Wounded (In My Dreams) (7 page)

“I saw that and the empty wood rack in the back. Sure, I can cut wood like a manly man. We can fill up that storage shed at the edge of your property with wood for the winter.”

“That’s
all the way
down the hill,” I bitched, staring at him like he was nuts. “I’m not going down there and dragging the wood back up to the house all the time.”

“You won’t have to. That can be my job.”

I hid my smile behind my egg roll. Which meant he liked it here and planned to still be here in the winter. “Sure, I’ll do laundry and you handle the wood for fires.”

“
Deal!
I hate doing laundry.”

“You’re so easy,” I snickered, shaking my head.

“I am, but so are you. We make a great team.”

I nodded though I wasn’t sure if
one
day could really prove that. But I had hope. He’d already done in one morning what I’d been putting off for weeks. Again, I felt a little bit of tension leave my body, not so overwhelmed for once.

It was a nice feeling.

We cleaned up lunch and Jasper took the trays back downstairs. The fridge there had the wider shelves so it made sense to put it there even if he had to drag them up and down, otherwise we’d have to transfer them to something else to make them fit. He didn’t seem to mind.

I headed into my room and just about fell into my bed. The man had made me get up too early, exercise,
and
I was productive in writing. I was exhausted.

“I had an idea,” he hedged from my doorway.

I rolled over and kicked off my sneakers. “Okay, what?”

“Do you look for your pup when you wake up from a nap?”

I thought about it for a moment and shook my head. “Not normally, but I don’t sleep as long. It’s like I don’t reset to the ten years I did wake with him.”

“And maybe it would help if you got used to someone else being there instead. Not such a painful realization all the time. Like things changed?”

“Are you saying you want to take a nap in here? With
me
?”

He shrugged and moved around the bed. “It’s worth a shot, right?”

“Jasper, I snore,” I reminded him, thinking it was an odd suggestion that made me a little uncomfortable.

“I know. I’m a sound sleeper. It’s just a nap, Lily. Don’t make me wear you down.”

“Yeah, fine, hop in,” I chuckled, realizing he really would do that and I was too tired. He did and kept to his side, making it more like friends bunking together in my massive bed instead of a couple going to sleep.

I wasn’t sure that was any better because I wanted to curl up to him. As much as I liked Jasper, he was like yummy ice cream sitting there just begging me to eat it.

Strange analogy but he was
yummy
so I thought it worked. But it wasn’t a temptation I could give in to. I’d make a fool of myself, for sure. That was my last thought as sleep took me—
don’t make a fool of yourself
.

4

I woke a couple hours later with my head on Jasper’s shoulder and his arm around me. I cleared my throat and moved away, feeling bad I’d crossed a line. He acted like nothing had happened, rolling out of bed and stretching.

“So? Did it help?”

“I wasn’t thinking about my dog when I woke up,” I muttered, not specifying what I
had
been thinking of.

“Well, that’s a start. I’m going to go pull out those box springs and clean up the garage. Have fun writing.”

And just like that, he slid into his flip flops and walked out of the room. I blinked after him. He was odd and a little too perky. Then again, I wasn’t normal and I needed some perky in my life. I went back to my office and wrote for a few hours until I was dying for a smoke. I decided to have it in the garage and check out what he was up to.

His head shot up when I opened the door, bright smile on his face. “Lily, your garage is the
bomb
. Little TV, Wi-Fi Blu-ray player, iPod player, fan, little heater, mini fridge—the works!”

“Yeah, I’m spoiled,” I chuckled as I lit a smoke. “I always wanted an author cave instead of a bat cave or man cave. I had the space finally to do it so when I moved in and was so overwhelmed with unpacking, it was my first job. It took me a while to figure out how to get all the white boards up without making a mess or ruining anything but I think I’ve got it now.”

“Can I use this one over here for my own lists?” he asked, pointed to the moveable, sticky chalkboard one. “The markers are so fun.”

“Knock yourself out.”

He jumped up from the shelf he was cleaning and grabbed a marker. “Okay, give me some more jobs.”

“Where do you get all this energy from?” I teased, glad he was excited to help
me
but still thrown by it.

“Are you kidding me? I’m living the dream, Lily. You
saved me
. Yesterday I was homeless, smelly, malnourished, so dehydrated I couldn’t talk, alone, scared, without
anything
. Today, I’ve got a great place to live, an even better friend, a
bed
to sleep in, and all the food and drink I can stuff in my face.”

“To see life like you do,” I whispered, staring at him. “You never bitch about what happened to you or seem angry that life took such a turn you were homeless. You’re just excited not to be anymore.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not angry. I’m just grateful I’m still not on the streets,” he muttered as he turned away. I could take the hint. Discussion over. “So what jobs?”

“Umm, the toilet downstairs needs new guts. The current ‘fix’ is retightening the bolt inside every few weeks and that sucks. The stairs on the back porch are a joke. No one builds stairs with two two-by-fours, and they’re warped. I hate walking on there. I’m just waiting for someone else to take a spill and it be my fault.”

“Okay, good, I can handle both of those with the right supplies.”

“The banister top in the entryway needs—”

“Already glued it back on,” he interrupted, shooting me a wink over his shoulder. “I’m almost done out here too. I brushed the box springs off with a wet sponge and disinfected them with Lysol.” He nodded over to them leaning off to the side. When someone had a king-sized bed, most places recommended two twin box springs instead of a massive king box spring. So that was what I had done.

