Learning to Breathe Again (21 page)

“
Aww, he’s so adorable,”
Bayleigh gushed, looking at the picture before reading what Carly
had written. With a gasp, her eyes went to Jack. “She wants me to
name him?”

“
His middle name, yes. She
said she wouldn’t have gotten through labor without you. Guess I’m
still chopped liver,” he muttered with a wink, taking his phone
back. “So, what’s it going to be?”

“
I’ve never named a baby
before, I don’t even know what to suggest! Did she say what his
first name is?”

“
Robert, after her
dad.”

Bayleigh nodded and pushed the covers off of
herself, standing up and stretching, much like Jack had done
moments before. Jack watched as her shirt pulled tight across her
breasts and he swallowed.

“
I think I’m going to head
into the kitchen. Why don’t you stay in here for a bit?”
and let me cool off.

“
You sure you don’t want me
to help start breakfast?” she asked, turning towards him but he’d
already started to walk out of the room.

“
Nope. I’ll be fine,” he
answered over his shoulder.

Bayleigh folded up their blankets and stacked
them on the seat of the armchair. She rolled up the foam mats and
stacked those along with the pillows next to the chair. Checking
the screen in front of the fireplace to make sure it was in place,
she headed for the kitchen.

Jack had used the percolator and brewed a
fresh pot of coffee and was scrambling eggs when she walked into
the room. It was cooler than the other room, but the stove and oven
were heating it up so it was at least comfortable.

“
Can I do anything to help?”
she asked, stopping at the edge of the counter.

“
I’ve got it under control,
but thanks,” he smiled at her over his shoulder. “Coffee’s ready,
if you want some.”

Bayleigh nodded and moved over to the stove,
reaching for the percolator on the back burner. Jack had already
set a cup next to the stove for her, and seeing his half-empty cup,
she filled his back up.

“
I called Paul, he said most
of the town is without power right now. Crews are working on it,
but he said to be prepared to be without for a day or two. Then I
called my uncle’s foreman. He’s been checking on Jason’s place;
they still have power over there and at my uncle’s, and the
contractor was able to fix that broken pipe at Jason’s before the
storm hit yesterday,” he dished up the scrambled eggs and bacon and
motioned to the pot holder next to her hand. “Hand me that and I’ll
get the biscuits out of the oven. I figured we’d dish it all up in
here and eat back by the fire, where it’s warmer,” pulling the pan
out of the oven, he placed a couple of biscuits on each plate and
picked them up. “Can you grab the coffee mugs?”

They headed back to the living room and
settled on the couch. “So, do you want to head over to your uncle’s
or to Jason’s?” Bayleigh asked as they ate.

“
We can try. We could take
the back road to my uncle’s. Jason’s place would be a bit trickier
to get to, if the roads are still icy.”

“
Or we could stay here,
right?”

“
If you don’t mind roughing
it,” he set his plate down and watched her finish eating. “Have you
thought of any names?”

“
Chandler,” she set her own
plate aside and picked up her coffee mug, cradling it between her
palms.

“
Family name?”

“
No, a friend of mine lost
her baby at 27 weeks a few years ago. She was going to name him
Chandler. And I like how it sounds with Robert.”

Jack nodded and took his phone out of his
pocket. “I can text Carly, let her know.”

“
Thanks. But please tell her
she doesn’t have to use it if she doesn’t like it. I don’t want her
stuck with a name she hates.”

“
Trust me, Carly and Mitch
don’t do anything they don’t want to do. But I’ll tell her, if it
makes you feel better.” He sent the text and then tossed the phone
aside. “So, if we’re going to try to wait out the storm, what would
you like to do to pass the time?”

“
I have a few ideas for
songs I want to work on, if you don’t mind me strumming on my
guitar.”

“
Nope. I have some legal
papers I need to review. Will it bother you if I stay in
here?”

Bayleigh shook her head and stood up. “I’ll
take these to the kitchen and clean up, since you cooked,” she told
him, heading for the doorway. It didn’t take her long in the
kitchen, since he’d only used the one pan to make everything, other
than the biscuits.

Heading for her bedroom, she grabbed a pen
and one of her other notebooks and headed back to the living room.
Jack had refilled both coffee cups and had claimed one end of the
sofa to work from. He already had his papers spread out around
him.

Bayleigh settled herself on the opposite end
of the sofa and opened a notebook, looking over the lyrics she’d
written down months ago. Emotionally, she hadn’t been in a place
where she could write love songs; but today, the words were
pounding inside of her head, desperate to get written down before
she forgot them. Taking a sip of her coffee, she got to work.

From his vantage point at the end of the
sofa, Jack watched as she began tapping out a beat with one hand
against her thigh, wrote a few words down, scratched others out and
wrote more. He gave her a smile when she looked over with a raised
eyebrow.

“
Am I too
distracting?”

