What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 9) Read online

  “And second,” she said, cutting him off. “Why aren’t you on the beach with her?”

  “She… uh….” Like an idiot, he’d walked right into that one. His mother was far too perceptive—and inquisitive—to let his comment slide.

  “Something’s wrong. I know it.”

  He started to pace again, and finished off his beer while he did mental gymnastics trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t set off her bullshit detector. “Nothing’s wrong, Mom.” Yeah, that should do it, dickhead.

  His mother’s amusement came through loud and clear. “You’ve always been too direct to be a good liar, son. But thanks for the entertainment. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  He pushed the curtain aside and secured it with the tasseled rope. Watching the huge waves rolling in, he felt small, petty even. Why couldn’t he and Rickie just talk? After taking a deep breath, he pushed the truth out. “We had a fight.”

  “Already?”

  His chuckle sounded bitter, harsh. So unlike him. “Must be some kind of record, huh? I should call the folks at Guinness. Get into their next book.”

  “Oh, Jamie. I know how much you want things to work out with Erica. What happened?”

  Rubbing the line of pain that reached from his gut to his throat, he stepped out onto the lanai. “That’s just it, Mom. I don’t know. I do something. I think she hates it, so I do something else. She gets mad. I do the first thing again, thinking she’ll be happy. But no. She’s mad. Again.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know the specifics of what you’re talking about.” He could hear the affection and humor in her voice. Caroline Caldwell deserved a nomination to sainthood for having raised four boys and an incredibly contrary girl.

  “Have I changed much since meeting Rickie?”

  Empty air filled the line again.

  He sat on the foot of one of the padded chaise longue. “It’s okay to tell me. I did ask.”

  She sighed. “You’ve matured a great deal. You’ve accepted your responsibilities and settled down. Those are all good things.”

  “Sure, but by your tone, there’s more. Like maybe not all the changes are good ones.”

  “They aren’t.”

  “Talk to me, Mom. I’m a desperate man.”

  “And right there is the problem, isn’t it?”

  Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he raked his free hand through his hair, as a headache began to pound his brain like a boxer in the ring. Everyone seemed to be talking in tongues. Maybe he was having an aneurysm. “I want Rickie to be happy. That’s not a bad thing.”

  “It’s exactly what a husband should want. But why are you so desperate for her happiness, even at the cost of your own?”

  “Because I love her.”

  “There’s more to it than that.”

  “There really isn’t. I love my wife. I want her to be happy. End of story.”

  “Jamie. Lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself. There’s more to it. Think hard.”

  “Because I owe her.” His voice sounded strangled.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” His mother would have made a great psychiatrist. Or military interrogator. “Why do you owe her?” she asked.

  His mouth slammed shut and his molars ground together. It would take the Jaws of Life to free the words trapped in his throat.

  Seeming to grasp his current inability to speak, she began to fill the silence. “I never mentioned this to you before, even during the divorce, because I didn’t think you wanted to know. Perhaps you weren’t ready to admit it to yourself. But you know what, Jamie? I think you’re ready now, so I’m just going to say my piece. If you want to make things work with Erica—and I believe you do—you need to understand and acknowledge your role in what’s happened. So tell me—what do you owe her?”

  “Everything!” he blurted. “Christ, Mom. I ruined the girl’s life.” His volume had risen to a shout. He shot a furtive glance at the area surrounding the cottage, then headed inside. No need to let all of Oahu in on his problems.

  “Does she feel the same?”

  “Yes.” Had they actually ever discussed it? There’d been so much going on at the time, he wasn’t sure. He cleared his throat. “I don’t know.”

  “In the five years you’ve been together, you’ve never talked about how getting pregnant impacted her life? So you actually don’t know anything.”

  “She had plans, Mom. She was going to be a lawyer. The pregnancy changed all of that. But my life? It continued pretty much according to schedule.”

  “And you feel guilty about that.”

  “I’m not a sociopath. Of course, I do.”

  “Enough to mold yourself into the man you think she wants?”

  He thought about that for a moment, then shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “No. Into the man she deserved.” His mother’s sigh hit his heart like a battering ram. “Whatever you’re thinking, I’m not pussy-whipped.”

  “I never said you were, dear.”

  If defending yourself against your own accusations meant anything, he was so fucking pussy-whipped. And he’d done it all to himself. Stupid bastard. “How the hell am I supposed to fix this?”

  “Well, you start by introducing yourself to her. Let her get to know the man you really are.”

  “I’m not sure I know who that is anymore.”

  “This might sound harsh, but stop judging yourself by Erica’s standards. Because you obviously have no idea what she’s thinking or what she wants. Do what feels right and good to you. If she likes it or she doesn’t, she’ll tell you. Don’t assume anything.”

  He leaned his head against the wall and groaned. “That’s not going to help. Even when I ask her, I don’t understand the answer. The words are all English, but they don’t make any damn sense.”

  Her laughter eased some of the pain in his head, some of the ache in his chest. “Erica is a good woman. Listen to what she doesn’t say and you’ll be just fine.”

  Christ. He’d gone and jinxed himself. Why were women so fucking complicated?

