Learning to Breathe Again (16 page)

“
Is it about the estate? You
know what Mom’s terms were.”

“
Yes, in a way, it’s about
the estate. And yes, I know the terms. But there’s more to it. And
I don’t want to go into it right now. Please, just trust me on
this?”

There was silence from the other end for a
few seconds. Bayleigh could just imagine her brother staring off
into space, trying to figure out what she was up to this time. Will
had been livid when he found out her mother hadn’t out right left
her inheritance to her, instead making Jason in charge of it until
she reached the respectable, mature age of thirty. Any decision
regarding her trust fund had to go through Jason, and certain
criteria had to be met. Bayleigh simply could not access the money
herself.

“
All right, Bayleigh. I’ll
trust you. I’ll call you tomorrow to check in with you. Love you,
sis.”

“
Love you, too, big
brother.” Bayleigh whispered as she hung up the phone. A sound
behind her had her whirling around to find Jack standing
there.

“
Oh, uh, hi. How long have
you been standing there?” she raised a hand to her cheek. She knew
it was red, she could feel the heat in her face.

“
Not long. I carried a bunch
of wood up onto the front porch so we’d have plenty on hand if we
need it. And then I walked around to the back of the house to make
sure there wasn’t any other damage from that tree branch.” Jack
stepped over to the sink and started to wash his hands. “Don’t
worry, I didn’t hear you just tell your brother who just happens to
be my best friend we’re sleeping together,” he winked at
her.

“
I didn’t mean…I mean…Oh,
hell. Jason was flustered about saying it first and I was teasing
him!” she threw her hands up in the air when he started
laughing.

“
I can just imagine your
brother’s face the second he realized what he’d said,” still
chuckling, Jack poured himself a cup of coffee. “Thanks for making
a fresh pot. So what warnings was big brother giving you about
me?”

Bayleigh moved over to refill her coffee cup
as well. “That you have PTSD, but I’d already assumed you did.”

“
That’s the only warning he
gave you?”

“
Should he have warned me
about something else?” Bayleigh raised her eyebrows as she turned
to face him.

“
I don’t know. What do big
brothers usually warn their baby sisters about when it comes to
guys?”

“
Jason has always been
silent when it came to my private life except when I moved to
England with Will. He told me then he didn’t think I should. Shows
how much I should listen to him, I guess,” she cocked her head to
the side. “With you and Nicole so close, didn’t you ever warn her
about who she dated?”

“
Nicole didn’t date when she
grew up here. She met your brother in Austin, when I was in College
Station, and anybody else she dated didn’t last very long.” He
glanced over as the wind rattled the windows. “I guess we should
start getting stuff together in case the power does go
out.”

“
Tell me what you need me to
do, then.”

“
I’ve got extra pillows and
blankets in the closet in the bedroom next to yours. Grab some of
those and bring them out to the living room. I’ve got some foam
pads and sleeping bags in the storage area we can use to cushion
the floor.”

Bayleigh nodded and moved off down the
hallway to the bedroom he’d indicated. She opened the door to a
large walk-in closet. The shelves on one side held folded up
quilts, fleece blankets and pillows. Grabbing an armful of the
blankets and piling the pillows on top, she headed for the living
room. She dropped everything on one end of the couch, sinking down
beside the stack and waiting for Jack. She stretched her leg out in
front of her and massaged the area just above her knee.

Jack walked in with the foam pads and
sleeping bags, looking over and taking in her actions. “You
ok?”

“
I’m fine, just the residual
ache,” she glanced at the rolled up foam pads he was carrying under
his arm. “Those are going to cushion the floor?” she gave him a
dubious look.

“
They’ll provide a layer of
insulation between you and the hardwood floor. If we spread the
sleeping bags over the pads, we’ll have some cushion. It won’t be
as soft as a mattress, but it won’t be the hard floor, either,” he
tossed his pile onto the floor next to the couch and moved over to
the fireplace. “I’ll get the fire started.”

