Page 104 of The Lucky Heart (Jamison Valley 3)
I’d been a dick this week, short and irritable, and I felt bad for taking it out on her. But these nightmares, they were fucking with my head.
Felicity probably assumed it was my time in the army causing my bad dreams. It wasn’t. I had been exposed to extreme violence and intensity, but somehow, I had learned to compartmentalize that time and not let it get to me.
Many others, like Paxon, were not as fortunate. I didn’t envy the way his memories would sneak up on him and thrust him into the past. He had been more forthcoming with me lately. A couple of times this week, he’d confided in me some of the problems he was having coping with his civilian life and I hoped that with a calm home and hard work, he would find a way to quiet his mind.
Those things had helped me. Coming home to Montana had made all the difference in the world and I hadn’t lost sleep because of my military past in years.
My nightmares were from Wes.
Right before Christmas, two years ago, I had been driving along an old country road on the far edge of the ranch and spotted something in the ditch.
Not something. Someone. Wes.
My childhood friend.
Dead.
He had been stabbed brutally and left to bleed out in the snow. His white skin and empty eyes had been in my dreams almost every night this past week. He’d sit up from his icy grave and tell me that Felicity would never be mine. That she’d always love him.
His blue lips would speak my biggest fear.
Felicity would always love Wes more than me. I was competing with a ghost. Men like me didn’t like to come in second place, but I had no chance at beating Wes. Felicity wasn’t over him.
I could read the signs.
In sixteen years, she’d never moved on. She’d had plenty of time to meet someone, get married and have kids. Instead, she’d dated assholes like that douchebag Andrea Merkuso was marrying. She’d dated men with no chance of replacing her love for Wes.
When she’d come home from Seattle, she had said that it was for her family and to be around for her mom, but I didn’t buy it. I think she came back because, now that Wes was gone, this was the only place where she still had a connection to him. Here, she could visit his grave and spend time with his parents.
For Christ’s sake, she kept a picture of them from high school on her mantel. Her house was void of any other photographs except the one of her and Wes. I’d seen that picture months ago and known I’d always just be a second-place contender for her heart.
And as much as all that shit had bothered me, I’d been able to push it down, ignore it and bury it deep. There had been no nightmares until Sabrina had showed up at my door.
Did Felicity recognize that her best friend was the spitting image of Wes?
Sabrina had lighter hair and eyes of a different color, but her face, nose and mouth were the same shape, and she reminded me so much of a younger Wes it was uncanny. Felicity had left us all behind but had made sure to find a Wes replacement to fill his void. How the fuck was I supposed to ignore that?
For the first time ever, I was actually glad she’d stayed gone for sixteen years. Seeing them together in my nightmares was bad enough. If she’d come home and reconnected with Wes, it would have gutted me. I would have re-enlisted and never come back.
But here we were, together. Get over this shit, man.
I had to work this out. Alone.
I wouldn’t tell Felicity about the nightmares, but I would spend more days like today, soaking up the comfort of her presence. Reminding myself over and over that Wes was gone and she was mine.
And that second place was better than no place at all.
“I’ll never get these back on.”
I had just woken up from my nap and Silas had gone outside to fetch my clothes. My shirt was soaked but at least I could pull it on. My jeans were a different story.
“Just wrap up in the blanket and I’ll carry you inside.”
The rain had stopped and I cracked my window to take deep breaths of the clean, sweet air as he drove us home.
“Do you think we’ll hear from Beau soon?” I asked.
Sabrina had been constantly on my mind and I hated that I couldn’t talk to her. I had called her phone a couple of times this week, leaving increasingly frantic fake messages in case anyone from the mafia was monitoring her calls, and each time I’d heard her voicemail recording, my worries had increased.
