I couldn’t protect Jessie while I was in this fucking chair.
She’d found the coffee and quickly made a pot. I stared at her back while she stared at the coffee as it dripped into the carafe. I knew she was afraid to turn around. Afraid to face me.
“Jessie, you can’t stay.”
“I can. I have nothing else going on, and Ellie is busy with the baby—”
“Ellie had the baby?”
She still wouldn’t look at me, but she nodded and quietly said, “The day of your accident.”
That was why she was there. Not because my brothers had called her. She hadn’t dropped everything and run to my side. I had to remind myself that she didn’t love me.
“She named him Sebastian. After her brother.”
I focused on her. She had finally turned around to look at me. Her eyes wandered over me. My body tightened under her scrutiny, and the question of whether my dick still worked was finally answered.
Was the heat I saw in her gaze real or wishful thinking on my part? Either way, my dick noticed the way she ate me up. He wanted her attention just as much as I did. I turned away before she saw the relief on my face. I wasn’t completely useless.
But my legs still didn’t fucking work. I couldn’t run a ranch from behind a desk. Sure, many men had, but I wasn’t an asshole who expected my men to do things I wouldn’t.
I was too damn young to give up on working the ranch. I wanted to ride my fucking horse. I wanted to train the horses in my care. I couldn’t do that from a fucking wheelchair.
Jessie set the coffee on the table in front of me. I stared at it for a minute before I picked it up and threw it across the room. Pulling away from the table, I turned away from the look of shock on her face, and, as I rolled out of the room, I shouted, “Go home, Jessie.”
My hands grasped the wheels on my chair firmly as I pushed them forward, propelling myself down the hall. I rolled into my bedroom and stopped. With my elbows on the armrests, Idropped my head into my hands. I hated myself for the way I spoke to her, but I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want her to do things for me. Things I should be able to do for myself.
Show me a man alive who wanted his woman to cater to him, and I would show you a boy. A man took care of his woman; he didn’t let her do the heavy lifting.
“I can’t even take out the fucking trash,” I growled.
“I am quite capable of taking out the trash.” My head snapped up, and I spun around. She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “And if I couldn’t, there are two, sometimes three other men who live here that can do it.”
“Jessie,” I sighed.
“Shut up, Grayson.” She took a step closer until she was standing in my room. “I get it; you don’t want me here. But I can help you. There is nothing between us. My helping you doesn’t make me pity you or see you as less of a man because you’re in that chair. So get off your high fucking horse and accept that your life is different now. It might always be different. When you’re ready to accept it, I will be in the kitchen.”
She turned and walked away before I could tell her she was wrong. I did want her here. I wanted her so fucking much that seeing her in my kitchen took a piece of my soul. Why couldn’t she understand that I knew I wasn’t enough for her, especially now?
Hell, I wasn’t enough for her before the accident. If she didn’t want me when I was whole, why would she want me now?
“Hey, Gray, you need anything?” Emerson stood in the doorway; the look on his face said he might be afraid of my answer.
“I need a fucking shower.”
“Um, I’ll get Jessie,” he said, turning away.
“Emerson, get your ass in here!”
He peeked around the doorway and winced. “Come on, man, don’t you want her to see you naked? Show her what you’re packing, and she’ll swoon at your feet.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”
He sighed loudly as he entered my room. Grabbing the chair, he wheeled me into the bathroom. When my great-grandparents built this house, they’d had the forethought to make it a bit oversized. None of us men were small, which meant we needed large furniture.
I’d helped Tyson move into the clubhouse when he was patched in and I was reminded how blessed we were that our doorways were wider than normal. It made getting around in the chair a little easier than it would be anywhere else.
“Help me undress to my boxers and then help me get in the shower. I can take it from there.”