Bayleigh watched as he added more kindling to
the fire already laid out and checked the flue to make sure it was
open. She pushed herself to her feet and moved to the mound of gear
in the middle of the floor. Unrolling the two mats, she started
work on creating a bed of sorts.

Jack struck a match and held it to the
kindling, making sure it caught before settling the screen in its
place. He set the matches on the mantle and turned to watch her as
she spread the first sleeping bag over the two mats. He noticed
she’d laid the two mats next to each other and was making up a
single sleeping area. That had been his hope when he brought
everything in from the storage area but he wouldn’t have been
surprised if she’d chosen separate sleeping spaces. He hadn’t
missed the slight wheeze in her breath earlier, before he’d gone
outside. The idea of sharing sleeping quarters with him wasn’t as
easy for her as she’d like him to believe.

“
Here, let me help,” he
offered, stepping over and picking up the second sleeping bag. “If
we use both of these as part of the mattress, we should be good. I
have plenty of quilts and other blankets we can use as we need
them.”

“
Thanks,” Bayleigh sat back
on her heels as he unrolled the second sleeping bag and helped her
settle it on top of the first one. Just as they finished making up
their ‘bed’, the lights flickered and went out.

“
So much for watching a
movie,” Jack commented as he tossed the pillows towards the end of
the bed. “I need to grab some water and ibuprofen. Do you need
anything while I’m out there?”

“
Something to drink would be
great. What time is it, anyway?”

“
A little after five,” Jack
told her as he glanced at his watch. He stretched his hand out and
offered it to her, helping her to her feet.

“
I think I’ll go change into
something a little more comfortable than jeans to lounge around
in,” Bayleigh told him as she moved off down the
hallway.

Jack headed for the kitchen and took the
ibuprofen he needed for his headache. The pain wasn’t as bad as it
had been earlier in the day but it was still there. Remembering how
Bayleigh had been rubbing her leg earlier, he decided to take the
bottle back into the living room with him. Grabbing a couple of
drinks out of the fridge, he headed back for the living room. The
temperature in the rest of the house was already dropping.

Bayleigh had already returned and had settled
herself onto the couch with her leg stretched out in front of her.
Jack stood in the doorway and studied her in the light from the
fire. She’d changed into yoga pants, and she’d taken off the
sweatshirt she’d been wearing earlier. And he was pretty sure she
wasn’t wearing a bra.

Clearing his throat to get her attention, he
held out her drink for her. “I also grabbed the bottle of
ibuprofen,” he told her, holding it up for her to see.

“
Thanks,” she held her hand
out and took both bottles from him, opening the medicine bottle and
shaking a few pills into her hand. “How’d you know I needed
these?”

“
You were shifting weight
off your leg again earlier in the kitchen when I came in from
outside and just now you were massaging it,” he waited for her to
swallow her pills then reached over and took her hand in his,
pulling her to her feet. With a reassuring smile, he led her over
to the sleeping bags. “Lie down on your back. I’m going to see if I
can help those muscles relax in your leg.”

“
Jack, I don’t know about
this…” Bayleigh tugged at her hand, trying to pull away.

“
Trust me, Bayleigh. I’m not
going to hurt you,” Jack told her, his voice soft. “And I promise
if you need me to stop, at any point, all you have to do is say
so.”

Bayleigh’s shoulders rose and fell with her
rapid breaths but she didn’t pull try to pull away again. Jack
dropped her hand and she lowered herself onto the makeshift bed,
positioning herself as he’d indicated.

“
I’m just going to massage
your leg for you, through your clothing. Only your leg, nothing
else. Okay?” Jack knelt down in front of her, his eyes on hers. He
waited for her to nod and felt her tense and jerk as he placed his
hand on her lower leg, bending her knee so he could reach her calf.
In a perfect world, he’d have her lie on her stomach but he knew
that would make her feel too vulnerable and open to a full-on panic
attack. As it was, he could feel the tension radiating off of her
so he just kept his hands in place for a moment, letting her body
adjust to his touch.

