Jesse's Soul (2) (26 page)

Tears immediately came to her eyes and her mouth opened, but she couldn’t catch her breath.

“Em?”

Looking through the glistening in her eyes, she stared into his. They were the most warm, caring, soft brown eyes she’d ever seen, but through them she could see clear into the depth of his soul.

“You…you what?” she whispered.

She knew there was no way she’d heard him right. Her breath hitched and she swallowed hard, completely focused on the man that had not only her face in his hands, but her heart.

“I said, I love you.” He pulled her to him and tucked her face up against his neck.

Emery put her hand to his jaw and stroked his whiskers with her thumb. She whispered, “
I love you too,” against his skin, only loud enough for him to hear.

“You had me nervous there for a minute, honey.” He pulled her back and wiped the tears away. “We’ll get through this together, okay?”

Speechless, she nodded.

“So, Reid.” Jesse looked at his boss. “I’m going to need a few days off.”

Reid shook his head. “You don’t even need to ask, son.” The pride was evident his voice.

He loves me…

Jesse had said the three little words Emery never thought she’d hear from another man again. At some point, what she felt for Jesse had slipped from friendship to love seamlessly and she hadn’t even noticed. It was as if Jesse was always meant to be. The days and nights ran together, and although in reality they truly hadn’t known each other that long, it felt as if they’d been together for a hundred years.

“I can’t wait, you guys are going to get married and have kids
, and I’ll be the best aunt, I promise,” Ally said.

Oh my God. That’s why he can’t love me.

Emery’s felt her face drop like she’d been punched in the stomach. It happened so quick, she couldn’t hide the shock or pain from anyone surrounding her. He had a way of doing that to her. Of making her feel normal, of making her forget.

What was she doing? What was she doing—to Jesse?

“Honey, don’t rush them. They haven’t been dating long enough to worry about that yet,” Janie said, her eyes flicking over to Emery, obviously trying to set her mind at ease.

Panic started to claw at her insides.
How could he love her? She was so broken. Not fixable. Emery didn’t want Jesse to waste his love on her. She shouldn’t. But God, those words felt so good to hear. She felt the familiar sting as tears burned on the verge of falling.

“You
...you...” She felt her breaths become labored. “You didn’t...tell them? Oh, Jesse.” His name came out in whoosh as she crumpled before him.

She didn’t want to disappoint his parents. Even through her closed eyes, she could feel their questions burning into her. There was no graceful way to make an exit and escape the humiliation. She knew he was excited for her to meet his parents, and one could only assume he’d told them certain things. Normally
, she didn’t like to be talked about, and she didn’t tolerate family secrets, but this was one of those things she would have been happy to have him whisper about behind her back. Then it would be a hushed subject no one ever spoke about again.

For the love of God, I just met these people.

The bike. The race. Time was against her. The noises of the pits, the whispers of concern from the people standing around her, it all started swirling until she couldn’t think straight. Anxiety was now grabbing her by the throat, and she struggled to not let it pull her under.

“Honey, look at me.” He brought her face to his again. “
Emery. Open your eyes and look at me.”

It was a command, and the force momentarily
halted the voices in her head. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the compassion in his.

“
Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

He cupped her face and kissed the worry lines across her forehead, kissed the few escaped tears that trickled down her cheeks, and finally settling with a soft kiss on her lips.

“I didn’t tell them because I don’t ever think about it. It’s not something I would ever use to define you. Yes, I told them all about you. I told them how beautiful and funny you are, and how amazing you are with bikes. And about your Irish green eyes and temper. I told them how kind-hearted and sweet you are, and how you fired Anthony to defend Lance. I talk about the things I see, and how you make me feel. I don’t see your medical issues. Yes, they are a part of you, but they don’t define you, Em. Not now, not ever.”

He squeezed her to him tightly and looked at his parents. “Mom, Dad,
we won’t be having children.”

Janie smiled, but even Emery could tell she was trying to hide her concern. “That’s between the two of you, and it’s no reason for you to get upset, sweetie. Everything is all right.”

Riley clasped Jesse’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Frost.”

Emery knew what Riley meant. It was the way Jesse worded his statement. He could have easily blamed it on her, or just stated
that she couldn’t have kids. But he worded it in a way that made it their decision, and their problem, not hers alone. Riley was right. Jesse had handled the whole situation with class and grace. Emery knew she’d never find another man out there like him.

