Overflow: The Carpino Series (21 page)

Thirty minutes later, Jude rasps, “Gabby, you undo me.  Just
when I think we can’t get any better we do.  And I don’t mean just this,” he
says, pressing his hips in to me one more time, “I mean everything.”

I answer him by tightening all my limbs around him, wrapping
him up as best I can.  He’s right.  As the days go by, everything with Jude
gets better.  Especially now, since I’ve given up being scared and let myself
enjoy all things Jude.  I’m overflowing in a whole new way.

Letting my fingers run up his back and into his hair, I ask,
“So you like my nighty?”

“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say, I like your nighty, babe,”
he pulls up looking at me with a grin.

That grin, the look on his face made my warm fuzzies get
even warmer and start to settle in my belly with everything else in my life
that seems to be settling with Jude.  As that happy starts to overflow and seep
into my bones, I can’t help but think about what’s to come.  So for the first
time in a long time, I let these thoughts fill me up in a way I never had the
courage to allow.  And this makes me smile.

*****

“Come on, let’s go in here,” Jude said, pulling me into a
local artisans shop. 

Today is my twenty eighth birthday.  Jude woke me up today
making love to me soft and sweet.  Seriously, the day could end now and it
would still be the best birthday ever.  But it was only nine in the morning, so
after we showered and had breakfast, Jude told me he was taking me to Estes
Park to show me around.  The sun is bright but there’s still a nip in the air. 
We ate at a local deli with delicious sandwiches, eating outside on the patio
under the heaters.  Now we’ve been strolling up and down the sidewalks of Estes
Park, window shopping and Jude even let me shop a little bit.  But now he’s
pulling me into a store filled with Indian Art, rugs, pottery and jewelry.  I’m
looking around, admiring the pottery when I feel a hand on my arm and turn
around.  Jude is looking down at my hand as he slips a cool as hell extra wide,
hammered silver cuff on my wrist.  It’s simple, but makes a statement because
it is so wide and can easily stand on its own, worn dressy or causal.  Holding
out my hand and he looks back up to me he says, “Do you like it?”

Speechless at the sight of Jude slipping a kick ass piece of
jewelry on me, I look up him and barely find the words to say, “It’s
stunning.” 

Jude leans in putting his lips to my forehead, kisses me and
says there, “Happy birthday, sugar.”

“But, you’ve already done so much for my birthday.  My
shoes, the puffy vest, bringing me here.  This is too much.”

“Babe, even though I know how much you love your new shoes,”
he says with mirth.  “You need something pretty on your birthday. Besides, your
shoes will stay at the cabin.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly, still looking down at my latest
birthday present and flooded with the emotion that he wants me to leave my
shoes in his mountain home.  Feeling overwhelmed, yet again, I look at my new
cuff heavy, thick and feeling perfect on my wrist.  Looking back up at Jude, I
get up on tippy toes, and with meaning I respond, “Thank you, for everything.”

“You’re welcome, Gabby,” he whispers.  “But I’m done
shopping,” he goes on, now grinning at me. 

“Yeah, I bet you’ve timed out,” I smile back.  “But I saw a
chocolatier next door.  I think I might need a piece of fudge!”

“I think I can handle shopping for chocolate, sugar,” he
says as he pays for my kickass cuff. 

Walking next door hand in hand, I decide against fudge
because they had the biggest chocolate covered strawberries I’d ever seen so I
had to have two.  Jude got a huge brownie covered with chocolate fudge icing. 
I didn’t think Jude could be more perfect until he told the chocolate lady to
wrap up a dog treat to go.  I smile up at him huge, thinking he really likes
Mia and someday he’ll admit it!  He just sighs at the look on my face and
shakes his head and says, “I’ll give it to her when she starts clawing at me so
she’ll leave me alone.”

“You buy her fancy-schmancy treats, she’ll love you even
more, Jude.  This is not the way to get her to leave you alone!” I say, trying
not to giggle. 

“Whatever,” he mumbles. 

With that, he takes my hand pulling me down the street to
the car, totally ignoring my giggles!

The buzzer goes off the oven.  Yes, an actual buzzer since
the oven is probably older than me.  I pull out the cake, even though we
already had sweets today, we bought it and I was going to make it!  It’s later
in the evening, I know we won’t be able to eat the whole thing but we can have
leftovers for breakfast with coffee and toss the rest.  Jude is on the sofa
again, this time watching Sunday night football.  He told me he’s faring pretty
well in the Carpino Clan Fantasy Football League, not that I really care who
wins, but it’s always fun to win, so good for him. 

