“I believe that each person is put on this earth to have his or her own experiences. His or her own learning curves. We have to make our own decisions if we are to get the most out of our lives. Only you know what’s best for you. Because only you have your own perspective. Only you have to live with the ultimate consequences.”
Consequences. It always came to that—and they were something no one knew for sure going in. The full consequences were clear only in hindsight, when it was too late to call an overworked mom for a ride.
“I don’t fully trust myself to make the best decisions for me.” She’d known this for a while.
Counseling had helped her to realize what was going on inside of her so she could control it rather than have it control her. But Ellen knew that, sometimes, knowing still didn’t give you control.
“I don’t think anyone does. How could we? If we knew ahead of time how things would turn out, there would be no decisions to make, would there? We’d simply move through life choosing our consequences. Let’s see, I’ll take this job that I might not like as well because I see right here in the consequences list that in two years there’s going to be a product developed that will net me enough money to retire the next day.”
Jay’s tone suggested facetiousness, and Ellen grinned. But the truth of his words resonated deeply within her.
“You do what you think is best at the time,” she said.
“Yep. And sometimes things turn out even better than you hoped. And sometimes they don’t turn out the way you wanted. But in every case, you learn some thing and hopefully the lesson leads you on to a better outcome next time.”
“I often think that if I ponder hard and long enough, I’ll see the consequences before I make the decision.”
“And if you don’t, then what?”
“I keep pondering.”
“And spend your whole life stuck in one place while opportunities pass you by?”
“Occasionally the answers are clear.” Although not this time. And if she pondered indefinitely, she would most definitely lose this opportunity.
“But not this time.”
“Nope, not this time.”
He didn’t say anything to that, didn’t try to convince her one way or the other.
“I like you, Jay.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
“I’m not sure it isn’t. It would be very bad if I developed some kind of reliance on you. You’re here and then gone.”
“A good deterrent from becoming dependent on your therapist. If I were a counselor, I’d agree, you know. It’s a good thing I’m not going to stick around long. That relationship is very different. But my job is to gain your trust only long enough to prepare you to trust others enough to accept physical attention from them.”
“You’re very different from anyone I’ve ever known.”
“I know.”
If she wanted others to trust her to be able to take care of herself, she had to trust herself to do it. Based on her own instincts. Her own thoughts.
“I want to continue therapy.” The words weren’t so hard to say. They were much more difficult to hear. Striking fear deep within her, and yet, resounding with good judgment, too.
“Good.” He met her gaze and it was as though he was absorbing her into him. They could talk all they wanted. They could say they were going to keep things on a professional level. But the words didn’t break the invisible thread pulling them together.
She was exhausted. Not so much physically as mentally. “Do you ever get to the point where you wish you could turn off your brain just for a little while?” And then, before he could answer she said, “No, you probably don’t. You simply move on, don’t you?”
“I’ve never found a way to leave my thoughts behind. They tend to follow me wherever I go. But yes, I do get to the point where I wish I could quiet the cacophony. When I was younger I used drugs and alcohol for that. These days I’ve found a healthier vice. Finding forgetfulness is a hell of a lot more fun, and there’s never a physical hangover.”
She was curious. About everything Jay did. “What’s the vice?”
“Casinos. You ever been to one?”
“No.” David would have a fit if she ever thought about gambling. He didn’t think it was right to throw away money when people were starving and homeless.
“There’s one a few miles from here.”
Her parents had been on a committee with Becca and Will to prevent the building of that casino when Ellen had been a kid. She and her siblings had been bored listening to the many invasion-of-the-casino conversations over dinner.
“I know.”
“You want to go?”
“Now?”
“You look like a woman who could use some non-physical forgetfulness.”
“I only have a twenty with me.”
“That will be enough. We’ll play pennies. And the rule is, when the money is gone, the game is over.”
She was tempted. Jay’s world seemed so much easier than hers, sometimes—no one to answer to, no rules to uphold. She had to admit, his life sounded exciting, too.
She’d never be happy away from Shelter Valley—that was a given. Shelter Valley wasn’t only a place to her, or a home. It was a way of life that she loved. Wanted. Shelter Valley was a piece of heaven on earth.
But if she could find a way to have a little bit of excitement mixed in with the peace and the love and the support and giving, she’d like that, too.
She was young. And some days it felt as though she was living the life of a woman twice her age.
Still, throwing away twenty dollars…
“I’m not good about wasting money.”
“Me, either. I don’t see the money I spend at the casino as a waste. It’s entertainment, like going to the theater or a football game. I’m paying for the mental relaxation. And it’s cheaper than antidepressants as along as you play responsibly.”
No worries there. Ellen did everything responsibly.
“But if you’re uncomfortable, we won’t go. Some people like it, some don’t. I’m good either way. The place is open 24/7. I can get there anytime.”
It was her choice.
Hers alone.
