Jesse's Soul (2) (31 page)

“No,” she said swallowing to wet her dry mouth. “I liked it. That was amazing, Jesse. I love when you make it soft and sweet and all romantic, but that was…exciting,” Emery answered, her words slurred and eyes closed.

Her head moved as his chest expanded, finally able to pull in the air he needed, then lowered much slower as if he was searching for the right words.

“I love you, honey. I just couldn’t help it…I don’t know. Something took over.”

Emery could tell he was concerned he’d scared her or something, but it was the exact opposite. She’d explain tomorrow because at the moment she was hardly able to form coherent sentences, let alone have a deep and meaningful conversation. She turned to humor instead. It was at least quick and easy.

“Well, I can’t wait to find out what real make-up sex will be like then.”

“It might be worth a fake fight to find out, huh?” he said, his words also becoming heavy.

“Mmm. I’m telling you,” she mumbled back.

Her hand on his heart could still feel it racing. She snuggled in tight to him as he pulled the covers back up close to their faces. The adrenaline slowed down
, and all of a sudden she felt so heavy she could hardly move, like she had been drugged. She heard him tell her he loved her and she whispered back.

Jesse had changed her world again tonight
, and for the first time in a long time, she was at peace. Emery took one last deep breath and fell into the deepest sleep she’d had in over two years.

Chapter Fifteen

Riley held open the door into the house from the garage, and Jesse helped Emery in, continuing their conversation from the car ride.

“I really wish you’d let me make you something. You sure I can’t get you to eat something first before you go lie down, Em?” Jesse asked as he took her coat off, but she shook her head. “You’re tired aren’t you, baby?”

She
nodded her head, again keeping the answer a silent one.

Her brother moved in and kissed the back of her head as she leaned against Jesse’s chest. “I’m sorry it was so rough today, sweetie. You get some rest, all right? I love you, Em.”

Emery didn’t open her eyes, but just gave him a half-smile and in a voice barely louder than a whisper, she answered. “Love you too, Rie.”

Jesse didn’t even ask. He just
scooped her up in his arms, carried her to her bedroom, and placed her in her upholstered chair. He bent down and quietly took off her Nikes as she leaned against his shoulder.

“You want a nightgown or something, honey?” he asked as pulled the t-shirt over her head.

With little effort she shook her head, he leaned her forward again to unclasp her bra and slipped it off. When he saw all the Band-Aids from where she’d been stuck here and there for different tests, he closed his eyes. Bruises were beginning to appear from a couple places they’d had trouble finding veins. The place they had even blown one trying was almost the size of a baseball already. Sighing, he picked her up again and placed her in her bed. He absolutely hated what she’d had to go through today.

Her eyes didn’t even flutter as he unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them
off. Jesse left her in the pale-pink lace panties and tucked the thick comforter up under her chin.

Since it was the end of February, it was almost dark outside, even though it was only just after five o’clock, so Jesse didn’t bother shutting the blinds. He went into the bathroom and turned the light on, then left the door open a crack so there would be a hint of light for her. He went back and knelt beside her side of the bed.

“I’m going to come wake you in a couple of hours, Em. You’ll need to eat something, okay?”

Sleepily, her eyes parted as s
he reached for his hand from under the blanket.

“Baby, I’m right here. God, I’m so sorry, Em.” He kissed her cheek lightly, nuzzling against the softness. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Jesse,” she whispered.

He tucked her hand back under the covers, careful not to squeeze where t
hey’d had one of the IVs. “I’ll come check on you in a little bit. Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

Jesse continued to stroke her hair as her eyes closed. When she had drifted off, he kissed her head and walked back downstairs to the kitchen.

“Here, man. You look like you could you use one.” Riley handed Jesse a cold beer, and they went to sit by the fireplace in the family room.

Emery may have decorated the rest of the house, but this was definitely where Reid left his mark. Two brown comfy leather couches and a matching chair dominated the room. A large flat screen hung on the wall along with several of Riley’s number plates, medals, and numerous jerseys. Dozens of framed pictures o
f Reid with various riders and pictures of Riley racing filled in space on the walls and filled the bookshelves, along with pictures of Emery working on his bikes. And there were trophies galore, mixed in amongst the years of school pictures. Sitting on the mantel were family pictures, with a large one in the center of Riley and Emery. It was a candid shot of the two of them laughing when they were in their teens, blown up and printed in black and white.

