Fearsome (30 page)

“We’ll do it together. You saw Dylan, he was happy to see you and his world didn’t fall apart when you walked in the room.”

“He was heavily sedated. I have no idea how I can be any help. Dylan’s problems get progressively worse when I’m around him.”

“Not true.” Carson comes back at me with both arms open, but I push his hands away.

“Did you ask Dylan why he went over the bridge or are you and everyone else going to assume that Dylan couldn’t handle the curve onto it? Dylan, who can drive any vehicle off-road, the same guy who’s driven to your house a million times before without incident? Did you ask him?”

“He remembers parts—the tumbling truck—but as far as where his mind was at, we’ll have to discuss that when he’s healed.” Carson looks down and then rubs his hand down his tired face. “I’m not trying to pretend that this wasn’t a big deal. I know it’s serious and I have to help Dylan, but the state police said the markings on the road showed the truck overshot the turn and hit the bridge from the side and that’s why the truck rolled down instead of being projected in the air through the middle of the railing. They didn’t see evidence that Dylan drove straight through the railing. They seemed satisfied with the responses they were able to get from him when he was semi-conscious. I can’t interrogate Dylan while he’s still recovering.”

“I understand. You have to let him heal. You need to take care of him. You are a really great brother.” I want to cry, although not in front of Carson.

“Jess,” he says, his hands out again as though I’ll take safety in them this time, but I put my hands up to stop him.

“Carson, we can’t do this. I can’t do this. One fuck up was enough.”

“We’re not a fuck up. Believe me when I say I love you.”

“Right, you loved me so much that you didn’t mind that I was sleeping with your brother? You were taking your sweet time because Carson Blackard only does it once,” I say mocking him. “Believe me when I say I can’t love you back.”

I run back up the stairs to the third floor. I can hear Imogene on the second floor as she leans over the banister to talk to Carson. “She got you on that one, Carson. You don’t let other guys sleep with the woman you’re in love with. You didn’t fight for her.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m not Wyatt Earp. I wasn’t going to shoot his balls off,” he says before slamming the front door.

Twenty-Nine

“Are you ready to be a grownup?” Imogene asks, standing over my bed.

“This is a fuckervention,” Lauren says from the other side of the bed. “Stop breaking his heart. And yours.”

I try to open my eyes, but I’m still mostly asleep. Imogene’s arms are crossed over her busty chest as she stares at me, waiting for me to wake up.

“God, what time is it?” I ask.

“Six in the morning. Lauren and I have the breakfast shift so we’re leaving soon. Coffee is done and there’s a gorgeous man sleeping out in his truck waiting for you.”

“What?” Now I’m fully awake.

“Fuckervention,” Lauren whispers loudly. “We’re intervening so you don’t fuck this up.”

“Carson never left,” Imogene explains. “He spent the night in his truck. You’re going to go down there and offer him a cup of fresh coffee and you’re going to talk to him nicely.”

“Why is he here?”

Lauren groans.

Imogene puts up her palm up to Lauren. “Gee, maybe because he’s in love with you and wants to work through your silly issues, so he can get over to the hospital to see his brother.”

“Me, silly? How about a guy who sleeps in his truck?”

Imogene yanks my bed covers back. She is furious. “Stop it. I mean it. Get up and throw on some clothes and get down there this minute.”

“What’s with you? What happened to all the hugs and understanding I got last night from you two? Now I’m the bad guy again?”

“No, you’re the stupid guy,” Lauren says. “You have a wonderful man who is crazy about you and I don’t mean crazy in the way Dylan obsessed over you and got jealous over every person who looked your way. Carson is a once in a lifetime deal. I would give whatever I could to have someone care about me the way he has for you. It takes a lot of fortitude for a man to pursue a challenging woman despite the fact that she slept with his brother, don’t you think?”

I get out of bed and look out the window.

“He’s still asleep,” Imogene says. “I saw him when I let out Bert.”

Lauren hands me a pair of jeans and a sweater.

“Carson is no saint,” I say as I get dressed.

“No one is, but you’re not going to find a man who’s better than him,” Imogene replies.

