*   *   *

JAMIE FELT HER trembling under his hands and he wanted to kick himself. He’d just felt so stunned. His brain had shut down so damn fast he couldn’t have explained to anyone what was going on inside him right then. But now . . . now he could see the tears on her face even through the rain and he felt like absolute shit.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And you are far from being a dungeon groupie, and you deserve everything. Everything. I’m being an ass. I’m sorry, Summer Grace.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You damn well should be. You can’t keep doing this to me. I won’t have it. I mean it, Jamie.”

The knot that had tied itself up in the middle of his chest back at Jackson Square gave a sharp twist. “I know you do. Can we get out of this rain so I can apologize to you properly?”

She cracked a smile, even though he could tell she was still hurting. “Which I suppose means with your ever-ready cock?”

He gave her a wry grin. “I’d like that. I really would. But I think this time we really do need to talk. I figure I’d start by clarifying a few things.”

She bit her lip, then dropped her arms and turned away from him. “I suppose that’s okay. As long as we end up with your cock telling me how sorry you are.”

He smiled, but not too broadly as he followed her into the house. He knew her sass was cover-up for real distress. And knew that he’d caused it. He had to man up and try to fix things, to make it right with her.

It was warm inside the house. She dropped her keys in a big green glass bowl on the old sea chest by the front door and went off down the hall.

“I’m getting a towel,” she called over her shoulder. “If we get pneumonia, it’s your fault.”

His stomach tightened. It would be.

Fuck. Stop it.

No one was dying tonight.

She came back and handed him a towel, and he wrapped it around her shoulders and began to dry her hair.

“Jamie, you don’t have to do that—I can do it myself.”

“I know.”

He was glad she didn’t argue any further. Despite ending their quick argument on the front steps with teasing, he needed a little time to think. To process. He bunched the ends of her long hair in the towel and pressed, moved the towel and did it again before patting at her damp cheeks. She was watching him, blinking fast, her thick lashes coming down on her pale cheeks.

He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to have this discussion with her. With anyone. But he knew he had to do it.

“You’re probably wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Well.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble of his hair. “Sometimes I wonder, too. But at this point I owe you an explanation.”

“Yes, you do,” she said calmly, pushing the towel from her. “Dry yourself, Jamie.”

He scrubbed the towel over his head, his face, buying a little more time.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Is this one of those conversations I need to sit down for?” she asked, and he saw a flash of fear in her eyes.

“Aw, no, sugar. No, not one of those talks. But it’s been a long night and I thought you’d want to be comfortable.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Good. Let’s go sit in the kitchen.”

He followed her into the old black and white kitchen with its vintage tile. She’d redone the old wood floors after Katrina and repainted the white cabinets, but she’d kept the original feel to the room. It was a cozy spot for a hard talk. He sat at her small table next to the window, his long legs barely fitting. The rain was really coming down outside, thunder rumbling like a lion in the still-dark sky, the sun beginning to rise behind the heavy storm clouds.

“Do you want me to make some coffee?” she asked.

“You don’t need to make coffee. And you don’t need to tiptoe around me. Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be gruff with you—I swear I don’t. I’m just all kinds of fucked up tonight. It’s no excuse. I know that.”

She shrugged and sat across from him. “Just tell me what’s going on with you.”

Of course, she knew some of it already. Most of it. But he knew he had some explaining to do. He pulled in a deep breath and ran a hand over his buzz cut, trying to sort it out enough in his head to verbalize some of the fucked-up shit that was making him spin out. “Yeah. Okay.” He took another breath, exhaled. “Okay. You know I lost Ian when we were seven.”

“Of course.”

“And then there was Brandon.”

“Yes. And then there was Brandon.” She ducked her head for a moment and he could see her forcibly swallowing down her own issues around losing her brother before she looked up at him again. “Jamie, I know the Death card freaked you out, and I get that. But your reaction—.”

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “Except there’s more to it.”

“More? I’d think that was plenty to shake you up. It shook me up for a minute but then . . . Okay. I don’t mean to invalidate what you’re feeling. Go on.”

“You’d think that would be enough. For both of us. But there’s something I need to tell you now.” He rubbed his palms together under the table. “It’s something I’ve never talked to anyone about. Partly because it wasn’t really anyone else’s business, and partly—mostly, I guess—because I felt kind of . . . I don’t know. Superstitious about it.”

“You? Superstitious? You agreed to that Tarot reading because I wanted to do it. I thought you were the eternal skeptic.”

“I am, mostly. But I don’t know what else to call it, so yeah. Superstition. It’s gelled in my head that way and it’s been there for a long time. You remember when I was married to Traci?”

“For about a second, yes. You married her right after Brandon died. But to be honest, I don’t remember too much about that time.”

He nodded. “We got married about eight months later. It was way too soon, and we were way too young.”

She nodded. “It made sense that you guys broke up for her to go away to graduate school.”

“It did. But there’s another part of the story.” He had to stop and take in another deep breath. Just say it. “There was a baby, Summer Grace.”

“A baby?” She looked stunned. She looked exactly like he’d felt when Traci told him about the pregnancy all those years ago. “You have a child, Jamie? You have a child and you never told me?”

“What? No, I don’t have a child. The baby . . . Traci had a miscarriage.”

Summer Grace laid a hand on his arm. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, Jamie.”

Feeling as if he didn’t deserve her touch, her comfort, he drew his arm back and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. It was hard to look into her concerned blue eyes as he said the words aloud—words he’d never spoken to anyone but his ex-wife. “You’ll probably think this is stupid, but . . . I’m a death magnet. I am. The card tonight confirmed what I already know. Everyone I love—truly love—dies.”

“Jamie, that’s . . .” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “That’s what you’ve been carrying around all these years? You think you invite death somehow?”

“I know I do. The people I care about are in danger, especially those closest to me. It’s one reason why I stayed away from you—not just because it was Brandon asking me to take care of you, to make sure you were all right, but because the best way for you to be all right was for me to keep some distance between us.”

“Shit.” She pushed her hair from her face, shaking her head, then looked back up at him. “That is some seriously crazy stuff.”

“I knew you wouldn’t get it.” He started to stand up.

“Jesus, Jamie, will you sit down and let me talk?”

He grunted as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “So talk.”

“I said it was crazy. I didn’t say I don’t understand how you feel. Because I feel it, too. Not death, maybe, but I feel like trouble just finds me. That bad things happen sometimes because of . . . me.”