Someone to Watch Over Me (13 page)

He was turning the corner, heading down her street when a car pulled to the curb beside him and stopped. The window on the passenger side of the SUV slid down, and filling the opening was the face of a woman with long, dark hair and pretty, green eyes.

He knew those eyes.

“Jax,” she said appreciatively, her face lighting up. “Where have you been hiding? It’s been ages since I saw you. And even longer since you called me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten you were supposed to call me.”

“Hey, Debbie,” he said.

“Need a ride? Just hop in. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

And she would. He had no doubt about that. Anywhere he wanted to go.

Maybe that was what he needed tonight, and even if it wasn’t, it sure couldn’t hurt. His life had been so full of
chemo and doctors’ visits and sitting up nights with his mother while her body positively ached, that he hadn’t been anywhere or done anything in the longest time.

He started to ask Debbie,
Promise we don’t have to talk about anything?
Because that sounded really good.

Then he glanced down the sidewalk at Gwen. She’d stopped now. She was standing under a streetlight about fifteen feet away, watching him and waiting to see what he did.

He wondered how Miss Nonjudgmental was doing right now.

It was one thing to hear about him and his women, but another thing to see it with her own eyes.

And he felt like a heel, despite the fact that he’d told her up front exactly what he was like, and she’d claimed she understood, and they really weren’t anything but friends anyway. So why this should even matter that much, he didn’t understand.

“Go home, Gwen. I’ll watch until you’re inside the house,” he said, then reached out and opened up the door to Debbie’s SUV.

He saw Gwen flinch, like he’d struck her, and then she called out, “You really think this is going to make all those things you’re feeling just go away?”

“For a while.” If that was the best he could do, he’d take it. Anything just to let go of all this for a little bit of time.

Gwen turned and walked down the sidewalk.

Jax waited and watched, standing in the doorway of the SUV.

“Trouble with the new girlfriend?” Debbie asked.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jax said. And she never would be. But she’d been kind to him, and he didn’t have to do this in front of her.

He waited until she was safely inside her house, and then he climbed in the SUV beside Debbie. They’d had a nice, brief relationship about a year ago, and he hadn’t seen her since.

“Thanks for waiting,” he said.

“No problem,” she said. “Anyplace in particular you’d like to go? I’d invite you back to my place, but I’m just visiting for the weekend, and I’m staying at my folks’….”

“Just turn right here and go halfway down the block to the little brick house with the white trim,” he said.

She did, parking out front. His sisters would hear about this, too, and they’d really have a fit. Two women here, late, on the same night. He’d never hear the end of it.

“Your mom still sick?” Debbie asked as she climbed out of the car and clicked on the key to lock it.

“No. Not anymore,” he said and let it go at that. She hadn’t heard the news, and he was just fine with that. “Where have you been anyway?”

“Atlanta. I got an apartment with some of my friends from college, and I’m loving it.” She slid her arm through his and let him lead her up the stairs and inside. In the living room, she turned and said, “Of course, I haven’t met anyone there half as interesting as you.”

And then she grabbed him.

He waited for those old feelings to come over him, to black out nearly everything else, but when he closed his eyes, all he saw was Gwen’s face.

Jax pulled away abruptly, the woman who’d been in his arms staring at him strangely. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Is your mom or someone here?”

“No. It’s just us.”

“Good. I really did miss you, Jax. I’m so glad I ran into you tonight.”

He was confused.

How did all of this work again?

He didn’t feel anything.

She grabbed him again and he braced himself, trying to make this work, trying—

And then she screamed.

Jax jumped back, spotting Romeo at their feet.

“That thing licked my knee,” Debbie complained, wiping off her leg with her hand and then holding out that hand as if it had been contaminated.

Romeo took a step forward and started licking her palm.

“Ooohhh,” she cried. “Get away from me.”

Romeo growled.

“Jax?” She climbed onto the sofa, like she thought Romeo might make a snack of her in the next ten seconds.

“He won’t hurt you,” Jax said, taking her hand to steady her and then turned to the dog. “I don’t understand it. He loves women.”

“Well, I’d hate to be one he disliked.”

“Romeo, come on.” Jax grabbed him by the collar and headed for the back door, Romeo howling all the way. Jax practically booted him out the door and slammed it in the dog’s face.

Debbie was still standing on the sofa. “I hate dogs.”

“Yeah, this one drives me crazy, too.”

