Dangerously Broken (19 page)

She had to hurry to keep up with his long strides, trying not to think of what had happened in terms of the losses she had suffered—Brandon, then her family in a different but nearly equally tragic way.

No. Can’t think about that now.

The rain started again when they were still a good block from his car. He grasped her hand tightly and moved faster as the big drops pelted them. By the time they reached his Corvette the rain was a heavy downpour—it was as if someone were dumping enormous buckets of water down on them. Jamie unlocked the ’Vette and opened her door. She paused.

“Get in, Summer Grace.”

“But I’ll get your beautiful leather seat wet.”

“Just get in,” he growled, and she did as he demanded. The smooth leather was cool beneath her damp bottom, which was still sore as hell from the caning, but rather than luxuriating in her bruises as she had earlier, now they only made her all the more aware that something was very wrong with Jamie, and therefore between them.

He swung the driver’s side door open and slid in, starting the powerful engine without a glance or a word other than, “Seat belt.”

She buckled in and shivered as he raced across town, splashing the water already pooling in the streets up onto the windows. She normally loved the rain, but not like this—not with the atmosphere in the car so tight with tension. Not when it seemed as if it was freezing-cold water trying to drown them rather than the gentle wet of a New Orleans summer.

She glanced at his stony profile and decided this was not the time to talk to him. It wasn’t that she didn’t dare—that wasn’t her, and certainly not when she wasn’t deep in subspace, although she still felt the last tendrils of it in her body. But she felt fear like a dark shadow creeping up her spine. He was so completely closed off to her—she’d never seen him like this and she needed some time to figure out how to handle it.

When they arrived at her place he pulled up to the curb and sat there, staring straight ahead through the windshield, not even cutting the motor. She waited. And finally, she exploded.

“So what the fuck, Jamie? You’re not even going to say good night?”

He sighed, rolled his shoulders. Said quietly, “Good night, Summer Grace.”

Something in her chest—the empty place that had been filling up and warming lately—went ice cold so fast it nearly choked her.
Again.
He was doing this again! It was several long moments before she could say anything.

“Seriously? That’s where we’re at? You freak out over something and I . . . what? I cease to exist? Just ‘see ya later’? Actually, not even that. And after a night of play? And fuck, Jamie . . .” She had to pause, to take in a breath, to swallow the tears forming in her throat. “God
damn
it, Jamie, you played me and fucked me and
talked
to me, and it was one of the best nights of my life and here we are again, with you running off like I was one of your vacuous dungeon groupies! I deserve better than that. I am worth more than that. And if you don’t know it . . . Fuck.”

She shook her head so hard she felt her neck crack, heard it echo in her hollow ears. Then she fumbled with numb fingers until she’d managed to unbuckle her seat belt, then pulled the door handle. From the corner of her eye she saw Jamie starting to unbuckle his as well, but she wasn’t waiting for him. He could fucking talk to her, or he could leave. But she wasn’t going to sit in his car, shivering in her drenched clothes, waiting for him to make up his mind.

She grabbed her small purse from the seat and jumped out of the car into the pouring rain. She could barely see as she made her way to the door. Just as she stepped onto the first step leading to her porch she felt a hand on her arm and Jamie whipped her around to face him.

*   *   *

J
AMIE FELT HER
trembling under his hands and he wanted to kick himself. He’d just felt so stunned. His brain had shut down so damn fast he couldn’t have explained to anyone what was going on inside him right then. But now . . . now he could see the tears on her face even through the rain and he felt like absolute shit.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And you are far from being a dungeon groupie, and you deserve everything.
Everything
. I’m being an ass. I’m sorry, Summer Grace.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You damn well should be. You can’t keep doing this to me. I won’t have it. I mean it, Jamie.”

The knot that had tied itself up in the middle of his chest back at Jackson Square gave a sharp twist. “I know you do. Can we get out of this rain so I can apologize to you properly?”

She cracked a smile, even though he could tell she was still hurting. “Which I suppose means with your ever-ready cock?”

