Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jesse
Sheriff Flynn Lewis stops by to check on the family under the guise of ensuring we’re all okay after the paparazzi left town. After offering his personal condolences to the family, his general pleasantness fades when he reaches me. In its place, an icy mask descends. He nods. “Jesse.”
I frown, unable to decipher the abrupt change in his demeanor. Flynn and I have been friends for years. “What did I do?”
He bares his teeth in a facsimile of a smile that would make wolves proud. “Nothing you’re willing to fix.”
“Care to explain?”
“If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be advertising for a new deputy.”
Every member of my family has their eyes aimed in my direction, but I’m just as bewildered as they are. “How is your inability to retain an employee my fault?”
Flynn snarls, “After everything she did for you? Christ, you’re a selfish son of a bitch, aren’t you, Jesse?”
My family leaps to my defense, even as I’m puzzling out Flynn’s words. When I do, I stagger back, bumping into my brother. My voice is raspy. “No…just no.”
My words somehow reach the ears of everyone in the room. People who were preparing to face an infidel instead channel their energy to the one in their midst—me.
I can’t look anywhere except at Flynn, willing him to take back the words. “She can’t leave.” I love her. How can she just walk away?
I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until a small voice sneers belligerently, “That’s not how you treated us today at Millie’s.”
I whirl and find Rosie standing between Beckett’s head of security—Kane McCullough—and Mrs. Holder, Rosie’s babysitter. Kane murmurs, “The little lady is apparently dead set on spending time with a horse.”
Acid churns in my gut. Lightning. Thinking about what any normally docile horse could do if provoked makes my voice harsh. “Rosie, what are you doing here? What were you thinking?”
Rosie stomps forward, her carriage reminding me of Scarlet’s. When she’s within striking distance, she kicks me in my shin. I’d be in agony if it wasn’t for my cowboy boots. My family erupts in various levels of astonishment. Beckett wonders aloud if Mrs. Holder is her mother.
Wary of Scarlet’s feral mini-me, I crouch down to be eye-to-eye with Rosie. “Her mother is Deputy Sheriff Scarlet Marsden—the woman I’ve been spending time with.”
Austyn murmurs, “Well, well, well.”
I glare in my niece’s direction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I always hoped to be around the day you fell head over heels for a woman.”
Singularly unimpressed she’s addressing one of the world’s most famous musicians, Rosie declares flatly, “He doesn’t want to be with us.”
I immediately protest. “Who said…”
Rosie plows on. “We’re leaving. I just came to say goodbye to Lightning so Mom doesn’t have to bring me here again.”
I inhale and exhale frantically, trying to wrap my mind around what’s happening. Scarlet’s leaving? She’s taking Rosie and leaving? “Wait. Rosie?”
Flynn curses me roundly. “You’re a fu—”
Paige snaps, “Flynn!”
“Fudging idiot!” He corrects himself.
Rosie nods frantically before pointing at him. “What Sheriff Lewis said.”
I reach out to brush her cheek—something I’ve done countless times. But Rosie recoils from my touch. Then she guts me with her words. “I guess it’s okay for you to act all nice to me and Mom in private. But when we’re at places like Millie’s, it’s not?”
“What are you talking about, Rosie?” I rasp out.
My tone, combined with her eight-year-old emotions, causes an internal dam to break. “We’re leaving town because Mom’s going to hurt more living here with you acting like you did today at the diner.”
Her words leveled the room into silence. Paige recovers first. “What did he do at the diner, sweetheart?”
Rosie’s lip trembles. “He treated us like we didn’t matter.”
“No.” My denial is immediate.
“You did.” She glares at me, unaware she’s leaving gaping wounds hemorrhaging even as she demands, “Now, can someone bring me to the barn?”
Just as I’m about to force out a yes, Flynn denies her.
Her voice is petulant. “Why not?”
Flynn holds up his cell phone. “Because I let your mom know you made a jailbreak.”
Mrs. Holder frowns down at Rosie. “Young lady, you said your mother cleared you saying goodbye to this horse.”
Rosie scuffs the toe of her shoe back and forth across the floor. “Umm…I meant generally.”
Mrs. Holder crosses herself before muttering, “Eight, and she’s already searchin’ for legal loopholes. I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job.”
Rosie grumbles, “You love me, Mrs. H.”
She runs an affectionate hand over her hair. “I do, sweetheart, and I’ll miss you terribly when you and your mother move.”
My guts churn at the ease with which my world is imploding—in my home, nonetheless! I grit out, “No one is going anywhere.”
Hell, now even members of my own family are giving me looks that challenge my sanity. Paige probes, “Jesse, why wouldn’t you shout it from the rafters if something is going on with you and Sheriff Marsden?”
Fear paralyzes my vocal cords. I open and close my mouth, but no words escape despite wanting to tell my sister how in love I am with Scarlet. What’s made me so fearful I never shared my happiness with those I could trust? They don’t know I fell in love.
That’s when I hear Scarlet’s voice from the hallway. “Don’t worry. What your brother and I had”—
I surge to my full height. Still, I don’t even have a moment for her name to pass my lips before she finishes her sentence.
—”was just meant to be kept between us.”
If I wasn’t studying her so intently, I’d miss the flash of heartache that rips across her face before she holds out her hand to her daughter. “Excuse yourself for intruding on Mr. Kensington’s home, Rosie.”
Politely, as if she’d aced etiquette class instead of trotting last weekend, Rosie offers up an apology. “Mr. Kensington, I apologize for my actions.”
Karma is coming after me with a vengeance for sins I haven’t yet committed; I’m certain of it.
Otherwise, how could it be that last weekend, Rosie and I were involved in a pancake eating contest. Last night, Scarlet held me in her arms after finding release in her tight warmth, letting me sob out my grief.
Yet tonight, they’re treating me like none of it mattered.
Scarlet hasn’t once met my eyes. “I have to get back to work. Mrs. Holder, let me speak with Rosie about her conduct before I go.” With an imperceptible nod at Flynn, she leaves my home, spending less than five minutes in it.
She acted as if she was an unwelcome guest. In my mind’s eye, I replay the scene from the diner. The way I picked up Scarlet’s hand.
Before dropping it.
Every time someone came near.
The impact of what I did to them both sends me to my knees.
Tonight’s the first time she’s been inside my house, but certainly not my home. Because Scarlet is home.
Right after Scarlet and Rosie and Flynn and Mrs. Holder depart, all the women behind me squawk in indignation on their behalf. Paige shouts, “You’re an ass, Jesse! Are you ashamed of her?”
“I’m not,” I protest.
“That’s not how she’s sees it,” my sister-in-law, Fallon, warns.
My head whips her way. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes bounce off her husband’s. “Love isn’t something that should be kept secret.”
Fear tears through me. “How do I fix this?”
Beckett claps a hand down on my shoulder. “Are you in love with her?”
I nod, then confess shamefully, “But I haven’t told her yet.”
Ethan recalls, “Like you said to me, it’s about time you admitted it. Christ, Fallon!” He rubs his ribs where his wife elbowed him.
Resolve acts like a magnet dragging the pieces of my heart back together. “I refuse to let her go without her knowing exactly how I feel.” My eyes ping-pong between my siblings when I admit, “She calls me out on my bull, challenges me, and I’m almost certain she loves me.”
Ethan snorts. “You’re a damn fool.”
Paige steps forward and wraps her arms around me. “Then go to her, Jesse. But be ready to explain why you didn’t acknowledge her.”
I storm into my office to snatch up my keys and wallet before making it to the garage.
I fucked up.
Now I just have to figure out how to fix it. There’s no time to waste if I’m going to prevent losing the love of my life to my own idiocy.