Someone to Watch Over Me (15 page)

“Too bad. I’m coming over anyway.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Yes. I need to see you. I’m two minutes from your front door.”

“Well, okay. That’s all you had to say.”

“That I was two minutes away?” he asked, puzzled.

“No, that you needed me.”

He groaned and tried not to think about how true those words were, not just that night but every night. Every night now, he wanted to be with her, in whatever way she’d let him, and when he’d seen that girl tonight, seen how shaken she was, how scared, how alone…

All he could think of was Gwen.

It had seemed like it took him three days to get to her afterward, not a matter of hours. He didn’t draw an easy breath until he was inside her aunt’s house and he had her in his arms.

She opened the door, he barreled in, pushed the door closed behind him and had just grabbed her in the kind of hold that had her protesting that he was making it difficult for her to breathe.

“Sorry,” he said, loosening his arms instantly.

“Jax, what happened?”

“Bad call,” he said. “It happens sometimes.” Although truth was, while he’d answered bad calls and had trouble dealing with what he’d found, he’d never been this anxious
for his job to be over and to get home to someone and hang on to her like this.

Gwen’s arms came around him, and she snuggled against him, and then he realized she wasn’t the one who was trembling.

“Want to tell me about it?” she asked.

“If I can hold you while I do it.”

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

He made himself comfortable on the couch, and then pulled her to his side, and when he had her head tucked against his chest and his arms locked around her, he started to talk.

“It was a girl. Early twenties actually, but…just a girl, and a guy had roughed her up pretty good and scared her half to death, and when I looked at her and listened to her story, all I could think of was you,” he said. “And we didn’t catch the guy yet, and…I just got scared for you. I mean, I know he’s not going to be out looking for some other woman to hurt. It wasn’t that kind of attack. He’d gone out with that girl a few times, and it’s…Well, there are guys who attack women they date and those who grab strangers off the street. One or the other. So it didn’t…Well, I don’t want you to be scared of this guy. I just…I needed to be with you and know were okay.”

“Well, I’m fine,” she said, turning her face to his chest.

Well, he wasn’t.

There was still a fine trembling moving through his body in little waves. His hands against her back were shaking, and when he closed his eyes now, he saw that girl with her bumps and bruises superimposed over Gwen’s face.

“He really hurt her.” He took a long breath. “Gwen, with you, when it was over…”

“I had a broken wrist, three broken ribs, one of which punctured one of my lungs, and the cut on my neck, and an assortment of bruises. Mostly from when he dragged me into the alley. There was gravel and some glass and I don’t even know what on the pavement. He dragged me and then kind of sat on me, to cut my clothes off…My back was a mess. It’s still…I don’t know. I haven’t looked in a while. Actually, the truth is, I haven’t thought of it that much in a while.”

“Can I see your back? Please?”

She hesitated. “It was a really ugly sight at first. I know it’s not that bad now, but—”

“Please,” he said.

“Okay.”

He eased off the couch. On his knees, kneeling beside it, he reached over her to turn on the light on the coffee table, and turned her so that she was lying facedown on the cushions.

She had on a pair of pajamas, and he just slid his hands under her top and slowly inched it up a bit.

With his fingertips, he felt a series of slight bumps and swells along her lower back, especially on her right side.
Gravel, dug into her back.
There were a few deeper gouges here and there.
Rocks, maybe glass.

He bent over her and touched his lips to one of the gouges and then another and another. He had tears on his face, and they’d fallen onto her back, and she probably knew he was crying but he didn’t care.

“I wish I’d been there,” he said. “I mean, most of all, I wish it had never happened, Gwen, but…”

“I know.” She rolled onto her back, pulling down her top at the same time, then folded an arm behind her head like a pillow and stared at him.

He sat back on his heels, practically kneeling in front
of her, and looked her in the eye when he said, “But if it had to happen, I wish I’d been with you after it happened.”

“Me, too.”

“When I was trying to help that girl tonight, I kept thinking, if this was Gwen, what would she have needed in this moment? And that’s what I tried to give that girl.”

“I’m sure you were great with her.”

“No. I tried, but no matter what I did, it just wasn’t enough. I hate that. I keep thinking, there’s gotta be something I can do, and sometimes there just isn’t.”

“Like with your sisters sometimes?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And your mother, in the end?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

He bent his head down until his forehead was resting against the sofa cushion, the top of his head pressed against her. She rolled onto her side and he felt her hand in his hair, closed his eyes and thought,
Just hold me, Gwen. I need to have your hands on me, so I don’t feel so alone.

“You know, it seems like a whole lot of people expect you to be able to make things better for them, even to fix things completely, and one of the things I love about you…”

Gwen went silent.

What exactly had she just said?