  Erica approached the cottage from the side. As she rounded the corner and the lanai came into view, she froze. Her heart gave a hard thump, then contracted painfully.

  Dressed in black shorts and an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt, Jamie sat at one of the deck chairs, a sight to behold. The setting sun sent rays dancing over his golden skin, creating caramel highlights in his mahogany-colored hair. Like a fine wine, her husband had only improved with the passing years. Age and hard physical work had enhanced the edginess in his features: the cut jawline and the sharp blade of his aristocratic nose, a reminder of his British ancestry. The whiteness of his shirt against his tanned skin emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his chest muscles.

  Her gaze flowed down to his flat stomach and ridged abs. Abs that begged to be licked. She swallowed and ran her tongue over her dry lips.

  Legs stretched out before him, he lounged in the deck chair. The position put on display his powerful thighs and calves, the result of vigorous exercise and innumerable trips up and down the practice tower.

  With reluctance, she brought her gaze back up to his face. Dark sunglasses denied her his amazing Caldwell blue eyes, but saved her from his piercing—no doubt, accusing—glare.

  Steeling her resolve, she stepped up onto the lanai. Jamie’s only acknowledgement of her arrival was a slight tightening of his lips. She pulled out a chair across from him and sat on the edge, her hands cradled in her lap. She hadn’t been this nervous around him since that day she’d sought him out, pregnant and alone. He’d had all the power. Had he chosen, he could have turned her away. Many men in his position would have.

  This time, things were different. This time, she had all the power. But only if she grabbed control of the conversation. Inhaling deeply, she filled her lungs to capacity, before slowly releasing her breath. Jamie continued to stare out at the ocean, ignoring her. “Jamie, can we talk?” Okay, n
ot quite the power play she’d envisioned. She tried again. “I mean, we need to talk.” There that was better.

  He slowly turned to her, the tinted lenses making it impossible for her to read his mood. On the other hand, the stiffness of his posture and the turning in of his lips told her plenty.

  She pushed some more. “We need to talk about what just happened. About what happened on our reunion night.”

  His face as unmoving as a statue, he made a tiny “go-ahead” gesture with his hand, as if she weren’t worth the effort of movement or conversation.

  She huffed in annoyance. “I can’t do this alone.”

  “No?” His brow arched over the rim of his glasses and his mouth curved into a smirk. “You’ve proved you’re quite good at doing things alone.”

  Erica closed her eyes. She deserved that dig. Jamie was tough, but she’d pushed him, hurt him, over and over this past year. Yet despite everything, he’d only shown his pain to her twice—the night of the earthquake and right now. “I’ve handled a lot of things very badly where you’re concerned, Jamie. I’m sorry about that. But it doesn’t change the fact that we have serious problems. Problems that have to be resolved before we can move forward.” She flicked a glance at him. He was watching the water, his manner dispassionate, disinterested. It made her blood pressure rise. “Problems that aren’t all mine,” she finished, her tone sharp.

  “Ah, so this is going to be a what’s-wrong-with-Jamie lecture. No thanks.”

  She threw her hands in the air. “That’s not it at all. I just want us to talk, really talk. No judgment, no recriminations. Let’s lay everything on the table so we can figure out how we can fix”—she waved her hand between them—“us. And this isn’t just about what happened in there. The sex is just a symptom, a casualty, of the fact that we can’t seem to communicate anymore. If we ever even did.”

  Steepling his hands in front of him, he ran a finger over his lips. “You want to talk? Fine. You want us to put our cards on the table? Fine. But I go first.”

  “Fine.” She folded her arms across her chest. When he flicked off his sunglasses and stared at her arms pointedly, she sighed and laid them on the armrests.

  He picked up his beer and tilted his head back as he finished it off. When he lowered his face, she was caught off-guard, floored by the turmoil boiling in the depths of his eyes, as impenetrable as the ocean. “Let me start by saying that I’m fully aware that getting pregnant on our one-night-stand ruined your life. Don’t get me wrong, I love our daughter, but if I had to do that night over again, I’d have made sure to protect you better.”

  Two sentences that said more than he’d said in the entire duration of their marriage. “You didn’t ruin anything. I got pregnant, that wasn’t your fault. We used condoms, and neither of us noticed one break.”

  “But did we use one every time? I honestly don’t know.” He pinned her with his gaze. “You made me so crazy. All I could focus on was you.”

  When she blinked, he turned away.

  Her heart stuttered, then took off at a harrowing pace in her chest. The intensity of his stare had robbed her of breath. “Uh… it was the same for me.”

  He jerked his eyes back to hers. “Explain.”

  “Seriously? I came so many times, I almost went blind.”

  A sexy grin softened his expression, melting her insides. “If I recall correctly, you were blind at the end.”

  Heat raced to her cheeks, but she couldn’t keep from smiling back. She’d cherished the memory of their night together. Replayed it so many times in her dreams. Sometimes when she and Jamie were making love, she’d fantasized about the blindfold he’d tied over her eyes. Wishing he’d do it again. It had been a guaranteed orgasm. She squeezed her trembling thighs together and became aware that his grin had fallen. Her continued silence seemed to unnerve him. It was now or never. “It was the best night of my life.”