Setting the cake on the stove top to cool, I grab my beer
and take myself back to Jude.  He’s laying out flat, taking up the whole sofa,
so I sit my beer on the table and lay down on top of him, fitting myself into
the back of the sofa but mostly on top of big comfortable Jude.  His arm comes
around me, I give him a kiss, lay my head down on his chest and his hand comes
immediately to the back of my head and starts pulling his fingers through my
hair.  This feels so good, I snuggle in as deep as I can get and close my eyes.

“Cake done?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer and we lay like this, in comfortable quiet,
for what seems like quite a while. 

I start to doze when all of the sudden I feel my big
comfortable Jude get tense and he mutters, “What the fuck?” 

I scarcely hear a couple car doors slamming, then before I
know it, there is pounding at the door and male voices yelling, “Jude, man,
open up!”

Jude stands up taking me with him while rasping out, and not
in his happy sexy rasp, “I can’t believe this.”  Looking down at me he goes on,
“Just a second, babe.  Stay here.”

“Okay,” I answer quietly, wondering why Jude is so unhappy
with his late night visitors, they certainly seem to know him. 

He stalks through the mudroom to the front door and I can
hardly see around him.  Two pretty big guys are standing there, but not
anywhere as big as Jude and his only greeting to them is, “What the hell?”

I hear a loud voice coming from behind Jude and that voice
says, “What the hell?  Man, I could ask you the same thing.  You’re in Colorado
and you don’t call us?  What the hell is wrong with you?”

Then I hear another resigned voice say, “Sorry, Jude, he
insisted on coming up.  If I didn’t bring him, he was going to drive himself.”

Jude, still not moving out of the doorway or giving them any
indication he was inviting them in, says, “I’m busy.  I’ll call next time.”

“What the fuck is up with you?” the loud one yells way
louder than necessary.  “I haven’t talked to you in months, Mike runs into your
dad, he tells him you’re here, we drive all the way up and you’re gonna tell us
you’re fucking busy?” 

And with that, Jude is bumped back out of the way and a
light blonde charges through with a dark headed guy following him, shaking his
head in apology to Jude.  I’m standing at the far end of the sofa now and as
soon as his eyes come to me, the blonde stops in his tracks to stare at me. 
The dark headed guy follows suit, stopping next to him.  I can hear Jude slam
the front door and he strides back though the room, looking none too happy with
his guests.  I don’t know what to do, the visitors are staring at me like I’m
an alien and Jude is staring at his visitors like he wants to murder them.  We
are standing in a strange triangle around the stagnant room with no one
uttering a word.  So, remembering my manners I start with, “Hey.  I’m Gabby.”

The blonde’s gaze on me turns even more intense and his eyes
coldly scan my body, making me even more uncomfortable.  His lip tips up on one
side and turning to Jude, says, “Nice.”

What in the hell?  I look to Jude who is glaring at the
blonde, radiating fury and bites out what sounds like a warning, “Conner.”

“I’m Mike.  Nice to meet you, Gabby,” the dark haired guy
says, obviously having more manners than the blonde.

“Mike, a pleasure,” I return quietly and look back to the
blonde who now has his arms crossed, staring at me.  So I try again, “Conner is
it?”

Conner, again, doesn’t speak to me but rather looks back to
Jude to deliver his next blow, “What the fuck, man?  I know you go through
women like dirty socks, but you never bring pussy up here.  She must be good if
you want her for more than one night.”

I take in an audible gasp of air.  I hear Jude growl, “Get
the fuck out!” 

I look to the side to see Jude advancing on Conner, but
since Mike shares Conner’s point of our weird triangle, he was closer and steps
in front of Conner to put a hand in Jude’s chest. But Jude is bigger and
stronger.  He reaches the twosome, stretching around Mike to grab at Conner’s
sweater and the shoving and pushing begins.  Conner detangles himself from Jude
as Mike gets in a good shove separating the two. 

“Jude, settle down.  We shouldn’t have come.  We were out
and he’s been drinking since this afternoon.  I mentioned I ran into your dad,
he said you were here for the weekend, and Conner wanted to see you.  He didn’t
mention you had company.  I’m really sorry, man.  We’ll leave.”  Mike turns to me,
“I’m sorry, Gabby.”

