28. Jacques
twenty-eight
Jacques
I knocked on the door to Carina’s room. She’d slept in there alone again last night. I missed having her in my arms, and with Travis finishing up a shift, our bed had felt too big with just Rusty and me in it.
But how could we argue with her when she kept insisting that she wasn’t sleeping? She had been tired, but I thought she’d been getting better. Her energy levels seemed to be improving until a few days ago. But then she’d moved herself back out of our bedroom and spent half a day in bed. She stayed behind the closed door and only ventured out to eat. She wasn’t even sitting down for meals with us.
I was worried about her. So were Rusty and Travis. We didn’t know what it meant for us. Everything had been going so perfectly, and Cara and Monroe were arriving this morning. Their flight was landing in a couple of hours. Carina had been looking forward to seeing her daughter as much as Hux had.
But there was no answer to my knock. I cracked open the door and saw Carina lying curled up under the sheet, facing the window. Her dark hair was splayed out on the sheets behind her, her shoulders rising and falling rhythmically as she breathed.
I slipped inside, walked around the bed, and perched my ass on the mattress where I could stroke her hair. It was silky soft to the touch, long and thick.
“Beautiful,” I whispered, then touched her arm.
She blinked open her eyes. They were red, as if she’d spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, and there were dark circles under her eyes. “I need to leave in about fifteen minutes to pick up Hux. Are you coming with us to the airport?”
“No,” she murmured, then rubbed her eyes. “You go. I’ll give Cara a few days to settle in before I see her.”
“You were excited to go. Is everything okay?” I asked quietly. It probably wasn’t the time to speak about things, but I needed to know.
“Just go, Jacques. Please. Just go.”
She closed her eyes again, dismissing me, and it was like a kick to the guts. I wanted her with me. I wanted to hold her hand while I drove, and I wanted to see her face light up when her daughter walked through those doors. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She was miserable, and I hated not being able to help. If I knew what was getting her down, I’d fix it in a heartbeat.
I’d even pick up the phone and talk to Mom and Dad. The last time we’d spoken, I’d told them not to bother getting in contact with me unless they were prepared to accept Carina. They’d left messages asking me to be reasonable. But I’d ignored all of them. Maybe she’d found out. Maybe she was missing Mom. Maybe I should call them.
I ran my fingers through her hair, but she pushed my hand away. I pressed my lips together, biting down the hurt, and nodded. If that’s what she wanted, if that’s what it took to make her happy, I wouldn’t touch her again. I slipped out of the room, closed the door, and rested my forehead against it. I needed a sign—something, anything, to tell me what to do to make her happy. But all that met me was a white painted door.
***
Hux was nervous as fuck. He was fidgeting and couldn’t stand still.
“Dude, relax,” I teased. He shoved his hands into his pockets and dropped his gaze. He swallowed hard and exhaled heavily.
I nudged him with my elbow. “They’ll be here,” I soothed. “It just takes time for them to go through customs.”
He nodded and pressed his lips into a forced smile. “Yeah,” he answered, his voice catching.
Then they were there, suitcases in hand as they crossed the concourse.
Hux raced forward, and they were hugging and whispering to one another. I was happy for them. I wanted to be full of smiles and excitement like Cara was, but my heart was sitting heavy in my chest, weighed down by the uncertainty that had descended over us like a shroud. Travis and Rusty were walking on eggshells. None of us knew what to do. We all wanted to fix things with Carina. Watching Hux reunite with the loves of his life was a stark reminder of how our relationship with Carina suddenly seemed to be teetering on the edge, and none of us knew what to do to overcome it.
Carina should have been here with me, and I hated that she’d missed it, especially if it was because of something I’d done. I wished she could have witnessed the moment they saw each other. Any doubt about how much Hux loved her daughter would have fled. She would have loved it, and she would have been able to greet her daughter properly after a few months of being apart. I knew it was the longest they’d ever gone without seeing each other.
Damn it, she should have been here.
I led Hux and our new arrivals out to the SUV, and they piled into the back seat. I stared at the empty seat beside me, my heart aching at Carina’s absence. Sighing, I pulled out of the lot, Hux, Cara, and Monroe not even noticing that I was driving. They were wrapped up in each other, kissing as if it were the oxygen they needed to breathe.
I pulled up to the curb of Hux’s apartment building and joked, “Hux, take it inside, buddy, before you have to dry clean my leather seats.”
