still calling him brother gave him a deep sense of peace. It didn’t change what he needed to do, but he felt better about it. Jesse had done the right thing. Cade had lost it, proving once again that he didn’t deserve joy and happiness.

Jesse continued, “Tonight, just follow her. She’s made some crazy breakthrough. I would spank her ass, but I saw her all bloated and near dead and I’m just happy she’s here. I can’t fucking Dom her tonight. I just want to hold her. I just want to think we can work.”

She kept pulling at him, drawing him out. He should pull away, but he couldn’t let her hand go. He knew he should, but he just held her tighter as she walked on to her porch and then to the grass. She turned the porch light off, sending the entire yard into complete gloom. Darkness pervaded. Black was everywhere and still he followed her.

“Look up.”

He pulled back, trying to get her to stop. They needed to talk. He needed to explain to her why he should leave. It was the only thing to do. He would get on his bike and head out, leaving her to Jesse, who could love her with a whole heart with no crazy fucking violent rage between them.

She let go of his hand, the loss of her warmth a deep sadness in his soul. She walked away from him, turned, and laid her body down on the grass, turning her face up. A look of wonder crossed her face. “Look up. I never look up. I wouldn’t think to. Up didn’t matter, but look at it. Tell me that doesn’t matter. Tell me that is meaningless.”

She might have gone over the edge. Gemma almost always rode that fine line between perfectly normal and neurotic nut job, and nearly dying seemed to have pushed her over.

“Gemma, baby, I only hung around so I could make sure you were okay. I need to go. I’m not good for you.”

But she was staring up. Jesse got to the ground and lay down beside her in the grass. A chill ran across his skin. It was damn cold, and she’d been sick, and she was lying in the grass in the middle of the night.

“You can leave tomorrow,” she said, a smile on her face. “Please stay with me tonight. Come on, Cade. I just want one night. I want you to lie down and look up with me.”

Frustration welled. Stay with her? Didn’t she know how hard it was to leave her? Couldn’t she see that the last few hours had been a living hell? He wanted to get it over with, to move on with his life. But he couldn’t deny her. He couldn’t look at those big, bright eyes and get on his bike and drive off. He sighed and gave in, getting to his knees and sinking down on his back beside her.

And he saw what she was talking about. A million stars blanketed the sky, brighter than anything he’d seen. They twinkled and winked like diamonds. He found himself staring up, wondering how he’d never seen it before.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Gemma’s voice was a contented sigh. She reached out, linking her hand to his, pulling it over her heart. He felt another hand there. Jesse’s. She held both hands over her heart.

“Of course it’s beautiful. It’s Colorado. Do either of you look around?” Jesse grumbled a little, but Cade could feel him clutching Gemma’s hand. “Am I the only one who smells the freaking roses? Gemma, baby, you like lists. Well, you’ve got to spend the next couple of days resting, and I’m going to make sure you really look around and see the place we’ve been blessed with.”

Jesse was right. Cade didn’t look around. Not really. He didn’t just stop and stare at the beauty around him. During the day he worked, and at night he partied. He hadn’t spent a ton of time looking around at the mountains and the stars above. In many ways, he’d been as single-minded as Gemma, focusing on how to have fun and keep the ghosts at bay.

He looked back up at those night lights. Millions of miles away. Some were dead already, their light a mere beacon, proof that once the star had lived. Some still-thriving suns. Those stars were always there, always above him, but the harsh light of the sun masked their existence. In the city, they were tiny, insignificant things, covered up by human lights, but here Cade could see the infinite.

He stared up. It should make him feel small, but somehow, with Gemma’s hand in his, those stars above gave him comfort.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Cade turned his head. It was pitch black, but he could see Gemma’s face, the curve of her cheek, the stubborn tilt of her chin. He rolled toward her. The stars were beautiful, but she was gorgeous. He laid his head close to her shoulder and just let himself be still for a moment.

One more night. He could handle one more night. And then he would go. He was still bad for her.

But for tonight, he would rest and watch the stars.