Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
JESSE
W e lay on the bed, watching the sunlight fade from the room.
We’d had a shower, and I’d fucked her again, this time her breasts pressed into the cold tiles as I took her from behind, braced on the same wall, rolling into her so hard and fast she’d been up on her tiptoes, begging for more, gasping as she came around me.
The feeling of being inside her bare was intoxicating and added to the intensity of when we were together. I wondered if that feeling would fade, the way I was sure my need for her would.
I supposed I would find out.
Then I took her back to her kitchen, and I ate the roast, pouring that onion gravy everywhere on my plate. I was starving.
We cleaned up together, and then before she could protest, I swung her into my arms and carried her back to my side, depositing her once more on my bed.
“I can walk.”
“Not today. God knows what you’ll climb next.”
“I was hoping you.”
“That’s a given. But I need a little rest.”
I lay down beside her, pulling her into my arms. She rested her head on my chest, laughing.
“Poor old man needs a break.”
I huffed. “I was thinking of your poor pussy and the pounding it’s taken today. I thought I’d give it a chance to recover.”
“How considerate, Thorne.”
“You always call me Thorne unless I’m inside you. Then it’s Jesse. Why?”
“I call you Jesse sometimes.”
“Rarely.”
She shrugged. “You feel like two different people, I guess. Grumpy Thorne and sexy Jesse. Sometimes you call me Pixie and sometimes Casey.”
She was right. Pixie came easier when we were alone. It felt intimate.
I stared out at the gathering night.
“What made you think of the tree and Lou today?” I asked without anger.
She sighed. “I don’t know. The memory just hit me.”
I was quiet for a moment, then gave in to my curiosity.
“How did you lose touch?”
She sat up, drawing her legs to her chest, not speaking for a moment.
“You remember when I told you my dad thought calling me Katharine Casey was funny?”
“Yes.”
“He was drunk at the time. He was drunk a lot.”
“Ah.” I covered her hand with mine, squeezing it.
“He was always losing jobs, and we moved a lot. My mom got tired of it and left him. Lou told her to come here. We could live with her. I was six.”
I waited for her to keep going. She played with my fingers, then spoke.
“We were here for over a year. I loved it here. Lou and I were best pals. We did crafts, she helped me with schoolwork, let me cook with her. She played with me like another kid—climbing trees, playing hopscotch. I loved her.” She laughed quietly.
“More than my mom. She was friend, teacher, mom, favorite aunt—everything rolled into one.”
“I could see that.”
“My parents had me late. They were the same age, and Mom had me when she was forty-two—I was a surprise. Sometimes it felt as if I wasn’t a welcome one.”
I rubbed her leg in silent sympathy.
“Lou was ten years older than my mom. She always said my mom was the sister she never had. And I was like her niece. Lou grew up next door to my mom, and they had known each other my mom’s entire life. Despite the age difference, they were friends.”
“Lou was like that. She loved people. She was friends with sixteen-year-olds and people her own age.”
Casey nodded sadly.
“Anyway, my dad showed up about a year and a half later. He’d been through rehab and swore he’d changed.
He had a new job and a place for us to live.
My mom said yes.” She shut her eyes. “I begged her to let me stay with Lou. Lou asked her too, but Mom said we were a family and had to stay together, so she took me and we went back to Toronto.”
“And?” I prompted.
“It didn’t last. He started drinking again, they started fighting, and we came back.”
“For how long?”
“Six months, maybe more. Then he showed up again with the same story. Begging for another chance.” She met my eyes.
“The problem was my mom loved him more than anything. More than herself. More than me. She always believed him. And once again, she agreed. This time, Lou was really angry. I heard them arguing and Lou calling her selfish. Telling my mom to let her keep me here so I had a stable home. I didn’t hear everything, but they were both mad.
Lou told her if she did this again not to come back—their friendship was over.
I think she thought Mom would rethink it and change her mind. ”
“But she didn’t,” I guessed.
Casey shook her head. “Mom took me and left the next day while Lou was at the store. Dad was waiting for us at the bus stop. This time, we drove to Manitoba. Hours and hours away. I think I cried the whole time.” She shrugged.
“And that was how it started. We went from town to town, job to job, province to province, him always breaking his promises, and Mom always forgiving him.”
“Rough life for a kid.”
She nodded, looking over my shoulder unseeingly.
No doubt recalling her life. “He died when I was fourteen, and I thought we’d finally settle down.
But Mom was like him in some ways, and we roamed.
Never in the same place for more than six months or so.
Maybe a year if I was lucky. She worked whatever job she could find.
I was happy as long as I had a computer and could fix it or tweak it.
I joined every computer club in whatever city we went to. It was the only stable thing I had.”
“No Lou?”
She sighed, shaking her head. Her hair fell in her face, and I tucked it back behind her ear.
“I wrote her for years and gave the letters to my mom to mail, but she never wrote back. I begged her all the time to come and get me.” She swallowed. “Then one day, I gave up and stopped writing.”
I frowned. I was surprised Lou hadn’t reached out.
“I think I became my parents,” she mused. “Never staying in one place too long. No long-term relationships, nothing. And I certainly knew never to love someone so much that I gave my life to them the way my mom did with my dad.”
“That happens,” I murmured, not liking the fact that she’d been adrift her entire life.
“Even after I moved out and Mom was on her own, we both did the same thing. Pack up and go every few months—I think the longest I’ve been any place was a year.”
