Page 65 of The Devil in Blue Jeans
Charly filled his mind, as did the confusion she must feel. Suddenly, the only thing he needed was to get her in his arms. He glanced around the bar. “Where is she?” He looked back at the two women. “Where is Charly?”
Willow’s eyes softened. “She flew out to Phoenix a little while ago to be with him.”
The emotions that suddenly hit Jaxon were practically blinding. Jealously, fury, desperation—it all flowed over him, and he felt selfish for even recognizing them in such a situation. Of course, she would have wanted to be there with Marcel, where else would she have gone? She had loved him once, after all, and not that long ago. That love would still remain, no matter that her heart had been shattered.
Aubrey finally broke the silence with a firm voice. “Why did you come here, Jaxon? What did you want to talk about?”
He pushed away thoughts of himself and said, “I need you to help me make things right between Charly and me. What do I do? Do I beg her to give me another chance? Do I grovel?” He realized as he spoke, how could that happen now? Charly was about to lose someone she had shared deep love with, and planned to spend forever with. She’d been torn up before about not wanting to get into another relationship—now it would only be worse.
Willow and Aubrey exchanged another glance before Aubrey motioned for Jaxon to take a seat at one of the barstools.
“You’re right, we do need to talk, and we can help you,” Aubrey said, deep serious. “This must stay between us. If Charly even suspected we were talking about this, she’d go ballistic.”
“Let’s hear it then,” he said, nodding her on, sliding onto the barstool.
Aubrey leaned back against the bar fridge, crossing her arms. “Charly cares about you, but she’s too scared because somehow, she thinks what Marcel did to her was her fault. Like if she’d only been more aware she would have known the true person he was. She doesn’t trust her judgement when it comes to her heart after all that happened with him. Especially considering how fast this all has happened. She was not expecting you—that much I know. And personally, I think all along she’s been waiting for you to make a mistake so she could kind of tell herself: ‘I told you so. You shouldn’t trust yourself. You make bad judgements that will lead to disaster.’ So, when she learned about your visit to Billy, she pounced on it, almost so it would blow her up first before you could get any closer.”
Willow nodded in agreement. “You’ve managed to bring a lot of joy into her life since you met her. All the sparkle and liveliness she had before was gone. You saw her when you first came into the bar that first night, she was cold, withdrawn. But now when she’s with you...we can see it all coming back. She’s laughing again, loving life and enjoying herself. It’s why she’s struggling so much with her emotions. She wants to be happy, but everything is just messy, you know.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Because he’d done that to her. He’d given her a reason to doubt him.
Before he could say more, Aubrey said, “We like you for Charly.”
Jaxon smiled for the first time since Charly left him, and asked, “While I appreciate that, does Charly like me for her?”
Willow nodded. “I know she does. She’s just scared things with you are too good, too soon, and with everything with what you said to Billy, she was shaken.” She paused, twining her finger around her braid tucked over her shoulder. “But I know she understands where you were coming from. I can guarantee that in the beginning she had ulterior motives for getting closer to you too.”
“To use my relationship with the locals to her benefit,” he offered.
Aubrey smiled and nodded. “Probably to outsmart you too. She wanted to win the game you two were playing.”
Jaxon chuckled. “And damn, did she win.” She won all of him. He couldn’t even think straight.
Was this love? Where a man simply unraveled completely?
Taking in everything he’d heard, he bit his lip and looked down at his fingers tapping against the bar top before turning back to the two women who knew Charly best. “So how do I fix this? What should I do?”
“Don’t disappoint her,” Aubrey said.
Jaxon stared at Charly’s friends, letting all their advice sink in slowly. He repeated the phrase silently over and over in his mind until finally, through their help, he had an epiphany. He suddenly knew exactly what he needed to do next.
He rose from the barstool and strode toward the entrance.
“Where are you going?” Willow asked him.
“I’m going to do what I said I was going to do,” he called back over his shoulder. “I’m going to fix this.” He took out his phone and dialed Gunner’s number on his way toward the door.
“Do I need to come and save you?” Gunner asked, by way of answering the phone.
Jaxon said, more serious than he’d ever been in his life, “I need you to get ahold of that pilot friend of yours and organize a plane for me to Phoenix.” Gunner had used this local private pilot on many occasions when he toured.
Gunner hesitated. Then asked, “Are you all right?”
He walked out of the bar and gave a reply without looking back, “I will be when I land in Phoenix.”
Twenty-One
Charly sat next to the bed in the dimly lit hospital room as the constant beeping of monitors filled the air, a grim rhythm that reminded her of the situation. Wires and tubes snaked around, linking Marcel to the machinery that struggled to keep him alive. At the center of the bed, he lay frail—his skin pale and hollow—as if life was slowly slipping away from him. His face was almost unrecognizable with its bandages and bruises. She reached out and took his hand, yet she hadn’t said a word since arriving. He felt warm but lifeless. She had simply stared at him, taking in a body that was no longer distinguishable from what it once was.
