Torn (31 page)

“Well, that summer, on impulse, mind you, my mother suggested I stay an extra week to check out a powwow –– she’d pay the charges on my airline ticket. I jumped on that –– I’d fallen in love with the mountains, and New York was so
nasty
hot in August. I went to the powwow, and you and I met and eloped that same night. My dad took early retirement less than a month later. His job was the catalyst to us finding each other. You
are
my soul mate, Jake. We were destined to be together.”

As she returned from her memories, said his name, her focus returned on him. “Then there’s Tyler. He’s a different level of soul mate. It sounds so trite when I say it, but I’ve never felt this way before with anyone. Tyler is more than just my soul mate… He
is
my kindred spirit.”

Oh,
brother
. Jake sat back on the bench, tried not to roll his eyes. “So… What? Have I been demoted? Reduced to being a catalyst for this all-consuming, profound love
affair
you have with this guy?”

His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Chelsea, but she answered him as though he’d asked the question seriously. “Ten years is pretty long for a catalyst. But if you look at it clinically, you could probably find the initial connection. I’d like to think that you and I were more than that… What we had… It was special, Jake.”

His eyes were closed, but at Chelsea’s use of past tense, he opened them and looked at his wife. “First you said that I was your true love, now you’re saying that Tyler is the love of your life. What makes you think this won’t happen again, a few years from now?” He was still sarcastic, but this time, he was also genuinely curious. The way his wife talked, with her “levels of soul mate”… Was it a pyramid, hierarchy kind of thing? Or were there infinite levels of soul mate?

Chelsea sighed. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so, but then, I didn’t think you and I would ever split up. We were so close to being
It
, you know? And I know I’m not making much sense. All I can say is that hopefully you’ll find yours someday, and you’ll know then what I’m talking about.”

She raised a hand, clasped one of Jake’s. Her chocolate eyes were earnest as she looked at her husband. “I want nothing but love for you, Jake. But you and I…”

Jake nodded, looked away, but not before a tear splashed onto their joined hands. His, hers, he couldn’t tell. “I know,” he whispered. He wanted to tell her the same thing, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. It was yet too… raw. Instead, he looked back at his wife. Whatever she saw in his eyes must have spoken for him, because she smiled.

“Thank you.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

T
yler raced into the admitting area waiting room and skidded to a halt when Jake turned around. “Where’s Chelsea?” he asked.

Jake cocked a brow. “Sit down.”

The blood drained from Tyler’s face as fear flooded his veins. “Did something happen? She’s okay, isn’t she? The babies are all right?”

“Chelsea’s being looked over now. She’s gonna be fine, as will the twins,” Jake replied. “But you and I? We’re gonna have a chat.”

Tyler ran a hand down his face. Shit. Deciding he preferred to have this conversation from a chair, he sat across from Jake. Chelsea’s husband looked at him.

“Chelsea tells me you’re her kindred spirit,” Jake began. “What do you have to say about that?”

Tyler raised his face up from his hands, knowing his jaw hung loose, knowing he looked like an idiot. Wow, okay. He hadn’t expected Jake to just cut to the chase like that.

“I love Chelsea,” he finally replied, but Jake waved that aside, unimpressed.

“Yeah, yeah. Who doesn’t. That and four bucks will get you a Hallmark card. What I want to know is…” Jake stepped forward and leaned down until he was right up in Tyler’s face. “You waltz into my town, you play with my kids, you play with my
wife
…” Jake’s eyes narrowed, a tick appeared at his temple, “You get her pregnant…
Now
what?”

Tyler looked from the pulse at Jake’s temple, to Jake’s hands –– clenched in fists –– braced taut at his sides. “What do you mean, ‘Now what’? She’s married to you.” The words came out rougher than he intended and he tensed for Jake’s swing.

Tyler didn’t know it was possible to both narrow one’s eyes and roll them at the same time, but somehow, Jake managed to do it. It was quite a feat, really, since they were now nothing but slits of fury in a white, steel face.

Jake’s reply was a soft but deadly drawl. “Married to me, huh? That’s quite a selective memory you have there,
friend.
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting to hear your heart-tripping monologue that’s gonna keep me from cleaning
this
floor,” he tapped the taupe linoleum with a steel-toed, brown work boot, “with
your
face.”

