Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(62)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I turned back to tucking the sheets into the crib mattress. My voice lowered. “Jared would lose his cool if he knew that. You should have seen him New Year’s Eve when Gabe showed up . . .” I shook my head. “If looks could kill and all that,” I said with a shudder.

Or if tension could strangle.

I was pretty sure if Gabe would have remained standing in front of us any longer, Jared would have snapped. And by snapped, I mean snapped Gabe’s neck. Five seconds after Gabe had walked away, Jared had hauled me out of the house and into the night. He’d seemed desperate to touch me. He always did, really, but this had been . . . different. Jared had woken me several times during the night with the same intensity, in some sort of aggrieved frenzy. Like he was somehow trying to shed his own skin and seep into mine.

That night it’d been the worst.

“Well, if anyone could shoot deadly daggers, it’d be Jared.” Megan laughed quietly below her breath, so low she had to be talking to herself. “God, that is one scary man.”

“What?” I asked, because I suddenly heard her words in a way I never had before.

Megan’s head snapped up and her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, Aly. That came out wrong. I’m sorry.”

Rapidly I blinked, shaking my head. “It’s fine, Megan. I’m not mad.”

Because on the outside, I knew Jared appeared a little bit scary.

A frown cut across my forehead and tugged at my mouth because I wasn’t entirely sure the exterior was what Megan was referring to. “Do you really feel that way, though? Are you afraid of him?”

She shrugged and busied her hands with folding. “No, I’m not afraid of him. It’s just . . .” Her attention cut toward me while she seemed to weigh a way to say what she was thinking. “You know I’ve always thought he was different . . . thought he makes you different. He just makes me uneasy sometimes.”

She lifted her face. Honesty shined in her wide blue eyes. “I don’t know what it is, Aly. And please don’t get me wrong. I like him. I really do. He loves you like crazy and treats you like a princess. Who doesn’t want that for their best friend? But there’s something about him that sets me off kilter. I try to ignore it . . .” She cringed, then blew out a concerned breath. “But there’s a pressure in the room when he’s there. It’s like there’s a silent warning radiating from him. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep waiting for a bomb to go off.”

I nodded and tried to swallow over the sudden fear that crawled to my throat. The thing was, it wasn’t really all that sudden. I wasn’t immune to that pressure, either. Of course I felt it.

Over time, it’d only increased.

“He is different, Megan.”

Stilling, she fully turned her regard to me. “Does it worry you?”

I occupied my hands by placing the stack of tiny receiving blankets into the crib, where I was storing them until I got a dresser. Turning around, I leaned up against the crib. “Am I afraid of him or worry he’ll hurt me?” I shook my head. “No.” Not physically, anyway. “But I know what you’re talking about.”

Fidgeting, I looked to my feet before I lifted my gaze to her. “I love him so much, Megan. Too much,” I clarified, because somehow I really needed to voice it. “He’s still in so much pain. But he’s trying to ignore it. To pretend like everything is okay when it most definitely is not okay. He dreams . . .” Slowly I shook my head as I trailed off. “It’s awful, Megan. He wakes up shaking . . . so scared and angry. It’s almost like he’s disoriented and he’s not sure where he is.”

Sickness flipped my stomach inside out. Those nights hurt me so much because I knew he was hurting. They also scared me. It was when anxiety wrapped him so tight he almost couldn’t be touched, even though in the moment he was so desperate to feel.

It’d been getting worse since he proposed. He always seemed on edge. Or maybe it was that Jared was the edge. The sharpest blade. Ready to strike down everything and anything that threatened to expose the pain he harbored inside.

But he’d kept it sheathed, covering it up as he dove into our relationship, pouring everything into us—into this house and me and work and plans for the baby—without regard for everything that happened in the past.

The entire time, that edge had been sharpening.

“Every time I bring it up, he shuts me down. He just wants to focus on what’s good in our lives right now.” I waved my hand around the room. “And we have so much to be thankful for. We do, and I love it and I love him . . . and there is no question that he loves me. But it’s like he’s hanging on to me so tightly, I’m worried he’s going to squeeze the life out of us.”

Wringing my hands, I shifted and stared down at my friend, who watched me with sympathetic understanding. “I just want to help him, Megan, help him heal and finally forgive himself.”

Her brow creased. “You don’t think he forgave himself before he came back? I figured that was the only way he returned.”

I shook my head, sure of this truth. “No. He shunned it. He wanted me so much he was willing to live with the guilt in order to stay with me.”

But I knew, in my spirit and in my heart, that would never be enough.

• • •

The next evening, Jared barreled through the front door. At the counter in the kitchen, I stood facing out the window that looked over the backyard, furiously chopping the vegetables for the salad. Over my shoulder, I glanced at him.

Jared bit back a suggestive smile as he stalked forward. He pressed his body to my back. My entire body sighed.

“Damn, baby, it smells delicious in here. What are you making?”

“I made homemade meatballs . . . my family is coming over tonight for dinner. Remember?”

And by my family, I meant everyone, my father included.

What had brought on the change, I didn’t know. I’d fretted the entire day about it. Part of me wanted to reject the idea of him coming here, to denounce his attempts at reconciling our injured relationship. The truth was, I’d been shocked, stunned by my father’s actions. Above all of that, I’d been hurt. But I’d never been one to harbor hate, and I knew I at least owed him the chance to make his intentions known.

“Of course I remember,” Jared murmured at my neck. His nose lifted a flash of goose bumps where he nuzzled my sensitive skin. “Anything I can do to help?”