“You’ve never felt the urge to stay? Settle in one town?”
She smiled ruefully. “Never had any reason to.”
“How did you reconnect with Lou?”
“When my mom died, we were living in different cities. I had her things put into storage, and it was a few years before I was close enough to go and collect them. Most of it was junk, but I found a box of paperwork. In it were all the letters I’d ever written Lou.”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Your mom never sent them.”
“No. But she wrote Lou on occasion, and Lou sent me letters. Mom never gave them to me. There were birthday cards, Christmas and Easter cards. Funny notes.”
“How did you feel knowing she’d been trying?” I asked, edging closer, noticing the slight tremor in her body.
“Angry. I was so angry. Especially when I read the letters. Lou telling me she missed me. She loved me. That I could come live with her anytime. My mom had hidden all that. I wasn’t enough for her to stop the pattern with my dad, but she refused to give me a shot at a normal life. ” Casey met my eyes. “She was selfish.”
“Pixie,” I murmured as she dashed away a tear, the sight of it doing something to my chest. “I’m sorry.”
“I was too little to remember a lot of details—like the name of the town. Or Lou’s last name. Covington was a big word for a kid with no front teeth. I called it Cusston, which always made Lou laugh.”
I chuckled, imagining a little Casey missing her front teeth and lisping out words.
“And I remembered Lou,” she continued, her voice sad.
“When I recovered from the shock of everything, I searched, hoping she’d still be alive.
Mom hadn’t kept any of the envelopes—just the cards and letters inside.
One letter mentioned Covington and her last name Doyle, and I, ah, used my hacking contacts and I found her.
I traced her here and I called her.” Another tear splashed on her hand.
“She remembered me. We talked for hours. And we kept in touch. I called her every week—sometimes more. I was planning on moving here to see her, be there for her, but I was too late. I’d signed a contract, guaranteeing I would see the project to its completion or I wouldn’t get my bonus.
If I had known, I would have said fuck it and come anyway. ”
Her voice caught, and I shook my head, not wanting her to carry that guilt.
“No one predicted the stroke, Pixie. It was sudden. They told me she didn’t suffer. She was looking forward to you coming here.”
“And I’m grateful for that,” she assured me, wiping her face.
“I almost didn’t move here—it seemed pointless when she wasn’t here, but I spoke with Sims, and he said the apartment was still here for me and that she’d left me money and I should come.
He told me it would have meant the world to her.
My project wrapped early, they paid me, and I was ready to move on, so I did. ”
“I’m glad.”
“Even though I’m a pain in the ass?”
I delved my hand into her long hair and pulled her close. “Right now, you’re my pain in the ass. I’m good with that. You certainly keep me on my toes.”
Our eyes met and locked, the air turning warmer. The sadness in her eyes drifted away, and desire replaced it.
“Jesse?” she whispered, breathless.
“Pixie,” I replied, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth. I was determined, whatever she wanted, whatever she needed in this moment, I would give her. We didn’t have forever, but we had right now.
“You said something about a cowgirl?”
I smiled as I pulled her close. “You wanna ride me like a bronco, baby?”
“Giddyup.”
I lay awake long after the ride. And the ice cream in the kitchen that led to a messy sundae being made on her stomach and me eating it off her. That resulted in another shower.
And another blow job.
I rather liked the way my days off transpired now.
I rolled over, looking at her. Once again, we’d broken the rules, and she was staying the night.
Her cat was curled into my dog at the foot of the bed now that it was a peaceful place.
Casey was nestled next to me, her head on the pillow, her long hair everywhere.
I smoothed it off her face, staring at her.
Her story bothered me. I hated how alone she’d been all her life and that the only person to unconditionally love her was gone.
I understood why Lou was so intensely private about her past life.
She’d lost a little girl she thought of as her own, and it had hurt her terribly.
The two of them needed each other, but because of an uncontrollable illness, a broken friendship, and a selfish mind-set, they were denied that chance.
But through some twist of fate, I got to have Casey—at least for a little while. Neither of us believed in forever, but we could be happy in the moment. I had to admit, I liked her. More than I could recall liking someone in a very long time.
And I trusted her—something I never thought I would do again.
I studied her in the dim moonlight from the window.
She looked tiny in my bed, and I often forgot her small stature when she was arguing with me, her chin high and her eyes flashing in defiance.
In the shower, I had seen the bruises she’d given herself trying to carry the ladder.
And I was worried I’d been carried away manhandling her, but she told me off, letting me know her thoughts on the subject loudly.
I loved that about her. She was tough, independent, yet I spotted moments of vulnerability.
Like when she told me about Lou. Or later, when she relived the memory that took her to the tree.
I had laughed with her but saw the flitting sadness in her eyes as she told me about making the huge wind chime rope and hanging it.
I wished I could give her back more memories, but I was uncertain how. Then a memory Lou shared with me once hit me, and I picked up my phone, scanning the weather for the next day.
Maybe I could help her. Make her smile again.
I was shocked how much I wanted to do that.
I set aside my phone and pulled her closer. She nestled in with a little sigh, resting her hand on my heart.
As if it belonged there.
As if it belonged to her.
I pushed that incredibly stupid idea out of my brain.
This was for now.
That was all.
Even if it felt right.
As I had learned, nothing was forever, and love was a fickle thing.
Right now was always the best idea. No one got hurt.
The laughter in my head was loud at that thought.