Her cotton yoga pants fit her like a second
layer of skin and he could feel the tight muscles underneath the
fabric. With a gentle touch, he began to massage her calf in an
attempt to get the muscles to relax. He could feel the muscles
soften under his hands the longer he manipulated them. As the
tension began to ease, he worked his way up the leg to her thigh,
his fingers finding the knots and the areas causing her all the
trouble.

Glancing at her face, he caught the
occasional grimace as he would press in deeper with his thumbs on
the stubborn knots, but she didn’t complain or draw back from his
touch.

“
Where’d you learn to do
this?” she asked after a few minutes.

“
Self-preservation, for the
most part. When I started law school, I was too stubborn to let
anyone else touch my leg. But with all the walking I had to do, my
leg would get these unbelievable cramps. My schedule didn’t allow
for much time to get to regular physical therapy appointments. Add
to that the issues I had with the nerve damage, so if I went to the
wrong therapist, they could wind up doing more damage than good. So
I either had to learn to give myself a massage or let someone else
do it. I chose to learn.”

“
Lucky for me,” Bayleigh
sucked in a breath as his thumbs dug into a sensitive spot. He
backed off, his eyes going to her face.

“
You okay?”

“
Just a sore spot there,”
she tilted her head back, focusing on a spot on the
ceiling.

“
Do you need me to
stop?”

“
No, just talk to me and get
my mind off of the pain,” she instructed.

“
You were talking to Jason
earlier. How are he and Nicole doing?” Jack asked after a slight
pause.

“
They’re a little antsy, I
think, wanting to be back here and not able to make it. He was
worried about us. I’ve missed several calls from him and he said
he’d tried your phone, too.”

“
I’ll have to check it
later. I’m sure Nicole is going crazy not being able to see Carly
and the baby. I should check in with the rest of the family,
too.”

“
You told me Carly is her
best friend, cousin by marriage. Are they her only
family?”

“
As far as we know. The man
who raised her as his daughter didn’t have any family. We didn’t
know until last summer that he wasn’t her biological father, so
there’s the possibility that she has a whole bunch of siblings out
there somewhere.”

“
Does she want to know who
her father is, or was, or whatever?”

“
She’s trying to find him.
She has her mother’s journals and her mother named a few guys in
them from around the time Nicole would have been conceived. She’s
hired a PI firm to track them all down, see if any of them will
admit to having had a one night stand with her mom. If they even
remember her.” Her muscle had relaxed as much as he thought it was
going to in one session, so he dropped his hands, moving away from
her to sit with his back against the couch. Bayleigh sighed and sat
up as well, reclining against the mound of pillows that had been
tossed on the floor.

“
What about you?”

“
Me?”

“
I was just wondering if
you’ve ever tried to find out who your father is. You had said the
other night that you started calling your uncle ‘Pop’ because at
the time you thought you might someday find your own father.”
Bayleigh’s eyes dropped to her lap. “Sorry, I guess I’m getting a
little personal.”

“
It’s okay, Bayleigh. I’d
just forgotten I’d mentioned it.” Jack stared into the fire for a
moment before answering.

“
I don’t even have a name to
start with. I’ve always suspected that my mother had no clue which
guy she was sleeping with donated his sperm to my creation. And I
don’t think she cared. My grandfather didn’t cut her off, he just
cut her out of the will. That’s when she left me here and signed
over her parental rights to Steve and Helen, when Granddad died. As
a kid, I always had my fantasies that he was some football hero or
something like that, but I have a feeling he was just some cowboy
that passed through, working our ranch or one of the other local
ones. Or maybe one of the rodeo cowboys,” Jack shrugged his
shoulders. “Ma and Pop raised me as their own. I owe them
everything I am.”