Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(81)

I wait at the exit and feel my heart race when his tall, broad form appears in the doorway.

I revel in the way he comes straight for me, kisses me, and squeezes me against his chest.

I make love to him whenever I want.

I dance when I want.

I eat what I want.

I only take the phone calls I want.

I sleep in until whenever I want.

I spend my hard-earned money the way I want.

I’m finally living for myself and feeling empowered about it.

I feel reborn.

Jasper and I have holed up in the house at the end of the block he owns. It’s right behind Summer’s gym, so I can easily have social time and get my dancing in too.

When Jasper heads out for away games, I have girls’ nights with Willa and Summer, or I have dinner with Harvey, or I help Cade check all the electric waterers on the ranch. Or I stay up too late putting fresh coats of paint in the bungalows Jasper owns.

I’ve watched YouTube videos on how to install new faucets, and Jasper never tells me I can’t or I shouldn’t or that it’s something a man should do.

No one does.

Instead, he walks in, gives the house a little smirk with his hands slung casually in his pockets and tells me how fabulous it looks. What a great job I’ve done. How capable I am.

He makes me believe in myself.

Then he bosses me around in bed—but I like that part.

The rest of it makes me realize how powerless I’ve been trained to be my entire life. It stirs an unfamiliar rage inside of me, one that keeps me from answering any of my dad’s phone calls.

I miss him and yet I’m furious with him. I miss who I thought he was—the relationship I thought we had—and yet this new perspective I’ve gained makes me loathe him at the same time.

I’ve had the time and space to reflect on the controlling way he treats my mom, the way he’s always treated her. The way he talks to serving staff, the way he walks all over anyone he deems beneath him.

Which is alarmingly similar to how he’s treated me. The only difference is that with me he uses a sugary voice and calls me “darling” while he pushes me into the places he wants me. The places that benefit him the most while sucking the soul right out of me.

Without this distance, I’m not sure I’d have even noticed. I’d still be a pretty little mannequin, born and bred to make appearances in his world.

But that era has ended. I do plan to face him at some point, to demand the respect he’s never given me. And every day I get closer. Every day I grow stronger.

Distance has brought perspective, but also an all-new pride in my capability, in my intelligence. Women like Summer and Willa surrounding me bolsters my inner fortitude.

And the support of men like Jasper, Harvey, Rhett, and Cade makes me feel less self-conscious about this new version of myself. The one who does weird dances in the back room of a gym and drinks coffee at 11 p.m. so she can rip out vomit-green shag rug until two in the morning and admire the hardwood floors beneath.

I feel . . . found. I enjoy helping Cade and Harvey at the ranch. I enjoy doing odd jobs. I still love dancing but I’ve reclaimed it for myself. My body doesn’t riot when I dance now, it sings with it.

I don’t know how this all looks for me long-term, but I am tentatively happy. Tentatively optimistic.

I sit on the floor and fold myself over my legs, sinking into the stretch. My body is all warm and buttery and I feel a deep sense of accomplishment, like I’ve flattened another little corner of my scrunched-up life map in my head while I danced around today.

Jasper is heading back from an away game and we’re doing a holiday dinner at Wishing Well Ranch. Christmas is a week away, but there’s a vibe at the ranch that always makes it seem like Christmas.

Warm. Cozy. Family.

A wholesome movie-style Christmas, not a ballgown or caviar canapé in sight.

I wrap my fingers around the arches of my feet and press my breasts down into my legs, my sit bones into the floor.

When my phone buzzes across the room, I ignore it. It buzzed while I was dancing, cutting off the music in my earbuds, but I didn’t feel like stopping. Whoever it is doesn’t give up this time. It just starts up again. With a sigh, I decide I’m done enough with my workout that I can abandon it. I sit back up, walk to the table in the corner with the big stereo system, and pick the phone up.

Royal Alberta Ballet Co. flashes across the screen. They’re probably wondering if the prima ballerina they’ve dumped years of development and money into is done fucking around. I haven’t gotten back to them about spring season. I saw the email and I just . . . didn’t feel like responding.

I slide the green phone symbol across the bottom of the screen and take the call.





Everyone was jealous of the hockey game Jasper and I recounted when we returned from Ruby Creek so I spent the afternoon helping Rhett clear off a shallow and very frozen section of the creek near Beau’s still empty house for a few Christmas games of shinny.

From what I gather, Beau won’t be back until the new year. He told us “minor burns” but since Harvey’s return, it’s become clear that minor might be an understatement.

All I know is that he’s going to be okay and he’s coming home. Jasper is itching to see him. I’m just not sure the man he’ll see now will be the same as before he deployed.