I loved seeing him happy. He deserved his joy. Given all he’d been through and everything he’d lost, I wanted Hux to be happy. But right now, I needed him out of the car.
“Let’s go,” Cara murmured, smiling widely. It showed just how wrapped up in Hux she was that she hadn’t asked why her mom wasn’t there.
“Come on upstairs,” Hux said. He’d clearly been speaking to Cara and Roe, but I couldn’t resist the chance to return the teasing he’d been dishing out every time I saw him.
“Oh, no, maybe another time,” I joked. Then with a smirk I added, “I’d prefer not to see your lily-white ass any more than when I have to in a locker room.”
“Give us a week,” he shot back without missing a beat. Then he looked between Monroe and Cara and corrected, “Make that two.”
I grinned and waved them off as they went into the lobby. I was in a no parking zone, but I stayed there for a moment longer, dreading going home. Travis, Rusty, and I all wanted to be able to hug Carina and kiss her like Hux had kissed Cara. But she’d been pulling away from us, and we were scared. Terrified, actually.
The drive home dragged, every mile feeling like ten. But at the same time, it went too quickly. I pulled in and parked near the front door before I dragged myself inside. Travis was at the counter, eating cereal, and the relief at the normalcy of it had my knees almost buckling. I strode across the room, and he put the bowl down just as I wrapped him in a hug. He held me tight, sheltering me against his big body. His arms around me were a tight band, comforting and warm. I exhaled and relaxed into his embrace.
Two paws hit my side, and I reached down to scratch Zeus’s ear. He pushed his face between us, joining in on the hug. If we’d let him, he’d use us as a tree and climb into our arms. I hugged him tighter to us.
“Did Cara and Monroe get in okay?” Travis asked. I nodded, and he added, “Where’s Carina?”
I snapped my head up, searching his gaze. My voice held a note of panic when I asked, “What do you mean ‘Where’s Carina?’ She was here when I left a couple of hours ago.”
He blinked, and his grip around my shoulders went lax. “I assumed she went with you. I haven’t seen her this morning, so I thought she was… with you.”
“She didn’t want to come.” I shook my head and dropped my gaze to Zeus, taking comfort in his guileless hazel eyes. I couldn’t look at Travis while I admitted that she’d sent me away. “She told me to leave.”
“She’s pulling away,” Travis murmured, his voice heavy. “She wants to leave.”
I looked back up at him and swallowed, not sure if I wanted to know the answer to the question I was about to ask. “Has she said anything to you about leaving?”
“No—”
“But I do,” she said from the doorway, and my heart cracked in two.
I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against Travis’s collarbone, desperate for his solid strength. Zeus jumped down and barked happily. I heard every one of his excited steps with the click of his claws on the timber floor.
Travis pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket, unlocked it, and tapped the screen a few times. I didn’t even care what he was doing.
“Why?” Travis asked, his voice quiet and sad.
“I want to go home,” Carina repeated, louder this time, but her voice held a wobble to it that had me turning to face her.
“Please tell us,” I begged. “How can we fix things?”
She shook her head. “You can’t. I just need to leave. I need to go home.”
“What? Why? What’s happened?” Rusty asked from behind her. Travis must have messaged him to come inside.
“I just need to go, okay? Stop pressuring me to tell you why.” Carina exploded, her voice rising to a shout.
Travis curled into himself, retreating until he was practically hiding behind me. I let go of him and spun to face Carina, tucking Travis into my back.
“Don’t we deserve an answer?” I asked, my heart shattering at the woman standing in front of me.
She was beautiful. Even dressed in a faded pair of Garfield pajamas, her hair tied back in a messy bun, and her eyes red and puffy, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever met. Her curves seemed accentuated, her breasts bigger and her belly more rounded. I fucking loved every inch of her. I loved her .
“I thought everything was going well, but in the past few days, it’s like you’re a different person. What’s changed? What can we do to fix things?” Rusty asked.
“This was never real,” she bellowed. “Stop pretending it is.” Carina circled her pointed finger around to include all of us. “It was always temporary. Twelve months.”
“And it hasn’t been half that,” Rusty countered, his chin raised defiantly but his voice deadly calm, almost detached.
My heart pounded, my chest tightening as I watched him, looking for the telltale signs that he was struggling. But he was rock steady.
“So what?” she snapped and threw her hands up in the air. “So I fucked up. I’m fixing it.”
“You promised,” I stated quietly.
