The Duet(71)

I’d missed him so much in the last few days. We’d had our moment the night before in the classroom, but it was clumsy and rushed, nothing compared to the magic we’d created in the days leading up to Cammie’s arrival. Now we were all alone again, just he and I, with the rest of the night ahead of us.

“Please don’t tell me to leave,” he said dipping down to kiss my neck, dragging his soft lips down my chest.

“No. No. Don’t leave,” I said, hearing the thin cracks forming in my voice.

I’d rip my heart out before I’d asked him to leave. None of this was healthy, but it had been a disease from the very start. I was completely helpless to the side effects of that disease now. I’d do what I did every time: let his body take over mine like a cancer.

His fingers laced with mine as he pushed my arms up over my head to lock them in place.

The first time we had sex that night, it was rushed and loud and desperate. I was frantic for him. But the second and the third time, they were slow and lazy, as if the world began and ended on that bed in Jason’s guest room.

I don’t remember asking him to stay in my bed after we were done, but I don’t remember him wanting to go either. So for the first time, he and I didn’t flee after sex. We stayed. At the time it hadn’t felt monumental, the act of sleeping in the same bed, but when I’d awoken the next morning to find my world shifted upside down once again, I’d cling onto that idea for dear life.

Was I the one pushing us to be something more?

Had Jason led me on?

Had I turned every moment into something more than it actually was?





Chapter Twenty-Three





The next morning I woke up to find my bed empty, the noise from the kitchen jarring me awake. Usually there was coffee brewing, bacon sizzling, newspapers crinkling, but that morning, the sounds were off. There was a woman’s voice, muffled by the space in between the kitchen and my room, but I knew it wasn’t LuAnne’s. It was too young, too soft. I also thought I could hear a child’s laugh, but that didn’t seem possible. But then there it was again– loud and happy, traveling through every nook and cranny of the house.

With a smile on my face at the idea of meeting new houseguests, I dressed in a loose cotton dress and wrapped a cardigan around myself, not bothering with any make-up. My blonde hair was curly from going to sleep with it damp, but I didn’t mind the wild look.

Before I headed downstairs, I noticed a note on my nightstand scribbled in Jason’s terrible handwriting. I laughed and shook my head as I padded over to pick it up. I recognized the lyrics he’d sung when I’d first arrived at the ranch, but they were scratched out, replaced with new ones.



“Don’t want you to stay

Can’t tell you to go”

“Want you to stay

Wish you’d never go.”

Now, hurry and wake up. - J



I bit down on my lip, debating whether to keep the note with me all day or to leave it on the side table for safekeeping. Since I couldn’t trust my sweaty hands, I left it behind.

When I opened the door of my bedroom, the lively sounds from the kitchen amplified tenfold. I trotted down the stairs, craning to see who our houseguests were. When Jason spotted me on the stairs, all conversation stopped. He’d been walking out of the kitchen, maybe on his way to wake me up, but he paused when he saw me. Like a scared animal, his eyes went wide and his lips twisted into a frown.

If I had to pick, I’d say it was that look that told me something was very off.

He swallowed slowly and then started walking toward me again.

“Can we go upstairs and talk for a second?” he asked, reaching out to grab my arm from around my waist.

I shook my head. “No.”

I didn’t want to go upstairs; I wanted to know who was in the kitchen. Maybe before I saw his shocked expression, I would have followed him blindly, but now my curiosity was winning out. I pushed past him, and for one brief moment, he resisted, his hand on my arm, his deep brown eyes warning me to turn back.

I wasn’t going to turn back.

It was far too late for that.

My breath caught when I saw the little girl whose laugh had filled the house from the moment I’d awoken. She was sitting at the kitchen table with markers spread out around her, coloring away on a piece of paper. Her red hair was long and curled into tight ringlets that bounced every time she moved. Pink plastic glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, but I could see how well she colored from across the room. So close to the lines, I wanted to commend her on her work.

But then my gaze slid to the woman sitting directly beside her. Our eyes locked as I realized she was just as stunning as the little girl beside her— with the same bright red hair. She wasn’t the type of stunning I was used to from my life in Hollywood. There was nothing fake about her. Her hair was pulled up into a loose ponytail and her complexion looked naturally flawless.