Freedom (22 page)

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s already dumped me.”

“Cooper is a cutie,” Lauren adds.

Imogene pretends not to hear and gives up using her fingers and starts digging into a pie with a fork.

“Yeah,” Jess agrees. “Cooper is a hottie, Imogene.”

“Cooper isn’t my type and I don’t know if I like him. He’s too cocky or something,” Imogene replies, shaking her head. “I bet he has a tattoo on his ass that says ‘
Mom’
or something equally lame.”

We all laugh at Imogene’s snarkiness.

“He’s been pretty nice to me,” I say without going into further details about our impromptu meeting with Robert where Cooper played a pretty badass bodyguard.

“You’ve got Dylan, and boy, he sure has surprised all of us. He’s really got his shit together,” Lauren says. “I’ve never seen him like this. I don’t care how cool he thinks he’s playing this, he’s totally crazy about you. And I don’t mean crazy like last summer when he and Jess went out.”

Jess rolls her eyes and laughs. My heart thuds as if it is skidding clumsily instead of beating, and fear rips right through me. I have no idea what they are talking about, but those remarks are enough that I think I am going to be sick.

“Dylan is very different now,” Jess says, smiling at me. “He is smitten with you. Carson told me all about it, and seeing him tonight… Dylan looks so healthy and happy.”

My face must be frozen. I can’t speak. I want to run out of the room, out of the house. I want to go home, but I don’t even have my own home. And Dylan? I am his next woman in a long line of them. I suspected as much, but I didn’t know I came after Jess. They are all smiling at me knowingly, like we have shared a beautiful bonding moment.

“I have to go, excuse me,” I say, leaving the kitchen.

I storm into the living room and interrupt Dylan and Carson. “We have to go,” I say, my voice trembling.

Dylan’s jovial demeanor with his brother darkens. “Sure, no problem.” As he takes my hand firmly in his and escorts me to the door, I mumble my goodbyes to people without actually looking at them.

Outside, the cool spring air slaps my face. That cozy little dinner soiree was a cruel joke. I try to fill my lungs with as much air as possible to stave off my instinct to cry or punch Dylan.

“What’s wrong?” Dylan questions as he opens the Jeep door for me.

I get in and put on my seat belt, brushing aside his hands that try to help. “Just drive me to the house. I need to sleep.”

“Sleep?” Dylan chuckles as if he is reviving our earlier plans.

He gets in the Jeep and starts the engine. Before putting it in gear, he gives me a worrisome look. “I thought you were having a good time in there. What happened?”

“What happened?” I snap. “I found out you haven’t been honest with me. I looked like a fool in there. I feel like a fool. Goddamn you!”

Nineteen

Dylan

“Drive already! I want to go home. My fake, temporary home!” she screams at me with her chin held high. Her eyes are wide with anger and fear, and it triggers queasiness—a dull, sick pain in my gut.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re talking about?” I yell as I maneuver the Jeep down Carson’s driveway and through the dark wooded area then over the bridge from my infamous accident.

“I’m too angry at you to talk.”

“If I’m being accused of something, I have a right to know what it is!”

I shift into high gear and speed us home. Emma is silent and stares out the window, so I can’t see the tears trickling down her cheeks, though their reflection in the window glistens in the moonlight, and I hear her wet sniffles.

When I park in front of the house, she jumps out of the vehicle and races up to the door to let herself in before I can reach her.

I bound up the stairs two at a time and then pound my fist on her bedroom door.

“Emma, you have to tell me what this is about. You can’t just flip out on me and run away. You have to talk to me.”

My hands are braced on the door and I am trying to sound as calm as possible. I have a tremendous urge to kick down the door to get close to her, yet that would be something the old me would do, and I can’t afford to slip back into that guy for one second.

“Emma,” I say in a softer tone. “Please.”

I wait quietly and then there’s a click as she unlocks the door before coming out into the hallway. Her movements are rigid as she gives herself a wide berth, stepping around me. This is not the girl I kissed in my favorite hidden passageway back at Carson’s house. Anger is brewing in her eyes, a sure sign that I’ve fucked up even if I have no idea what I’ve done.

