I reach for his hand, but he moves it behind him.
“Don’t, Melanie.” His deep voice is clipped, toneless. “It’s nothing.”
“No, it isn’t,” I reply, cautiously because I can see how ready he is to deny it. To shut me out completely.
I can’t let him do that. Not now, when I’ve let him into my body, into my heart.
“What’s wrong with your hand, Jared? Please, let me see.”
His eyes hold me in an inscrutable stare, bleak and unblinking. I can see him wrestling with the decision to let me in, debating whether he can trust me. Like a wild animal caught in a snare, he watches me, coiled and ready to lash out.
“It’s okay,” I assure him. “Let me see.”
He stands so still I don’t even hear him breathing as I reach down and take his strong hand in my grasp. The spasm has worsened, affecting not only his fingers and hand but vibrating up the muscled length of his forearm.
“It’ll pass in a few minutes,” he murmurs, his eyes still trained on me. Searching for cracks in my reaction, I have no doubt. The way he stares at me, it’s as if he’s waiting for me to shrink back and turn away. Or daring me to. “Early onset Parkinson’s disease, in case you’re curious. A little DNA parting gift from my old man.”
The explanation hits me like a physical blow. Not because I consider it a death sentence, but because it’s immediately, painfully, obvious to me what that kind of diagnosis means to someone like Jared.
“My father’s tremors came on around the same age as mine, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.” He shrugs. “I had my first noticeable symptom a couple of years ago. Blew the shaking off as a consequence of too many bad habits and a few too many long nights in places I shouldn’t have been. But it wasn’t just one time. It kept coming back. Kept getting worse and more frequent, until I couldn’t ignore reality anymore.”
I’m amazed he’s still allowing me to hold his hand while it shakes in my light grasp. That edge of wariness hasn’t left his sober gaze, though, and I wonder what it must cost a strong, larger than life man like Jared Rush to be forced to confront this kind of mortal vulnerability.
I want to apologize for what he’s going through, but I know he doesn’t want my sympathy. I’m not even sure he’d accept it.
What’s more, every time I’ve looked into his haunted brown eyes I could tell that he’s been through far worse than any physical challenge could ever pose. I bear my scars on the outside of my body. Jared’s are buried deep.
And now, this.
“Two years ago,” I whisper, glancing away from his gaze to look at the elegant fingers that are normally so in control, so brilliantly gifted. The tremors are small, but bad enough to make holding a pencil difficult, never mind a paintbrush. “That’s why you stopped painting. I accused you of letting alcohol interfere with your art, but that wasn’t the problem, was it?”
“No,” he says. “I had myself convinced the drinking helped smooth out the shaking. Sometimes, it did. But drinking’s only given me an excuse to ignore the truth.”
“Can you paint at all?”
“On good days I can. Those are becoming fewer and fewer all the time.”
“But you were willing to pay me to pose for you.”
He nods, and I’m not sure if the regret I see in his eyes is because of his declining ability to pursue his art or something else.
“I thought I could give it up.” He reaches up with his other hand, the one that’s steady and infinitely gentle as he sweeps his thumb across my lips. “I likely would have walked away from my art for good, but then I saw you.”
I can’t pretend it doesn’t move me to hear him say that. Yet it confuses me, too. “Today you said you weren’t interested in painting me anymore.”
“That’s right.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was a mistake to drag you into my problems.”
I shake my head. “You don’t hear me complaining, do you? After all, it brought us here.”
A growl rumbles in the back of his throat as I lift his afflicted hand up to my lips and kiss his clenched fingers. He doesn’t pull away, but I can see him retreating emotionally. He wants to say more, but something holds him back. His gaze is shadowing over like a door being slowly closed.
As much as I want to coax all his secrets out of him, I know him enough to understand that if I push too hard, he’ll only close that door even tighter.
“Maybe you were right,” he says gruffly. “You should go home now.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.” I let go of his hand and reach for his handsome face instead, framing his whiskered jaw in my hands. My gaze implores him to see me, to let me in. “Please don’t act like you want me gone. Don’t act like you want to be alone when it seems to me you’ve been alone for most of your life.”
“Alone?” He chuckles humorlessly as he lowers my hands. “Look around you, darlin’. I’m surrounded by people.”
“How many of them know about your tremors? Does your lawyer know? Seems like you and Nathan Whitmore are good friends, but I’ll bet he’s got no idea. What about Gibson?”
Jared nods now, a wry twist to his mouth. “He’s the only one. I used to send the old man out for my prescriptions, back when I was still taking them. But I think he knew even before then. He notices too much, rather like someone else I know.”
“He cares about you,” I tell him gently. “Like someone else you know.”
His gaze searches mine for a long moment. He wets his lips,