In Jesse’s arms, Emery tried to calm herself down, relying on his strength and warmth around her. With the Kincaid backbone she’d been born with, she straightened in Jesse’s arms. It was out in the open. There was no hiding the truth.

She took a deep breath and, with the threat of more tears building, looked at Janie and Kevin. “I can’t have children. I’m so sorry.”

The weight of her words made both Jesse and her physically shudder.

“Honey, don’t you ever apologize for that. Do you hear me?” Janie said.

Emery tried to smile and shrugged. He was their only son. Emery knew he had a couple of cousins, but as far as his immediate family, Jesse was the only one to carry on the family name. Seeing his family in front of her, staring at her, brought that fact home. She steeled herself, trying like hell to keep the tears at bay.

“Honey, I’m so sorry.” Janie reached and took her hand.

“It’s okay.” Emery shook her head. “Really.”

“I’m sorry I said that, Emery,” Ally said.

Emery could tell by her expression that she was mortified. “Oh, Ally, you had
no idea. It’s fine, hon. I promise.”

Ally gave her a tight-lipped grin, but looked to her big brother to reassurance. Something Emery had done many times with Riley.

“So the tests?”

He tried to smile but Emery could tell it was forced, the corner of hi
s mouth barely tipped. “The two-year mark. They’re just to make sure she’s still cancer free.”

“That’s great, right?” Ally tried to sound upbeat.

“It is,” Jesse replied as hesitantly as he nodded, his shoulder jerking upward. “We’re just having some trouble with med combinations.”

Oh God. He knows.

It was there in those two tiny words, the way he questioned his own response. The cold fear in his eyes that lurked beneath the sympathy. She hadn’t hidden the possibility from him, but there had been something comforting about his upbeat optimism that let her keep pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. Tonight had changed the game for all of them. Up until now, Jesse hadn’t gotten it. The pained look that showed his torment said it all.

Emery lowered her eyes, but she knew what everyone was thinking. She knew because she had been thinking it herself.

Chapter Twelve

Jesse put the bike on the stand after the race. He ran his fingers over Emery’s shoulders and sat down to rest for a few brief minutes. Yes, it was better now that Riley was in town to help her, but God, she had him scared to death, and he’d give anything if she’d come sit with him. Just for a few moments to rest.

“Son, you are doing awesome,” Kevin said as he handed Jesse a bottle of water.

Second place felt empty knowing what Emery had gone through to guarantee he’d make it there. He took a drink then pulled off his sweaty jersey. “Thanks, Dad. But it’s, Em. She’s got the bike set up so perfectly it makes riding almost effortless.”

Jesse sat watching Emery and Riley working together on his bike. They’d immediately started prepping it for loading. Normally, they’d take their time, relax, joke around, then after she was done and he’d showered, the two of them would head to Carter’s to hang out after the race. Tonight was different
, and it wasn’t just because his parents were in town.

He sat with his chair facing the trailer so he could see his parents on one side, but keep his eye on Emery as well. She and Riley worked in silence, anticipating each other’s moves, handing each other tools without being asked.

“It almost looks choreographed, doesn’t it?” Reid asked.

Jesse smiled without taking his eyes off of them, and nodded.

“I told you it was something to see. They’ve always worked together like that. And as long as there isn’t a time constraint, it’s fine, but Riley can’t handle the pressure like Emery can. I’ve watched her pull off repairs that seemed impossible at the time, but she’d get it done and get Riley to the line every time.” Reid chuckled. “Poor girl, all of those times were his fault. He’d wreck and break something major on the bike, and he’d walk away without an injury, and she’d have to work feverishly to put his bike back together.” Reid’s head lowered. “Kind of like tonight.”

Jesse leaned forward, patting the shoulder of his boss sitting next to him. The amount of guilt the two of them shared about what happened earlier could have filled a swimming pool. In truth, it’d been a mechanical failure, and not on Emery’s part. Some malfunction with the engine and that fell on the manufacture
r. He knew she planned on pulling it apart to investigate the problem herself before she called them, but it was the stress that it put her under that almost did her in.

Emery was still beating herself up about the problem in the first place, but he and Reid were both fighting the anguish of knowing what she’d been through tonight because of it
, and the fact that she’d done it selflessly because of each of them. Not that either had asked or wanted that, but that’s how it had come down in the end.

