Fearsome (37 page)

“Hello,” Talia says with a heavy Polish accent and a big smile. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb.”

“It’s okay.”

“Carson is always out the door before seven so I didn’t know he was here and the truck is not parked in front of the house. Really, I thought he was at work,” she goes on to plead her apologies.

“Really, it’s fine.” I flit my hand in the air like getting caught in a sex act is something that happens all the time to me. “Did you make coffee?”

“Yes, for you and Carson,” she answers. My discomfort is somewhat mitigated by her sincerity and sweet demeanor.

I help myself to a mug of coffee and relish the hit of caffeine.

“Are you hungry?’ she asks. She takes a pan of burritos out of the oven.

“Did you make that?”

“Yes. I cook for Carson. I cook for you, too. It’s shrimp and asparagus from the party and I scramble it with egg and cheese to make a breakfast burrito. You like?”

“I love.”

Talia puts a burrito on a plate, gathers a napkin and utensils and then places it in front of me where I sit at the kitchen island. I pick the burrito up with my hands and start eating, realizing once again how hungry I am.

“I’m so glad you’re with Carson,” she says, putting another burrito on my plate and making a plate for Carson. “He likes you a lot. You were dancing last night.”

I vaguely remember noticing a pretty blond on the dance floor with Dylan. It was Talia. She must have witnessed our silly scene while Carson and I were dancing.

“He talks about me?”

“No,” she says, but she’s nodding and smiling. “I mean, yes, in a way. When he’s here, sometimes he mentions you, but it’s how he says your name. He put up your paintings, did you see?”

I nod, my mouth full of her excellent food. I imagine Carson talking about me with Talia in a subtle way, although it’s enough that she picks up the signals. She’s a very attractive woman after all and looks like someone who has to fend off a lot of men.

“You blush. You like him, too. More than like, yes?” she asks.

We both turn and notice that Carson is standing at the far side of the kitchen, leaning against the passageway to the formal dining area. He’s wearing relaxed jeans and a black T-shirt. His hair is wet and slicked back. He crosses his feet and arms in a very obvious way as he waits for my answer.

I turn back to Talia and feel my face redden even more.

“Oops,” she says, smiling at me and then at Carson. “Too personal. I’m going to go clean.” She slinks out of the room with her mop and bucket.

Carson approaches and sits down to eat his meal. He is quiet and I know, behind that steely façade, he is seething. He has professed his love for me more than once over the last few weeks, especially over the last ten hours.

I scrutinize my unfinished meal with an artificial interest and wish there was some way I could click my heels and beam myself home. I’m going to have to ask Carson for a ride since the snow is too deep and treacherous for walking.

“More than like?” Carson repeats Talia’s question to me. “Jess?”

Our eyes meet and I immediately register the hurt behind his tone.

“You don’t want to give the real answer,” he says. “Whatever. I’m starved.” He picks up his food with his bare hands and eats it like a bear discovering a fully stocked campground.

I want to tell him that I’m crazy about him and I want to reach out to tuck a lock of his glossy hair behind his ear, something to bring back the intimacy of the last few hours we spent together. I don’t do or say anything.

“Fucking is exhausting,” he says between bites.

I deserve that one.

Carson finishes his meal while I sip my coffee. His silence is punishing. If we can do this to each other, the sooner I leave, the better.

“Get your things. I’ll drop you at your house.” His tone is cold. It makes me feel sick to disappoint him.

Carson pulls his truck up to my house and keeps the engine running.

“Sorry,” I say, looking at him for the first time since we left his house.

“Don’t.” He puts a hand up so I’ll shut up. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Fine. Tell me how a guy like you can surround yourself with so many beautiful women and yet you want me to believe that I’m so spectacular?”

Carson takes in a slow breath and clenches his jaw. “I really don’t understand how your great mathematical mind works, Babycakes.”

“Don’t call me that. I told you I hate it. It’s patronizing.”

My rage over his silly pet name for me startles him. “I’ll never say it again,” he says curtly.

