Bound to the Past (Starville Series Book 1) (46 page)

“Actually, Jack, this is what I need to talk to you about. You see, thereʼs a lot you donʼt about my life anymore. Many, um, things have changed since you left.” Her heart ached as he stiffened, immediately on the defensive, and frowned with obvious suspicion.

“Things?”

“Yes, I… Hold on a sec, Iʼm not sure how to say this.” Her grip tightened around the bottle until her hand started to hurt, but she hardly noticed. Good grief, this was even harder than sheʼd imagined. How was she supposed to tell him about their baby when he was staring at her with those incredible eyes of his, looking like a predator and a terrified puppy at the same time?

Sara swallowed against the dryness of her throat. “The thing is, thereʼs big news in my life, and—”

“Wait.” Jack raised a hand to stop her and took a step back. “Look, I donʼt know what this is about, but save it. I donʼt want to hear it.”

What?
She gaped at him. “How can you say that, when you donʼt even know what Iʼm going to say?”

“Sorry. I changed my mind. Maybe talking wasnʼt such a good idea, after all.”

Sara fisted her hands. She wanted to shake him, scream at him. But she would never give him the satisfaction of seeing her more humiliated than she was already. Swallowing her rage, she forced herself to speak as calmly as she could, considering her heart was completely crushed. “I hate having to deflate some of your enormous ego, Jack, but itʼs time for you to step off that damn pedestal of yours. Just so you know, everything doesnʼt always revolve around you. You canʼt always be the one deciding when people should or shouldnʼt do something, if they should or shouldnʼt talk, and you canʼt just change your mind every time itʼs convenient to you!” she blurted in one breath. “Youʼre the one who wanted to talk, and now weʼll talk, whether you like it or not!”

Jackʼs eyes narrowed to piercing green slits as he gave her a long, hard stare. Sara held his gaze and even managed to watch him in silence as he downed the rest of his Coke, but her heart was racing in anticipation. She almost let out a treacherous sigh of relief when he crushed the empty can in his hand, tossed it into the trash can behind him, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Talk. Tell me whatʼs going on between you and that guy.”

“What guy?”

“What the hell do you mean,
what guy
?” Jack let out an irritated snort. “That John Wayne of yours, of course. Or perhaps youʼve taken many other lovers lately?”

She blinked at him, too outraged to come up with an adequate retort. “Youʼve got to be kidding me. You have no right to ask me such a question! Why, yes, Carson is a wonderful man and an amazing person. He helped me a lot in the last two months, and I suggest you take lessons from him on how to behave like a decent human being!”

Jack felt the color drain from his face. Placing both hands on the island, he closed his eyes and hung his head with a sharp escape of air.
Shit
. The situation was getting out of hand. He had lost count of all the times heʼd rehearsed everything he meant to tell Sara once they met, playing it through his mind over and over again. Well, here he was now, finally standing right in front of her, and everything was going wrong. He was supposed to be calm and confident, gentle and kind. Instead, he could hardly speak. Damn, but the cozy, loving family scene with that cowboy had made him lose his mind!

Sara put down her bottle and stepped closer to him. “Why are you here, Jack?” she asked in a softer tone.

He raised his gaze back to her, but words failed him as he tried to swallow down the gigantic lump in his throat. “Iʼm sorry,” was all he managed to whisper.

She shook her head. “Is it closure you need? Because if thatʼs what it is, Iʼm fine. Really. Yes, I was devastated when you left, but Iʼm over it now. I moved on.”

His jaw went rock hard. “I know. And Iʼm happy for you.”

You donʼt look happy at all
. In fact, he looked tired. Beaten. Sara had never seen him like this, not even after heʼd been accused of murder and arrested. Suddenly, something inside her broke. Her heart seemed to smash into pieces. The calm logic she had imposed on herself shattered miserably. Perhaps it was the final and defeated tone of Jackʼs words or the way his voice had trembled slightly as he spoke them or, perhaps, the resigned dejection in his eyes. Whatever it was, it made her ache all over. She sighed. “Look, why donʼt we sit down in the living room and talk about whatever we need to like two civilized adults? I really do have to tell you something important,” she suggested, trying to be mature and collected. For the sake of their baby.

Jack stared at her but didnʼt move. Saraʼs resolve to stay mature and collected flew to the wind. “What the heck is wrong with you?” she burst out. “Do you want to talk, yes or no? Ugh! This is just like you, Jack, isnʼt it? I should have known. You came to me tonight saying you wanted to talk, but as soon as I informed you that I have something important to tell you, too, you started acting like a terrified rabbit.”