He gave her a wry grin. “I’d like that. I really would. But I think this time we really do need to talk. I figure I’d start by clarifying a few things.”

She bit her lip, then dropped her arms and turned away from him. “I suppose that’s okay. As long as we end up with your cock telling me how sorry you are.”

He smiled, but not too broadly as he followed her into the house. He knew her sass was cover-up for real distress. And knew that he’d caused it. He had to man up and try to fix things, to make it right with her.

It was warm inside the house. She dropped her keys in a big green glass bowl on the old sea chest by the front door and went off down the hall.

“I’m getting a towel,” she called over her shoulder. “If we get pneumonia, it’s your fault.”

His stomach tightened. It would be.

Fuck. Stop it.

No one was dying tonight.

She came back and handed him a towel, and he wrapped it around her shoulders and began to dry her hair.

“Jamie, you don’t have to do that—I can do it myself.”

“I know.”

He was glad she didn’t argue any further. Despite ending their quick argument on the front steps with teasing, he needed a little time to think. To process. He bunched the ends of her long hair in the towel and pressed, moved the towel and did it again before patting at her damp cheeks. She was watching him, blinking fast, her thick lashes coming down on her pale cheeks.

He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to have this discussion with her. With anyone. But he knew he had to do it.

“You’re probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Well.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble of his hair. “Sometimes I wonder, too. But at this point I owe you an explanation.”

“Yes, you do,” she said calmly, pushing the towel from her. “Dry yourself, Jamie.”

He scrubbed the towel over his head, his face, buying a little more time.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Is this one of those conversations I need to sit down for?” she asked, and he saw a flash of fear in her eyes.

“Aw, no, sugar. No, not one of those talks. But it’s been a long night and I thought you’d want to be comfortable.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Good. Let’s go sit in the kitchen.”

He followed her into the old black and white kitchen with its vintage tile. She’d redone the old wood floors after Katrina and repainted the white cabinets, but she’d kept the original feel to the room. It was a cozy spot for a hard talk. He sat at her small table next to the window, his long legs barely fitting. The rain was really coming down outside, thunder rumbling like a lion in the still-dark sky, the sun beginning to rise behind the heavy storm clouds.

“Do you want me to make some coffee?” she asked.

“You don’t need to make coffee. And you don’t need to tiptoe around me. Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be gruff with you—I swear I don’t. I’m just all kinds of fucked up tonight. It’s no excuse. I know that.”

She shrugged and sat across from him. “Just tell me what’s going on with you.”

Of course, she knew some of it already. Most of it. But he knew he had some explaining to do. He pulled in a deep breath and ran a hand over his buzz cut, trying to sort it out enough in his head to verbalize some of the fucked-up shit that was making him spin out. “Yeah. Okay.” He took another breath, exhaled. “Okay. You know I lost Ian when we were seven.”

“Of course.”

“And then there was Brandon.”

“Yes. And then there was Brandon.” She ducked her head for a moment and he could see her forcibly swallowing down her own issues around losing her brother before she looked up at him again. “Jamie, I know the Death card freaked you out, and I get that. But your reaction—.”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “Except there’s more to it.”

“More? I’d think that was plenty to shake you up. It shook me up for a minute but then . . . Okay. I don’t mean to invalidate what you’re feeling. Go on.”

“You’d think that would be enough. For both of us. But there’s something I need to tell you now.” He rubbed his palms together under the table. “It’s something I’ve never talked to anyone about. Partly because it wasn’t really anyone else’s business, and partly—mostly, I guess—because I felt kind of . . . I don’t know. Superstitious about it.”

“You? Superstitious? You agreed to that Tarot reading because
I
wanted to do it. I thought you were the eternal skeptic.”

“I am, mostly. But I don’t know what else to call it, so yeah. Superstition. It’s gelled in my head that way and it’s been there for a long time. You remember when I was married to Traci?”

“For about a second, yes. You married her right after Brandon died. But to be honest, I don’t remember too much about that time.”

