She fingered the collar around her neck. It had been an uneventful couple of weeks, at least from the point of view of the vandal. Granted Jack, Ben or Sophie was always with her, except when she was in the studio, but nothing else had happened. It had been quiet. Even though they now split their time between his place and her cottage, their lives had fallen into an easy rhythm.
Cait felt as if she was home, and for once she knew what that meant. Where once the intimacy that Jack needed from her, the trust had frightened her, she wasn’t scared any more. She relished knowing how much he needed to take care of her, and her heart ached to take care of him too. There were no barriers between them. No history they couldn’t overcome together.
He hadn’t stopped trying to push her boundaries and she was loving every heart-stopping moment. That didn’t mean they had invited Ben back to play. But there had been no lasting embarrassment between them either.
Part of her felt guilty to have fallenback into a relationship with Jackson so quickly. She had promised herself she would be strong, and independent. But with the exception of making sure she had protection, which she appreciated, he hadn’t tried to take over. Not anymore than her other friends had and she realized it was because she was important to them. She was important toJackson.
And wow, wasn’t that a wonderful feeling. She shouldn’t be getting a second chance at love, but she had been lucky.
She had been lucky with the studio too. It was nearing its first-quarter anniversary. She had a good clientele made up of her regulars, those with packages and memberships, and the seasonal drop-ins. She had been asked to lead a workshop next month on the beach as part of the St. Augustin Day celebrations. And one of the water sport instructors from the marina had suggested she look at offering paddleboard yoga once a week.
Of course, that would mean that Cait was going to have to spruce up her own paddleboard skills. Her board had been sitting out back since she had returned to town and she had yet to put it in the water.
“Maybe I should ask Jack if he wants to take a run out?” she wondered aloud.
“A run out where?” Sophie asked, slipping in from the back.
Cait started at the voice behind her. “Weeping Jesus you frightened me.”
Sophie laughed. “Sorry, babe. Didn’t mean to. I guess I should start using the front door. You should probably keep the backdoor locked.”
She sighed. “It’s July. I’ll be damned if I’m going to start locking the patio door during class hours. We are on the beach. I’m paying a premium for the sound of the surf and the breeze off the Atlantic.” She mimed air quotes around sound of the surf and breeze off the Atlantic because that was the argument Sophie had given her to convince her to spend just a wee bit more to get this place.
“I know. It’s just that…” Sophie shrugged. “I worry.”
Cait smiled and hugged her friend. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend. You know that.”
Sophie held her tight, stroking her hair. “Me too, babe.” They broke apart, but not all the way, their arms loose around each other. “So what were you thinking about when I came in?”
Cait frowned and dropped her arms. “That I was lucky. Even with this vandalism shit going on, I’m feeling pretty lucky.”
“Being in love will do that.” Sophie traced her finger over Cait’s collar. “I am so happy for you.”
Cait smiled. “Once I stopped arguing with myself and just let the past go, it fell into place. It feels so right.”
“Way to embrace the Thich Nhat Hanh teachings.”
“Don’t make fun.” She elbowed Sophie.
“I’m not.” Sophie laughed. “No really, I’m not. I’ve seen a big change in you since you expanded your meditative practice, and accepted that having a Master doesn’t make you a slave.”
“I just realized that the biggest obstacle wasn’t the past, or Jack or Logan, or moving back here. The biggest obstacle was me. Take me out of the equation and the path seemed really clear.”
“I hate you.” Sophie poured herself a cup of tea. The scent of the organic peppermint tea lingered refreshingly in the air. “If I take me out of the equation, where does that leave Ben and me?”
Cait continued to unpack the box of new Lolë jackets. “All other issues aside, do you love him?”
“I can’t push all other issues aside. He’s younger. He’s a Dom. I’ve had cancer, which has complicated things physically and sexually for me.” She shook her head. “And then there’s Chet.”
“But what if you could?” Cait held up her hands. “Just think about it. What if none of that mattered?”
“But it does,” Sophie complained.
“Really? Do you think he wouldn’t take the time you need to prepare for intercourse? Does he really seem that selfish? You forget who you are talking to. I know why you want control. Do you think he would run roughshod over that?”
