Page 91 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
t need anything in the world as long as he had his Claire. When he was around her, he’d light up.
There had never been a woman that sparked a light in my soul. Not until Georgia.
It started the first night I came to the farmhouse and she was standing on the porch, giving me shit. Her mass of hair piled in a mess. Wearing the ugliest fucking sweater I’d ever seen in my life. One I’d seen her pull on countless times since.
She was the light I’d been looking for.
Now I just needed to make sure she knew it. That I undid all of the damage that asshole had done. And then I could work to make her as happy as Ben had made Claire.
“What the eff, Jess!” Georgia shouted. “You’re just telling me this now? That was weeks ago. You should have told me then. How could you keep this from me?”
She was in the kitchen, banging and clashing pots and pans around as she made dinner.
I’d just told Georgia about Wes’s visit to the station on the Sunday that I had snapped at Rowen.
Wes had just been messing with me, so I’d planned on keeping it a secret. I didn’t want her freaked out and worried.
But, thanks to Milo, she’d found out tonight.
Just because I didn’t expect Wes to make a move didn’t mean I hadn’t taken precautions. Someone from the station would watch over Quail Hollow each afternoon until Georgia collected Rowen.
Usually, I made a point to drive down myself. I’d park a few blocks down and watch until they were both safely driving home. But if I couldn’t do it, I asked Sam or Bryant to take my place. But today we’d all been busy so I’d asked Milo.
I’d given him a quick briefing and asked him to be discreet, which to him meant standing outside the Quail Hollow door and escorting Georgia to her car. Of course when she had asked him what was going on, he’d spilled.
Fucking Milo.
If I didn’t like him so much, I’d kick his ass.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just didn’t want you to worry,” I said.
“You don’t get to decide that on your own. You can’t keep making decisions for me, Jess! Especially with something like this. When it involves my safety or Rowen’s, you don’t get to walk all over me.”
Fuck.
My shoulders fell. She was right.
“I’m used to making the decisions without input. At work. With my mom. I wasn’t trying to walk all over you.”
“Then stop doing it,” she said. “You have to talk to me or this is never going to work.”
“I will,” I promised.
I’d been going about things all wrong with Georgia. She wasn’t like my mother. She didn’t want to have things done for her or to be left in the dark. If I was going to keep her in my life, make her happy, I had to start including her in making decisions.
She stopped pacing and planted her hands on the island, dropping her head toward the floor.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“What?” I said. “What do you mean?”
Was she going to try and break up with me just because of this? She was fucking wrong if she thought I’d let her. She was mine and I wasn’t letting her push me away.
“I’m not strong enough for you,” she said. “You need to be with a woman who can live with the threats. The stories about drug dealers and . . . whatever else comes along. Someone who won’t freak out.”
My hands fisted on the island. I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. What the fuck did she mean she wasn’t strong enough? She was the strongest woman I’d ever met.
But I took a deep breath and calmed my temper, reminding myself to be patient. She was just scared and this was just another thing she could use to push me away. She just needed time, time to see that I wasn’t going to hurt her.
