Gena Showalter - The Closer You Come

Brook Lynn shifted, rubbing her thigh against his, breaking his concentration. His hands itched for contact... How easy it would be to reach out and twine their fingers.

Hand-holding? What, I’m in junior high now?

“Jase,” Brook Lynn whispered and sighed warily. “I like you just fine, too. You’re actually a pretty nice guy.”

Kind words. For him. The least-deserving person on earth. If she knew half the things he’d done...hell, even a tenth of the things he’d done...she would have kept her lips zipped. But she didn’t know, and he reached for her without thought, the need to connect with her stronger than the need to remain self-contained, distant.

Who am I?

The moment his hand covered hers, she visibly relaxed. He tightened his grip, actually clinging to her. I’ve helped soothe her. Me. And maybe...maybe she’s soothing me, too. At least a little. Because even though desire for her was building, turning his body into a pressure cooker, he experienced wave after wave of peace. As if the world could catch fire and burn around him, and it wouldn’t matter. He was finally where he needed to be, doing what he needed to be doing.

Might not know who I am, but I know I need more of this. Which was the very reason he forced himself to release her.

CHAPTER FOUR

JASE REVERENTLY LAID Brook Lynn on one side of his bed while Beck just sort of plopped Jessie Kay on the other. Both girls were passed out, though for different reasons. Brook Lynn was exhausted. Jessie Kay was trashed.

The lamp on the nightstand cast soft beams of light over Brook Lynn, and Jase found himself standing there, unable to move, staring like a creeper. He’d never expected to meet the real Sleeping Beauty. Silky blond hair spilled around a face as delicate as an antique cameo. Her lashes were so long they curled at the ends. Her heart-shaped lips were red, plumped...begging for a kiss.

A muscle flexed deep in his gut.

“Jessie Kay?” she muttered, the girl clearly never far from her mind.

“She’s fine. She’s right next to you,” he said quietly, not wanting to yank her from that sweet place between sleep and wakefulness. “Beck is tucking her into bed right now.”

Her eyes remained closed as she burrowed deeper into the covers. “Home?”

“My home. You slept through most of the search.”

“Have to tell her...we...fired.”

She and her sister had been fired...from Two Farms? Surely. It was the only job they worked together.

Her earlier tears suddenly made sense. That muscle in his gut flexed all over again.

He’d learned a lot about Brook Lynn tonight, and he’d liked every detail. She was dedicated. Loyal. Kind. Caring. Determined. Sweet.

Too sweet for me.

Only a fool would fire her. And knowing her situation? The fool had to be a major asshole. Somehow she had become a mother to her older sister, and she was a damn good one.

“Jase?” Beck’s voice whispered through the room.

He glanced up. His friend now stood in the doorway, waving him out. Though he hated to leave, he dragged his feet into the hall, shutting the girls inside.

In the kitchen, West gripped a beer in each hand. His eyes were darker than usual, reflecting the shadows underneath.

Beck cursed under his breath. “Seriously?”

“No need for a hissy, Becklina. These aren’t for me.” West handed a beer to each of them. “You’ve both earned a drink. And don’t even think about refusing.”

In unison, they claimed a spot at the table.

Jase clinked his bottle against Beck’s. “Congratulations. You got twelve numbers during tonight’s mission. It’s a new record.”

“Yeah. An all-time low. I must have been off my game somehow,” the guy said with a slight pout.

West rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Beck’s lack of success is not tonight’s top story. This just in—Jase has feelings for Brook Lynn.” He waved his hand around the center of the table. “Discuss.”

Feelings? Him? He slammed the bottle on the table with more force than he’d intended. “You’re wrong. I barely know her, but even if I did feel something—which I don’t and never will—I won’t go after her. That delicate Southern flower would cut and run the moment she learned the truth about me.”

West frowned at him. Beck patted his shoulder. Both radiated the ever-present guilt and sorrow he hated so much, as if they were to blame for even this.

He loved them, but sometimes he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with them. It hurt too much.

“Besides, if I wanted Brook Lynn, why would I be thinking about finding Daphne?” he asked. “Tell me that.”

“Daphne?” Beck shook his head, hanks of hair falling over his forehead. “Why the hell are you thinking about her? She left you when you needed her most.”

“Maybe I left her ,” he said. He might have blamed her for their split at first, but then he’d gotten over himself and reviewed the situation through her eyes. His actions had presented her with a clear-cut choice: a life of misery with him or a chance at happiness without him. It wasn’t brain surgery.

West scowled at him. “You were forced to leave her.”

“No. No, I wasn’t. I chose to do what I did, and the decision cost me.”

Silence descended, tense, oppressive. Jase looked away from his friends, his gaze skipping over the room. Have got to finish repairing this place. It was time. They were settled in, and they weren’t going to move. Not again.

The yellowed wallpaper had what looked to be strawberries scattered in every direction. He’d already replaced the chipped and stained laminate counters with marble and the parquet floor with stone, only to stop. Some part of him recognized the house had become a metaphor for his life. Bits and pieces fixed up, the rest a crumbling wreck.

While a little manual labor would change the house, nothing would ever change him.

“Jase,” West said. “Forget about Daphne. We need to talk about the reason you won’t admit you’re developing feelings for Brook Lynn.”

Seriously. When had these two become such pusses? “I have no feelings,” he insisted. “I’m too screwed up.”

“We’re all screwed up,” Beck said. “But that doesn’t stop me from trying.”

“Boy-o, you haven’t been trying,” West said. “You’ve been plowing, sowing the proverbial wild oats.”

If people were clay, then the past was the pair of hands on the spinning wheel, shaping...shaping... mis shaping. They’d each been dried and hardened damaged. The only way to change them now was to break them. But Jase had been broken before and had tried to glue the pieces of himself back together. Had suffered in ways he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. He was different now—worse.

He would not break again.

“Forget about me. You’re avoiding the heart of the issue, Jase,” Beck said softly, leaning back in his chair. “We all are, and it’s not doing us any good. So I’m just going to say it. Because despite the fact that we all did what we did together, we’ve never spoken the words aloud.”

A stilted pause as Jase shook his head. They hadn’t spoken the words aloud because he couldn’t bear to hear them.

“Nine years ago,” Beck continued, “we committed a terrible crime. The three of us. Together.”

Not ready to do this. Jase drained his beer then drained Beck’s. “Enough.”

The color faded from West’s face, but still he said, “We killed someone.”

Jase went still. Why were they doing this to him? As if he would ever forget.

West, looking haunted, said, “They deemed it voluntary manslaughter.”