“You said you haven’t slept with any women in a while, but there are plenty of condoms in your truck and your house. You’re getting action somewhere. Talia is very pretty—”

“What?” he shouts. “I have never touched her.”

“What about the women you just hired at work? Hell, what about Lauren or Imogene and the mystery woman at the Mohonk resort?”

“I’m confused,” he says angrily. “Do you actually think I slept with all of these women or are you just jealous of every woman I know? What am I working with here? Irrational accusations or insane jealousy?”

“Oh!” I scream and kick the dashboard. “I don’t know what I’m thinking, but I hate feeling unsure about you.”

“How can you be so insecure about us? I’m a very direct guy; I thought I made my intentions clear.”

“You paint a very enticing picture here, a nice package; the handsome guy with an incredible talent, who also happens to be super nurturing to others and he’s surrounded by all these lovely available women, but he sets his sights on me,” I mock. “Hmm, I don’t know. Should I fall for this or should I use some common sense?”

Carson looks dejected and shakes his head. “You don’t trust me. I don’t know what I’ve done, but you don’t trust me.”

“I’m a realist and I’m not ready to live up to your expectations of me.” I jump out of the truck.

“You’re a cynic. Bottom line, you don’t believe what I’m telling you, so end of story.” Carson yanks my door closed and drives off.

Thirty-Seven

“Tell me again,” Lauren says. “I’m trying to understand why you walked out on Carson.”

I’m sitting at the kitchen table. Jeremy and Imogene are making grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon and tomato while Lauren and Leo are setting the table. It’s a very homey, domestic setting with two lovey-dovey couples and me. I envy their comfortable simplicity when it comes to dating. It makes me more miserable watching them touch each other with loving gestures and little knowing smiles.

“I didn’t walk out on him. You make it sound like we’re married and this is a bad country song. Can we change the subject, please?”

They spend the next hour talking about their new projects at the workshop and the girls’ jewelry business. Leo and Jeremy have nothing except good things to say about Carson’s business acumen and the project ideas as well as the new furniture plans coming from the design team, Gemma and Noelle. Imogene explains her new marketing plan for her and Lauren’s re-purposed vintage jewelry and everyone praises her for the research and business plan she has drafted.

I say little and mostly push my food around on my plate. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but I’m longing for Talia’s scrumptious breakfast burrito that was sitting so close to the guy who stars in my daydreams and fantasies. If I could go back and play that scene over, I don’t know what I’d say differently, yet I would do it with more diplomacy and unselfishness. I would hope. Then again, I keep blowing it every time, so who knows.

After lunch, I check my emails from my 5 Alpha team and follow a thread of messages about a glitch that started about the time I left for the party. The team is worried that the first trial run and presentation to the client will have to be postponed, so I begin reading through the code. I’m sitting sideways against the massive desk with my feet propped up while I scroll through one of the monitors. I’m mindlessly lost in a particular section of the software when Lauren walks into the library and plops herself on the couch with an exaggerated huff.

“Where’s Leo?” I ask.

“He and Jeremy just left. Is this a good time to talk or am I interrupting your work?”

“I can’t concentrate, so we can talk. Let me guess. Carson?”

Lauren is wearing a Syracuse sweatshirt and fleece shorts, looking like a cheerleader with her blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She’s the popular, pretty girl on campus that I wanted to be in high school and college, but I could never muster up the confidence to be as outgoing as Lauren.

“You spent the night at his place and you came home in his clothes. How long have you really been seeing each other?”

“We’re not. We’ve…” I take my feet off the desk and bring them to my chair, hugging my legs.

“You’ve hooked up a few times, right?”

“Yes.” I don’t like using that term. “Hooking-up” isn’t the right word to use with Carson. Maybe he did that with other women in the past, but it’s not how he sees me. At least that’s what I tell myself because it’s not how I see him.

“But it’s more than that, right?”

“Lauren, get to the point. What are you asking me?”

“Leo says that Carson doesn’t even realize when he’s talking about you, but he brings you up a lot; at work, at lunch. Leo says Carson has been like this for weeks, and I’m no idiot. Carson didn’t leave a date and drive through a tropical storm to see me. He does these things for you. Not to mention the party last night. My God, the guy only has eyes and hands for you. How do you not see this?”