Jax felt as if his mind was racing back and forth between the scene with that girl and what he could now imagine all too clearly that Gwen had gone through, and he couldn’t quite keep up with the conversation.

“One of the things I love about you,” she rushed on, “is…that you…Well, that you try so hard to make things better for so many people. But you can’t do that, Jax.”

He cocked his head ever so slightly to the left and bit back the first words he thought of saying.
Love? Huh?

He tried to say something that he worried came out something like,
Bllluuub, blluuub, bluuub?

But maybe it was more like, Why not? Gwen acted like he’d said,
Why not?

“Because you’re just one person, and like it or not, you’re only human,” she claimed. “You can’t take on the whole world alone and expect to win that battle.”

“I don’t have to win for the whole world. I just want to win for the people I love.” There it was. That dangerous word again. “I mean, if you can’t do that, what kind of man are you?”

What kind indeed?

“Just a man,” she told him. “A very good one in so many ways.”

“It’s not enough. It just doesn’t seem right. People get hurt. They die. Things you count on disappear. What is that?”

“It’s life. It’s all this stuff that keeps happening and shaking us up and scaring us. But it’s the stuff that’s wonderful, too.”

“What do you suppose the chances are that it’s all going to balance out in the end?”

“If you’d asked me a year ago or six months ago or even six weeks ago, I’d have said I thought the scales were tipped hopelessly against us. But I don’t believe that anymore, and you don’t, either. You’re just in one of those really bad places where we all end up sometimes.”

“I want out,” he said. “How do you get out?”

“I don’t know exactly. I just know that I feel better. Being here, in this town. Being around the people here. Being with you, I feel stronger and not so afraid and more hopeful, and I think I’m going to be okay. And part of that is your fault. You made me better.”

“I didn’t do anything, Gwen.”

“Yes, you did. I was in a really awful place, and you came along and it was like you shined a little light into this deep dark hole I’d fallen into and held out your hand. All of a sudden I thought,
Wow. There’s a way out. Maybe I should start climbing.
You did that. For me. And I want to do that for you. Do you think you could tell me how?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to figure it out so I can help you, too.”

He was quiet for a long time, his brain still kind of muddled. But he did know one thing for certain, and finally, he got it out.

“When that man attacked you, if I’d been there last year…If you and I had been…like we are now…I would have stood by you, Gwen.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t run when things get hard. I’ve wanted to, from a lot of things. But I don’t let myself.”

“I know.”

“If anything ever happens to you again, I’ll be there.”

H
e said it like a vow, like something that might as well be carved in stone. He meant it. If she ever woke up in a hospital again, all battered and bruised and scared out of her mind, all she had to do was call, and he’d be there. He wouldn’t judge her. He wouldn’t question her. He wouldn’t tell her to snap out of it or that it wasn’t that bad.

He’d just be there, and he was solid gold.

The man might be a lousy marriage prospect, but as friendship and strength and steadfastness went, he was a rock.

Her rock.

And he was exhausted and very, very sad and beating himself up because he couldn’t do more for everyone around him.

Time for her to take care of him.

Gwen sat up, and he looked up at her. “What?”

“I bet you didn’t stop working all night. Did you ever eat? I could make you some soup or a sandwich.”

“Then I’d have to move, and I don’t want to.”

Truthfully, Gwen didn’t want to move, either. There was something about just being here with him that was special.

It could be so sweet, it nearly made her cry. It could take away her fears. Take her completely out of her own life and her own troubles and set her down in a place where it felt like nothing bad or sad could touch her. It could make her feel so lazy and content that she never wanted to move. Tonight was like that. Healing, soothing, so sweet.

She wanted forever with him. As much as he kept insisting he couldn’t give her that, the way he treated her had her thinking he was wrong about that. That he could give her everything she’d ever wanted.

Jax went to sleep.

Gwen found a quilt in the linen closet and covered him up, then kissed him softly on the forehead and sat down on the floor by the sofa, close but not touching him at all, not wanting him to be alone right now.

She feared she was already in love with him.

And what was she supposed to do about that?

About loving Mr.-Never-Stayed-With-Any-One-Woman-For-Long?

She wasn’t going to be another in the long line of women who’d been his and then had to stand there and watch him walk away, taking a big piece of her heart with him. But he swore he didn’t have anything else to offer her or anyone.

It would take a miracle, wouldn’t it, for her to have his heart and for him to want hers?

Still, things changed all the time.

Just in the last year, she’d changed so much. She felt both weaker and stronger. Sad and yet proud to have survived everything that had happened in the last year. Angry and yet…she was such a different person now. Looking back, she felt like she’d been such a child before, clueless about so many things, and now…

Now she’d found Jax.

One of the things I love about you…

She’d really said that to him?

Gwen’s breath caught in her throat.

And what had he said?