It took a second for him to realize she meant
with her work, not just her. “Sorry, no. I just find it fascinating
how you do that,” he told her, shuffling the papers in his hand and
trying to focus on them. “I like the rhythm you’ve got going.”

“
Thanks,” she gave him a
small smile before turning back to her notebook. She tried to block
him out as she returned to working out the rhythm and the lyrics.
It was how she worked. Rhythm and lyrics first, then the notes. She
wished Jack had a piano; she’d love to do some layering on this
with the guitar and piano. This song had to be perfect. It was the
one she wanted to send to Maddie. The one she wanted to launch her
career as a full-fledged songwriter.

Giving up on his own work,
Jack leaned back and just watched as the song came to life in front
of him. He knew she’d forgotten he was even there, as she hadn’t
glanced over at him in at least an hour. And he knew that because
for the first twenty minutes they’d been in the room together,
she’d glanced at him out of the corner of her eye every twenty
seconds. He knew
that
because he’d been watching her. And timed it.

She laid her pen aside and picked up the
guitar, glancing at her notebook as she started to strum a few
chords. The haunting melody she had going was tugging at his own
heartstrings, making him wonder what the lyrics were going to
be.

Just then, she glanced over at him. “You’ve
stopped working,” she noted.

“
It was just updating a
will. Those don’t take long,” he told her. “Need a
break?”

“
Yes. I think my leg went to
sleep,” she muttered, her hand rubbing at her injured
thigh.

“
Do you need more coffee? I
was going to refill my cup, I can get you some as well,” he
offered, standing up. She handed her cup over and went back to
massaging her leg.

“
You ok?” he indicated her
leg as he walked back in with the two cups of fresh coffee. Handing
one over to her, he resumed his seat at the far end of the
couch.

“
Yeah, it’s just the
residual ache. It’s pretty much always there.” Bayleigh took a sip
of the coffee. “So, what do you think?” she indicated the guitar
and notebook.

“
I can’t wait to hear the
lyrics that go with that melody.”

“
I’m not ready to share
those yet,” Bayleigh shook her head. “Have you checked the weather
reports?”

“
No, but I did check the
thermometer outside the kitchen window. Temperature is hovering
right at thirty degrees now. If it holds, and doesn’t start raining
again, we might be able to head to my uncle’s or to
Jason’s.”

“
I really don’t mind staying
here, Jack.”

“
Well, we’ll see what
happens.”

“
You know, if you’re tired
of having me here, you can just go ahead and take me over to
Jason’s. I know he won’t care if I stay there.”

Jack turned towards her so fast she was
afraid he was going to spill his coffee in his lap. “Where’d that
come from?”

“
You’ve been distant since
we got up this morning. I thought maybe, I don’t know, that you’d
changed your mind and didn’t want me around anymore,” she leaned
over and set her coffee on the side table. “It’s okay if you don’t.
I just don’t want to wear out my welcome.”

“
Christ, Bayleigh,” Jack
huffed out a breath and leaned his head back against the sofa
cushions. “I’ve been distant because all I can think about is that
heavy make-out session we had last night. I’m thirty-four years old
and you have me as horny as a teenage boy with his first
girlfriend. I’m keeping my distance so that I don’t do something so
fucking stupid, I trigger more flashbacks, panic attacks, and
nightmares!”

“
Oh,” Bayleigh swallowed
hard before turning to look at him. “You do realize that I haven’t
had any panic attacks since we got here that first day, right? And
the nightmares stopped as soon as you started holding me last
night?”

“
I triggered the flashback,
which in turn triggered the nightmares!”

“
Okay, yes, your actions
triggered a flashback. And Jack, whether it’s with you, or the next
guy, or hell, ten guys from now, those flashbacks and nightmares
are bound to happen. You told me yourself you woke up thinking you
were back in the desert the other day when the window
broke!”

Jack sighed heavily, turning his head to
stare into the fire. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her
she wasn’t going to have to worry about the next guy, but he
squelched it. No way was he bringing up long-term at this
point.

“
We’ve been over all of
this, Bayleigh. I won’t force you past a point you aren’t
one-hundred percent ready for.”

“
What if it’s not
forcing?”

“
Bayleigh…”

“
No, I mean it. What if we,
I don’t know, experiment for lack of a better word,” she rushed to
cut him off before he could say anything else.

He stood up and walked over to the fireplace
setting his coffee on the mantle before adding another log to the
grate. Dusting off his hands, he turned to look at her.

“
I’m listening,” he finally
said.

Hands clasped tightly together to minimize
the trembling, she forced herself to keep her eyes locked on his.
“We experiment and see how far we get before my mind takes over and
you stop us. Last night, it was something you said. Maybe if I tell
you everything he said and did to me in that room, we can avoid any
triggers.”

Jack walked over and sat
down beside her. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled
her against his side. “Bayleigh, I know what talking about my
experience did to me. Are you sure you want to do this? And are you
sure you want to do this
with
me?
”

She wrapped her arm around his waist, hugging
him closer. “Yes.”