In the silence, Jesse could feel Riley watching him as he stared blankly into the fire.
Her brother finally asked if he was all right.

“My
girlfriend looks like a pin cushion, Riley. It’s horrible.” He ran his palm up his face and into his hair. “I wish they could take into account how petrified she is of needles. It kills me that they hurt her so much.”

“
What?” Riley whipped his head in his direction.

Jesse could see Riley was
completely shocked by the news. Nodding, he turned back to watch the flames dance.

“She’s scared of needles? She’s never said a word about that. Ever.”

“And she still isn’t going to tell you.”

“What do you mean, she won’t tell me?”

Jesse took another swig of his beer and looked at Riley instead of the fire. “Riley, I’m only going to tell you this because I have a feeling she’s wrong. I also think it’s part of what’s keeping her from healing.”

“What are you talking about?” Riley asked prompting him to get to the point.

“Riley, why did you retire?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Jesse could hear the urgency in Riley’s voice, but he pressed on for an answer first. “Why?”

“Because of my back.”

“That’s what I thought. She thinks you retired to take care of her when she got sick.”

“She thinks I quit
because of…her?”

Jesse looked back at the fire, searching the bottom for the blue flame and nodded.

“Why wouldn’t she say anything?”

“She feels guilty about it, so she won’t say anything to you. She felt like she couldn’t tell you she was scared or worried, tell you how sick she was, or let you in on how she really felt because you’d already given up so much, and she just couldn’t bear to ask for any more of you. And she isn’t going to tell you about the needles.”

“Damn it.” Riley grabbed his forehead and rubbed his eyes. “Damn it…damn it.” He looked up at Jesse. “I wish she’d said something. I feel like hell. My poor baby sister has kept that kind of burden on herself. No wonder you think that’s why she can’t get better. Fuck, Jesse.”

Riley shook his head, and Jesse could see the pain in his eyes.

“I know you two are really close, Riley. That’s why she couldn’t tell you. I hope you understand that part of her thinking.”

“I do. But she is so wrong.
So completely, fucking wrong.” He took a deep breath. “The timing could’ve appeared that way to her, but you probably remember that crash I had about eight years ago?”

“Yeah, actually I do. Back when you were still racing lites, right?”

“Yeah. It screwed my back up, and every year after that, it just got harder and harder to work through the pain. Age wasn’t helping a damn thing, either. Dad and I had been discussing my options when she got that first positive result back that something was wrong. And then two weeks before outdoor was over that summer, the diagnosis came back and that sealed the deal. There was the nice, long break before the SuperCross series started, and Dad and I were both home with her, and it just felt like the right time to retire. Kerry was little and Caitlyn was still a newborn baby. Lauren couldn’t travel with them, and I needed to be home to help her. Then after the treatments were done with Em, she didn’t seem to get better. She has been like...” Riley paused, seeming to search for the right words to describe his little sister. “It’s like she’s been—”

Jesse looked at Riley. “She said she’s felt like she’s underwater. Like everything goes on around her
, and she can’t do anything. She can’t get to the surface.”

“Really?” Riley closed his eyes and lowered his head into his hand. “No wonder they kept pushing drug after drug on her. She appears depressed.”

“I think it’s the drugs that are doing it do her. My mom’s been looking into it some more for us, and everything she’s found describes her to a
T
.”

“Yeah, but if you add the guilt and the whole Collin thing, the doctors thought they were helping.”

“I doubt she ever told the doctors anything about that part.” Jesse took another drink of his beer. “I think they just assumed, here’s a twenty-three-year-old girl who now can’t have kids—she’ll be depressed. Here’s the script. They never let her try to deal with it on her own. Instead, it’s made everything worse. You heard Falson today, he admitted to the meds being the reason her blood pressure has been so messed up. It’s like a giant catch twenty-two. She feels bad, they give her meds. The meds make her feel worse, they give her more meds, and so on.”