“I’m only twenty-one and you’re trying to push me into marrying this guy?”

“I’m doing no such thing and he didn’t propose. But it really pisses me off when people I love act like idiots and screw up great opportunities.”

“I’m the idiot?”

Lauren nods. “Yes. Go talk to him.”

“And say what?”

“I can’t watch this train wreck again. God, I wish I could have a cigarette!” Imogene says, storming out of the room.

I turn to Lauren. “Well? What do I say?”

“The truth. He’s not expecting miracles. He’s not like Dylan at all, Jess. Carson doesn’t expect you to shit rainbows and look like a goddess every day. Unlike Dylan, Carson is a realist and he’s mature enough to know that relationships of a lifetime happen over a lifetime, not over a four week fuck-frenzy.”

“Dylan did take dreamer to a whole new scary level,” I mumble. “But I still don’t know what you expect me to say to Carson?”

“You tell him what matters. What’s important to him? You. His brother. Keeping everyone together. He’s not asking for promises or guarantees from you. He’s only hoping you’ll consider him, even if it has to go on hold for a while.”

I deliberate over her words and realize she’s the first friend who has spoken so honestly about my own fears. She’s right, Carson never placed demands on me to give or say anything that didn’t come naturally to me, unlike Dylan who was practically begging for me to say ‘I love you’. Lovable, adorable Dylan and his haywire mood swings.

When I step out onto the porch with a hot steaming mug of coffee, Carson is standing outside of his truck taking in a long, graceful, arching stretch. He doesn’t notice me, so I use the opportunity to admire his incredible body, sculpted in all the right places with those strikingly serious eyes that make him absurdly handsome.

When he sees me, he smiles.

Ah, he is so forgiving.

I walk towards him slowly, making sure not to spill the coffee. He leans back against his truck and watches me with a tender expression.

I hand him the mug and he takes a sip, keeping his eyes on me.

“What possessed you to sleep out here all night?” I wrap my arms around myself to prevent my oversized sweater from letting in the cool drafts.

Carson is in a short-sleeved T-shirt and he looks perfectly fine with the chilling temperatures. I shiver and he rests the mug on the roof of his truck while he reaches inside the cab for his jacket. He drapes it across my shoulders and I smell him in the wool; scents of pine, musk and sawdust.

“You,” he answers. “I stayed because the thought of going home and trying to sleep after our fight sounded impossible. I didn’t want to stare at the ceiling all night, wondering what I should have said or done differently. It was easier to stay here and sleep in the truck, knowing that you were only ten feet away.”

When he says things like that, it makes my heart sing and I want to hug him as I revel in the safety of his arms. Yet I know it would lead to sex and that seems to be the problem. These proffers of love are difficult for me to accept when they’re attached to sex.

Perhaps it’s my inexperience at both love and sex. They arrived in my life at the same time, so it’s next to impossible for me to separate the two and ascertain if the love is genuine or if it’s merely a side effect to making love. Besides, I never refer to what I did with Dylan as making love. To me it was sex, getting it on, or fucking. Then I reflect on that day in Carson’s bed. I never once felt like we were fucking in the impersonal sense of the word. I could almost touch the joy that was surrounding me like a bubble when I was in Carson’s orbit; whether it was at Barron’s Creek, in my kitchen, or in his bed.

I look around, avoiding eye contact with him because I have to craft my words carefully. How do you tell a man that you want to be with him, but not yet? That you like him, although you’re not sure you can return his love? How do say this delicately enough so that he waits for you?

I can’t ask Imogene and Lauren since they have already left for the diner. Besides, they would give me a scathing speech about stringing Carson along. First Dylan then Carson, as though I’m one of the popular, bitchy girls in school. That’s what this seems like. I’ve finally made it to the high school ranks of popularity.

Imogene’s question is appropriate. Am I ready to be a grownup?

“Thank you,” I say at a loss for a better response.

“Why are you thanking me?” He crosses his arms and stays in his relaxed position against the truck as if he’s trying really hard not to touch me, not to set me off. It makes me feel like I’m a bomb.

