When I See You (29 page)

"Debt on the Lazy J," Brock says quietly. "Ethan's share."

"Holy shit," I say with a gasp. I put my hand over my mouth and try to control this sudden urge to start screaming.

"I've been trying to tell you about it for months. Like I said, we owned the land outright. We bought it years ago when the owner died. It was right after high school, I guess. We've been drilling for oil on various parts of the property, but so far not much is there. Then, we started making plans about eighteen months ago and began construction on the houses. The plan was to finish the main house and have you and Max move here this summer and wait for him, until he was done with this last tour."

"Just pick up and move to Austin."

He looks surprised by my soft tone. It belies my absolute total fury.

"He wanted to move home. He wanted to have a place
here
with you and Max. I told you all of this last night," Brock says, exasperated now. "That was the plan."

"The plan," I echo. "But, what about Malibu? Le Reve? My life there?"

"He wanted to move home," Brock says.

"Home."

"Austin."

"What day is it?"

"It's Sunday."

I slip out of Brock's grasp and begin walking up the long drive. I absently admire the fine stonework, while traversing the surface. We're about thirty feet from the biggest house. The main one, I assume.

I don't care. I don't want to be any closer. I stop and gaze at the landscape. The full sun overhead lights up the hills and the world. The bright light touches my face and I close my eyes and attempt to garner some of its warmth, but the world has suddenly gone cold and my body is fast discovering this. I shiver and open my eyes and view the world—the Lazy J—Ethan's version of paradise. Brock's, too.

At least, I can
see
it.

Brock catches up to me. I brazenly stare at him.

Me, all seeing. He, blind and unseeing, but, somehow, seeing it all so clearly. I envy him.

I blatantly regard his handsome face and allow my eyes to travel downward and openly admire his physique. The way his waist tapers into his jeans. The outline of his body beneath his shirt is easy enough to discern. His six-pack abdominal muscles rival Ethan's. I retrace my seeing path and note each of these assets on my return to his amazing face.
Handsome.
The word comes to mind so easily. I shiver.

His lips slightly part as if he has something he wants to say, but he remains silent. He basks in the stoic silence, as usual.

I shake my head as if to clear it of these wayward thoughts and almost smile, but the confusion over Ethan and the man in front of me takes hold.

"We were married almost four years," I say. "Two days short of four years. One thousand, four hundred and fifty-eight days."

"Jordan, I don't—"

"And, out of that, we spent two hundred and ninety-eight days together. One thousand, four hundred, and fifty-eight days we were married. And, he wrote and told me that he loved me.
A lot.
" I openly gaze at Brock. "But out of all those days, there was never one day, where he wrote me and said, 'Baby, let's move to Austin, build a ranch house there, and hang out with my buddy, Brock.' Not one of those days did he say that." I start to laugh. It has a maniacal quality. "He said he loved me."

"He did."

"Maybe, he did," I say. "But, you were right. He could never
see
me."

"That's not true. He saw you. I never should have said that."

Brock's remorse reaches for me. My breath gets more and more uneven. I just stand there, looking at him, and trying to put this all together.

I'm broke. These innocuous words keep coming back at me.
I'm broke.
I take a deep breath.

"I'm broke. I'm alone. I'm a widow. I''m a mother. I have Max. I have everything, except money and Ethan." The tears fall freely now. "I don't have a marriage. I don't have a life; I'm broke, but other than that I'm fine."

I start to breathe as if I've just run a ten-mile race. Jagged breaths escape me. I feel like I'm going to hyperventilate. And, Brock just stands there. He gets this disturbed, sickened look. Yet, he just stands there.

"There's more," I say, accusingly, after a long five minutes.

He just moves his head up and down. I watch in this fascinated way.

He's just the messenger. Where the fuck is Ethan?

"I told him to tell you while I was there. He'd run short on his share of the money for the construction. He was playing with some investments. We were out in the field for too long and he couldn't get online." Brock shakes his head back and forth. "But by then, he'd lost a lot of the money, but we wanted to keep going on the construction and—"

"My mother's jewelry," I whisper. "I''d shown it to Ethan once. I kept her jewels in a safe at the house, probably because that's where I felt the safest, so I assumed her jewels would be safe there, too. I'd given Ethan the combination right after we were married, after we'd only known each other for fifty-six days."

I frown and look over at Brock. He has this grim expression.

"It was an old safe, the twist-and-turn-the-knob kind of safe. A locksmith once assured me it was very good. The man told us no one could break that code, unless they
knew
it. I remember looking over at Ethan and smiling and him smiling back at me, like we shared this amazing secret. And, we did. We shared a nest egg of over two million dollars for a rainy day." I stop, and try to catch my breath. "I guess it rained; I just didn't know it had."

"I'm sorry," Brock says into the stillness. I glance over at him. He looks even more ill at ease.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Are you?"

I start to laugh. "No." I sigh. "He knew what those jewels meant to me. She wore them the night she won the Oscar. My dad gave them to her." I shake my head and then shiver, remembering as the words tumble forth. "She looked so beautiful with this amazing diamond necklace and these long silver earrings with a teardrop diamond suspended at the end of each one. I helped him pick them out. He spent a fortune, but he told me she was worth every penny. Can you imagine loving someone like that? Believing in them so much? The extravagance of their love is something I will never forget. It's what I try to remember and what I hold on to even now."