“You goddamn prick,” she says in a low, steady voice.

I am stunned and completely confused.

I move towards her because my first impulse is to embrace her. She flinches and quickly grabs my arm, turns her body and twists my arm at the same time as she throws all her body weight down on it. Excruciating pain shoots through my trapped limb that she’s wrenching.

“Jesus, Emma!”

I don’t want to hurt her, but she’s about to dislocate my shoulder, so I turn and roll into her twisting motion and topple backwards, bringing her down with me to the floor.

“Get off me!” She starts slapping at my arm that now has her pinned against me and kicking her legs.

I flip over, my face just missing her flailing hands. I grab her wrists and pin them on the floor above her head and use my heavy boots to trap her ankles. She’s deceptively strong, and I’m impressed but apprehensive about how to handle this without accidentally injuring her.

“Are you going to try to beat me up before telling me why you’re so pissed off?” I shout in her face.

She pants heavily. “Get off me, now,” she states icily.

“Do you promise to stop slapping me? Jesus, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m the one who’s had to reform and stop getting in brawls. You don’t have a switchblade on you or some other weapon from your buddy, Sean, do you?”

Emma huffs a breath and stares at me. She isn’t falling for my stupid attempts at defusing this with humor.

Our faces are a couple of inches apart, and if I thought this misunderstanding could be remedied with a kiss, I wouldn’t hesitate.

Realizing my crushing weight has subdued her, I roll off her and stand up. She won’t accept my hand to help her stand, so I move back in case she still feels threatened by me or is inspired to use her Vulcan Grip again.

She folds her arms across her chest and looks incredibly petite and vulnerable with her wild, disheveled hair. I can’t believe she could pull off that arm wrench move on me, however the crazy, mean glare she’s giving me makes me wonder what I am dealing with.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” I ask. I am genuinely concerned that I could have snapped one of her bony, bird-like limbs.

She looks away, perturbed.

“Okay, since you’re the only one here that knows why you’re acting like this, you’re going to have to talk. So talk,” I demand.

She tilts her chin up. “I can’t believe you dated your brother’s wife! You dated Jess before me! She’s one of the women you’ve slept with!”

“What?” My mind is racing. Lauren has told her about my accident, my hospitalization, and the fact that I slept around. Wasn’t Jess a trivial part of that gossip?

“They were talking about it in the kitchen. They said you were going out with Jess last summer and isn’t it nice how
smitten
you are with me now,” she spits out. “What kind of sick relationship have I walked into? Seriously, you were with your brother’s wife?”

I am getting irritated with the way she keeps saying
brother’s wife
. “No, I wasn’t!” I yell. She steps back, and I berate myself for scaring her.

“This ought to be good.”

“Jess wasn’t his wife. She wasn’t his
anything
when I went out with her, which was like for five minutes. Really. She’d just moved to town, and… listen, I thought Lauren told you everything about me. I wasn’t intentionally keeping this from you. I assumed you knew. Everyone knows.”

“Obviously someone forgot to tell me that I’m dating my boss’s wife’s ex-boyfriend.”

“I’m not her ex-boyfriend. Believe me, Jess doesn’t think of me in that way. She didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her. That was one of my bad episodes. I made it worse because Carson did have feelings for Jess, but she didn’t know that.”

“God, you’re not making it sound better.”

“Shit, didn’t you get the Dylan memo when you moved here? Everyone knows this and it’s a non-issue. Carson started dating Jess
after
she dumped me. It’s a good thing she did, too. I was in bad shape.”

“You don’t get to play the crazy card now. No way. You said Robert doesn’t get a free pass as an adult, so why should you?”

“Yeah, okay, but I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t even commit adultery. It was a fling; short, over and done with.”

“And then you went into treatment?” she inquires.

“Yep. I left town and went to Willow Haven where the mentally ill get lessons on how everyone else wants them to behave.”

Emma isn’t seething, but she doesn’t look convinced that this is a minor hiccup.

“I never intended to marry Jess. The ring was a mistake.”

“What ring?” she shouts. “You asked her to marry you?”

If I could have asked for a perfect time for my brother to come in and clean up my mess, this would be it.

