Complicated Creatures: Part Two Read online

  “Don’t,” Jack told her, his shoulders tensing, knowing what she was going to say and sensing where this conversation was leading. “Don’t do this, Samantha.”

  She pressed her lips against his back, the tenderness of the gesture impacting him like a body blow.

  “I’m not doing this with you,” Jack told her. “Not right now. Not when we’re both angry and emotional.” He gritted his teeth, staring hard at a fixed point of light in the distance, seeking to stabilize himself.

  Samantha drew her hand around his waist, holding him from behind as she sighed, her breath warm against his skin. “I told you I would hurt you. I knew I would, but it’s not because I don’t feel anything,” Samantha whispered, her hand slipping around his middle. “It’s because I feel too much, Jack,” she continued. “I’ve come out of the other side of too much pain. There have been too many conflicts; too many scars—the damage—,” her breath hitched. “—the damage too substantial,” she admitted, holding him. “None of this is because there’s someone else, or because I don’t want to let you in.” She took a breath. “I wanted it to work with you, Jack,” she professed. “I wanted to be able to give you what you needed.”

  “I know that,” he answered, holding her arms against him now. “And I know you, Samantha. Even though you don’t think I do.”

  “Then you also know by now that I’m not the right woman for you,” she continued, her wet lashes brushing butterfly touches along the skin of his back even as her words eviscerated him.

  Jack shut his eyes. He swore his heart was tearing.

  “I can’t give you what you need, because I don’t have any more to give, darlin’,” she whispered, the ache in her rasp plain. “I lost so much along the way… now, I don’t have much left to offer. But I wanted to—God, I want to, Jack,” she sighed, her tears wetting his skin. “But we both know I’d be lying if I said I could do it. And you deserve better than a relationship with a broken woman who’ll leave you hanging. You deserve better, Jack.”

  Samantha held him to her for a long time. Jack kept his eyes closed, because even though she held him, he could feel her separating from him. Jack squeezed her arms, opening his eyes to stare unseeing into the night sky over Rio.

  “I can’t let you go, Samantha. I won’t.”

  “I know you think you love me, Jack, but you don’t know me. Not really,” she told him gently. “And I don’t want you to. Because I know you won’t like what you find out. And I don’t think I could stand it—the look in your eyes when the passion goes out of it,” she confessed, voice aching with emotion.

  In the warm night that surrounded them, Jack recognized he was pressed between a rock and a hard place—knowing Samantha was unerringly right in so many ways. He recognized the limitations within himself to accept her as she was, with the choices she made and how she chose to live her life. She would always be on the razor’s edge, her safety and well-being forever in question. He wasn’t sure he could love her on those terms, able to glimpse only facets of her, yet knowing what lay beneath. How could they spend finely-delineated moments together, knowing there’d be no happily ever after?

  But God, he loved her—wanted her. Only her.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she confessed. “But I don’t regret anything we’ve shared together, because you’re amazing, Jack,” she murmured. “You amaze me. And I’m selfish enough to admit that I wanted to hold onto you for as long as I could, even though I knew I shouldn’t.” She stepped back. “You deserve someone whole, Jack,” her voice stronger, resolute, “Someone who can really be open with you. And I love you enough to want that for you… even if it hurts me to do it.”

  Jack turned, grasping her hand before she could step back further, yanking her to him. He pushed a rough hand into her hair, cradling her head up to him as he stared down at her, trying to think of the right words to say, to convince her not to leave him, to convince himself this wasn’t for the best.

  They stared at each other for long moments, each telegraphing their individual desolation like survivors of a shipwreck sending smoke signals from separate islands. Samantha broke their gaze first, pressing one last, long kiss to his mouth.

  They held each other for what felt like an hour, letting the warm breeze brush against them, listening to the distant sounds and melodies of Rio’s nighttime filtering up to them.

  Jack thought of and discarded all the things he could say, searching for the right words, the best arguments. But in the end, he said nothing, because he knew as much as he wanted to fight for her, negotiate with her and plead his case, she was decided.

