Читать книгу The Taste of Romance Collection - Maureen Child - Страница 36

CHAPTER TWELVE

JAMIE WAS TIRED. She was tired of waiting, tired of thinking, tired of everything. She’d read through the final draft of her latest manuscript, played around with all of her sketches to send her editor, but nothing was inspiring her. And now here she was, curled up in her favorite chair again with a cup of coffee, staring out the window. She’d spent a lot of time sitting in the same spot and thinking after Sam had died, after the men had come knocking at her door and told her the news, and it was the only place she felt like sitting now. She didn’t know why, but whenever she looked out the window it helped her to relax.

Bear’s low whine broke her trance, and she smiled over at him. He’d been through so much, which made them perfect companions, but she also knew that the only reason she was doing so well with the dog now was because of Brett.

Brett. She couldn’t stop thinking about him if she tried. He was the only person who’d made her feel alive, who’d made her feel like her again since Sam had died, and now he’d gone and walked away. Not to mention the wedge she’d driven between him and Logan—a wedge she was worried might be irreparable.

I love her. They were the words that had echoed in her head since the fight. Maybe she’d heard them wrong, maybe he’d said something else, but the way her heart picked up speed whenever she played that moment over in her mind told her that she’d been right. That there was no mistaking what he’d told Logan, before she’d heard the smack of Logan’s fist against his face. How could he feel that way about her and still walk away?

It excited and terrified her in equal parts, because this was Brett. Her friend, Brett. Her husband’s friend, Brett. And he was also the man she’d made love to the night before and couldn’t stop thinking about. The only man other than her husband who she could ever imagine being with, and the only man she wanted to be with. But now he was gone, and she’d never have the chance to hear the words from his lips, or say them back to him.

Jamie sighed again and reached for her phone, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed a call or a text. Eventually she was going to have to admit that Brett wasn’t coming back, at least not tonight. She was alone, again. Just her and Bear, and what she’d shared with Brett might be over for good, just a memory.

“Want a cuddle?” she asked the dog. She moved to the sofa and grabbed a blanket to tuck around herself.

He pricked his ears and watched as she settled herself, flicked on the television and patted the spot beside her. It didn’t take him long to decide to join her—he padded over and jumped up, taking up more space than she was. But she didn’t care. He was a warm body and he loved her, and that was all she needed right now. Bear was her oversized cuddly blanket—not to mention her protector at night.

Her dog was someone who wasn’t going to leave her, someone who was supposed to be by her side, no questions asked. Someone who’d be in her life for as long as was possible.

Someone she could love without feeling guilty about what her heart was telling her.

* * *

Brett leaned both elbows on the counter and stared down into his drink. The warm brown liquid didn’t have any answers, and it wasn’t a vice he’d ever indulged before, but after what had happened with Jamie, he’d decided a bourbon might help clear his head. Not that it was doing the pounding any good, or helping the purple swirl that was starting around his eye and across one side of his nose. He’d taken one look in the cracked bathroom mirror and decided that he was best not to look at the reminder on his face.

He held up the glass and took a small sip, cringing as the liquid burned a fiery trail down his throat. It was only early afternoon, and he never drank straight spirits at the best of times, let alone on an empty stomach.

Brett glanced around at the other people in the bar—all men. It was dark and dingy, an underground dive that made it almost impossible to remember that it was a bright, sunny day outside. The kind of day he should be enjoying, rather than sitting around feeling sorry for himself.

He swallowed a larger gulp of his drink this time, finding the second taste smoother than the first.

“You ready for another?”

Brett looked up as the bartender spoke to him. “Ah, no. I think just one will do me.”

He received a nod in response. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“And hopefully, at this time of the day at least, you won’t see me again.”

The bartender chuckled. “You don’t exactly look like my kind of lunchtime regular. The type who only ever consumes liquid for lunch, that is.”

“Heaven help me,” Brett said, tipping back the rest of the glass and closing his eyes as he swallowed it down. The drink had made his stomach swirl with a heat that felt better than the cold dread he’d been experiencing earlier, but he still didn’t want to be tempted by a second.

“Woman trouble?”

Brett nodded. “You could say that.”

“Don’t be an idiot, that’s my advice. If you love her? Tell her you’re sorry and make it up to her. The guys that don’t do that...?” The bartender raised his eyebrows. “They’re the ones who turn into my regulars, and it’s a sad story from then on. Although women troubles are pretty good for business down here.”