Tyler’s sandy brows drew together. “Listen, man. You have a much-deserved ax to grind. I get that. But what you’ve got to understand is I love Chelsea. I am in love with
your
wife. I don’t have any flowery monologues. I can tell you that she’s the air I breathe, the blood in my veins, the water I drink, the fire in my heart… All those things that look so good on that freaking Hallmark card. And they’d all be true. But telling you this truth, as a defense for my actions, makes them dull, lose their shine.”

As Jake stared at him with a dubious gaze, Tyler stood and began to pace the small room. “Contrary to what you might think, know, or
think
you know,” Tyler continued, “I don’t make a habit out of chasing other men’s wives. It’s never been my thing.” He stopped in the center of the room. Arms crossed in front of his chest, he cocked a brow as he faced the younger man. “I never had to either –– not with all the single women chasing after me. And I figured I was better off having single women chase me than pissed-off husbands.”

Jake’s brows rose, but that was it. Still, he hadn’t reached for his throat yet –– that was something. Tyler resumed his pacing as he gathered his thoughts together. Chelsea’s husband seemed to be waiting for something, but damned if he knew what.

“Then I met Chelsea,” Tyler said finally, deciding that, not only did Jake deserve an ax, but an explanation. The thing of it was, how to explain the unexplainable? Chelsea put it best:
He is my kindred spirit.

Without realizing it, a smile curved Tyler’s lips, and his dark blue eyes glowed. Her words, even if heard through a third party, warmed him. That was it exactly. Chelsea was his kindred spirit. Not only had she given him the gift of her love, she carried his children. The gift of life.

“She was seventeen at the time, I was drawn to her even then.”

“Wait, what?” Jake frowned. “You’d met Chelsea before? Where?”

“In New York. Didn’t she tell you? I’d almost forgotten about it until she mentioned it on the set. We ran into each other in the street, and she asked for my autograph. She wore this funky leather jacket with a huge yin-yang on the back…” Tyler trailed off, obviously getting lost in the memory.

Jake’s frowned deepened. That god-awful jacket. He’d thought she’d thrown it out years ago. He hadn’t seen it in ages. Of course, he
had
said he’d walk on the other side of the street if she ever wore the hideous thing in public. But had she told him about meeting Ty Benson in New York? He rolled his eyes at himself. Probably not. Because like he’d care. Oh, she’d probably made a joke about how she used to get autographs from the stars back when, and he’d probably not really listened as he’d often not really listened whenever Chelsea waxed nostalgic about her New York City life. And then there was Ty, who clearly had felt some connection even so long ago; his eyes had glazed with his unshared memories.

Jake cleared his throat, the small sound bringing Tyler back to the hospital admitting room. He looked at the man Chelsea had loved for the past decade, and shrugged. “I love her. I love that I got her pregnant. I hope to do it again in a few years. I thank God every day for sending me out to Black Creek, Montana, and Julie for hiring her. The only thing I’m sorry for… Is that you got hurt. That your girls will get hurt. You’re quite a guy, you know? If we’d met under different circumstances, I think we would have been friends.”

The girls. Their mention swiped the anger from him and Jake sat down hard on one of the teal vinyl chairs. Jesus Christ, his daughters. Safe at his mother’s house in Bozeman, they were clueless. They were the primary reason he’d kept quiet for so long. This would blow their young minds. How could they do this to them?

After a moment, he stood up and crossed the room –– the strangely empty room. This was California, for heaven’s sake. Where was everyone? –– and looked with unseeing eyes out the window.

He heard Tyler walk over to him, but the man was smart –– he kept some distance between them. The other man’s voice was low when he spoke, but Jake heard him.

“Don’t worry about Faye and Grace. I love your daughters –– I’ll help them to get through it.”

Jake turned around, struck speechless by the actor’s arrogance. Did the man even realize what he was saying? Even realize how close he was to being ––

“It’ll take time,” Tyler said, his eyes grave, “but I’m sure that eventually they’ll come to see me as a second fath––“

Tyler never saw it coming.

One minute, he was trying to reassure Jake that his daughters would grow up loved in an expanded family, and in the next, he was stumbling back into the row of chairs against the cream painted, cement brick wall.