I can’t move.   My brain is racing and I don’t know what to
say or do.  But there’s no chance to think further because the man drama in
front of me continues to unfold. 

“Fuck you, Mike,” Conner says, feeling brave.  “It’s like
he’s fucking disappeared.  He finally gets out of the Force, gets some
government job that moves him everywhere and when he has the chance to be back
home, he chooses to live in fucking
Nebraska
?  And he won’t even return
my calls.  What, can I not come and see my brother-in-law when he’s in town?”

Jude’s head swings around to find my eyes.  I immediately
reach my hand out to the back of the sofa to hang on.  Brother-in-law?  How? 
The far part of my brain realizes how they could be related, especially with
the look Jude is giving me.  “Brother-in-law?” I murmur, asking to no one in
particular, but needing an answer from someone, anyone. 

“I see she doesn’t know about Julia,” Conner says, slurring
his words a bit.  Turning his head, he speaks directly to me for the first time
dropping the final bomb, “My dead sister.” 

Dead sister? Brother-in-law? 

“Shit, she must be one hot piece for you to keep her here
for a whole weekend,” he slurs to Jude. 

I close my eyes, my face is hot and my ears are ringing.  I
start breathing hard, I’ve got to get out of this room, away from them. 
Opening my eyes, I look at the three of them and mutter, “I’m just going to,
um…”   I look around desperately for an escape and see the bedroom door, “go
get ready for bed.  The altitude, you know, makes you tired.  I’ll
just…well…let you all catch up.  So nice to meet you both.”  My last words were
barely a breath and I turn to half run to Jude’s bedroom and try not to slam
the door but don’t really know if I succeed.  Locking myself in, I felt tears
burning in my eyes and nose as I lean against the closed door sliding down to
the floor on my ass.  I hear Jude yelling at them both to get the fuck out of
his house.  I hear a scuffle and wince at the sound of glass breaking and
scattering.  Conner is yelling back at Jude, saying more awful things about me
and I can tell Mike is trying to play mediator.  I’ve got to get out of here. 
I can’t take anymore.  Climbing to my feet, I move to get away from the voices
and go to the bathroom but can still hear them.  Turning, I look for somewhere
to escape, anywhere, knowing full well there is nowhere to go.  I open the
shower to start the water and start stripping off my clothes.  Not being able
to rip them off fast enough, I step in and the water hits me like a Mac truck,
ice cold, not having a chance to heat up yet.  Not caring, I put my head under
the water to drown out the noise of fighting from the other room and my body
starts to shake from the cold water, but I stay where I am.  Finally getting relief
from the voices, my brain has a chance to catch up with all I’ve just learned
and the tears start to flow.  Jude was married.  Jude’s wife is dead.  This
news is so tragic, but why hasn’t he told me?  Who hides that they have a dead
wife?  He’s asked me to trust him and I did.  I trusted him completely.  But
those comments about all the other women in Jude’s life, comparing me to them,
combined with the terrible things Conner was saying about me is too much.  The
possibility that what we have doesn’t mean to Jude what it means to me rips me
apart. 

“Gabby!” I hear Jude shouting from outside the bedroom.  I
don’t answer and hear him at the door pounding, again shouting, “Gabby!”

I want to go home.  But I’m over eight hundred miles away
from home.  My only way home is in a plane flown by Jude.  I’m trapped.  And
what felt like a sliver of heaven just thirty minutes ago now seems like my
personal hell that I can’t escape. 

“Gabby!” I hear one more time.  Then I hear the crashing of
the bedroom door.  Holy shit, he broke the door open!  Before I could process
Jude breaking through the bedroom door, he is standing with the shower door
open looking at me.  “Please get out, Gabby,” he whispers. 

“Jude, leave me alone,” I plead, not caring a bit that I’m
standing here naked in front of him, his eyes on mine.  “Please, just leave,” I
beg.

“Gabby, let me explain.  Let me talk to you, please get
out,” he repeats.

I remotely realize he has a cut lip and his t-shirt is
ripped at the neck.  I can’t concentrate on the result of his scuffle because
the tears start flowing again and I bring my hands up to my hair and say, “I
don’t want to talk to you right now.  I want to be by myself.  Just go…I don’t
know, go somewhere.”