Riley r
olled his neck, popping it side to side. “Yeah, I just wish they didn’t have to pull her off it so slow. I wish they could just stop it and let her start feeling better.”

“Well, I’m glad you and I got to be in there with her to talk to him so we could tell him no more meds. We’ll deal with the hormone replacement stuff, but it shouldn’t be like what she’s been going through. Now if we can get all the test results back and have everything be normal, she can get on the road to getting better for real.”

“I’m going to have to talk to my sister. I’m glad you said something, Jesse. I had no idea she’d been keeping that to herself. And the needle thing? She’s that scared?”

“Shaking. You should’ve seen her last night, man. She’s truly petrified to the point of shaking.”

Riley took a deep breath, and Jesse understood. He had shared a lot of information that Riley had to process. “I need another beer. You want one, man?”

Jesse nodded. “Yeah.”

It had been a long week, a long day, and now all they could do was sit by the phone and wait. Jesse just stared into the fire, waiting on Riley to come back from the kitchen.

“Here.”

“Thanks. You know, you hear about this person or that person getting cancer. You never hear of the day-to-day agony of what it really means to have it. And I know I wasn’t even there to go through the real
hell of it with her. The last two, going on three years have had to be pure hell for her and your family, Riley.”

“Yeah,” Riley answered, watching the flames also. “But she got a good prognosis originally, so we’ve held on
to that. If we can figure out the rest and make sure it hasn’t spread, then it will all be good. They caught it early enough that with drastic measures, they could save her life.”

“It was very serious then?”

“Well, all cancer is serious, but yeah, she was in serious shape, she was just so young to have that type.”

Jesse ran his hand over his face and up through his hair as he turned back to the fire. In all his life
, he’d never felt so helpless. So utterly helpless. The woman he’d fallen so madly in love with was lying in a bed upstairs, while God knows what, was going on inside her body, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He kept picturing the house—
their house in Pennsylvania. Different scenes from their future together played through his mind. Them working side by side with young racers, having loud, rambunctious dinners at James and Karen’s house. Pool parties and evenings outside sitting around the fire pit doing nothing but relaxing. She was in every scene, every picture.

Both men sat quietly, watching the flames dance, stuck in their own thoughts and worries. Finally, Riley broke their silence. “Hey, Jesse, you’re a good man.”

Jesse looked at Riley, waiting for him to explain.

“You could have walked away when she told you what was going on. And you didn’t. You’re a good man, thank you.”

He stared at Riley for a few seconds. He looked just like his sister, not in a brother-sister way, but more in that they could have been twins. Dark brown—almost black hair, haunting green eyes, and the matching dimples, but Riley had masculine features. Of course Emery was
all
woman. Jesse pictured her in the green lace bra and panty set from the night before. She was his woman.

“Riley, I didn’t stay because I didn’t want to hurt her. I want to be with her because I love her.” He drew in a long breath through his nose. “I’ve asked her to move in with me.”

“Really? Already?” Riley’s eyebrow shot up.

Jesse nodded. “Yeah. And
...” He glanced down at the label on the beer bottle he was holding, pausing for a quick moment, to brace himself for Riley’s reaction. Looking back up, he said the words aloud, making Riley the first to know. “I told her when I think she’s ready for the next step that I will propose.”

Riley’s jaw dropped open. “Are you serious?”

“We talked about it all last night. I would have waited because I know she’s trying to take this slow, but I wanted her to know exactly where I stand before the test results come back. I didn’t want her to have any question in her mind whether or not I was in this with her for the long haul.”

“Wow.”

“Yep.”

Riley’s shocked face cracked
, and he gave the Kincaid half-grin, half-smirk that Jesse had seen so many times from Reid and now Emery.

“Wow.” Riley smacked his palm on his thigh.

“I am afraid when it comes time for the house to actually be ready to move into, she’s going to have a really hard time leaving here. Leaving all of you. But I promised her we would visit a lot, and the house is going to be big enough for all of you to come up anytime and as often as you guys can.”

“Wow.”

“You’ve said that.” Jesse raised his eyebrow at Riley, then finally smiled. It felt real. Telling her brother of their plans just made it seem more real. “I will ask your dad when the time comes, so don’t worry.”