Bounty (Page 127)

I nodded to the night and answered, “Less.”

His deep voice had been restful, quiet.

He sounded puzzled when he asked, “Say again?”

I curled my fingers tight on the phone I was still holding, lifting my free hand to trail Deke’s forearm, over his wrist, until I could lace my fingers with his.

Then I repeated, “I wanted less.”

“You wanted less,” Deke murmured, and I knew he still didn’t understand.

“Less is more,” I told him. “You can have it all, but if you don’t have the things that are important, you don’t really have anything.”

I felt his fingers tighten in mine but he didn’t say anything.

“I had good friends. A good family. But I didn’t have…”

You.

I left the word unsaid.

Deke kept tight hold on my hand.

“I have it all now,” I whispered, the words thick. “I have it all and he’ll never know. He’ll never see. He’ll never get that peace knowing his girl has everything.”

There was a beat of silence, it was heavy, weighing further down on me before Deke asked gently, “You talkin’ about your dad, baby?”

I nodded, my throat sounding clogged when I said, “And the fuck of it is, I found it because I lost him. I found it because losing him meant I needed to find my peace in a world without him in it. But I got more than that. I got my less that’s more. I found my place. I found my oasis. I found home. I found where I’d be safe and looked after. I found peace. And he’ll never know.”

Deke made no reply.

But he didn’t let me go.

He held me to him, my fingers laced with his as I stared into the night, and he did this for a long time.

Then he lifted his chin from my shoulder and put his lips to my ear.

“Come to bed, Jussy.”

I nodded again and Deke let me go.

He moved. I moved.

I had shit on my mind, and as I put on my pajamas, more shit crowded in.

Like he said we would, and I knew we would (which was why I had a doctor’s appointment the next week), Deke and I had sex regularly. Always before we went to sleep. Most of those times we did it then we cuddled and chatted and did it again. There were times, rare and only happening when we spent the night at my place where I could go back to sleep when we were done and not have to get up and get in Deke’s truck to come to my place, he woke me early in the morning and took us there.

But right then, I was not in the mood.

Right then, I was coping with a clash of emotions I was having difficulty processing.

Loss and gain.

Profound joy and acute sorrow.

Feeling this, all I wanted to do was climb in a warm bed, try and hold on to the remnants of that mellow buzz I was quickly losing and go to sleep, wake up with that all gone and face a new day when I had the energy to bury the bad again and focus on the good.

What I didn’t want to do was have sex with Deke.

I wanted to hold tight to my big, warm teddy bear that came in the form of a mountain man and use his strength to take me where I needed to be.

But Deke might have other ideas. He always had other ideas. Ideas I’d always had too. And I didn’t know what I’d do if he acted on those ideas or how I’d feel if he tried.

I climbed into bed, unsure how to share what I needed to share, equally uncertain how he’d take that, and scared of how I’d feel if his reaction wasn’t what I needed it to be.

Then I lay in bed, Deke claiming me, turning my back to his front. He curled into me, yanking the covers up to my shoulder then burying his face in the back of my hair.

And like that, he held me. His hands didn’t wander. His lips didn’t search for anything. I didn’t even feel the hardness of his cock against my ass.

He was just Deke, sensing and then giving me what I needed.

And doing it, he opened that place inside me. That place I’d closed after I lost it the day I heard Dad had died, needing to shut it away so it wouldn’t crush me. That place where I’d buried everything and turned into Deke after I’d been assaulted. That place where I didn’t go when I found out one of my best friends might be pulling her shit together, but she was doing it with someone who was not the man I’d want her to have, so much so, her future terrified me.

It started with my body rocking.

The sob came only when Deke’s arm around my waist slanted up so he could curl his fingers around the side of my neck and whisper into the back of my hair, “Let that shit out, gypsy.”

God, God.

I hoped I was made for him.

Because he sure as fuck was made for me.

I lifted both hands and curled my fingers around his strong wrist and did what he invited me to do.

I let go.

He didn’t turn me into him. He didn’t say words that might soothe me and I was glad because there were no words to soothe me.

No.

Deke just held me while I cried, first for the monumental loss of my dad and all he’d never see, all the things that would happen without him being with me. Walking me down the aisle. Holding his grandchildren. Meeting the man who’d been made for me.

And then I cried for Bianca, how she’d been cast adrift a long time ago by parents so caught up in their own shit, they didn’t notice she had no anchor. How Lace and me, Dad and Joss had tried to keep her on course, steady, loved, and how we’d failed and now…

Now…

Now she’d found her course but it was just as stormy.

Then I cried for all I’d gained, all of it encompassed in the big, warm body curled close and holding me.

This meant I cried a really long fucking time.