Twin Cowboys for Tamara (26 page)
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190
Gigi Moore
Jax looked from one man to the other, didn’t know whose question to answer first and suddenly felt put on the spot when
he
should have been asking the questions.
He stared at Bailey sitting in a large teal-blue recliner, really looked at him for the first time in a long time and noticed how tired and washed out the older man appeared. His gaze then traveled up the IV pole standing beside Bailey’s chair like a lifeless metal sentinel. A bag of fluid hung from the top of it and a tube led from the bag down to the inside of Bailey’s arm.
Jax darted his gaze from the IV in Bailey’s arm to Bailey’s eyes.
He held the man’s look as long as he could without breaking, then looked to his father as if for confirmation of what he already knew.
He’d known it the moment he’d heard the familiar voices coming from the chemotherapy therapy room before he drifted in to see what went on with the two men.
“How long have you been sick?” he whispered and watched as Bailey closed his eyes and shook his head.
Pop got up and came over to Jax. “What are you doin’ here, boy?”
“Jess got thrown off a bronc—”
“Is he all right?”
“He got knocked out for several seconds and had a little dizzy spell when he came to He didn’t want to come to the hospital until I made him though. There’s a doc looking at him now.”
“I’m glad he’s okay. But you still haven’t answered the question.
What are
you
doin’
here
?”
Jax shrugged, feeling like a little kid who’d just been caught after breaking a living room lamp with a basketball he wasn’t supposed to be playing within the house. “I just wandered around, killed some time while the doctor took care of Jess.”
As soon as his brother had gotten settled in a treatment room with a doctor checking him out, Jax had used the time to take a stroll around the hospital to find something to eat and to just stretch his legs. Had he known what he’d be stumbling on he would have kept Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.
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Twin Cowboys for Tamara
191
his patooty firmly planted in a seat in the waiting room where he and Jess had spent the better part of an hour for a doctor to see to Jess’s injury.
“I don’t need to tell you not to say anything to anyone else, do I?”
Jax gaped at his father. “Why not?”
“Because Bailey doesn’t want anyone to know yet.”
“And I’m asking again—why not?”
“Please, Jackson. I need you to do this for me,” Bailey rasped.
Jax looked over at him, saw he had his eyes open and gave Jax an intense, pleading stare that made Jax’s heart trip in his chest.
“Tam needs to know you’re si—”
“She doesn’t need to know anything.”
“But, Bail—”
“I said no!”
Jax snapped his mouth shut and his father turned his head around to look at his friend.
Bailey swallowed, and Jax watched his Adam’s apple bounce up and down like a ping-pong ball in a lottery drum. “Well, uh,” Jax cleared his throat, “what about Jesse? I can’t hide this from him. He’s going to know something’s up. You know how he is.”
“Only if you think he won’t say anything to anyone else.”
Jax didn’t know if he could get Jess to make a promise like that, especially after all the trouble he had gotten into for lying to Tamara already, and this lie seemed a hundred times worse.
But he couldn’t keep this to himself. He had to tell someone, and if he couldn’t tell anyone else, he could tell Jess. Jess had always kept Jax’s confidences—they had kept each other’s confidences since they had been kids and always would.
When Jax had gotten picked up for DUI on they way home from a party several years ago, Jess had been the one he’d called, not Pop.
Jess had come to bail him out and pay the fee to get Jax’s truck out of impound. Jax’d had to hear about his irresponsible, reckless behavior Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.
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for days and weeks after, but he hadn’t drunk and drove again since and their father had never been the wiser to this day.
If anyone could keep a secret, Jess could.
He
could
keep one, but would he keep
this
one?
“Promise me, boy. You and Jess won’t tell Tamara. Promise me.”
Jax choked back a sob, tears that he failed not to shed running down his cheeks at Bailey’s plea.
“Don’t you start that bawling, boy. I ain’t dead yet, and I’ll get up from this chair and knock you on your ass just to prove it.”
Jax burst into laughter, hastily swiping at his tears and nodding.
“I…I promise.”
Now he just needed to make Jess promise too.
* * * *
“No way. No frigging way.”
“Jesse, please, if you had only seen his face.”
“What about Tamara’s face? How am I supposed to look
her
in the face and not tell her the truth? How are you supposed to?”
“We wouldn’t really be lying.”
Jess cut a glare at him so fierce Jax wondered why he didn’t go up in a ball of spontaneous combustion.
“All right, fine. It’s a lie of omission. But, Jesse, he begged me. I can’t tell her. And you can’t either.”
“You should have never made a promise like that, especially not for me.”
Jess drove in silence for several long moments, hands gripping the steering wheel so hard Jax thought he would pull it right out of the steering column any minute. Just when he’d decided not to say anything else until Jess did, his brother cursed under his breath, pulled to the side of the road and turned off the ignition. He slammed his fist against the steering wheel once then leaned forward and pressed his forehead against his knuckles.
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Jax just watched him, waiting and wondering what to do before Jess raised his head to look at him with moist, red-rimmed eyes. He could see exactly what his brother thought, could feel it, awash in the same guilty relief that a terminal illness had not befallen their dad, still overcome by grief for their impending loss.
They barely remembered their mother, taken from them with the same general disease. But this death, they would both remember.
They couldn’t escape it.
“What are we going to do, Jax? This just isn’t right.”
Jax couldn’t agree more. He’d thought the same thing when Bailey first made him promise not to say anything to Tamara.