“Look, missy, I came here for the tea.” She raised her hand, stopping the conversation before pointing at the tea. “Not for a lecture where you throw everything I once said to you about Jack back at me.”
“Yeah, cause you were so wrong.”
“You in love are really annoying.” She mimed air quotes with one hand as she began walking toward the frontdoor. She was laughing as she did. “I am just going to take my tea and go back to the bank.”
“And stew about what I said.”
“Maybe.” Sophie winked before walking out the frontdoor.
Cait laughed. Was it too much to want her best friend to find the same happiness she had? She didn’t think so.
She put the jackets on hangers, grabbed the pile and moved them into the boutique. When she heard the screen door slide open again at the back she called out. “Ah, ha! You already decided that I was right.”
“No. I don’t think you are right. In fact, I don’t think you’re lucky at all.”
Cait stiffened. She knew that voice, and it wasn’t Sophie. “Shit.”
* * * * *
It had been a long morning as Jack sat in the town hall meeting to hear the discussions on the redevelopment of the community arena. The town was divided on what the citizens wanted and what the communitywanted. Jack knew the budget for design and reconstruction was going to fall somewhere in the middle. Having already won the contract to develop the concept, it was going to take all his innovation to come up with a plan to satisfy everyone.
He pulled up to the house, hoping to change his clothes. The morning may have started out cool, but it was warm now, and he wanted to change into a short-sleeve shirt and lighter pants before he began an afternoon of site visits.
Seeing the unfamiliar car in the driveway, he knew this wasn’t going to be the quick stop he had hoped.
“David,” he called to the man waiting on his front porch with a baby in his arms. His niece was playing in the front garden. “What’s going on?”
“Can we go inside and talk?”
Jack nodded, his instincts on high alert. His sister’s husband looked like hell. Worry lines creased his brow and there were deep circles beneath his eyes. He tossed a K-Cup into the Keurig for David, and set up Layla in front of the TV watching Frozen.
David was rocking the baby in his arms and pacing when he came back to the kitchen.
“Now tell me, what the hell is going on?” Jack demanded.
“I wish I knew,” he said earnestly. “I thought some timeaway was all she needed, you know. A change of pace and a chance to see you and your parents. Get away to the sea. I was okay with that, you know. I didn’t fight it.”
Jack knew. He had been surprised at the time. “But she’s become more erratic on the phone. Sometimes she’s yelling at me, other times she sweet as pie.”
“Just start at the beginning.”
“I would if I knew where the beginning was. I just…” He broke down, tears filling his eyes. “I think something really bad is about to happen. I could hear it in her voice last night, and when I drove down this morning.” He stopped pacing. “She had left the kids home alone. Hank was screaming in his crib. Layla was crying by the window.”
“Suzie left the kids home alone.” Jack’s tone was icy and he felt fear clutch at his gut.
“I don’t know how long, but it took me nearly an hour to calm them down and clean them up and she still wasn’t home.”
“Fuck.” Jack pulled out his phone and called his mother. “Mom, I need you to come over now. It’s important.” Jack knew that his tone alone would have his mother at his door in minutes.
He turned back to David. “Did she say anything when you were talking to her last night or before then? Anything that would make you think she could hurt herself or the kids?”
“She was high strung during this pregnancy, but our doctor said that wasn’t unusual. She would be fine after the baby was born. And she was so happy when Hank was born.”
Jack could hear the but coming on and kicked himself for not seeing that she wasn’t just stressed.
“She’s been going on and on over the last couple of months that she missed out. That she let the love of her life slip through her fingers. He was dead before his time, and that wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t let him go. That she was going to be true to his memory.”
“Wait. Back up and go slow,” Jack demanded. “Did she say the love of her life was Logan?”
“I don’t know. That may have been it.” David started pacing again. “But I can tell you in the ten years we’ve been together, she’s never mentioned any other love of her life.”
“Fuck,” he cursed again. “What else did she say?”
“Man, I stopped listening.” He shrugged in defeat. “I was just so happy to have a break from it when your parents came to pick her up. I was like ‘go pine for your lost love’. I know that was shitty of me.”