  And she was right.

  He did deserve better.

  But as Jack felt her let go of him, and as he listened to the terrace door shutting quietly in her wake, he hung his head, his eyes painfully close to watering. Because while he knew everything she said was true, he also understood with complete certainty that there wouldn’t be another like her. And he knew with total conviction that she’d taken something from him he’d never, ever get back.

  *

  December 5th—Early Morning

  Hospital Copa D’Or in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  W E S L E Y

  “When in the hell did you get so damn big?”

  Carey glanced past the nurse by his bed to grin at Wes, seeing him standing in the doorway of his hospital room. “Sophomore year of high school,” he replied. “Can’t have scrawny linebackers in Texas. It’s against our religion.”

  “You ever thought about going pro?” Wes asked, coming into the room as the nurse helped Carey pull a shirt on over his bandages.

  “Played for the Naval Academy, but after 9/11, well…” Carey shrugged.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” Wes admitted. “Last time I saw you, you and Ry were painting glow-in-the-dark obscenities on heifers and driving your poor mother nuts.”

  Carey chuckled, a twinkle in his eyes, “Your graduation dinner at the ranch, right?” he asked, thanking the nurse as she left them. “It’s amazing my mama didn’t just tie us up that night, we were causin’ so much trouble.”

  “You always were hell-on-wheels together,” Wes smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay, man,” he told him as they shook hands.

  “Heard you were there at Santos Dumont when all that shit went down,” Carey replied, the light in his eyes turning into a glint.

  “Yeah,” Wes nodded. “I was spotting for Talon. When that guy shot you, I damn near had a coronary.”

  “Ain’t the first time I’ve been shot.” Carey shrugged. “Probably won’t be the last.”

  “Y’all flying out today?” Wes asked, glancing at Carey’s street clothes as he settled back on the bed.

  “Headed out in a couple hours.” Carey told him. “You headed back stateside soon?”

  Wes nodded as he stood beside the bed. “Since we were already down here filming when the riots started, we’ve got more good footage than we can shake a stick at. NBS has been airing parts of it every night for the past week. But now that the protests are dwindling down, I can do the rest of the editing back in Austin for the series.”

  “You’ve got an agency there now, right?” Carey asked.

  “Started it a few years back with some friends.”

  Carey nodded, looking Wes over, his gaze speculative.

  “You gonna ask or are you wait for me to say it?” Wes said after moments of tense silence, acknowledging Carey’s assumed role as gatekeeper.

  Carey smiled at Wes’s directness. “If you think I’m gonna let you waltz in here and get her worked up again, you got another thing comin’,” he told Wes. “Sammy’s the closest thing I got to a sister, so I’m not likely to make anything easy for you, Wes.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “But I’ll admit I’m curious what you’ve got to say for yourself after all these years.”

  Wes moved over to the large window overlooking the vivid greenery of a nearby park. He thought about all the excuses and reasons he could give, but
he knew somehow Carey would do no more than listen sympathetically before showing him the door. He also guessed there was no way Carey would help him with Sammy if he didn’t lay his cards out, exposing himself and the truth he’d never told Sammy in those last, difficult months they’d been together.

  “How well do you remember her daddy?” Wes asked finally, leaning against the ledge of the window.

  “Very well,” Carey nodded. “Uncle Rob was like my second father. Same as how my dad is with Sammy, I guess.”

  “Then you remember Robert was a wise man,” Wes continued. “Shrewd. Perceptive.”

  “Yeah, he was,” Carey agreed.

  “Just before I graduated he took me out to dinner,” Wes began. “I never told Sammy, but he offered to introduce me to his contacts in the industry. Major players in the media. He could help me open the kinds of doors I didn’t even know existed, much less know where to knock on for a kid my age and with my limited experience.”

  Carey watched Wes silently for a moment, processing his admission.

  “I’m sure he had good reason,” he finally said to Wes.