Romeo was outside scratching at the door and howling. Jax opened the door wide enough to threaten him again, not that it did any good. Romeo only howled louder.

“Is he going to keep that up?”

“Probably,” Jax said, actually grateful to the dog for once. “I don’t know what’s wrong. He’s never done this before.”

“I can’t stay here with that racket.”

“Sure. I understand.” He had to work not to grin as he hustled her to the front door.

She pouted prettily. Or maybe she thought it was pretty. “Call me?”

“Sure.” He’d call, and then he’d probably make some excuse not to see her again, but he would call, at least to be nice.

She got into her car and waved cheerily. He was happy when she finally disappeared around the next corner. Romeo came trotting around the side of the house and stood by Jax’s side. When Jax looked down, the dog was grinning.

“What was that about?” Jax asked.

Romeo gave Jax his best Mr. Innocent look.

“No. You knew exactly what you were doing,” Jax insisted, then realized he was arguing with a dog, something that seemed to be happening more and more frequently. “What is it? You want a girl for yourself? Is that it? If you can’t have one, I can’t either? Because, that’s just what we need—another dog running around here, and then a dozen little Romeos.”

Romeo decided to ignore him. He walked up the front steps and waited by the door for Jax to let him in.

“No doubt about it,” Jax said. “You have got to go.”

G
wen did not cry.

She was too mad.

Mad at herself and at Jackson Cassidy and the world in general.

She’d started to hope. Hope that she’d be all better someday. That she could get back most of what her life had been like before
it
happened. That she could find a man to love someday and to marry and to have children with, and that life could be good, just as she always thought it would be.

And she’d entertained thoughts that that man might just be Jackson Cassidy. No matter what he’d told her about the women he liked and how little he truly wanted from them.

She thought he really just didn’t know what he wanted, and that maybe she could make him realize that, and that once she did, he’d realize he wanted a relationship with her.

Her, Gwen the mouse, who was afraid of her own shadow, sometimes. I’m-saving-myself-for-marriage Gwen.

Sure.

Like
that
was going to happen.

She sat miserably in her living room, and her gaze happened to land on the angel on the mantel, but she didn’t feel like sobbing out her troubles to anyone.

She wanted to yell at someone.

Mostly, she wanted to yell at God, but she’d been raised to show reverence for Him at all times. Not that she’d always managed. But she’d never yelled at Him in anger, either.

She’d cried out in fear. She’d begged Him to help her when that awful man had attacked her in that dark alley, hurting her, and she’d thought she was going to die.

But He hadn’t answered her then. Or had He?

She’d felt as alone as she’d ever been in her life, and it had left her furious and completely without faith, and…Well, she couldn’t yell at Him now, if she didn’t even believe in Him, could she?

Gwen puzzled over it for a moment.

Of course, she shouldn’t be afraid to yell at Someone she didn’t even believe in, either.

Obviously, she believed something. She’d survived the last year and now, her life seemed to be getting better. She was feeling stronger and more hopeful, and it didn’t seem to be anything she’d done on her own.

In fact, all along it had seemed like she was supposed to come here, like things were falling into place for her here, like maybe this was something Someone had intended for her all along.

Like God, maybe, guiding her along to a place where she could be happy and feel safe. To people who’d be nice to her and take care of her.

Of course, at the moment, things weren’t going exactly as she’d hoped or expected.

Jax was furious with her and hurt, and he was off with another woman, and that made Gwen even more furious.

She wanted his arms around
her.
She wanted to be there because he realized how stupid and how scared he’d been, and he was in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

That’s what she thought, maybe, God had put together for her, but maybe she was wrong.

I really thought it was going to be him,
she prayed.
I thought I had it all figured out.

Jax slept late and woke up groggy and grumpy to a dog scratching and barking at the back door, wanting to go out.

He let the dog out, then stood in the kitchen hating that he was still here, that he’d made so little progress in getting his life back to normal, that he still felt so lousy.

He hated that he was worried about Gwen and wanted to call her or go see her and say he was sorry, and that he couldn’t give her what she wanted or make her happy.

He hated that the dog was still here, still annoying him, and that soon his sisters would be here, yelling at him and then crying, and that he felt completely inadequate to deal with them or anything else today.

And then he decided to go running until he dropped.

He changed into his running clothes and shoes, grabbed a house key, a bottle of water and Romeo’s leash, and off they went.

