Dare to Live Read online

  “Mack,” Lowell called. “One more thing. If you decide to apologize to Mrs. Maxwell, then make sure you’re doing it because you want to, not because we want you to.”

  Donovan hopped into his SUV and peeled out of the driveway.

  I ambled over to Jessie, rubbing my ear, which was now throbbing like a motherfucker. “Will you forgive me?”

  She huffed. “I’ve been torn up about Mack showing up at your house drunk and what he did to your mom. You seem to be holding that over my head. If you don’t want anything to do with me, then make sure it’s because you’re not attracted to me and not because of your feud with Mack. I’ve told you several times that I’m not interested in Mack. I’m interested in you. Sure, I’ve been a little moody and out of sorts. But I have my reasons.” She gave Lowell a sad look.

  “We’re broke,” Lowell said. “We’re trying to make ends meet, which was why I stressed out and ended up in the hospital.”

  That would certainly explain Jessie’s moods and why she’d been crying on several occasions. I hung my head. I was only making her life worse.

  “Mack isn’t a bad guy,” Lowell said. “I get the animosity you have for him. Coming at him with your guns barreling is not the way to get him to listen. If I may say, you owe him an apology for ganging up on him.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t ready to play that card.

  Kade slapped a hand on my back. “We shouldn’t have brought both of you into our fight with Donovan. We are sorry.”

  I placed a hand over my still-throbbing ear. I needed ice, a drink, and to get out of there. I felt like a moron.

  Jessie pried my hand from my ear. “Oh my God. You need ice on that before it swells more.” The salt in her tone melted to sugar.

  One whiff of her coconut scent gave me the urge to bury my face in her hair and bottle up her essence. “I’m good. I’ll get ice on it when I get home. Let Donovan know that my dad tuned up his motorcycle and he can pick it up anytime.”

  Lowell angled his head. “Your dad is into motorcycles?”

  “He was when he was younger. Harleys only, though,” Kade added.

  “Seriously,” Jessie chimed in. “Please stop this feud with Mack. I really don’t want to see anyone land in the hospital. I see enough blood and pain daily. I’m sure your mom would agree.”

  Before my brain could catch up with my body, my arms were around Jessie, maybe because she’d brought up my mom. “You and Lowell are right.” Somehow, before I could settle anything with Donovan, I had to come to terms with what Donovan had done to me. It was definitely time to seek counsel from my dad.

  Snuggling into my chest, Jessie wrapped her arms around my waist. “Let me at least get you a bag of frozen vegetables for the ride home.”

  I broke away. “Sure.”

  The minute she grasped my hand, an electrical charge seemed to connect us, untying the knot that had formed inside my stomach. “Come with me. Kade, we won’t be long.”

  Kade nodded before he and Lowell launched into a discussion on Harleys.

  Jessie and I strolled down a tree-lined path, hand in hand, to a two-story home directly ahead. A squirrel sat underneath a tree, frozen until we passed. Then he darted up the trunk, leaves rustling in his wake.

  “Have you heard from Mr. Robinson yet?” she asked.

  “No, but he said it would take him a week. Don’t worry. The man sticks to his word.”

  She let go of my hand as she walked up the ramp to her porch. “I’m not worried. I am curious how much money I could make if he decided to sign us.”

  I wasn’t broke, but I was also interested in how much Mr. Robinson would pay me. Nevertheless, my body warmed at her reference of us. “I will tell you that what a songwriter gets paid is quite different than what the performer gets paid.” That much I knew. “The record label is mandated by the federal government to pay songwriters a fixed rate per song sold.” I’d spent time researching the topic. The salary of a songwriter wasn’t as high as a performer, but I could still make a living.

  “Mm.” She wiggled her hips into the house.

  I followed her in until we were in the kitchen. “Jess, why didn’t you tell me when I came to pick you up for our date last week the reason you were upset?”

  She opened the freezer. “Telling people Lowell and I are hanging on by a financial thread is rather embarrassing.”

  She had a point, although if she’d been open with me, then I wouldn’t have pulled out my hair, thinking she was twisted over Donovan. But Donovan was still a problem.

