“I would leave her.” That was always the answer.
“What pain would you endure to be with him again?” The voice would whisper.
“Any pain.”
And for a moment, just a moment, she was with him again. Surprise would reflect in his gaze, then regret. He would touch her. “What happened?” he would whisper.
Jaymi would shake her head. She didn’t know what had happened, she didn’t care, all she wanted, needed, was his kiss, his touch. And for just a moment, she had it again. As though it were real, his lips on hers, his hands pulling her close, the whisper of his voice as he welcomed her into his arms.
She ached for him down to the bottom of her soul. Life no longer held promise, the future no longer appeared exciting or bright.
Jaymi had lost her future in a desert a world away when the enemy’s bomb had taken out the vehicle he was driving.
Turning her head, she watched Cami again, saw the hurt in her sister’s gaze at the sight of Rafe’s arms around her, and wanted to sigh at the intensity of emotion she glimpsed in her sister for the man there was no chance of having for a very long time.
Yes, she knew her sister’s pain well. And she knew, after tonight, she would never add to it again.
* * *
Rafe knew as he pulled the pickup into the parking spot in front of Jaymi’s apartment that the relationship was over. He could feel it in the very air, and though there was a sense of regret, there was no anger.
They both knew the reason why they were together.
Jaymi was searching desperately for the husband she had lost, and the closest she could get to him was the man he had called his best friend.
Not that he had cared. Rafe wasn’t looking for love, it had no place in his life at the moment. Besides, the day he’d realized Jaymi’s sister had a crush on him, Rafe had known this was coming.
The girl was damned confusing, just as he had told Jaymi. She’d managed to slip in beneath his defenses despite the fact he’d been on guard against it. She made him feel protective, made him want to look out for her.
He was aware of the crush she had on him, and was flattered by it. He teased her gently, let her flirt, just as his cousins did, and made damned certain he never let her become hurt by it.
But as Jaymi told her sister gently to go on up to the apartment, Rafe saw that flash of brutal pain in her soft gray eyes before she quickly hid it.
“Night, Rafer.” She opened the back door slowly as though reluctant to leave him alone with her sister.
“Night, wildcat.” He flashed her a smile and a little wink, pulling a little smile from her as she moved from the car and closed the door behind her.
They watched as the girl moved across the narrow strip of grass to the door of the apartment across from the truck.
She unlocked it quickly before disappearing inside and flipping on the inner lights.
As much as he used to expect it, he never saw her at the curtains spying. She would move through the brightly lit room occasionally but never come close to the windows.
“So, this is it, huh?” he asked Jaymi as he laid his arm over the steering wheel and continued to stare at the window.
He felt her surprise before turning his head to watch her.
Dark blonde lashes swept over her eyes for a second before she met his gaze, regret shimmering in her dark brown eyes.
“I think it’s time,” she said softly. “Cami needs me right now, Rafe. With the crap Dad is trying to pull on her, and this crush she’s picked up for you, she’s going to be hurt enough.”
A small grin tugged at his lips. “She’s lucky to have you, Jaymi.”
He’d never resent her for it. Hell, he couldn’t even blame her.
“I wish you’d had someone to protect you,” she said then, sadness flashing over her delicate expression. “You’re too good for the family you have.”
He had to chuckle at that. “Of course I am, they’re all ass**les.”
He played it off, but he remembered the days, the nights, that he’d agonized over being disowned, wondered what he and his cousins had done wrong that all of them had been turned away by everyone but his mother’s uncle.
“Yes, Rafe, they’re all ass**les,” she agreed softly. “And I’m so sorry for the hell they put you through.”
“Stop, Jaymi.” He gave his head a short shake at the regret that filled her voice. “You have no reason to be sorry for what others did. You’re a good friend, and I’ve always known the reason we were together. You didn’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t tell you though,” she whispered. “I should have.”
“You told me, sweetheart,” he informed her gently. “With the lights out, every time you called me by Tye’s name. I knew.”
Her lips parted, her eyes filled with tears, and the response assured him that she had never been aware she had cried out for the husband she’d lost each time he was with her.
“Rafe—” Pain filled her voice.
“Jaymi, stop torturing yourself,” he told her, his voice hardening at the tear that slipped from her eyes. “Did you know Tye came to me before he went on that last tour?”
“No.” Her lips trembled as she shook her head and pushed the long dark blonde bangs back from her face. “Why would he do that?”
“To make certain I knew what he expected from me,” he told her with a small grin, remembering the visit with the same affection he’d felt the day the Navajo warrior had made his appearance at Rafe’s uncle’s ranch.
“What did he expect?” she whispered, so unconsciously eager for a new experience, a new memory of her husband that she could cherish, that she was now hanging on every word.
Rafe reached out, pushed back the long curl that fell down her face then, noticing, not for the first time, how Jaymi’s hair was as curly as her mother’s and her father’s. Cami’s was much straighter, and naturally shot with various shades of caramel, dark golds, and lighter browns amid the heavy strands of dark brown.
“He expected me to stand for him,” he told her gently. “And those were his exact words. ‘If anything happens to me, Rafe, I give you leave now, to stand for me however my heart needs you to stand’.” From the day he had married Jaymi, Tye had called her ‘his heart’. “I didn’t know what he meant at first,” he confessed as he watched her eyes fill with tears again. “He told me if he didn’t come home, then he expected me to protect you, to clothe you, to feed you, and if you needed it, he expected me to warm you. Then he looked at me with those black eyes of his eyes and he said ‘Rafe, if she needs, turn out the lights and let her pretend it’s me. Don’t let my heart suffer alone’.”