He must have looked really bad, because the first three people he saw that morning all asked if he was okay. Not in that polite way people had of inquiring about someone’s well-being, but in a way that told him they really wanted to say,
You look terrible. What’s wrong?

He mumbled something he hoped they couldn’t quite make out and kept running. He and Romeo made it into the park, crossed Falls Creek on one of the footbridges, tried
not to even look at the flower shop where Gwen worked and headed toward the eastern edge of town. Without meaning to, he ended up near one of the last places he wanted to go—the cemetery.

He hadn’t been there since the funeral.

Romeo barked happily and took off through the cemetery gates.

“Hey,” Jax shouted. “Get back here.”

But Romeo just kept right on running.

Jax should have had him on the leash, but the dog loved to run, and he was usually very well behaved. He knew if he wasn’t, he’d stay shackled to Jax.

“Romeo, stop,” Jax tried.

Nothing.

And if Jax didn’t know better, he’d say the dog was heading right for Jax’s mother’s grave.

Jax stood there, sweating and breathing hard, thinking he could just let the stupid dog go. But if anything happened to him, his mother would…Well, she wouldn’t do anything, because she was well and truly gone.

So it shouldn’t matter to her what happened to her precious dog.

But it mattered to Jax. She’d asked him to take care of the dog, and that didn’t include letting him run loose all over town.

Groaning aloud to let go of some of his frustrations, Jax set off after the dog. Sure enough, he was right there by Jax’s mother’s grave.

It didn’t even have a headstone yet, and the groundskeepers had removed the flowers that had been there at the funeral. They’d patted down the ground, so that Jax had to look to find the spot where they’d put her.

But there it was, and Romeo was lying on top of the
freshly packed mound of earth, looking as happy as he had lying on her bed next to her before she died. He had a huge grin on his face, and he was panting, his tongue hanging out, and making the most ridiculous noises. Little grunts and whines, almost as if he was talking to her.

The dog looked up and saw Jax and barked happily, as if to say,
Look! I found her!

Jax slowly came closer, and Romeo licked his hand and then trotted happily around the grave, before plopping down on top of it again, as though he could happily stay there for the rest of his life.

Jax planted himself at the base of a big old oak tree fifteen feet away. He backed up to it and then slid down, letting the weight of the tree support him on his way down, and then he sat on the ground and fought in vain to hold his emotions in check.

They bubbled inside of him, swelled like a growing thing, threatened to choke him when he tried to hold them back and then to smother him when he finally set them free.

It was a physical ache, a physical pressure that he simply didn’t know how to fight. Tears fell down his face. He let his head fall back against the tree and looked up through its branches to the lazy blue of a brand-new morning’s sky. The sun was up, but still low enough in the sky that it held a pinkish glow, as did the horizon line.

A brand-new day.

Would it be as lousy as the last one?

“I can’t do this,” he said, to no one at all.

Romeo whined and lifted his head, as if to ask if Jax was talking to him.

Jax laughed. He was either talking to a dog or his dead mother or a God he didn’t believe in. He wasn’t sure which idea was worse.

“I can’t,” he said again, deciding it would have to be his mother. “Really, I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Can’t, what?
she’d say. He could almost hear her.

Closing his eyes tightly, tears streaming down his face, he said, “I can’t do this. I can’t deal with this. I don’t know how to be here without you.”

They’d had a lot of conversations before she died. Late at night, the lights turned down, no one around but him and her. She hadn’t been afraid to talk about dying or what she believed would happen afterward or what she thought her son needed to do.

He knew exactly what she’d say to him right now.

You can do this. You just don’t realize it yet. It’s too close now. It hurts too much.

“That’s it. It hurts too much. I’m not strong enough. I have all these things I have to do and all these people depending on me, and I can’t handle it. I’m going to let you down. It’s probably the most important thing you’ve ever asked of me, and I’m going to let you down.”

No, darling. You’re not. You’re going to be just fine, and your sisters are, too. It’s just going to take some time. And I don’t expect you to fix everything. In fact, the most important thing I need for you to do is to look after yourself. Everything else will fall into place the way it’s supposed to. You’ll see.

“I don’t see how anything is going to work out. I don’t have that kind of blind faith that you do—”

It’s not blind. I know exactly what I believe in. Life taught me what’s real and what isn’t. What’s important and what isn’t.