Gingerly, he touched his mouth, winced when he tasted copper. “Jesus, Jake ––“ and Chelsea’s husband was on him.

~*~

“Laurel! There’s two hot men duking it out in the admitting waiting area!”

Laurel Morning Star, Certified Nurse Midwife, turned to look at the young certified nurse assistant. The thin woman, barely out of her teens, was out of breath, her blue eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. “I think one of them is Ty Benson!”

Heaving a great, sarcastic sigh, Laurel set the cardboard box she’d been filling down on the desk from the counter of the nurses’ station. Her hazel-green eyes were skeptical as she focused on the nurses’ aide. “Yeah, right, Misty. Ty Benson, brawling in our hospital. You go to too many movies.”

The steel barbell in the younger woman’s tongue glinted under the fluorescents when she opened her mouth. “It’s true, Laurel! Come see for yourself!”

“You’re just trying to get me to stay. Well, forget it. I love you guys,” Laurel said, gesturing to the nurses’ station where some nurses were charting reports and others heading out on their rounds, “but I’m going back home –– they need my skills there more than they do here.”

Misty rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know you’re leaving, and I’ll miss you. But this is
bigger
than that! Just come and see already!”

Laurel allowed herself to be led down the hall and to the other side of the building by the CNA. When they reached the admitting area, a small crowd had already gathered, and she was shocked to overhear some of the medical staff placing bets on who would win, rather than break up the fight.

Sure enough, it was a knockdown, drag-out, brawl from what she could see, and Ty Benson was one-half of the match. The other half was some built guy with braided waist-length, wavy blonde hair, in a ribbon shirt.

Good Lord, it was Nurse “Cratchet” who insinuated her brawny self in between the two men. Laurel didn’t even know she was on this floor today. The staff must be short-handed.

The two men reluctantly allowed themselves to be separated –– one look at the large nurse was convincing enough –– Nurse Johnston was a scary mother, and that was just her personality. The hospital staff didn’t call her “Cratchet” for nothing.

Right now, Cratchet was pushing back Ty Benson, and an orderly held back ribbon shirt man, who chose that moment to look out into the hall. His eyes, a glorious sky blue, scanned the crowd that had already thinned out. Then they found Laurel. And fixed.

Her breath caught in her chest and she found herself reaching for Misty’s hand. Her knees trembled. Good lord, he was
beautiful!
Who was he? Where did he come from? How did he get that ribbon shirt? More importantly… Was he married?

“See? I told you that it was Ty Benson,” Misty declared, her voice low but triumphant.

“Who?” Laurel managed to whisper, her gaze still locked with those incredible, light blue eyes.

“Jeez, Laurel! You need to get out more!” Misty nudged the older woman in the waist, then lowered her voice. “You think now would be a good time to get Ty’s autograph?”

“Probably not.” Laurel’s eyes narrowed as she focused on the man’s shirt. The color pattern of those ribbons was familiar.

“Come on, Laurel.” Misty tugged at her arm. Laurel didn’t budge. One look from him and she was struck by lightning. She wanted to ask that man his name.

“Come
on
, Laurel! Cratchet is coming! You might be leaving this hospital, but I’m not!”

~*~

Jake watched as the breathtaking Native American woman allowed herself to be led away by the skinny, white chick in a pink uniform. Laurel. Her name was Laurel. He’d overheard the younger woman and thought, as he eyed the tall, broad nurse as she left the room, “Cratchet” was an accurate assessment.

But back to that Native nurse… Jesus Christ, she was
gorgeous
. Those eyes! That hair. That delicious skin –– was it as soft as it looked? What tribe was she from? Did she go to powwows? Was she a dancer? She looked as amazed to see him as he was to see her. Should he follow? He took as step in that direction.

“Well, that should make the papers,” Tyler said, the dry words rasping against his sore throat, sore because Jake had karate-chopped it.

Jake stopped, turned around. He’d forgotten that Tyler was even there. “Huh?”

The actor was seated in one of the chairs, his legs stretched out in front of him. He sported a large, ugly bruise on his chin and an even uglier one on his neck –– it looked like the hickey from hell. Not to mention that black eye –– Chelsea was gonna love that.