Resting his forearms on his thighs, Jesse tilted his chin, his attention focused on the pair. “I’ve never seen such a thing. They don’t even have to talk to each other.”

“No. I’m lucky, those two are closer than any two kids I’ve ever been around. And they always have been. I guess their mother leaving them when they were little pushed them together.”

“I don’t think so, Reid. I think they just love each other that much. You can see it in her face when she talks about him, she lights up,” Jesse said, trying to ease things for Reid. “I’m so glad you brought him in to help her.”

“Yeah, she took it better than I thought she would. That just goes to show you how bad she feels. Oh, by the way, I booked you a flight with them tomorrow.”

The feeling of both absolute fear and total relief crashed into each other like a storm changes the direction of the waves in the ocean. Both sucked the air out of him for a quick moment.

She picked up the tools she had on the table one by one, putting them away in the same meticulous pattern she had taught Jesse. The corner of his mouth tipped watching her. There was nowhere else in the world he would be than by her side, holding her hand in the clinical, sterile-smelling hospital. That didn’t mean the reason they were there in the first place didn’t scare the shit out him.

He nodded. “Thanks, Reid. You’re sure
you don’t mind driving my motorhome?”

“No, it’ll all work out, Mike’s going to drive mine. Hey, Jesse,” Reid said, waiting for him to pull his attention away from watching Emery. “It means a lot that you want to be there with her, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Reid. I love her.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw his girlfriend as she leaned on the table behind her again. Jesse listened as she told Riley she was going inside the trailer for a second. She
’d barely gotten the door shut before they all heard the crash. Jesse leapt out of his chair and was up the stairs before anyone else could even have a chance to turn around. He opened the door to find her lying on the floor.

“
Emery! Baby, wake up!” Jesse knelt down beside her and saw her forehead was bleeding. He looked up at the counter as he gathered her in his arms. “She must have hit her head when she passed out,” he said to everyone standing in the doorway.

Emery started to blink and wake up on her own as he was holding her.

“Oh, my God, ahh.” She started to grab her head and he stopped her.

“No, baby, you’re bleeding, don’t touch.”

“What happened?” She barely opened her eyes.

“You passed out, Em. I think you caught the corner on your way down.”

“This is so fucking embarrassing.” Her words were quiet, almost grunted, and Jesse could hear the pain in her voice.

Janie stepped over the two of them, and Jesse turned to see his mother reaching for the first aid supplies, her nursing instinct kicking in without being asked. Jesse sat helpless, holding his bleeding girlfriend in his arms.

He had a temper that he kept contained almost all the time. However, seeing the deep red run down her face and onto his bare chest had him seething. This wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. She shouldn’t feel like this. He wanted to hit something, anything. The fear had him in a death grip and adrenaline had him fighting its hold. The fear of what was wrong…the fear of losing her.

Panic set in and the only thing that kept him breathing was the woman he had in his arms.

The cut was deep, the blood on her face and his skin frightening, but it was the passing out that scared the hell out of him. Over the last month and a half, he watched her get worse and worse, almost daily.

Janie knelt down on the other side of Emery and wiped her face, examining the cut. “Emery, sweetie, this is really deep. You’re probably going to need a couple of stitches.”

“No! I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. Please.”

Jesse couldn’t help but pull her closer when her words came out a desperate plea. “Emery, quit worrying about the bike.”

“Jesse. Don’t. Don’t even try to start. You can’t tell me not to worry. That’s my bike, I will always be at the line with it, I will always watch it cross the finish, and I’m the one to get it prepped to leave here.”

Her tone was so conflicted. Jesse could tell she meant to sound sure of herself, in control of the situation, but she was in enough pain she couldn’t even
fully open her eyes yet.

“Let me see, honey.” Janie turned Emery’s face back to hers. “Let me try to butterfly it, and we’ll see how long it holds, okay?”

“Thanks, Janie. I’m so sorry,” Emery whispered. “This is so damn embarrassing.”

“Well, I have a hunch I know what might be causing this,” Janie continued.

“You do?”

“I’m not a doctor—”

Emery interrupted her, “But you’re a nurse, you know just as much.”

Jesse watched Emery try to squint and look at his mother, then she winced and grabbed for his arms when Janie pressed the wound together.

“You’re sweet,” she said softly, as she continued to try and bandage her up. “Jesse called me one day asking about low blood pressure and side effects.”

