All Roads Lead Home (30 page)

“Are you okay? I wasn’t too rough, was I?”

“No, and I loved your version of rough. Jagger, that was…amazing. I may not be able to ride my horse for the next few days.”

“That’s okay, baby. The only thing I want you to ride is my dick.”

“Jagger! Oh my God! You sure do have a filthy mouth on you.”

“Yeah I do, and one I want to use on you again. You taste delicious, and I love how I taste on you baby.”

“Jagger, I was being serious. I may not be able to get out from this bed.”

“Good. That was my intention all along.”

“What? You knew I would ask you to make love to me today?”

He smiled wickedly. “I was hoping. Making love to you again is all I’ve been thinking about. I want nothing more than to have your body under mine. So yes, you’re not getting out of this bed anytime soon.”

“I think my daddy may have a thing or two to say about that.”

“I think you’re right, but he’s not here right now, so don’t worry about it.”

After an agonizing night of overthinking every aspect of my life, I’m here now with Jagger. Reconnecting with one another has been as easy as riding a bike.

I’ve come home for the first time in five years. A place where I’m loved, protected, and wanted. It took Jamie’s letters to make me see what I was trying so hard to forget. All those feelings were always right in front of me, I just needed to open my eyes to see it, and open my heart to feel it.

Jamie’s words were my awakening. Jagger’s promises of a future together are my truth, my reality, and all I have to do is say
yes
to him, and it can all be mine.

He continued to draw out circle eights along my skin, as I gathered up my courage to turn over and say the words he was waiting to hear from me. His movement slowly stopped, and I shifted to look at him and saw that he fell asleep.
God, he was beautiful.
So I kissed his lips ever so gently.

As I watched my handsome and rugged man fall deeper into a sound sleep, my mind calmed and my heart raced. He was the only man I have ever loved. Every girl fantasizes about the man she will marry. The perfect guy with no flaws. The perfect guy who will never hurt you and vow to love you to the end of time. Some girls say they don’t exist, but I never doubted my prince or my cowboy…not ever. Jagger won my heart the day he opened up his for me. Even at seventeen, I was an over thinker, but somehow he managed to get around that and made me his.

To lay so close with him now, I don’t know how I’m not crying my eyes out. Everyone who knows our story may believe it was easy for me to walk away from the life I had here. My future with Jagger, and what I chose instead, but they would all be wrong.

When you lose someone you love, you do lose a part of yourself. Daddy was right about grief swallowing you up. I’m living proof of that. I buried my hurt, masked my pain, and created someone new. One who on the outside looked happy and confident, one who had her shit together. My inside looked way different, and I allowed no one to see it, not even Zoey and Tommy.

I loved what I did for a living. It fueled my competitive side with adrenaline and fire, but Wendy was right, it didn’t keep me warm at night. Now, I get that second chance to begin again with Jagger. All I needed to do was say the words. Was there ever a doubt? I didn’t think so. I didn’t think I could be here with him now if there was. I kissed him on his lips. His beautiful swollen lips from kissing me. He twitched slightly when I did it again.

“I love you, cowboy. My answer is yes, to all of it. I’m ready to let go and take that leap of faith with you. All I ask of you is to please catch me, and don’t let me fall. I love you, Jagger…my answer is YES.”

I SLOWLY OPENED up my eyes as I felt her heart beat slowly next to mine. She had fallen asleep, whereas I had not. I was completely awake and heard every word she whispered to me, even the thoughts she didn’t speak out loud.

Tenley said
yes.
One word to simply change the hands of time, and me, for all of eternity. This right here is what I promised myself I would have again. To not follow her when she left five years ago was the hardest thing for me to do. A promise between best friends sealed my fate, and I let her go. I don’t know if I could have done it had Jamie lived, but I wasn’t a man to ever go back on my word and wouldn’t begin with Jamie. He trusted me. He also knew his sister and the battle she would wage within herself. How right he was, but it changed when she came home.

I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of Tenley. Sure I knew I could provide for her and the family we dreamed of having. But I needed to be confident that I was worthy as the keeper of her heart.

For a time, I wasn’t sure and doubted myself after what happened with Shane. I never felt so betrayed in all of my life, but Jamie made me see reason and find the understanding under the convoluted situation I was in.

I’ll never forget my last day with Tenley, and how I begged her to stay, but she still got on that fucking bus. I watched her get on that bus and retreat to the back. I stayed in the shadows, only to catch the last glimpse of her as she peered out the window.

I saw the devastation of her choice written all over her beautiful tear-stained face. She never knew that I got into my truck and followed her bus to the airport. Then stayed hidden and watched her nearly stumble through the crowd through her tears. The pain of my broken girl before me ripped through my soul. It would take seconds to just catch up to her and take her in my arms, and hold her. To soothe her and tell her that I was in love with her. To promise to wait for her, and to forgive her. When I watched Tenley board her plane, that’s what I saw and heard myself doing, but I knew the forgiving part would take some time. Driving back to the ranch seemed like the longest drive of my life. I couldn’t hide my hurt from anyone, especially my father, who knew the second his eyes met mine.

He said nothing and handed me an ax. For the next hour I chopped blocks of wood, hundreds of them, to beat the pain out of me, but it was not to be found, not today. I needed to feel it, to remind me that she was real and what we had was not a dream I created in my mind.

My muscles were on fire, but I took the burn and continued to chop the wood until the last block was split in half, kind of like my heart. I fell to my knees and leaned against the ax handle and…cried.

The following days were a blur after she left. Jamie had been released from the hospital and now was home for good. My father told me that Brock had told him about Jamie halting his treatments, and I should be a friend and go to him. I was so lost over losing Tenley. How could I have offered any solace to Jamie, when I was broken myself?