Bailey wanted to break the news to his daughter in his own way, in his own time, and he had that right. But where did that leave the rest of them, practically forced to walk around the house on eggshells, anxious and afraid of saying or doing anything that would tip off Tamara?
“He had no right to ask us to do this,” Jess murmured.
Jax nodded, felt as pressed between a rock and a hard place as his brother.
They could either respect the wishes of a dying man and lie to the woman they both loved, or they could tell her the truth and violate Bailey’s confidence.
“This is going to hurt her no matter how this plays out, and I don’t know if I can be a party to this. I love her.”
“I know you do. I do too.” Jax’s heart sped at the admission, but he couldn’t deny it as attractive as it might have seemed to do so. It wouldn’t have been the truth though, and there wasn’t enough of that going around right now—not enough truth and too many secrets. “I probably should tell you that her mother might be making a visit.”
“Jasmine? When? How?”
Jax could imagine all the other questions going through his brother’s mind. Why, after all this time, would she come back to the ranch? “I didn’t get all the details, just stuff I caught before I Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.
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interrupted Pop and Bailey. They argued about letting her visit while Tamara’s at the ranch. Pop wants to kill two birds with one stone.
Bailey’s dead set against her coming.”
“And I suppose we’re not supposed to warn Tamara about her mother’s impending visit either right?”
“I think that’s a given.”
“I don’t have to tell you how much this stinks.”
Jax nodded, in total agreement. And he knew how much this stressed Jess out and would stress out his brother in the days to come.
Already he could see the sense of responsibility, the need to keep everything organized and everyone happy already weighing down his twin’s shoulders. He almost regretted telling Jess anything, but he couldn’t have helped it anymore than he could have helped loving the same woman his brother did.
He reached out an arm to wrap around Jess’s shoulder. “Hey, you don’t have to do this alone. I’m here for you.” Jax saw the question in his brother’s eyes and quickly put in, “And we’ll both be here for Tamara when this crap finally hits the fan.”
“As it will inevitably do.”
Jax did not look forward to the coming days and weeks. He wasn’t good with confrontations and tears, and he anticipated a lot of both with Tamara’s mother visiting and the progression of Bailey’s illness.
“We’ll help her get through this.”
“She may not want us to help her, may not want us near her. Not after she finds out we knew things ahead of time and kept it from her.”
“You’re probably right. But that doesn’t have to stop us from taking care of her in spite of herself and her anger.”
“And there will be that.”
“And probably blood too,” Jax said and Jess laughed. “It’s going to be okay, bro. We’ll get through this.”
“I want to believe you.”
“I know it’s not in your nature to, but trust me.”
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“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Jax. When the chips are down, I’ve always been able to count on you to come through for me.”
“You just don’t trust
anyone
to get this right except you.”
Jess nodded and Jax thought when they got right down to things, they left the control of a potentially volatile situation in Bailey’s hands, and Jax knew that just didn’t sit well with Jess, especially not where it concerned Tamara. Bailey had a history of not thinking clearly or objectively when it involved his little girl.
“Let’s just play it by ear. If it gets to be too much to handle, we’ll go back to Bailey and insist he tell Tamara himself before we do.” He hated to give a sick old man an ultimatum, but what else could they do? Bailey for sure wouldn’t be comfortable or happy with any decision they made regarding his illness. Better to at least give him a head’s up before they dropped the bomb on Tamara.
Jess turned the key in the ignition and started the truck as he grinned at Jax.
“What?”
“You really are maturing aren’t you?”
“It’s about time, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
Jax credited Tamara’s arrival in no small part to his maturation.
She made him want to be a better man, and this made him know he really loved her.
Love changed people, made them do strange things, things they’d never done before. “I guess love is making me grow up,” Jax whispered, realization dawning.
Jess glanced at him and smiled. “It looks good on you.”
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Jess drove the rest of the half-mile up to the ranch in complete silence, planning his escape as he made the turn onto the dirt path leading up to the main house. He needed some time alone to think and decide whether or not he would go along with this secret.
But as soon as he entered the house through the back door in front of Jax and spotted Tamara standing at the kitchen sink, he really didn’t want to be alone or make any major decisions.
Tamara didn’t make it easy to avoid her either when she unabashedly flew across the room and flung her arms around his neck in greeting. “Are you okay? I’ve been worried about you.”
Jess took his hat off and plopped it on the back of Tamara’s head before leaning in to give her a slow kiss on the lips. Drawn by her warmth and taste, he slipped his tongue into her mouth and stroked her welcoming tongue with his, hunger quickly growing along with is cock.
When Tamara responded, pressing against him so that her soft curves molded to him in a sensual perfect fit, Jess’s guilt came crashing down on him.
How could he sustain Bailey’s ruse for more than the time it took him to say hello when just touching the woman made him want to come clean right here and now?
He didn’t like the idea of lying, much less to Tamara—again. Not to mention he knew perfectly well what Tamara thought on the subject.
Jax cleared his throat behind them. “So, I’m chopped liver?”
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Tamara giggled and pulled away from Jess to reach over and pat Jax’s cheek. “Nothing of the sort, honey. But you weren’t the one who got thrown off of a horse.”
“Is that what a guy’s gotta do to get some tender loving care around here?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, but it is a good way to get a boo-boo kissed.” And with this, Tamara cupped Jess’s face with both hands and stood on her toes to kiss his forehead.
When she pulled away, he stared at her, tongue-tied as he sank into her dazzling onyx gaze. After an endless moment, he licked his suddenly dry lips and blurted, “The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, but I wouldn’t refuse some more tender loving care.”