“Dylan!” she demands.

“No! I didn’t ask her to marry me. Calm down, please.” If she doesn’t stop yelling, I am going to need a pill, or I’m going to have to bolt out of the house and run ten miles to work off the anxiety attack I’m having over her.

“This isn’t the kind of thing people are calm about. This is a big deal, Dylan. At least to me.”

“I dated Jess for a few weeks last summer. That’s it. We weren’t in love and we weren’t even good for each other. You said Robert was your mistake, and I would say Jess was mine, but it’s the defining act that made me get help, so I can’t regret it. I finally got help, Emma.”

“Because of Jess.”

“No, she was a symptom to a bigger problem. But she is my friend, and my brother loves her. That’s it.”

“Do you ever think about her? It’s a fair question with the way you hound me about Robert.”

“I don’t think about her as anyone other than my sister-in-law. There’s no attraction there, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I can’t compete with a brainiac like her. I don’t paint beautiful pictures like her; I knit sloppy blankets. And I suck at math. I can see why you fell in love with her. She’s pretty and smart.”

I sigh as a headache starts pulsating directly in the middle of my forehead.

“I didn’t fall in love with her, for fuck’s sake. I stole her from my brother. I was a shit and used her like I used every other woman. When I was with Jess, I did things I shouldn’t have done and said things I shouldn’t have said, and I barely remember most of what happened. I was up and down; depressed on the inside, wild on the outside. My brain was like a blender. One minute I’d be content, the next I’d be moody and down.

“And I can’t give you a name of a single woman I dated in college because I was never in a
relationship
. Lauren told you the truth. There were women, but there were no girlfriends. And the only time I think I was ever in love was in seventh grade when I had a crush on a girl named Anya. All I remember about her is her cute, Russian accent and long, blond hair because she sat in front of me in Social Studies.

“But, I’m telling you the truth
—
I have no feelings for Jess other than a sisterly affection because she’s married to my brother. If she hadn’t stayed in town, she’d be another fading memory to me, too. Do you get it now?”

Emma shakes her head dubiously.

It does sound like a farfetched hillbilly story, an unbelievable tale small towns are famous for. I am infamous for.

“This is why I have to take meds and see a shrink. This is why I run and exercise so much. It feels like one big balancing act, but I do have hope that it’s helping my brain to recalibrate. My doc says I’m doing well, but a huge part of what I’ve been doing
—
staying away from women
—
is something I can’t do forever. I knew that when I met you.”

“Uh-huh,” she responds. “I’m sure you can’t stay away from women. Am I your first test subject? You know, your post-rehab fling?”

“Shit
—
no,” I stammer.

“No? So you failed at your self-imposed exile from women? You’re back on the hunt?”

“No. No, there haven’t been any other women, and no, you’re not a test subject. I’m doing a lousy job of explaining myself.” My voice rises in frustration, trying to figure out how to fix this. “I know I have a horrible reputation with women and my past behavior is why I was afraid to get involved with you.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten my name.”

Her sarcasm makes me feel even sleazier.

“Emma, I’m being serious. I’m finally a clear-headed, thinking person, or so people tell me. This is a big deal to me.
You’re
a big deal to me. It doesn’t matter what Jess is. You are smart and beautiful, and I’m with
you
.”

“What happened to cute, little Anya?”

“No clue. It was a seventh grade crush.”

“Okay, so maybe I’m a crush and a good lay because, let’s face it, you needed some action, and I’ll admit that I was more than willing.”

“Except this isn’t just sex.” I am a little pissed off at how cavalier she’s treating this.

“Sure. Tell yourself that all you want. I’m going to bed.” She turns to go back into her bedroom.

“Whoa!” I throw myself in front of her doorway and put my foot up on the doorframe to block her. “That’s it? You’re already writing me off?”

“I think we both acted a little too stupid over the last few weeks. We each have some issues, and we moved fast without really thinking it through. Me and my whole Robert thing; you and your Jess thing.”

“What?” I snap. “There is no Jess thing.”

“Dylan, move your leg. I’m tired; I’m going to bed.”

“So what are you telling me? We’re not going to talk about this? Are we going to bed angry?”