Not for a Moment: One Moment, Book 3 Page 16

  Jess’s heart sank a little more.

  “That’s why you turned up at my apartment covered in bruises and aching in areas you shouldn’t have been. Shit, Jess.” Van closed his eyes, looking like he was close to losing it.

  “It is none of your business... Jayne had no right—”

  “And what about my right as her consultant? She’s on my damn program.” Van shook his head, sucking in a breath before continuing. “They look up to you, Jess. And you just want to lead them into trouble. I like to encourage my clients to extend themselves. I do,” he argued when Jess snorted. “But there are still limitations.”

  Jess’s face grew hot, although her insides were still icy with rage. “There are no limitations,” she hissed, her fingers tightening into fists. “And Jayne shouldn’t have come to you.”

  “Don’t blame her,” Van cut through her thoughts. “She did the right thing. She’s worried about her injury.”

  His arms were crossed and there was plenty of room between them now, not a single cell touching.

  “She’s being a pussy.” Jess humphed out a sigh. “It’s just a little bit of fun.”

  Van raised a brow. “This is your idea of fun?” He blew out a breath as if trying to keep a rein on his temper. “It may be yours, but it’s not Jayne’s.”

  “She doesn’t have to do it.” Jess stood, her anger rising past the point of being able to remain seated. “I’m not making them do it!”

  Even as she said the words, guilt prickled at her chest. She hadn’t exactly made it easy for them to say no, either.

  Not my concern. If they didn’t have the guts to say no…if they had to go running off to the clinic to tell tales… Fuck it, they deserved what they got.

  “They look up to you.”

  Van had swung around in his chair to follow her progress. His tone was calm and even. Soothing. Jess scowled. She knew what he was doing. Manipulating her.

  “You’re the perfect role model for rehabilitation,” he went on, ignoring her expression. “You don’t give up. You try everything. You’re not scared of failure.” Van leaned his hands on the table, not releasing Jess’s steely-eyed stare. “You make the impossible possible. But with that comes responsibility.”

  “I’m not responsible for them. I’m not even answerable for myself.” Frustration kicked at Jess’s insides, tension pulling at her shoulders. “Good grief, my own brother doesn’t trust me, so why the hell should I be expected to look after anyone else?”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it.” Van got up to face her. “You’re old enough to know better, so stop using your brother as an excuse.”

  “An excuse?” Jess spluttered. “I can’t do anything for myself without him rolling up on his white horse to save me. Remember the night of the party? The house I used to live in? I wasn’t allowed to stay there. I have to study law because he says so. I have to keep going to the clinic—”

  “He’s not making you.” Van put his hands on her shoulders as if he were going to shake her. Just as suddenly he released her. “You’re letting him.” He lowered his tone. “You want him to stop you. That way you don’t have to take responsibility.”

  Jess’s heckles raised at his accusation. “I’m not a coward,” she said, spinning out of his hold. A bolt of pain shot through her knee. She jerked back.

  For once Van didn’t move to help her.

  “So you’re telling me not to do it?” Jess collapsed on the couch, rubbing at her leg as she glared up at him.

  “What, so you can use me as a convenient excuse, too?” Van’s jaw jumped. “‘Sorry, girls I can’t do it because Van won’t let me’.” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m not using you as an excuse.” Jess recoiled at the idea. Tightness grabbed at her chest, choking at her words. “I do as much as I can and if it comes to going out with a whimper or a bang, I’ll take bang any day.”

  “That’s stupid.” Van raked his hand through his hair, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. “You know from the car accident with your mom what can happen.” His words slammed into Jess and her heart thudded painfully.

  “Yes,” she gritted out. “Bad shit happens every day. But I’ll tell you something. My mom wasn’t an everyday kind of person.” Jess’s hands fisted and she dared him to open his mouth and utter a word. “She was brave and rash and fucking awesome. She died. There wasn’t even a piece in the newspaper.” Tears pricked at Jess’s eyes and she crossed her arms, holding in the pain of saying the words out loud. She shook her head. “That’s not going to be me.”

  “So, what, you’re going to go out in a blaze of glory?” Van was unmoved. “You court disaster. You’re self-destructive.” He threw his hands up. “It’s okay to accept you have limitations—”

  “Even saying that word makes me want to be reckless,” Jess argued, heat rising to sit in a hard lump at her chest. “Why should I have limitations? Why shouldn’t I challenge life? At least I’m facing my fears and doing something, instead of treading water, cowering away like a reject and accepting my fate.”

  “You call this getting on with it?” Van scoffed. “You’re a big fish in a little pond. You strut around the clinic like you have the right to do what you want, but I don’t see you going out in the real world. You cower behind your brother, letting him pick and choose what’s safe. Using him as an excuse when it gets too hard for you.”

  Jess was breathing hard, hot anger spilling through her veins. She wanted to scream and rant and punch at Van. She wanted to storm to her room, slam the door and not face what he said. Jess scraped her hand over her mouth, knowing she would do none of these things. She was Langford stubborn and she refused to run away.

