Looking For Trouble (36 page)

Jess had hired her, even though she didn't
have any experience as a professional nanny, and wasn't with an
agency, she had good references from babysitting, and that's what
this really was. A nanny job included home schooling and cleaning
and that kind of thing in Jess's mind. She just needed someone to
give Angel their undivided attention, so she could focus on writing
and singing, and Tamara fit that bill. But sometimes, there was
just something about her, that bothered Jess. She'd only known her
a week though, so she was going to give it time, but keep her eyes
open too.

"You sure you're gonna like going on the
road with us?" Jess asked her with a forced grin.

"That's gonna be phenomenal...Glory Shine is
one of my favorite singers. It's really cool that you're gonna open
for her. Maybe one day I'll open for you!" Tamara had told Jess
when she hired her, that she was an aspiring country singer too,
and was working small gigs at night to try and get a break.

"Now, that would be really cool," Jess told
her with a forced grin, trying to encourage her dream.

Jess hailed a taxi for them, then got
inside, and buckled in the car seat and put Angel in, while the
driver and Tamara wrestled the suitcases into the trunk. The driver
got back in and they told him where they wanted to go, then he
turned on the radio to a country station, and Jess's breath caught
in her throat.

"Holy, shit, I just cut that song...and it's
on the radio already!" she screamed and the driver looked at her in
the rearview.

"That you?" he asked with a huge grin.

"Hell, yeah! I just cut that track in
Nashville, that's where I'm coming back from...I can't believe
they're already playing it!"

They got quiet to listen, then when it
finished, the driver said, "That's damn good, ma'am."

Jess felt blood rush to her face. "Thanks,
it's my first single...sorry for all the hollering."

"Don't apologize, I'd be hollering too!"

She sat back against the seat again and put
her hand to her chest, trying to get her galloping heart under
control again. "Wow..."

Her cell phone rang in her pocket, and she
answered it without looking, "Helloooo," she said cheerfully,
expecting Jazzie.

"I heard our song on the radio....Congrats,
Jess," Wade's deep voice vibrated in her ear, and wrapped around
her throat so she couldn't speak. "You there, darlin'?" he asked in
a choked whisper. It almost sounded like he was crying, but that
couldn't be, tough as a boot cowboys didn't cry, especially over
songs.

"Yeah, I'm here..." she said in a wobbly
voice.

"When did you record it?" he asked her then
cleared his throat.

"About five hours ago..." she said then
chuckled.

"No shit? Wow, that's fast then..." he told
her, then hesitated before he added in a raw voice, "I miss you so
goddamned much, Jess..." and even though he pulled the phone away,
she heard his soft sob, and knew he was crying now, before he said,
"I miss my baby too."

Tears poured out of Jess's eyes unheeded,
and she sobbed too, then told him, "I'm back in Dallas now, we just
landed...you want to keep Angel for a few days? We've got some gigs
lined up, so I'll be busy..."

"Who's we?" he asked in a voice barely above
a whisper. "You and that Latino guy?"

"What Lat--oh you mean Carlos? How'd you
know about him?"

"I saw you kissing him in front of the bar,
Jess...and it ripped my fucking heart out." If there was much more
misery in his voice, Jess was afraid he was going to melt into a
puddle of it.

"Wade, Carlos is Jazzie's brother...he's
like my brother. You didn't see what you thought you saw," she told
him.

She heard him suck in a breath, then he
said, "I saw what I saw...but if you say he's her brother, I
believe you...we have a pinkie swear right?"

"Yeah, we have a pinkie swear, baby...how's
your back?"

"Hurts like hell, but my insides hurt more,"
he said with a groan.

Panic flooded Jess and she asked in a
frantic voice, "Oh god, did you hurt something else when you
fell?"

"Yeah...when I fell in love with you...I'm
so damned sorry for hurting you, Jessie," he told her in a voice
that vibrated with emotion.