He nodded. “We got married about eight months later. It was way too soon, and we were way too young.”

She nodded. “It made sense that you guys broke up for her to go away to graduate school.”

“It did. But there’s another part of the story.” He had to stop and take in another deep breath.
Just say it.
“There was a baby, Summer Grace.”

“A baby?” She looked stunned. She looked exactly like he’d felt when Traci told him about the pregnancy all those years ago. “You have a child, Jamie? You have a
child
and you never told me?”

“What? No, I don’t have a child. The baby . . . Traci had a miscarriage.”

Summer Grace laid a hand on his arm. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Jamie.”

Feeling as if he didn’t deserve her touch, her comfort, he drew his arm back and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. It was hard to look into her concerned blue eyes as he said the words aloud—words he’d never spoken to anyone but his ex-wife. “You’ll probably think this is stupid, but . . . I’m a death magnet. I am. The card tonight confirmed what I already know. Everyone I love—truly love—dies.”

“Jamie, that’s . . .” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “That’s what you’ve been carrying around all these years? You think you invite death somehow?”

“I know I do. The people I care about are in danger, especially those closest to me. It’s one reason why I stayed away from you—not just because it was Brandon asking me to take care of you, to make sure you were all right, but because the best way for you to be all right was for me to keep some distance between us.”

“Shit.” She pushed her hair from her face, shaking her head, then looked back up at him. “That is some seriously crazy stuff.”

“I knew you wouldn’t get it.” He started to stand up.

“Jesus, Jamie, will you sit down and let me talk?”

He grunted as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “So talk.”

“I said it was crazy. I didn’t say I don’t understand how you feel. Because I feel it, too. Not death, maybe, but I feel like trouble just finds me. That bad things happen sometimes because of . . . me.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. It’s as true as you bringing death to the people you love. It
feels
true, which is sometimes the only part that counts. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually the truth in any way to the rest of the world. It’s not like we have some dark super-power. It just means you and I are a little fucked up, as you said. It’s one of the deeper things we have in common.”

He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Maybe what she was saying was right. Maybe. He couldn’t take it all in. “I don’t know, Summer Grace.”

She reached for him and pulled at his arms until she could cup his hands in her small ones, surrounding his in her warmth. “Shit happens, Jamie. All the damn time. Life happens, and just as often, death. And in case you’ve never looked at pregnancy statistics, most end in miscarriage. A lot of them are so early the woman doesn’t even know she’s pregnant, but it happens all the time. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s
not
. And certainly not yours. Not that baby or Brandon or Ian. Your brother had an accident. An
accident
. And my brother—that was caused by someone else’s stupidity. By the stupidity of the driver who hit him. None of that could possibly be your fault. What did you do, Jamie? Go to a Voodoo priestess and have her make some bad gris-gris? Sit in a corner and
wish
them dead? Come on.” She blew out a breath. “And I guess . . . I guess I didn’t do any of that to make my family fall apart, either.”

“When you say it, it makes sense.” But even as he said the words he couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea. “I’ve been carrying this around for a long damn time, though. It may take a while for me to change my thinking habits.”

“It may take us both a while. But you can’t let fear rule you, Jamie—if
I
did I would never have let you take me out of that cemetery. And I would have missed out.”

She stood and moved closer, until she could run her hand over the stubble on his head. He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips so he could kiss her palm. “You are damn smart sometimes, sugar. I mean that.”

She smiled and batted her long lashes. “I always knew I got all the brilliance in the family.”

“No doubt.” He pulled her down into his lap and buried his face in her damp hair. Christ, she smelled good, which helped him to get his brain in order again, for some reason. “We are so alike, aren’t we? I’ve known you for most of my life, but I’m only just realizing it. We’re a matched set.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, working it out even as he spoke. “We both keep the hard stuff inside. You do it by being sassy and stubborn. I do it by being nice—or so Allie tells me—and stubborn, or by being an asshole and stubborn—or so Mick tells me. But in the end it’s the same thing.”