  “He did,” Wes agreed. “Robert told me Sammy had grown up taking care of men her whole life. First, her granddaddy when he got old, then Ry after their mother died, you when your mama was busy at the ranch, and finally him, when he wasn’t sober.”

  Carey grimaced, recalling that distant past.

  “Robert told me she was extraordinary, and of course, I agreed,” Wes told him, recalling Sammy at the cusp of something major, how bright she shined even before she’d fully shed her chrysalis. “I knew how outrageously talented and smart she was,” Wes recalled. “And when Robert told me she wouldn’t reach her full potential if she spent her life taking care of me, making sure I met my goals and lived my dreams, I knew he was right. I knew she’d always put me first, because in the time we’d been together, she was already doing that.” Wes pushed away from the window, coming back to brace his hands on the back of the chair next to Carey’s bed. “She wouldn’t pursue her own dreams, because she’d always be tending to mine.”

  “So you let her go,” Carey concluded.

  “No, man,” Wes shook his head, expression pained. “But I should’ve. I was selfish. Too selfish to give her up,” he admitted. “I attended the meetings Robert recommended, and I landed my first job with Reuters. But still, I couldn’t let her be.”

  Carey’s brow creased. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Why would you?” Wes shrugged. “I was in Eastern Europe most of the following year, chasing leads, writing stories. And Sammy was in her last year at A&M.” Wes looked up at the ceiling, his memories of that long, brutal year apart washing over him. “I won’t lie to you and tell you it wasn’t a struggle. Every day without her was a struggle. But I was doing what I loved, and I could see her coming into her own—becoming stronger, more defined.” Wes rounded the chair again, sitting. “And when she was offered that Naval Intelligence job in Houston, I knew she had to take it. And I knew we weren’t going to get any closer to being together for a while. Not with me on the road and her working full time in the Navy, ready to be deployed at any second.”

  Carey raised a brow. “This is all makes for a very moving story, Wes. But that doesn’t change the fact that you waited to leave her when she needed you most,” he told him, his voice hardening. “I was with her the day of the funeral and all the days thereafter. I was just a boy then, struggling with my own grief, but you were a man,” Carey pointed out. “You’d been with her when times were good, and if you loved her—really loved her—you would have never left her alone like that, no matter what you thought was right in the long run.”

  Wes nodded, regret weighing him down as he imagined her, waiting for him to arrive and the way she looked when she realized he never would. “At the funeral,” he paused, his voice breaking a little. He cleared his throat. “Did you take care of her?”

  “I did,” Carey nodded. “And I promised her on that day I’d never leave her. I’d never let her suffer alone. Because Ryland wouldn’t want it that way.” Carey shook his head at Wes, his disappointment palpable. “She would’ve never done that to you—left you hanging like that.”

  “I know it,” Wes answered, rubbing a hand over his face. “That’s why I didn’t come. That’s why I didn’t show.”

  Carey’s head tilted as he put the pieces together. “You wanted her to hate you. You wanted to make sure she’d never come and find you,” he realized, incredulous. “All these years I thought you’d just been a coward, but you did it on purpose.”

  “It was better that way,” Wes admitted. “I wanted her to move on and not look back. I didn’t think I had anything to offer her then. If she hadn’t been so in love with me, with the idea of us, she would have seen it too. But I let her hold on; I let her believe I was ready when I wasn’t.”

  “That’s sad.” Carey shook his head. “But in a twisted sense, I see your logic. That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve made your bed,” he pointed out. “And I don’t care how many years have gone by, Wes—you’re gonna lie in it.”

  “I would, Carey,” Wes conceded, “if I didn’t still miss her so damn much, even after all this time. And I may have ended our relationship in the worst way possible, but you and I both know what I did was right. Sammy and I wouldn’t have been able to go the distance then. But we can now. We’re not kids anymore—”

  “Well, that’s just too damn bad, Wes,” Carey interrupted, closing ranks. “Because she’s moved on. She did exactly what you wanted her to, and she doesn’t want you anymore. She’s with Jack now. She’s happy with him.”

