Intimate Whispers by Dee Carney Read Free Book Online Page B

message? I don’t remember and you still haven’t told me.”
    “You said ‘I’m not your teddy bear’.”
    If he thought she distanced herself before, a chasm separated them now. Her lips tightened, but just as quickly released the echoing look of frustrating. He knew he’d touched a soft spot in her while she tried to remain neutral. “I’m not your teddy bear?
    What kind of cryptic message is that?”
    “The kind that I understand.” He bit his lip to stop himself from saying more. From telling her that she didn’t have to understand because he did. That she didn’t live with the guilt. He did.
    “If you want my help,” she said gently, crossing her arms, “you’ll have to do better than that.”
    “I could have saved him.”
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    Intimate Whispers
    When he said nothing more, she prodded him. “Go on…”
    “He invited me out. He said he had something he wanted to tell me and wanted to know if I had time to take the boat out with him.” Jason faltered again, his throat squeezing tight against the memory, but Sabrina offered him no comfort. “Stop making me pull this out of you. I can’t help if you won’t tell me.”
    “I didn’t go!” The words spewed forth, a geyser of pain and guilt. “I lied and made up some story. My last words to my brother were some lame-ass excuse for not getting on his boat just because I was feeling lazy and didn’t share the same passion he did. I just wanted to chill out and watch a game…and my brother died.” She watched him, her expression soft, but no words of comfort were offered. No placating pat on his hand or arm.
    “Don’t you see?” he asked, because obviously she didn’t. “If I had gone with him…”
    “You might be dead too.”
    He blinked back surprise. “What?”
    “If you’d gone, you might be dead too.”
    “That’s not—”
    “That’s one of a million different outcomes for that day if you’d gone. You might be dead too. He might have lived that day only to be struck by a bus on the next. Or he could have done the solo boating thing the next time he went out, instead.”
    “But—”
    “You’re sitting here so wrapped up in yourself, so full of egotistical pride, that you think you could have saved your brother—who, I might add, you’re not sure is dead—
    when in fact, if your brother went out there to commit suicide, he obviously didn’t want saving.”
    The longer she spoke, the more he was certain his lungs would collapse from the effort to breathe. She spoke with such casual intelligence, her well-meaning tone, that infuriating look of disbelief in her eyes, he knew she had no idea of what he spoke.
    None. No one with a heart could just skewer him like that. She didn’t think Teddy was dead. She didn’t think he could have been saved?
    Go to hell. The words teetered on the tip of his tongue, ready to roll off and sever what little relationship they had. They rocked back and forth, see-sawing on an edge. A never-to-be-recalled damning he wasn’t so sure he was prepared to face.
    Sabrina blew out a breath. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Really, I am. If you believe your brother met a tragic end, then I’m more sorry. It’s obvious you feel some sort of responsibility for it.”
    “Thank—”
    “But,” she emphasized, “as cold as this seems, I can’t let your problems become my own. And trust me, I have my own problems. The fact he may or may not have reached 31

    Dee Carney
    out to me suggests your beliefs are right. But what does that mean for you, Jason?
    Maybe a little bit of closure. At best, some sleepless nights that keep your mind turning.” Her head shook from side to side. “Regardless, I can’t be a part of it.”
    “Then what do you think I should do?” he ground out. She was right. Of course she was. That didn’t stop him from needing her. If he could just get a message to Teddy, just make sure he was all right wherever he was…
    “Go home, Jason. Live your life. Maybe your brother