Something about doing battle for those he loved?

She’d known already that he would.

That he needed to win those battles for those he loved?

She’d known that, too.

That he counted her among those he loved?

He hadn’t said that. He’d said he’d stand by her. She’d known that about him already, too, and she believed it with all her heart.

Gwen took a breath, watching the seconds tick by on the clock. It was late and she decided it would really be a great thing to be able to stop time. She’d stay right here with him, nervous and hopeful and giddy and silly in that way girls were when they first caught a hint of how special this thing called love might be.

She wasn’t a girl. She was innocent, but she wasn’t naive.

And she really didn’t want to get hurt.

Oh, Gwen. You know this is crazy. You know life can really, really hurt.

Jax stirred, shifting and then going completely still. Cautiously, he opened one eye, then the other, and frowned at her.

She grinned back.

He blinked once, then again, then reached out and tugged on a few strands of her hair.

“Ouch,” she said.

He looked even more puzzled. “You’re real?”

She nodded and said, “Hi,” as if she’d watched him sleep all the time.

“Hi?” He frowned yet again. “What time is it?”

“Late. You have to go.”

“You mean, I slept here with you, and I was so exhausted, I don’t remember a thing about it?”

She grinned. “I mean that you slept here, on my couch, and I sat here on the floor waiting for you to wake up.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“Sorry. I probably should have sent you home earlier, but you seemed exhausted.”

“If I were a better man, I’d be sorry, too, but honestly, Gwen, I’m not.” He settled more comfortably back into the cushions, as if he weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and asked, “So I don’t guess you’d let me stay?”

“You know I won’t,” she said, thinking it was no surprise she might well be falling in love with him.

He nodded, too. Even something as simple as that and something as innocent as him sleeping on her couch, he could make seem dangerous in some way. She was really in trouble here.

“Sorry about earlier,” he said.

“Why?”

“Showing up here the way I did, being such a mess. Everything.”

“I’m not sorry about that. I’m glad you came to me.” That seemed to trouble him more than anything they’d mentioned before. “Was it so hard to let yourself come here and tell me about your bad night?”

“No, it was way too easy,” he said.

She couldn’t help it. She grinned.

Jax frowned, a little, frosty look coming into his eyes.

Uh-oh.

It was like she could see him replaying the conversation from earlier in his head, could see how uneasy it left him.

“Feel like you’re choking all of a sudden?” she asked, because she did.

He raised an eyebrow at that and stared at her. “What?”

“Or like something big and heavy has settled on your chest and maybe it’s trying to work its way up your windpipe, so it’s hard to talk?”

“I’m finding it not so easy to talk,” he admitted.

Part of her wanted very much to talk about it, and part of her just wanted to let it live inside of her for a time, while she examined it from every angle, analyzed it half to death in hopes of understanding exactly what it was. This thing that seemed to grow with every passing day and take on a life of its own.

Was that love?

“Jax…” She took a breath and wished she had been in love before with a very skittish man, so that maybe she’d know how to handle this. “About what I said earlier…”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t making some grand declaration of love, you know.”

“Okay.”

“I just…I don’t know what that was exactly,” she said. “One minute we were talking, and you were so upset, and then…it just slipped out. I don’t even know how I really feel about you, okay?”

And that was true, wasn’t it?

“Okay,” he said again.

“I mean, there are all kinds of love,” she said, stumbling on. It was like a downhill train, once she got started. The words just kept rolling out. “I mean, I have a blue sweater that I think is absolutely beautiful and so comfortable and I feel great every time I wear it, and if somebody asked, I’d say I loved that blue sweater.”

“Sure,” he said, like he had a blue sweater, too.

“And I love all kinds of flowers,” she said. “Because of the way they smell or the way they make me feel when I stare at them.”

“Me, too,” he agreed.

“I love cheap ice-cream sandwiches from that little cart in the middle of the park—”

“Oh, yeah. Those are great.”

“And the fresh smell of rain sometimes and gold and red leaves falling off the trees in autumn. I love all kinds of things.”

“Exactly.”

This wasn’t getting any better, she feared, and kept talking. “There are a lot of things I love about your dog, even, so for me to say there are things I love about you—”

“I’m right up there with the dog?” he asked, finally looking like he wasn’t choking on something.

She grinned, at last hitting on something he understood, something that didn’t scare him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What am I to you?”

“I don’t know, Gwen.”

“Then you can be my blue sweater or the dog, and I’ll be one more person you want to take care of. I’m sure that list is a mile long. Let’s not get crazy about this, okay?”

He waited a long, long time, thought and thought and thought before finally saying, “Okay.” Like he wasn’t at all sure it was.