"Wade, I can't have this conversation with
you right now...I'm not by myself. Let me call you back later,
okay?" she asked with a glance at the driver and then Tamara who
were watching her intently.

"Don't trouble yourself, sugar...you're
probably too busy, now. I just wanted to tell you I heard our song,
and I feel like I'm bleeding inside," he said then hung up the
phone.

"Don't hang up dammit!" she yelled at the
phone, then dialed him back. The phone rang and rang, but he didn't
pick it up, so she disconnected and threw it in the diaper bag in
disgust.

After they dropped off Tamara at the corner
by her apartment building, she tried Cole and Sabrina's number
again, and Sabrina answered. "Bri, this is Jess...can you get Wade
on the phone, I need to talk to him."

"He's locked up in the weight room, and
won't come out...Jess, I'm worried about him," Sabrina told her in
a low serious tone. "He's a mess...stays locked up in that weight
room, when he's not drinking himself into oblivion at night."

Jess whimpered, then asked, "Think he'll be
there in about two hours?"

"He'll be in there, til it's drink himself
under the bed time."

"Don't tell him, but Angel and I are gonna
head that way as soon as I get home." Jazzie and Jess had gotten a
nice two-bedroom condo last week, and had just moved in, and the
driver was just about there. Jess had also bought her a car...not a
new one, but one decent enough to make it to Bowie and back. She'd
take Angel and drop her off with Wade for a week or so...that would
probably cheer him up, and Angel would like it too. She fretted
sometimes, and Jess would swear it was because she missed her
daddy.

"Oh, thank god...he'll be here, and I'll be
even happier than him to see you," Sabrina said with a rough
chuckle.

Jess had plenty of time to worry and think
while she drove to Bowie, and came to the conclusion that she and
Wade needed to talk...mostly about Angel and how they could work
out visitation, because she didn't want to cut him out of their
daughter's life. Angel needed him to be in her life, if he got his
act together that is...because she wasn't about to trust her
daughter to a man that found his peace at the bottom of a
bottle.

When she pulled the car to a stop in front
of the huge house out in the boondocks, Jess just sat there a
minute, shoring up her defenses, so she could handle seeing Wade
again, if that was even possible. The way her gut was churning
right now, she'd probably toss her cookies all over his boots.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, then grabbed the
diaper bag and small suitcase she'd packed for Angel, then got out
and opened the back door to get the baby out. Angel was sleeping,
so Jess put her against her shoulder then kneed the door shut, and
walked up the walkway to the house.

Before Jess could knock, Sabrina flung the
door open and put her finger over her lips, and she walked inside,
then Bri shut the door quietly behind her. "He's in the bedroom
now, with his good friend Jack. Let me have the baby, and you go
talk to him," she said then took Angel from her. Jess sat the
diaper bag and suitcase down in the foyer, and followed Bri down
the hall to a bedroom on the end, where she pointed at the
door.

Jess nodded, then Sabrina walked back down
the hallway with Angel. Her heart rate ramped up, as her hand
hovered over the doorknob, then she opened one side of the double
doors and walked inside the dark room, then shut it behind her.
There was absolutely no light at all, but she heard the slosh of
liquid in a bottle and then the clink of a the bottle against a
glass, and she walked that way.

"What the fuck do you want, Bri? I'm trying
to go to sleep," he mumbled then she heard him swallow and
sigh.

"It's not Bri, Wade..." she said flatly and
stepped closer to the bed. She heard the glass drop on the carpet
and then the bottle being set on the night table.

"Oh, god, I must've drank too damned much,
because I swear I'm fucking hearing things...or maybe I finally
drank enough this time," he said with a groan as he shifted in the
bed.

"You're not dreaming, sugar...I'm here,"
Jess told him softly, then felt for the bed and sat down.

His hands patted around on the mattress,
until he found her, then they moved up her legs across her breasts
and finally to her face. He moved his fingers gently over her
eyelids, and then down her cheeks, and he whimpered, "If this is a
hallucination, I never want to wake up..."