“Wow, okay, what else?” I asked to myself, but he took it as his to answer.

“I cleaned out your tool chest, wiped down everything, and put it back in all organized.”

I dropped my smoke and rushed over to him, throwing my arms around his neck and giving him a loud peck on the lips. “Oh my
god
, you’re amazing. I’ve been wanting to do that for years, but it’s so tedious and annoying, and I didn’t
want
to do it. I just wanted it done.”

“Glad you’re happy,” he whispered as his hands moved around my waist and up my back. I started to pull away, realizing I’d been overly friendly and excited about the damn tools and organization.

Instead Jasper pulled me against him and mashed his mouth down to mine. I couldn’t help my reaction, moaning as I kissed him back. Fuck, he even kissed as great as he looked.

Reality hit me seconds later when his hands moved down to my ass and I pushed away. “No, I can’t—we—no, Jasper. I—you—I—you can stay as long as you want.”

He took a step back and turned his head as if I’d slapped him. “You think that’s why I kissed you? I’m
whoring
myself out for a place to stay?”

“No,” I rasped, shaking my head. I
hated
I was handling this so badly and he was hurt, and I really didn’t want to see his angry side either. “No, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”

“For what, Lily? Insulting me or rejecting me?”

I walked away, picking up my smoke and putting it out before grabbing the pack. Time to go back to the porch and now I needed several. “I can’t risk it. I wouldn’t survive being used again. I’m not saying you are, but I also barely know you. I just—it’s not in me to risk. I can’t let anyone else use me.”

And with that
lame ass
explanation, I booked it into the house, my eyes scratching with the need to cry. I was
such
an idiot, all my crap piled on so high that it was all I ever saw.

I chain-smoked a few out on the deck before I went back to writing. Jasper didn’t come inside the whole time. Once I finished my word count for the day, I went to figure out dinner. I wanted to keep writing, get lost in the story instead of deal with the mess I made, but I found anything over nine thousand words a day and my hands were toast the next day.

Everything in life was a balancing act.

It wasn’t until I defrosted some burgers and started my nicely cleaned grill that Jasper came inside. He washed his hands at the kitchen sink, and I could practically feel his eyes on me. Then he came out on the deck and stole one of my cigarettes.

“Lily, do you want me to go?”

“No, no, Jasper,” I whispered, shaking my head. “
Please
don’t think that. I like having you here. You’re a huge help already, you’re becoming a good friend, and it’s nice not to be alone. You give me space and—I like you here.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, the sizzling of the meat as I put it on the grill the only thing in the air. “Are we going to talk about what happened then?”

“I owe you at least that,” I sighed as I turned down the flames and lowered the lid. I lit a smoke too and sat across the deck from him on the bench. “The last time I was seeing someone, it wasn’t for long and years ago. He called me, drunk off his ass, and asked me to hurry and get him published so he could get his ex-girlfriend back. That’s all I was to him. An in he saw to get what he wanted.”

“Did you help him?” he hedged, studying me closely.

“Fuck
no
,” I growled as anger surged through me. “For one, he was a
shit
writer. I don’t care if he was my husband or family, I’d
never
sully myself professionally to recommend someone I would never even read. And he was in a different genre. I didn’t have any contacts in poetry. He was stupid and naïve about the whole thing.”

“But he used you.”

“Yeah.” I glanced away and stared out into the woods on the other side of my neighbor’s house. “I made some friends in Colorado who wanted to model. I agreed to take some pictures and maybe use them on my covers. They were horrible to me, demanding, bitchy, and telling me how to do
everything
like they knew shit. All they wanted was an in. One of them acted like he was a saint because he was hooking me up with his friend, but the guy bailed an hour before the date because he found out I was an author.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jasper hedged. “You make it sound like he didn’t want to deal with backlash like if you were a prostitute or something.”

“Maybe that would have been better,” I chuckled bitterly, still not able to look at him. “He didn’t want to date anyone who made more money than him. He just assumed I did, and maybe I did, but I didn’t tell him what I made.”

“I know that hurt, but you have to see that wasn’t someone you’d want to date either.”

“I know. But then I ditched those models, completely cutting them off even after I took one to a conference with me. And they just wouldn’t stop, sending me nasty messages, emails, posting on my blog, and on and on. It was just,
god
.”

“So you started shutting everyone out.”

“No, that would have been smart but I decided to try once more. My neighbor had a friend who had seen me and asked if I was single. We went out and the whole night he asked about my marketing strategies, really pushed past polite conversational interest in the other person’s job. I was annoyed because by then I’d started lying about what I did for a living but he already knew from my neighbor.

“At the end of the meal, he stood up and told me I could pay for dinner, I had the money and it was the least I could do after he gave me a night of his life since he didn’t get anything good to help his own books sales. Then he walked out of the restaurant.”

“Jesus Christ, people are assholes,” Jasper hissed and I couldn’t disagree. “So you shut down and moved?”

“Yeah, I went to a weight loss clinic, they put me on a diet pill that helped but made me a little crazy. I visited Omaha and really liked it here. Found a place and moved. The move was horrible. They broke just about anything they could that wasn’t covered under the mover’s policy. My renters policy didn’t cover any of it even though I’d
asked
and they said it had.”

“Then that shit with work,” he muttered and my head snapped in his direction. “I heard you talking on the phone with your mom last night.” I nodded and looked away again. “What happened?”

“It’s long, complicated, and doesn’t have a happy ending,” I admitted, too raw to drag up any other hurtful topics.