Chapter 5
Edie
The llama, as it turned out, was the easy part of the trip. It was the little girl, sobbing her heart out, that had Edie rethinking all her life choices as she drove away.
She tried to tell herself it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t the one who bought that poor baby a new pet without having the proper facilities in place to care for said animal. But it didn’t stop her from feeling like an absolute asshole as the child’s wails faded in the distance.
Which meant she wasn’t exactly in the best of moods by the time she backed her aging truck up to the barn and killed the engine. Maybe she’d luck out and discover Jesse had gotten herself a hotel room in town. Or, better yet, taken herself back to Hollywood. Where she belonged.
Luck once again was not on her side. No sooner had Edie hopped down from the truck than the front door swung open and Jesse stepped out onto the front porch. Feet bare and an apron wrapped around her slim waist, she was the very picture of domesticity. She looked so right standing there, it had Edie’s throat tightening with a longing she thought she’d gotten over years ago.
“You’re home!” Jesse stepped off the porch, wincing and jerking her foot up, courtesy of the gravel driveway.
“Jesus Christ, woman. Go put some goddamn shoes on.”
The order came out sharper than she’d intended, thanks to the riot of emotions churning inside her, and even from a distance she could see the hurt that flickered across Jesse’s face before she turned and stomped back inside.
Guilt added itself to that messy storm of emotions crowding Edie’s chest, but she deliberately ignored it. Maybe if she was enough of an asshole, Jesse would give up on this weird crusade of hers and leave her in peace.
Turning her back on the house, Edie made her way to the trailer attached to the back of the truck and opened the door. “Hey there, pretty girl.” She kept her voice low and soothing, doing her best not to spook the llama.
Not that she needed to worry. The llama walked down the ramp, its head held high, surveying its new home with a curious eye.
“You aren’t scared, are you, gorgeous?” Edie murmured, reaching up to rub her hand down its fuzzy snout. The wool was warm and soft beneath her palm, and she grinned. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine, you and me.”
A soft gasp behind her had Edie’s shoulders tensing. “Oh, she’s beautiful. Where did you get her?”
“Some idiot bought his five-year-old daughter a llama without bothering to do five minutes of research on what he’d need to take care of her.” Edie didn’t take her eyes off the animal, but she was painfully aware of Jesse’s presence as she stepped up to run a hand down the llama’s neck. Every cell in her body seemed to respond to the other woman’s presence, and she hated herself for it. “Didn’t even have a fucking barn for her to sleep in.”
“Those bastards,” Jesse crooned, her voice taking on the same gentle tone Edie’s had.
She always had been good with animals. And people.
Hearts, on the other hand….
“Need to get her settled in.” Edie’s voice was gruff as she flicked her gaze toward Jesse. And immediately wished she hadn’t when her heart tripped in her chest at the sight of her babygirl’s face lit with pleasure as she stroked a hand down the animal’s long neck.
Not your babygirl anymore. Hasn’t been for a very long time.
The smile on Jesse’s face widened. “Ready to see your new home, pretty girl? Edie’s going to take good care of you. She takes good care of everyone.”
“I do. Until they leave.”
She hadn’t meant to say it. But the emotions battering at her from all sides had pretty much stripped her of her usual filter, which wasn’t all that much of a filter to begin with.
Stepping away from the llama, Jesse turned, all the emotions Edie was trying so hard not to feel flitting across her face. “That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not,” Edie said with a shrug that was far more nonchalant than she felt at that moment. “But it’s the truth.”
“Your truth, maybe.” Fury shimmered in Jesse’s eyes as she jerked her chin up. “But not mine. I didn’t want to leave you, Edie.”
She wasn’t in any frame of mind to be having this conversation, not when her emotions were still so close to the surface. Reattaching the rope to the llama’s harness, she gave it a gentle tug. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s go introduce you to Luna.”
Gravel crunched beneath Jesse’s feet as she stalked after them into the barn. “You can’t ignore me forever, Edie McDowell.”
