“Thank you,” he said genuinely grateful for his brother's input.
“No problem.” Bobby slapped Jim’s back in that way that men seem to use as a show of love and support. “I figured you needed a hand and as my wife had started the job.”
“Yeah, where the fuck did bad ass, shouty Abby spring from?” asked Jim making them both laugh.
“She likes Tasha and wants to help, and I think she decided that if you are going to keep turning her offers down…”
“She'd take matters into her own hands,” said Jim.
“Something like that. Did you see Martin's face?” Bobby laughed with his brother again until they heard the sound of crying travelling down the corridor from the house bathroom.
“You okay?” Bobby knew his brother was as far from okay as he’d ever been.
“Yeah, I just feel so helpless and I hate it when she cries,” admitted Jim.
“Well, you might just need to suck it up little brother,” warned Bobby before they reached the bathroom door where the sad scene of Abby holding Tasha and rocking her as she cried took both men by surprise.
“Baby,” said Jim hesitantly.
Both women looked up and with a flick of his head, Bobby summoned Abby away. She unwrapped herself from Tasha's arms and legs and swapped places with Jim.
Bobby took his wife's hand and led her down the corridor where he kissed her gently. “You, Abigail Maybury, are a very nice lady.”
Back in the bathroom Tasha somehow found herself sitting in Jim's lap and totally enveloped by his embrace that held her tightly as he took over the gentle rocking motion Abby had started while Tasha continued to cry, but more gently within the safety of Jim's embrace that she'd earlier felt she was being stifled by.
It was another half an hour before Tasha's tears stopped fully and she finally spoke. “I'm sorry for making a scene. I thought I might be safer discussing things in company,” she admitted.
“We need to talk, honey, you and me, not with company, but not now. I just need you to know that I’m so scared of what could have happened and my part in it that I can't think straight, but I know we can't go on like this, so I promise, tomorrow we talk, properly, okay?”
“Thank you,” she said with her voice breaking slightly. “I'm scared too, Jim, but I can't live like this, under constant scrutiny. I need you to treat me like you used to,” she told him as he shifted her so she was facing him.
“What do you mean, like I used to?”
“I get that you want to protect me, but I feel like a child or something you're responsible for out of duty or obligation, even the way you look at me,” she said nervously, not wanting him to misunderstand or for her words to make him even more protective.
“Baby, I do want to protect you and I see that as part of my job, the job of loving you. But what do you mean the way I look at you?” He was confused and actually had no idea what she meant.
“Do you remember when I used to worry that all we had was sex and when that faded we'd have nothing left?” She moved closer onto his lap.
He nodded.
“Well, now it kind of feels as though we have lost that and we have the love left but with that comes the duty and obligation.”
Her words made him frown. He was still clueless as to where this was going and he did feel a duty and obligation to her, but he loved her more than anything and whatever he did or felt was out of love, always.
“Jim, you seem to go out of your way to avoid being with me, intimately. I know the doctor said four to six weeks but we shouldn't have made it beyond the third week. You have always been reluctant to add to any injuries I've had, but I need you to still want me, to desire me, not just to want to make me better and protect me out of duty and guilt.” Her explanation gave some clarity for them both.
“You think I don't find you attractive anymore?” He shook his head. “Jeez, Tasha, you are way off the mark, honey. I would like nothing more than to be throwing you down and fucking you senseless at every opportunity, but your body has been through so much,” he cried, wincing as he remembered, not that he ever really forgot just how much it had been through.
She looked at him sceptically making him laugh ironically.
“You don't believe me? Tasha, I swear, baby, I think of kissing you and touching you, of being inside you and making you come more than ever, it's like a hobby I have.” He laughed, then arched a brow at her disbelieving expression. “I swear to you that my desire for you is as rampant as it ever was. I lie and watch you sleep then hate myself for being so turned on by you; I wake up every morning and forget how badly hurt you were and I want to wrap my arms around you, to kiss you and touch you and then I remember and hate myself a bit more as I leap out of bed. I avoid being anywhere near you when you get dressed or shower because I’m unsure if I can trust myself with you.”
“Really?” Tasha asked, still not entirely sure that the reason he avoided being near when she showered or undressed was down to the change in her body and the scars it bore.
Jim nodded. “Really. What can I say to convince you? Tasha, I am more intimate with my right hand than I have been since my early teenage years and I only ever think of you, baby, of us being together, of times we've been together, in bed, in the car, at the stables, my office at home, at work, everywhere.”
“Really?” she repeated. She desperately wanted to believe him, to believe that he loved her as he had previously, that his desire to be with her wasn’t purely out of guilt and duty because if that was his motivation then their marriage really was doomed and he would soon be on the lookout for number eight.