Jamie had chosen to live the time he had left on his ranch. To return to the land he gave his life for. I felt detached from mine, and I don’t even know how I got there, but I was on his doorstep, the same doorstep I visited thousands of times throughout my entire life. He opened the door and invited me in. Just seeing my best friend already was helping in picking up the pieces to my shattered heart. The same heart his sister had broken.

Jamie looked like Jamie, and at the time, I had thought maybe my father had bullshitted me just so I could get out from the rock I had climbed under. The house was quiet, too quiet without her voice resonating through it. He handed me a beer and he said his peace.

“You look like shit,” Jamie said to me as he raised his beer to his lips.

“Gee! Thanks a fucking billion for that.” I said and gulped my beer down. He handed me another and asked me to listen to him. I thought I may have needed a few more beers to do that, but I didn’t. Talking to Jamie was as easy as breathing. He never minced words and always spoke from his heart. He asked me to listen to him, and I gave him my word I would. But then…what he said next would shatter me even more.

“Jagger, I’m dying. Not the type of dying we will all face some day, but dying and I mean soon. My leukemia is back and my doctors have exhausted every idea to cure me. It’s just too strong, and I don’t have too many more days to fight it, which is why I need you to hear me out and promise me something.”

“Anything.” The one word that easily rolled off my tongue. Here was my best friend, my brother, asking me a favor with what he was facing. My personal pain felt small compared to what Jamie was going through. I put aside my feelings, and put my brother first, and was willing to do whatever he asked of me.

“I was hoping you would say that because what I’m about to ask of you to do will be a true test to our friendship and the love you have for my sister.”

“What are you talking about? What does Tenley have to do with this?”

“Everything. Jagger, she is the sole reason for the promise I am going to ask you to make.”

“Which is what?” I asked him. His dancing around it was pissing me off.

“Let her go,” he quietly said.

“I have, Jamie, or do you see her here somewhere? I watched her board that fucking plane and walk completely out of my life and the life we were going to have together. Let her go? Yeah, that ship has sailed, and it’s headed for the other side of the country.”

“I’m sorry, Jagger. I think I’ve wasted your time here today, and wasted mine as well. For me, time is precious. You take care, man, I believe you know the way out.”

He got up and began walking toward the stairs that would take him up to his room.

“What the fuck, man? That’s all I get after everything we’ve been through? You just up and leave like your fucking bitch of a sister did?”

In my moment of anger, the words slipped out from my mouth, words I would never truly mean, but to Jamie, I crossed a line that made him see red. He charged me like a bull and pinned me up against the wall fireplace. The hard bricks were piercing my back, as his bear claw hands gripped my shoulders.

“You fucking asshole! As long as I draw breath, no one, and I mean no one, will ever speak of my sister like the way you just did. Do you hear me, Jagger? Because I’m not a man that will say it twice. If you dare to be so careless and free with your mouth again, I’ll be putting my fist in it and break your fucking jaw. Get the hell out of my house!”

He screamed at me and released his hold. I crumbled to the floor and called out for him to wait. I begged him to talk to me. I would agree to anything he asked of me. I couldn’t lose Jamie and our friendship, not when I knew I would lose him forever to his cancer. God would be calling him home soon enough, and I couldn’t waste one more minute with him.

“I’m sorry Jamie, please forgive me. I don’t even know what I’m saying right now. I’m so hurt over losing Tenley, I can’t think straight, let alone see what’s right in front of me. You are my brother, my best friend, come on, man. Can I stay?”

“Get up off your knees and have another beer. I’ll be right back.”

I watched him go upstairs and come back down a few minutes later carrying what looked like a shoe box.

“Jagger, first off, I can’t even begin to know how you feel about what happened with Shane. It’s a hurt I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and for what it’s worth, I am very sorry you ever had to go through that. For the record, my sister is faring no better for her part in it. I’ve had to watch her for weeks now retreat deeper and deeper into a dark place. It nearly broke me every time I would see her cry, which was all day, every day.”

“You haven’t lost her, not in the way you think. I know how much you love her, but this is not your time, I know this because I know her. She loves you, Jagger, more than she loves herself, but even knowing that, she still had to choose her own heart and where it was leading her over you and what you wanted. If she had stayed, she would have resented you in the end, and the future you want with her would cease to exist.”

“Jamie, what are you talking about? She left. We have no future. You can sit here and tell me otherwise, but the fact remains is that she didn’t love me enough to stay and try. She took that bus and then boarded that plane without me. How can you say I haven’t lost her?”

“Jagger, you’re going to have to trust me. I was the one that pushed her to leave. She had to go and finish what she started. Do you even know how much she sacrificed to earn her degree? Taking double the course load for all four years? It’s an incredible accomplishment, and what a bad ass my little sister is. You only remember the good times when you reunited and just had each other. Do you even know what it meant for my sister to receive that acceptance letter from Yale? Yale, Jagger! Fucking Yale Law School. It’s mind blowing. I was never prouder to hold her in my arms and be her big brother. All she wanted to do was tell you, and hope you were just as proud. You didn’t listen, did you? All you saw was Tenley moving on with her dream of becoming a lawyer and leaving you behind.”

Jamie continued, “Maybe it was selfish on her part, but no more than you asking her to give it up for you. Don’t even go there because I know what you are going to say. You did ask her, but she said no. What did you expect? She loved you, but to give up Yale would have destroyed her. Your lack of faith in her nearly did, and when you kicked her off your property, you might as well kicked her right through her heart and led her straight to Shane.”