No guilt.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SPENDING TIME WITH ELLEN was good for Jay. But it wasn’t easy. In some ways so refreshing, she was also so unconsciously guarded, so timid to trust, he knew that if he screwed up his association with her, if he betrayed the trust she was placing in him, the risk was great. She could lock herself up in a permanent emotional prison.
He’d never forgive himself.
As he drove toward the casino, Jay focused on not noticing the woman behind him. Those hands—now at his waist instead of on his shoulders, inching their way around—were no more than a safety belt.
Ellen’s safety belt.
While instinctively he needed to relax, go with the ride—and the woman, let nature be nature—he could not do so.
The result was personally painful.
And completely right.
Just like that night twelve years ago when he’d made the call that had resulted in handcuffs chaffing his wrists, a booking photo, the admission that he had no one—then eighteen long months in jail. He’d done the right thing then, too.
And it had hurt him like hell.
Compared to that, helping Ellen should be a piece of cake. A walk in the park. And every other cliché that had ever been or had yet to be invented. He could do this.
Really, the fact that she was a client was saving him from himself where she was concerned. Her being a client was a safety net from the way she was affecting him—tugging on emotions he didn’t use.
Or even want to use.
Her hands shifted and connected. With each other. Just above his waistline. Over his navel.
Ellen Moore was holding him.
Safety belt. It was only a safety belt.
T
he sky was blue. There were plants in the desert. Prickly looking plants. Mean plants. And a car ahead of him that was obviously running on cruise control. The guy was hogging the passing lane with no cars for a long distance in front of him. Jay was trapped behind him and the car on the right that cruise-ass should have been passing but wasn’t.
There was a good, sound, logical reason for his level of frustration. Jerks who thought they owned the road. Ask any guy—he’d tell you that drivers like that pissed guys off. It was normal. Fine. Reasonable.
If he were alone on the bike, he’d rev his engine and speed between the two vehicles—a maneuver that was legal in Arizona.
He wasn’t alone.
Hands were right there, an inch or two above his—
It was growing.
No matter how many times he told himself she was a client, he wanted to have sex with Ellen.
But he also wanted to help Ellen. So much that he wouldn’t make himself stop seeing her.
And the prayer he’d recited every night in prison started in his mind.
Oh, God in heaven, if there is a heaven, if you exist, now would be a good time to help me….
SHE LOVED IT! GAZING around wide-eyed, Ellen couldn’t take in all of the sights and colors and sounds. They’d entered the marble foyer and taken the four steps that led to the red-and-blue carpeted main floor.
Piped-in pop hits played in the background, though she could only hear the tunes intermittently. Bells rang, hums and buzzes and sirenlike melodies sang all at once, forming a cacophony of sound that produced excitement like Ellen had never known before. It ran through her veins, igniting her.
The machines were all so colorful, with glass-cased screens that animated like miniature movies—some actually played movies in bonus rounds.
They’d been there half an hour and Ellen still had her twenty dollars in her pocket. She was going to use it—there was no doubt about that—but she was having so much fun watching, she was content to wait for her own experience.
She was still learning the ropes.
“Watch this guy,” she said to Jay as he came out of the men’s restroom. She’d been waiting for him and watching a man in his sixties feeding a one-dollar slot machine. “He put in a hundred-dollar bill less than three minutes ago, and he’s already down to thirty-three dollars. Look how fast he pushes that button—before he even knows what he got, he pushes again. I don’t get it.”
Standing next to her, close but not touching, Jay said, “He’s playing the odds, knowing that he has to invest in order to win. He’s waiting for the machine to hit.”
Ellen watched. In the midst of the wildness and noise around her, Jay’s familiar warmth was nice. Really nice.
“Will it?”
“Probably, if he sits there long enough.”
“But will it be worth it?”
“Will he make back what he invested, you mean?”
Still watching the reels spin, she nodded. And thought about Jay standing there next to her. With her.
And about the fact that she liked him with her.
“Maybe. He might break even. He might come out ahead. And he might not. That’s why it’s called gambling.”
“Wow.”
“The key is, does he invest more than he has to lose?” Jay said, leaning down so that she could hear him over all of the competing noises in the huge, rambling room. “If he does, he’s got a problem. As long as you’re paying for entertainment, within your entertainment budget, rather than gambling to win, you’ll be okay.”
“Doesn’t everyone want to win?”
“Of course. But if you gamble only to win, that means you gamble until you win, which could mean that you spend all you have and then look for ways to get more, driven by the belief that the big win is coming up right around the corner.”
“That’s when it becomes a disease.”
“Right.”
Pulling out a twenty, he stepped up to a penny machine. He pulled her with him and Ellen stood close as she watched. He bet sixty cents, hit for sixty cents and the reels that had won evaporated and more cascaded down to fill in the blank spots. Her heart leaped. Something had lined up. He won another twenty cents, and the reels evaporated again, more fell into place. On the same bet he hit for another ten cents.