“Not forever. Just the next ten years,” Edie said over her shoulder as she led the llama out to the pasture where Luna was lazily grazing. Another little barb she hadn’t actually meant to fire but couldn’t seem to keep to herself no matter how hard she tried.
“I wanted to talk to you. I just didn’t know what to say.”
“Not much to say, was there?”
“Come on, Edie. I’m trying here.” A bit of a whine wove through Jesse’s voice, a familiar pleading tone that might have made Edie smile under different circumstances. “Why won’t you just give me a chance to make it right?”
“Because some things are too broken to fix.” God, she was tired. So fucking tired, right down to her bones, and constantly arguing with Jesse wasn’t helping one little bit.
“Like my heart?”
Something inside Edie snapped, not just at the words but the hurt echoing in them. “Your heart?” Whipping around, she pinned Jesse with a glare, but the other woman stood her ground with a stubborn stare of her own. “You left me, and you wasted no time jumping in bed with the first A-Lister who smiled at you. Your heart seemed just fine to me.”
Red flooded Jesse’s cheeks. “Fuck you, Edie.”
“Watch your language, little girl.”
The familiar admonition slipped out so easily, she almost didn’t notice what she’d said until the color drained from Jesse’s face. Hurt, and what looked almost like longing filled the pale brown of her eyes. “Don’t. I can’t—Don’t do that.”
Guilt, anger, need. The storm inside her had reached a fever pitch and Edie could no longer tell one emotion from another as she turned back to the llama. “You should go.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy with a lifetime of regrets. “I’ll go back inside,” Jesse finally said, her voice calmer now but still tight with emotion. “Because we both need some space before we say or do something we can’t take back. But I’m not leaving Lost River until we actually talk this out, Edie.”
Jesse’s boots crunched over the straw littering the floor of the barn as she retreated, then paused. “Oh, and by the way? Your ‘llama’ is an alpaca. Which means she’s going to need a gentle hand. Better find someone who can give her that before you break her, too.”
Edie waited for the sound of Jesse’s footsteps to fade completely before she let the tears come. And even then, she only allowed herself a minute to wallow in the grief and the anger before dragging in a deep breath and wiping all evidence of her sobfest from her face.
Straightening her shoulders, she worked up a smile for the not-a-llama and gave the rope a gentle tug. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s go introduce you to Luna.”
Jesse
Of all the stubborn, pig-headed, infuriating women in the world, Jesse had to fall in love with the worst of them all.
Letting the storm door slam shut behind her, she stomped into the kitchen—and froze at the sight of flames licking the cabinets on either side of the stove.
“Shit!”
Panic skittered up her spine, and for a moment she couldn’t think. But then she was moving, flipping on the tap at the sink and yanking her shirt off to shove it under the running water.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she chanted under her breath as heat blasted her face. If she burned down Edie’s kitchen, no way would she be able to convince her it was an accident.
With the shirt soaked, she squeezed her eyes shut against the heat from the flames and tossed her shirt in the general direction of the pot that had caught fire. Almost instantly, the heat faded and she peeled open one eyelid to peek at the stove.
No more flames. Thank god.
There was, however, plenty of smoke.
Shit.
Leaning over the sink, she shoved the window up, breathing in the cool evening air. And as the panic finally faded, she stepped back to survey the damage. Luckily, it didn’t seem like anything was actually burned, just smoky, so maybe she could get it all cleaned up before Edie came back up to the house. Grabbing what she needed from under the sink, she went to work scrubbing the cabinets clean.
But she’d only gotten about halfway done when a shocked, furious voice had her freezing in place.
“What the hell did you do to my kitchen?”
When she turned around, the look on Edie’s face knocked the breath from her lungs. Not because she was afraid of her. But because she recognized that look. It was very much the look of a Dominant about to light a naughty little subbie’s ass on fire.
Instinctively, Jesse’s hands moved behind her, covering her backside. “It was an accident, Edie, I swear.”