  Wes walked back to the window, pushing his hair back in frustration as he thought about whether he should let her go again. Leave her alone like he’d intended to back then.

  Was he just being a selfish prick to dredge it up all these years later?

  But Wes didn’t believe any god or coincidence would be so cruel as to give him another chance with her, just to have him pussy out and walk away from it. He straightened, turning back to Carey.

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that of all the media companies, of all the photojournalists, of all the cities, and of all the moments—Sammy and I find each other in the same orbit again?” Wes asked. “You don’t find it incredibly fortuitous that I just happen to run into her after all these years apart, the same night I could have lost her again?”

  “Coincidence,” Carey replied flippantly.

  “Bullshit,” Wes answered back. “That’s bullshit and you know it. I was always going to find my way back to her. When the time was right—when we were both ready.”

  Carey sighed and considered what Wes had to say. “I can see you care about her, that you probably still love her, but I’m not paving the way for you, man. She’s got a lot on her plate right now, and she’s with another man to boot. And frankly, if she wanted you around, she’d tell you herself,” he pointed out. “So the only reason you’re here is because she hasn’t told you, and you’re desperate to find another way in.”

  “I am,” Wes replied honestly. “I’m desperate to know her again. I want her in my life.”

  “Well she just had hers threatened, her best friend attacked, and her boyfriend’s brother shot—What makes you think she isn’t happy as a clam already?” Carey joked, closing his eyes on a wince.

  “You’re tired,” Wes noticed. “I should leave you alone to get some sleep before your flight.” He turned to go.

  “Wes—” Carey called out.

  He stopped, turning slowly, hope catching on a thread.

  “She’s not the same person you loved back then,” Carey told him, his admission accompanied with the briefest of grimaces. “She’s been through hell and back, and the Sammy you loved then isn’t the woman she is now.”

  Wes took a deep breath as he thought about his reply.

  “Well, I’m not the same guy she loved back then either. I’ve built a life, Carey. I’ve a
chieved my goals, and I know who I am now.” Wes felt a bitter smile twist his lips as he wished fruitlessly he’d been able to do those things with her at his side. “I just want the chance to know her again. I just want the chance to see if we have what it takes to make it now.”

  “Good luck, man,” Carey murmured after a moment. “It won’t be easy.”

  Wes shrugged, turning back toward the door. “The best things in life rarely are,” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe that’s why we want them so bad.”

  Chapter 8

  December 5th—Early Morning

  Somewhere over Texas

  J A C K

  As the Bombardier descended through the cloud layers, Jack glimpsed rolling acres of prairies and farmland; patchwork pastures of green and gold as far as the eye could see. When the plane banked and approached the airfield, he watched what had to be a thousand head of cattle racing across the plains, startled by the jet’s engines as they herded together.

  “That’s Wyatt Ranch,” Carey said beside him, his voice a little gravelly from his doze. “That’s my heaven on earth,” he sighed, looking out on the sun just setting over the horizon.

  A bittersweet sadness caught in Jack’s throat as he stared down at the place Samantha had visited just a week ago. It wasn’t lost on him that this was the only other place she called home besides the penthouse in Chicago. Was it only Thanksgiving that he’d imagined he’d share this place with her, maybe spend Christmas here? That hopeful, exuberant feeling made him feel as if his heart was bursting when he’d looked into her eyes that day. And now, the same sentiment was trapped in his chest now, the dull ache to his private anguish.

  Jack looked away from the window, preferring to reflect on the reality of their parting at another time, somewhere far from prying eyes. His gaze found Samantha as she sat chatting with Jaime, who was reclining on the jet’s sofa. He and Carey had started out in the Bombardier’s bedrooms at the beginning of the flight, but sometime over the Caribbean both had insisted on moving out into the main cabin with the rest of them, tired of feeling like invalids under the constant fussing of the medical team that accompanied them.