“I honestly don’t know what I feel right now, Jax. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

He sat up, tilted her head ever so slightly toward his with a fingertip to her chin, brushed a kiss across her cheek and said, “All right. Thanks for letting me rest for a bit.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I guess I need to go.” Jax frowned. “Romeo’s probably ready to eat my shoe by now.”

He got to his feet. Gwen stepped back, thinking it was best to give him some room. He turned for the door, and she followed him to it. He stepped through, and took her hand and tugged her closer.

His arms came up to cup her elbows in a loose embrace, and then he took one hand and guided her head down to his chest. His lips brushed against the side of her face and then the top of her head.

“Tonight was…It was nice, Gwen. Really nice. And I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, either. But you’re not just one person on a long, long list to me.”

He didn’t look at her again, just let her go, turned around and walked away.

Gwen had to be at work at nine, so she headed straight to bed for a few hours of sleep. She made it to work, barely on time. She slipped inside the store just as the owner, Joanie, flipped the sign on the front door from Closed to Open.

“Sorry,” she said, heading into the back room to grab a clean, green apron, the store uniform, and put it on.

Joanie followed her. “Interesting night?”

“What?” Gwen asked, turning around.

“Oh, honey. Come on.”

Gwen blushed as if she were twelve and someone had just told the cutest guy in her class that she liked him. That’s what it felt like—kind of silly, and there were more of those little bubbles inside of her and heat flooding her cheeks. She could do nothing but stammer in trying to respond to Joanie’s question.

“Oh, yeah. And you look so good.”

“I do?” Gwen glanced down at herself. Jeans, that blue sweater she’d told Jax about, the green apron. She’d barely had time to shower and pull back her hair into a ponytail and run out the door.

“You look happy, Gwen. You’re smiling. You’re blushing. You’re not wearing mouse brown. You’ve even been humming at work. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you must be happy. Very, very happy.”

“Oh. I guess…I am. I mean, nothing’s really happened. I…I’m just getting to know someone, and it’s not like it’s any big serious thing. It might be. But…I don’t know yet.”

“Sweetie, if he does this to you when nothing’s really happened, it’s serious. Seriously good.” Joanie beamed at her. “I was afraid you were going to hide in that shell of yours forever and never come out. But look at you now.”

“I feel alive again.”

“Now, that’s a man for you.”

Gwen thought she must have grinned foolishly for the rest of the day. Life was indeed very good.

Business was steady. The customers were all happy. Some days were like that in a flower shop. Joyous. Some were awful and full of flowers for sick people or for funerals. This was a good day.

The only sad arrangement she had was for a woman at the hospital, a get-well, cheer-her-up thing that Gwen took extra care with because she wanted everyone to feel good that day.

“I’m going to drop that by on my way home,” Joanie said. “It’s for my neighbors’, James and Brenda Farmer’s, niece, Amy. Somebody beat her up something awful, a guy she’d gone out with a couple of times. Poor thing.”

“Last night?” Gwen asked.

Joanie nodded. “Do you know her?”

“No, I just…heard about it.” Gwen made her decision in a split second. “I could drop off the flowers at the hospital if you like. I’m done here, and…well, she might need someone to talk to, and I…well, you know. I’ve been there.”

“You sure you want to do that?” Joanie asked.

“Yes. I do.” Maybe she could help. Someone had come to talk to her in the hospital, someone with a victims’ resources group, and it had been reassuring to have someone say,
I know how awful it was,
when the person actually did know. So few people did.

Joanie gave her the card with Amy’s name and room number on it, and Gwen set off before she could get nervous and change her mind. She could do this.

Amy was on the fourth floor, a room in the far corner. Gwen stood outside the door, taking a fortifying breath, about to go in, when she peered around the corner and saw Jax standing by the girl’s bedside, talking quietly to her and squeezing her hand.

He must have sensed that someone else was there, because he looked up and saw her. The girl on the bed, her face battered and bruised, did too.

“Gwen?”

“Hi.” She stepped inside and looked from him to the girl. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Didn’t know anyone was here. I was just bringing some flowers for Amy.”

Amy Farmer looked lost, as if she was holding on to Jax’s hand for dear life. Gwen didn’t blame her. She knew how reassuring it was to hang on to him.

“I can come back,” Gwen said.

“No. It’s okay. We’re done,” Jax said, then looked down at the girl. “Unless you have any more questions?”

“No,” she said in a little-girl voice, hardly above a whisper.

Gwen remembered that, too. Being scared to make a sound.
Poor baby.

“Okay. Anything happens. Anything you remember, just call me,” Jax said, looking like a man able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and generally protect the world around him from anything. Amy looked at him as if she believed it, as if a major case of hero worship was developing, and Gwen couldn’t blame her for that, either.

Jax told her to call if she had any questions or if anything came up, and then turned to Gwen. “You have a minute?”