At her words, Edie’s attention shifted from the scorched cabinets to Jesse. Edie tensed, her gaze traveling down Jesse’s body, and she was reminded rather suddenly that she was wearing nothing but a very lacy bra and jeans that suddenly felt far too tight.
“Are you hurt?” Edie’s voice was rough, the way Jesse remembered it would get when she was either very pissed…
Or very turned on.
Unsure which was the current reason, Jesse shifted from foot to foot, nerves winding their way around her tummy. “No, I’m not hurt.”
Apparently not satisfied with that, Edie crossed the distance between them in a few short steps. She reached for Jesse, then snatched her hands back at the last second, a pink flush creeping up her cheeks. “Turn around.”
“I’m fine,” Jesse whined, fighting the urge to simply slip into her Little space and let Edie take care of her. Between the fight and the fire, she was emotionally wiped out.
And, if she was being brutally honest with herself, she’d missed this. Missed her. Jesse loved her Daddy, and she couldn’t wait to marry him, she really couldn’t. But Edie had been her first love. Her first everything. A piece of her heart would always belong to the woman with the dark, troubled eyes who had shown her what it meant to really love someone.
Those eyes were watching her now, more guarded than they had been a decade ago but as full of emotion as ever. No matter how hard she tried to hide what she was feeling, Edie’s eyes always told the truth. And right now, they were filled with both anger and worry. It was the latter that had Jesse’s heart tripping in her chest, and guilt churning in her stomach.
“I’m fine,” she repeated softly, turning in a slow circle so Edie could see for herself. “I was more scared than anything. I promise.”
“Good.” Edie’s gaze flicked to the stove, where Jesse’s shirt still lay draped over the pot that had caught fire. With a sigh, she gestured to the crime scene. “Care to explain, little girl?”
“It really was an accident.” Bottom lip trembling, Jesse blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the damages and everything.”
“I don’t need your money,” Edie snapped, anger chasing the worry from her eyes and turning the brown nearly black.
Jesse lifted her hands in a time-honored gesture of surrender. “I didn’t say you did. But I’m the one who nearly burned down your kitchen, Edie. The least I can do is pay to fix it.”
“Absolutely not.”
The stubborn set of Edie’s jaw was as familiar as Jesse’s own reflection, and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Stop being so hard-headed, Edie.”
“I’m not being hard-headed. I just don’t want your money.”
“Too bad.” Jesse could be stubborn, too. Crossing her arms, she met Edie’s furious gaze head-on. “You’re taking it, whether you want to or not.”
“I told you, I don’t want your money, Jesse.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
Something dark and dangerous flashed in Edie’s eyes. Just for a moment, and then it was gone. And for the first time in Jesse’s memory, Edie’s emotions were completely shut off from her.
It felt like having her own limb separated from her body.
“Nothing.” Edie’s voice was hollow, and everything in Jesse ached to comfort her. “You don’t have anything I want anymore, Jesse Walker.”
Turning on her heel, Edie strode toward the entrance to the kitchen. And just like when she’d stepped in the kitchen and seen those flames reaching for the ceiling, panic wrapped around Jesse’s chest like a vice.
She had to do something. Say something to fix this.
“Spank me!” The words burst out of her before she even realized she’d thought them, shocking her possibly even more than Edie, who stopped and spun back around, her mouth hanging slightly open.
“What did you say?”
She should take it back. There was a list of reasons a mile long for why she shouldn’t let Edie McDowell put her hands on her.
But this was Edie. Despite everything they’d been through, despite the hurt and the heartache they’d inflicted on each other, Jesse trusted Edie with her life.
So instead of retracting her offer, she squared her shoulders, dragged in a deep breath, and looked Edie square in the eyes. “I said, ‘Spank me’. I-I deserve it. If you won’t let me pay you for the kitchen repairs, then you should spank me.”
Time seemed to stand still as she waited, watching for any hint of emotion in Edie’s eyes during the short eternity it took for her to respond.
“All right. Follow me.”