“Do you have a history of violence, Talon?”
I shook my head again. “Not really. I was in the Marines, stationed in Iraq for several years. I saw a lot of shit go down there, and I did things I would prefer not to think about, but it was all in the line of duty.”
“Did you kill a man there?”
More things I didn’t like to think about.
Before I could answer, Dr. Carmichael spoke again.
“Let’s not go there quite yet,” she said.
Thank God.
“Let’s go back to today. Who was this girl that the guy was kissing? Your sister’s friend. Tell me about her.”
How could I tell her? How could I make her understand the ache inside me? I could talk for hours about Jade. I could talk for thirty minutes on those steely blue eyes of hers alone. They gripped me, tore at me, drew me to her. Emotions were rising to my surface—emotions I thought I was incapable of having.
“She’s my sister’s best friend, and she moved out here to our ranch after she got left at the altar on her wedding day.”
“Oh my gosh,” Dr. Carmichael said. “That’s terrible.”
“She seems to be handling it okay. The guy kissing her was her ex. He showed up this morning.”
“Are they reconciling?”
“Doesn’t look that way. I mean, he totally humiliated her.”
“But they probably still have some feelings there.”
I tensed up in my chair, gripping the arm, my knuckles whitening.
“So you have feelings for this Jade.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, first, the fact that you beat up her ex. Second, because you’ve got the arm of that chair in the devil’s clinch.”
I let out a breath and consciously relaxed my hand. Yeah, she was good.
“Tell me what you were feeling while you were beating him.”
“It was like I wasn’t myself. Almost like my arms and legs were acting on their own. The rage was so real. It took me over so that I wasn’t even there—just the rage was.”
“Why did you stop beating him?”
“Jade asked me to.”
“So Jade got through to you, through the fog.”
She had. Through the fog… The words Dr. Carmichael used resonated with me. It had been like a fog. A thick hazy fog. A red sickness that simmered within me.
“So is the man okay?”
“Yeah. I was pretty hard on him, broke his nose. He’ll have held a few bruises, but he’ll live.”
Dr. Carmichael nodded. For the first time, I noticed that no notepad sat on her lap. No pen. I was one patient of many.
“Why aren’t you taking any notes?” I asked.
She smiled. “I like to focus on the patient during the session. I’ll make notes afterward.”
“What if you forget something?”
She laughed. “I’ve been using this system for the ten years I’ve been in practice. Trust me, it works for me and for my patients.”
I nodded.
“So how are you and Jade now?”
“She’s pretty pissed.” Pissed enough to leave the ranch. A dagger jabbed me in the stomach.
“I can understand that.”
“After what he did to her, I don’t know why she didn’t want me to beat him to a pulp.”
“Part of her probably did. But she was being rational, Talon.”
Rational. The word hung in the air, ridiculing me. In other words, I had not been rational. Couldn’t really argue there.
“So how did you leave things with Jade?”
And again, the dagger. “She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. She says she’s moving out of the ranch house.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
How could answer that? I hardly knew Jade Roberts, but I had been more intimate with her in these last weeks that I had ever been with anyone in my life. I had a constant need for her, a constant ache…
A craving.
“Talon”—she leaned forward, her eyes serious—“this is only going to work if you open up and are honest with me.”
I nodded. She was right. Rationally, I knew she spoke the truth. I cleared my throat and looked down at my lap.
“Do you think you might be more comfortable with a male therapist? I have several colleagues who are excellent.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with any therapist. But my brother Jonah says you come highly recommended.”
“That’s kind of him.”
I nodded. I was nodding a lot.
Her gaze turned serious again. “Talon, I know you didn’t drive all the way here into Grand Junction on a Saturday to not talk to me. Obviously, Jade and your feelings for her are what caused the issue this morning. Are you in love with her?”
My whole body tensed, and I stood and walked over to the desk and back. “How could I be in love with her? I’ve only known her a couple of weeks.”
“Then how do you feel about her leaving? Will you miss her?”
Miss her? Those words didn’t even begin to encompass how I would feel if she left. Not having Jade around would be like a Colorado summer without the sun, a meadow without columbine, the Rocky Mountains without Ponderosa Pines and Aspens.