  Any thoughts of that asshole disappeared when the lush backyard out the sliding glass door caught my eye. Budding trees, colorful flowers, and a carpet of green grass gave the yard a serene and cozy feeling. I ventured out onto the small deck then down the stairs, until I was inhaling the floral lilac scent that hung in the air. Suddenly, my belly ached as though I had food poisoning. Mandy had had a yard full of lilacs.

  “My mom loved working out here,” Jessie said just before she mashed a bag of frozen vegetables to my ear.

  I flinched.

  She snickered. “Sorry. But this will help the swelling.”

  I grabbed hold of the ice pack, a welcome relief to the acid swishing around in my stomach.

  Jessie sat down on the bottom step and began picking at a blade of grass. “I was hoping you and Mack would settle your differences, but I see now you can’t, and that makes me sad. I really like you, Kody. I haven’t felt this way about a man in a long time.” She lifted her head, and her soft expression was almost sad. “I know you want me as badly as I want you. I can feel it. I felt it the moment Raven introduced us. I felt it when we had sex. I felt it at your house for Sunday dinner.”

  One side of my mouth went up at the mention of Raven, but my insides were now aching for a different reason. “Donovan loves you.”

  “I know,” she said on a light breeze. “Again, I don’t love him the way he loves me. He’s a family friend, and he’s been in my life since we were teenagers. I’m not giving him up as a friend. I guess what I’m trying to say is I understand why we would never work. Besides, you need a whole woman, and I’m not her.”

  My face scrunched in all directions if that were possible. “Explain that last part.”

  She rose and ambled over to a lilac tree. “Lilacs were my mom’s favorite.”

  I tossed the ice pack on the deck before my feet sank into the thick grass as I headed over to her, trying to make sense of what she’d meant by a whole woman. She sounded as though she was breaking up with me when, in fact, we weren’t dating. Sure, she was spot-on when she’d said I wanted her as badly as she wanted me. I wouldn’t deny that at all.

  I gently grasped the sides of her arms and guided her to face me. Tears clouded her eyes. “Baby doll, talk to me. I’ve been honest with you.”

  “Have you?”

  “You know my feelings toward Donovan. Do you want to hear that I dream about you every night? Or that I want to be the guy who steals your breath when I walk into a room. Or that I feel connected to you in so many ways that I don’t understand.”

  She flattened her hand on my chest. “Didn’t your sister, Karen, say the heart knows?”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. My old man had definitely shared a lot with her, and hearing Karen’s name definitely hit a nerve. Nevertheless, we were talking about her and not me. “Jess, explain the whole woman part.”

  She leaned back against the tree, and her hands trembled. “Would you still kiss me and hold me if my appearance changed?”

  “Baby doll, you could have a sex-change operation, and I would still think you were beautiful.”

  A tear slid down her cheek as her lower lip quivered.

  Wow, I couldn’t even get her to smile at my statement. Whatever was eating at her had to be big. “Just tell me, Jess. I’m not easily scared.”

  She sighed. “The other reason why you see me cry a lot is I found out that day you met me in the cafeteria that I tes
ted positive for the breast cancer gene. My chances of developing breast cancer are extremely high, and I’ve been toying with having a double mastectomy. I don’t want to end up like my grandmother and my mom. But I want a family, a husband, and above all else, I don’t want to lose my identity.”

  I tugged her to me. I couldn’t say I knew what she was going through. All I knew was I wanted to protect her and make all her sadness go away.

  She sobbed.

  “Breasts or no breasts, you will still be beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have you.”

  She cried harder.

  I edged back, tipping her chin upward. “I would be lucky to have you.”

  “But you like my breasts.”

  I chuckled. “I won’t deny that.” I smoothed a finger over her eyebrow piercing. “You can’t worry about what others think. You need to make your decision based on what you want and what’s right for you.” I loved breasts as much as the next man. I’d loved sucking on hers that mind-blowing night at my place. But whether she had real breasts, implants, or none, my feelings for her stemmed around her and not just a body part.

  She wiped her nose. “Who are you, my psychiatrist?”