  “Because of Chloe, you mean.”

  She shook her head. “Because of you.”

  He laughed, sounding pained. “You can’t possibly mean that. Hooking up with me that night was probably the dumbest thing you ever did.”

  “You really have no idea, do you?”

  “None whatsoever.” He scrubbed his stubbled cheek. “Afterward, I kept wondering if you’d been drunk and I just hadn’t noticed.”

  “I was stone-cold sober. Why would you have thought otherwise?”

  His lips quirked up for just a moment before flattening again. “Rickie, you were studying to be a lawyer. I’m just an idiot who runs into fires and falling buildings. You’re a proper lady. You have style and organization. I’m loud, crass, and it’s a hallmark day when I can find the remote without tearing the living room apart.”

  Snorting, she sat back and crossed her arms. This time when he glared at her, she ignored him. “A proper lady? What is this—the nineteenth century? I grew up in trailer parks and people’s basements, anywhere my mother could stash me while she went on another bender.”

  He leaned forward and started to extend his hand as though he wanted to take hers. But then he let out a breath and straightened. “That’s just circumstances and poor choices on the part of the adults who were supposed to take care of you. The person you are now? That’s who you were meant to be, minus the law degree.”

  “You make it sound like we’re two different species. If I’d known you felt this way, I’d have made a point of leaving wet towels on the floor.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t sound good on you, honey.”

  “I did my best to compromise.”

  “Maybe. But the house looks just like you now. There’s nothing of me left.”

  “I kept the recliner.”

  He snorted. “How kind.”

  She rubbed her forehead. This conversation wasn’t going how she’d intended. “Do what you want with the house. I don’t care about any of that.”

  “What do you care about, then?”

  “Us, Jamie. I care about us. I care about Chloe having two parents who love each other.”

  “Do you, Rickie? Do you love me? You said you did, but emotions were running high after the earthquake. And honestly, I’m not seeing it.”

  “What are you seeing?” His gaze turned to the ocean, and a terrible fear clutched her heart.

  “I’m seeing a woman who is very confused about what she feels and what she wants. A woman who pushes me away with one hand and pulls me to her with the other. A woman who now claims that the first time we had sex was the best of her life, but froze up like a popsicle stick whenever I acted even remotely the same way.”

  “I… No, Jamie… I…”

  “What do you want from me, Rickie?” He sighed, a horrible tired sound that echoed the depths of his frustration.

  She blew out a breath, prepared to take the blame she deserved. All of this was her mess, her fault. “I want you to love me. Not because I got pregnant and gave you Chloe. But because you like who I am. Even if I am neurotic.”

  “I love your brand of crazy. I love you.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Because it’s the truth.”

  “No. It isn’t. It can’t be.”

  His hand curled into a fist on the tabletop. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. Besides my family, I’ve never said that to another woman.”

  “I don’t understand how you can love me.”

  “That’s your problem, not mine, Erica.” His use of her full name took her aback. Anger seethed from his pores and coated his words. “The real problem is and always has been that you don’t trust me. I understood that in the beginning. You had no reason to trust me back then. But I’ve worked hard to be a good husband and a good father. And until I went to Indonesia on that search-and-rescue mission, I thought our marriage was pretty damn great.”

  His admission had butterflies fluttering in her belly. “It would have been great, Jamie, if you had trusted me.”

  “I did. I do.”

  “You c
an’t possibly trust me after everything I’ve done.”

  “The night of the earthquake, I trusted you enough to let you take the place of a firefighter and save our daughter.”

  “Those were extenuating circumstances. You didn’t really have a choice.”

  Reaching out, he ran his fingers over her hand. The gentleness of his touch had hope welling in her chest. “Maybe what’s really going on here is that you don’t trust yourself,” he said.

  She frowned at him and shook her head. He was wrong. “God, Jamie. You took me in when I had nothing and no one. And what did I do to repay you? I made you feel bad about who you are. How can you love or trust me after all that?”

  Yanking his hand away, he growled. “What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t feel bad about who I am.”

  She flinched at the curse and instantly regretted it. Jamie thought her enough of a prude already. “That first night, you let me see a side of you I’ve rarely seen since. That’s on me.”

  “It was supposed to be a one-time deal.” He shrugged as though to brush it off, but his features hardened.

  “How does that matter?” she asked.

  “No woman wants to marry a man like that.”

  “I thought you weren’t ashamed of who you were.”

  “I wasn’t. Not until—” He clammed up.

  “Until I pushed you away. And that’s my fault.”

  “I should have been more sensitive, once I knew your background.” He pressed his palms against his eyes for a moment. When he lowered them, he asked, “Had you ever done anything like that before?”

  “I wasn’t a virgin.”

  “What we did wasn’t vanilla, and you know it. Was it the first time or not?”

  “Yes. Okay? Yes, it was. So what?”

  “You were young, naïve, and horny. A very combustible combination.” He smirked. “You experimented, let yourself go because you never expected to see me again.”

  Ever the hero. Always taking the blame. “You didn’t force me to do anything, Jamie.”