Chapter 28 #2
“OK, what’s the verdict?” Joshua asks. She starts talking horse jargon and they walk together deep in conversation toward the stable. I stand still on the spot, unsure if I am meant to be going with them or not.
Joshua turns to me. “This way, baby.” He holds his hand out for me. I nod and give him a weak smile and follow him, he puts his arm around me and kisses my temple as we walk.
OK, now I’m confused, he’s not acting like I think he will, maybe this is all in my head. She smiles another warm smile at me, totally unaffected by my presence.
“Sit up here, Presh.” He lifts me so I am sitting up on some high gates away from the horses and I give him a thankful smile. He remembered I’m scared of horses. Why in the hell didn’t I do riding lessons when I was a kid? There is a horse on the ground lying down and they both kneel next to it.
“So, she has had a temperature for the last couple of days and I thought she had an infection or something so I put her on antibiotics, but then when I came to check on her through the night she was down and couldn’t get up.”
Joshua frowns and pats her.
“Sh, sh,” he says to the horse in a calming voice.
I sit detached from the situation. It is blatantly obvious how passionate Joshua is about this farm and his horses.
I sit and watch them in silence for an hour deep in discussion, and seemingly innocent, and finally my legs are asleep, and I go to jump down.
Josh jumps up. “You OK, babe? Do you want me to take you back to the house?” he asks. Amelie is writing in a notebook and googling something on her iPad.
“No, it’s OK. I can get someone else to take me back if you want.” I smile.
He shakes his head. “No, I will take you back. I want to spend some time with you.”
I smile and nod. OK, I think this is totally in my head. He wouldn’t say that in front of her if he had feelings for her.
“Am, why don’t you come home, and we can come back together later?” he whispers. Hmm, I’m not sure if I like the sound of that. She smiles. “No, thanks. I will stay here, just get someone to bring me some dinner later tonight. I will call you if there is a change.”
He smiles as he stands and puts his hand on her shoulder. “Thanks.” He smiles.
“Bye darling,” she says. Josh bites his lip as he realizes the slip of her tongue and his eyes flick to mine.
I instantly look down…don’t be the jealous girlfriend…
don’t be the jealous girlfriend. It’s really hard not to be, when I so obviously am.
He grabs my hand, and we walk back to the car and head back to the house. We ride in silence.
“You’re very quiet, Presh, you OK?”
I nod. Don’t say it…don’t say it. It’s like a volcano that is poisoning me, and I blurt out the words. “Josh, why aren’t you with Amelie?”
He puts his hand on my leg and sighs. He knew this question was coming. “Because I’m in love with you.”
“Have you ever been with her?” I ask.
He frowns and shakes his head. “Amelie is not the kind of girl you be with, Tash. She’s like you. It’s all or nothing.”
I bite my lip and look down. Not the answer I was looking for. “So why has it been nothing then?” I ask.
He shrugs his shoulders. “Because I have never let myself…let it go there because I was still in love with you, and it wouldn’t be fair to her.” I nod…fair to her…not that he’s not attracted to her.
“So, if we were over you would probably be with her?”
He gives me a sad smile and squeezes my leg. “Don’t do this to yourself. I am with you and I am staying with you and we are planning a future together and Am knows that. She’s fine with it.”
Oh my god…she’s fine with it.
“Does that mean that she has feelings for you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “She would if I were single,” he sighs.
“Can we not talk about this, please? Amelie is a dear friend who has been with me for a long time when I have been very lonely. She doesn’t have a deceitful bone in her body and she will respect our relationship.
I have spoken about you for years to her, and she knows what you mean to me.
She wants me to be happy, Tash.” I smile and nod and internally swear to myself I will never bring this up to him again.
He is under her spell and in all things in Joshua’s world I have been wary of I know I have just met my only competition.
Joshua’s phone goes off at two in the morning and he jumps out of bed.
“Hi,” he answers and then he listens. “I’ll be right there.” He hangs up. He starts to pull on his clothes. “Freya is really sick, baby, and I’m going to help Am. Go back to sleep. I might be all night.”
“OK,” I whisper sleepily.
He bends down and kisses me. “Love you. Max is here in the room next door, so you are not alone,” he whispers and then he is gone.
I wake with a start. I’m still alone. Joshua didn’t come home.
He must be still at the stables with Amelie and the horse.
My stomach sinks, what have they been doing all night?
Stop it, you idiot. Without trust you have nothing, the words I have preached to clients for years are coming back to haunt me with a vengeance.
Why has he been gone so long? I am determined not to go to him, so I make myself some breakfast and sit on the steps in the sun with a coffee.
Three hours later, at ten o’clock, still no word from Joshua. I’m starting to become unsettled.
A girl rides up on a horse and I hear her tell one of the other workers, “They lost her. She died about half an hour ago.”
Oh shit, the horse died. I walk inside and find Max.
“Can you take me to the stables, please?” He nods and finds the keys and drives me in silence to the stables.
I wish he would talk more. It would be handy having his insight on things.