  I lowered my head and brushed my lips over hers. “I have grown up with one.”

  She smiled, and that stone wall around my beating heart cracked open—wide open.

  “I want you, Jess. I can’t keep telling myself we won’t work because of Donovan.” Or that she would die on her motorcycle. Or that she could develop breast cancer. I couldn’t keep thinking like that. “I will fight for you if I have to.” Tentatively, I planted my lips on hers until she pressed her body against me.

  For the first time in forever, I could see beyond my past. I could feel something far greater with Jessie than I had with Mandy.

  Her hands slid up my shirt. The warmth of her skin on mine grounded me and gave me clarity, sharp and clear. This wasn’t lust, far from it. The steady bang of my pulse against my skin said she was mine, and no matter what roadblocks we came up against, we would deal with them together.

  “I want to chase falling stars with you,” I whispered, gently peppering kisses all over her soft skin. “I want to catch fireflies with you.”

  She moaned lightly as she crawled up my body.

  I lifted her easily. “Kiss me, Jess. Kiss me like you mean it.”

  Her brown eyes met mine. “I won’t stop if I do.”

  “Kody,” Kade called at my back. “I need to get back to Boston. Don’t forget. You have a gig at the club tonight.”

  She pressed her forehead to mine, her chest rising. “I don’t want you to go.”

  Fuck. I didn’t either. “I’ll be right there,” I said, not turning around to face my brother. “I’m sorry, baby doll. I’m playing at Rumors this weekend.” I needed to keep adding to my bank account.

  Jessie slid down until she was on two feet. “Where do we go from here?”

  To a faraway place where the ocean meets the sand. “I’m not sure. But come to Boston with me.”

  She frowned. “I can’t. I have a shift in the morning.”

  I cupped her face and kissed her lightly on the lips. “How about tomorrow night?”

  She nodded as she twined her fingers in mine. “I’ll be there.”

  She walked Kade and me out to my truck. Lowell was in the shop on his cell phone. He waved as I opened the driver’s side door and planted another quick kiss on Jessie’s lips.

  As I moved to get in the truck, she grabbed my arm. “Kody, please work things out with Mack. You two can’t keep fighting.” Her tone was sweet with an undercurrent of firmness.

  I almost said, “he started it,” but I realized who had thrown the first punch didn’t matter. She saw both of us trying to draw blood, and I wanted badly to make Donovan hurt like I had all those years ago. “Agreed. But he’s got to want to put the past aside too. I won’t even entertain the idea until he apologizes to my mom.”

  “He will,” she said with surety.

  Then the ball was in his court.

  After I gave Jessie a quick kiss on her forehead, Kade and I left. About a mile down the road, I let out a huge sigh as my pulse pounded in my ears.

  “Want to talk about it?” Kade asked.

  I turned right at a stop sign. “I just spilled my guts to Jessie. Fuck. I haven’t done that to another girl since Mandy.”

  Kade grinned so wide, I could almost feel his happiness. “Awesome. That means you’ve made progress. I’m proud of you, bro. She’s a beautiful woman, and you two would be good together. But”—he lost his smile—“are you cool with Donovan in her life? Do you really think he will tell Mom he’s sorry?”

  Those were the million-dollar questions.

  “I don’t know.” I really didn’t. What I did know was I wanted Jessie, and for that, I might have to make the first move with Donovan. As Lowell had said, “It’s time someone acts like an adult.”

  Chapter 21

  Jessie

  The closer I got to Rumors, the more my stomach fluttered. I’d been on a roller coaster of emotions all day. One minute, I was smiling as though nothing could make me cry. The next minute, I dove into a dark place. I kept replaying my conversation with Kody from the day before. The man was beyond sweet. Then somehow, Linda Harold’s story overshadowed everything else. She’d said her boyfriend had been completely on board with her decision to have her breasts removed. Then he’d left her. I couldn’t help but think that Kody would do the same. I didn’t want to invest my feelings with him only to have him rip out my insides.

  My intuition told me he wasn’t that type of guy, especially after meeting the rest of his family—his brothers, his dad, the way they doted on their family. The Maxwells cared deeply for those they loved.