  “You’ll be gone.” With an effort, she pulled all of her resentment into herself and raised her chin to face him. “In two weeks, you’ll be gone. So what do you care?”

  Van rocked back as if she had struck him.

  “You know why.” Tension disappeared from his frame and he sank to the floor at her feet. He removed her hands from her knee and started to rub at the injured joint in gentle circles. “Because I care about you. Because you’ll end up hurting someone. Could you live with yourself if that happened? Is living up to your mom’s death worth that?

  Jess was stiff beneath his touch. “You know nothing about death.”

  Van dipped his head, hiding his expression. “I do. I lost my brother. And my father. The one who took us camping…” His voice spelled out his sadness. “He wasn’t like you. He gave up after my brother died.” When he looked up, the hard glint in Van’s expression turned his gaze cold. Distant. “You’ll never give up, but what you are doing is a form of self-destruction. I sat by and watched my father and my brother die and there was nothing I could do. I feel so damned helpless…”

  The despair in his words… Jess laid a hand on his shoulders as his body seemed to fold in on itself and he slumped against her, shuddering beneath her touch.

  “Now you want me to stand by and watch you self-destruct, because you think jumping out of a plane or launching yourself off a bungee platform is a good thing? I can’t do that, Jess. I can’t stand by and watch you do that and know there is nothing I can do.”

  Jess froze in the act of stroking the back of his neck.

  “You can’t limit me like that. You can’t stop me from being me,” she said urgently.

  “I can’t sit by idly and watch you die. Not you.”

  Jess’s heart broke at the sight of the pain on his face, but Van didn’t know what he was asking. For her never to take risks, or try something a little bit extraordinary…that was what Jess wanted her life to be about. What her mom would have wanted.

  “Then don’t watch.” Jess pushed to her feet, her limbs heavy with the weight of understanding. She opened the door, needing him to leave now before she changed her mind and b
egged him to stay. “You’re going soon anyway…maybe it’s better this way.”

  Van got up and something close to pain ripped through her chest.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this. Just because I’m leaving Wellsford doesn’t mean we have to say good-bye. I don’t want it to be good-bye,” he said, pressing his lips together. “I know I should…” He shook his head. “But I don’t want to.”

  The blood thudding through Jess’s veins felt like it was out of sync with her heart. Hope fluttered like tiny wings in her stomach.

  “Why would you want to stay with me?” She couldn’t look up.

  But she heard his deep sigh, caught the movement of his hands as they dropped to his sides. “Because what happens at the clinic doesn’t belong here with us. We have something together. Right or wrong, I want to be with you. Just Jess.”

  Something shifted in Jess’s chest at his words and she wrapped her arms around her chest, feeling insubstantial, like a puff of air might carry her away. Wasn’t that what she’d been waiting for? To hear Van say she was more to him than the sum of her injury?

  That he might be coming to like her too…

  Yet she didn’t close the door. There was still a part that wondered if Van was manipulating her again. “I want that too. But I think you should go,” she said, more firmly than she felt. “We could both use some space right now.

  “Jess, don’t do this.”

  “What? Be sensible?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I’m confused and I have a lot of thinking to do. Decisions to make.” She hoped Van got that and she hadn’t just ruined what she was starting to believe they might have.

  Van paused in the threshold, hurt in his eyes. As well as understanding. “I don’t like it. But I can live with it.”

  He opened his arms, inviting Jess into his embrace. She hesitated a beat before stepping forward. Van’s arms tightened around her and she took a deep breath, enjoying his warm masculine scent. His heart was thumping, restrained energy lying underneath the gentleness of his touch.

  With an effort Jess stepped back. “I’ll talk to you later.” She gripped the door handle, a physical anchor to stop from burying herself in his arms again.

  “Yeah. You will.”

  Watching Van go was the hardest thing Jess had ever done.

  What had happened to the night she’d been looking forward to? Remnants of the lasagna still sat on the table, congealing on the plate. Jess couldn’t face cleaning it up. She curled into a ball on the couch, swallowing past the thickness in her throat, waiting for the numbness to recede.

  Was he right? Had Jess used Cole as an excuse to stop when things got too hard?

  There was some truth to it, she supposed. Yet there had also been times when Cole had stopped her from doing one thing and she’d gone out and acted twice as bad, just to prove she could. Like the failed trip to Idaho and her near-arrest in Vegas…

  It had become like a game. Not a very nice game. Jess sank her head onto the armrest, in that moment realizing what she had done. She hadn’t been fair to Cole. In fact, she’d been nothing but a pain in the ass when he’d done nothing but love her and look after her for all these years.

  Jess wished she could call Cole now. Ask for his advice on doing the assault course with Jayne and Tash. Maybe apologize a little. Of course, she already knew what his answer would be to Mud, Sweat, and Tears. A big, fat, resounding no. Yet Jess was still compelled to hear it—old habits of hearing the truth from someone else were hard to break. And meant she wasn’t the one making the decision.

  No. She could make up her own mind. Van had said that what they had went beyond the clinic. Whether manipulating her or not, he’d made her feel like he trusted her. That she could do this. Even if it meant putting aside her feelings for Van to make the right decision.