“I do see it, but I find it hard to believe that it’s real. It wasn’t long ago I was going through a similar situation with Dylan and look how that turned out. It seems kind of creepy of me to date his brother even if he thinks he’s in love with me. I don’t—”

“What?” Lauren practically shouts. “Carson told you he’s in love with you?”

“Yes.”

She beams. “That is so fucking amazing. Carson is a great guy. He’s not screwed up like Dylan. I mean, I love Dylan, he’s adorable, but Carson has his shit together and he lives like a monk. Seriously, if he did date a woman, it was a secret and it never happened here. I always wondered if he’d find someone and settle down and now he has his eyes on you. I love this.”

“Well…” I hesitate.

“Oh God, no. I know that face you make. What did you do?”

“Apparently, I’m not doing enough. I’ve discovered Carson is a very direct, no holds barred type of guy when it comes to a relationship. He has an idea or opinion and that’s it, he puts it out there. It’s all or nothing with him. There’s no in between.”

“Oh, let me see if I get this straight. He’s in love with you and you probably haven’t said it back to him because you’re chicken shit after what happened with Dylan. Because if you get involved with Carson and it goes south,” Lauren winces, “yikes, you’d have the small town gossip girls shredding you. Oh, wait a minute. I’m the biggest gossip in town, so you don’t have to worry about that, and um, you’re already involved with Carson. You can’t sleep with him and pretend like nothing happened. Besides, I don’t think it’s creepy. The Dylan thing was months ago and they’re not related by blood so there’s that.”

“What? Dylan and Carson aren’t brothers? I mean, of course they’re brothers, but they are not biologically related?”

“You didn’t know? Carson was adopted. His parents adopted him when they didn’t think they could have kids and then Dylan was a surprise baby that same year.”

“Carson was adopted when he was three?”

“Yeah. He was removed from a very violent home and the state put him in foster care. The Blackards took him in and adopted him. He never, I mean never, talks about it. I got all this information from my parents and Ginnie when I was younger. He probably didn’t tell you because he thinks of Dylan as his only family and nothing can come between them. Carson has hammered it into Dylan’s head that they are brothers, regardless of blood ties. He had to in order to get Dylan to listen to him over the years. Carson has worked his ass off trying to protect Dylan.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s one of the things I admire about him.”

“So why are you pushing him away?”

“Because I’m not sure of this. I’m not sure about me and if this is what I want.”

“Stop trying to process this like it’s one of your computer programs. What do you feel in your gut?”

“My gut jumps up and down every time I’m around Carson. It’s been like that from day one. Even when I was with Dylan,” I admit to her.

“Wow.” Lauren smiles and it’s the hopeless romantic in her that makes me cry.

I put my head in my hands and start sobbing. Lauren jumps off the couch and hands me a wad of tissues.

“It’s not that bad, is it?” She rubs my back.

“I want to be normal. I like Carson. I wish I wasn’t afraid to act on this. Any normal woman would jump at the chance to be with him and I keep screwing up by running away. He wants a straight answer, no games, and I’m behaving like a child. Am I intentionally trying to sabotage this?”

“I don’t think so. You’re too smart for that. What has he said to you?”

“He’s told me more than once that he loves me, that he’s in love with me, and today he wanted me to spend the day with him. God, I’m awful. I have sex with him and then I say I gotta run.”

“That’s a guy thing,” Lauren adds. “Just saying. Kind of funny you’d do that. Is that what started your fight today? You had an argument, right?”

“You could say that. Talia walked in on us in the middle of getting it on.” Lauren’s eyes grow big and she covers her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Oh, it gets worse. When we came down for breakfast, Talia was very happy for us and she asked if my feelings for Carson are stronger than ‘like’. Believe me, nothing was lost in her broken English translation. She wanted to know if I am in love with Carson. I didn’t say anything and Carson was standing in the doorway and heard the whole thing. Breakfast was miserable. The ride home, even worse.”

“Poor Carson. He’s whipped and you crushed him,” she says.