Jackson didn’t comment on that. “Did she say anything else? Anything about Cait?”
The front door opened softly. “Okay, what did I miss?” Rebecca asked, looking from David to Jack and back again.
“Yeah she mentioned a Cait.” He nodded. “So Cait is a real person?”
“She’s my girlfriend. They have history.”
“Fuck,” David cursed. “Last night she was jonesing for a fight with her.”
Jackson let out a deep, unsteady breath. “Mom, you and I are going to Cait’s.” He grabbed his keys from where he’d dropped them on the counter and stormed by his mother.
“What about me?” David asked, looking at his mother-in-law.
Rebecca looked at David and the kids. “I would say wait here. It’s as good a place as any.” Then she dashed out after her son.
* * * * *
Cait still had the jackets in her hands when she turned to look at Suzie. “Hey, Suzie. You come in the back door?” She tried to sound casual, not wanting another fight with Jackson’s bitch sister.
She kept one eye on Suzanne while she hung up the jackets. “If you’re looking for a class schedule there is one on the desk. There’s not another class until four, but if you come at four we’d still be at your parents in time for the barbecue at six.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Suzie told her. Her voice cold and even.
“Yeah, it’s a beautiful day out. Wish I could be at the beach. Hey, you should take the kids to the beach before the barbecue. That might wear Layla out.”
Cait watched uncertainly as Suzie cocked her head to the side quizzically, as if she didn’t know what Cait was talking about. “Not that Layla needs wearing out, but as you said the other day, she has so much energy.”
“Stoptalking.” Suzanne narrowed her eyes and held up a hand like a stop sign. “You don’t get it do you?” She moved from the studio doorway toward the front counter. It was a move that effectively cut Cait off from the frontdoor.
“Did you know I loved him first?” she asked Cait. “Did you know he was supposed to marry me?”
“What are you talking about?” Cait was getting worried now and began to move slowly around the boutique, trying to angle toward the studio door. She looked over the half wall and saw that the patio door had been left wide open.
“I told him. On graduation night. I told him that I loved him. That I would wait for him.” Her voice broke with strain.
“Seriously who are talking about?”
“Logan. You bitch.” She slammed her hand against the wall. “Logan was mine.” She was beginning to sob now. Her voice rose with the strain. She wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist.
“He said I was too young. I still had some growing up to do. But I know he wanted me. He loved me as much as I loved him.”
“Suzie, listen, I’m sorry,” Cait began, trying to talk her down. “I’m sure he loved you very much.”
“Liar. You stole him away.”
“Suzie, I didn’t even know Logan when we graduated high school, remember? I didn’t know your family. I barely knew you.”
“I was waiting and then you swooped in and took him away.”
Two years later,Cait thought but didn’t say it. “I was wrong to do that. I’m so sorry.”
“No. I tried to make you sorry. Triedto get you to leave. But you don’t give up.” Suzie shook her head emphatically as she talked, swinging it wildly back and forth while she fumbled in her pocket. She pulled out something silver and shiny. She hit a switch and a blade flicked out. “I have to get rid of you somehow, before you take everything from me.”
“You did those things to my house. My business.” Cait gasped in astonishment. “I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”
God Cait, she yelled at herself, Way to antagonize the crazy person with a sharp little Swiss Army knife. “You didn’t have to do that,” she soothed. “You could have just asked me to leave.”
“You won’t go,” Suzie said and swiped the blade toward her in an arc. She wasn’t close enough to reach her.
Cait moved quickly, trying to keep two steps ahead as they began to circle each other. “Sure I will go. I can move. I can teach yoga anywhere.”
“Liar.” Suzie jabbed the knife toward Cait. It still missed its mark, but it was getting closer.
Cait grabbed a pair of leggings from the sales rack and held them between her hands in front of her, like a lion tamer’s chair. A new mantra repeated in her head—don’t let her close, don’t let her close.
“I’m not lying, Suzanne. I will leave. And you can go back to your home, and your kids and you can forget you ever met me.”
When the next jab came, it poked a hole through the spandex of the leggings, catching for a moment, allowing Cait to kick out at Suzie. The blow hit Suzie in the stomach and she stumbled.