Brett stood and put his wallet into his back pocket. “Thanks for the advice. It’s not quite that simple, but you’re right.”

He walked to the entrance, feeling like a desperate man as he stared at the light filtering through the door. Suddenly the confines of the bar, the darkness, even the smell, were all telling him that he needed to run, and fast. Before he turned into a depressed creature who needed bourbon and darkness to deal with his life on a daily basis.

Brett’s memories would forever haunt him—that last day with Sam like a scene from a movie playing on repeat sometimes—but he wasn’t ever going to give in to them. He had been part of Australia’s most elite special forces team, was trained in active combat, even how to deal with being captured and held by an enemy, and that training had instilled a strength in him that he wasn’t ever going to let disappear from his mind.

The trouble was, that training had also taught him that there was nothing more important than his fellow soldiers, his men. And Sam had been his wingman, his buddy, the person he trusted with his life on a daily basis. Part of the family that he’d created after losing his parents.

So did he maintain that loyalty even in Sam’s death, or did he give in to his feelings for Jamie and try to tell himself that that was the right thing to do? Because the broken, hurt look in her eyes when he’d walked away from her earlier might end up haunting him for the rest of his life, too. He loved her, there was no denying that, but he also had a loyalty to his family, and that meant respecting Sam even in death. What Logan had said was what had terrified him all this time with Jamie—words that he’d told himself before giving in to the way he felt. Before making love to Jamie and knowing it was so wrong, but also so right.

Brett held up his hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight and started to walk, because he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. He just followed his feet, needing the time to think. He hadn’t been lying to Jamie when he’d told her how he’d felt that first time they’d met, or about how he’d come looking for her, and part of him knew that she deserved to know the truth about the past. About how he’d felt and what he would have done if she hadn’t already met Sam.

That night, that first time they’d met, they’d spent hours talking. Two people at a party, not part of the crowd around them, they’d sipped champagne, laughed and talked like he’d never talked to anyone in his life before. And then his girlfriend had interrupted them, told him off for leaving her even though he’d seen her dancing and having fun without him, knew she’d been fine on her own.

He’d walked away from Jamie, tugged in a direction that he’d known had been wrong, but knowing that he didn’t have a choice. The look in her eyes, the way they’d looked at one another, was a moment he’d never forgotten. His hand held by one woman, and everything else held by a woman he’d only known for less than a few hours.

Ten minutes later, from across the room, he’d watched her leave, and the next time he’d seen her, she’d been laughing and in the arms of his best friend. Sam.

Brett stopped walking and stared up at the sky, eyes adjusted to the sun now

He’d fallen in love with Jamie from the moment he’d met her. So what if it wasn’t the right thing in everyone else’s eyes? If it wasn’t what he’d planned? He’d stood back and let his friend be with the love of his life, and now it was his turn, wasn’t it? It was his chance at a happiness that he’d never known, his time to see if he and Jamie could be together. Did it mean he didn’t love Sam like a brother, now that Sam was gone and he and Jamie had the chance to fall in love?

If Jamie wanted him, then he was a fool to walk away, he knew that. Logan might be his friend, but Jamie could be the love of his life, the woman who’d be at his side for the rest of his life. And that wasn’t something anyone else had the right to tell him he should give up. Not Logan, and not Sam’s memory. Because no matter how much he respected his friends, he needed to respect himself and what was important to him, too. If they were truly his family, wouldn’t they want to see him happy?

The only person who had the right to push him away and end whatever it was that had happened between them, was Jamie. He just needed to tell her that before she changed her mind and didn’t want him back.

He’d spent so long worrying about what other people would think was right, about being faithful to those he loved, that he’d forgotten what was most important. What was right by Jamie. What would make Jamie happy.

What would make him happy.

And there was only one thing that could make him happy right now, and that was Jamie, in his life, in his arms.

He wanted to give her enough time to think, to deal with what had happened, but he didn’t want to leave it so long that she thought he didn’t care.

Brett headed toward a café he could see across the street and decided to have a late lunch, just sit for a while and eat, think about what he’d say to her. Because this could be the most important thing he ever prepared for in his life, and he didn’t want to screw up the one chance he might get to prove himself to Jamie.