“He has a way of making her feel like dirt,” Gail said. “He’s a serial abuser. That’s what they do. And unfortunately, the life Amy Lynne has led has not instilled in her a great deal of confidence and self-worth. Her dad left when she was young. Her mother bounced from one bad relationship to another. It’s a pattern I’m afraid, and Randy knows it. He knows all her triggers. He lit her fuse and sent her home to you to explode.”
“Son of a bitch,” I said quietly, so Lizzie the parrot didn’t hear. I beseeched Gail with my eyes. “Tell me what to do to get her to come back. Lizzie needs her.”
Gail paused for a moment, then asked, “Does Lizzie need her to come back? Or do you?”
I blinked at the question. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gail let her dark eyes go around my face, as if she were trying to read my thoughts. “Can I ask you a personal question, Jackson?”
“Sure,” I said with a shrug. “You can ask me anything, Gail, you know that.”
She narrowed her eyes at me and lowered her voice just above a whisper. “Why’d you have to sleep with her?”
Wow, that wasn’t a question I was expecting to have to address with anyone other than myself. I felt my cheeks flush with uncharacteristic embarrassment.
“She told you?”
“She did,” Gail said, head slowly bobbing. “I could tell the moment I saw her that something happened between the two of you, so I pressed her for the truth.” She shook her head and blew out a long breath. “Jesus, Jackson, why couldn’t you just keep it in your pants, for the sake of your daughter. And for Amy Lynne?”
Another good question I didn’t have a ready answer for.
I asked, “So, she left because we had sex?”
“No, she left because you had sex, then her ex-husband convinced her that the only reason you hired her was so you could screw her,” Gail said bluntly, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. I suddenly felt like a man about to be convicted of crimes I could not deny. Then Gail added, “I think she also has feelings for you and that’s scaring the shit out of her.”
“Feelings?” Shit. I hated that fucking word. It never led to anything good, at least in my experience. “What kind of feelings?”
She huffed at me. “Goddammit, Jackson, surely you’re not this thick-headed. I mean, you’re a grown ass man. You’ve been around women. You’ve been married. Surely you know what’s happening here.”
My mouth hung open for a moment. My hands gripped the edge of the table to keep from flailing in the air. Gail had never spoken to me like this. I guess I’d never given her a reason to.
I bit my tongue and counted to ten. Gail was the best friend I had. Unlike previous friendships, I was not going to blow this one by letting my horrific temper get the best of me.
One… two… three…
At the count of ten, I leaned in and lowered my voice. “So, you’re saying she has feelings? For me? After only knowing me for a week and sleeping with me once?”
She shrugged. “She’s young and stupid,” Gail said. “These young girls give love quickly and without conditions, I’m afraid. And usually without any kind of agenda other than they want to be cared for and loved. Unlike you, who seems to have an agenda for everything you do.”
Damn this woman. She just kept hitting me with these jabs to the brain without giving me time to recover between blows. I shook my head like a fighter trying to shake off a punch.
I asked, “Gail, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“Are you really going to sit there and tell me that the only reason you want Amy Lynne to come back is to take care of Lizzie?” Gail sighed and shook her head. “Maybe you really are that thick headed, after all.”
“Gail, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, having a hard time now keeping my cool. “I want her to come back to be Lizzie’s nanny so I can work. It’s all connected. I have deadlines to meet. That’s it. And if I never have sex with her again, that’ll be just fine with me.”
She scoffed at me. “Bullshit.”
“Jesus, woman, you’re frustrating the shit out of me,” I growled, balling up my fists and shaking them in the air between us. “Just say what you have to say. Please.”
“Amy Lynne told me that you were writing again,” Gail said calmly. “You called her ‘your muse’. You basically said that she was inspiring you to write. How did you expect her take something like that? When you tell a young girl that she is the reason you can write again, don’t you think she might translate that as you having feelings for her?”
“I didn’t expect her to take it that I was falling in love with her,” I said desperately. “Or that I expected her to keep having sex with me. I mean, unless she wanted to.”
Gail studied me with her dark eyes. “Are you?”
I tried to stare back at her without blinking. “Am I what?”
“Falling in love with her?”
I waited for my brain to process the question and return a string of sensible words to my mouth, but my brain was on the canvas, out cold. I sat back for a moment to think about the question.