  And what was the right decision? The amazing high Jess had experienced from rock climbing was something she wanted for Jayne and Tash. The rush that came from an achievement you didn’t think you were capable of.

  What it came down to was whether Jess truly believed her friends could handle the assault course or not. She got out the entry documents and studied the map of the course. The wall. The rope swing. Log Mountain.

  She swore under her breath. Then out loud. Admitting to herself that they would struggle was like telling her friends they weren’t whole. Jess didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to place those kinds of restrictions on them.

  But the alternative…that they attempted the course and injured themselves…

  Guilt ate like acid in the pit of Jess’s stomach. She couldn’t live with that either.

  Jess picked up her cell.

  “Jess?”

  She gripped the phone. Her mouth dry. “I’m not going to do it.” A beat of silence met her words. One second in which Jess flushed hot, then cold and had to sit down before she fell over.

  “It’s your choice and it wouldn’t have changed how much I care about you…but I’m glad.” The warmth in Van’s words replaced any lingering coldness. His voice was full of pride and Jess found a small half smile.

  She laid her head on the arm of the couch, not wanting to say anything that might ruin the moment. She wanted to stay like this all night, the phone in her hand a connection to someone so wonderful. And she wanted Van to come back. Want. Wanted. Wanting.

  The words to get what she wanted stuck in her throat. Because she didn’t just want him—Jess needed him to be here. And the knowledge scared the crap out of her.

  Jess Langford.

  Scared.

  “Goodnight, Jess,” Van said gently. As if he knew.

  And before Jess could say anything, he ended the call.

  Leaving Jess bereft. And relieved. And wondering what the hell she was going to say to her friends.

  Chapter Fourteen

  First things first. Thomas was already in town for the weekend. He’d contacted Jess yesterday as he’d driven in. To keep an eye on his investment, was how he’d put it. Although Jess knew he was there more to minimize any political fallout if something went wrong. After all, it was his name plastered all over the T-shirts.

  “I have your shirts.” Thomas set a white plastic bag on the table when she met up with him for lunch the next day. “You’ll have to act appropriately while you’re wearing them though.” His hand lingered on the package as if he was concerned about letting it go.

  “What, you think we’ll do something stupid?” Jess pulled up a wide-eyed, innocent look. He was so damned straight-laced; she couldn’t resist teasing.

  Her joke was met with restrained silence.

  Jess poked at the bag, then curiosity had her drawing out one of the T-shirts.

  We’ve been Liberated! And in smaller letters, Sponsored by Thomas Langford, because it’s our democratic right.

  She stifled a laugh. The first thing she would’ve done on Saturday was slather mud all over the slogan.

  “Here’s the thing.” She looked back at her cousin, ready to come clean. “We’re going to pull out. We’re not competing.”

  “I see.” Some of the tension left Thomas’s shoulders, but Jess couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment. His next words signaled the answer. “That is a relief. I was worried about you or your friends getting injured.”

  “Just because I have an injury…” Jess’s automatic response was to bristle—even though she’d come to the same conclusion herself last night about Jayne and Tash.

  “It’s not that.” Thomas put up his hands, trying to soothe the waters. “I’m surprised Van is letting you attempt something like this, that’s all.”

  “Van?” she managed to choke out. “How the hell do you know about Van?”

  Thomas frowned. “You’re part of his treatment program, aren’t you?”

  “No. Well, kind of. How do you know that?”

&n
bsp; “I’m on St. Mathew’s Board, remember?” Thomas looked slightly confused. “They’re keen to be the flagship hospital for more cutting-edge rehabilitation. Van was invited to talk to us last week about his proposed extension program. He discussed a case study he’s working on.” Thomas leaned in, his voice dropping. “I recognized your injury. You’re his poster girl. Aren’t you?”

  Thomas may have kept talking after that, but if he did, Jess didn’t hear any of it. She felt sick. Numb.

  She was just a statistic. A part of Van’s treatment program.

  A client.

  She tried to suck in a breath, nausea causing her stomach to roll. Jess gripped the edge of the table, scared she would topple off her chair if she didn’t hold onto something solid.

  “Jess. Are you all right?” The sharp tone of alarm in Thomas’s voice jolted Jess out of her downward spiral.

  Was she all right?

  “No. Yes. Shit.” She jumped up from her chair, ignoring the pain in her knee as it twisted sideways. She couldn’t sit still anymore. She wanted to punch something. Something beginning with the letter V. “I-I have to go.” Right after she’d had a good howl.

  “Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help?”

  Thomas followed her up, darting quick glances around the restaurant, probably concerned about the scene she was creating.

  “Oh, you’ve helped, all right.”

  Jess snatched up the bag of T-shirts. Anger cut through the gut-wrenching disappointment as the bottom fell out of her relationship with Van.

  Jess clung to her growing rage. Anger was better than feeling sorry for herself.

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” Thomas tugged her to a stop before she escaped out of the door.

  “What? Scared I’ll send your political career up in flames?”

  Hurt streaked across Thomas’s face and Jess felt like the prize bitch she was.