Page 31 of Jacked and Jaded

“No, I couldn’t. Bellamy, the woman I was sharing an apartment with and whose store I sold my jewelry in, was seeing someone by then and I didn’t want to bring my problems to her doorstep.” She stared at her hands in her lap, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with him.

“If you couldn’t move back in with her, then you should’ve moved home. You work from home and you could do that anywhere. Why didn’t you come home?” Jackson leaned forward, getting as close as he could get without climbing into her lap.

Calliope tried to scoot her chair back so she could escape to his room, but Jackson had his foot hooked around one of the chair legs and it wouldn’t budge.

“Why didn’t you come home, Calliope?” God, he was like a dog with a bone.

“Answer me.” Why was he pushing this so hard? What difference did it make?

“Why are you pushing this? Why does it matter why I didn’t come home?”

“Just answer me, Calliope. Why didn’t you come home when you realized that bastard was becoming abusive? Remember, I heard everything you told that female officer, so I know this isn’t the first time he’s hurt you.”

“Fine. You want to know why I didn’t feel like I could come home? It was because of you. Happy now?” He finally released her chair as he leaned back, allowing her room to scoot back and flee to his room. She closed the door, eased herself onto bed and closed her eyes, knowing she was too wound up to go back to sleep anytime soon. All she could see was the look of hurt on his face. She didn’t want to tell him that. Things were already weird and awkward between them as it was. Now that he knew he was the reason she never even came to visit her mom, did that mean he was going to let her go home? Would she have to deal with Clint on her own?

10

Jackson was still sitting in his chair at the table, staring off into space when he heard someone coming through the front door. Tom was carrying in Calliope’s things, a deep frown on his face.

“I’ll just sit this right here until you guys need it.” Tom placed a suitcase next to the couch, but didn’t immediately leave.

“Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it.” Jackson stood and took his and Calliope’s dishes to the sink and turned around, settling his hands on either side of him at the sink behind him. He had a feeling Tom had something to say.

“Look, between Maureen, Jane and Maverick, I kind of have an idea about how things are between you and Calliope.” He tipped his head down the hall where Calliope had disappeared. “From the way it sounds, there has always been something between the two of you. I’m sure you being in your mid-twenties when you met her and her still in high school threw you for a loop. It would’ve me, too. The thing is, you’re both of age now and have been for a while.” He cleared his throat and continued. “I’m sure it didn’t escape your notice that Calliope had feelings for you once upon a time. My guess is she still does otherwise she wouldn’t have missed out on seeing her mom as much as she did.”

That’s pretty much what Calliope had said, that it was because of him that she’d stayed away so much. He felt awful about that. There wasn’t anything he could do to undo it. All he could do was try to make things different as they moved forward.

“One thing I’ve learned in life is that it’s too damn short. You’ve got to live every day to its fullest.” He paused and rubbed and hand over his mouth, glancing down at the floor. “I’m sorry, it’s really none of my business. I just want to see Calliope happy.” Tom, having said his piece, turned to leave. “Oh, and come clean with her. It’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch when you do, but she needs to know sooner rather than later so you can work through it and come out stronger on the other side.”

“Thanks, Tom. I will.” Jackson was aware that Tom had lost his first wife to cancer and was left raising two children on his own. He’d loved her so deeply that he’d resigned himself to living alone for the rest of his life, only dating occasionally to get his kids or friends off his back. That was until he met Maureen. Tom said she brought him back to life. Anyone with eyes could see the two were madly in love with each other. Jackson was happy for Maureen. She was still a young, beautiful woman who deserved to be happy.

He also knew he needed to tell Calliope about Ryker, but he was afraid of how the news would affect her. He was afraid it would send her running again. It was going to hurt her deeply and he hated that, but he wouldn’t change anything because that would mean he wouldn’t have Ryker right now. He needed time to get her to see that they belonged together and though it took him a really long time to admit it, he loved her.

In fact, he hadn’t known it at the time she moved to Boulder that he was in love with her. He’d really fucked up when he told her that having sex with her had been a mistake. With her gone, there was a deep, aching hole in his chest whenever he thought about her. He missed her like crazy. He missed her smile, her laugh, hanging out with her watching a movie. He just missed having her around. Naively, he’d just assumed she’d always be around until, what? He was ready? She was older? Once he was honest with himself and admitted sex with Calliope had been inevitable, he’d realized he didn’t want to live a life without her in it.

He supposed he always thought she’d come home and they’d work things out. Only it didn’t happen that way, did it? How long would she have stayed gone to avoid him? Would she have eventually married Clint just because she couldn’t stand to be around him? He couldn’t help but feel he was as much to blame for Calliope’s injuries as Clint was.

One time he’d actually headed to Boulder with every intention of convincing her to come home where she belonged. The only thing that stopped him was seeing her standing outside her apartment kissing some guy. She looked happy and it wouldn’t have been fair to ask her to come home and give them a shot. He’d sat on his bike in the shadows of a tree and watched as the man threw her over his shoulder and took her inside. He couldn’t stay after that. He was either going to be sick or go inside and beat the guy to a pulp.

Then along came Ryker not long after that. He was so caught up in being a father and figuring that out that time had gotten away from him before he knew it. He’d been thinking of trying to visit her again and see where things lay between them, but he’d heard from his mom that she’d moved in with someone. The man turned out to be Clint Maxwell. The fucker.

He put away the leftover lasagna and got the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and plopped on the couch. He turned the television on and flipped through the channels until he found a movie to watch. He didn’t know how long he sat there and he couldn’t tell you what the movie was about if someone put a gun to his head, but he figured it was long enough for Calliope to fall asleep.

He turned off the TV and set his empty bottle on the counter. Slowly opening the door, he could see she left the bathroom light on with the door cracked. The light spilled across her face showing him she’d finally fallen asleep. He went and turned out the light, stripped his clothes off and climbed into bed.

Sometime in the night, he awoke to the sounds of Calliope’s harsh breathing. She was whimpering and crying out for Clint to stop hurting her.

God damn it. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that fucker. He shook her shoulder gently, not wanting to cause her pain, but the way she was moving around, she had to be hurting herself. His attempts to wake her didn’t work. He shook her a little harder. “Calliope!” he tried louder. “Baby, wake up. You’re safe. You’re with me.”

He dodged her fist as she slung it out, but wasn’t as lucky dodging her cast. She nailed him in the side of the head good. He swore he saw stars for a second. Okay. This wasn’t working. He rolled to his back and reached out to the bedside lamp and turned it on. He tried to wake her again. “Calliope! Wake up!”

He saw her eyes fly open and knew she didn’t know where she was. She started to scramble out of bed which caused her to scream in pain and fall back on the bed. Jackson saw his opening and made his move. He straddled her legs and pinned her shoulders, getting in her face. “Calliope.Lookat me. It’s Jackson. You’re safe. You’re at my house. That fucker will not get to you.”

It took her a moment for recognition to light her eyes. When it did, her body went limp under him. “Jackson?”

“Yeah, baby. It’s me. You’re okay. It was just a bad dream.” He wiped at the tears running down her face and into her hair with his thumbs. God, it fucking broke his heart to see her like this. She was way too young to have experienced what she had at the hands of Clint Maxwell. Not that any age equips you to deal with it. Once again, he blamed himself for what happened to her. If he’d been man enough, he’d have brought her home and made her his. Instead, he’d been a chickenshit, only worried about his feelings and what he thought he wanted.

“Look at me, baby. Focus on me and the sound of my voice. You with me?”

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