Losing Him (Mitchell Family #8)(26)

I felt Jessie pulling me closer to his body. It felt right, the same way it had when we first met each other. I’d missed it so much. “Jess, was yesterday really just a pity f*ck for you?”

He opened his eyes and looked at me, sighing and shaking his head. “I think you know the answer already.”

“It would be nice to hear you say those words, but if it’s too soon, I understand.” I was pushing too hard, except wasn’t I allowed to? Wasn’t it obvious that I needed to hear him telling me he loved me?

“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me one last thing and I will say the words. Honestly, I don’t now why you need to hear them. I never said I didn’t.”

I contemplated telling him to forget about it, realizing that his question could destroy the last half hour of happiness and a future that I wanted more than anything else. I’d made him a promise and I wanted to do right by it. “What do you want to know?” I played with his hair and pretended that I wasn’t worried out of my mind.

He kept holding my hand, reminded me that he was trusting me. We had made progress. I had to keep my hopes up.

“I want to know how you got involved with Rick. From everything you’ve told me, I can’t see you getting to any point that you’d want to be with a married man, who was clearly psychotic.”

I’d explained most of this to him already, but I guess he wasn’t fitting everything together. “It all goes back to me meeting Conner. All along, he’d been seeing Amy. I didn’t know that Rick was crazy and that he’d been abusing Amy. One day I went to get my haircut and she said she wanted to set me up with someone. She and Rick took me out to dinner to meet Conner, who Rick knew as Miranda’s brother, but I didn’t. Conner needed to get close to me so he could find out the truth for his family. In the meantime, while he and Amy were busy sneaking around, Rick was doing his own sneaking. He slipped me his number and asked if we could go out and talk sometime. He said he liked to have fun and he and Amy weren’t happy anymore. The story that I’d gotten from Amy was that Conner was from out of town and he just wanted company when he came to visit. I liked him, but I couldn’t see us going anywhere. Plus, I needed to keep my mind off of everyone in this town that hated seeing my face. So, throwing caution to the wind, and completely losing my mind, I started seeing Rick. He was older and more mature. I just thought that maybe he could offer me a way out. I had no idea he was crazy and plotting to kill his wife. As soon as I found out, I did what I could to help Amy. That’s when I came looking for you. You know the rest. I wasn’t hiding anything about Rick.”

“I just wanted to check.”

I laid my head against his chest. “Jess, I’ve never been so scared in my life. He said he was going to kill me. I watched him attack my mother and then I just ran. Conner and Amy helped me get out of town. They were scared of Rick too. I did my best to keep tabs on him, but he went off the grid for a while. I never wanted to end up in Kentucky, fighting for the life of me and other people, especially when I knew I was carrying your baby. I did what was necessary to stay alive, because I wanted to have a life with you.”

He kissed me on top of my head. “I would have protected you, had I known about him.”

“I was afraid to tell you. Things were so good and I knew if you knew it would ruin everything. That’s exactly what happened too. I lost you the moment you found out. Your parents hated me and most of all, you did too. For the past five years I’ve done everything I could to get you out of my system, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t give up on having the family that I always wanted.”

He scrunched up his face and looked at me. “Maybe we should just start over.”

I pushed him. “We have a son together.”

“I meant we should start with a clean slate, woman! That blonde hair is messing with your mind.” He laughed and then got a serious look on his face. “How are you feeling?”

“About us, or my mom?” They were two different things.

“Everything.”

“I’d be lying if I said that I was doing okay, but being here with you has never felt so good. Thank you for giving me another chance, Jess. I love you so much.”

He smiled and kissed me on the lips, slowly.

Chapter 14


Jessie


Waking up in bed with Heather, and not regretting it, was something new. I don’t know how it had all happened. One minute I was ready to walk away from her for good and the next I was feeling bad that I hadn’t just forgiven her and let us be a real family.

I turned and watched her sleeping peacefully. She was so pretty, laying there on her stomach. Her naked back had a couple freckles across it. I ran my fingers over her creamy skin. She stirred and got comfortable again, before opening her eyes. “Hey. I thought I was dreaming.”

“Do you need me to pinch you?” I teased.

She laughed. “I’d rather you not.”

I leaned up on my elbow and looked right at her. “So, this is different.”

“I keep feeling like you’re going to change your mind.”

I leaned in and kissed her forehead. “I’m not.”

Little footsteps could be heard running against the hardwood flooring. Jacob came into the room and jumped on the bed. Realizing that neither of us had any clothes on, we pulled the covers up. “Did Daddy sleep in here too?”