He straightened then. Fists clenched, he opened his mouth but immediately snapped it shut again. “Sara—”

“Good grief, quit running! What on earth are you so scared of, anyway?”

Her gaze locked with his. Jack swallowed hard. Inhaled sharply.
To hell with it!
What did he have to lose at that point? “Iʼm scared to hear you say that youʼre in love with another man, Sara.”

She froze.

The clarity of his words, along with the matter-of-fact tone in which he spoke them, felt as if sheʼd been pierced with a pin. Her mouth fell open. Her rage melted away so fast she suddenly felt depleted. “W-what did you say?”

Jack moved around the island, and she instinctively moved backward, until her shoulders met the fridge behind her and she was forced to stop. “Iʼm saying,” he grunted, placing his hands to the sides of her head and trapping her in the middle, “that the thought of you with that guy—or any other guy, for that matter—is burning my soul.”

His eyes were so intense, his body so hot as he pressed against her, that all she managed to do was stare at him in shock. The electricity shooting through them made her head spin. A violent shudder passed through her the instant he bent his head and his warm breath mingled with hers for the first time in what had felt like forever. “Iʼm saying that youʼre mine, Sara. And Iʼll be damned if Iʼll let another man take you away from me without a fight!”

His mouth crashed down on hers then—hard, dominating. He kissed her with a force that destroyed her deep inside, a fury that disintegrated whatever miniscule hint of peace sheʼd hoped to have found in the past months. He kissed her long and deep, with a desperation that stole her breath and shattered her defenses. And Sara had no choice but to let him do it to her. She didnʼt even feel the tears rolling down her face until he lifted his head, and she started to slowly regain contact with reality.

Jack cupped her face in his hands and softly stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. “Donʼt cry, sweetheart,” he said painfully, leaning down again to kiss her tears away. His tenderness, though, only caused them to come out more copiously. “Baby, Iʼm sorry. I fucked up. I know I hurt you, I know you hate me, and I deserve it. But please, don’t cry…”

Sara was floating on clouds, and it took a moment for his words to sink in. All she knew was that she still loved him. Oh, God, she loved him so much! Sheʼd been dreaming about his kisses, longing for that intense gaze of his eyes, the sweetness in his voice, the tenderness of his touch, the warmth that poured through her like liquid fire every time he was near. She wanted him more than anything in the entire world, but…
No!
It didnʼt matter that she loved him and that he was the only man who could make her head spin with a gaze and her legs quiver with a kiss. She couldnʼt give herself to him anymore. She couldnʼt ignore the fact that Jack didnʼt love her back. Heʼd dumped her. Tossed her declaration of love in her face. That thought alone was enough to turn her heart to ice and make her jerk out of his arms. “Stop it, Jack. What do you want from me?”

He stared at her, looking utterly disoriented. “I told you.”

“No, you didnʼt. You told me that youʼre jealous of Carson―as you’ve always been―but that means nothing to me.”

Jack wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her back against him. “What if I said that Iʼve been a stupid fool? What if I told you that I didnʼt believe a word I said to you that day?” His arms tightened painfully around her, but she forced herself to hold his gaze.

“Let me go.”

“I donʼt want to lose you, Sara. Dammit, I love you!”

Sara felt the pain radiating from him with an intensity that took her breath. His voice was so broken, his eyes so tormented that she had to look away. She couldnʼt think when Jack stared at her that way…and right now she
desperately
needed to think! Could she believe him? Could she forget the pain he had caused her? “Just what am I supposed to do, Jack―fly into your arms just because you said you love me, when less than two months ago you swore that you didnʼt? How the hell can you expect me to make any sense of what you say anymore? How can you expect me to believe you?”

“I never said I didnʼt love you.” His voice wasnʼt more than a whisper, and she wondered whether sheʼd just imagined it.

“W-what?”

“I never said I didnʼt love you, Sara. Not once. I…” Jack took a ragged breath. Gave her a longing look. “I couldnʼt.”

Her head started spinning. What?
What?
 Her mind raced back to that horrible day, to the things he’d said to her as he was leaving. She clearly remembered kissing him, challenging him to say he didnʼt love her… But had he done it?

Jack leaned over her so suddenly that she didnʼt even have time to react. He didnʼt kiss her this time, but Sara could almost hear the sound of her thoughts splintering as he rested his forehead against hers. “You know I love you, baby,” he breathed on her lips. “Youʼve always known―even when I was too stupid to admit it to myself.”