“Because you have been very forgiving and kind through all of this and I made some very harsh statements. I’m not saying what I said last night is wrong, but the way I said it was distasteful. I am not proud of myself.”

Carson looks down at the ground. I watch his jaw clench and flex. “So sleeping on it didn’t help. We’re still stuck where we were last night. You want to blame yourself for being with Dylan and me for not asking you out sooner?”

I don’t say anything. I have nothing wise to add to my original argument.

“Tell me what you want, Jess. Do you want me to go away for good?”

“No.” I definitely don’t want him to go away. It might be a good test to see if my heart breaks, or to see if I actually have a heart, however, I don’t think I could survive that test. “I want to… I’m going to use one of Lois’s terms, so don’t laugh, but I want to find my center. I want to figure out what I’m doing. I’m not a care-free spirit like my Aunt Virginia was. I’m very much a product of my upbringing and my parents taught me to figure out what I need to do. I’m good at that. But now I want to figure out what I
want
to do, too.

“My parents used to direct my life. It’s my turn to take the reins. So I’m going to say those dreaded words and I don’t want you to correct me. I need a break from romantic entanglements and relationships. I want to see Dylan get better, I want to know you the way everyone else in this town knows and trusts you, but I’m not going to be sharing anyone’s bed for now. That’s what I think I should do.”

Carson studies me for a moment and then lets out a deep sigh. “Fuck. I didn’t know I was an entanglement.”

“You’re not. It was a bad choice of words. I need to be on my own for a while.”

“You’ve been on your own for years,” he says. “Your parents sent you out into the world when you were fourteen. A kid making adult decisions is never easy.”

“You did it, too, but you’ve also had a few years to be your own boss. I need to process everything in my own way and I can’t keep accepting everyone else’s opinions because it only confuses me at this point.”

“How much time do you need?”

“This isn’t something I can schedule onto the calendar like one of your renovation projects. I need time for myself and it will take as long as it takes. Is that okay with you?”

Carson gives me a hesitant smile and relaxes his arms. He looks positively gorgeous with his messy hair and unshaven face. “I’m fine with that. There’s no statute of limitations on my feelings for you.”

I wish he’d stop being so accommodating. It only makes me want to jump in his arms and have reckless sex with him.

“Ah…” I stammer, contemplating how to end this conversation without blowing it forever.

“Do you know why I could sleep out here all night?” he asks.

“Because you’re made of steel?”

He smiles at my attempts to delicately diffuse the tension.

“Because you never fell in love with my brother.”

“What?” I look at him with confusion.

“You didn’t fall in love with my brother or any other guy for that matter. That gives me hope that I’ll be the one and only.”

I am floored and quite pleased that he would confess that to me.

“I don’t care who you’ve slept with in the past. Okay, that’s bullshit, but I can’t change that. What I do want, however, is to be the first and last guy you fall in love with.” He delivers this declaration with a confident inflection like an ambitious colonial statesman, except I doubt references to sex would ever be uttered in a John Adams speech. It’s Carson’s old-fashioned perspective on how people should behave that makes me fall harder for him.

Abandoning my earlier remarks about needing more time, I reach up and kiss him, putting my arms around his neck. He doesn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity I’ve given him. He kisses me savagely. One of his hands holds my head while the other grabs my ass and pulls me in closer. I press into his hard body and it feels right. It would be so easy to think with my urges and the raging hormones that are begging me to give into Carson; to hold him, to make love to him, to love him. I don’t trust anything that comes so easily.

The kiss ends slowly, neither of us wanting to stop since it means we’ll have to get on with the business of real life.

“Everyone tells me that you are exceptional as a person. It’s true. But I still need more time, Carson.”

His façade is solemn.

“I owe you a huge apology for acting like a brute, at least that’s how Imogene put it. I’m sorry.” He hands the coffee mug back to me.

“I’m kind of getting used to you busting down my doors, but I really do need some more time.”

“Okay,” Carson says.

Thirty

Three weeks have passed since the accident and we’re already being threatened with an early winter, a dusting of snow in October.