“Yeah?”

“You can’t have kids.”

“No,” she whispered.

“And you’re very young.”

“Twenty-five isn’t
that young.”

“But you’re young and you’ve had the opportunity to have children taken away from you.”

“Yeah?”

Hesitation laced every answer Emery gave his mother. Jesse wasn’t sure where his mom was going with this, but it wasn’t something either of them wanted to be reminded of.

“Have they ever talked to you about depression?”

“But I’m not depressed,” Emery replied, squirming in his hold.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Have the doctors ever worried about it? Have they ever put you on anti-depressants?”

“Yes. They put me on them after chemo. I told them I wasn’t depressed, though.”

“Are you taking anything now?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what I thought. They’re already giving you hormones because of the hysterectomy, I’m sure, and those alone can cause a whole host of side effects. Depending on what anti-depressant you’re taking, the goal of it is to lower anxiety and even out your moods, keeping your system from spiking either direction. It’s rare, but sometimes when you have low blood pressure, it can bottom you out. Have they changed the dosage or switched it on you recently?”

“Yeah, about five or six weeks ago, he changed it again. Maybe longer, I don’t know? The last few months are all a blur.”

“That’d be about right. You wouldn’t have noticed it right away because those types of drugs take a while to get in and out of your system. That’s why they have to wean you off one before you begin another one. Over the last few weeks, it’s built up, and you’ve probably been feeling worse every day, haven’t you?”

Emery nodded.

“Have they switched it a few times?”

Again, Emery nodded.

“When you’re coming off of one, do you start to feel better?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

“Well, don’t stop taking it. Like I said, I’m not a doctor, and I’m not your doctor. But it’s a good thing you’re going this week. Maybe he’ll pull you off it. There is a slim chance you might be better off without any depression medication at all.”

“You really think this could be as simple as stopping a drug?” Reid asked with desperation in his voice.

Jesse latched on to that piece of information and silently begged the man upstairs for that to be the reason she had felt so bad. Emery said she never came out of the whole thing like the doctors said she would. They promised she would bounce right back since she was so young, but she hadn’t. She had gotten worse.

Right before his very eyes.

He quit trying to read anything or investigate over the internet on his own because everything thing he saw scared him more than he already had been. Rubbing his hand over her bare arm, he noticed she was very cold to the touch. Pulling her tighter against his skin, he instinctively did his best to warm her up.

At every turn
, it hit him again. Just when he thought he understood the depth of the love he felt toward her, she’d sink into his heart even further. This woman in his arms, squinting because of the pain and the bright lights in the semi, the one with her fingers pressed into his skin because she was holding him so tight, the one that was now looking up at him so lost it broke his heart—he needed her.

“I’d bet
my money on it.” Janie tried to reassure her father. “Okay, honey, let’s get you up. Here’s the deal, though…you hit pretty hard when you hit the counter and then the floor, so you could have given yourself a concussion.”

“I’m all right.”

“You’re still dizzy and you have a headache, which are two symptoms of a concussion. But with you already having problems, we can’t tell what is causing what. You’re just going to have to take it easy, honey,” Janie said, both her mother and nurse voice in effect.

“Thanks, Janie, for everything.”

She ran her palm over Emery’s cheek. “It’s my pleasure, sweetie.”

That moment nearly choked him up. His parents were friendly people, but they had always treated Carter and Eli like their own when they were around. The years spent traveling the same circuits, the kids playing in the pits before and after the races, the parents arranging cook-outs, it was what he was used to. Seeing that same level of acceptance and love given to Emery shook him.

It wasn’t like he expected any less. He loved her, and he knew they’d like her. But what he saw was so much more than
we’re glad you met someone nice, Son
. It was pure and gentle and totally genuine. Not because they had to make an effort on his part, but because they truly cared about the woman he loved, even after only a few short hours of knowing her. Jesse’s mom helped him get Emery up off the floor, but she collapsed in his arms again.

Reid grabbed his face in his hands. “God, I hope it’s just the medicine. I just pray you’re right, Janie.”

Shit.

The air rushed from his lungs out of fear and desperation.

My God.

Jesse sat her on the couch and held her as she came to again. “It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you. Shh.” He could feel their parents watching as he consoled her and calmed her down when she got embarrassed again. “Honey, why don’t you lay down in here for a little bit, just a few minutes, please?”