  Cars passed as Roxanne and I waited for the walk sign to illuminate on the busy Boston street.

  “I can’t believe you told Kody about your mutated gene.” Roxanne clutched her purse. “I think that’s good.”

  “Telling him felt right.” A heavy weight had been lifted off my shoulders. “I didn’t want him to believe I’d been crying over Mack.”

  The walk sign lit up, and Roxanne and I crossed the street along with other pedestrians.

  “Linda Harold said that you don’t have to make a decision right away. I told you that you should wait a couple of years at least. But I’m thinking if you did make a decision to have the surgery now, you might relax. I will support you with whatever you do.”

  A driver hit his horn. Beep. Beep.

  I’d done a lot of thinking. Mr. Maxwell, Roxanne, and Linda had all said the same thing—not to rush into anything. I understood that being intimate with someone wasn’t all about breasts. Not to mention, I was ahead of the game. I wasn’t ignoring the stats, and I was doing my homework. For that, I could breathe a little better. I believed my mom would be proud of me. If she were alive, she would have counseled me with the same advice that Mr. Maxwell, Roxanne, and Linda had given me. A large part of me would have bet my mom wouldn’t have wanted me to go through with the surgery. She would probably have said, “Jess, you’re too young. You might fall into that column where you would never get breast cancer.” Still, I’d been checking my breasts every morning before getting out of bed.

  I caught Roxanne’s arm when we reached the main entrance of Rumors. “What would you do if you had the breast cancer gene? Would you take your own advice and wait?”

  She slid out of the way of a pedestrian. “I don’t know what I would do if the tables were turned. So it’s hard for me to say ‘yeah, do it’ or ‘no, don’t do it.’”

  I hooked my arm in hers. “I do love you.”

  “So is Mack going to apologize to Mrs. Maxwell?”

  I shook my head. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Mack. I will, though. But I can’t force him. He has to own up to what he did. Besides, the more I push him to do the right thing, the more he won’t. That’s how he is.” I wanted more than anything for K
ody and Mack to work out their differences.

  “Jessie?” A familiar male voice called my name.

  I zeroed in on Mr. Robinson walking toward us with a young woman at his side. My heart sped up a little, hoping he had good news about my song.

  The beautiful young woman with long brown hair and green eyes that reminded me of a lush field of grass stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Lacey. Kade and my dad have told me a lot about you.”

  Kade was one lucky guy.

  “This is my dear friend, Roxanne.”

  Roxanne waved.

  “Are you singing with Kody tonight?” Lacey asked.

  Mr. Robinson tilted his head. “Do you want to?”

  “She does,” Roxanne answered for me, excited as always when it came to me singing.

  I hadn’t planned on it. A crowd of people still made me queasy. But the more I sang, the more I felt comfortable with my own voice.

  Lacey snickered. “I see that you have a big fan. I would love to hear you. My dad tells me that he’s putting together a contract for you.”

  Another spark of excitement ribboned through my veins.

  “Lace.” Mr. Robinson’s tone was cautious. “I haven’t finalized anything yet.”

  “Come on, Dad. You said yourself she’ll be a huge star.”

  My jaw came unhinged.

  Roxanne poked a finger in my arm. “See, I told you.”

  “I’m still discussing things with my business partner,” Mr. Robinson said. “He’s not due back from his trip for two weeks. So I need more time. But things do look promising. Let’s get you up on stage tonight. I want to see what the crowd thinks of the song. This will be a good temperature gauge. Sound good?”

  I couldn’t exactly force him to speed up the process, but if singing tonight helped push things along, I was all for it. “Sure.”

  Lowell and I had gone over our finances together last night after Kade and Kody had left, and the numbers didn’t look great. Since Mr. Maxwell hadn’t charged me for our session, I put that extra money toward the mortgage. Still, a singing contract wasn’t a sure thing, but my job was. So starting on Monday, I would be working extra shifts in the ER at night to help bring in some extra money and Lowell and Mack would take care of customers in the shop. At least I hoped Mack would show up for work on Monday.