“Honey, he didn’t just punch Patrick. As far as I could tell, he damn near killed him.”
“Good for Cade.”
“That’s what I said.” Naomi sounded a little fierce.
“Me, too. Good for Cade. I hope he messed that no-good up.” Her mother typically preached love and understanding, but she slapped at the dashboard.
“Does anyone here understand that what he did was wrong? He should have been taking care of you, Gemma. He made things difficult for the doctor. He could have hurt you.”
The time for honesty was upon her, and it was so much easier because it would get Cade out of trouble. “Jesse, I had my own fork.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Naomi stopped the car and both she and her mom turned.
“What are you saying, baby girl?” her mom asked.
She’d been over this a thousand times while she’d lain there in that bed. From the moment she’d been able to hold a comprehensible thought, she’d gone over and over the moment when she’d picked up that freaking fork and taken a bite.
“Stella brought me silverware. I unrolled it and put the fork and spoon and knife aside. I got up to go to the bathroom. I talked to Hope and Beth. I came back and my fork was right where I’d left it. Except it wasn’t mine. Mom, seriously? Do I just go around picking up forks?”
Naomi answered that one. “You try to clean the ones they bring you in restaurants. I’ll admit, it can be embarrassing at times.”
She felt an oddly deep satisfaction with her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Oh, it had failed her this time, but only because that weasel, tiny-dicked, no-balls ex of hers had played her properly. “I know how Stella cleans her dishes. I tested the temperature of the dishwater. Ten percent above Health Code. So I feel comfortable eating at Stella’s.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, baby.” Jesse’s tone had changed to what she’d begun to think of as his About to Kick Some Ass voice. It was a slightly less sexy version of his About to Spank Your Ass voice, though Gemma still found it awfully arousing.
“I’m saying Patrick got rid of the fork Stella gave me and put his where I would think it was mine.”
She could practically feel him vibrating with rage. If she’d thought for a single moment that this was all some sort of a fun game for Jesse McCann, those ideas were gone. He really did give a shit about her. He’d been pissed at his best friend when Cade hadn’t behaved the way he thought he should. He’d stayed with her, apparently choosing a rousing night at the hospital over getting his best friend out of jail.
She’d come between them, but in the best way. Not the best way. The best way would be sexually, but they both cared about her. They just didn’t see eye to eye on how they should go about it.
She needed rules. God, she fucking loved rules. Well, the ones she made, anyway.
“Rule number one, always make bail.”
“What?”
“We have rules for this relationship. You want me to be your woman? Well, I like rules and lists and matrices. If we live together, you better get used to a whole lot of whiteboards.”
“She’s not kidding,” her mother said with a laugh. “She made me get her one when she was eight years old and trying to figure out what pet to get. Her father and I watched in utter horror as she made pros and cons columns and then decided after ten days of deliberation that she wanted a houseplant.”
She’d been a mystery to her freewheeling hippie parents. She was so cautious, so unsure. She wanted the world to give her a money-back guarantee on life, but she was rapidly discovering that nothing worked that way—and it was okay. It was fucking okay to make mistakes and need a damn do-over. It was okay to not be one hundred percent sure that she was on the right path.
Gemma sat back, a single moment of her life crystalizing in an instant.
She was twelve and her father was dying. She remembered how cold the hospital was, but she couldn’t leave because this was her home now. Two weeks she’d spent as he choked and gasped his life away. Her mother had never faltered. She’d tried to send Gemma off, but she couldn’t go. What if he died and she wasn’t there?
She’d stood on a step stool and looked down at him, and he’d said three words to her.
“Live. Live. Live.”
She’d thought he was too far gone and didn’t know what he’d been saying. She’d thought he was telling her what he wanted. That he wanted to live.
He was begging her. He was pleading with his too-intellectual daughter.
Live. Live. Live.
For so long she’d clung to that vision of her father, a dying man, clinging to something far gone. It had influenced her life, driving her to goals that had nothing to do with emotion. Her life had been a checklist, devoid of true passion. Absent of feeling. As she’d lain there clutching Cade’s hand and praying for Jesse to come, she’d understood what he meant.
Live. Live. Live.
She’d pursued wealth and cultivated ambition. But she knew what she wanted now. And she knew something else. She was Gemma Wells. And she would get it. Come hell or high water. She wanted Jesse McCann and Cade Sinclair, and she wanted to practice law in Bliss, Colorado, where they had an actual injunction against lawyers.
And that wouldn’t stop her.
“Baby, are you sure?”
Gemma knew he was asking about whether or not her small-penised, couldn’t-please-a-woman-if-someone-gave-him-a-road-map-to-her-clitoris ex had actually intended to kill her, but she meant something else. “Yes. I’m sure.”
There would be no more New York. No big city to conquer. Just Bliss. But she would find her place. She would build her home with a single-minded passion that had been lacking for years.
“Take me to Cade.”
Cade started when the door opened. He’d been sitting there for so fucking long, he’d kind of expected no one would ever show up, but the door opened and Gemma walked though, her blonde hair swaying around her shoulders.
“There you are.” It wasn’t the greeting he’d expected. She sighed and her eyes narrowed, but there wasn’t any anger in her gaze. There was a soft satisfaction there. “I thought you were still in jail, but the Creede boys said you had been gone for a while. I was just about to go wake up Nate when I saw your bike outside.”
He stood, looking around the cabin. He’d cleaned. Though she kept the place precision-perfect neat, she sometimes forgot to dust. He’d stocked the fridge. He couldn’t stand the thought of her having nothing to eat. He’d busied himself when he should have had the courage to go to the hospital and tell her good-bye. “They let me go. Your ex pissed off Stef Talbot and everyone decided to leave well enough alone.”
Jesse’s eyes became hard. “Where did that little fucker get to?”
“I don’t know. Nate warned me to leave him alone.”
“Nate can bite my ass,” Jesse said on a growl.
Gemma sent him a nasty look. “You promised.”
“Only for tonight. Tomorrow, he’s mine.”
Cade wasn’t sure what that was about. Now that Gemma was all right, it seemed like Jesse wanted a piece of Patrick. And it was Jesse’s right. Gemma belonged to him.
Gemma. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The last time he’d seen her, she’d looked dead. Now she just looked tired. He would never be able to forget that she was fragile. No matter how much of a force of nature Gemma appeared to be, she was just a woman at heart, and she was just as fragile as the other women in his life had been.
He should have left. Gotten on his bike and fled the fucking scene of the crime. But he’d stayed because he couldn’t leave without making sure she was fine. He’d spent hours cooking for her, making sure that at least she would be well fed. And then he would face her. He would see the look in not only hers but Jesse’s eyes, and then he would hop on his bike and go. He wouldn’t look back. He would know that Jesse would take care of her, and he could just fucking drink and party himself to the death he deserved.