"You're not hallucinating, I'm here, Wade,"
she told him then ran her hand up his chest to his cheek and it was
wet, so she ran her thumb upward and wiped it away, then stroked
his stubbled jaw.

He groaned, then grabbed her and pulled her
to him in a fierce hug, and he sobbed into her hair. "Oh,
god..."

"Shhh...don't cry, darlin'," she said in a
choked voice against his shoulder. Jess couldn't help it, love for
him flowed through her like a raging river, and she was like a log
floating on it, with no control.

"I love you so damned much, Jess...I'm so
sorry for what I said...for hurting you," he said and his arms
tightened around her more.

Fighting to drag in a breath she told him,
"You're hurting me now, darlin'...I can't breathe."

His arms immediately loosened and he pulled
her further up on his lap, and kissed her face until he found her
lips, then he latched onto them and kissed her with a fierceness
that spoke of the intensity of the emotions that were torturing
him. Jess whimpered then slid her arms around his neck, and kissed
him just as fiercely.

He tasted like bourbon soaked heaven, but
heaven anyway, and she felt like a flower reaching for the sun,
filling itself with bright rays of warm light. The cold dead places
inside of her for the last few weeks renewed themselves, and
tingles of pleasure moved along her nerve endings, as his hand slid
up her legs to the edge of her jean skirt, then underneath, and she
sucked in a sharp breath, wanting him to go higher, but knowing
they needed to finish this talk first.

He pulled back and dragged in a breath then
said, "Tell me you still love me, please tell me."

"I do love you, Wade...haven't ever
stopped...you did hurt me, though, very badly," she told him
honestly.

"I truly am sorry, Jess...you mean the world
to me, and I was out of my mind and totally fucking stupid for
saying what I did to you," he told her in a tortured groan, then
added fiercely, "I get what you were saying now...good or bad, if
you love someone, you stick by them. I was trying to shove you
away, because I thought some bad shit was gonna happen, and wanted
to spare you...that wasn't my decision to make, and I'm sorry."

"You also made me feel like I wasn't
competent to make good decisions about my life, and that was the
worst of it. You have no idea how hard I've struggled the last
eight years to make it, Wade...to put up with the users in my life,
and still succeed."

"I do know, Jess...I see it...and I'm so
damned proud of you, and in awe of your persistence. No matter what
kind of bad crap comes down the pike, you manage to ride the wave
to the next good thing that happens. Even when you got pregnant
with Angel and I wasn't there, you did the same thing."

"I think you do get it..." she said softly,
then relaxed against him laid her head on his shoulder.

His body trembled, then he hugged her again.
"I do...and I promise I won't do that to you again, sweetheart," he
told her with a kiss to her hair. "Stay with me, darlin'...please
don't leave me," he pleaded.

"I can't...I have to go back to Dallas. We
have several pretty large gigs set up thanks to my new manager, and
in two weeks we hit the road with Glory Shine as her opening act,
that'll last six months or so...."

Wade tensed up, but then let out a whoop
that she was sure, Sabrina heard clear on the other side of the
house, then he reached over and turned on the lamp on the bed
table. His face was a ravaged mess, his eyes red-rimmed, but filled
with so much love and pride, her heart twisted in her chest.
"You're there darlin'...you made it in spite of me and all the
assholes before me...
you
did it."

She smiled and said, "Nah, Jazzie and I did
it...together we're unstoppable."

"She's dynamite in a very small package, for
sure," he told her with a shaky grin.

His smile faded, then he said, "If you're
going on the road for six months, what does that mean for us? For
Angel?"

"That's what we need to talk about...calmly.
We can figure this out, Wade."

"As long as you're with me, we can work
anything out, sugar...I've been so damned miserable without you,"
he told her then hugged her to him again, "We're a good team, I'm
just sorry it took me so damned long to realize that."