Cait knew immediately that was a mistake. When Suzie raised her head, she was scowling, her teeth bared. Her eyes were slits. And she growled. Cait barely had the chance to brace for impact as Suzie bull-rushed her.
As Suzanne sprinted forward, she brought the blade down again. Cait was ready for it and caught Suzie’s hand in the tights, effectively holding it away from both their bodies as they wrestled back and forth.
Cait needed both hands on the leggings to keep that blade away from them. She pushed her shoulder into Suzie’s chest as Suzie made a grab for Cait’s hair. Cait screamed as Suzie pulled.
Cait vaguely heard the sound of shouting as she maneuvered herself in front ofSuzie. If she could just get a bit of space. She brought Suzie’s trapped arm around in front of her, her right shoulder slipping under Suzie’s armpit. The grip on her hair slackened and she knew it was her only chance to strike.
Cait hunched forward then surged back with all of her might, the top of her head cracking into Suzie’s jaw.
The knife clattered to the floor as Suzie stumbled back, blood rushing from her mouth. Officer Adams and Scott caught Suzie’s arms and threw her against the reception desk as they cuffed her.
Cait was pulled into Jackson’s arms, her head buried in his chest. It didn’t muffle the sound of Suzie screaming that she would kill her, even as the police led her out to the patrol car.
Cait heard someone crying and turned in Jack’s arms to see Rebecca sobbing quietly as she followed the police outside.
She looked up at Jackson. He was crying too. “I’m so sorry,” she said immediately, apologizing for driving his sister crazy. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Jackson’s jaw was tight. He slanted his lips over hers, the kiss taking her by surprise. She opened her lips to his, sure she was tasting his fear. When he let her breathe finally, he confessed, “I have never driven so fast as I did to get here. I thought I was going to lose you.”
He still hugged her tightly to him. Her arms were pinned to her sides as she looked up at him.
“But I drove your sister nuts,” she blurted out as the strain began to wash over her. “She tried to kill me, you know.” Her own tears started to flow hotly down her cheeks and she buried her face back in Jack’s chest.
“I know, baby.” He squeezed harder. “I am so sorry.” He buried his head in her hair, kissing the top of her head.
Rebecca stepped back into the shop. Sophie had an arm around Rebecca’s shoulders, supporting her. “They are taking Suzie to the hospital.”
“They want to do a psychiatric assessment,” Sophie clarified. “I can bring your mom there.”
Cait pulled away slightly from Jack. He didn’t let her go far. She watched him nod to Sophie and his mother. “We will be along shortly.”
“Don’t you want togo too?” Cait whispered after they left.
“I do, but I just need to hold you for a little longer.” She wasn’t going to argue with that. When she’d been struggling with Suzie, all she had hoped for was the chance to be in Jack’s arms again.
After several minutes, Jackson said, “We should probably have you checked out at the hospital too.” He loosened his hold on her, but not before kissing her gently on the lips.
“She has a hard jaw.” She rubbed where her head had hit Suzie in an effective uppercut maneuver.
“Remind me never to make you mad at me.”
She looked up at him, one hand on his forearm so he couldn’t walk away. “I take it back.”
“You take what back?” He looked at her.
“This is probably the adrenaline talking, but I take back all the stupid stuff I said about not being ready for more,” she said. “I am ready for more, with you.”
“We are having you checked for a concussion.” His expression was serious.
“I may have one, but that doesn’t change anything. I’m sorry. I’m ready for a life with you, a home with you. I don’t want just your collar. I want it all. Everything. I don’t want to waste any more time. My house is lonely without you. And it doesn’t have a view.”
He crushed her into his arms, lifting her from her feet. She wrapped her armsaround his neck and her legs around his waist. He turned her and sat her on top of the reception desk.
He sighed. “Why is nothing with you the way I have it planned?” He fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a ring. It wasn’t a diamond solitaire this time. She was still wearing that one on her right hand. He slid a diamond-link ring onto her finger.
“Don’t think you are going to get out of being my sub, baby girl, but will you also be my wife?”
She looked up at him and the exertion hurt her head, but she didn’t care. “Yes, Jackson. I will be your wife.”