“Sugar, I’m not going anywhere.  Get out of the shower. 
Now.”

“You can’t be bossy with me, Jude!  Not anymore!  Leave me
alone!” I shout.

With that he reaches in and flips the shower off.  Grabbing
a towel off the rack, he steps into the shower with me and wraps me up in the
towel and starts drying me off.  I struggle against him, push him away but he’s
just too big and he wraps me up with my arms pinned inside the towel.  And damn
it all to hell, my tears won’t stop.  Resigned, I realize that there is nothing
I can do to stop him.  Mostly dried, he wraps the towel around me and leaves
the shower for a nanosecond, coming back with a big flannel plaid shirt. 
Ripping the towel off me he slips it up my arms and buttons a couple buttons. 
Putting an arm behind my back and before I realize what’s happening, I am up
and he is walking out of the shower carrying me to the bedroom. 

“Jude!” I yell and struggle again, because this is a
different form of bossy.  “Put me down!”

Using his soft raspy voice through my wet hair into my ear,
he says, “Quiet Gabby, you’re gonna get cold.”  He puts a knee to the bed,
deposits me with my back to the pillows, covering me up tight even though my
hair’s dripping.  Not foreseeing his next move, I pull my knees to my chest and
scoot back as far as I can away from him with the covers tucked tight, but he
proceeds to sit close in front of me, straddling me with his legs bent,
essentially boxing me in. 

Shit and damn. 

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?  You can’t just carry me
around putting me where you want me, Jude.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.  Even if I have to tie you down,
you’re gonna listen to what I have to say.”

Starting to feel my ire once again at the thought of him
tying me down to listen to him, I say, “Fine!  Let me have it, Jude.  This
can’t get any worse, can it?  I mean, I’ve learned a lot tonight.  I must be
really good, huh?  Not only am I one of many in a long line of
pussy
,
but I must be good enough for you to keep around for a while.  Well, good for
me,” I bite out, breathing hard.  I’m so pissed, my tears have even dried up. 

“Gabrielle,” Jude growls with a warning.  “You know that’s
not that way it is between us.  You know.”

“I thought I knew, Jude.  I thought I knew a lot of things. 
But maybe you should tell me.  Tell me all about your past now that someone
else has let it out of the bag.  But when you’re done, I’d like to know why
you’ve kept things from me, important things.  Like the most important things,
Jude.  You know everything there is to know about me.  Everything!  Why do I
not know that you had a wife?”

“And two children.”

I again hear my breath being pulled in and I push back into
the pillows as far as I can.  I scarcely get out the word, “What?”

There’s something working in Jude’s eyes, something between
pain and anguish.  “I was married, Gabby.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  We
met in high school, Julia was Conner’s younger sister.  Conner, Mike and I were
tight and Julia and I started dating when I was a senior and she was a
sophomore,” he takes in air.  This is obviously hard for him to talk about. 

“Jude, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.  I’m
sorry,” I whisper, now feeling bad for being a demanding bitch.  I, of all
people, know how it feels to have to dredge up the past and relive a
nightmare. 

“No, Gabby.  You need to know, I shouldn’t have waited so
long,” he says, pulling in another breath.  “We were so young, but we knew what
we wanted and had a plan.  I went to the Academy, she got in a couple years of
college and I married her as soon as I could, the week after I graduated.  I
was twenty two and she was just twenty.  Her parents weren’t happy about her
marrying so young, but back then we felt like we’d waited a lifetime and they
knew they couldn’t stop us.  I was assigned to the base in San Antonio,
continued my flight training, we lived on base and she took classes while
working part time.  We were so young, we had nothing, but felt like we had
everything.” 

The sadness in his eyes seeped out into his face.  Sitting
so close, Jude boxing me in with his hands at my waist, I’ve never seen that
look on his face before and it tore through me.  I can tell this is hard for
him, but he continues, “We were happy, so happy that it didn’t matter what we
had.  Julia wanted to start having babies right away, but I held her off.  As
happy as we were, I wasn’t blind to the fact that we were young and I wanted
her to be able to finish college so she wouldn’t regret it later.  I held her
off for two years, enough for her to get a degree then we started trying.  It
took a couple months, her period was always irregular, but she was over the
moon and I never saw her as happy as the day she told me she was carrying my
baby.”