I brush at my hair and wipe at my face. I'm suddenly grateful he can't see me cry. "It's silly; I know."

"It's not. It's amazing and beautiful," he says. "Just like you."

My breath catches in my throat at the intense look on his face. I ignore what he's said. I'm too moved by it, too confused by it. It's too much to acknowledge. I'm in emotional turmoil over Ethan. Did he ever see me? Did he even love me? And, if he did, was it enough?
Does it matter?

"He sold my mother's jewelry for a house," I say in a low voice. "Who does that without telling their spouse?"

"He wanted it to be a surprise," Brock says.

"Well, I'm surprised," I say with a bitter laugh.

"Come see inside."

His three little words seem to bring me back. He holds out his hand, and I grasp it tight. He taps his walking stick and leads us forward.

"What a pair," I say.

"Yeah."

I lean my head on his shoulder. He snakes his arm around my waist.

"You're going to have to trust me on this. You're going to love this place."

I stare up at him.

"I hope so."

"I know so."

He flashes me a white smile. He hugs my shoulders tighter, and I allow myself to be led along to the Lazy J. All the while, I fight the urge to run in the complete opposite direction away from this house, even away from this man, because my mind already knows that everything's about to change even more.

*≈*≈*

Chapter 17. Crazy for this girl

Brock

Even mad I know she's beautiful. I can't fucking see her, but I know this. Beneath my arm, her shoulders tremble. It's the only signal that tells me we're getting close to the massive front doors. I breathe deep of the hot air, realizing how crucial the next part is. I've gone through the tour of this house with her in my mind so many times. Do I show her the backyard with the herb garden, first? Or last? Do I show her the gourmet kitchen or the commercial one, first? There's so much to show her, and more than anything, I want her to love it all. I don't examine too closely why her reaction means so much to me. She might hate it. She has every right to hate it.

There are a lot of unanswered questions between us already.

I'm blind. That matters. Instinctively, I already know it doesn't matter to Jordan, and, that, alone, scares the hell out of me.

She was Ethan's wife. I was his best friend. We can't be together. And, yet, I'm the one she's holding hands with as we enter the doors of this grand house.

I listen for her and hear her gasp as we enter into the main foyer.

"There's a skylight overhead with a prism. It casts this amazing light in this foyer all day long. The black and white stone is like old Hollywood."

"Yes," she says. I hear a hint of amazement in her voice. "Two staircases?"

"It's pretty big," I say. "There are three distinct wings and two other houses. We kind of planned it around the idea of the three of us being here. Ethan. Tate. Me."

"Tate, too?"

"There's a guest house. Tate's to be the foreman, running the cattle side of the business. Ethan and I planned to run the oil company. That way, we''d share in all the profits all together. Equally."

"Like your father's place."

"Yes. But it was to be
our
place." I stop. "It would have been ours."

"Still could be," she says softly.

"Maybe. I have to
see
first," he says with a heavy sigh.

"You will. I told you that." She sounds impatient. I'm surprised.

"But that's not why I brought you here. I just thought you should see it. See it all. Before, we sell it." In an instant, I make up my mind about what to show her first. "Let's eat," I say, pulling her along to the right.

Now, I'm thankful that I had the service put Braille marks throughout the house. I know the place like the back of my hand. I built most of it in my spare time with Tate before my injuries.

"Wow. Commercial grade," she murmurs as we enter the kitchen.

I imagine her hands trailing along the granite countertop and the Viking stove.

"All the stuff you like."

"Uh-huh."

I move toward the middle of the room, reaching out with my hands to get my bearings. I pace off to the refrigerator and open the door, feeling emboldened as my fingertips travel over all the food items. They are all marked in Braille. "What are you hungry for?"

"Stop showing off. This, I can do. Go sit down some place." She pulls me out of the way. I smile in the general direction of her voice and go sit at one of the tall kitchen chairs at the counter.

"We wanted it to have that restaurant feel, of being able to sidle up to a counter and casually drinking a glass of wine while conversing with the cook. Sorry. The chef of the house. True entertainment value. Ethan said that's what you''d like."

"I do."

She takes my hand and puts it around the stem of a glass. "Pouilly Fuisse. Drink up."

I hear the steady slicing of a knife through an apple. Then, she's back again, placing my hand on the edge of a plate. I feel the soft sponge of what must be cheese and the apple slices and begin to eat. But then, the sizzle of butter or oil in a pan distracts me. "You''re cooking?"

"It relaxes me. Be glad," she says. "Be
very
glad."

The minutes drone by. She moves around in this magnificent gourmet space, while I'm cloaked in the blackness. But, strangely, it's not as daunting today.
Because she's here.
My mind silently bellows.

The plate is empty. I gulp at the wine, nervous, captivated by her sounds. Then, Jordan's there again. She touches my hand and tells me she's poured more wine into my glass.

"Thanks," I say.

"It's a fabulous kitchen. Who designed it?" Her voice has an edge to it.

I start to say Ethan, but realize she's too in tune to actually believe that. She knows Ethan, just like I do. She knows Ethan can handle the fluff of the project, but not the details. "I did."

"How did you
know
?" She sounds breathless, all at once.

I lean closer. "I checked out the kitchens where you worked. The restaurant designs that you liked and frequented according to Ethan. I spoke with some of the architects who designed them. We hired one and we worked it out together. He had a different design in mind for this kitchen, but I thought I knew what you'd want." I pause, listening for her. "I take it you like it."