Ellen grinned. Watching the reels as Jay bet his sixty cents over and over again—coming up short sometimes, and ahead on others. He hit a bonus and the reels played by themselves, racking up fifteen dollars worth of pennies.
A woman screamed behind her and Ellen turned. The woman, about seventy, was sitting at a machine that had money spurting on the screen. A continuous geyser of animated gold coins. The words Super Big Win were in bold black letters at the top of the geyser.
“Look!” she said to Jay, grabbing his arm without thinking. She let go quickly, as soon as she realized what she’d done. But the sense of touching him lingered as he turned around. “Good Lord!”
Black-suited gentlemen appeared by the woman.
“What?”
“She won 400,000 pennies.”
“Four thousand dollars?”
“Yep.”
“Well, good for her.” The woman was on her cell phone. She was laughing. Her hand was shaking.
Ellen was ready to play.
After hanging together for about an hour, she was ready for Jay to give her a little independence. “You can go do your thing.” She had bet twenty cents here and ten cents there, and still had ten dollars.
It kind of scared her how much she was enjoying having him by her side—part of the reason she’d needed him to go off on his own. If she was to start being aware of the opposite sex again, to enjoy male company, she needed to do so with someone who lived in Shelter Valley and intended to stay there.
Pushing those worries aside, she focused on having a blast. There was so much to see, to hear, so much excitement the adrenaline raced through her. She had no room for worries or decisions or issues. She’d been transported to a different world, one with no clocks, no outside. A world filled with the most wonderful opportunities and possibilities.
And all it cost her was twenty dollars—not even because she hadn’t bet it all.
“I’m not leaving you alone in here,” Jay said, sitting next to her as she played a fish machine she’d been sitting at for half an hour. Every once in a while a fish would swim around and there would be a bonus round. She’d hit ten of them and was about even for her time at the machine.
“I can move somewhere else if there’s something you want to play.”
“Are you kidding? I’m having fun watching you.”
She hit the button again, playing her usual twenty cents. A fish came out again—telling her to pick a chest. Most times he blew into a balloon that grew with coins until it popped and she would win the number of coins it blew. She’d made five dollars on one blow.
“How do I pick it?” she asked, staring at the betting buttons in front of her.
“Touch the screen.” His arm came close to hers as he pointed. But he didn’t touch her. He hadn’t touched her at all as they’d moved about the casino.
He simply stayed close. Comfortably close.
There were two rows of chests. Ellen chose the one in the upper left corner. It popped out a key, which jumped onto the screen and doubled her winnings, and told her to pick again. She did. Again and again and again. Her win had increased five times.
“Five times what?” she asked Jay.
“We don’t know yet.”
Pick again. She only had two chests left.
She picked and the number five hundred popped out of the chest.
“I won five hundred pennies?” Her heart pumped in anticipation.
“You won five times five hundred pennies.” Jay grinned.
“No way. I won twenty-five dollars?”
“Yeah.”
“I did not.” He was teasing her. She’d only bet twenty cents. Then a big box appeared on the screen, conf
irming Jay’s claim.
The machine shouted and so did Ellen. “Wahoo!” Jumping out of her seat, she turned and hugged the man who had brought her to this world. She threw her arms around his neck and held on.
And replayed the moment over and over again during the long hours of that night while she lay in her bed alone. She would have preferred to think about the win. About the twenty-five dollars.
Instead, she couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of Jay’s groin pressed into hers as he’d stood to catch her hug.
She was starting to feel again.
And, heaven help her, whether Jay was long for Shelter Valley or not, she didn’t want those feelings to stop.
JAY HAD SUNDAY OFF. AND he took a long ride. Arizona might not have beaches, but the mountains had their own natural call—their ruggedness suited him. Riding his bike along the trails, pushing it and himself, around sharp turns and up steep inclines, he raced the demons that chased him.
He beat them, too, the way he always did—until he thought about heading back to Shelter Valley. The place, with all its adobe homes so close together, the adobe privacy fences that enclosed the yards, the people who walled in their town with their watchful eyes and caring interference were squeezing the breath out of him.
He couldn’t find the bastard who had fathered him.
He was going to have to figure out what to do with the boy—Cole. He had to meet him. There seemed to be no doubts in him anymore about that. He had to be honest with the boy—about everything, his lifestyle, his past and even his doubts.
Beyond that, he had no idea.
But if the boy wanted to be with him, if Cole thought they could make a life together, if he even wanted to try, Jay would have to find a way.
He wasn’t going to abandon his son.
And as for Ellen— For the first time in his life he wasn’t sure he could do what he’d set out to do. She was responding to therapy. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he was responding to her.
He’d promised her he could separate the man from the massage therapist. After last night’s hug, he wasn’t so sure. He’d woken up hard twice in the night—both times with dreams that involved her holding him.
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