Her eyes flashed, and she balled her hands into fists. Her lips flattened into a straight line and her nostrils flared. “The contract, of course,” she spat, her words like a slap across the face.
That’s not what I’d meant at all, but before I could get any words out, Zeus yipped in warning.
“Zeus, enough,” I chastised without taking my eyes off Carina.
She was a goddess in her anger, filled with passion and the ability to shatter my heart. She reminded me of Galadriel, the white witch in The Lord of the Rings who seemed to glow when she unleashed a fraction of the power she was capable of.
Tears filled her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was broken. But she raised her chin and hissed defiantly, “I need to work. I need to start supporting myself. I have to figure out my future.” She pointed to me. “I can’t keep relying on you.”
Never mind a slap, it was as if she’d taken a cleaver to my chest cavity and carved out my heart with one fell swoop.
“When do you leave?” Travis asked, his grip on my waist tight enough to leave bruises.
“Tomorrow. I’ve found a flight home that has seats available.”
“You aren’t even going to spend time with Cara?” I accused, dumbfounded. “Why so urgent? Why now?” I raised my palms in question, and she sneered.
“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head.
I wanted to reach for her, take her into my arms and brush away the tears falling steadily down her face. But I didn’t dare.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded. “Your daughter has just flown halfway around the world. You haven’t seen her in months. You’ve been as excited as Hux to see her, and now you’re leaving? How doesn’t that matter? She’s going to be devastated.”
She exploded again, her voice so loud that even the birds outside quieted. “Don’t you dare tell me how to be a mother. Everything I’m doing is because I’m a mother. Every sacrifice, every tear, every heartbreak is because I’m. A. Mother.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I hadn’t meant to criticize her parenting, but that’s exactly what I’d done.
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask for a single thing from you. Not a cent. I’ll keep my end of the bargain too. I’ll never tell a soul that you’re together, and I won’t say anything bad about any of you. You’ll never see a tell-all interview or even see my face on social media.”
I shook my head and swallowed past the lump in my throat. I didn’t want things to end like this. I didn’t want things to end period. Fuck the agreement. Fuck the pre-signed divorce papers. Fuck Michael and his fucking insistence on the damn thing. I should have said no. I should have demanded we do it my way. I never should have allowed him to reduce what I felt for this woman into a few clauses on paper. I needed to tell her. I needed to beg her to stay. But Carina wasn’t finished.
“Getting married was a mistake. It was a stupid drunken mistake. I regret every second of that night. I regret every minute of every day since. I never should have allowed it to go this far.” She exhaled, pulled her shoulders back, and lifted her chin.
Her words made me feel like I’d been thrown into a woodchipper. They minced me into a million pieces.
“I’m sorry I caused trouble for you with the team, Jacques. I hope you get your contract renewal even without me here. I’m sorry that you fought with your parents because of me too. At least now they’ll be happy we’re over.” She pressed her lips together and sucked in a wobbly breath. Then she wiped her face and continued, “You’ll be glad I’m out of your hair. I know we were always casual, but I need to do this for me. For us. I love you all, but I need to let you go. I can’t stay. Not when it’ll ruin everything.”
What the hell was she talking about? This was never casual. It was never just the sex. It was the real deal for me, and I was pretty sure Travis felt the same. Hell, Rusty too. Had we just been hookups to her? Had she been here for the sex, and now that she’d had her fill, she was done? I couldn’t believe that. Carina wasn’t that kind of person. She loved hard. There was no way she didn’t feel anything for us. She wouldn’t be so worried about Travis every time he went to work. She wouldn’t have gone to church with Rusty every weekend just to be there. She wouldn’t have watched out for him, keeping him company in the shed or inside when he was overwhelmed with the team coming over. I wouldn’t have caught her smiling at me when she thought I wasn’t looking, and she wouldn’t have gazed at me with so much emotion that my breath would catch when I was moving inside her.
Carina turned and walked away, not letting us get a word in. I’d wasted my time questioning her. I should have been persuading her to stay. Begging her.
Travis’s phone rang, the emergency tone he’d allocated to the station shattering the silence left in Carina’s wake.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Travis wasn’t on call, but sometimes he was needed anyway. It was usually only when the station was handling a serious situation where extra firefighters were necessary. A call outside of his scheduled hours or on-call times was never good.
I swallowed hard and pulled my emotions back into check. He needed Rusty and me to be strong. Otherwise he’d be worrying about what was happening here at home rather than concentrating on doing the one thing I demanded of him every shift—to come home safe.