Sara closed her eyes and went limp in his arms. With a moan, she buried her face against his chest. “I donʼt know anything anymore, Jack,” she admitted, trying to keep her feet on the ground even though she had the feeling that the ground was crumbling all around her. She tilting her head back up to look into his eyes. “How can I trust you? How do I know you wonʼt vanish again in a month or two?”

“Iʼm not going anywhere, sweetheart, I promise. We really need to talk, and maybe then youʼll believe me. But first, I need to know whatʼs going on between you and that cowboy of yours.”

She stifled an exasperated sigh. “Stop dragging Carson into this, heʼs got nothing to do with us.”

“Sara, you spent a long time at his ranch. I say he has a helluva lot to do with everything.” Jack inhaled deeply, as if very close to losing his patience. “Are you in love with him? Yes or no?”

Sara jerked out of his arms. “Of course Iʼm not in love with him! How can you even think that? I love
you
, Jack. Thatʼs never been a secret. Youʼre the one who dumped me. How can you possibly think that my love would just fade overnight?” she added with a weary sigh, dropping her gaze from his and missing the gleam of hope that flashed across his eyes at her words. Jack reached out to her, but this time she was quick to stop him. “Donʼt touch me! I canʼt think if you touch me, and I
have
to think!”

He gave her the longest, most unnerving stare. “Youʼre right. I deserve this agony, after everything I put you through. And I owe you so many explanations that I donʼt even know where to start.”

“How about from the beginning?” she suggested, taking the hand he offered, loving how warm and strong it felt as it closed around hers. She needed that strength right now. She felt dizzy, her mind still in confused disbelief and her heart still racing, afraid to hope.

They walked to the living room together, sat down on the couch. Sara watched him quietly, expectantly, as he took a deep breath.

“I got my memory back.”

It was not what sheʼd expected him to say, and she gasped and gaped at him in shock. “Oh, my God! Thatʼs awesome!” She hugged him on impulse, then moved away shyly. “When… How…?”

Jack lifted a shoulder, amused by her reaction. “I started remembering something after Lacrod hit me the day of my arrest. The blow must have caused some weird reaction, I donʼt know. All I know is that the instant I woke up in my cell, I started seeing images. Flashbacks.”

“Your nightmares,” Sara whispered, lifting a hand to her mouth. “It was your nightmares, wasnʼt it? Why didnʼt you tell me?”

“At first, I didnʼt know what they were. I thought I was losing my mind.”

“But you were finding it instead,” she finished with a rueful smile. “You should have told me. It hurt like crazy the way you kept shutting me out,” she admitted. Then she shook her head, as if trying to erase that terrible memory. “Did you see a doctor?”

“No. I havenʼt told anyone. Well, except for Frank, but only because he extorted it out of me,” he added with a grin but sobered immediately. “Nobody can know about this, Sara. Not yet.”

She tilted her head to the side, more and more confused. “I donʼt understand.”

“Letʼs just say that right now itʼs better if
certain
people still think Iʼm harmless.” Jack stood and started pacing in the room, trying to build up the courage to continue. And he did. He explained everything in one breath, as if afraid heʼd change his mind if he waited any longer. He told her about how, because of his flashbacks, heʼd feared he had really killed J.T.; he told her about the way Max had forced him off the road and caused his accident the night they’d met; and, most of all, he told her about the threatening phone call heʼd received, the anguish he felt at the thought of putting her life at risk, and how heʼd tried to protect her.

When he finished, Sara stared at him impassibly. “All this time… All these months… You never thought of telling me the truth?”

Her ice-cold tone froze the blood in his veins. His eyes peered into hers, as if trying to read her emotions, but they were inscrutable. Jack took her hands and kept them clasped in his. “I couldnʼt. Sweetheart, letʼs face it, youʼre so stubborn you wouldʼve never let me leave you if you had known the truth. I was fighting against an enemy I didnʼt even know. All I knew was that it was too dangerous, and I couldnʼt risk your life.” She slid her hands away from his. He sighed. “You are my weakness, Sara. And yes, you were right, I was scared. Terrified that youʼd be the target to get to me. I was already a selfish bastard for involving you in this mess to begin with. I knew that youʼd be better off without me.” He searched her eyes again; they were glaring at him as if he were a rattlesnake. “Say something. Tell me Iʼm an ass and a complete idiot, if you want to, but say something. Please, baby.”