“She needs to be at home in her bed,” I whisper, reluctant to wake her.
Jared glances me. “My car’s in the visitor lot downstairs. I can have you back at your house in ten minutes.”
I start to shake my head. “I’m sure you have plenty of other more important things to do.”
“I don’t,” he says, his deep voice solemn. “Let me take you home, Melanie.”
21
MELANIE
Asleep and belted into in the backseat of Jared’s black sports car, Katie hardly stirs during the short ride from the hospital.
Although the gorgeous Aston Martin could probably hold its own and then some on a Formula One racetrack, Jared drives it with reserved control through the busy morning traffic in Queens and zigzagging one-way streets of my neighborhood.
“Thanks for the ride,” I tell him as he parks in the short driveway of my little house. “You really didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all.”
I don’t expect him to get out of the car, but when I unbuckle my seatbelt, Jared turns off the engine and comes around to my side as I reach into the back to retrieve Katie. She’s dead to the world, slumped in the seat, a sprawl of long legs and loose arms, her head flopped down on her narrow chest.
“I can carry her inside for you,” Jared offers, moving in to help.
“That’s all right, I’m used to this.”
He frowns and shakes his head. “You’re as exhausted as she is. Let me take her.”
As much as I may want to argue against accepting his help, he’s right. I am tired. I give him a vague nod, then step aside and watch as he carefully extricates her from the seat and gathers her boneless weight against his strong shoulder.
“Lead the way.” The sound of his deep voice pitched to a lower timbre to avoid waking the child sleeping in his arms makes my heart squeeze up like a fist in my breast.
I didn’t imagine a man like Jared Rush had any degree of tenderness in him. Seeing him like this makes me wonder what else I’ve yet to learn about him.
As much as I try to cling to the fear, confusion, and anger I left with the other day at his beach house studio, this calm, steady side of Jared isn’t playing along with that plan.
Despite my firsthand knowledge from childhood of how quickly a man can veer from the straight and narrow path of kindness, even charm, to a monster with the ability to destroy everything in his path, I can’t reconcile that image with Jared.
Unlike my father, Jared hasn’t been violent with me. His explosive reaction when he knocked the bottle of whisky off the counter had been vitriol directed at himself, not me. And while I’d been afraid of the alcohol, and remain disturbed by how readily Jared reaches for it, I haven’t ever been afraid of him.
If I were, our conversation today—and whatever it is that lingers between us now—would have ended back in the hospital corridor.
“We’ll go in through the back,” I tell him, trying to pretend I don’t notice the current of energy that still lives between us, no weaker for the days that have passed since I saw him at the beach house studio.
If anything, I’m even more aware of him now that I know how his mouth feels on mine.
I lead him to the side door of my house, Katie still asleep on his shoulder as I unlock the deadbolt. The house has always seemed small, but the space inside shrinks around the presence of Jared Rush.
“Katie’s bedroom is upstairs,” I murmur quietly in the stillness surrounding us as I lead him deeper into the house.
It’s neither an invitation for him to take her there nor a request for him to surrender her to me so he can leave. To be honest, I’m not sure which I’d prefer. Part of me is grateful for his company today, and for his smooth ability to take control of every situation. That arrogant confidence I found so maddening when I met him is the thing I’m simply grateful to lean on now.
The empty picnic cooler is on the kitchen floor where I left it when I ran to help my mom after she collapsed. In the living room, the overturned end table is still on its side, Mom’s reading glasses and book lying haphazardly where they fell. It’s difficult to walk past the reminders of how close I came to losing her.
Jared seems to clue in to the weight of my unspoken thoughts. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. This just brings the reality of it crashing back to me, you know?”
His nod is solemn, something haunted in his grim expression. It was only days ago that I considered him the last person I’d want to see me vulnerable or hurting. Now, I look at him and find an unexpected reassurance in his perceptive gaze.
When we reach Katie’s room, Jared carefully deposits her on the mattress, then steps back to let me take off her shoes and cover her with the blanket folded at the end of her bed.
Once we’re back downstairs, Jared moves ahead of me to right the small table. I pick up Mom’s things and set them where she’ll want them when she gets home.
“Have you been taking care of your niece for long?”
“Since she was an infant. Mom was already living with me here at the house.”
“And your sister?”
“Jen had a lot of problems,” I admit, frowning at the memories. “She struggled with drugs and alcohol, which didn’t make it easy for her to hold a job. She used to leave Katie here with Mom and me when things got rough. She died before
