Justice ignored him as he led the horse into a stall. Once the task was finished, though, he faced him and smiled. “Jesse and I thought it was time we got you out here to talk about what the hell is wrong with you.”
“I knew you were up to something the minute I saw Jesse here.” He looked from one brother to the other in disgust. “This I wasn’t expecting. You’re trying to tell me this is an intervention?”
“Call it whatever you want,” Jesse told him, slapping his back. “The time has come, big brother, to stop acting like a bastard and tell us what’s going on.”
“Screw this,” Jefferson said, turning on his heel to walk to his car. “I’m going back to the office. You two can sit around and psychoanalyze each other.”
“No one at the office wants you there,” Justice told him in his slow, patient voice.
That stopped him. Jefferson glared at each of his brothers in turn. “You’re telling me they were in on this setup?”
“Joan thanked me,” Jesse said on a laugh. “Seems you’ve been miserable to deal with since you got home.”
He couldn’t argue with that, Jefferson thought, pushing one hand through his hair in a gesture fraught with frustration.
Back a week now and nothing was the same. He’d expected to come home, slide into work as if he’d never been gone and pick up the threads of his life. But that hadn’t happened. He was restless. Dissatisfied. He felt it and couldn’t find a way to combat it.
His mind continued to drift toward Ireland. The green hills, the farmhouse.
Maura.
Compared to what he’d left there what he’d returned to was lacking. That he hadn’t expected. He’d always liked his life, damn it. So why then did Los Angeles and the job he loved seem suddenly to be nothing more than plastic and illusion? Why did he feel alone surrounded by hundreds of people? Why was he waking in the middle of the night, reaching for Maura?
He knew why, of course. The simple truth was he wasn’t the same man anymore. The bright sunlight and hot Santa Ana winds felt alien to him and his heart yearned for what he’d lost.
“So.” Justice stopped for a private word with his foreman before steering Jefferson to the ranch house. “You going to talk to us about this or what?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
Justice’s study was a man’s room. Leather chairs, shelves lined with books and a massive desk against one wall. Of course, the toys strewn across the floor marked the fact that his son, Jonas, spent plenty of time in the room, too. The three brothers settled into chairs, each of them holding a cold beer from the bar refrigerator.
After a couple of long moments passed, Justice finally asked, “So what is it? What’s crawled into you and died?”
Jefferson smirked. “Very nice.”
“Not interested in being nice. We want to know what’s going on.”
Jefferson stood up, took a swallow of icy beer and then began to pace. Nervous energy pumped through him, feeding his steps, stoking a temper that seemed to be continually on the boil lately. “Damned if I know. I feel wrong, somehow. As if I made a bad turn on a highway and now I’m lost.”
“Easy enough to turn around again,” Jesse commented.
“Is it?” Jefferson stared at him. “When turning around changes everything, is it really so easy to do it?”
“Depends on what you gain and what you lose with the effort,” Justice mused, giving their youngest brother a hard look demanding patience. “So, where’d you make the wrong turn, Jeff? Was it Maura?”
“I’m starting to think that leaving her was the mistake I made. But what the hell else could I have done? She wouldn’t give an inch. A more stubborn woman I’ve never known.”
“She sounds perfect for you,” Jesse offered and received a glare for his trouble.
Jefferson looked at Justice. “I told you she’s pregnant.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I asked her to marry me.” He took a swig of the beer.
“So you screwed up the proposal?” Jesse asked. “That’s easily fixed.”
“That’s not it.” He took a breath, then studied the label on the beer bottle as if the printing there held the answers to every question he had. “She wants a real marriage.”
“Imagine that,” Jesse mused.
Jefferson’s gaze shot to their youngest brother and seared him to his chair. “If you can’t help, then be quiet.”
“You don’t need help,” Jesse countered. “You need therapy. Why the hell can’t you give her a real marriage?”
“Because I’ve already been in love. Anna.”
Instantly, both of his brothers went quiet. Not so full of answers now, were they?
“Don’t you get it? If I admit to loving Maura now,” he said, “I’m essentially saying that Anna didn’t count. That what we shared was replaceable.”
Justice shook his head, stretched out his legs in front of him and balanced his beer bottle on his flat abdomen. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He shifted a look at Jesse. “How about you?”
“Oh yeah,” he agreed. “It’s right there with the top three.” Then to Jefferson, he said, “What, you’re only allowed to love one person in your life?”
“No,” Jefferson muttered, realizing just how foolish that statement sounded when said aloud. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?” Justice asked. “Are you saying Anna would want you alone and lonely for the rest of your life to prove that you loved her?”
Jefferson thought about the young woman he’d loved and lost so long ago. “No,” he admitted, “she wouldn’t have.”
Odd, but for the first time, he realized that the mental images he had of Anna and their time together had grown hazy. To be expected, he guessed, since time had a way of dulling the edges of pain or grief. Leaving behind only the vaguest feeling of guilt for having to live on. To keep breathing while the one you loved was gone.
“Jefferson,” Jesse said softly, “if you had a child already, would you be able to love the one Maura’s carrying?”
“That’s a stupid question,” he shot back.
“Is it?” Jesse laughed at him. “You’re standing there telling us that you can’t love Maura because you already loved Anna. How does that make sense?”