“But it hasn’t taught me. Or maybe it tried, and I just didn’t get it, and I know I let you down with that. I know I disappointed you so badly—”

“Jax?”

He scrambled upright, breathing hard, expecting…He didn’t know what he expected, but it was just a friend of his mother’s from church.

“Mrs. Myers?”

“Yes, dear. Come to visit your mother?” she asked, as if it was perfectly normal to be trying to talk to her at her grave.

“Yes,” he said.

“Me, too. I miss talking to her, so I come here sometimes and just talk.”

“You do?”

“Of course. I decided, why not? It makes me feel closer to her, even though she’s gone.”

“That’s…uhhh…” Weird, he thought, but he really didn’t care anymore. He missed her too much to care if it was weird to want to talk to her still.

Of course, his mother had claimed, after his father died, that there had been times when she’d just know what he’d think about something, what he would have said to her, if he’d still been there, and that she’d taken comfort in knowing.

So, maybe it wasn’t all that weird.

“Now, I know you miss her, dear, but is something else going on? You seem so troubled.”

“I’m…uhhh.” What to say?

“You know she loved you,” Mrs. Meyers said. “That she was so proud of you—”

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Of course she was.”

“No. Really. She was disappointed in me. She told me so, right before she died.”

“Oh, Jax, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard—”

“She said it. I was there. It was the last thing she said to me.”

“She may have been disappointed in a few parts of your life, and I’m sure you can imagine what those were. But those are just pieces of who you are, not the sum and total of you. That, she loved. No question. She’d be disappointed if you ever believed otherwise—”

“Mrs. Myers—”

“She would think she’d been a bad mother to you, if she’d died without you knowing how much she loved you and how proud she was of you.”

Could that be true? He wanted it to be true, wanted it desperately.

“I don’t know what to do without her,” he said.

“None of us do, yet. It’s too soon. We’re still looking up and thinking she’s going to be there. It’ll just take some time. Don’t you worry. Just try to take care of yourself. The rest will work out.”

“I don’t think I believe that,” he confessed.

“Well, it will. And you know what your mother would have said, dear? She'd have said, If you don’t believe yet, it’s because life hasn’t taught you to believe yet. Those are life lessons, dear. She was a firm believer in the fact that God gives us every lesson we need to learn, whenever we’re ready for it.”

“But she knew I didn’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter. She believed it, and she trusted Him to take care of you. And He will. I don’t have any doubts about that, and one day, you won’t either. You’re going to be just fine.”

“I’m nowhere near being fine. I’m falling apart.”

“You’re sad and missing her, and, as for the rest of it,
you’re a work in progress, dear. No one expects you to be perfect.”

“I’d settle for not being miserable.”

“And one day you won’t be. You have so much time, Jax, and so many people who love you. You’ll have days that are filled with nothing but joy, and you’ll have hard times, but you’ll get through them. You’re going to be fine. I promise.”

Jax sat there for a long time after the woman was gone, feeling sad but not so horrible anymore, as he fought to believe the things his mother’s friend had said.

Romeo was still there, sprawled on top of the grave, grinning and happy as could be. He came over and nudged Jax’s side. Jax unhooked the bottle, took a few long swallows and then gave the rest to the dog. Romeo opened up his mouth wide and Jax squirted the water in. Kids loved that little trick, and Romeo loved showing off.

Romeo finished his water and went and plopped back down on the grave, content as could be.

Jax thought about all the things he needed to take care of, but didn’t want to, and then he thought of Gwen.

You’d have liked her, Mom. She’s as kindhearted as you were.

And she probably couldn’t stand him right now.

And he was back to trying to talk to his dead mother about it.

“Okay,” Jax said, getting to his feet and trying to figure out what to do next. He picked up the water bottle, picked up Romeo’s leash, because he was afraid he was going to need it.

“Gonna go quietly?” he asked the dog. “Or do I need to restrain you and drag you out of here?”

Romeo whined and put his head down flat against the ground, as if he liked it just fine where he was.

“Knew it,” Jax said.

He got the leash attached to Romeo’s collar, and then they played tug-of-war all the way to the cemetery entrance. Jax won. Barely. Romeo cried all the way. It was pathetic. Really. Jax barely managed not to shed a tear.

“Maybe they need a guard dog,” Jax said. “Maybe one of the groundskeepers could hire you, and you could live there, with what’s left of her. That would be a great job for you.”