He parks the car and stays outside. I walk up to the stone building and my heart is in my throat.
Why hasn’t he come looking for me? As I turn the corner it becomes very apparent why.
Amelie is in Joshua’s arms crying; she is obviously devastated.
He is comforting her and talking softly into her ear as he cuddles her and kisses her temple.
They look good together. There is a deep connection between them.
I can feel it from here. I stand still, rooted to the spot in shock.
Out of the corner of his eye Joshua sees me and jumps back from her…
a guilty response if I ever saw one. My gut twists as I stand still.
“Tash…we…we lost her,” he whispers.
I nod. “I know, I’m sorry. I will give you some privacy,” I stammer, and I turn to walk out.
“Natasha, don’t go,” Josh calls as he sprints out after me. I feel like I have just witnessed and interrupted something private between the two of them.
“Tash, I want you to stay. Amelie has to wait for the autopsy guys to come and I don’t want her waiting alone.
Just stay here with us. It won’t be long.
” He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it.
My eyes flick to Amelie and she quickly looks down at the ground and bites her bottom lip to hide her hurt at his open affection toward me.
My blood runs cold and my gut instincts kick in.
At this moment in time I am absolutely certain of three things.
Amelie is in love with Joshua and I am in love with Joshua.
And Joshua is in love with the both of us.
His past has met with his present but which one of us will he choose in the end?
And when it is all over, who can make him the happiest?
I’m afraid of the answer to that question because in all honesty I just don’t know.
After everything we have been through, am I going to lose him anyway?
He sighs as he puts his head into the crook of my neck and kisses it. I can feel his heart beating in his chest, his body still inside mine. We are back in my bed in the afterglow of lovemaking, having arrived back in Sydney yesterday. I’m not myself. I haven’t been since meeting Amelie.
“Natasha, so help me god…what’s wrong, baby?” he whispers as he lifts up onto his elbows so he can look at my face.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” I breathe. He bends and tenderly kisses me again, his eyes searching mine.
“Tell me why I just made love to a completely different woman then?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and look away, his piercing gaze too much for my fragile nerves. “What do you mean, Josh?” I whisper as he kisses me again.
“When we fuck…we fuck. But when we make love…I can feel it. Every cell in my body can feel how much you love me. You have never detached from me like that before. It felt like you didn’t even know me.”
My lip starts to tremble, and tears threaten. Do we have to have this conversation when I am emotionally weak from orgasm and he is still inside me? “Maybe I don’t, Josh,” I whisper as my eyes fill with tears.
He frowns. “You feel like you don’t know me?
What does that mean?” he whispers as he pulls out of me and rolls me on my side to face him.
Tears roll down my face and I am appalled at my own insecurity.
I am getting a firsthand lesson that one of the most destructive emotions in a relationship is the poison of insecurity. I am frozen with fear.
“Baby,” he whispers as he pulls me into an embrace and kisses my face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? I can’t fix it if I don’t know,”
“I know, Josh,” I sob, and he frowns. “I know you’re in love with Amelie,” I whisper.
He gives me a sad smile and nods. “It’s true I do love Amelie,” he whispers.
I start to sob uncontrollably. I knew it.
“But I’m not in love with Amelie. I’m in love with you.
I don’t want to be with Amelie, I love her like a friend.
I have no sexual attraction to her whatsoever.
We have common interests, Tash. We both live in a country without our families.
I feel very differently about her than I do you.
” He cuddles me close as I listen to his words.
“It’s different between us, Presh, you know that.
Actually, you even told me that you loved your ex-boyfriends, but it was missing something because it wasn’t me,” he whispers.
I listen, that is true. “Do you feel like…?” How do I articulate what I want to say? “Do you feel like our relationship is holding you back from her?” I whisper.
He actually has the hide to laugh. He bends and kisses my lips again.
“You’re so fucking perfect, you know that, don’t you?
I could never be loyal to Amelie, Tash. She’s not strong enough to hold me and I’m not sexually attracted to her.
I would be playing up within a week and I know that—she knows that.
Trust me I have slept in that house with her in the bedroom next to me for five years and never once have I wanted to go in.
Whereas just the mention of your name makes me rock hard and ready to fuck.
Besides—” he grabs me on the ass, “—I like witty brunette beautiful sluts who are gagging for it.” He smiles.
I punch him in the stomach, and he laughs out loud.
He pushes the hair off my face and kisses me tenderly again.
“I know it’s not going to be easy moving with me, Tash, but I promise you Amelie is not going to be the problem. I have even asked her to move out of the main house and into the farm next door. I knew you were uncomfortable with her there and seeing I love it so much I want you to love it too.”
I give him a sad smile. “Do you think I’m being a drama queen, Josh?” I whisper.
He gives me a broad smile and does wide eyes at me. “Totally…a raving bitch even,” he whispers as his lips trail down my neck.
I smile and giggle as he bites my neck.
“Do I need to be punished, Mr. Stanton?” I smile as he bites me again and comes over me. He rubs his hard length through my core.
“Fucking oath,” he growls as he slams into me.